Poetry & Poets in Rags

Is it better to write when old or young? Is it better to write while sober or on drugs? We have articles on these topics in News at Eleven. The poetry news items this week are from all over the world, and varied. In Great Regulars, Bryan Appleyard looks at last words by the executed, and Luisetta Mudie fills us in on the clamp down on internet freedom developing and ongoing in China.

As to poems, we have one by Gillain Clarke in News at Eleven, and some wonderful poetry in Great Regulars as always. For instance, check out Ted Kooser's column, Garrison Keillor's offerings, and also the one by Mark Irwin in The Sun Magazine, the very last link before Poetic Obituaries.

Back to News at Eleven. We begin the week with popular Uzbek poet Yusuf Juma in a state of emergency. He is presently under a program of torture in prison. Uzbekistan has been labeled the worst violator of human rights on the planet. The sicko ruler there is named Islam Karimov. He's got to be stopped, and Yusuf and others like him need to be freed and given care.

Thanks to Fiona Sampson, who judged the poems from May for the InterBoard Poetry Community. Her commentary on each of her 12 selections is very nicely done. And reading through the poems is like checking out a fine poetry publication--but of course it would. Here's the link: IBPC. Enjoy! Congratulations to R.L. Crowther of the poetry board conjuction, on the winning poem Somewhere the Sun Is Shining. Lise Whedden of criticalpoet.org wrote the second place poem, A Woman's Fetish. And the third place poem, After Baltimore, was penned by Ron Lavalette of The Waters.

Thanks for clicking in.

Yours,
Rus

Our links:

IBPC: Poetry & Poets in Rags

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Uzbek prison officials have broken her husband [Yusuf Juma]'s ribs, she said, and knocked his teeth out, making eating almost impossible; their regular torture regimen includes placing him in a chemical "box" for long stretches of time; and they have repeatedly broken his fingers in order to prevent him from doing that which most threatens the regime--writing his widely acclaimed poetry.

It could be worse. Karimov's regime is known in the past to have boiled political prisoners alive.

from Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty: Torture In Uzbekistan Described On Capitol Hill

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Edmonton's former poet laureate, [Suzanne] Steele runs the In Arms poetry project, which will collect and publish poetry from the military community, culminating in a Remembrance Day performance. There have been submissions from inside the war zone and out.

from Edmonton Journal: Art of War: Poets paint picture of Afghan conflict

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for quoting without permission from Janet Frame's work in his just-released memoir, even though he believes he was well within his rights to publish what he did.

Contacted yesterday, the author of South-West of Eden said he apologised to avoid a protracted legal battle with the Janet Frame Literary Trust, which he believed used "copyright as an instrument against a book they don't necessarily like".

from New Zealand Herald: CK Stead settles dispute with Frame's trust

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that this column has addressed before: most successful writers have made their mark before their fourth decade. Tolstoy? 35 (War and Peace). Dickens? 38 (David Copperfield) Fitzgerald? 29 (The Great Gatsby). Naipaul? 29 (A House for Mr Biswas).

But the ruthless cut-off of 40 does not address the complex trajectory of creative growth: for every novelist or poet who explodes skywards with a first or second book, there are many who only achieve mastery as they reach the shady side of the slope. The onset of middle age, or the approach of oblivion, is perhaps as sharp a spur to literary effort as the intoxicating self-belief of youth.

from The Observer: You're never too old to start writing

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Pater noster, qui es in caelis, sanctificetur nomen tuum. She [Marie Ponsot] tried to translate the Latin to English, to reverse-engineer her memory, like a computer hacking itself. "It was getting sticky, until all of a sudden it popped into my head," she said. "In English."

Last week, back in her apartment on the Upper East Side, Ms. Ponsot had help in her hunt for syntax, a tool more fundamental to human existence than the wheel: a rotating group of poets who come to read and talk with her.

from The New York Times: Marie Ponsot, the Poet, Hunts for Language Lost

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and his abiding sadness. But they also reveal [Philip] Larkin's deep love and admiration for a woman who was clever, eccentric, loud, unusual, flamboyant, opinionated and strong. In my experience, misogynists tend not to go a bundle for women with minds of their own.

