Poetry & Poets in Rags

Dear Poetry Aficionados,

Poetry & Poets in Rags blog

We have such a variety of topics this week, and our Great Regulars section is packed with more articles than most weeks. This is because a larger number than usual of our Great Regulars put articles out, but also, many of them, such as Judith Fitzgerald, Alison Flood, Hillel Italie, and Garrison Keillor have multiple articles. Plus, two stories that are covered inside Great Regulars, are also covered outside. The Oregonian brings us a poem by Marty Christensen, who is also to be found in our Poetic Obituaries section. And Great Regulars Alison Flood and Judith Fitzgerald both cover our first story in News at Eleven, the lead story of the week. A new poetry war is brewing. Geoffrey Hill, the Oxford University Professor of Poetry, has fired the first shot at the UK's Poet Laureate Carol Ann Duffy. That Canadian Judith Fitzgerald has thown a punch, makes it a global confrontation.

I'll let you get to your reading. Thanks for clicking in.

Yours,
Rus

Our links:

IBPC: Poetry & Poets in Rags

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IBPC Home

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News at Eleven: A remarkable literary spat has erupted

2012-01-31T19:06:00.005-05:00

with the Oxford Professor of Poetry comparing the work of the Poet Laureate to Mills & Boon.

In a lecture entitled Poetry, Policing and Public Order, Sir Geoffrey Hill launched an attack on Carol Ann Duffy for her eagerness to 'democratise' poetry.

Duffy has attracted the ire of traditionalists by suggesting communication by text messages and social networks were actually helping children develop poetry skills.

from Daily Mail: Poet Laureate compared to Mills & Boon romance writers in stinging attack by rival
then The Guardian: Carol Ann Duffy and Geoffrey Hill: truly poetic heavyweights

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News at Eleven: Prosecutors said "It's Time" was meant

2012-01-31T19:06:00.002-05:00

to encourage Chinese to stage their own anti-government protests, Li [Dunyong] said. He said that Zhu [Yufu] denied the charges and denied posting the poem to any public online forum. He said he only shared it with friends.

Li said Zhu insisted the poem expressed his personal desire for freedom and democracy but that he never organized any actual protests. Li noted that the poem didn't specify any meeting time or place.

"It was meant to express his yearning for democracy," Li said.

from The Associated Press: Another Chinese dissident on trial for subversion
then International Herald Tribune: Rendezvous: Is It Poetry, Subversion or Both?

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News at Eleven: Explaining his view of Arab culture

2012-01-31T19:04:00.003-05:00

as extinct, he [Adonis] says: "What is civilisation? It's the creation of something new, like a painting. A people that no longer creates becomes a consumer of the products of others. That's what I mean by the Arabs being finished--not as a people, but as a creative presence."

Adonis holds no hope that poetry can change society. To do that, "you have to change its structures--family, education, politics. That's work art cannot do".

from The Guardian: Adonis: a life in writing

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News at Eleven: Everything about [Mark] Strand--

2012-01-31T19:03:00.006-05:00

from his seemingly effortless stage presence to his ability, at 77-years-old, to look hipper than every bohemian skirted girl and bearded nerd-hipster hybrid in the audience--suggests that this is a man who is, innately, an artist in every sense. Including a keen eye for the aesthetic, "There's lint all over my black jacket," he told us, irritably brushing off his well-fit buttonless peacoat, "It's making me very unhappy."

from Culture Map Austin: A self-deprecating Poet Laureate? Mark Strand on his new collection and poets' former pop-star status

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News at Eleven: In her collections over the subsequent

2012-01-31T19:03:00.002-05:00

two decades, Boland plays increasingly original and confident variations on traditional forms, myths, and themes. Again, she is often at her best when subtly reworking Yeats. In the witty and erotic "Song" (1975), she uses a rough-hewn Yeatsian ballad to overturn Yeats' typical formula of a doomed male pursuing an unattainable female ideal. Here the woman pursues--and succeeds:

'Look how the water comes
Boldly to my side;
See the waves attempt
What you have never tried.'
He late that night
Followed the leaping tide.

from Big Think: Woman In Pursuit: Eavan Boland, Yeats, and Irish Tradition

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News at Eleven: This delphinium-blue volume is a landmark--

2012-01-31T19:02:00.002-05:00

and a lovely doorstop (all 1090 pages of it)--and it really belongs on the corner of every writer's desk for inspiration. Here is an Australian anthology of unprecedented scope and density, the wonder being that this range of verse has issued from so young and, until recently, so sparsely populated a nation. Actually, it reaches back to the First Fleet. Even those not drawn to poetry will find, and quite likely enjoy, familiar warhorses, while there will be surprises for all but exhaustive scholars.

from The Sydney Morning Herald: Australian Poetry Since 1788

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News at Eleven: However, we must settle down,

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here at the back of the class, and grant that The Complete Poems is an almost fanatically painstaking and altogether admirable piece of work. The publishers, though betraying a hint of desperation in their efforts to make the volume seem attractive to the common poetry reader--is there such a creature?--are right when they urge that "Archie Burnett's commentary establishes [Larkin] as a more complex and more literary poet than many readers have suspected." That it does, and much else besides.

from The Guardian: The Complete Poems by Philip Larkin, edited by Archie Burnett--review
then London Evening Standard: Philip Larkin: The Complete Poems--review

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News at Eleven: "(Modern) poetry in China is dead,"

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said Wolfgang Kubin, the German Sinologist, in a public lecture on Chinese modern poetry on Nov 24. He then contradicted himself in a carefully phrased way: "It is, however, still living. It lives at the edge of society unnoticed by the majority. Its readers are the few people who really appreciate good literature."

The young, it seems, are not among the latter faction. As older poets produce and are published less, and some have stopped altogether, some observers say no one is stepping into their shoes.

from China Radio International: Battle of Words over the Future of Poetry

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News at Eleven: Most readers know George Jonas

2012-01-31T18:59:00.002-05:00

as a geopolitical columnist and author of books on criminal matters, but his first three books were poetry collections.

The Jonas Variations is one, too, but it reworks 50 other poets as thematic improvisations, imitative impromptus and more or less straight translations from Latin, French, Italian, German, Russian and Hungarian.

from Globe and Mail: Around the world in 50 poets

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News at Eleven: Three poems from the forthcoming

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poetry collection by Jonathan Galassi. Read more about Mr. Galassi and "Left-handed."

Still Life

from The New York Times: Excerpts: Poems From 'Left-handed' by Jonathan Galassi

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News at Eleven (Back Page): Scott Wenner chose a black-and-white

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look for his interpretation of "French Movie" by David Lehman. First came extensive research on the type of camera used in the French New Wave era of the 1950s and '60s, which was created in 3D. Wenner then found interesting elements to highlight from the poem, deconstructing scenes into the smallest single element in a way that was still relevant and somewhat abstract. The result is a piece that uses a combination of 3D scene work and photographs.

"This poem was difficult to work with because it's very descriptive and specific, and references the French way of doing movies," remarks Wenner.

from Shoot: Poems Come to Life In Artful Interpretations From motion504

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Great Regulars: Never before have we been able to

2012-01-31T17:42:00.001-05:00

hide behind a mask of anonymity and expose our lowest, our most intimate concerns before an audience that may include the entire world.

Stylistically, this generates a kind of vast in-joke. Regulars on 4Chan seem to despise newcomers and anybody who is not in on the specialised language--"newfags", they call them, as opposed to "oldfags". "Fags" is a frequently used suffix which seems to have become detached from its American role as an offensive term for gays. Similarly "nigger" seems to be okay on the site. Indeed, the only thing that seems to be positively discouraged--and suppressed--is child pornography.

from Bryan Appleyard: from The Sunday Times: 4Chan and Anonymous

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Great Regulars: The first libretto, "Songs in Time of War",

2012-01-31T17:41:00.002-05:00

is a compilation of 11 poems taken from [Vikram] Seth's translations of the 8th-century Chinese poet Du Fu. The language has a remarkably direct, almost naive fullness of rhythm and rhyme ("From Changan walls white-headed crows took flight/And cawed upon the Western Gate at night").

from Charles Bainbridge: The Guardian: Poetry: in brief

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Great Regulars: Julia Donaldson, writer

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I used to write short plays for schools. In 1994, I was asked by a publisher if I could come up with something based on a folk story. I unearthed this tale about a girl who goes for a walk in a forest and meets a tiger who threatens to eat her. Thinking quickly, she says: "I'm the queen of the forest: if you eat me, everyone else will take revenge on you." It's a lesson in how to harness a greater power than your own. I decided to turn the girl into a mouse and add some more predators--and at that point I thought: "This has the makings of a good picture book."

from Sarah Crown: The Guardian: How we made: Julia Donaldson and Axel Scheffler on The Gruffalo

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Great Regulars: Now, we understand why James Earl Jones

2012-01-31T17:40:00.000-05:00

would lay down a pristine spoken-word version of Edgar Allan Poe's The Raven . . .

