Tuesday, December 28, 2010

December 28th Poetic Ticker Clicking

News Article Tape:
Blog Entry Tape:

posted by Rus Bowden at 2:11 PM 0 comments links to this post

December 28th forum announcement

Dear Poetry Aficionados,

Poetry & Poets in Rags blog


Poet Vladimir Neklyayev ran for president of Belarus against dictator Alexander Lukashenko, and was beaten unconscious, possibly to death, for it. This is our lead story. In a gross slap at freedom of speech, and through the fear of a popular personality swaying opinion, China has shut down Han Han's magazine. This is our second link. After these articles in our News at Eleven section, come some terrific poetry, then profiles of two award-winning poets, then a group of articles that could each have been on our Back Page.

Our Great Regulars section is great as usual, with its own selections of poetry. But click into Meghan O'Rourke's offering to hit a poetry jackpot. Also to note, Anthony Maulucci's last column in the Norwich Bulletin came this week. Has it been three and a half years already?


More IBPC congratulations in order, as Paul Lisicky's November results have been announced. Congratulations to Jude Goodwin of The Waters for her first place poem, Hush. The poem Doors Beneath Their Signs by Larry Jordan of PoetryCircle is second, and in third is I Could Cry But I Don't by Billy Howell-Sinnard of The Writer's Block.

Have a happy and safe New Year.

Thanks for clicking in.

Yours,
Rus

Our links:

IBPC: Poetry & Poets in Rags

Poetry & Poets in Rags blog

IBPC Home

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posted by Rus Bowden at 11:48 AM 0 comments links to this post

News at Eleven: Lawyers have been denied access

to Vladimir Neklyayev, a 64-year-old poet, who was knocked unconscious during demonstrations on Sunday and dragged from his hospital bed to a KGB prison a few hours later.

"Neklyayev was badly beaten," said Tatyana Revyako of Viasna, a human rights group which is co-ordinating legal help to arrested demonstrators. "The fact we are not allowed to see him is extremely alarming and suspicious. He could be dead for all we know."

from The Guardian: Belarus presidential candidate denied visit by lawyers in jail

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posted by Rus Bowden at 10:59 AM 0 comments links to this post

News at Eleven: The 120-page Chinese-language magazine

also included essays, poems and opinion pieces by Hong Kong movie director Pang Ho-cheung, folk musician Zhou Yunpeng and blogger Luo Yonghao.

It sold nearly 1.5 million copies, according to Han Han's assistant.

The magazine was to be published on a bi-monthly basis.

Han Han, 28, is China's most popular blogger. He is also a race-car driver.

from Xinhua: Editing team of popular Chinese writer Han Han's magazine dismissed

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posted by Rus Bowden at 10:59 AM 0 comments links to this post

News at Eleven: From [Sally Ashton,] the San Jose State University

creative writing teacher and editor of the DMQ Review, two poems.

And I

Highway 1 cut straight across

from Santa Cruz News: Santa Cruz Poets, Santa Cruz Inspiration: Sally Ashton

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posted by Rus Bowden at 10:58 AM 0 comments links to this post

News at Eleven: The Times Colonist asked six poets

from Vancouver Island and the southern Gulf Islands to create poems for the darkest days of the year. Today we present the first, Dvora Levin's Winter Solstice. The remaining five will appear on the front page of the Life section between Tuesday and Jan. 2.

Winter Solstice

Some long for the seduction of summer,

from The Times Colonist: Poetry to warm the wintry soul
then The Times Colonist: Melanie Siebert: Poetry for a wet winter's night

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posted by Rus Bowden at 10:58 AM 0 comments links to this post

News at Eleven: Robert Frost was up late.

So were Delmore Schwartz, Alan Ginsberg, Pablo Neruda, Charles Dickens and Carol Ann Duffy. "The hour is midnight and the library is deep and carried like a dreaming child into the darkness of these pages," wrote Richard Brautigan. James Tipton seems to suggest that poetry itself is sleeplessness, a oneness with things only amassable at night. "A child," said Sylvia Plath, "forming itself finger by finger in the dark."

from The Guardian: Writing at night

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posted by Rus Bowden at 10:57 AM 0 comments links to this post

News at Eleven: The poet [Gillian Clarke] herself

dismissed the idea she was writing to "an agenda", arguing instead that the ecological focus of some of her recent work came because "you write about your obsessions".

