News at Eleven

In Mr. [Wendell] Berry's construction, the Industrial is rational, the Agrarian is sympathetic. As he wrote in a 2002 essay, "Two Minds":

The Sympathetic Mind leaves the world whole, or it attempts always to do so. It looks upon people and other creatures as whole beings. It does not parcel them out into functions and uses. The Rational Mind, by contrast, has rested its work for a long time on the proposition that all creatures are machines. This works as a sort of strainer to eliminate impurities such as affection, familiarity and loyalty from the pursuit of knowledge, power and profit.

Interesting, perhaps--but what does that have to do with our current challenges? And how could Mr. Berry's agrarianism improve our lot?

from Dallas Morning News: Wendell Berry's time is now

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[Robert] Lowell, the greatest poet ever to be descended from the high Wasp line, never too far from Boston and New York, should have been at home in the world; and yet he was restless, almost vertiginous in his sometimes self-destructive energies. [Elizabeth] Bishop equated that dangerous energy with his life. Here are the final stanzas of "North Haven":

Years ago, you told me it was here
(in 1932?) you first "discovered girls"
and learned to sail, and learned to kiss.
You had "such fun," you said, that classic summer.
("Fun"--it always seemed to leave you at a loss. . . )

from The New Yorker: Works on Paper: The letters of Elizabeth Bishop and Robert Lowell

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What it certainly establishes is the importance to [John] Ashbery's career of his nine-year stay in Paris in the 1950s, when he lived with [Pierre] Martory and discovered the richness of modern French poetry. His fluid translations sound at times like a "lite" version of his own verse--which in his introduction he claims was something of a surprise: "I started to find echoes of his work in mine . . . though I hope I haven't stolen anything."

from The Guardian: With eyes wide shut

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It is surprising then that 18-year-old Imogen Halstead, of Northampton, won first place in the open category of this year's competition, and more so, that she triumphed with Amores I.I, by Ovid, which Jo Balmer, a judge, described as containing "notoriously difficult metrical, mythological and literary in-jokes". Indeed, the central joke of the poem relies on the audience's knowledge that epic Latin poetry was written in heavy, dactylic hexameter and love poetry in snappier, elegiac couplets.

from The Times: An 18-year-old wins the prestigious Times Stephen Spender Prize for poetry in translation

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From more than 3,000 poems entered for this year's competition, the judges--Mick Imlah, the Poetry editor of the TLS, and Alice Quinn, Executive Director of the Poetry Society of America and formerly Poetry editor of the New Yorker--have chosen a shortlist of twelve pieces, printed in random sequence below, from which readers are invited to select the winning poems. Those wishing to take part in the judging process should vote by December 5.

from Times Literary Supplement: TLS Poetry Competition 2008

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One Drop of Honey

Hovhanness Toumanian.

In his village on a hilltop,

from The Armenian Reporter: One Drop of Honey
also The Armenian Reporter: The moral of Toumanian's poem

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Next week, she [Suzanne Steele] gets as close to Afghanistan as you can without leaving this country, as she moves to a second base, CFB Wainwright in eastern Alberta, where soldiers carry out training in simulated Afghan villages, complete with Pashto-speaking actors posing as suicide bombers attacking the troops.

Then, some time in the New Year, she's off to see the real thing, deployed to Afghanistan with soldiers of the Princess Patricia's Canadian Light Infantry, both at Kandahar Air Field and at strategic bases deep in the hostile countryside.

from The Hook: Meet Canada's Official War Poet
also War Poet: War Poet BBC Interview

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In her last poem, "Tragedy," dated Dec. 23, 1941, the Romanian teen-ager wrote:

This is the hardest: to give yourself away
and then to see that no one needs you,
to give all of yourself and realize
you'll fade like smoke and leave no trace.

Selma died a year later of typhus in a Nazi labor camp, but her handwritten album of poetry survived--passed between the hands of Selma's friends across Europe before ending up in Israel.

from Duke News: Duke Anthropologist Translates Poems Lost During Holocaust

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[Sakit] Zahidov told the chief that he had just had his head shaved a day before at the medical treatment facility and it was not necessary to do this again. However, [Alizaman] Guliyev did not agree. He proceeded, with his colleagues, to shave Zahidov's head and also beat Zahidov, landing blows to the journalist's kidneys and stomach.

IRFS believes this is evidence of the repression against Zahidov because of the satirical poems he continues to write.

from IFEX: Journalist beaten in prison, prevented from completing medical treatment

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The award will be presented in-absentia to Zarganar, an honorary member of PEN for 15 years, at a ceremony tonight in Toronto.

