IBPC: Poetry and Poets in Rags

9/26/2006

News at Eleven

The festival costs about $1 million to run and recoups less than 10 percent with ticket sales, in part because 40 percent of the audience attend free educational events. But as a public service, it's invaluable, [Jim] Haba says.

from The Star-Ledger: Literary lights

The book of longing
Mission
The lovesick monk
You'd sing too
The drunk is gender-free
The wind moves
I wrote for love
The sweetest little song
Who do you really remember
Thousands
The moon
On the path

from Telegraph: Poems by Leonard Cohen

". . . Then, in my presence, some trucks came in and dumped more garbage on these people"--the 33,000 corpses, or skeletons, down below. "I was shocked. I went back to my hotel room and couldn't sleep, so I started writing. Very quickly. Three--no more than four--hours."

from Downtown Express: 'Babi Yar'--where 33,000 died, one poet stood up

Finally, Manuel M. Martin-Rodriguez found the name he had crossed the Atlantic looking for: Gaspar de Villagrá, scrawled in loose cursive.

"After working so hard for so long, to find it was a feeling I had never felt before," said the Spanish-born literature professor who now teaches at UC Merced. "To hold previously unknown documents that old in your hands, with no glass covering them--it was incredibly rewarding."

from The Merced Sun-Star: Professor's discoveries shed light on Latino poet

The poem is named for its own "Lines", the ends of which are weighted with key words--"Out", "love", "faster", "want". As the lines of poetry and of snow "speed us up", the mother coming to the end of life will not detain her daughter long

from The Guardian: Symphony of sighs

When we speak of being unable to put a book down, it isn't that we can't wait to find out what happens next. It's that we don't want to give up the close and quite tender intimacy that has been established; we do not want to break the spell.

This form of magic goes back a long way.

from The Age: The write of way with a reader

When, for example, pondering whether to be or not to be, Hamlet fantasises about "taking arms against a sea of troubles", what does Shakespeare expect us to see in our mind's eye? Some mad idiot firing a blunderbuss into the waves from the end of Brighton pier?

from The Guardian: Is this a pint I see before me?

On one hand this collection is an immense sociological resource that reveals how practically anonymous people registered the immense changes in their circumstances; on the other it is a literary anthology that shows the persistence and strength of traditional verse forms and local dialect.

from Scotland on Sunday: It's aye been the ballads

Last night's rain lingers, pooled among peach petals tinged red,
and in willows crowded with green, ribbons of spring mist drift.

What a symphonic couplet that is--slow and luscious, many sounds (say "peach petals tinged red"!) to caress the jaw and tongue, achingly clear images true to the tradition. First requirement of good translation: It has to be good English poetry.

from The Philadelphia Inquirer: Sublime translation of Wang Wei poems

Discussion of the craft of poetry is limited, but [Czeslaw] Milosz did speak of the muselike voice he called his daimonion, or "little demon": "I cannot imagine writing poetry without the first impulse coming from him. . . .Basically, what is received . . . is incantation, a certain rhythm."

from San Francisco Chronicle: Conversations with a misunderstood genius

He spoke her name: "Em, Em--don't you know me?" But she was already unconscious, and within minutes she had stopped breathing. Emma Hardy was dead.

This is the moment when Thomas Hardy became a great poet.

from The Guardian: Woman much missed

Great Regulars

[Tishani] Doshi pays particular attention to the body's violability, drawing our gaze to the moments when its boundaries collapse; the points in life--sex, death, birth (when "body slither[s] out of body")--when its integrity is compromised.

from Sarah Crown: The Guardian: Body and soul

"Why the hell not, we say? We enjoyed the Carey and the Mitchell, but they were scarcely the best books of the year, and no one should get a pass on name alone. We've got three of the shortlisted titles (Desai, Grenville, Hyland) and plan to jump into those in the next week."

from Sarah Crown: The Guardian's Culture Vulture: Best of the literary blogosphere

Before I start putting a story together, I spend time with my characters, sketching them in various situations. If I?m attuned enough to their personalities, those kinds of details present themselves. Once I begin on the actual story, I should know the stars well enough to showcase their idiosyncrasies. [--Mo Willems]

from John Mark Eberhart: The Kansas City Star: Dinosaur, Junior!

Susan Schwan, new to Belfast from Pennsylvania, brings us one of those days when we watch the bay and sky in continual shifting colors, taking our breath away.

The Fashion of the Bay

from Elizabeth W. Garber: The Free Press Online: A Year of Poetry from a Wealth of Maine Poets: Watching Penobscot Bay From Different Shores (scroll to bottom)

[by Linda Sue Grimes]

Divine Gardener

from Linda Sue Grimes: BellaOnline: Four Poems from Singing in the Silence

Poem: "Exercise" by W.S. Merwin from Migration: New and Selected Poems.

from Garrison Keillor: The Writer's Almanac: For the week of September 25, 2006

Mothers and fathers grow accustomed to being asked by young children, "What's that?" Thus parents relearn the world by having to explain things they haven't thought about in years. In this poem the Illinois poet Bruce Guernsey looks closely at common, everyday moss and tries to explain its nature for us. I admire the way the poem deepens as the moss moves from being a slipcover to wet dust on a gravestone.