But, Christopher Walken (The Deer Hunter, A View to a Kill, At Close Range, King of New York) winging his own way on the timeless treasure complete with . . .

from Judith Fitzgerald: The Globe and Mail: In Other Words: James Earl Jones v. Chris Walken: A poetic Poe-down

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Former lawyer and current League of Canadian Poets member Fern G. Z. Carr recently achieved quite the distinction: Her biographical listing found its stellar way into The World's Lawyer Poets in conjunction with a research project conducted by Professor James R. Elkins of the West Virginia University College of Law.

from Judith Fitzgerald: The Globe and Mail: In Other Words: Kudos to Fern G. Z. Carr, poet lawyer

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A simmering spat-storm burbling on the other side of the pond may well spill over into the international poetry world primarily because Oxford Poetry Professor Sir Geoffrey Hill (b. 1932) delivered a lecture on the state of the art and soundly put the UK's current poet laureate, Carol Ann Duffy, in her place. A poetic smack-down, if you will, one with "vicious," "spiteful" and "jealous" barbs from, for now, Sir Hill, a fact bound to change as the days pass us by since, as everybody knows, Duffy fearlessly — and occasionally foolishly — speaks her mind.

from Judith Fitzgerald: The Globe and Mail: This just in . . . Carol Ann Duffy v. Sir Geoffrey Hill

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Of course, we at In Other Words also plan to introduce TAKE TEN, a Q & A feature showcasing la crème de la crème of Canadian poets, leading off with Brick Books versifier John Donlan, perhaps one of our best-kept genius secrets who, not unlike Tom Thomson, exquisitely captures the spirit of the contemporary wilderness in astonishingly vivid shades of crimson-golden blaze as well as a sheen of briny-metallic verdigris glaze . . . BTW, should you wish to participate in this soon-to-be-regular endeavour, please feel free to contact me . . . Discretion both expected and assured.)

from Judith Fitzgerald: The Globe and Mail: In Other Words: Wrap-up Wednesday

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Great Regulars: Women, said [Teddy Wayne] Wayne, buy

2012-01-31T17:39:00.002-05:00

around two-thirds of all books and 80% of fiction. They belong more frequently to book clubs, which are skewed towards female authors writing about female experiences, "the publishing industry has noticed this trend in reading habits", and it's the "midlist male author who writes about males" who is suffering.

from Alison Flood: The Guardian: Battle of the authors' sexes continues

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"When the laureate speaks to the Guardian columnist to the tremendous potential for a vital new poetry to be drawn from the practice of texting she is policing her patch, and when I beg her with all due respect to her high office to consider that she might be wrong, I am policing mine," said Hill, in a lecture entitled "Poetry, Policing and Public Order". The Oxford professor of poetry has previously described difficult poems as "the most democratic because you are doing your audience the honour of supposing they are intelligent human beings", saying that "so much of the popular poetry of today treats people as if they were fools".

from Alison Flood: The Guardian: Carol Ann Duffy is 'wrong' about poetry, says Geoffrey Hill

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"Someone worked really hard to make the language just right, just the way they wanted it. They were so sure of it that they printed it in ink, on paper. A screen always feels like we could delete that, change that, move it around. So for a literature-crazed person like me, it's just not permanent enough."

For serious readers, [Jonathan] Franzen said, "a sense of permanence has always been part of the experience".

from Alison Flood: The Guardian: Jonathan Franzen warns ebooks are corroding values

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Authors C.S. Lewis, Roald Dahl and Aldous Huxley all turned down honours from the Queen, newly released documents have revealed.

A freedom of information request saw the list of people to have rejected an honour between 1951 and 1999 and since died published last night by the Cabinet Office.

from Alison Flood: The Guardian: Roald Dahl and CS Lewis among writers revealed to have refused honours

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Vladimir Putin has laid out his plans to compile a canon of 100 Russian books "that every Russian school leaver will be required to read" in an attempt to preserve the "dominance of Russian culture".

from Alison Flood: The Guardian: Vladimir Putin plans 100-book Russian canon all students must read

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Great Regulars: This terse versagraph reveals much about

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the speaker: he does not worship, probably doubts the very existence of Deity, likely is convinced that those who do "worship" are not as intelligent as he is, but . . . he has a slight inkling, a backburner mini-thought that if those silly worshippers are correct, then well, he's got it covered. He has one of those silly Bibles, and if you don't believe it, well, it's right over there. See!

from Linda Sue Grimes: Suite101.com: Poole's The Bible

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Great Regulars: Pulitzer Prize winner Yusef Komunyakaa

2012-01-31T17:38:00.000-05:00

was a poetry nominee for "The Chameleon Couch" and Pulitzer finalist Bruce Smith was chosen for "Devotions." Other poetry finalists were Forrest Gander's "Core Samples from the World"; Aracelis Girmay's "Kingdom Animalia" and Laura Kasischke's "Space, in Chains."

from Hillel Italie: Associated Press: Eugenides, Lethem among critics' awards nominees

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OverDrive Inc., a major e-distributor for libraries, announced Wednesday the launch of a vastly expanded list for patrons, featuring not just e-books available for lending, but hundreds of thousands of those which include a collected of Edgar Allan Poe stories edited by Michael Connelly to foreign-language titles. Viewers can look at excerpts, purchase books from a retailer or request that their library add an e-book that wasn't being offered.

from Hillel Italie: Associated Press: New library e-catalogs offer expanded selection

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Great Regulars: Louise [Glück] was the resident genius.

2012-01-31T17:36:00.003-05:00

She was very well regarded. Ellen Bryant Voigt started the program, and it's a testimony to her wisdom that she gathered these people, because nobody was a big deal. Heather [McHugh] was thirty-three or thirty-four, [Robert] Hass was thirty-eight, Louise [Glück] was thirty-eight, [Charlie] Simic was probably forty, Toby [Wolff] was thirty-three or thirty-four, Geoffrey [Wolff] was maybe thirty-eight. None of these people had made any money. Frank Conroy made a little money with Stop-Time. Oh my god, and Ray [Carver]. Ray was the first person we knew who made a lot of money. It was astonishing to everyone.

from Mary Karr: The Days of Yore: Mary Karr

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Great Regulars: The Beautiful Sandwich

2012-01-31T17:35:00.002-05:00

by Brad Ricca

She could always make

from Garrison Keillor: The Writer's Almanac: The Beautiful Sandwich by Brad Ricca

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Don't Look Back
by Kay Ryan

This is not

from Garrison Keillor: The Writer's Almanac: Don't Look Back by Kay Ryan

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Going to Heaven
by Emily Dickinson

Going to heaven!

from Garrison Keillor: The Writer's Almanac: Going to Heaven by Emily Dickinson

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Letter Home
by Ellen Steinbaum

I love you forever

from Garrison Keillor: The Writer's Almanac: Letter Home by Ellen Steinbaum

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The Weight
by Linda Gregg

Two horses were put together in the same paddock.

from Garrison Keillor: The Writer's Almanac: The Weight by Linda Gregg

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Winter Is the Best Time
by David Budbill

Winter is the best time

from Garrison Keillor: The Writer's Almanac: Winter Is the Best Time by David Budbill

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Winter Twilight
by Anne Porter

On a clear winter's evening

from Garrison Keillor: The Writer's Almanac: Winter Twilight by Anne Porter

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Great Regulars: Jaimee Kuperman is a poet living

2012-01-31T17:35:00.001-05:00

and working in the Washington, D.C., area, and she shares with many of us the experience of preparing one's self for a visit to the dentist. Do you, too, give your teeth an especially thorough brushing before entering that waiting room?

The New Dentist

from Ted Kooser: American Life in Poetry: Column 358

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(New to) Great Regulars: Besides being an aesthetically astounding poem--

2012-01-31T17:27:00.004-05:00

we now know that De rerum natura was the principal Latin influence on the greatest of Roman poets, Virgil, in emulation in his Georgics and refutation in The Aeneid--it's hard to overstate how radically prescient and threatening the philosophy that underlies it is. [Stephen] Greenblatt does a marvellous job of showing how, through the millennia, admirers of Lucretius, from Cicero to Poggio to his first English translator, Lucy Hutchinson, went to great lengths to gloss their enthusiasm for the poem as an aesthetic object with an incredulity towards its philosophical message. Even today, readers of this column may well find what Lucretius thinks "offensive." He's the only ancient poet whose ideas are still radical.

from Michael Lista: National Post: On Poetry: The poet of our age

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Great Regulars: [Jonathan] Galassi's real poems,

2012-01-31T17:26:00.001-05:00

it is tempting to say--the ones he has been digging all his life to find--are those in "Left-handed," which is more formally inventive than his early work and includes a number of poems written in quick, sharp, extremely short lines. They read like livelier, more buoyant versions of the old ones.

In an essay for his 40th college reunion class book, Mr. Galassi wrote: "I find myself in the position of writing one of those class notes I can recall being startled and disoriented by in the past. In my mid-fifties, after nearly thirty years of committed marriage, I fell in love again, this time with a younger man." The version of the story in "Left-handed" is more indirect, the way poetry often is. A poem called "Middle-aged" begins:

from Charles McGrath: The New York Times: Contradictions of the Heart

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Great Regulars: Poet and nonfiction writer Linda Buckmaster

2012-01-31T17:25:00.002-05:00

lives in Belfast, a town of poets and artists. In these two brave poems she describes the sudden death of her husband, and his mysterious return.

