News at Eleven: In 1926, in a letter to the editor

of Poetry, Harriet Monroe, replying to her complaints about obscurity in his poem "At Melville's Tomb," [Hart] Crane set down his defense of his poetry and offered one of his most detailed and useful explanations of what his lines actually meant, while making it clear that their meaning, while concrete and direct, was a dull business indeed compared to what we might call their force. The first stanza reads:

Often beneath the wave, wide from this ledge
The dice of drowned men's bones he saw bequeath
An embassy. Their numbers as he watched,
Beat on the dusty shore and were obscured.

"Take me for a hard-boiled unimaginative unpoetic reader, and tell me how dice can bequeath an embassy (or anything else)," Monroe wrote.

from The New York Review of Books: A Great American Visionary

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News at Eleven: Shi Tao's case will be one

of several highlighted in Glasgow next week when the Scottish centre of PEN hosts a conference that will discuss the plight of writers who are languishing in prison cells all over the world. Delegates from four continents will be attending. The sessions will be private, apart from one public session that will be aimed at informing young people about the importance of freedom of expression and the threats to it worldwide.

from The Herald: If only all writers could speak out like MacDiarmid

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News at Eleven: "They say art transcends all borders,"

Ms. Son [Ho-yun] wrote when some of her poetry was translated into Korean in 2002. "But I was mired in despondency because the path I chose was blocked by a border.

"Almost every day, I have lived with doubt, wondering, should I continue?"

Once, a Korean editor who was invited to speak at one of her book parties humiliated Ms. Son by reproaching her for writing Japanese poetry.

from The New York Times: Japanese Poetry Persists in Korea, Despite Disapproval

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News at Eleven: Poetry, she [Patricia Smith] writes,

became Nicole's "scream," a way to "build her mother again" with words. She challenges all poets, all people, to remember the Nicoles of this world, to remember that they are empty vessels "waiting to be filled."

from Star Tribune: Patricia Smith: A slam poet with punch
also Insight News: Powerhouse poet Patricia Smith's gift is genius

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News at Eleven: The only person to record his response

to this was the book's unwilling dedicatee, Robert Frost, who wrote privately to Louis Untermeyer of his disgust and perplexity:

You won't take it as an infringement of the liberty of the press if I ask you not to connect me with the book any more than you have to in your reviewing and lecturing. Don't you find the contemplation of their kind of collusion emasculating? I am chilled to the marrow, as in the actual presence of some foul form of death where none of me can function, not even my habitual interest in versification.

from The Guardian: Lightning from skies

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News at Eleven (Back Page): Through the narrative of his ailing dogs'

last days, [Mark] Doty explores the different textures of hope and denial, despair and depression. "Despair is, in a way, an appropriate response to the world," he reflects. "Life without an element of despair would seem an empty enterprise, a shallow little song-and-dance on the surface of experience." Without it, he wonders, "might we just float away?"

from The Guardian: A man's best friends

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Great Regulars: It happened at about about 8:50

in the morning, so powerful and frightening, that no one had ever witnessed anything like it before. Our houses were destroyed and most of our dear relatives died. Some were buried under their own roofs, while some were crushed by the crumbling mountains. We were waiting for death to come and catch us. We were certain we would not survive, the earthquake was so intense.

from Fatima Bhutto: CNN: TalkAsia: Waiting for Death
also Fatima Bhutto: CNN: TalkAsia: The Bhutto Assassination
also Fatima Bhutto: CNN: TalkAsia: To Keep Surviving

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Great Regulars: By the time we reach the final page,

Mandeville's weariness and the weight of his experiences have transformed what began as a didactic assertion into an exhausted exhalation, almost a plea. Meaning and words are linked but not fused, as our poet [Matthew Francis] knows but his subject does not; poetry lives in the gaps between them, and truth does too, even if Mandeville himself doesn't realise it.

from Sarah Crown: The Guardian: The banana of God

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Great Regulars: Gathering titles for this story,

though, I kept coming across interesting offerings from the smaller outfits (Minnesota's Milkweed Editions and Graywolf Press, university publishers and Missouri's own Unbridled Press, whose editorial offices are in Columbia), the kind of presses who get it all done with perhaps a dozen people instead of hundreds.

