Poetry & Poets in Rags

BBC has created a remarkable reporters' memorial, out of respect for all our slain journalists. I will let you discover what this commemoration entails, but will note here that James Fenton, a poet and former war correspondent, was commissioned to write a poem for this event. We can watch the video of this from our headlining entry in News at Eleven, and read the poem in James Fenton's spot in our Great Regulars section. But we can also read in Poetic Obituaries of the poet and one of the murdered BBC reporters prompting this event, Abdul Samad Rohani.

Our News at Eleven section is filled with penetrating discussions of poets and poetry, and much of this has to do with our ears for poetry, whether we don't understand what a poet is doing, and so falsely convict her, or whether someone has an ear at all for writing poetry; but we also look at what some superb poets either listen for or conceptualize. There's more to this week's first section than that abstract, of course; for instance a couple stories look at places where poetic creativity is catching on.

In Great Regulars, we have the final article from Frieda Hughes at The Times. Once a Great Regular, always one, so I will continue to look for her articles online for you, wherever they may be.

Lots more in Great Regulars. Father's Day is celebrated by Fleda Brown, Mary Karr, E. Ethelbert Miller, Carol Rumens, and by the young poets of The Philadelphia Inquirer's "Your Poems" series.

Also, both Bob Hoover and Frank Wilson take a look at the great American poet Mark Doty.

Yours,
Rus

Our links:

IBPC: Poetry & Poets in Rags

Poetry & Poets in Rags blog

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Rus Bowden · at 7:28 PM

to the risks taken by many journalists [such as Abdul Rohani and Nasteh Dahir Faraah] in the course of their work.

He said: "The implicit contract, whereby journalists place their lives at risk to help us understand the world and its events better, needs to be reaffirmed.

"At moments like this that sacrifice is properly valued and the loss is widely shared."

The sculpture, entitled Breathing, is by Spanish artist Jaume Plensa.

It was specially commissioned and selected as a result of an international competition for the BBC's public art scheme.

The BBC also commissioned a poem to complement the structure by ex-war correspondent and poet, James Fenton.

from BBC News: Killed reporters' memorial opens
also BBC News: Poem for murdered journalists
also BBC News: Reporters' memorial in full

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Rus Bowden · at 7:27 PM

the role of the diva. The 19th-century diva had quite a lot of influence and they loved those dying scenes--they were very popular with the public and you got to show your stuff as a singer. Composers could be very interactive with their female singers, so there was some of: I want to die in the end; write that. Men often get blamed for killing off all these women, but, well, talk about collaboration.

from The Prague Post: First writer

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Rus Bowden · at 7:27 PM

was convicted under section 58 of the Terrorism Act in November last year after she wrote poems celebrating the beheading of non-Muslims.

Today, she won an appeal against her conviction for collecting personal information likely to be useful to a person committing or preparing an act of terrorism.

The lord chief justice, Lord Phillips, sitting in the court of appeal with Justice Goldring and Justice Plender, quashed the conviction after the Crown Prosecution Service (CPS) conceded it was unsafe.

from The Guardian: 'Lyrical terrorist' has conviction quashed

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Rus Bowden · at 7:26 PM

is not often played up as an important tool for affecting change, but [Iman] Bakry believes that real poetry has the ability to change hearts and minds, to "wake up" those who are too busy with their lives to take note of important changes around them. "Poetry is a talent from Allah," she explains, "and if a person can utilize it to the benefit of his community and country and translate feelings [into actions] then it as important as all other arts. Poetry is your language. It is the closest art to your hearts. It is the only art that was born before music, it is the first language on earth."

from Egypt Today: The Devil of Poetry

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Rus Bowden · at 7:25 PM

from off-stage, promptings, triggers, intimations of something near and distant and--since poetry is an art of analogy, and thus an art of integration--finally connected to you, right to your skin. Jorie Graham lists the desired chain of links, the platonic ideal of oneness, and the necessary shortfall, when she writes, in "The Age of Reason": "For what we want/to take/inside of us, whole orchard,/color,/name, scent, symbol, raw/pale//blossoms, wet black/arms there is/no deep enough." A poem is an attempt to experience. It's a form of compensation for having just the one life.

from The Guardian: Words of mouth: Nick Laird on the physicality of language

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Rus Bowden · at 7:24 PM

an actor although (perhaps understandably) his services were seldom in demand. On one occasion, he paid the Director of a theatre to be allowed to play the title role in Macbeth. McGonagall persuaded sufficient friends and acquaintances to attend the play as to avoid a financial disaster. But it was not an artistic triumph; at the end, when Macduff should kill Macbeth, McGonagall became convinced that the actor playing Macduff was deliberately trying to upstage him, and he refused to die.