Of the several poems of Zarganar's posted on the PEN Canada website, is the following:

Don't Wake Him Up

When will the door finally click open?
They won't let me know. Never mind
As long as my heart still beats,
I'll be free some day.
Every door has two directions
In and out. Every coin has two sides
Heads follow tails. So,
Thanks to the law of averages
I can set my homesick mind at rest.

from Mizzima: Imprisoned comedian-poet honored by rights group

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As a boy, [Dylan] Thomas would look out of his bedroom window at the sweep of Swansea Bay and play in the nearby Cwmdonkin Park.

"It was in his formative years that he wrote everything that was eventually published because he regurgitated in later life, so this is where it all started," said Mr [Geoff] Haden.

He and his wife Anne have spent a labour of love restoring the house which had been used as bedsit accommodation.

from BBC News: Poet's restored birthplace opens
also BBC News: Dylan Thomas' home opens

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Great Regulars

"Lament for the Scribblers" praises writers who maintain their voice late in life, while "Maureen" Duffy vigorously responds to the perplexity of old age--"But how can that be when I'm reading Goethe/for the first time and this morning, leaving you,/I drove between hills sugared with rime."

from Charles Bainbridge: The Guardian: Family Values

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It is too easy when writing about one's memories to slip into dead-end nostalgia. Poet Nancy Powers of Clayton avoids this pitfall by building a poem on solid details. In other words, it builds on these details without giving them a sugar-coated aura.

from Walter Bargen: The Post-Dispatch: Missouri poets: Nancy Powers

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I know this column usually is about books. But each life is a book, too. Sometimes, as in Sherri's case, the book is too short. But I've read some great short novels. Her story, which inspired so many, was the length it needed to be.

Thank you for caring about Sherri. I am honored to have been her husband. I am privileged to have such compassionate readers of my work.

from John Mark Eberhart: The Kansas City Star: Her life is a story too short

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By John Mark Eberhart

Jude had a daughter who lived.

from John Mark Eberhart: Parachute: 'Commoner'

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Here the reader encounters the first disadvantage of the concept of loose musing. The speaker has claimed to be alone, but if she was left home to baby-sit, she would be accompanied by the child with whom she is sitting.

The speaker then reports that she makes a concoction of "vanilla ice-cream," "grapejuice," and "ginger ale" and then listens to the "big-band sound" of "Glenn Miller."

from Linda Sue Grimes: Suite101.com: Atwood's "In the Secular Night"

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But because of the wonderful birdsong, he could not quite shake the notion that even though he was unable to perceive it, he suspected, "there trembled through/His happy good-night air/Some blessed Hope, whereof he knew/And I was unaware."

Unlike Frost's speaker, for whom the crow's dust of snow saved from his bad mood, this speaker will, no doubt, remain ignorant of the joy that filled this thrush, and therefore, will retain his gloom and melancholy.

from Linda Sue Grimes: Suite101.com: Hardy's "The Darkling Thrush"

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The speaker then denigrates her humanity by comparing herself to "a means, a stage, a cow in calf." She is just the medium through which a new life enters the world, and she feels no more advanced than any other gestating mammal; thus, she calls herself a cow.

from Linda Sue Grimes: Suite101.com: Plath's "Metaphors"

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The mirror then reports what is does habitually: it reflects the "pink, with speckles" on the "opposite wall." It claims that it has stared at that wall for a long time, so much so that the wall "is part of my heart." Odd that the mirror, which is so objective and unfeeling, has a heart, but the reader will accept that a heart for a mirror functions somewhat differently from that of the subjective and feeling human being.

from Linda Sue Grimes: Suite101.com: Plath's "Mirror"

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Did my great poems, which were destined to uplift your reputation, come from the decaying ideas that fertilized the barren soil of my mind until they were able to grow? Or was my soul given its talent to handle spirituality that caused me to die to all things physical?

from Linda Sue Grimes: Suite101.com: Shakespeare Sonnet 86

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In the third quatrain, the speaker draws back a bit and notes that the Muse probably gave him a store of her inspiration not realizing her own worth at the time. Then when she finally realized her value, she decided to take it back. She judged it better to refrain from inspiring the speaker further.

from Linda Sue Grimes: Suite101.com: Shakespeare Sonnet 87

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The speaker rebukes the "lazy day" and commands it, "Forsake thy sleep/"O lazy day!" He tells the day to open itself to all possibilities that are given to it by its mere existence. He instructs the day to open just as fully as the rosebud has done; open "To chase my gathered gloom away!"