"What I'm doing these days is loving the planet rather than moaning about it," she said. "If we love the planet we might just save it, but if we moan we might not."

from The Guardian: Gillian Clarke 'stunned' at winning Queen's gold medal for poetry

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posted by Rus Bowden at 10:57 AM 0 comments links to this post

News at Eleven: "The fellowships are awarded

to people who are at the forefront of their field," said USA spokeswoman Aga Sablinska. "In this case, Martin Espada is the 'Latino poet of the United States,'" she said, referring to a comment made by Earl Shorris, author of "Latinos: Biography for the People." Shorris labeled Espada the "Latino poet of his generation."

from Amherst Bulletin: Poet Martin Espada wins $50,000 national award

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posted by Rus Bowden at 10:56 AM 0 comments links to this post

News at Eleven: It was then that W.H. Auden

to penned Night Mail. With Benjamin Britten providing the music, the result was a tribute to the trains which crossed the border to bring the mail and the postal order. Now railways are more likely to be the subject of angry letters to newspapers, but in the hope perhaps of reigniting the kind of rhythm and romance which inspired Auden, the National Railway Museum in York is on the hunt for a contemporary trackside poet.

from Yorkshire Post: Between the lines: railways get back on track with poetry

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posted by Rus Bowden at 10:55 AM 0 comments links to this post

News at Eleven: The poetic giants of the Acadian renaissance,

such as Gérald LeBlanc and Herménégilde Chiasson, have also been prodigious readers across linguistic traditions, finding room in their art for a wealth of cultural references and forging a kind of Franco-American aesthetic not unlike that exhibited by New England novelist and poet Jack Kerouac.

It's this modern cross-cultural space that the poems of Thomas Scott inhabit--a landscape of vantage and experience that could be anglophone or francophone.

from Telegraph-Journal: How Things Got Like This: Poems/Comment On en Est Arrive La: Poemes

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posted by Rus Bowden at 10:54 AM 0 comments links to this post

News at Eleven: [Le Van Kinh] spent more than ten years

to embroider the 14 poetic paintings.

"Ten years ago, a group of American journalists came to Vietnam to learn about Vietnam's embroidery. They visited my shop. They asked me Vietnam has many good poems in books but why they are not on paintings? I thought a lot about their question and I made these paintings," he said.

The poem was embroidered in Vietnamese, French, English, German, Russian, Italian, Danish, Spanish, Japanese, Chinese, etc.

from VietNamNet Bridge: 82-year-old artisan embroiders a poem in 14 languages

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posted by Rus Bowden at 10:54 AM 0 comments links to this post

News at Eleven (Back Page): Forget about saving drafts--

Etherpad promised (or threatened) to save every keystroke: every note and idea, every version of a phrase, every snag and breakthrough. It would all be recorded, and labeled, and automatically backed up as you typed.

Imagine the consequences. As [Paul] Graham said, students using Etherpad in English class would in effect be "showing their work." It could do wonders for teaching. But that's nothing compared to the idea of our great poets and novelists using such a tool to record the minutiae of their creative process, the dynamic history of their work, and bequeathing it all to their readers. It'd be like Eliot letting us lean over his shoulder.

from The Atlantic: The Simple Software That Could--but Probably Won't--Change the Face of Writing

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posted by Rus Bowden at 10:53 AM 0 comments links to this post

Great Regulars: The writing studio that started

upstairs from Kuts 4 Kids on Southeast Hawthorne Boulevard in 1999 is growing in several directions at once and is changing its name to the Attic Institute to better reflect its expanded mission.

[David] Biespiel, who owns the Attic and also writes a monthly poetry column for The Oregonian, said that while "the core of what we do will remain literary workshops," he wants to "go lateral and do more than just critique classes."

from Jeff Baker: The Oregonian: Attic Writers' workshop reaches for the stars

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posted by Rus Bowden at 10:38 AM 0 comments links to this post

Great Regulars: Where Wallace Stevens' method is

to be inventive, [Elizabeth] Bishop's is to be attentive. She never once affects a rhetorical flourish, never affects a voice that is anything but conversational, never confesses the chatter of her life. Instead, she writes with distilled, shy discretion.

She is a poet of restraint, subtlety and manners--so unlike Alexander Pope's crassness and Walt Whitman's bombast and even, at times, Emily Dickinson's sharp-tongued retorts.

from David Biespiel: The Oregonian: Poetry: High praise for Elizabeth Bishop's artistry and humanity

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posted by Rus Bowden at 10:37 AM 0 comments links to this post

Great Regulars: [Susan Marie Swanson's] awards include

fellowships in poetry from the Bush Foundation, the McKnight Foundation, and the Minnesota State Arts Board, as well as the McKnight Artist Fellowship in Children's Literature.