Moss

from Ted Kooser: American Life in Poetry: Column 078

[Hart] Crane writes to his editor [Harriet Monroe], "You ask me how a portent can possibly be wound in a shell. Without attempting to answer this for the moment, I ask you how Blake could possibly say that 'a sigh is a sword of an Angel King.' You ask me how compass, quadrant and sextant 'contrive' tides. I ask you how Eliot can possibly believe that 'Every street lamp that I pass beats like a fatalistic drum!'"

from Robert Pinsky: The Washington Post: Poet's Choice

With the equinox, autumn officially has begun, and some poets' fancies turn to thoughts of publication. Many literary journals take a summer hiatus, so fall marks the return of editors.

Although The Oregonian reads submissions to the Poetry column year-round, the new season still seems a fitting time to review its submission guidelines.

from B.T. Shaw: The Oregonian: Poetry

The next two poems ("She says" and "Shack Simple") are examples of a mixture of prose and poetry known as "haibun." Haibun is short, poetic prose punctuated by haiku, which may pivot away from the main text or resonate with it.

Shack Simple

from Good Times Weekly: In Her Words

Lines by Anne Carson

from The Guardian: Original poetry: Lines by Anne Carson

'Spell for Banning a Book'
By Linda Rodriguez

from The Kansas City Star: Poet's Corner: 'Spell for Banning a Book'

I Call to You, My Loves

By Katie Lashbrook

from Lawrence Journal-World: Poet's Showcase

"Fourteen Final Lines"
By J. Allyn Rosser

from Slate: "Fourteen Final Lines" By J. Allyn Rosser

Poetic Obituaries

[Petre M. Andreevski] has been included in all anthologies of Macedonian poetry both at home and abroad. His works, in separate books, have been presented in many languages outside Macedonia.

Awards include: "11 October", "Miladinov Brothers" (twice), "Koco Racin" and "Stale Popov" (twice).

from Macedonian Radio Television: Petre M. Andreevski died

At the same time, [Barbara] Lebeau said, her sister [Annabelle Barrett] went out of her way to relate to her students, introducing Bob Dylan's lyrics in poetry lessons and making the reading of Shakespeare's "Romeo and Juliet" an event to look forward to.

from Pittsburgh Tribune-Review: Former teacher always paid attention to detail

Theresa M. Haunani Bernardino, a musician, poet and Hawaiian scholar who started the kupuna program used today in public schools, died Aug. 27. She was 56.

Bernardino was a professor of Hawaiian language at University of Hawai'i-Hilo, and from 1972 to 1989 taught hundreds of students as an instructor at UH-Manoa.

from The Honolulu Advertiser: Hawaiian scholar Theresa Bernardino

Like a sage, he [Jake Boysel] divined humor from the stuff of everyday life. Being with him meant laughing so hard and for so long that it was impossible to sit or stand. In a recent poem that was otherwise serious, Jake started a new stanza with, "I once made a bowl of macaroni; it was a disaster."

from The Santa Barbara Independent: Jake Boysel 1994-2006

Even after climbing trees, entertaining his daughters, helping strangers and spending quality time with his family, [Robert David] Crosslin always seemed to have time for writing poetry and singing.

from The Sun Herald: Tree climber was full of love

Letters from children were his favorites, like the one who wrote, "Mr. Jackson we know you got cancer. We know you are going to die. You did a good job while you were here."

"I especially like this one," Jackson said one morning. "He says he's writing me just because I'm a good person. Now, what sweeter compliment is there than that?"

For [Lonnie] Jackson, 77, none.

from The Columbus Ledger-Enquirer: Lonnie Jackson: Proud champion of south Columbus, diversity

California Highway Patrol responded to the incident and located a deceased [Jason] Leavens inside his car in a ravine at Sierra College Boulevard near Twelve Bridges Drive.

Friends remember Jason's friendliness, his smile and his distinctive laugh. Family members describe him as considerate and thoughtful, with a love for art, poetry, architecture and music.

from Lincoln News Messenger: Jason Leavens remembered by friends, family

Speaking after the inquest, Mr [Richard] McFarlane's wife, Winifred, said: "The whole family is very grateful to all his friends who have done so much for him.