It's obvious to me that it was not women Larkin hated, but the idea of marriage to one--and that seems fair enough. At his home in Norfolk, Anthony Thwaite, Larkin's friend and the editor both of the Selected Letters and of this new volume, laughs. "Yes!" he says. "Marriage: it's like promising to stand on one leg for the rest of your life, isn't it?" Thwaite believes that Larkin loved women.

from The Guardian: In search of the real Philip Larkin

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William Carlos Williams illuminates his blind ambition to be read. "Williams is nutty as a fruitcake," he wrote in 1952. "It also means we can all get books out." Their willingness to use people is not surprising-but the consistency of their self-assuredness is. In the earliest letters, barely out of their teens, Ginsberg and [Jack] Kerouac had already found their voices, and they knew it, too. "We creative geniuses must bite fingernails together or at least we should," Kerouac wrote to Ginsberg. They criticize each other's writing-not just poems and stories, but the language of the letters themselves-with a severity that makes their harshest critics seem kind.

from The New York Observer: They Bared Their Brains to Heaven: Jack Kerouac and Allen Ginsberg

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concluded that most of these artists were most productive when level-headed and sober.

"The idea that drugs and alcohol give artists unique insights and powerful experiences is an illusion," he said. "When you try and capture the experiences (triggered by drugs or alcohol) they are often nonsense. These drugs often wipe your memory, so it's hard to remember how you were in that state of mind."

from The Press Association: 'Drugs likely to stifle creativity'

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butler, scullion, shoe-cleaner, occasional muse, gardener, hind, pig-protector, chaplain, secretary, poet, reviewer and omnium-botherum shilling-scavenger . . ." [Samuel Taylor] Coleridge promised Poole, whose garden backed on to Coleridge's through a lime-tree bower.

Coleridge planted vegetables and reared pigs, happy in a decaying mice-infested 17th-century cottage with a thatched roof that he referred to fondly as "the hovel". Within a year, he'd also written some of his most famous poetry: The Rime of the Ancient Mariner, Frost at Midnight, The Lime Tree Bower my Prison and the opium-inspired Kubla Khan.

from The Sydney Morning Herald: Chapters and verse

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probably a lovely day, probably with the sun shining, probably it was lovely . . . and suddenly a change.

"How would they hear it--some sort of deep down thump before the news came to the top of the pit?"

Ms Clarke added that her late father-in-law had recently retired from a mines rescue team at the time of the disaster and was deeply affected.

Six Bells--28th June 1960--by Gillian Clarke

from BBC News: National poet's Six Bells tribute

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a new matchbook literary magazine, published in a matchbook of course. The stories make Chekhov and Saki seem distinctly Tolstoyesque--300 characters or less. The matchbooks can be found for free at Santa Cruz Mountain Brewing and various bookstores and bars in the Bay Area.

from Santa Cruz News: Santa Cruz Poet Puts Verses in Matchbooks

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before he was executed by firing squad in Utah in 1960, James Rodgers replied: "Why yes, a bulletproof vest!" Asked the same question in the gas chamber in Arizona in 1936, Jack Sullivan said: "You might get me a gas mask."

from Bryan Appleyard: The Sunday Times: Last Words of the Executed by Robert K Elder

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Pope's "Essay on Criticism." Here, you'll surely recognize one of Pope's most famous lines. It comes six lines from the bottom: "For fools rush in where angels fear to tread." It's a line that has been borrowed, whole or in part, throughout the ages by an unlikely mix of writers, politicians and artists, most famously Edmund Burke, Abraham Lincoln, E.M. Forster, Frank Sinatra, Elvis Presley and Bob Dylan.

From "Essay on Criticism":

from David Biespiel: The Oregonian: Poetry: The Enlightenment and Alexander Pope's memorable phrases

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three books, and his poetry has received numerous awards, including fellowships from the Bush Foundation and the Minnesota State Arts Board. Solly currently works as a senior acquisitions editor for Hazelden Publishing, teaches creative writing at The Loft Literary Center, and does community service work in the areas of hospice and arts-in-health care. He lives in St. Paul, Minnesota.

The Body Reproaches the Soul

from Marianne Combs: Minnesota Public Radio: State of the Arts: Minnesota Poetry: Richard Solly's "The Body Reproaches the Soul"

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"Ruth Pitter was born in 1897 and began to write poetry at the age of five.

All of her work can be said to be marked by this and possesses a childlike clarity of seeing and a communion with the natural world and its creatures. For her, a poem is a response and in these four quatrains we see all of her typical qualities as she observes the "glory" of a little bush baby.

from Carol Ann Duffy: The Daily Mirror: Poetry Corner

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or ride by hillsides, they may hear this gentle Mother "Restraining Rampant Squirrel," or quieting a "too impetuous Bird." The speaker defines natural behavior of the animals in terms of the disciplining methods employed by the "Gentlest Mother." The speaker intuits from the animals' behavior the tenderness with which this natural Mother guides and guards her children.

from Linda Sue Grimes: Suite101.com: Emily Dickinson's Nature the Gentlest Mother is

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in size and influence because it has been largely co-opted by a popular culture that embraces outsiders such as the Beats. Others are mostly poets.