Swanson lives with her family in St. Paul.


Trouble, Fly

from Marianne Combs: Minnesota Public Radio: State of the Arts: Minnesota Poetry: Susan Marie Swanson's "Trouble, Fly"

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posted by Rus Bowden at 10:37 AM 0 comments links to this post

Great Regulars: 'Snow'

posted by Rus Bowden at 10:36 AM 0 comments links to this post

Great Regulars: The speaker in Edgar Lee Masters'

"Sarah Brown" Spoon River Anthology is one of the most positive characters of the lot; although it is hinted that she committed adultery, she emphasizes "love" over sex. It was her husband who called her love for Maurice "guilty love," but since her marriage apparently remained intact, it is not clear that she actually experienced a sexual liaison with the grieving Maurice.

from Linda Sue Grimes: Suite101.com: Edgar Lee Masters' Sarah Brown

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posted by Rus Bowden at 10:35 AM 0 comments links to this post

Great Regulars: The final Gist Street pairing

was poet Jericho Brown and fiction writer Holly Goddard Jones who lamented, "This is my first and last time here. I'm bummed."

Mr. Brown and Ms. Jones were typical of the dozens of rising writers representing the face of the country's literary landscape in the 21st century. He wrote speeches for a New Orleans mayor before moving on to teach at the University of San Diego and releasing his first poetry collection, "Please," last year.

Ms. Jones also published her first book in 2009, a short-story collection titled "Girl Trouble."

from Bob Hoover: Pittsburgh Post-Gazette: Literary stocking just got lighter

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posted by Rus Bowden at 10:35 AM 0 comments links to this post

Great Regulars: In this suite of five poems,

Ms. [Alicia] Ostriker touches deeply on the experience of role reversal. The simple story line is familiar: A daughter removes her aging mother from her home, sells her house and places her in a nursing home. We see the mother stripped of her familiar surroundings and of her dignities--but we see the speaker, the poet, also reverting.

from Rodger Kamenetz: The Arty Semite: The Tenderness of Age

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posted by Rus Bowden at 10:33 AM 0 comments links to this post

Great Regulars: A Christmas Carol

by G.K. Chesterton

The Christ-child lay on Mary's lap,

from Garrison Keillor: The Writer's Almanac: A Christmas Carol by G. K. Chesterton

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Christmas Eve: My Mother Dressing
by Toi Derricotte

My mother was not impressed with her beauty;

from Garrison Keillor: The Writer's Almanac: Christmas Eve: My Mother Dressing by Toi Derricotte

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December 26
by Kenn Nesbitt

A BB gun.

from Garrison Keillor: The Writer's Almanac: December 26 by Kenn Nesbitt

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The Night of the Party
by Alden Nowlan

Never have I seen women

from Garrison Keillor: The Writer's Almanac: The Night of the Party by Alden Nowlan

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IV. Those Who Are Surpassed
by Dick Allen

"Their eyes are always bigger than their stomachs,"

from Garrison Keillor: The Writer's Almanac: IV. Those Who Are Surpassed by Dick Allen

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Toward the Winter Solstice
by Timothy Steele

Although the roof is just a story high,

from Garrison Keillor: The Writer's Almanac: Toward the Winter Solstice by Timothy Steele

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Voyage
by Tony Hoagland

I feel as if we opened a book about great ocean voyages

from Garrison Keillor: The Writer's Almanac: Voyage by Tony Hoagland

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posted by Rus Bowden at 10:32 AM 0 comments links to this post

Great Regulars: Some of us are fortunate

to find companions among the other creatures, and in this poem by T. Alan Broughton of Vermont, we sense a kind of friendship without dependency between our species and another.

Great Blue Heron

from Ted Kooser: American Life in Poetry: Column 301

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posted by Rus Bowden at 10:31 AM 0 comments links to this post

Great Regulars: For the past three and a half years

I have been striving to offer readers of this newspaper something different from the typical stories in the daily media, but sadly, this will be my final column.