from Linda Sue Grimes: Suite101.com: Yogananda's "'Tis All Unknown"

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Believe that a power greater than yourself can restore you to Billy Collins: the court. Begin devising a plot to ruin his marriage. Plant masculine underpants in his wife's purse. Steal her keys and cell phone, making her late for dinner without a good excuse. Breed mistrust until the marriage falls apart.

from Kristen Hoggart: Ask a Poet: Political License

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Real life has enough horror without adding ghouls and ghosts to the mix. Here's a scary fact you'll want to know about Paul Guest: At the age of 12, he was permanently paralyzed in a bike accident. That's the least interesting aspect of his work, but it did produce this startler, "User's Guide to Physical Debilitation," from a forthcoming book of his poems:

Should the painful condition of irreversible paralysis

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

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The Dental Hygienist
by Tom C. Hunley

She said "open up,"

from Garrison Keillor: The Writer's Almanac: The Dental Hygienist by Tom C. Hunley

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Ocean Drive
by Miriam Levine

Some of us rush from our houses while it's still light

from Garrison Keillor: The Writer's Almanac: Ocean Drive by Miriam Levine

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The Patience of Ordinary Things
by Pat Schneider

It is a kind of love, is it not?

from Garrison Keillor: The Writer's Almanac: The Patience of Ordinary Things by Pat Schneider

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Prodigy
by Charles Simic

I grew up bent over

from Garrison Keillor: The Writer's Almanac: Prodigy by Charles Simic

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Tuning
by Christine Rhein

I try to tune out the boom! boom! boom!

from Garrison Keillor: The Writer's Almanac: Tuning by Christine Rhein

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Welcome Home, Children
by David Shumate

In the early spring I get together with all the people I've been

from Garrison Keillor: The Writer's Almanac: Welcome Home, Children by David Shumate

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Wheels
by Jim Daniels

My brother kept

from Garrison Keillor: The Writer's Almanac: Wheels by Jim Daniels

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On [Brenda] Shaughnessy goes, leaping from one bodily dilemma to another. But once you've decided that "Parthenogenesis" is just a darkly humorous catalog of the many ways in which we fool ourselves, she ups the stakes in the last four lines, where she says, in effect, that what we'd all really like to do is destroy ourselves and put a new person in our place who happens to be just like us. This idea of the divided self is not a new one, but Shaughnessy shows there's life in the old story yet.

from David Kirby: The New York Times: Cracking Wise

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I thought that we'd celebrate Halloween with an appropriate poem, and Iowa poet Dan Lechay's seems just right. The drifting veils of rhyme and meter disclose a ghost, or is it a ghost?

Ghost Villanelle

from Ted Kooser: American Life in Poetry: Column 187

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Mark Roper was born in England in 1951. He moved to Ireland in 1980 and lives in Tobernabrone, County Kilkenny. His poetic achievement is perhaps built on the poise he has attained between the different traditions of Irish and English nature poetry. Even So is his latest collection, published by Dedalus Press. I know it's a wonderfully wrought collection, having read it from cover to cover so as to write its introduction. Grateful thanks to Pat Boran at Dedalus and Mark Roper for their permission to reproduce Hummingbird here.

Hummingbird

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

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CHIN CHIN: A poem for the cat that was

By Felipe de Ortego y Gasca

S

he is in the earth, asleep, resting in eternal peace.

from Donna Snyder: Newspaper Tree: Tumblewords Poetry: CHIN CHIN: A poem for the cat that was

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The English writer whose imagination and vocabulary matched the maritime discoveries of the New World was the poet and dramatist William Shakespeare. It is impossible to quantify the relationship between a writer's genius and the development of a language; it is both simple and obvious and yet difficult to define.

But suppose Shakespeare had lived before the age of printing, or suppose his fellow actors had not been able to preserve his place in book form.

from V Sundaram: News Today: Timeless genius of Shakespeare

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And I'm wondering if there's anything I can do to get the fire lasting longer overnight. Turning the damper down, letting less air into the firebox, seems to risk more smoke (and creosote, perhaps), while leaving it open burns the logs faster. I'm also wondering how well-seasoned, clean and dry my firewood supply is.

Last night, I think I had a pretty good fire going.

from Andrew Varnon: Flash & Yearn: Watching the Fire

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. . . in 1991: George Barker.

O Who Will Speak From a Womb or a Cloud?

Not less light shall the gold and the green lie

from Frank Wilson: Books, Inq.: The Epilogue: A great poet died on this date . . .