from National Post: Ian Hunter on William Topaz McGonagall, the world's worst poet

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Rus Bowden · at 7:23 PM

as an eye chart. "A big E that everyone can see. As you read down, you get to some part of illegibility. (The poem) makes no demands at first, making a few statements that are inarguably true--sitting there looking at a hibiscus--but by the middle and toward the end, we've drifted into much more mysterious and complex and tricky waters.

from UALR Public Radio: Poet Keeps It Simple--Sort Of

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Rus Bowden · at 7:22 PM

are in no way all homages; still less are they imitations or pastiches. But they are all indebted in some way to Thomas. Where appropriate, the relevant Thomas poem is printed alongside its modern descendant. So Heaney's "Edward Thomas on the Lagans Road" appears next to "As the team's head-brass . . .", off which it plays.

from The Guardian: A pure thrush word

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Rus Bowden · at 7:22 PM

Marjorie Perloff, noted American critique of avant-garde strains of poetry such as language poetry, argued in favor of these new non-referential, material forms of poetry. All these strains of poetry, Perloff said, share a concomitant commitment to innovative technology, a questioning of the politics of mark making, the pluralizing of language and the problematizing of the self as a vehicle of expression. As such, poems such as "Lighght" become more important--they don't just "express" an idea but actually embody it, thus expanding the horizons of poetry and making language palpable.

from The Daily Utah Chronicle: The 'lighght' of conceptual poetry
also The University of Arizona Poetry Center: Conceptual Poetry and Its Others

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Rus Bowden · at 7:21 PM

of the poem [Colleen] Michaels was commissioned to create for the Trustees, and its spray-painted stanzas are stencilled onto the risers on the two boardwalks to the beach, on the cedar shingles over the snack bar and bathhouses, and on the face of the arbor between them.

The project is the brainchild of Beverly resident Jim Younger, director of structural resources for the Trustees.

Younger attended a recent exhibit at Montserrat College of Art that used art to raise awareness about ecological sustainability.

from The Salem News: Poem on the Boardwalks Makes a New Kind of Beach Read

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Rus Bowden · at 7:20 PM

do not hail from the gritty urban surroundings that are often a breeding ground for slam poetry, where poets are judged on both performance and writing, their team is drawing national attention for its decidedly American Indian take on an art form that has grown increasingly popular with young people over the last decade.

from The New York Times: Young American Indians Find Their Voice in Poetry
also The New York Times: Three Poems

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Rus Bowden · at 6:21 PM

the R&J Book Club accounts for 26% of the sales of the top 100 books in the UK, and Amanda Ross, the club's creator and book selector, is the most powerful player in British publishing. Now, though, the club faces a crisis.

from Bryan Appleyard: The Sunday Times: How the Richard & Judy Book Club has shaken publishing

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Rus Bowden · at 6:20 PM

all the anguish and all the love combined. He's using the word "offices" in the religious sense, sacred responsibilities such as that of a vicar or priest. And they are "austere"--it's a plain and hard life here. Yet the father has done what he could.

[by Robert Hayden]

Those Winter Sundays

from Fleda Brown: Traverse City Record-Eagle: On Poetry: Non-Hallmark words for father

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Rus Bowden · at 6:19 PM

"Forget I said I'll leave you never"?

Richard Shelton: What would the normal word order be?

Prison Inmate: "I'll never leave you."

Richard Shelton: OK, "I'll never leave you." That would be the normal word order. Why did he invert it?

Prison Inmate: So it would rhyme.

from Jeffrey Brown: PBS: Newshour: Poetry Program Gives Prisoners Unexpected Voice

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Rus Bowden · at 6:18 PM

Nothing left now but 90-degree angles:

from John Mark Eberhart: Parachute: 'Ask the Ocean, Ask the Rocks, Ask the Dead'

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By John Mark Eberhart

based on Charles Dickens' short story, "The Signal-Man"

He's sitting there, one moonlight night,

from John Mark Eberhart: Parachute: 'Signaling'

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Rus Bowden · at 6:17 PM

We spoke, we chose to speak of war and strife--

from James Fenton: BBC News Broadcasting House: Memorial

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Rus Bowden · at 6:17 PM

and science are polar opposites, the message of the Gita, when accurately translated and interpreted as it is here by Paramahansa Yogananda, demonstrates that the two fields merge and create the way to God-realization: "the story [of the Bhagavad Gita] is the story of the soul's journey back to God." And according to all great spiritual leaders, that is "a journey each one must make."

from Linda Sue Grimes: Suite101.com: A Sacred Epic

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Rus Bowden · at 6:16 PM

and prose Friday, a little bit of both," [Mark] Doty said last week. After emerging as a prize-winning poet in the 1990s, he turned to prose because "I wanted a broader canvas for my writing," he explained.