So here are some spring titles from independents and the New York giants. Unless indicated, titles are available now.

from John Mark Eberhart: The Kansas City Star: Smaller companies are flowering with new voices, new books

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Poem in October
After Dylan Thomas
By Andrea Hollander Budy

from John Mark Eberhart: Parachute: Andrea Hollander Budy

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Whispered Into a Statue's Ear
By Sarah E. Colona

from John Mark Eberhart: Parachute: Listen

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Out like a lion
. . . in the wind

By Larry Schilb

from John Mark Eberhart: Parachute: Out like a lion

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An Etymology of Soft
By Timothy Allen Pettet

from John Mark Eberhart: Parachute: Softly, softly . . .

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A Sonnet for Simon
By Evan Fleischer

from John Mark Eberhart: Parachute: Unrhymin' Simon

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Great Regulars: [Patricia Lochridge Hartwell] saw the liberation

of Dachau in 1945. It must have been soon after this that she was offered by the American forces one of the paintings they had found in various Nazi caches. She chose the Cranach and was able to take it home with her to the States.

When this story was published in 2006, it was guessed that the painting could have come from Hermann Goering's collection.

from James Fenton: The Guardian: Purloined pictures

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Great Regulars: Occasionally, a barrage of reviews

of a new book just makes me weary--oh, you again, I think. Surely this is partly why writers like John Updike and Philip Roth or Joyce Carol Oates, who publish frequently on such a high level and get many reviews, land in bookstores with such comet tails of chattering class irritation. They deny us the opportunity to talk about something--or someone--new.

from John Freeman: The Guardian: theblogbooks: Has reading about books replaced the real thing?

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Great Regulars: For example, the Pandus represent

spiritual qualities, and the Kurus represent evil qualities.

Within each human being, the good and evil qualities battle for ascendance. The purpose of holy scripture is to offer the human being a method for learning to enhance the good and eliminate the bad, in order to regain the paradise of the soul.

from Linda Sue Grimes: Suite101.com: Paramahansa Yogananda's Gita

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The artist/poet must still acknowledge that his body or animal carries that burden that results from the soul's duty to itself. While the body becomes "tired with [ ] woe," the soul spurs it on, and the individual who is the result of this composite soul and body must balance the weight of each: the physical weight that weakens and ages and the spiritual weight (more accurately "presence") that does neither.

from Linda Sue Grimes: Suite101.com: Shakespeare Sonnet 50

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About the poem, Wordsworth has explained: "The last stanza--'The Cocks did crow to-whoo, to-whoo, And the sun did shine so cold'--was the foundation of the whole. The words were reported to me by my dear friend, Thomas Poole; but I have since heard the same repeated of other Idiots. Let me add that this long poem was composed in the groves of Alfoxden, almost extempore; not a word, I believe, being corrected, though one stanza was omitted. I mention this in gratitude to those happy moments, for, in truth, I never wrote anything with so much glee."

from Linda Sue Grimes: Suite101.com: Wordsworth's 'The Idiot Boy'

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(New to) Great Regulars: The state media's portrayal

of the recent events in Tibet, using deceit and distorted images, could sow the seeds of racial tension with unpredictable long-term consequences. This is of grave concern to me. Similarly, despite my repeated support for the Beijing Olympics, the Chinese authorities, with the intention of creating a rift between the Chinese people and myself, the Chinese authorities assert that I am trying to sabotage the games.

from Tenzin Gyatso: The Office of His Holiness the 14th Dalai Lama: An Appeal to the Chinese People

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Great Regulars: Death may be an inevitable passing

of what we were while alive, but it doesn't mean that death can govern us when we are dead.