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[by Frank Wilson]

Still water. Old man

from Frank Wilson: Books, Inq.: The Epilogue: Haiku . . .

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. . . Judith [Fitzgerald] has extended her vacation because of odds and ends that continue to demand her attention. So, to make up for her absence, I thought I'd post some of her poems from time to time until she returns. Here is

Elegy Written in a December State of Mind

Four in the morning, unfortunately. December

from Frank Wilson: Books, Inq.: The Epilogue: In absentia . . .

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By 1950, Picasso was an internationally recognized celebrity. Constantly followed by the media, Picasso secluded himself at his villa in Cannes in southern France where he continued to paint prolifically. Picasso died on April 8, 1973, of a heart attack at his home in France. At the time of his death, his estate was valued at $50 million. His will left his large private art collection to the Louvre Museum in Paris.

from findingDulcinea: Happy Birthday, Pablo Picasso

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The Parting Shot by Simon Armitage

from The Guardian: The Saturday poem: The Parting Shot by Simon Armitage

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But feeling is not independent of language. It proceeds through it. My proposal is that feeling is discovered, not articulated, or, at least, that we may begin with feeling but we cannot know its dimensions until it has started its journey through words. Words are, after all, what we work with.

All good poems surprise. Great poems keep surprising for longer, for as long as we can imagine.

from The Guardian: Poetry Workshop: George Szirtes's workshop

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By Kathleen Johnson

A constellation of porch lights

from The Kansas City Star: Between the Lines: 'Halloween,' a poem by Kathleen Johnson

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In this video, William Marcus, director of the UM Broadcast Media Center, reads his favorite poem by Wendell Berry.

from New West: The Favorite Poem Project: William Marcus

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In this video, NewWest.Net Editor in Chief Courtney Lowery discusses her favorite poem.

from New West: The Favorite Poem Project: Courtney Lowery

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In this video, Finn Phillips, 8, reads his favorite haikus.

from New West: The Favorite Poem Project: Finn Phillips

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Alba

by W. S. Merwin

from The New Yorker: Poetry: Alba

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[by Ronald Tomanio]

World of Lepers

from Portsmouth Herald News: Poem: World of Lepers

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Schoolchildren in Britain no longer come across Kipling in class, but Hughes remains a staple of the English teacher hoping to infuse a love of poetry into his or her charges. In his introduction to a short selection of Hughes's poetry, the wonderfully gifted poet Simon Armitage--also a Yorkshireman--remembers the catalytic effect of being given Hughes to read in school:

My own experience as an uninspired and uninspiring secondary school student is one shared by many of the same age group, in the way that Hughes's poems were the first captivating moments in English literature, and were read and described by teachers who could not hide their enthusiasm for the work or their eagerness to share it.

from Powells: Review-A-Day: The Myths of Ted Hughes

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Two writers visited twelve Edinburgh coffee shops for the sake of their art, were inspired, and wrote up the results in their pamphlet, Edinburgh Coffee Break (Blacklock Press, £5.50). The second poet is Jennifer Alderson; the venue in the poem below is Telford College.

Café Culture

Student sized servings

from The Scotsman: Poem of the Week: Angela Blacklock-Brown

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"Ach, Wien"
1803
By Rita Dove

from Slate: "Ach, Wien" --By Rita Dove

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Poetic Obituaries

"It was Barbara and I who sat out in my 1955 Thunderbird convertible in front of the Fluffy Bundle laundry mat and developed the blueprint for the Shakespeare festival," said Fred C. Adams, Barbara's husband. "From that, she walked every step of the way with me."

The 76-year-old, first lady of Southern Utah theater [Barbara Gaddie Adams] died Wednesday at her home after a five-year battle with kidney failure caused by diabetes.

from The Spectrum: Co-founder of USF, Adams, dies

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[Edwin M. Adams Jr.] also wrote a four-part series for PBS on the social responsibilities of large corporations.

Usually cast as a congressman, banker, doctor or a priest (seven roles), he appeared in 24 movies. He also wrote poetry, a novel, "Petty Destiny" (2004), and memoirs to be published posthumously.

from The Washington Post: Edwin M. Adams Jr.; Lawyer, Diplomat And Hollywood Actor

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Mr. [Stefan] Alexander had been an artist from childhood, and enjoyed oil painting and pencil etching. He loved his job and working with children.

"He was quiet and very creative," said his sister, Deanna Alexander. "He loved poetry and was a great writer."

from Staten Island News: Stefan Alexander, 47

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After one year of university studies, [Tom] Arnett moved to Toronto. There he wrote poetry, edited the East End Express, and managed the Bohemian Embassy, a popular hangout for bright young writers, including Margaret Atwood and Michael Ondaatje.