"Sales of his books and the events they have held in his memory have raised over £15,000 for charity.

from This Is Lancashire: Poet Hovis died after heart attack, coroner is told

Dr. [Michael] Prochilo then returned to Salem State, this time as a professor. His wife, Ellen (Donahue) Prochilo, said he taught primarily English literature and composition, with a particular specialty in 17th-century metaphysical poetry.

from The Boston Globe: Michael Prochilo

Richard Sanders, a poetry lover who edited the Daily American's Poetry Corner for 10 years, died Friday at the age of 75.

"It was always his dream to have a poetry column in the newspaper," said his wife Pat Sanders.

from The Daily American: Former teacher, columnist dies at age 75

[Ramanlal Soni's] fictional character Galbo Shiyal was popular among children like Disney character Mickey Mouse. His many stories and poems have found place in school textbooks.

from Gujarat Global: Noted writer Ramanlal Soni dies at 99

Along the way he [Monroe Sweetland] found time to fight for NEA issues on the national level and run a successful business--and he accomplished many of those things while legally blind.

His daughter [Barbara Sweetland Smith] remembers him as "a man of many parts"--someone who could write poetry at the drop of a hat, and who loved the great musicals of Oscar Hammerstein.

from Clackamas Review: Clackamas says goodbye to Monroe Sweetland

9/19/2006

News at Eleven

A 48-year-old writer and poet using the pseudonym Li Hong, Zhang [Jianhong] was arrested on 6 September in Ningbo, in the eastern province of Zhejiang, and was charged with "incitement to subvert the state's authority." Twenty policemen went to his home with a search warrant and seized the disk drives from his two computers and his phone book. They also interrogated his wife, Dong Min, about the company he kept and the articles he posted on foreign websites.

from Reporters Without Borders: Three cyber-dissidents arrested and websites closed in new wave of Internet censorship

"I don't believe in censorship," she said. "It was a poem. It wasn't a news piece. It was his opinion. An artist owes it to himself to stretch boundaries."

[Brenda] Connor-Bey said anger, especially at closed-minded people, has inspired some of her poems.

from The Journal News: Greenburgh poet hopes to teach, inspire as laureate

[William Blake] bought a printing press and made his books himself. In the various little city and country houses they inhabited, he and his devoted wife, Catherine, printed up his creations, tried to sell them, and cobbled together enough of a living to, well, stay alive.

from The Philadelphia Inquirer: Young Adult Reader: An affectionate look at William Blake, artist, poet, renegade

So much recent engagement has been focused on awards and prizes, on a perceived sense of hype over here and concurrent neglect over there, that any insightful consideration of form and shape and the constructed-ness of poems seems to have fallen by the wayside.

from The Guardian: Lines of resistance

Why is it that when it comes to Iranian culture or anything Iranian or Persian we are always on the teaching end of the stick? It seems like the world has amnesia, and we are constantly explaining how Iranian/Persian art and culture has contributed to this or that. For once I would like to go up to an average American and have them know something about us.

from Payvand: Persian Contemporary Poetry breathes new life, through translation

At first glance, the tablet "looked like a fake to me because the symbols are laid out in horizontal rows," unlike the region's other writing systems, he said.

[David] Grove is also skeptical because some of the tablet's symbols seem out of place, since they don't show up in iconography until centuries later, he says.

from National Geographic: Oldest Writing in New World Discovered, Scientists Say

"More frailer than the flowers, these precious hours," the 65-year-old Mr. Dylan sings in "When the Deal Goes Down," one of the songs on "Modern Times." Compare that to these lines from Timrod's "Rhapsody of a Southern Winter Night":

A round of precious hours
Oh! here, where in that summer noon I basked
And strove, with logic frailer than the flowers.

from The New York Times: Who's This Guy Dylan Who's Borrowing Lines From Henry Timrod?

"Renascence" put young [Edna St. Vincent] Millay on the literary map in 1912, more than a decade before she arrived at Austerlitz, 30 miles southeast of Albany, with panoramic vistas of western Massachusetts and overlooking the Hudson Valley. It concludes, "And he whose soul is flat--the sky/Will cave in on him by and by."

from Pittsburgh Post-Gazette: Upstate N.Y. attracting literary pilgrims

Yet Patience seems to be a loved friend rather than a lover. This makes the poem's final line, as morning comes, all the more moving for its tender conceit: "Love, I've got to get up now and dress."

from The Guardian: Rolling across the world

In 'Changes of Life', the poet says:

Now I've started to love myself. That's new
for me because I always hated me.
And now, loving myself, I wish to die,
having had enough of love and mortality.

Jullia Rypinski had a 'long, eventful and gypsyish life' in the course of which she moved house more than 60 times.

from Jamaica Gleaner: Bringing two sides to life

Mocking Angel! The trials of a tortured throng
Are naught when weighed in the balance of future anticipations.
The living sometimes learn the touchy tricks of the traitor, the tardy, and the tempted;
The dead have evaded the flighty earthly future,
And form to swell the retinue of retired rights,
The righteous school of the invisible,
And the rebellious roar of the raging nothing

Irene Iddesleigh (1897)
Amanda McKittrick Ros

from BBC News: Is this the world's worst writer?