Sudden Death

from Wesley McNair: The Portland Press Herald: Take Heart: A Conversation in Poetry

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Great Regulars: The Poet's Freedom relies,

2012-01-31T17:25:00.001-05:00

as the earlier book did, on a grounding in Kant's Critique of Pure Judgement: For Kant, as for Stewart, poems (and works of art in general) cannot be made in good faith with a predetermined outcome. Like persons, they set their own agendas. Like persons, they must be singular. Like persons, they must resist the intentions and goals even of their own makers. At the core of Poetry and the Fate of the Senses was the belief that "the face-to-face encounter we have with an artwork is deeply embedded in the meanings and conventions we bring to face-to-face encounters with persons." Poems are literally stand-ins for individuals in all their complexity, but complexity is only something that can be expressed in the exercise of freedom. This is what "useless" art is for.

from Ande Mlinko: Los Angeles Review of Books: The Scholar's Art (Scroll down to second article on page)

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Great Regulars: Even at the turn of the century

2012-01-31T17:24:00.002-05:00

"the death of a man still solemnly altered the space and time of a social group that could be extended to include the entire community," noted the historian Philippe Ariès.

Then mourning rituals in the west began to disappear, for reasons that are not entirely evident. The anthropologist Geoffrey Gorer, author of Death, Grief, and Mourning, conjectures that the first world war was one cause: communities were so overwhelmed by the numbers of dead that they dropped the practice of mourning the individual.

from Meghan O'Rourke: The Guardian: Grief--the great universal

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Great Regulars: Meanwhile, Emer [Kenny] and Arinze [Kene]

2012-01-31T17:24:00.001-05:00

work on the Eastenders spin-off E20, and are deliberately scripting overuse of teenspeak in the character Fatboy.

The actor himself, Ricky Norwood, does a kind of last-stage filter on the words on the basis of whether Fatboy would or would not say he "tumped" him or "bonged" him. Arinze plugs in to his home background of Hackney but had the horrific experience recently, when talking to some young people a blink or two younger than him, to discover that he was already out of date. Emer's trick is spying on buses. While the kids are pumping out the chat, Emer's taking notes on her phone.

from Michael Rosen: The Guardian: Teens on TV: are they talking your language?

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Great Regulars: Taking the rough with the smooth,

2012-01-31T17:23:00.000-05:00

the reader can enjoy "Francesca of Rimini" as a poem in its own right. The personal touches--the infidelities, if you like--are not slips, but planned insurgencies, and part of the poem's tough vitality. And when Byron risks using feminine endings (surely associated in his mind with comedy and irony) there is pleasure for the ear, as well as a little humour ("the long-sighed-for smile of her"). The concluding lines have a sense of dramatic fatality that is hard to resist. Even the harsh "smote" earns its place by contributing to the rich alliterative music.

Francesca of Rimini

from Carol Rumens: The Guardian: Poem of the week: Francesca of Rimini by Lord Byron

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Great Regulars: This week's Poetry Pairing matches

2012-01-31T17:22:00.000-05:00

Maxine Kumin's "Which One" with a Science Times essay by Natalie Angier, "The Creature Connection."

from Katherine Schulten: The New York Times: Poetry Pairing: 'Which One'

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Great Regulars: [Kim Sa-in's] voice is for the most

2012-01-31T14:36:00.004-05:00

part grave, hushed, reverent--even before such things as a dead leaf falling from a tree--but it rises suddenly into piquancy, laughter and mischief. From the homeless person speaking to his only companion and auditor, his body, to a man's vivid lust for the village head's wife, these poems gather into sublime forms the many strands and sounds of both world and mind.

Four poems by Kim Sa-in
Translated by Brother Anthony of Taizé

Homeless

from The Caravan: Poetry: Homeless, A Secret Incident, Springtime Sea and The Depth of a Landscape 2

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Great Regulars: [by Knute Skinner]

2012-01-31T14:36:00.002-05:00

Me and My Big Sister

If I hold on tight enough,

from The Christian Science Monitor: Me and My Big Sister

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Great Regulars: Friends

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by Edward Beatty

Shostakovich's preludes and fugues sanctify the living room,

from CounterPunch: Poets' Basement: Beatty, Orloski and Davies

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Great Regulars: [by Ellen Rachlin]

2012-01-31T14:35:00.002-05:00

Supernovae

Theory cannot be tangible fact

from Granta: Supernovae

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Great Regulars: My Life

2012-01-31T14:34:00.002-05:00

By Roy Fuller

from The Guardian: The Saturday poem: My Life

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Great Regulars: The significance of this poem lies

2012-01-31T14:26:00.003-05:00

less in its content, and more in its connotations.

An acrostic poem--one in which the first letter of each line spells out a word--A Boat Beneath A Sunny Sky has been read for years as a tribute to [Lewis] Carroll's young muse Alice Pleasance Liddell, who inspired his famous protagonist.

Carroll met Liddell when she was a child in 1855, after befriending her elder brother.

from Huffington Post: The Weekend Poem: 'A Boat Beneath A Sunny Sky' By Lewis Carroll

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Great Regulars: by Niall McDevitt

2012-01-31T14:25:00.006-05:00

A Tory in Avalon is missing for 24 hours

from Morning Star: Well Versed: A Tory in Avalon

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(New to) Great Regulars: 'New Road Station'

2012-01-31T14:25:00.005-05:00

by Tracy K. Smith

Listen To Tracy K. Smith Read Her Poem

History is in a hurry. It moves like a woman

from NPR: Newspoet: Tracy K. Smith Writes The Day In Verse

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Great Regulars: [by Marty Christensen]

2012-01-31T14:24:00.002-05:00

Frisking the Cobwebs

from The Oregonian: Poetry: Frisking the Cobwebs

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Great Regulars: In the poem "Bubble Wrap," which I--

2012-01-31T14:23:00.002-05:00

is the one I wrote on the day that the stock market lost so much of its value, I was coming home from the store, and I actually saw this immigrant who was selling--or trying to sell--no one was actually approaching him--these scorpions made of what looked like twisted electrical wire.

And I had thought, well, this is going to be the new economy now. It seems like, if value can suddenly disappear that way, then what kind of value was it? It's a sort of magic value that they can create out of nothing, and then it can disappear.

from PBS: Newshour: In 'Money Shot,' Poet Armantrout Reacts to Financial Crisis in Verse

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By Rae Armantrout

Time is pleased

from PBS: Newshour: Weekly Poem: 'Around'

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Great Regulars: By A poem by The Anonymous Political Poet

2012-01-31T14:22:00.003-05:00

Everyone knows

from Post-Bulletin: Poem: A poem by The Anonymous Political Poet

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Great Regulars: Nothing could prepare you for Nox,

2012-01-31T14:22:00.002-05:00

but the title tries: It sounds like "book" and "box," and "nix" and "knocks," maybe even "knick-knack." To elegize her brother, Anne Carson has packed a study of night and nothingness in a cardboard container whose lid resembles a door, complete with the cut-out image of a keyhole. Through the keyhole, we glimpse a photograph of Carson's brother, in swimming trunks and goggles, expression unreadable. Swinging the lid upward to reveal the book within, we see that illustration again, on the cover. In Nox, doors lead to other doors, and questions to further questions, creating a confusion that alternately enchants and annoys. Soon enough, we realize Nox isn't a book at all, but a long sheet of paper folded up like an accordion.

from Powells: Review-A-Day: Tribute and Farewell

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Great Regulars: By Michelle Paulsen

2012-01-31T14:21:00.002-05:00

this is

from San Antonio Express-News: Poem: 'Accustomed to Dark'

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Great Regulars: This is the reader's experience with "Tears".

2012-01-31T14:19:00.002-05:00

The opening cluster of dactyls, reprised more slowly at the end of the poem, provides a rhythm against which the other lines are played off in a series of variations. And the form suits the subject. Tragedy is universal but every lament is unique. [Michael] Donaghy's death in 2004 was that familiar thing, a great loss to poetry, but his spell-binding music and lyric tenderness offer some consolation. As David Wheatley said in a review of Donaghy's Collected Poems, published in 2009, "Poetry this good runs deep . . . . [His] heartbreaking song is more than proof against drowning."

Tears

from The Times Literary Supplement: Poem of the Week: Tears

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Poetic Obituaries: As a poet his fans included William Burroughs,

2012-01-31T14:13:00.003-05:00

Gus Van Sant, Katherine Dunn as well as Kesey who met Marty [Christensen] circa 1972 at a poetry reading downtown at Fool's Paradise, a dank, dungeonly off-Burnside dive where the Mexican bartender suffered a speech impediment to two languages and where performers including "the world's tallest midget" Bob Dylan look-a-like Corky Hubbard performed songs like "So Sorry I Came on Your Dress" and "Sleep with One Eye Open, Moshe Dayan." One night Kesey came into the tavern with Prankster second-in-command Ken Babbs. They set up an applause-o-meter in the back of the gloomy beer mill as Marty was reading from a portfolio of poems.

from Willamette Week: The Lost Poet: Remembering Marty Christensen
then Oregon ArtsWatch: 'My Flashlight Was Attacked by Bats': Farewell to poet Marty Christensen

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Poetic Obituaries: As he made his debut in the

2012-01-31T14:12:00.002-05:00

literary magazine Origin, edited by Cid Corman, Theodore Enslin, who has died aged 86, was often associated with the Black Mountain school of poetry. Indeed, his long poems, particularly Ranger, share the scale of Charles Olson's, and many of his shorter works can be as perfectly focused and crystalline as Robert Creeley's. While Olson's landmark essay Projective Verse set out the template for poetry with lines based on the human breath, Enslin's avant-garde work most often followed the structures of musical forms.

from The Guardian: Theodore Enslin obituary

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Poetic Obituaries: [Mazhar Imam] had 13 books on Urdu poetry

2012-01-31T14:11:00.005-05:00

published and also founded a new genre of Urdu poetry called Azad Ghazal.