I have tried to give readers with an interest in poetry and fiction some insights into the literary creative process. And I wish to express my gratitude to Jim Konrad, The Bulletin's executive editor, for allowing me to take a more substantial approach to the subject. I can say from my 25-plus years as a freelance writer that this is indeed a rarity.

from Anthony Maulucci: Norwich Bulletin: On Writers & Writing: Embrace the classics, immerse yourself in literature

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posted by Rus Bowden at 10:30 AM 0 comments links to this post

Great Regulars: A panel of literary critics

hired by Zhongshan, a magazine based in the eastern Chinese province of Jiangsu, propelled Bei Dao, the pen-name of Zhao Zhenkai, to the highest ranking in a recent issue of the magazine.

U.S.-based literary critic Xie Xuanjun said the move was a form of official acceptance for Bei Dao, one of the "Misty" school of poets whose work sprang from the immediate aftermath of the political turmoil of the Cultural Revolution (1966-1976).

He said the government had never seen Bei Dao as an outright opponent, in spite of his exile following the 1989 pro-democracy movement in Tiananmen Square.

from Luisetta Mudie: Radio Free Asia: Exiled Poet Wins Praise

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posted by Rus Bowden at 10:30 AM 0 comments links to this post

Great Regulars: It was a banner year for poetry.

There were new collections from old masters like Derek Walcott, Seamus Heaney, Jean Valentine and Richard Wilbur, as well as accomplished books by younger poets like Dorothea Lasky and Maureen McLane. Now, in mid-December, my pile of 2010 volumes read and unread has begun to teeter; I share with you a handful of the ones I did get to that have stayed with me.

from Meghan O'Rourke: NPR: Word Power: The Year's Best Poetry

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posted by Rus Bowden at 10:29 AM 0 comments links to this post

Great Regulars: Reading for pleasure can easily

sound like some kind of wishy-washy, soft option, while instructional stuff like learning-to-read through "synthetic phonics" and endless worksheets requiring children to answer questions about the facts in short passages, sounds tough and purposeful. In actual fact, as the Progress in International Reading Literacy Study (PIRLS) research of 2006 showed, children who read for pleasure achieve better school performance than those that don't.

from Michael Rosen: The Guardian: This government has set its face against reading

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posted by Rus Bowden at 10:28 AM 0 comments links to this post

Great Regulars: When the speaker describes it,

in a moving phrase, as "an unexplained trust I hold", he reminds us of the responsibility to know the past, however difficult it is to decipher. The poet's particular "trust" is to use the fine, penetrative instruments of his art to further the exploration. Poetry is naturally a memorial genre.

from Carol Rumens: The Guardian: Books blog: Poem of the week: 'My Grandmother's Opal' by Grevel Lindop

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The carol says nothing about the physical realities of sex or childbirth. It talks instead of dew, spray, grass, flowers. Perhaps it hints at a contradictory wish for disembodied perfection at the heart of human desire. This dream comes alive in a Mary from courtly romance, in her delicately pastoral conception and blood-free confinement. In remembering the April origins of the December birth, the poet also draws our attention to the entrancing pleasures of the coming spring.

I Sing of a Maiden

from Carol Rumens: The Guardian: Season's reading: I Sing of a Maiden

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posted by Rus Bowden at 10:26 AM 0 comments links to this post

Great Regulars: [by Pam Lewis]

Undoing

If life were a line

from The Christian Science Monitor: Undoing

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posted by Rus Bowden at 10:24 AM 0 comments links to this post

Great Regulars: "March 22 Orders"

by Matthew Clifford

How much did they pay

from CounterPunch: Poets' Basement: Clifford, Taylor and Springate

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posted by Rus Bowden at 10:24 AM 0 comments links to this post

Great Regulars: by Nancy Cunard

I saw the people climbing up the street

from Morning Star: Well Versed: Zeppelins

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posted by Rus Bowden at 10:23 AM 0 comments links to this post

Great Regulars: By William Carlos Williams

)))) Listen

Their time past, pulled down

from PBS: Newshour: Weekly Poem: 'Burning the Christmas Greens'

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posted by Rus Bowden at 10:23 AM 0 comments links to this post

Great Regulars: By Susan McMillan

We wait for Christmas--bake cookies,

from Post-Bulletin: Poem: Traditions

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posted by Rus Bowden at 10:22 AM 0 comments links to this post

Great Regulars: Although the innocence of childhood

certainly plays into the prosody and themes in The Bride of E, Mary Jo Bang's sixth book of poetry, the collection itself could not be more intellectually engaging. Take for example the first poem, "ABC Plus E: Cosmic Aloneness is the Bride of Existence." The very title establishes human existence as a philosophical problem: the "Bride of Existence" is ipso facto not "Existence" itself.

from Powells: Review-A-Day: An Abecedarian Marriage

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posted by Rus Bowden at 10:22 AM 0 comments links to this post

Great Regulars: This poem written by Arthur Jewell

during the Israeli attack on Gaza that we refer to as 'Cast Lead' (consider that name for a moment . . .) was sent into the newsroom today by our correspondent in London, Gilad Atzmon.