Great Regulars

Cosmic Questions
[by Le Hinton]

from Bill Diskin: York Daily Record: Poetryork: Hinton learned to love poetry at his mother's knee

[Robert] Frost poems are accessible but challenging at times. But we can always trust him; we never feel that he is hiding behind a mass of unrelated words as is often the case with poets of the modern era.

There are a few poets including Shakespeare, Longfellow, the Metaphysical poets, and the Harlem Renaissance poets whose work we can always trust.

from Linda Sue Grimes: BellaOnline: Robert Frost--Poetry for Every Season

Li-Young Lee, who lives in Chicago, evokes by the use of carefully chosen images a culture, a time of day, and the understanding of love through the quiet observation of gesture.

from Ted Kooser: American Life in Poetry: Column 077

"They operated," Ruby says, her mouth quivering. "They operated, but a piece of her brain came away with the blood clot. That sounds bad, I know, but Dad says the doctors don't know how serious, in fact, because they know very little about the brain, even in this day and age; that's one of the strange things. They don't understand what this bit of the brain does, or did rather, this missing piece. It might not be that important."

from Andrew Motion: Telegraph: the day that ended my childhood

Audio: Guy Ruddle talks exclusively to Andrew Motion about his mother's struggle for life after her accident and how it has influenced his life and his poetry.

from Andrew Motion: Telegraph: 'Hello Mum--it's me. Can you hear me?'

Without some skill at guessing, who could navigate through any ordinary day with its words and images? Sometimes sorting and guessing is part of the point. The myths and allusions and meanings may be several. They may be invented, merging or overlapping. Here is "A Myth of Innocence," from Louise Glück's recent book Averno:

from Robert Pinsky: The Washington Post: Poet's Choice

Lament of a Legionnaire on Germanicus' Campaign to the Elbe River by Durs Grünbein

from The Guardian: Original poetry: Lament of a Legionnaire on Germanicus' Campaign to the Elbe River by Durs Grünbein

'Equinox'
By Thomas Zvi Wilson,

from The Kansas City Star: Poet's Corner: 'Equinox'

Tumbleweed

By Dan McCarthy

from Lawrence Journal-World: Poet's Showcase

by Joe Olvera

"Iconoclast"

from Newpaper Tree: Poetry

"Remember, Baby?"
By Gregory Di Prinzio

from Slate: "Remember, Baby?" By Gregory Di Prinzio

Poetic Obituaries

Author of 12 books of poems, her [Patricia Goedicke's] most recent volume "As Earth Begins to End," was declared one of the top ten books of poetry in 2000 by the American Library Association.

Her signature free verse was the result of an inquisitive mind that rarely rested, [Casey] Charles said.

from Missoulian: A poet's farewell: Friends, family remember writer, UM professor

Sister Arleen McCarty Hynes, who pioneered the use of bibliotherapy at St. Elizabeths Hospital by engaging patients in literature as a process of healing and personal growth, died Sept. 5 of liver cancer at the Saint Scholastica Convent nursing home in St. Cloud, Minn. She was 90.

from The Washington Post: Arleen Hynes, 90; Bibliotherapy Pioneer

[Mazisi Kunene] belongs to a generation of novelists and poets that came of age during the 1950s and 1960s, as African nationalism--and the optimism inherent in it--was on the rise, said Ntongela Masilela, professor of English and world literature at Pitzer College in Claremont.

"Mazisi Kunene is simply the greatest African poet in the 20th century. Period," Masilela said.

from Los Angeles Times: Mazisi Kunene, 76; Zulu Poet and Teacher Fought Apartheid

Seán Ó Tuama, writer and former Professor of Irish Literature in University College Cork, has died. He was 80.

A poet, dramatist and critic, he was perhaps best known for his 1981 work 'An Duanaire--Poems of the Dispossessed', in collaboration with Thomas Kinsella.

from Radio Telefís Éireann News: Death of Seán Ó Tuama at 80

When Rebecca Rice was aged just six she wrote a poem in which she wanted to find a best friend.

At her funeral yesterday it was evident that she had in fact become a best friend to so many people.

from Evening Star: Heart-wrenching goodbyes to Rebecca

9/12/2006

News at Eleven

The lot was cast and her verdict was horrendous: "It says die--die, soon. But execute yourself and your little self efficiently," she [Assia Wevill] wrote in her diary. "I can't believe it--any more than I could believe hearing of my own death."

from The Telegraph: 'Die, die soon. But execute yourself and your little self efficiently . . .'