"Poems can tend to focus on the specific, but I found that the memoir gives me little breathing space to tell stories, especially at that time when poems aren't coming."

from Bob Hoover: Pittsburgh Post-Gazette: Author Doty indulges passion for poetry, prose

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Rus Bowden · at 6:15 PM

of considering poetry: my own and one by Billy Collins, in which he describes the over-zealous analysis of a poem, which might finish it off altogether.

About a poem by Frieda Hughes

from Frieda Hughes: The Times: Monday Poem: The do's and don'ts of poetry

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Rus Bowden · at 6:15 PM

was online Tuesday, June 17 to discuss her Poet's Choice column, her best-selling 1995 memoir The Liars' Club, and the joys, seductions and struggles of the writing life.

Karr is the Jesse Truesdale Peck Professor of Literature at Syracuse University. She is the author of two memoirs, The Liars' Club and Cherry, and four volumes of poetry, most recently Sinners Welcome. She joined Book World as Poet's Choice columnist in March 2008.

A blessing from My Sixteen Years Son

from Mary Karr: The Washington Post: Book World: Poet's Choice: Poetry, Writing and 'The Liars' Club'

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Nearly 30 years after my daddy's death, I can still miss him with throat-clenching force. As a child, I shadowed him through pool halls, but--with time and alcohol--he eventually dwindled into a form that fit nowhere except on a barstool at the Veterans' Club. Maybe vets of that great generation created a distance inside them that distanced their kids, a sadness that's made for some great poems.

Edward Hirsch (who once squired this column into print) portrays a father who sold containers while himself containing mysteries.

from Mary Karr: The Washington Post: Poet's Choice

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Rus Bowden · at 6:14 PM

by John Greenleaf Whittier

from Garrison Keillor: The Writer's Almanac: The Barefoot Boy by John Greenleaf Whittier

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Chapter: Penelope
by James Joyce

from Garrison Keillor: The Writer's Almanac: Chapter: Penelope by James Joyce

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The Death Of Queen Jane
by Anonymous

from Garrison Keillor: The Writer's Almanac: The Death Of Queen Jane by Anonymous

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A Drinking Song
by William Butler Yeats

He Wishes for the Cloths of Heaven
by William Butler Yeats

Never give all the heart
by William Butler Yeats

from Garrison Keillor: The Writer's Almanac: A Drinking Song by William Butler Yeats

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The Old Man and the Motorcycle
by Liam Rector

Acrobat's Song
by Robert Lax

from Garrison Keillor: The Writer's Almanac: The Old Man and the Motorcycle by Liam Rector

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Rye Whisky
by Anonymous

from Garrison Keillor: The Writer's Almanac: Rye Whisky by Anonymous

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Song
by Edwin Denby

from Garrison Keillor: The Writer's Almanac: Song by Edwin Denby

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Rus Bowden · at 6:13 PM

in itself feel like a thing overheard. Here, Mary-Sherman Willis of Virginia describes the feeling of being stilled by conversation, in this case barely audible and nearly indecipherable.

The Laughter of Women

from Ted Kooser: American Life in Poetry: Column 168

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Rus Bowden · at 6:12 PM

in a serious way then you need to be aware of the long and honorable tradition of poems that celebrate the Earth's transcendental beauty and look back to a time of innocence. With that beauty now being threatened by pollution and climate change, there is an urgent need for nature poetry that inspires people to alter their behavior in order to protect the environment and prevent the meltdown of the planet.

An excellent model for poetry that examines our relationship to nature can be found in the work of contemporary poet Gary Snyder, a Zen Buddhist and former member of the San Francisco beat movement.

from Anthony Maulucci: Norwich Bulletin: Nature poetry requires understanding of its tradition

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Rus Bowden · at 6:11 PM

is the person who carried the boxes with the books. And so there is difference there in terms of a man who really used his hands to make a living and me being free to use my mind. You have a father sacrificing so that their son or daughter becomes a professional person. And so when you look at their hands, there is a difference. I have the paper cuts.

from E. Ethelbert Miller: NPR: Poet E. Ethelbert Miller on Fatherhood

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Rus Bowden · at 6:11 PM

himself had been a child who had lost a father. The bitter stoicism of the last couplet is conclusive testimony to his pain. When he describes the child of his "right hand" (a reference to the original meaning of the name, Benjamin) as his "best piece of poetry" (presumably, Jonson wrote with his right hand) we have no reason to find the moment bathetic, or too skilfully wrought for sincerity. And what greater tribute could a father-er of poems and poetic drama pay his human child?