The universality of our physical existence is the emphasis when the poet says "Dead men naked they shall be one"--we are returned to our block humanity once we have eschewed our individuality through lack of a heartbeat.

from Frieda Hughes: The Times: Monday Poem: Peace everlasting

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Great Regulars: How small this poem is, for [Louise] Gluck

never wastes the reader's time. In Proofs and Theories, her book of essays on poetry, she explains, "I do not think that more information always makes a richer poem. I am attracted to ellipsis, to the unsaid, to suggestion. . . ." The way mere ruins of the Coliseum evoke lost grandeur more than a newly articulated structure, or the way a few strokes from Picasso conjure a whole guitar, so Gluck's plain speech makes maximum impact in smallest space.

from Mary Karr: The Washington Post: Poet's Choice: Louise Gluck--Exacting Beauty

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Great Regulars: Poem: "Assignment #1:

Write a poem about Baseball and God" by Philip E. Burnham, Jr. from Housekeeping: Poems Out of the Ordinary.

from Garrison Keillor: The Writer's Almanac: For the week of March 31st, 2008

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Great Regulars: From your school days you may

remember A. E. Housman's poem that begins, "Loveliest of trees, the cherry now/ Is hung with bloom along the bough." Here's a look at a blossoming cherry, done 120 years later, on site among the famous cherry trees of Washington, by D.C. poet Judith Harris.

In Your Absence

from Ted Kooser: American Life in Poetry: Column 157

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Great Regulars: [Robert Fagles] is one of very few

translators to have taken on all three of the great classical epics--something that not even Pope attempted--and all three have sold millions of copies, both in print and in audio versions narrated by Derek Jacobi, Ian McKellen and Simon Callow.

Their success was due largely to Mr. Fagles's gifts as a writer.

from Charles McGrath: The New York Times: Robert Fagles, Translator of the Classics, Dies at 74

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Great Regulars: I believe that the philosopher's stone

will be revealed to those who are sincere.

All the central government has to do is sit down with the Dalai Lama and talk to him; to show a little wisdom, and with vision and determination, the Lhasa incident can be resolved in an appropriate manner.

from Luisetta Mudie: Radio Free Asia: Bao Tong: Talk To The Dalai Lama

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Great Regulars: The poet [Mary Jo Bang] doubts

the redemptive power of her own gift while simultaneously using it to find a tone that--in the final line--wavers perfectly between her contempt for consolation and her desire for it. The achievement of art shows the limitation of art, and vice versa. This is the great strength of "Elegy." No one will ever bring back the dead by writing poetry; indeed, the only certain result of writing a poem is the poem itself.

from David Orr: The New York Times: In Memoriam

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(New to) Great Regulars: The poet, who died in 1894,

was born in Cambridge, Massachusetts, in 1809, thus sharing a birth-year with Alfred Tennyson and Edgar Allen Poe. He was a descendant of Anne Bradstreet, the first published American woman poet, and Dorothy Q. was his great grandmother, Dorothy Quincy. He was one of the so-called "Fireside Poets", a group that included Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, John Greenleaf Whittier and James Russell Lowell (do those tripartite names indicate a shared tendency to serious ancestry?)

from Carol Rumens: The Guardian: theblogbooks: Poem of the week

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Great Regulars: [Professor K Swaminathan] loathed lapses

from men's standards. He was impatient with any lack of perfection, whether the lack was in his own self or the world.

I am giving below some samples of his translations which speak for themselves with sublime beauty, passion and power:

from V Sundaram: News Today: An apostle of Tamil scientific writings-II

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Great Regulars: Still, there is nothing

in these pages anywhere near as implausible as what occurs routinely in works of magical realism. What is hard to deal with--though necessary to depict--is the sheer gruesomeness of many episodes.

For Josip, poetry is tantamount to prayer and his practice of it a kind of sainthood--in Eliot's phrase, "A condition of complete simplicity/(Costing not less than everything)."

from Frank Wilson: Philadelphia Inquirer: One man's faith survives brutal trials

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Great Regulars: The opening poem in the book,

"Transcendental Hunger" [by David Allen Sullivan] marks a theme throughout the collection. A line from the poem, "Signatures of the invisible," is a phrase that urges us to respond to those simple, forgettable beauties that we see each day and tend to them until we learn what’s happening and find the deeper lesson within life. Here is "Transcendental Hunger" in full:

from Good Times Weekly: Poetry Corner: Poetic Justice

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Editor's note: This week's Poetry Corner features the work of Ric Masten. He has been called a stand-up poet, a serious humorist, an after-dinner philosopher and a motivational lyricist. He has made numerous presentations of his poetry and songs to groups including the White House Conference on Children, the NEA, the Rotary Club of Denver, and the Department of Justice Bureau of Prisons. He has been battling prostate cancer for nearly 10 years and recently brain tumors were discovered.