"You spend your life on the railway line, staring ahead of you to make sure you get out of the way when a train comes towards you, but in fact it's behind you--is how I feel about it," he [Andrew Motion] explains.

from East Anglian Daily Times: Mum's tragedy ended my childhood

It was all the subject of an ancient Greek poet called Stesichorus, and that's who Anne Carson starts with, but Autobiography of Red is the story of how Geryon, the boy with wings, gets involved, heartbreakingly, with a wild boy called Heracles who loves him and leaves him and then comes back into his life in the shadow of a mighty volcano in Peru and in the company of an Indian friend called Incash, who is lean and inward and understands why the weird boy also has wings.

from The Age: Sipping ouzo with Sappho

The narrator's father is articulate and confident until the onset of Alzheimer's, when words come unmoored from meaning.

Throughout the book, silence is played against expression, the need to give voice to human experience.

from The Philadelphia Inquirer: Poems rich in memory and reflection

Almost all of the poems are either dramatic monologues (a form [Richard] Howard has almost claimed for himself, making him Browning's heir) or epistolary poems. One monologue is by a baby.

from Houston Chronicle: A fantasy guest list

But in Swithering the division seems most prominent in [Robin] Robertson himself, as he appears divided or at least ambivalent about his place between and in American poetry or ?global? poetry and a history of Scottish verse.

When Robertson is working in the Scottish mode, he is at his best.

from Bookslut: Swithering by Robin Robertson

[Oscar] Hijuelos muses that poems written in Spanish are acoustic simply because there is more melody in the language, more beauty found in its vowels and in its softer consonants, and perhaps, in an aesthetic less intent on editorializing and more devoted to sentimiento, or feeling.

from South Florida Sun-Sentinel: For better or verse

One of the urgent modern problems is how to define our common heritage or the "European heritage". Does it include all the languages and cultures of Europe, or does it express a selective approach that excludes (some) minor languages and cultures?

from KurdishMedia: Modern Kurdish Poetry: An anthology & introduction

"We're not just talking about a few emails here. We're talking about dozens and dozens of very sick stuff. I will not accept violence and death threats. It's unacceptable," he [John Kinsella] says.

from The Courier-Mail: Poets at three paces

The Press Supervisory Board also ordered the political monthly Nameh, or Letter, to be closed down, IRNA reported Monday.

The paper's editor, Majid Tavallaei, said the reason behind the closure was the publication of a poem from dissident female poet Simin Behbahani.

from Seattle Post-Intelligencer: Iran closes down 2 opposition newspapers

The Washington County mother of three set out to write a poem for every person who died in the attacks that day.

Nearly 3,000 of them.

from Pittsburgh Post-Gazette: Woman has finished 1,200 poems to remember 9/11 victims

Great Regulars

"You know chick-lit novels," the nameless author begins, "those pastel bonbons that have turned your local Barnes & Noble into a gingerbread house of crap writing. Maybe you've even bought a book or two, anything from Candace Bushnell's 4 Blondes to one of Sophie Kinsella's innumerable Shopaholic titles. A little harmless beach reading, you thought at the time. Doesn't hurt anybody. Well, I know chick lit. I used to read, edit and publish it, and I'm here to tell you: Chick lit does hurt people. Chick lit hurts America."

from Sarah Crown: The Guardian's Culture Vulture: Best of the literary blogosphere

The Lord to mee a shepheard is,
want therefore shall not I.
Hee in the folds of tender-grasse,
doth cause mee downe to lie:
To waters calme me gently leads
Restore my soule doth hee:
he doth in paths of righteousnes:
for his names sake leade mee.

The awkwardness is readily apparent, but as Mather (or Cotton) stated in the Preface, the purpose of the refashioned verse is not to arrive at elegant poetry but to make songs out of the psalms, which obviously meant to the clergymen that an abundance of rime was required.

from Linda Sue Grimes: BellaOnline: The Bay Psalm Book--America's First Book

I'd guess we've all had dreams like the one portrayed in this wistful poem by Tennessee poet Jeff Daniel Marion. And I'd guess that like me, you too have tried to nod off again just to capture a few more moments from the past.

from Ted Kooser: American Life in Poetry: Column 076

In the Attic by Andrew Motion

from Andrew Motion: The Guardian: Original poetry: In the Attic by Andrew Motion

Often, the best poem about a momentous event may be written long before the event happens. (Walt Whitman's great elegy for Abraham Lincoln is an exception. Here, in a translation by Mark Strand, is a poem by the Brazilian Carlos Drummond de Andrade (1902-1987), written decades ago:

Souvenir of the Ancient World

from Robert Pinsky: The Washington Post: Poet's Choice

A National Anthem--or a National song--or a Cultural Song, call it what you will. This great song was created by 'Akshay Navami' Bankimchandra Chatterjee (1838-94) on Sunday, 7th November 1875 at his residence in Kantalpada, in Naihati village, which is just a few miles away from Calcutta. The song is now 131 years old. It is probably the only Indian song that is still widely popular all over India, and musicians still want to sing it again and again, and keep composing new tunes for it.