XXII On My First Daughter

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

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Rus Bowden · at 6:10 PM

in a leather bar . . . held my right hand and stared down/into the contradictory fretwork . . . translating the lines in my palm, and he said . . . Sometimes you just have to make/a little faith."

Just the way those locusts "proceed as always," so "that fountaining canvas . . . spoke its green." Art, nature and human encounter turn out to be in the same key after all.

This easy transition from one thing to another that doesn't seem quite to fit but, in the end, proves to fit perfectly is characteristic of Doty's urbane and civilized verse.

from Frank Wilson: Pittsburgh Post-Gazette: Book Review: 'Fire to Fire: New and Selected Poems' by Mark Doty

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Like newspapers, publishers seem to think that what readers want is the endless re-packaging of what they've already had. No, they want something genuinely, perhaps along those lines, or something altogether different, or . . . who knows--but that's what they're supposed to find out, and that takes looking in places different from the ones you always look at, finding someone besides "the usual suspects." And of course that means taking some risks and maybe even backing a dark horse from time to time. [--Frank Wilson]

from Frank Wilson: Roses & Thorns: Frank Wilson, Retired Inquirer Book Editor: Interview by Nannette Croce

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Rus Bowden · at 6:08 PM

From a Window

from The Atlantic Monthly: Poetry: From a Window

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by Chelsea Rathburn

A Raft of Grief

from The Atlantic Monthly: Poetry: A Raft of Grief

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Rus Bowden · at 6:07 PM

by Wendy Cope

from The Guardian: The Saturday poem: Present by Wendy Cope

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Rus Bowden · at 6:06 PM

By Maryfrances Wagner

from The Kansas City Star: Between the Lines: 'The Last Shot' poem

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Rus Bowden · at 6:04 PM

by J. D. McClatchy

from The New Yorker: Poetry: A Frame

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Slow Drag Blues
by Kevin Young

from The New Yorker: Poetry: Slow Drag Blues

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Rus Bowden · at 5:53 PM

The Girl

from The Philadelphia Inquirer: Your Poem: [by Cami Bolling]

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By Kelsey Sawyer

Father's Day Poem for my Dad, Buzz

from The Philadelphia Inquirer: Your Poem: [by Kelsey Sawyer]

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By Casey Stewart

Dad

from The Philadelphia Inquirer: Your Poem: [by Casey Stewart]

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Rus Bowden · at 5:52 PM

Bits and Pieces

from Portsmouth Herald News: Poetry: Bits and Pieces

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Rus Bowden · at 5:51 PM

query as to the nature of human existence more than the human body that dies. In "A Century in the Garden" he remarks "what is the difference between entity and eternity." The nature of the self is an inverse riddle to that of God: "I am brief and a river," he writes, "somehow space and far away."

If the question of God is only one riddle of this book, it is a mirror to the riddle of spiritual hunger.

from Powells: Review-A-Day: The Fortieth Day (American Poets Continuum)

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Rus Bowden · at 5:50 PM

By Eamon Grennan

from Slate: "Watch" --By Eamon Grennan

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Rus Bowden · at 5:49 PM

Translated by Marilyn Hacker, June 12, 2008 [. . .]

Alive

from Zeek: Poems: "Alive" plus Mr. Nobody

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Rus Bowden · at 5:41 PM

during which he [Kalakeerthi Pandit Wimal Abhayasundara] had become a well-known literary figure in Sri Lanka, he had published about one hundred books, collections of poems, short stories and novels. Some of his books on poetry and prose have been translated into English, Yugoslavian, Chinese and Malay.

Wimal Abhayasundara started his career as a journalist and worked as a sub-editor on both daily and weekly newspapers.

from The Sunday Times Sri Lanka: A simple man with many a talent

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Rus Bowden · at 5:40 PM

and [William] Plumley later came to be known as the jet stream.

At Wisconsin, Bryson, who was also a published poet and a weaver, indulged his many scholarly interests and in doing so forged a model of interdisciplinary research that was decades ahead of a trend now firmly established in higher education.