It injects into a few simple verses, the magnitude of Israel's seemingly endless attack on mostly civilian targets. We are reminded that Israel has the best weapons sighting software and systems known to man, yet they claimed they were 'mistaken' when it was shown that Israel had selected numerous occupied schools as targets.

from Salem-News.com: Wind of Change

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posted by Rus Bowden at 10:19 AM 0 comments links to this post

Great Regulars: "Silverchest"

By Carl Phillips

from Slate: "Silverchest"--By Carl Phillips

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posted by Rus Bowden at 10:18 AM 0 comments links to this post

Great Regulars: [by Tony Gardner]

Some Sussex folk on Christmas morn

from West Sussex Gazette: Poem of the Week: Christmas Message

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posted by Rus Bowden at 10:14 AM 0 comments links to this post

Poetic Obituaries: Mirel [Bercovici] also devised theories

and methodology for working with color during the advent of color television, her daughter said.

A poet as well as a painter, her poem "Unfinished Time" ends: "Far too soon you still me. Death,/For I have still a little breath,/A question here and there. Like why?/Why I so meant to laugh now cry?/Cry I, weep I with all the bleating sheep, in the shadow of the valley in the Shepherd's keep/The Lord is not my shepherd,/Let him keep his god-dammed sheep!"

from The Villager: Mirel Bercovici; Westbeth artist and poet dies at 93

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posted by Rus Bowden at 10:13 AM 0 comments links to this post

Poetic Obituaries: [Sunny A. D'Souza] had been a regular

contributor of poems and stories in various Konkani weeklies. He was also well-known for radio plays and other presentations. He contributed as the Assistant Editor of Poinnari and conducted the popular column of question answers in the Kutam weekly.

from Bellevision: Sunny A. D'Souza, well-known theatre personality and Konkani writer passes away

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posted by Rus Bowden at 10:13 AM 0 comments links to this post

Poetic Obituaries: [Karen S. Felton Lester] enjoyed collecting

baby dolls, reading, and composing poems. She also loved music and playing the organ.

from The Star Press: Karen S. Felton Lester, 67

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posted by Rus Bowden at 10:12 AM 0 comments links to this post

Poetic Obituaries: Len [Nadeau]'s passions included

dancing, cooking, storytelling, art, books, movies, games, playing piano and writing poetry.

from Rutland Herald: Rev. Leonard J. Nadeau

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posted by Rus Bowden at 10:11 AM 0 comments links to this post

Poetic Obituaries: [Jika] Nkolokosa was one of the longest-serving

editors in the Malawi newspaper industry, and once headed the Blantyre Newspapers Limited (BNL). He also worked as editor at the privately owned Nations Publications Limited (NPL) for some time.

He is hailed by many as a dedicated member of the media who ensured fairness, accuracy and excellence at all times.

Nyasa Times said Nkolokosa 'was also known for his creative flair and constant pursuit of the truth through his newspaper column--"All I can say".

from Africa News: Malawi: Veteran journalist, poet dies

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posted by Rus Bowden at 10:11 AM 0 comments links to this post

Poetic Obituaries: At Naropa she [Janine Pommy Vega] spoke

of "serving something other than the ego, serving as the glue of a civilization, serving clarity of thought, the specific vision of your truth".

Janine was an indomitable activist on behalf of women's rights and taught tirelessly inside the prison system, working many years for the PEN Prison Writing Committee. A poem from her collection, The Green Piano (David R. Godine, Published, 2005):

Christmas at Woodbourne

from The Allen Ginsberg Project: Anne Waldman: Janine Pommy Vega, Beat Sister

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posted by Rus Bowden at 10:10 AM 0 comments links to this post