from V Sundaram: News Today: Vande Mataram in recorded song, fable and legend

A new genre: the sestina noir! I really enjoyed the blurring of boundaries between states of sleep and wakefulness in this poem. It's deliciously surreal, and evokes an atmosphere thick with frustration, anxiety and boredom.

from The Guardian: Poetry workshop: Six of the best

A sestina feels like exactly the right form for exploring memory, and this one relishes the philosophical knottiness of the subject, returning wittily to the problem of subjective consciousness again and again.

from The Guardian: Poetry workshop: Six of the best (part two)

Finding Yourself

By Esther Daniells

from The Hopkinton Crier: Poem Prescription

I Want My WMDs

By Brett J. Scott

from Lawrence Journal-World: Poet's Showcase

September 11

[by Brian Doyle]

from The Oregonian: Poetry

Free verse poet Lucille Clifton reads "September Songs, A Poem in Seven Days" about the days surrounding Sept. 11, 2001 which included the terrorist attacks and the birth of her granddaughter.

from PBS: Newshour: Poet Lucille Clifton Reads A Poem About the Days Surrounding Sept. 11

"Ode"
By Maureen N. McLane

from Slate: "Ode" By Maureen N. McLane

Poetic Obituaries

"I explored sensual and sexual imagery, both because I was interested in sexuality and because lesbians are so often identified by the who and what of our sexuality," Ms. [Tee] Corinne wrote. "I decided to create images which brought all of the fine art training at my command into focusing on the hidden and forbidden activities of lesbian sex."

from Bay Area Reporter: Lesbian artist Tee Corinne dies at 62

"His death did not make him a hero," [Rev. Brad] said Dush, a lifelong friend of [Army Staff Sgt. Michael] Deason's. "His life and how he chose to live made him a hero."

During the service, Deason's sister, Linda Abbott, asked people to remember Deason's warm smile. She also read a poem Deason wrote for his family about the experiences of being a soldier.

from St. Louis Post-Dispatch: Neighbors honor fallen soldier in Farmington

Louise Fleming could be described as a Renaissance woman. Her interests ranged from poetry to gardening, from art to literature, and she always was interested in other people. For more than 40 years, she penned the column "a little off center" for The Bulletin.

from The Baxter Bulletin: Louise Fleming, Bulletin columnist for 40 years, dies

Longtime artist and wilderness defender Dottie Fox, remembered as one of the three "Maroon Belles" who championed wilderness protection in the White River National Forest, died Monday morning after a long fight with cancer.

from Aspen Daily News: 'Maroon Belle' Dottie Fox dies

Multi-talented musician Tu Huy died on Sunday in HCM City at the age of 62 after four days of unconsciousness.

The musician suffered a stroke last Wednesday in Da Lat, where he was visiting friends in the Central Highlands province of Lam Dong.

from Viet Nam News: Stroke takes life of composer Tu Huy

A distinguished scholar of Romanticism, an attitude that characterized many Western literary works from the late 18th to the mid-19th century, [Paul] Magnuson authored and edited numerous texts on the movement, including "Coleridge?s Poetry and Prose: A Norton Critical Edition" in 2003, "Reading Public Romanticism" in 1998, "Coleridge and Wordsworth: A Lyrical Dialogue" in 1988 and "Coleridge and Wordsworth: A Lyrical Dialogue" in 1987.

from Washington Square News: Magnuson, an English prof., dies at 67

The lover of the arts [Robert Trudell] was a prolific poet. His work will appear in the fall in "Celebrations," an anthology being published by the July Literary Press.

Nyack Mayor John Shields said Trudell was the village's unofficial poet laureate.

from The Journal News: Robert Trudell, Lower Hudson librarian and poet, dies

9/05/2006

News at Eleven

[Simon Armitage's] latest poem avoids overt political comment. "For this new poem I was interested much more in bereavement," said Armitage. "I also wanted it to reflect what was happening that day inside the towers. To give those inside a voice."

from The Sunday Times: Poem for 9/11, by the laureate in waiting

also, the poem, Out Of The Blue (pdf)

Like William Carlos Williams's poor old woman munching plums or the Negro woman he passed looking in her shoe for what had been hurting her, [Anne Porter's] Kelly reminds us how we are most human when losing ourselves to instinct.

from The Brooklyn Rail: Living Things

Dorothea Mackellar's "My Country" is one of Australia's best-known poems, but until now the original manuscript has been seen by only a few academics. That is set to change with a new online exhibition by the NSW State Library.

from ninemsn: The wide brown land goes digital

also, the poem, State Library of New South Wales: People and places: historic homesteads