"Now, interdisciplinary studies is almost like a mantra," explains Jonathan Martin, the current chair of the department Bryson founded.

from University of Wisconsin--Madison News: Pioneer of climatology dies at 88

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Rus Bowden · at 5:39 PM

who died late last night, Achala Sharma, Head of the BBC Hindi Service here told PTI "Kirti Chaudhary''s contribution to modern Hindi poetry is unique." "It was her refreshing style that led one of the stalwarts of modern Hindi literature Sachchidananda Vatsyayan Agyeya to include her poems in the much talked-about 'Teesra Saptak' published in 1960." She was the only woman among the seven selected poets in Agyeya's volume.

from MyNews: Prominent Hindi poetess Kirti Chaudhari passes away in London

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Rus Bowden · at 5:38 PM

87, of Park Ridge died June 3 in Advocate Lutheran General Hospital, Park Ridge.

He had been named the Poet Laureate of Park Ridge a number of years ago

from Park Ridge Herald-Advocate: Park Ridge Poet Laureate, educator James Iorio dies

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Rus Bowden · at 5:38 PM

of Living Lord Lutheran Church, the Duxbury Art Association and the Duxbury Yacht Club. She recently enjoyed taking classes at Florida Atlantic University. She loved music and playing her organ, art, poetry, crossword puzzles, and decorating her homes by the sea.

from Duxbury Clipper: Natalie Garland Larson, 82, DYC member

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Rus Bowden · at 5:37 PM

everything in her life revolved around him," said [Dana] Lyons' mom, Bonnie Norman.

Lyons was fond of beaches, especially Pine Island, and writing poetry. Originally from Virginia, Lyons arrived in Spring Hill four years ago.

from Hernando Today: 20-Year-Old Mother Killed In Crash

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Rus Bowden · at 5:36 PM

with his most celebrated work 'Keralam Valarunnu', penned in 1953 in ten volumes, absorbing the cultural vibrancy, spirit and hope of the masses who were then on the threshold of imbibing the concept of a unified state.

The masterpiece earned him the 'Mahakavi' title. He penned more than 5,000 poems, noted for their mellifluous flow and richness of the language, which have been compiled in about 45 collections.

from Newindpress.com: Mahakavi Pala dead

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Rus Bowden · at 5:36 PM

listening to jazz and writing poetry until the end.

He penned several books, including "And When the Weeds Began to Grow," and his latest, "Eschatology," which was published this year. Another book, written in Spanish, was titled, "A quien pueda interesar" or "To Whom It May Concern."

He often said two books that captured Haiti best were "Alice in Wonderland" and "Exodus."

from Danville News: Former AP Haiti correspondent Michael Norton dies

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Rus Bowden · at 5:35 PM

by Northrop Frye and Fearful Symmetry, his book on the poetry of William Blake, which was published in 1947. Even as an undergraduate, he was already writing poetry and short stories. The first brought him acclaim, the second notoriety. He was only 23 when he won the Governor-General's Award in 1949 for his first collection of poems, The Red Heart. A collage in which a young man tries to reconcile his childhood memories with the harsh and often incomprehensible world of experience, the volume contains 42 poems, written during his university days, including The School Globe, in which the poet pictures himself holding the "wrecked blue cardboard pumpkin" with its lines of latitude and longitude, and laments the loss of the "fair fields and lands" of his childhood. Here is how it ends: "If I raise my hand/No tall teacher will demand/What I want./But if someone in authority/Were here, I'd say/Give me this old world back/Whose husk I clasp/And I'll give you in exchange/The great sad real one/That's filled/Not with a child's remembered and pleasant skies/But with blood, pus, death, stepmothers, and lies./"

from The Globe and Mail: Author was 'one of the finest writers Canada has produced'

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Rus Bowden · at 5:34 PM

chose his own last name when he was a student in a madrassa, or religious school, under the Taleban. "Rohani" means "spiritual".

He became a journalist after the Taleban regime fell in late 2001 and a transitional government was put in place.

A budding poet, he was also a founder and active member of the Bost Cultural Society, a group that brought together Helmand's literary elite.

Rohani has left two widows. As Tassal put it, Rohani married once out of duty and once out of love. Under Afghan law and by Muslim tradition, a man can have up to four wives.

from Institute for War & Peace Reporting: Murdered Reporter Leaves Lasting Legacy

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Rus Bowden · at 5:32 PM

An English purist, a career journalist, an admirer of good literature and to many, a dear friend, the 74-year-old Wrede died at his Hollister home last week.

To peers, he was dry in wit, kind, generous, at times stubborn, always a gentleman and forever open for conversation. As a writer, he was a newsman by trade, a poet at heart and a grammarian before anything.

from Hollister Free Lance: Herman Wrede: A newsman, a poet, a friend

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