The largest group by far is Mr. [Richard] Hofstadter's great undefinables--from so-called outsiders like Dave Eggers to the best-seller champions Stephen King and John Grisham, with hundreds in between, including Joyce Carol Oates, Anne Tyler and Richard Russo.

from Bob Hoover: Pittsburgh Post-Gazette: There's still a pulse beating for classics

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by Ellen Waterston

After ten hours of trying

from Garrison Keillor: The Writer's Almanac: Designed to Fly by Ellen Waterston

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Early Sunday Morning
by Edward Hirsch

I used to mock my father and his chums

from Garrison Keillor: The Writer's Almanac: Early Sunday Morning by Edward Hirsch

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Figs
by Erica Jong

Italians know

from Garrison Keillor: The Writer's Almanac: Figs by Erica Jong

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The Ghost of Walter Benjamin Walks at Midnight
by Charles Wright

The world's an untranslatable language

from Garrison Keillor: The Writer's Almanac: The Ghost of Walter Benjamin Walks at Midnight by Charles Wright

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Himself
by Thomas Lynch

He'll have been the last of his kind here then.

from Garrison Keillor: The Writer's Almanac: Himself by Thomas Lynch

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Outscape
by Charles Wright

There's no way to describe how the light splays

from Garrison Keillor: The Writer's Almanac:

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The Return
by Thomas R. Smith

Unto Him all things return.--The Koran

Walking on the park road

from Garrison Keillor: The Writer's Almanac: The Return by Thomas R. Smith

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Emily Dickinson was up in her bedroom on the second. She must have known perfectly well what was going on. As Lyndall Gordon writes in Lives Like Loaded Guns: Emily Dickinson and Her Family's Feuds, there must have been some kind of understanding about which rooms the poet was not to enter and when for fear of getting an eyeful. But what makes the story so odd, and so characteristic of Dickinson, is that she managed to live in the same house where Todd was so unmistakably present without ever meeting her.

from Adam Kirsch: Slate: Emily Dickinson's New Secret

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country's finest poets. She lives in Princeton, New Jersey. I thought that today you might like to have us offer you a poem full of blessings.

The Blessing of the Old Woman, the Tulip, and the Dog

from Ted Kooser: American Life in Poetry: Column 274

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would get under way in Sichuan from June to September this year, following a similar police campaign in the central city of Wuhan, in which people using their relatives' ID cards were taken into administrative detention.

Government regulations are calling for Internet cafes in the province to hook up their surveillance cameras to a central viewing channel monitored by the provincial government by the end of the year, with punishments and fines for businesses that do not comply.

from Luisetta Mudie: Radio Free Asia: China Expands Internet Controls

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imagination and linguistic awareness illuminate a poetry of unusual reach and resonance. He is often a poet of borders--between lyric and narrative, comedy and tragedy, fantastic and realistic. His latest collection is Scenes from a Long Sleep: New and Collected Poems. A Fire Shared is reprinted in Old City, New Rumours, published by Five Leaves Press.

A Fire Shared

from Carol Rumens: The Guardian: Books blog: Poem of the week: A Fire Shared by Peter Didsbury

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with sense, and with respect toward those with whom he rightly disagrees, [James] Shapiro tells how this whole mishegas got started, and then, with unbelievable patience, shows how it has not a shred of a breath of a hope of being--anything.

I recommend it to all who want a vivid picture of how William Shakespeare worked. It's a great, true story. The accompanying story--of how some people, including misguided luminaries such as Mark Twain and Sigmund Freud, came not to believe in his authorship--inspires weary horror.

from John Timpane: Philadelphia Inquirer: 'Contested Will' proves Shakespeare wrote it all

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in order "to make them organs of direct perception," adding that "this means we must crush our deep-seated passion for classification and correspondences" and "escape from the terrible museum-like world of daily life, where everything is classified and labeled." Such a life of "pure sensation," the book suggests, "would mean that we should receive from every flower, not merely a beautiful image to which the label 'flower' has been affixed, but the full impact of its unimaginable beauty and wonder."

from Frank Wilson: When Falls the Coliseum: That's What He Said: The full impact of life's unimaginable beauty and wonder

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by Adam O'Riordan
from In the Flesh

from The Guardian: The Saturday poem: NGC3949 by Adam O'Riordan

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June 27, 2010

Spanish moss hanging low,

from Lawrence Journal-World: Poet's Showcase: 'Spanish Moss'