[Derek Walcott] noted that the guy in the street doesn't read and doesn?t care, adding, "I'm not a man of the people. I don't follow any fake socialist ideology." All the talk about the neglect of the intellectual or the popular entertainer, he said, was self-pity or even aggression.

from Trinidad & Tobago's Newsday: Caribbean writers tell their tales

But when think-alike extremists take over, you can kiss your art goodbye. And this is no short-term phenomenon. As early as the 1980's, the generic poetry stamped out by academics already had a sardonic name: the McPoem.

from American Chronicle: The Plight of Poetry (or: What The Professors Did To Poetry

It follows from this that [John] Betjeman is not really the sort of poet you can teach, and he is therefore of no interest to the academic Eng. Lit. clerisy. It is hard to imagine anyone getting a Ph.D. by "interpreting" Betjeman. There is nothing to interpret.

from National Review: A Triumphant Misfit

It took a further three decades before [Frederico Garcia] Lorca's poems would be published, and his plays put on in his native land.

How long before poets and writers in Arab nations, Iran or Afghanistan, men and women, gay or atheist, can publish normally?

from The Guardian: Comment is free: In the footsteps of Lorca

This listening to a song earned [Hazrat] Ahmedov 4 and [Jamol] Kutliyev 7 years imprisonment. Once they were convicted, the Bukhara Regional Directorate of the National Security Committee contacted Tashkent and [Dadahon ] Hasanov was promptly taken into custody.

from Ferghana.Ru: Poet and singer Dadahon Hasanov will stand trial in Tashkent on September 5

"The genius produces lumps of gold which could be in the form of poetry or a piece of sculpture ... Exchanging his product for gold coin or paper notes does not value it into equivalents; it devalues it. It does that because once exchanged, the work is no longer unique; it has an equivalent expression. . . ." [--Meghnad Desai on Ezra Pound]

from Business Standard: Ezra Pound's world

The accompanying poem tells how the escapees thought that the breakout would be fun.

"Fifty fine fellows/With good stout intentions/Trusting no doubt in Geneva conventions/Reckoning not with the mind of th' Hun/Fifty fine fellows/And now there are none."

from The Times: Prison camp art that escaped guards

In the exhibit, the viewer/participant is invited to take a suggestion card and openly write ideas, words, concerns, anything that they would like to see the artist weave into a poem. The card is dropped into a locked box, and every couple of days Vincent will draw one of the cards offered by the community and use it as inspiration to write a poem.

from Village Soup: Left-overs Interactive Poetry and Mixed Media Show

Great Regulars

That phrase "every hair distinct" carries the weight of this faith that the past is still out there, real and solid, that language works as a pointer and gesture towards it.

The poem becomes an act of magnanimity, an act of salvation.

from Charles Bainbridge: The Guardian: Witness to the world

You want the students to discover joy in the sounds--not shove the joy of the sounds down their throats. I'm suggesting that we celebrate the physical, autonomic whimsy and joy of repetition alone.

from David Biespiel: The Oregonian: Kids are keen on rhyme and rhythm

In his teaching and his poetry, [Michael] Hoover demonstrates that the power of language is often in its versatility. "Subtlety, for example, is enjoyable to the ear, mind, and heart," Hoover says. "Sometimes you can get away with 'clever' but usually subtle does the trick."

from Bill Diskin: York Daily Record: Poetryork: It all starts when you meet the power of language

Nor do any of us, usually, but that doesn?t blunt the power of an observation like this: "We never planned to wake in middle age a thousand miles apart in air conditioned bedrooms with someone else we hadn?t even met back then."

from John Mark Eberhart: The Kansas City Star: These poems are always in season

In this week's poems, we have summer's last kiss before the chilling.

Dorothy Nyman has deep ancestral roots in Maine and has lived and worked in the Midcoast for 30 years as a clinical psychologist, teacher and musician.

from Elizabeth W. Garber: Village Soup: A Year of Poetry from a Wealth of Maine Poets: That sudden shift in light at end of summer

The great spiritual leader [Paramahansa Yogananda] has explained in detail the workings of the delusive concept of maya, often employing metaphors and colorful imagery. A beautiful and useful example of the yogi's portrayals of maya can be experienced in his poem from Songs of the Soul, simply title "Shadows":

from Linda Sue Grimes: BellaOnline: The Shadows of Maya

In many American poems, the poet makes a personal appearance and offers us a revealing monologue from center stage, but there are lots of fine poems in which the poet, a stranger in a strange place, observes the lives of others from a distance and imagines her way into them. This poem by Lita Hooper is a good example of this kind of writing.

from Ted Kooser: American Life in Poetry: Column 075 (pdf)

[W. D. Snodgrass's] penchant for sentence fragments (no other major poet of our time relies so heavily on them) can also be off-putting. At times, the result is wonderfully dramatic--as of a door closing abruptly in the faces of readers more nosily inquisitive than they should be.

from Brad Leithauser: The New York Times: 'The Peaks of Occult, Calm Passion'

Though the rat in itself--self-confident, not quite oblivious--could be a direct descendant of the one in [Marianne] Moore's poem, [Jane] Hirshfield chooses to ask herself when or how she might have behaved as the rat behaves.

from Robert Pinsky: The Washington Post: Poet's Choice

Well, the first thing anyone in my position has to do is resign himself to the fact that you can only review a fraction of what is out there and will therefore miss many books that deserve better and review plenty of books that ought to have been ignored.

from Frank Wilson: Books Inq.: I promised . . .