The litterateur, who was counted among the leading contemporary poets, had four volumes of poetry to his credit--Zakhm-e-Tamanna (1962), Rishta Goonge Safar Ka (1974), Pichle Mausam Ka Phool (1987) and Band Hota Hua Bazaar.

from Famous Urdu poet Mazhar Imam passes away

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Poetic Obituaries: [Doeschka] Meijsing wrote novels,

2012-01-31T14:11:00.002-05:00

essays, poems and short stories. Her debut book, The Cockerels and Other Stories, was published in 1974 and her breakthrough came in 2000 with The Second Man, which was nominated for the Ako literature prize.

from Dutch News: Doeschka Meijsing dies at 64

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Poetic Obituaries: Following his literary debut with three

2012-01-31T14:09:00.004-05:00

short stories in Kale ruzi (Black Rose), a Romani anthology, [Vladimír] Oláh went on to be the first Roma accepted into the Czech Association of Writers. In 2006 he received the Milena Huebschmannova literary prize for his contribution to Romany literature.

from The Prague Post: Romani Poet Vlado Oláh (1947-2012)

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Poetic Obituaries: Some of Ronda [Strouble Scott]'s loves

2012-01-31T14:09:00.002-05:00

were poetry, drawing, and the theater arts.

from Iowa City Press-Citizen: Ronda Strouble Scott, 50

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January 24th Poetic Ticker Clicking

2012-01-24T23:42:00.001-05:00

News Article Tape:

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Scotland on Sunday: 'Today Robert Burns might have been in Barlinnie Prison writing his jail diaries'

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The Guardian: Poor Robert Burns. He deserves better than this

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The Scotsman: 'Tam O'Shanter' voted best Robert Burns poem

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Huffington Post: A Poem May Get a Writer Jailed In China

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The New York Times: China Sentences Another Prominent Activist to Prison

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The Jerusalem Post: The Masada complex

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The Los Angeles Times: Robinson Jeffers, nature's oracle

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NPR: Artists React To Mexico's Drug War With Music And Poetry

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The Sydney Morning Herald: Ezra Pound's daughter takes on right-wing movement over name

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The Economist: Philip Larkin: Library book

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The Guardian: Selected Poems by Christopher Reid--review

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The Independent: The Mara Crossing, By Ruth Padel

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The Telegraph: The mystery of poetry editing: from TS Eliot to John Burnside

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Capital: In Crown Heights, the nerve center of a project to mentor and help protect Afghan women writers

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Bryan Appleyard: from The Sunday Times: Geoff Dyer: The Hatchet Man

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David Biespiel: The Oregonian: In praise of the poetry of poise

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Judith Fitzgerald: The Globe and Mail: In Other Words: Gimme a brick! The T. S. Eliot Prize controversy that shouldn't have been

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Judith Fitzgerald: The Globe and Mail: In Other Words: Presenting . . . The George Bowering Baseball Trivia Quiz

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Alison Flood: The Guardian: Salman Rushdie may address Jaipur festival via video link

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Linda Sue Grimes: Suite101.com: Margaret Atwood's Backdrop addresses cowboy

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Garrison Keillor: The Writer's Almanac: the click of miracle by Charles Bukowski

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Garrison Keillor: The Writer's Almanac: Darkness (excerpt) by Lord Byron

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Garrison Keillor: The Writer's Almanac: A Dream Within a Dream by Edgar Allan Poe

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Garrison Keillor: The Writer's Almanac: Red, Red Bra by Hal Sirowitz

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Garrison Keillor: The Writer's Almanac: Rest. by Richard Jones

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Garrison Keillor: The Writer's Almanac: Silo Solo by Joyce Sutphen

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David Kirby: The New York Times: Dave Grohl: From Antsy Student to Nirvana to Foo Fighters

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Ted Kooser via Garrison Keillor: The Writer's Almanac: At the Cancer Clinic by Ted Kooser

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Ted Kooser: American Life in Poetry: Column 357

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Wesley McNair: Maine Sunday Telegram: Take Heart: A Conversation in Poetry

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Luisetta Mudie: Radio Free Asia: Dissident Charged Over 'Subversive' Poem

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Luisetta Mudie: Radio Free Asia: Further Controls on Microblogs

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Luisetta Mudie: Radio Free Asia: Maoist Writer Jailed for Subversion

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Christopher Nield: The Epoch Times: The Antidote--Classic Poetry for Modern Life: A Reading of 'From a Railway Carriage' by Robert Louis Stevenson

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Robert Pinsky: Slate: Truth in Darkness

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Carol Rumens: The Guardian: Poem of the week: Six Winters by Tomas Tranströmer

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Fiona Sampson: The Independent: The Complete Poems by Philip Larkin, edited by Archie Burnett

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Katherine Schulten: The New York Times: Poetry Pairing: 'To a Friend Whose Work Has Come to Nothing'

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The Barnes and Noble Review: Vicky Swanky Is a Beauty

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The Christian Science Monitor: Still Life in Motion

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CounterPunch: Poets' Basement: 3 by Paul Lojeski

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The Guardian: The Saturday poem: The Offer

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Huffington Post: The Friday Poem: 'Loss' By Wendy Cope

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Morning Star: Well Versed: Bad

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PBS: Newshour: Weekly Poem: 'Tale'

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Portsmouth Herald News: Random Acts of Poetry: Driftwood

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Powells: Review-A-Day: A Biography of a Poet Whose Work Demanded Attention

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The Times Literary Supplement: Poem of the Week: Finnish

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The Kittanning Paper: Delbert Baker, Jr. (West Kittanning)

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NorthJersey.com: Emil Donatello Jr., 72

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Press Democrat: Dominic Ciavonne Ziegler, Santa Rosa high grad, dies at 23

Blog Entry Tape:

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Scotland on Sunday: 'Today Robert Burns might have been in Barlinnie Prison writing his jail diaries'

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The Guardian: Poor Robert Burns. He deserves better than this

ragline

The Scotsman: 'Tam O'Shanter' voted best Robert Burns poem

ragline

Huffington Post: A Poem May Get a Writer Jailed In China

ragline

The New York Times: China Sentences Another Prominent Activist to Prison

ragline

The Jerusalem Post: The Masada complex

ragline

The Los Angeles Times: Robinson Jeffers, nature's oracle

ragline

NPR: Artists React To Mexico's Drug War With Music And Poetry

ragline

The Sydney Morning Herald: Ezra Pound's daughter takes on right-wing movement over name

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The Economist: Philip Larkin: Library book

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The Guardian: Selected Poems by Christopher Reid--review

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The Independent: The Mara Crossing, By Ruth Padel

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The Telegraph: The mystery of poetry editing: from TS Eliot to John Burnside

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Capital: In Crown Heights, the nerve center of a project to mentor and help protect Afghan women writers

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Bryan Appleyard: from The Sunday Times: Geoff Dyer: The Hatchet Man

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David Biespiel: The Oregonian: In praise of the poetry of poise

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Judith Fitzgerald: The Globe and Mail: In Other Words: Gimme a brick! The T. S. Eliot Prize controversy that shouldn't have been

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Judith Fitzgerald: The Globe and Mail: In Other Words: Presenting . . . The George Bowering Baseball Trivia Quiz

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Alison Flood: The Guardian: Salman Rushdie may address Jaipur festival via video link

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Linda Sue Grimes: Suite101.com: Margaret Atwood's Backdrop addresses cowboy

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Garrison Keillor: The Writer's Almanac: the click of miracle by Charles Bukowski

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Garrison Keillor: The Writer's Almanac: Darkness (excerpt) by Lord Byron

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Garrison Keillor: The Writer's Almanac: A Dream Within a Dream by Edgar Allan Poe

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Garrison Keillor: The Writer's Almanac: Red, Red Bra by Hal Sirowitz

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Garrison Keillor: The Writer's Almanac: Rest. by Richard Jones

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Garrison Keillor: The Writer's Almanac: Silo Solo by Joyce Sutphen

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David Kirby: The New York Times: Dave Grohl: From Antsy Student to Nirvana to Foo Fighters

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Ted Kooser via Garrison Keillor: The Writer's Almanac: At the Cancer Clinic by Ted Kooser

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Ted Kooser: American Life in Poetry: Column 357

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Wesley McNair: Maine Sunday Telegram: Take Heart: A Conversation in Poetry

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Luisetta Mudie: Radio Free Asia: Dissident Charged Over 'Subversive' Poem

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Luisetta Mudie: Radio Free Asia: Further Controls on Microblogs

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Luisetta Mudie: Radio Free Asia: Maoist Writer Jailed for Subversion

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Christopher Nield: The Epoch Times: The Antidote--Classic Poetry for Modern Life: A Reading of 'From a Railway Carriage' by Robert Louis Stevenson

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Robert Pinsky: Slate: Truth in Darkness

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Carol Rumens: The Guardian: Poem of the week: Six Winters by Tomas Tranströmer