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and the off-on flashes of cabin lights;

from Morning Star: Well Versed: Amid The Turbulence

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by Rae Armantrout

from The New Yorker: Poetry: Rae Armantrout: "Errands"

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Downtown
by Frederick Seidel

from The New Yorker: Poetry: Frederick Seidel: "Downtown"

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Meditation on Living in the Desert No. 11

I am looking at a book of photographs.

from PBS: Newshour: Weekly Poem: 'Meditation on Living in the Desert No. 11'

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About dreams

From the womb of agony

from Salem-News.com: 'I have a Dream'

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The taste of tuna, cactus fruit, so ripe, so sweet,

from San Antonio Express-News: Poetry: 'the things left'

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by Mark Irwin

Mother came to visit today. We

from The Sun Magazine: Poetry: Portraits

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of poetry, "Wisdom's Rain" and "A Fresh Pair of Clothes" and for several years he participated in a local access television show about poetry.

Tom was a member of the local Baha'l Faith Community and also attended First Christian Church. He was a graduate of Indiana University East and was a member of the Richmond Poetry Club.

from Palladium-Item: Thomas M. Bowman

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for the role he played with the Warigabaga (Butterfly) Dance Group who performed at Carifesta in Jamaica in 1976. He has led groups in the late seventies and early eighties to participate in festivals abroad in London, Berlin, Mexico and Honduras. His most recent work was coordinating the Dangriga Performing Arts Company in 2006.

from The Guardian: The Passing Away of Moses "Roysus" Bregal

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she [Lorraine D. Corbo] had worked as a sales person for two years.

Lorraine was an avid artist who wrote wonderful poetry. She also had a love for animals.

from The Times Leader: Lorraine D. Corbo

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and kept her two daughters dressed in beautiful clothes throughout their childhood. In later years, her hobbies included ceramics, writing poetry, crocheting, crossword puzzles and writing a book for her family compiled from daily diaries she kept religiously from Jan. 1, 1934, until her death.

from Great Falls Tribune: Edith M. Dolezal

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gardening and writing poetry. He was a lifelong Packer fan. His favorite Packer memory was after the Ice Bowl when he assisted in bringing down the goal post. Tom was a great story teller and had a unique sense of humor that will be greatly missed.

from Green Bay Press Gazette: Doney, Thomas

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last week, with the death of Joseph L. Duncan Jr., a onetime artist who spent the past few decades of his life asking passersby for a dollar in exchange for poetry or deep thoughts.

"He went to the Dudley area always to meet people and the spot just became his," said Joan Spicer of Stoughton, Duncan's older sister. "The police knew him, attorneys would by him food. No one ever bothered him and if you didn't see him, you knew something was wrong. He became a sentinel in that area."

from Boston Herald: Joseph L. Duncan, at 57, Dudley Square 'Dollar Man'

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with his English teacher, who helped him revise and edit his poems in his bedroom, many featured in his book.

"He had every wish come true that he wanted in his last days," said Ben Curtiss, who joined Ealoms' family, friends and classmates at his bedside last week.

Friday night Ealoms stayed up writing with his English teacher until midnight.

from San Antonio Express-News: Ealoms inspired with rhymes

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a family of migrant workers since they had no place to live. He let a foreign student who could not secure accommodations sleep on the couch when he first came to CSU. Some families camped in the trees for prolonged periods when they could not afford rent. A young man with no support from his family set up camp on the land. These are just a few instances of his charitable heart.

Along with his strong work ethic and service to others, he was a writer of poetry and song. He loved to listen to his Mexican and nostalgic crooner music.

from The Coloradoan: Horacio V. Garza (Shorty)

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from her teachers telling us how well she was doing and one teacher told us a poem she had written recently was outstanding. He said he couldn't tell us just how good it was.

"It was the first time I can honestly say I saw her come out of school with a smile on her face. I remember her walking across the playground with the biggest smile, from ear to ear." [--Natasha Groves, speaking her daughter Lillian Groves]

from Your Local Guardian: Family of New Addington schoolgirl killed by car tell of their 'little princess'

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notably behind the Iron Curtain, a rare adventure for an American at that time--[Konrad] Hopkins stayed for a while in Vienna before successfully applying for a post teaching American literature and drama at Paisley College of Technology, now the University of the West of Scotland.

His passion for the arts extended to his enthusiasm for the music of Shostakovich as well as a wide range of literature. He resurrected the reputation of the Paisley-born poet William Sharp (1855-1905)--who also wrote as Fiona Macleod--establishing his own imprint, Wilfion Books, in the process.

from The Daily Telegraph: Konrad Hopkins

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and shared some of her humor and feelings about her everyday life in her poetry.