from Good Times Weekly: Poetry Corner: Poetry by Ric Masten

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Great Regulars: Subject to Limitation

by Stephen Romer

from The Guardian: The Saturday poem: Subject to Limitation by Stephen Romer

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Great Regulars: by Monica Youn

Ignatz Oasis

from Guernica: Poetry: Three Poems

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Great Regulars: The Diener

by Martha Serpas

from The New Yorker: Poetry: The Diener



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Integer
by Rae Armantrout

from The New Yorker: Poetry: Integer


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Great Regulars: By John P. Baxter

True Friends

from The Philadelphia Inquirer: Your Poem: [by John P. Baxter]




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By Amy Eichling
Ode to Sunny Saturdays

from The Philadelphia Inquirer: Your Poem: [by Amy Eichling]

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Great Regulars: [by Janice B. Mulcahey]

Clear

from Portsmouth Herald News: Poem: Clear

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Great Regulars: In Slate, Sea and Sky (Luath, £15),

Norman Bissell takes us on a meditative journey from Glasgow to the Isle of Luing. The evocative sense of place in his poems is beautifully complemented by stunning photographs by Oscar Marzaroli.

Sounds

from The Scotsman: Poem of the Week: Norman Bissell

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Great Regulars: "Oh Blessed Season"

By Chris Forhan

from Slate: "Oh Blessed Season" --By Chris Forhan

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Great Regulars: by Boris Karloff

Mastermind

from Zeek: Yiddish Poems by Boris Karloff

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Poetic Obituaries: [Hugo Claus] aimed to shock,

writing explicitly about incest, homosexuality and masturbation, and featuring nudity on stage. On one occasion a Belgian law court found one of his theatrical productions injurious to public morals and sentenced him to four months in prison.

from Telegraph: Hugo Claus

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Poetic Obituaries: [Paul Allen "Al"] was a published poet

and columnist, his poetry most recently published in The Comstock Review. His column "The Old Curmudgeon" was read in The Courier and Hurricane Breeze newspapers.

He also was the main writer, editor and publisher of "Gnomenclature," a privately published magazine that reflected his eclectic style and views of life, all written with his piercing and pointed wit.

from The Ypsilanti Courier: Former columnist for Courier dies at 58

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Poetic Obituaries: Former New Zealand Poetry Society

president Nelson Wattie said on [Ruth] Dallas' appointment as a society patron in 2000, that she was "one of the finest poets in this country" but one "whose modesty and concentration on her immediate locality sometimes leads to her being overlooked".

from TV3: Southern poet Ruth Dallas one of New Zealand's most prolific regional writers

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Poetic Obituaries: For a time, he [Jules Dassin] wrote plays

and poems, finally landing a low-budget project based on an August le Breton thriller. "Rififi" was a sensation in Europe and was popular in the U.S., where it was released by the United Motion Picture Organization in 1956. The film's 35-minute wordless robbery sequence became a classic.

from Variety: Director Jules Dassin dies at 96

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Poetic Obituaries: C.K. Williams, lecturer with the rank

of professor in creative writing and the Lewis Center for the Arts, added, "Robert Fagles was the most widely read and widely celebrated poet translator of his time, indeed of any time. He was also the kindest, most generous, most loving person I've ever met, and I don't believe these facts are unrelated. His work is radiant with a love of poetry, of language, of people, of the entire human experience. There was no one like him."

from News at Princeton: Robert Fagles, celebrated translator of ancient epics, dies at age 74

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Poetic Obituaries: Bert [Hogman] was happiest when

he was surrounded by family and friends and enjoyed telling stories and reciting poetry. He entertained many around a campfire with The Cremation of Sam McGee or The Shooting of Dan McGrew.

from Williams Lake Tribune: Bert Hogman remembered by loving family

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Poetic Obituaries: Kadammanitta shot into prominence

with his style of reciting his own poems in a powerful manner, endearing himself to many progressives.