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Fiona Sampson: The Independent: The Complete Poems by Philip Larkin, edited by Archie Burnett

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Katherine Schulten: The New York Times: Poetry Pairing: 'To a Friend Whose Work Has Come to Nothing'

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The Barnes and Noble Review: Vicky Swanky Is a Beauty

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The Christian Science Monitor: Still Life in Motion

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CounterPunch: Poets' Basement: 3 by Paul Lojeski

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The Guardian: The Saturday poem: The Offer

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Huffington Post: The Friday Poem: 'Loss' By Wendy Cope

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Morning Star: Well Versed: Bad

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PBS: Newshour: Weekly Poem: 'Tale'

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Portsmouth Herald News: Random Acts of Poetry: Driftwood

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Powells: Review-A-Day: A Biography of a Poet Whose Work Demanded Attention

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The Times Literary Supplement: Poem of the Week: Finnish

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The Kittanning Paper: Delbert Baker, Jr. (West Kittanning)

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NorthJersey.com: Emil Donatello Jr., 72

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Press Democrat: Dominic Ciavonne Ziegler, Santa Rosa high grad, dies at 23

January 24th forum announcement

2012-01-24T12:30:00.002-05:00

Dear Poetry Aficionados,

Poetry & Poets in Rags blog

Tomorrow is Robert Burns' birthday. As usual this time of year, newspapers come out with stories about him and this worldwide celebration in his honor. This year's batch seems more varied than other years. That's where we begin Poetry & Poets in Rags, with Burns deserving jail, Burns deserving better, and what would be his best poem. Ten stories down, on our Back Page, is an important article for our times, about "the Afghan Women's Writing Project, an organization that mentors Afghan women writers and distributes their work to a global audience." Back one article up from there, and you'll find a story on poetry editing, poets and others who help other poets get their poems spiffed up for publication.

As with all weeks, there are many more and varied articles than these, and plenty of original poems, in all three of our sections. I'll let you get to your reading.

Thanks for clicking in.

Yours,

Rus

Our links:

IBPC: Poetry & Poets in Rags

Poetry & Poets in Rags blog

IBPC Home

~~~~~~~~~~~

News at Eleven: There is a seldom seen painting

2012-01-24T12:10:00.001-05:00

that hangs in the Museum of the Grand Lodge of Scottish Freemasonry in Edinburgh's George Street. [Robert] Burns is standing before the assembled Brethren of the Lodge, Cannongate Kilwinning, on the night of the 1 March 1787, when he was invested as the Bard of Scottish Craft Freemasonry.

The picture itself was not painted until 50 years after the supposed "investiture" but was not entirely an invention. In deciding who to include, the artist and the Grand Lodge had made use of the Lodge minutes for that particular night and other meetings, many of which Burns had attended. Sixty men, other than Burns, are shown; all real people, all Freemasons and all with a connection with Burns.

from Scotland on Sunday: 'Today Robert Burns might have been in Barlinnie Prison writing his jail diaries'
then The Guardian: Poor Robert Burns. He deserves better than this
then The Scotsman: 'Tam O'Shanter' voted best Robert Burns poem

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News at Eleven: Chinese writer and activist Zhu Yufu

2012-01-24T12:05:00.001-05:00

was charged with publishing a provocative poem this past week (the official charge was "inciting subversion of state power"). Zhu's poem is entitled "It's Time," and here it is in translation:

from Huffington Post: A Poem May Get a Writer Jailed In China
then The New York Times: China Sentences Another Prominent Activist to Prison

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News at Eleven: Israel, former prime minister Yitzhak Rabin

2012-01-24T11:55:00.000-05:00

once noted, must make peace with its enemies, not with its friends. Netanyahu must shake off his Masada complex, recognize that there is no nobility in self-destruction and open himself up to compromise. A lesser known-line from [Yitzhak] Lamdan's poem reminds us that Masada has nothing to offer other than mass suicide:

Listen. Masada weeps too. Do you hear? Surely Masada weeps too, and how should she not? . . . She knows that she can give nothing, that she can deliver no more!

from The Jerusalem Post: The Masada complex

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News at Eleven: Until his death on Jan. 20, 1962--

2012-01-24T11:45:00.000-05:00

50 years ago--[Robinson] Jeffers celebrated the "transhuman magnificence" of nature, the beautiful things both vast and near that can provide even a 21st century reader with solace, even if we are often a muddled, ugly species and even if all things, as they do, fade away.

from The Los Angeles Times: Robinson Jeffers, nature's oracle

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News at Eleven: Javier Sicilia renounced poetry and became

2012-01-24T11:40:00.000-05:00

the leader of a national protest against the drug war. Yet he says poetry has been an integral part of the "Peace with Justice and Dignity" movement.

"Poetry has been present, the poets have been part of it," Sicilia says. "The problem is that the mass media don't like to cover it and don't understand that this movement was born out of poetry, and the reason why it's important is because it's filled with a poetic content that has transformed the language. And behind all of this is a profound ethics, as with all poetry."

Sicilia says the poet has a moral responsibility to tell these stories.

from NPR: Artists React To Mexico's Drug War With Music And Poetry

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News at Eleven: The killing of two Senegalese migrants in

2012-01-24T11:30:00.000-05:00

Florence just before Christmas has triggered a court case by the daughter of American poet Ezra Pound demanding the Casa Pound movement stop using her father's name.

The poet's 88-year-old daughter, Mary de Rachewiltz, who lives in northern Italy, has brought the action because Gianluca Casseri, the Florentine responsible for the murders, was a sympathiser of the local Casa Pound (Pound House) Movement.

from The Sydney Morning Herald: Ezra Pound's daughter takes on right-wing movement over name

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News at Eleven: The advantage of such a comprehensive volume

2012-01-24T11:25:00.000-05:00

is the possibility of tracing the development of a writer's voice. It is possible to hear in his [Philip Larkin's] poem, "On Being Twenty-six" the tone of world-weariness an older Larkin would make into an art form, looking back on "the slag/Of burnt-out childhood" with his familiar tone of regret laced with misanthropy: "Life, you aren't a god, you're a bloody old sod."

from The Economist: Philip Larkin: Library book

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News at Eleven: You don't ever finish a [Christopher] Reid

2012-01-24T11:10:00.000-05:00

poem feeling that it could have been done a little bit better. In the cadences of some of the early poems there's a hint, or more, of Larkin, in the careful and well-mannered grotesqueries of, say, the farm "where pigs on tip-toes/piss with such a haunted look", but Reid is thankfully free of his predecessor's studied weariness, and approaches his subjects with a more gracious and forgiving shake of the head.

There are poems here, too, from a further three collections, including a somewhat modest selection from Reid's moving series of poems about the death of his wife, A Scattering, which won the 2009 Costa Book of the Year award.

from The Guardian: Selected Poems by Christopher Reid--review

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News at Eleven: What keeps certain breeds of birds

2012-01-24T11:05:00.000-05:00

returning every year to the same place, many thousands of miles away, when equally suitable conditions exist nearby? And what makes people leave behind family and friends to encounter hostility and strangeness in a foreign land?

As the final poem in the volume, "Time to Fly", shows, the reasons are many and varied: some are biological imperatives, some financial, some emotional.

from The Independent: The Mara Crossing, By Ruth Padel

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News at Eleven: One of his [Don Paterson's] recent successes

2012-01-24T11:03:00.003-05:00

was Rachael Boast, whose Sidereal won last year's Forward Prize for best first collection. Paterson honed the book with her for a number of years, which is "not unusual for a first book". Once their inner sense of what is valuable in their writing is better calibrated, he says, they don't require as much "intense feedback". How intense can it get? "I'll make a long list of specific queries, and then fight about it with the author in the office or the pub or the British Library for three days while we go through each poem a line at a time."

from The Telegraph: The mystery of poetry editing: from TS Eliot to John Burnside

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News at Eleven (Back Page): Like many other mentors, [Neha] Bawa

2012-01-24T11:00:00.001-05:00

hails from academia, teaching poetry courses at a local university; others are professional journalists and published authors. The role of the mentor is twofold: to edit the pieces delicately, preserving the integrity of each writer's prose, language, and sentence structure; and to provide support, encouragement, and positive reinforcement.

"Many of these women have never shared their stories or written about their lives before, and they're very nervous," said Tina Singleton (pictured below), AWWP's country director on the ground in Afghanistan. "They're very vulnerable, and mentors have to be very careful because any kind of feedback that's perceived to be negative can be damaging to the woman's ability to continue writing."

Bawa became a mentor in 2009, shortly after AWWP was founded.

from Capital: In Crown Heights, the nerve center of a project to mentor and help protect Afghan women writers

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Great Regulars: Instead, unknown to the publisher,

2012-01-24T10:25:00.000-05:00

he [Geoff Dyer] wrote a book on the 1979 Russian film Stalker. "I happened to see Stalker again, and I wrote a tiny thing about it for The Guardian--and, frustratingly, realised I had a lot more to say. I started bunking off from the tennis book to summarise the film. Then I found a tone I really liked. It's all about tone for me--having a tone, finding a tone. No tone, misery. After I get the tone, fun."

At some point, he had to break this huge change of direction to Canongate.

from Bryan Appleyard: from The Sunday Times: Geoff Dyer: The Hatchet Man

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Great Regulars: Some years back this column broke

2012-01-24T10:20:00.000-05:00

a little-known record in American letters. It became the longest-running newspaper column about poetry in the United States. Today's piece kicks off our ninth year--for which I am grateful both to my longtime editor and to you, my devoted supporters, literary sticklers and regular critics.

from David Biespiel: The Oregonian: In praise of the poetry of poise

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Great Regulars: Good Lard! Talk Grandiose Blandstanding!

2012-01-24T10:15:00.000-05:00

Had either poet considered their position with a modicum of interest in the real world, each would most surely have allowed their works to compete against the remaining eight collections, UK Poet Laureate Carol Ann Duffy's The Bees (Picador), the 2011 recipient of the Forward Poetry Prize John Burnside's Black Cat Bone and Sean O'Brien's November (Pan Macmillan) foremost among them.

Nope. Nothing doing.

from Judith Fitzgerald: The Globe and Mail: In Other Words: Gimme a brick! The T. S. Eliot Prize controversy that shouldn't have been