In her poem "Why is it?" published in a woman's magazine in 1965, she wrote: "Why is it no one comes to visit . . . when my house is in order and everything's fine? I have refreshments galore, even some wine. But then the day comes when things are a mess. There's dust on the floor and webs on the ceiling. Things couldn't look more unappealing. There's a knock on the door. Oh heaven, who is it? Just two 'friendly' ladies coming to visit."

from HeraldNet: Everett woman shared her life through poetry

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and interests, including writing music, stories, and poetry; gardening, genealogy, and internet. She worked for many years as the first Director of the Stockton Emergency Food Bank, providing assistance for needy families throughout San Joaquin County.

from The Record: Margie Yvonne Wood Israel

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in the early 1960s and wrote mostly about romance and nationalism.

He regularly visited Sunn Town to attend the birthday and death anniversaries of GM Syed and other programmes arranged by the Jeay Sindh Qaumi Mahaz, Sindh Taraqqi Pasand Party or other Sindhi nationalist parties. The news of his death spread like wildfire throughout the province within minutes and his fans paid him tribute by sending his poems to each other through SMS.

from Daily Times: Prominent Sindhi poet Madhosh passes away

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biking, swimming and being in nature. She was a lover of the arts and enjoyed writing poetry throughout her life. She also enjoyed traveling, most especially to her beloved Ireland.

from WWLP 22News: Mildred A. Morin

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and poetry. Margaret said Mrs. Nakamura began writing poetry after age 10. One of her poems was printed in the old San Jose Mercury Herald.

She also traveled. Even at age 83, Mrs. Nakamura could be spotted atop a camel in Egypt, and she meticulously chronicled a trip to Israel in a handwritten, spiral notebook.

from Los Altos Town Crier: Nellie Nakamura, 107: Fiesty Los Altan overcame racial barriers to live full life

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and spent his professional career defending physicians and hospitals. Shortly before his death, he became a partner in his Orlando law firm.

Bill's parents owned stock car race tracks, and Bill grew up with, and loved, automobile racing. He was a poet, a storyteller and he loved to laugh.

from Sturgis Journal: William H. Olney

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essays about her life and wanted to inspire people with stories of the obstacles she faced and overcame in her life. She also wrote poetry and had several poems published. She enjoyed making beaded jewelry and aromatherapy oils.

from Great Falls Tribune: Ellen Lynn Richards

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in 1964, [Robert] Shapazian studied English literature at Harvard University, earning a master's in 1965 and a doctorate in 1970. He wrote his doctoral dissertation on pastoral poetry and painting in the Renaissance.

He had worked in his family's agricultural business in Fresno and built a collection of experimental photography that critics considered extraordinary.

In recent years, Shapazian taught writing and art to at-risk youths, friends said.

from Los Angeles Times: Robert Shapazian dies at 67; founding director of Gagosian Gallery in Beverly Hills

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from the Dominican Republic, was a popular kid who wrote poetry for the school paper.

"She had lots of friends and she was always there when you needed her--to give you a hug when you were down," said eighth-grader Serenity Suker.

from New York Daily News: Girl, 12, drowns off Long Beach during summer class trip with Harlem school

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kind-hearted person who enjoyed writing poems and spending time with his family.

from Fremont News Messenger: Damon L. Taylor (AKA: Trell)

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the founder members of the Guild of Blue Badge Guides and was the number 8 Blue Badge specialising in tours of Wessex, concentrating on the life and works of Thomas Hardy and Stonehenge. Officially he retired at 70, but although his wife died shortly after that, he continued to lead a full and active life leading reading groups and poetry clubs and several U3A groups.

from Salisbury Journal: Dedicated tour guide dies, aged 82

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poet and writer, but her greatest enjoyment was fishing, playing pinocle and the Baldy Mountain hunting camp.

from Siskiyou Daily News: Beatrice Arlene Titus

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playing the trumpet, traveling on Elder Hostel trips, and writing poetry over the years.

She also kept informed of current issues and events and frequently let her voice be heard in letters to the editor in local newspapers.

from Ogle County News: Kathleen J. VanRaden

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career at Atholton High School, retired this year on a medical disability.

Mrs. Williams enjoyed writing poetry, some of which was published in Ebony, Jet and Essence magazines, and reading.

A former Pauline Brooks model, Mrs. Williams, who was known as a stylish dresser, produced several fashion shows at Atholton High School, family members said.

from Baltimore Sun: Deborah J. Williams, speech pathologist, dies at 52

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