Tuesday, December 21, 2010

Poetic Ticker Clicking of December 21st

News Article Tape:
Blog Entry Tape:

posted by Rus Bowden at 11:20 PM 0 comments links to this post

December 21st forum announcement

Dear Poetry Aficionados,

Poetry & Poets in Rags blog


It's Christmastime, and for you who would rather not celebrate it, or call it that, it's solstice time. However, the news has led out with Christmas articles, our second and third links in News at Eleven included. Also covering Christmas are Great Regulars Carol Ann Duffy, James Fenton, Christopher Nield, Christian Science Monitor, and West Sussex Gazette. We begin this week though with lists of poetry books. Not only is it the season to have best or favorite poetry books of the year, but they can make excellent last minute Christmas gift ideas. There is more beside Christmas. For instance, covered multiple times in Great Regulars is the work of Rachel Wetzsteon, by Adam Kirsch in Tablet and by Rosanna Warren in Powell's Review-a-Day.

At least ten-fold congratulations are in order. The IBPC has announced the Poem of the Decade, as judged by former Poet Laureate of the United States (Consultant in Poetry of The Library of Congress) Daniel Hoffman. And the winning poem is A Second Look at Creation by poet Sergio Lima Facchini, who workshopped the poem at poets.org. Hoffman selected ten runners up. Two of them were written by Laurie Byro. The other poets with runner-up poems for the decade are: Dale McLain, Catherine Rogers, Marilyn Injeyan, Sarah J. Sloat, Angela Armitage, Lois P. Jones, Ivan Waters, Bernard Henrie, and Robert Bohm.

Yours,
Rus

Our links:

IBPC: Poetry & Poets in Rags

Poetry & Poets in Rags blog

IBPC Home

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posted by Rus Bowden at 10:58 PM 0 comments links to this post

News at Eleven: Here are eleven books that made it

through the mail, out of their envelopes, and all the way into my mind, where they've set up shop.

from The New Yorker: Eleven Best Poetry Books of 2010
then The New Yorker: Ten Great Poetry Collections of 2010
then The Independent: Books of the Year: Poetry
then San Francisco Chronicle: Best poetry books of 2010

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posted by Rus Bowden at 10:09 PM 0 comments links to this post

News at Eleven: But the grown man knows

that if there is any transcendent power at work in this world it is callously indifferent to human concerns, like the President of the Immortals who has his sport with Tess. Yet, burdened by inescapable memory, faced with the inevitable prospect of extinction, we persist in wanting to hold on to that "fair fancy", the pretty lie of the Christmas story--and that is our distinctively human tragedy.

[by Thomas Hardy]

The Oxen

from The Guardian: Season's readings: 'The Oxen' by Thomas Hardy

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posted by Rus Bowden at 10:07 PM 0 comments links to this post

News at Eleven: With Christmas around the corner,

are you lustily singing your favourite carols? Pause for a moment--ever thought of the stories behind them? Some have been written to be sung in Church, some as a result of profound sorrow and some as mere entertainment for children.

Yet all these carols that have stood the test of time had been created with one motive- to celebrate the birth of the Messiah- the Prince of Peace.

from The Sunday Times: Stories behind those much loved carols

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posted by Rus Bowden at 10:06 PM 0 comments links to this post

News at Eleven: "I have no enemies,

and no hatred. None of the police who have monitored, arrested and interrogated me, the prosecutors who prosecuted me, or the judges who sentence me, are my enemies. ... For hatred is corrosive of a person's wisdom and conscience; the mentality of enmity can poison a nation's spirit, instigate brutal life and death struggles, destroy a society's tolerance and humanity, and block a nation's progress to freedom and democracy. I hope therefore to be able to transcend my personal vicissitudes ... to counter the hostility of the regime with the best of intentions, and defuse hate with love."

from The News Journal: Empty Nobel chair spoke louder than words
then PBS: Need to Know: Liu Xiaobo


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posted by Rus Bowden at 10:02 PM 0 comments links to this post

News at Eleven: [Gil] Scott-Heron offers a line

in tightly-wrought comic surrealism; "The revolution will not show you pictures of Nixon blowing a bugle and leading a charge by John Mitchell, General Abrams and Spiro Agnew to eat hog maws confiscated from a Harlem sanctuary." But it is as much his delivery, his voice impassioned but not quite righteous, that electrifies the poem.

Scott-Heron's influence is evident in a generation of young British spoken word poets and performers who have emerged with a political agenda.

from The Guardian: What's poetry's role in protest politics?