~~~~~~~~~~~

With Spring Training looming on the horizon next month (and keeping we baseballomaniacs barely alive), we at In Other Words feel particularly generous; thus, to aid us in our generosity, Canada's premier sporty poet, none other than our inaugural Parliamentary Poet Laureate himself, George Bowering, OC, graciously provided us with a gem of a prize for the baseballophile who correctly answers the following eight trivia questions concerning the guy we prefer to refer to as our resident bullshit artist in these har parts (where dulcet greens and soaring taters make for magnificent music and even more dazzling visuals):

from Judith Fitzgerald: The Globe and Mail: In Other Words: Presenting . . . The George Bowering Baseball Trivia Quiz

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Great Regulars: Salman Rushdie, who was forced

2012-01-24T10:13:00.000-05:00

to pull out of Asia's biggest literary festival in India after authorities revealed "specific intelligence" of a death threat against him, has said he believes the information was false.

"I've investigated, and believe that I was indeed lied to. I am outraged and very angry," the British writer wrote on Twitter.

from Alison Flood: The Guardian: Salman Rushdie may address Jaipur festival via video link

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Great Regulars: But the agenda of this speaker is not

2012-01-24T10:10:00.000-05:00

to present reality but to set up a straw man against which she can protest. She attempts to indict this sauntering cowboy for wrongs she imagines, as she implies the cowboy's sauntering shows his hubris which she finds as silly as the "almost-/silly West." Again, the reader will remember that the stereotype being flaunted here is nothing more than a showbiz prop, and therefore cannot be taken at face value.

from Linda Sue Grimes: Suite101.com: Margaret Atwood's Backdrop addresses cowboy

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Great Regulars: the click of miracle

2012-01-24T10:05:00.002-05:00

by Charles Bukowski

at the quarterhorse meet

from Garrison Keillor: The Writer's Almanac: the click of miracle by Charles Bukowski

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Darkness (excerpt)

by Lord Byron

I had a dream, which was not all a dream:

from Garrison Keillor: The Writer's Almanac: Darkness (excerpt) by Lord Byron

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A Dream Within a Dream
by Edgar Allan Poe

Take this kiss upon the brow!

from Garrison Keillor: The Writer's Almanac: A Dream Within a Dream by Edgar Allan Poe

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Red, Red Bra
by Hal Sirowitz

I bought a red bra, she said.

from Garrison Keillor: The Writer's Almanac: Red, Red Bra by Hal Sirowitz

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Rest.
by Richard Jones

It's so late I could cut my lights

from Garrison Keillor: The Writer's Almanac: Rest. by Richard Jones

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Silo Solo
by Joyce Sutphen

My father climbs into the silo.

from Garrison Keillor: The Writer's Almanac: Silo Solo by Joyce Sutphen

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Great Regulars: No doubt a lot of these scamps grew up

2012-01-24T10:00:00.000-05:00

to be lawyers and college professors--or, in this case [of Dave Grohl], a member of such acclaimed bands as Nirvana and the Foo Fighters, although Mr. and Mrs. Grohl couldn't have foreseen that at the time. Looking back on his childhood in a suburb of Washington, D.C., Grohl says his teachers "always said the same thing: 'David could be a great student if he could just stay in his . . . seat.' " When teenage Dave had to get permission to drop out of high school and go on the road with the band Scream, his mother's reaction was: "Hallelujah. . . . Because, of all the things he's done brilliantly in his life, school was never one of them."

from David Kirby: The New York Times: Dave Grohl: From Antsy Student to Nirvana to Foo Fighters

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Great Regulars: At the Cancer Clinic

2012-01-24T09:55:00.000-05:00

by Ted Kooser

She is being helped toward the open door

from Ted Kooser via Garrison Keillor: The Writer's Almanac: At the Cancer Clinic by Ted Kooser

~~~~~~~~~~~

The title of this beautiful poem by Edward Hirsch contradicts the poem, which is indeed a prayer. Hirsch lives in New York and is president of the John Simon Guggenheim Memorial Foundation, one of our country's most distinguished cultural endowments.

I Was Never Able To Pray

from Ted Kooser: American Life in Poetry: Column 357

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Great Regulars: Mekeel McBride lives in Kittery and

2012-01-24T09:50:00.000-05:00

teaches in the MFA program at the University of New Hampshire. In her poem she shows us what we have missed in the winter trees we observe every day.

Where Inspiration Has Learned a Thing or Two

from Wesley McNair: Maine Sunday Telegram: Take Heart: A Conversation in Poetry

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Great Regulars: [Li Dunyong] said Zhu [Yufu]'s trial was

2012-01-24T09:45:00.001-05:00

likely to take place after the Lunar New Year holiday, which begins this weekend.

"This case is related to the jasmine revolutions in the Middle East, because he wrote that poem under those particular circumstances," Li said. "If he had [written it] in ordinary times, then it wouldn't have mattered; it was a problem because he published it at that time."

However, he said Zhu remained defiant. "He's a tough old stick now, and he doesn't care," Li said. "He says it's not too bad inside; the detention center gave him a new overcoat because the weather has been cold lately."

from Luisetta Mudie: Radio Free Asia: Dissident Charged Over 'Subversive' Poem

~~~~~~~~~~~

Chinese authorities want netizens to register their real names before blogging, lest they post sensitive information.

China has announced it will expand controls on 330 million users of the country's hugely popular Twitter-like services, in a move critics say will curb microblogs as a vital source of news and unofficial opinion.

Real-name registration is necessary to ensure the "rapid and healthy growth of the Internet," Wang Chen, head of China's cabinet-level Internet management office, told reporters.

from Luisetta Mudie: Radio Free Asia: Further Controls on Microblogs

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Authorities in the central Chinese city of Wuhan have handed a 10-year jail term to Maoist writer Li Tie for subversion, after he wrote articles online calling for political reform and for the human dignity of ordinary people to be respected.

Li was sentenced by the Wuhan Intermediate People's Court, which found him guilty of "incitement to subvert state power" this week, his lawyer and family said.

The sentence, of 10 years' imprisonment and three years' deprivation of political rights, follows hard on the heels of similar jail terms handed down to Sichuan-based activist Chen Wei and Guizhou-based dissident Chen Xi.

from Luisetta Mudie: Radio Free Asia: Maoist Writer Jailed for Subversion

~~~~~~~~~~~

Great Regulars: The moment we start reading this poem

2012-01-24T09:40:00.000-05:00

by Robert Louis Stevenson, we plunge into the joy of pure momentum. We find ourselves on a train, gazing out of the window at the landscape frantically whooshing by outside. Faster than "fairies" and "witches," the train seems to outstrip all the marvels and miracles of superstition. As Arthur C. Clarke's said, "Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic."

Curiously, however, from our perspective--warm and snug in our seat--it is the not the train that moves but all the "bridges and houses, hedges and ditches." The mind remains still while the earth becomes a blur.

from Christopher Nield: The Epoch Times: The Antidote--Classic Poetry for Modern Life: A Reading of 'From a Railway Carriage' by Robert Louis Stevenson

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Great Regulars: [Herman] Melville also wrote poems,

2012-01-24T09:38:00.000-05:00

brilliantly. Here, as this month's Classic Poem, is one of the best-known of them, "The Maldive Shark." The "sleek little pilot-fish" that guide the "pale sot" of the shark function as the shark's "eyes and brains." Those nouns, eyes and brains, are not literally considered as food, but the poem in an irrational or subliminal way associates them with meat for the consuming "charnel of maw" in the shark's "Gorgonian head."

from Robert Pinsky: Slate: Truth in Darkness

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Great Regulars: These six short imagist poems are rather

2012-01-24T09:37:00.002-05:00

like extended haiku, a form in which the poet has always excelled. They may centre on a single image, or use surreal combinations of imagery, as does the first, with its haunting triad of black hotel, sleeping child and dice. In this poem, even the proportions of the objects seem altered. The dice, having eyes, are larger and more menacing than real dice, for all that "wide-eyed", in English, has connotations of innocence. Perhaps these dice are being rolled by a vast, unseen, malevolent hand?

from Carol Rumens: The Guardian: Poem of the week: Six Winters by Tomas Tranströmer

~~~~~~~~~~~

Great Regulars: Here, [Archie] Burnett's notes offer a

2012-01-24T09:35:00.001-05:00

fascinating, compendious vade mecum into [Philip] Larkin's poetic world. Full of reassuring exactitude about variants, and extensive reference to the poet's own comments on the work, they are most stimulating of all when they cite buried sources, such as Eliot's use of the odd verb "construction" in the context of religion-founding.