His childhood experiences, especially the Patayani songs, influenced his literary works strongly. With his thought provoking poems, he became one of the voices of rebellion in modern Malayalam literature.

from Thaindian News: Malayalam poet Kadammanitta passes away

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Poetic Obituaries: For many years--decades--she [Maureen Kenny]

was an essential part of Kenny's Bookshop, sitting behind her desk and dealing with the customers, always eager to talk about books with anyone who came by.

I remember going into Kenny's to buy John O'Donoghue's first collection of poems Echoes Of Memory in 1994. I went to the counter and as soon as Mrs Kenny saw it she exclaimed "A treat in store! A treat in store!"

from Galway Advertiser: Maureen Kenny--the doyenne of Galway booksellers passes away

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Poetic Obituaries: [Sophie Lancaster] was aiming to achieve

an English degree and fulfil her dreams of working with children or a career in journalism.

"Sophie wrote poems from being very young. She used to write books and would also spend hours on her computer writing," Ms Lancaster said.

from Manchester Evening News: Sophie--always individual

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Poetic Obituaries: Mr. [John A.] Moberly grew roses,

was a Philadelphia sports fan, and wrote short stories and poems. He also acted in community theater.

from The Philadelphia Inquirer: John Albert Moberly: Chemical engineer, 89

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Poetic Obituaries: "In happier times he [Stephen Pinker]

wrote this poem for me and it sums up how we felt about each other: I dreamt of being happy, content and never blue. And now my dreams are real and it's all because of you.'

from Oxford Mail: Fiancee's tribute to stabbing victim

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Poetic Obituaries: Throughout his career, [Hal] Riney

maintained a prickly, curmudgeonly presence that to some seemed at odds with his celebrations of American openness and innocence. But in his private life, he was a doting father who wrote and illustrated hundreds of unabashedly sentimental letters to his children. One of these included a poem explaining that the Easter Bunny was actually a lawyer for a special interest group who, once a year, assuaged his guilt by distributing candy.

from Adweek: Ad Legend Hal Riney Dies at 75

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Poetic Obituaries: Besides writing plays and assisting

her husband, she [Joy H. Rose] published four books of poetry; cofounded Temenos, a Media theater company; ran unsuccessfully for Media Borough Council; and led the opposition to a local mercantile tax.

She frequently contributed to newspaper letters-to-the-editor columns and marched in protests against wars from Vietnam to Iraq, her daughter Linda Hallowell said.

from The Philadelphia Inquirer: Joy Hurshman Rose: Playwright, 80

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Poetic Obituaries: [John] Slatin worked with the University

in some capacity for nearly 30 years. He started his career in 1979 as a poetry professor.

He was the founder and director of the Accessibility Institute at UT, which helped the University make 45 percent of its top 407 Web pages disability friendly, according to the institute's Web site. After he was diagnosed with the hereditary condition retinitis pigmentosa, he became fully blind by the late 1970s.

from The Daily Texan: Slatin made Web pages accessible

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Poetic Obituaries: Students have posted poems

and pictures of Keith [Traudt] on their lockers at Heartland High.

Teachers say he was a fun student and enjoyed writing cowboy poetry.

from KHAS-TV: Community mourns loss of Henderson teen

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Poetic Obituaries: Despite numerous awards and honorary degrees

including a Guggenheim, numerous National Endowment Fellowships, and a Longview Foundation Grant, [Jonathan] Williams was never sufficiently acknowledged for his achievements as a poet or prose stylist by the writing establishment, nor for his press's generosity toward artists from all walks of life.

from Smoky Mountain News: Jonathan Williams: 1929-2008

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Poetic Obituaries: [Joan V. Wyrauch-Kelly] was a strong-willed

and spiritual woman who was kind and loving and enjoyed dancing, singing, old music, telling stories of her youth, cooking and baking and arts and crafts. She also was a good adviser, a prankster, wrote poetry and collected angels, lighthouses and anything Irish.

from Bucks County Courier Times: Joan V. Wyrauch-Kelly, was one of 21 children

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