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posted by Rus Bowden at 10:00 PM 0 comments links to this post

News at Eleven: The best poem in the book

is "Mr. Dynamite Splits," an elegy for James Brown published several months after Brown's death in December 2006. In the book, [Thomas Sayers] Ellis expands the poem into "A perform-a-form, photo-elegy with footnotes for feet work," with photographs taken by Ellis from outside the Apollo Theater, where the New York memorial to Brown was held forty-four years after Brown's concert there set the template for live recordings. The photographs--bewildered children next to mournful parents, smiling aging fans holding up tribute T-shirts, crowds behind barricades--go beyond illustrating the poem's celebration of a performer to give depth to the assertions in the poem:

from The Nation: One of the Various: On Thomas Sayers Ellis

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posted by Rus Bowden at 10:00 PM 0 comments links to this post

News at Eleven: Richard Wilbur was talking about

a subject he knows well--writing poetry. "I always know whether what I've done is good enough to print," he said. "If it's not, I set it aside or throw it away."

There was no setting aside or throwing away when he finished "The House." Written in memory of his wife, it is the opening poem in "Anterooms," a new book of poems and translations by Wilbur.

from Amherst Bulletin: On time and love: At 89, poet Richard Wilbur navigates life's currents in new collection

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posted by Rus Bowden at 9:59 PM 0 comments links to this post

News at Eleven: "Today we celebrate the launch

of the fourth session of the classical Arabic poetry program", said [Mohammed Khalaf Al] Mazrouei, adding that the "program has enjoyed the participation of more than 7000 poets from thirty Arab and foreign countries, all competing to be candidates."

The 'Prince of Poets' program has attracted huge audiences, who enthusiastically tune in to follow Arabic poets that had previously been overlooked by the media.

from Middle East Online: Abu Dhabi launches fourth session of 'Prince of Poets'

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posted by Rus Bowden at 9:59 PM 0 comments links to this post

News at Eleven: Specificity and placeness play

major roles in Heart Turned Back. The poet as naturalist turns her observations into meditations. Her surroundings have not washed over her. She wears them like beads of water, pollen. In some ways she does what bees do, she pollinates things and so becomes part of a propagating cycle. It could be said this is what poets do. Having said it, I would want it understood it "s Bertha Rogers's poems that prompt me.

from The Student Operated Press: Bertha Rogers's Poems Have a Viking Energy and Great Emotional Intelligence

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posted by Rus Bowden at 9:58 PM 0 comments links to this post

News at Eleven: Poetry and prose on the subway

may be going the way of the dodo. As The Times reported Tuesday morning, the Train of Thought series, which placed literary quotations from the likes of Kafka and Schopenhauer in the unlikely locale of a packed New York City subway car, is being removed to make way for a promotional campaign by the Metropolitan Transportation Authority.

from The New York Times: Reflections on the Literary Decline of the Subway

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posted by Rus Bowden at 9:55 PM 0 comments links to this post

News at Eleven (Back Page): So to come upon a place

like Naropa University, where poetry is written and read and listened to and discussed, is a delight. And then to get a tour of Naropa's Harry Smith Print Shop, where verse is lovingly printed--with old metal type and antique presses, yet--well, it's both Disneyland and Dollywood for dactyl addicts, an enchanted kingdom of fonts and figures.

from The Chronicle of Higher Education: A Letterpress Shop Survives, Printing Poems in the Era of YouTube

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posted by Rus Bowden at 9:55 PM 0 comments links to this post

Great Regulars: Well, I began, of course,

as a poet, but the power of rock 'n' roll, rock 'n' roll was really the canopy of our cultural voice, and especially in the '60s, late '60s and early '70s, and our rock stars, the people who were building that voice, whether it was John Lennon or Neil Young or Bob Dylan, whoever it was, they were infusing politics and political ideology, social justice, sexual energy, poets all within the canopy of rock 'n' roll and striving to make this a universal language. [--Patti Smith]

from Jeffrey Brown: PBS: Newshour: Conversation: Patti Smith

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Jeffrey Brown: Now, rap can be rough, and it is certainly often profane. But Bradley and DuBois say it offers what poetry always has: rhythm, complex rhyme schemes, allusive and metaphoric language.

As rapper Lauryn Hill put it once in a song: "I treat this like my thesis, well-written topic broken down into pieces. I introduce, then produce words so profuse."

from Jeffrey Brown: PBS: Newshour: Anthology Traces Rap's Lyrical Journey, Poetic Roots

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posted by Rus Bowden at 9:44 PM 0 comments links to this post


a/o May 7, 2006 @10:30a