These notes are at the heart of a fluently-organised volume. The four collections are followed by other poems published in the poet's lifetime, poems unpublished but dated, and other unpublished poems.

from Fiona Sampson: The Independent: The Complete Poems by Philip Larkin, edited by Archie Burnett

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Great Regulars: This week's Poetry Pairing matches

2012-01-24T09:30:00.000-05:00

William Butler Yeats's "To a Friend Whose Work Has Come to Nothing" with an article about a Texas writer and artist, "Novelist and His Hero Wonder, Will It Last?"

from Katherine Schulten: The New York Times: Poetry Pairing: 'To a Friend Whose Work Has Come to Nothing'

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Great Regulars: The fifty-one tiny stories (vignettes?

2012-01-24T09:10:00.000-05:00

prose poems? blipverts? flash fictions?) contained in Vicky Swanky Is a Beauty resolutely refuse total decryption. But they burrow into the reader's subconscious and sprout odd blossoms. Perhaps presenting one of the more miniature ones in its entirety might be the best way of conveying their strange flavors.

from The Barnes and Noble Review: Vicky Swanky Is a Beauty

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Great Regulars: [by Martha Helen Nelson]

2012-01-24T09:05:00.001-05:00

Still Life in Motion

Beyond the bedroom

from The Christian Science Monitor: Still Life in Motion

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Great Regulars: Lament

2012-01-24T09:00:00.000-05:00

by Paul Lojeski

The boss

from CounterPunch: Poets' Basement: 3 by Paul Lojeski

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Great Regulars: The Offer

2012-01-24T08:55:00.000-05:00

By Olivia McCannon

from The Guardian: The Saturday poem: The Offer

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Great Regulars: Dr. Rowan Williams is a fan of Wendy Cope,

2012-01-24T08:50:00.000-05:00

once describing her as "without doubt the wittiest of contemporary English poets" and it's largely her sharp sense of humour that has won her so many fans both in and outside of the poetry establishment.

Loss

from Huffington Post: The Friday Poem: 'Loss' By Wendy Cope

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Great Regulars: by Graham Buchan

2012-01-24T08:45:00.000-05:00

I do not shield Matilda from the news

from Morning Star: Well Versed: Bad

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Great Regulars: By Natasha Saje

2012-01-24T08:42:00.002-05:00

At a party a woman tells the guests

from PBS: Newshour: Weekly Poem: 'Tale'

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Great Regulars: [by Warren Day, at 16]

2012-01-24T08:40:00.000-05:00

Driftwood

If driftwood could talk it could tell a tale

from Portsmouth Herald News: Random Acts of Poetry: Driftwood

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Great Regulars: A dazzling verbal engineer, [Louis] Zukofsky

2012-01-24T08:35:00.000-05:00

twice replicated in "A" the pervasive rhyme sounds of Guido Calvalcanti's famously intricate love poem "Donna mi priegha." (Zukofsky's actual words reflect on the Marxist theory of value and Spinoza's understanding of love.) This ideal of translating the aural structure of a poem eventually led to the poet's notorious versions of Catullus. In these Zukofsky actually emulates the original Latin sounds in his English words but also keeps close to their meaning.

from Powells: Review-A-Day: A Biography of a Poet Whose Work Demanded Attention

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Great Regulars: The crucifix, on the other hand,

2012-01-24T08:30:00.000-05:00

flowing with "blood/and grief", has been "hacked not carved", to show "your body's/concentration on pain". But it is the small hidden Kristus with "lowered eyelids" that has the greater power. The pains of the flesh hold no panic compared to the fear of forgiveness.

[by Grey Gowrie]

Finnish

from The Times Literary Supplement: Poem of the Week: Finnish

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Poetic Obituaries: [Delbert Baker, Jr.] enjoyed music,

2012-01-24T08:10:00.001-05:00

singing, poetry, even having a book of poetry published.

from The Kittanning Paper: Delbert Baker, Jr. (West Kittanning)

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Poetic Obituaries: A member of the Poets Society,

2012-01-24T08:05:00.000-05:00

he [Emil Donatello Jr.] was a published author who had poetry readings at the Nutley Public Library.

from NorthJersey.com: Emil Donatello Jr., 72

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Poetic Obituaries: A musician, poet, traveler and wild

2012-01-24T08:00:00.000-05:00

mushroom hunter, Dominic Ciavonne Ziegler made a lot of friends in his life of just 23 years.

"He brought joy to everyone," said Jack Ziegler of Santa Rosa, recalling his son's engaging smile and natural charm.

Dominic Ziegler, who graduated from UC Berkeley last year and played in a folk-punk band called the Crux, died Jan. 12 at a San Francisco hospital.