Haunt the dark corners and dusty shelves of used bookstores, however, and you?ll be rewarded, because there you?ll likely find the work of terrific, lesser-known, unusual writers languishing unappreciated and usually out of print.

Take Laura Jensen, for example.

from Good Times Weekly: Poetry Corner: Dusty Shelves

Horses, M62 by Simon Armitage

from The Guardian: Original poetry: Horses, M62 by Simon Armitage

'Labor Deus'
By Jon Herbert Arkham

from The Kansas City Star: Poet's Corner: 'Labor Deus'

Street Scene

By Gary Lechliter

from Lawrence Journal-World: Poet's Showcase

by Dick Bakken

The Feet

from Newpaper Tree: Poetry by Dick Bakken

Midge Goldberg's able sonnet, "Temptress," read at the April Poetry Hoot's Open Mic, is a wonderful example. Within the rules of the sonnet, she plays with the game of attraction through mythology, fairy tale, aphorism (the way to a man?s heart . . .) and allegory.

from Portsmouth Herald News: Spotlight Poems from the Hoot:

"Banish Misfortune"
(title of a traditional Irish jig)
By Ralph Sneeden

from Slate: "Banish Misfortune" By Ralph Sneeden

In Time
Ruth Blumbert

from Zeek: In Time: Ruth Blumbert

How I Live. With Terror.
Deborah S. Greenhut

from Zeek: How I Live. With Terror.: Deborah S. Greenhut

Everyone Who Goes There Says You Can't Imagine
Rachel Zucker

from Zeek: Everyone Who Goes There Says You Can't Imagine: Rachel Zucker

Poetic Obituaries

[Henry] Barlow had a distinct talent in sensitively capturing the commonplace in his poems and making his readers feel that he was speaking right into the heart of their ordinary lives. He presents vivid individual everyday struggles with a disarmingly natural playfulness and wit.

from New Vision: Henry Barlow was a living poem

David Berger grew up in Shaker Heights and was a competitive weightlifter in high school and college. He earned a juris doctorate from Columbia University before making aliyah to Israel. David was known as a pacifist, writing poetry protesting the Vietnam War.

from Cleveland Jewish News: Bergers: JCC 'ideal setting' for Olympic memorial

"They offered me a contract to translate the 1,000 most beautiful poems in world literature. When the publisher's head, Miss Andrássy, who looked rather like a woman from an Italian renaissance painting, asked me when I'd have it ready, I asked for four years. 'I have a lot of reading to do: I'll submit the manuscript after the World War,' I said. She replied: 'After the World War? It's already been.' She couldn't believe there'd be another," [György] Faludy added.

from portfolio: Hungary's master of poetry, György Faludy dies at the age of 95

This little collection of poems began with a Christmas letter she wrote to her mom in 1952, just after her mom had a heart attack and died a year earlier. The tolling of that bell was a shock she never got completely over.

from Santa Cruz Sentinel: Mom's poems add color, depth to family tapestry

[Roudolph "Rudy"] Johnson worked for many years at Brown Industries, Sandusky.ÊIn 1979, he began working at the General Motors Plant, Sandusky, retiring in 2001 after 22 years.

He enjoyed reading the Bible, gardening, cooking, playing cards and writing song lyrics, poetry and plays.

from The Morning Journal: Roudolph Johnson

Michael Kelley, a 26-year-old National Guardsman from Scituate who was killed last June at a military base in Afghanistan, is remembered on Legacy.com.

from The Boston Globe: Websites offer mourning for youths online

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[Naguib Mahfouz] was the first Arab writer to receive the Nobel Prize, and while many of his works had been translated into French, Swedish and German, he was largely unknown in the United States and Europe in 1988. Only about a dozen Mahfouz books had been rendered into English, and many were out of print.

from The New York Times: Naguib Mahfouz, Chronicler of Arab Life, Dies at 94

Australian actress Shirley Ann Richards, who starred in several movies during the golden age of Hollywood, has died in the US. She was 88.

from The Sydney Morning Herald: Golden age's film star dies

[Colin Thiele] published more than 90 books and was also a poet, playwright, adult novelist and teacher. But it was as a children's writer that he was best known.

from The Age: Acclaimed Storm Boy author Colin Thiele dies

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