from Press Democrat: Dominic Ciavonne Ziegler, Santa Rosa high grad, dies at 23

~~~~~~~~~~~

January 17th Poetic Ticker Clicking

2012-01-17T19:01:00.001-05:00

News Article Tape:

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The Guardian: John Burnside wins most controversial T.S. Eliot prize in decades

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The Telegraph: John Burnside: How poetry can change lives

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The Guardian: Guardian books podcast: John Burnside wins T.S. Eliot poetry prize

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London Review of Books: Two Poems: John Burnside

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Granta: Interview: John Burnside

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St. Louis Dispatch: A Look Back: Poet T.S. Eliot visits his home town in 1933

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St. Louis Dispatch: Native poet Quincy Troupe thanks St. Louis friends in new collection, Erancities

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The Ubyssey: In conversation with Fred Wah, the new poet laureate of Canada

ragline

Russia Beyond the Headlines: Pushkin Hills: The great poet's country retreat

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Spectator: Simon Armitage interview: Ancient enmities

ragline

The Telegraph: The Death of King Arthur by Simon Armitage: review

ragline

The Guardian: Ezra Pound's daughter fights to wrest the renegade poet's legacy from fascists

ragline

The Associated Press: Suspicions rise in Pablo Neruda's death

ragline

Chicago Tribune: Chinese dissident to stand trial for poem

ragline

The Epoch Times: Du Fu: Poetry Wrought from Hardship

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The Guardian: In theory: the death of literature

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The Washington Post: Is poetry dead? Or, in the age of the Internet, does it offer us what nothing else can?

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David Biespiel: The Oregonian: W.S. Di Piero's 'Only in Things'

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Judith Fitzgerald: The Globe and Mail: In Other Words: N-Joie! An exclusive winter's poem from our west coast

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Garrison Keillor: The Writer's Almanac: The Bloody Mary by Susan Donnelly

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Garrison Keillor: The Writer's Almanac: The Fight by Gregory Djanikian

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Garrison Keillor: The Writer's Almanac: Hitchhikers by Charles Simic

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Garrison Keillor: The Writer's Almanac: Kiss by Marcus Jackson

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Garrison Keillor: The Writer's Almanac: New Year's by Dana Gioia

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Garrison Keillor: The Writer's Almanac: Polly Perkins by Harry Clifton

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Garrison Keillor: The Writer's Almanac: To Marina (excerpt) by Kenneth Koch

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Ted Kooser: American Life in Poetry: Column 356

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Wesley McNair: The Portland Press Herald: Take Heart: A Conversation in Poetry

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Carol Rumens: The Guardian: Poem of the week: Philosophy by Amy Levy

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Katherine Schulten: The New York Times: Poetry Pairing: 'January'

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Frank Wilson: When Falls the Coliseum: That's What He Said: The presumption that we are not alone

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CounterPunch: Poets' Basement: Three by Max Hjortsberg

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Forward: The Arty Semite: Laurie Patton's Poetry and Hermeneutics

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The Guardian: The Saturday poem: He Stands So Still and Waits

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Guernica: Poetry: Bamboo Grove and A Place Named for Deer

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Guernica: Poetry: The Last Bestiary

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Huffington Post: The Friday Poem: The Friday Poem Special: T.S. Eliot Prize Preview

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Morning Star: Well Versed: Protest

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The New Yorker: Leonard Cohen: "Going Home"

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The Oregonian: Poetry: 'On Wanting to Tell about a Girl Eating Fish Eyes,' by Mary Szybist

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PBS: Newshour: Weekly Poem: 'Root'

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Portsmouth Herald News: Random Acts of Poetry: Remember?

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San Antonio Express-News: Poem: 'Have You Seen Peach?'

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Slate: "New Economy"--By Joshua Rivkin

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The Times Literary Supplement: Poem of the Week: Invitation to a Resurrection

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The Daily Star: Razia Khan Amin: teacher, poet, novelist

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The Irish Times: Poet Pearse Hutchinson dies

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iVillage: Wes Bentley: I Still Grieve for My Pal & Fellow Poet Heath Ledger

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Kashmir Life: Lal ud din Mazloom

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Chicago Tribune: Marshall Rosenthal, 1940-2012

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The Aspen Times: Poetry-letter writer dies at 93

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The Washington Post: Eleanor Ross Taylor, poet of women's lives in the South, dies at 91

Blog Entry Tape:

ragline

The Guardian: John Burnside wins most controversial T.S. Eliot prize in decades

ragline

The Telegraph: John Burnside: How poetry can change lives

ragline

The Guardian: Guardian books podcast: John Burnside wins T.S. Eliot poetry prize

ragline

London Review of Books: Two Poems: John Burnside

ragline

Granta: Interview: John Burnside

ragline

St. Louis Dispatch: A Look Back: Poet T.S. Eliot visits his home town in 1933

ragline

St. Louis Dispatch: Native poet Quincy Troupe thanks St. Louis friends in new collection, Erancities

ragline

The Ubyssey: In conversation with Fred Wah, the new poet laureate of Canada

ragline

Russia Beyond the Headlines: Pushkin Hills: The great poet's country retreat

ragline

Spectator: Simon Armitage interview: Ancient enmities

ragline

The Telegraph: The Death of King Arthur by Simon Armitage: review

ragline

The Guardian: Ezra Pound's daughter fights to wrest the renegade poet's legacy from fascists

ragline

The Associated Press: Suspicions rise in Pablo Neruda's death

ragline

Chicago Tribune: Chinese dissident to stand trial for poem

ragline

The Epoch Times: Du Fu: Poetry Wrought from Hardship

ragline

The Guardian: In theory: the death of literature

ragline

The Washington Post: Is poetry dead? Or, in the age of the Internet, does it offer us what nothing else can?

ragline

David Biespiel: The Oregonian: W.S. Di Piero's 'Only in Things'

ragline

Judith Fitzgerald: The Globe and Mail: In Other Words: N-Joie! An exclusive winter's poem from our west coast

ragline

Garrison Keillor: The Writer's Almanac: The Bloody Mary by Susan Donnelly

ragline

Garrison Keillor: The Writer's Almanac: The Fight by Gregory Djanikian

ragline

Garrison Keillor: The Writer's Almanac: Hitchhikers by Charles Simic

ragline

Garrison Keillor: The Writer's Almanac: Kiss by Marcus Jackson

ragline

Garrison Keillor: The Writer's Almanac: New Year's by Dana Gioia

ragline

Garrison Keillor: The Writer's Almanac: Polly Perkins by Harry Clifton

ragline

Garrison Keillor: The Writer's Almanac: To Marina (excerpt) by Kenneth Koch

ragline

Ted Kooser: American Life in Poetry: Column 356

ragline

Wesley McNair: The Portland Press Herald: Take Heart: A Conversation in Poetry

ragline

Carol Rumens: The Guardian: Poem of the week: Philosophy by Amy Levy

ragline

Katherine Schulten: The New York Times: Poetry Pairing: 'January'

ragline

Frank Wilson: When Falls the Coliseum: That's What He Said: The presumption that we are not alone

ragline

CounterPunch: Poets' Basement: Three by Max Hjortsberg

ragline

Forward: The Arty Semite: Laurie Patton's Poetry and Hermeneutics

ragline

The Guardian: The Saturday poem: He Stands So Still and Waits

ragline

Guernica: Poetry: Bamboo Grove and A Place Named for Deer

ragline

Guernica: Poetry: The Last Bestiary

ragline

Huffington Post: The Friday Poem: The Friday Poem Special: T.S. Eliot Prize Preview

ragline

Morning Star: Well Versed: Protest

ragline

The New Yorker: Leonard Cohen: "Going Home"

ragline

The Oregonian: Poetry: 'On Wanting to Tell about a Girl Eating Fish Eyes,' by Mary Szybist

ragline

PBS: Newshour: Weekly Poem: 'Root'

ragline

Portsmouth Herald News: Random Acts of Poetry: Remember?

ragline

San Antonio Express-News: Poem: 'Have You Seen Peach?'

ragline

Slate: "New Economy"--By Joshua Rivkin

ragline

The Times Literary Supplement: Poem of the Week: Invitation to a Resurrection

ragline

The Daily Star: Razia Khan Amin: teacher, poet, novelist

ragline

The Irish Times: Poet Pearse Hutchinson dies

ragline

iVillage: Wes Bentley: I Still Grieve for My Pal & Fellow Poet Heath Ledger

ragline

Kashmir Life: Lal ud din Mazloom

ragline

Chicago Tribune: Marshall Rosenthal, 1940-2012

ragline

The Aspen Times: Poetry-letter writer dies at 93

ragline

The Washington Post: Eleanor Ross Taylor, poet of women's lives in the South, dies at 91

January 17th forum announcement

2012-01-17T17:33:00.006-05:00

Dear Poetry Aficionados,

Poetry & Poets in Rags blog

We begin with John Burnside winning the T.S. Eliot Prize. The Huffington Post, a Great Regular now with its Friday Poem, goes poetically over board and brings us a poem from each of the finalists in that contest. Our second story in News at Eleven is about T.S. Eliot returning to St. Louis, which is followed by an article about native St. Louis poet Quincy Troupe. We then go north for an article on Fred Wah, Canada's poet laureate, and then to Pushkin Hills for an article on Pushkin, before returning to Great Britain, but this time in the days of King Arthur. And this sampling is just the beginning of our journey around the poetry globe this week, which includes translations of Du Fu one up from our Back Page, and Wang Wei in Great Regulars, from Guernica.

I'll let you get to your reading. Thanks for clicking in.

Yours,
Rus

Our links:

IBPC: Poetry & Poets in Rags

Poetry & Poets in Rags blog

IBPC Home

~~~~~~~~~~~

News at Eleven: The Scottish poet John Burnside has won

2012-01-17T16:24:00.002-05:00

the most controversial T.S. Eliot poetry prize in years, for a collection described as "haunting", after two of the original shortlisted poets dropped out in protest over funding from the hedge fund Aurum.

Burnside, a former winner of the Whitbread poetry prize, took the £15,000 prize for his 11th collection, Black Cat Bone. He beat a notably strong surviving list, including the poet laureate, Carol Ann Duffy; Sean O'Brien, for his first collection since winning both the T.S. Eliot and the Forward prizes in 2008; and David Harsent, also a previous Forward winner.

from The Guardian: John Burnside wins most controversial T.S. Eliot prize in decades
then The Telegraph: John Burnside: How poetry can change lives
then The Guardian: Guardian books podcast: John Burnside wins T.S. Eliot poetry prize
then London Review of Books: Two Poems: John Burnside
then Granta: Interview: John Burnside

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News at Eleven: [T.S. Eliot] returned in 1933 to

2012-01-17T16:23:00.004-05:00

lecture on William Shakespeare at Washington University. Because Eliot was a famous poet and critic, local reporters jotted down his every public utterance. Eliot said he was surprised by growth west of Forest Park, but otherwise recognized his home town.

"It is bigger and all that sort of thing, but it is still the St. Louis I knew," Eliot said in his developed British accent.

He said he never moved back from London "because I had a job there, so I stayed."

from St. Louis Dispatch: A Look Back: Poet T.S. Eliot visits his home town in 1933

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News at Eleven: In a lengthy dedication, he name-checks

2012-01-17T16:23:00.002-05:00

no fewer than eight African-American men from the St. Louis region: the musicians Miles Davis, Hamiet Bluiett and Kelvyn Bell; the poets K. Curtis Lyle and Eugene B. Redmond; the artist Oliver Jackson; his cousin Donald Troupe; and his friend Donald M. Suggs, publisher of The St. Louis American.

"In this particular book, I really wanted to thank the people who really have supported me over the years," Troupe said.

from St. Louis Dispatch: Native poet Quincy Troupe thanks St. Louis friends in new collection, Erancities

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News at Eleven: [Fred] Wah is tasked with representing

2012-01-17T16:22:00.002-05:00

Canadian literature by a government that has made significant cuts to the arts. He admitted that "in regards to this particular government--much of which I disagree with ideologically--is that I have to find a way to work that ideology. But that's no different from the parliamentarians on the hill who represent different ideas.

"Each of us comes from a specific constituency of opinion and imagination and I think mine is pretty easy to pin down. I don't know quite yet how I'm going to negotiate it, but I find it intriguing."

from The Ubyssey: In conversation with Fred Wah, the new poet laureate of Canada

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News at Eleven: The matriarch was enamored of [Alexander] Pushkin,

2012-01-17T16:21:00.004-05:00

and he was pleasantly spoiled during his visits to their house. But the poet's attentions were directed to [Praskovya] Osipova's niece, Anna Petrovna Kern, who visited Trigorskoye in the summer of 1825. Pushkin had met Kern previously in St. Petersburg, and this unexpected reacquaintance stimulated his desire. He wrote for her one of his most passionate love lyrics: "I remember the miraculous moment." When Osipova got wind of this romance, she spirited Kern back to her husband in Riga.

from Russia Beyond the Headlines: Pushkin Hills: The great poet's country retreat

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News at Eleven: Britain's awkward relationship with

2012-01-17T16:21:00.002-05:00

the continent is just one parallel with the present. [Simon] Armitage says, "I didn't realise, until I started translating it, that so many parallels come across. There is one scene where the British kill the king of Libya, who had been on a really murderous spree. And there is the whole business of England's very complicated relationship with the rest of the British Isles, which is something that has come up again recently. Also, there is the religious conflict, which seems to lurk at the back of this poem, with an early form of Protestantism being pursued against Rome."

from Spectator: Simon Armitage interview: Ancient enmities
then The Telegraph: The Death of King Arthur by Simon Armitage: review

~~~~~~~~~~~