Arnett published 13 books in total.

from The Barrie Examiner: Local scribe passes away

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[Detroit Police Sgt. David] Cobb, who grew up on Detroit's west side, played the viola, wrote poems, enjoyed tennis and excelled at mathematics. He was an accomplished boxer, winning a Diamond Glove amateur bout in 1988.

from Detroit Free Press: Murder unresolved after wife's killing, cop's suicide

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[George] Coleman was an Atlanta native and graduated from Lincoln University of Missouri before returning to Atlanta to join the staff of the Atlanta Daily World.

He wrote poetry, sketched and painted. In 1961, Morris Brown College exhibited sketches he made for one of his poems.

from The Atlanta Journal-Constitution: George Coleman, 86, journalist, historian

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James Gleeson, Australia's foremost surrealist artist, died at the age of 92. He was also a poet, critic, writer and curator. He played a significant role in the Australian art scene, including serving on the board of the National Gallery of Australia.

Gleeson was born in Sydney where he attended East Sydney Technical College. It was here he was drawn to work of the likes of Salvador Dalí, Giorgio de Chirico and Max Ernst.

from Artdaily.org: Australia's Foremost Surrealist Artist, James Gleeson, Dies

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Onikah Ishmael also read and wrote poetry, her mother said. "If she was feeling blue, she would write about different colors and how each made her feel," Joy Ishmael said.

from The Independent: Woman, 20, killed in wreck

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Through his works of criticism, he [Ian Jack] helped generation of students to place the authorial process in its social and historical context and cast light on, and explored, the ways in which literature has been shaped by the author's relationship with the audiences for whom they wrote.

He is probably best known, academically, for his editorship of the first five volumes of the Oxford edition of The Poetical Works of Robert Browning, which was a triumph of accuracy, care and understanding that is unlikely to be superseded.

from The Guardian: Ian Jack

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Pat quickly learned what I liked, and regularly sent me work by the likes of Margaret Drabble, Marina Warner, William Trevor, Ruth Rendell, Helen Simpson and Mary Gordon. She was always straightforward and honest to deal with, and I particularly appreciated the way she would ask me to 'go up a bit more' when she knew that a particular writer was short of money. I always obliged, because I knew she wouldn't have been asking without good reason--and I was moved by her evident care for her writers. [--Emma Dally]

from theBookseller.com: Pat Kavanagh: Thoughts from the trade
also The Guardian: Appreciations: Pat Kavanagh

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[Graham] Lewis also received a master's degree in creative writing from Columbia College Chicago and a master's of fine arts in creative writing from the University of Arkansas.

His creative works include poetry and fiction. He has won many awards for his work such as two Academy of American Poets' Prizes, The Kenneth Patchen Award and two Bread Loaf Writer's Conference Scholarships.

from The Daily Eastern News: Engish professor dies Tuesday
also Graham Lewis--Forever Came Today

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"If we're not rooted in our culture, we're going to see more (people) getting involved with alcohol and gangs," he [Danny Lopez] said in an interview in 2000.

As recently in January, Mr. Lopez was continuing his grassroots efforts to reach out to children with native culture.

He took part in a Saturday morning storytelling and poetry program for children 4 to 8 at the University of Arizona Poetry Center.

Mr. Lopez also edited a collection of fiction and poetry by Tucson-area American Indian elders, "Dancing with the wind," published in 2005 by the nonprofit ArtsReach.

from Tucson Citizen: Danny Lopez tirelessly taught Tohono O'odham culture
also Native American Music: Danny Lopez, Tohono O'odham

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[Tahereh Saffarzadeh] was a professor at the Shahid Beheshti University and several other academic studies centers in Tehran.

Saffarzadeh published fourteen collections of poems including "The Red Umbrella," "The Journey of Five," "Move and Yesterday," "Seven Journeys" and "The Visit to the Morning."

She is also the author of ten books on the principles of translation of literary, scholarly, and Quranic texts.

from Payvand's Iran News: Woman Scholar of the Islamic World dies at 72

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[David Sinclair] served as the White Panthers' chief of staff and served as finance officer for the Rainbow People's Party.

FBI Director J. Edgar Hoover had David Sinclair's phone tapped in late 1970 as part of an investigation into the bombing of a CIA office in Ann Arbor. John Sinclair and two others were charged in connection with the bombing, but the charges were later dropped.

from The Ann Arbor News: David Sinclair, ex-activist, dies

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[Tara Lynn Woodman's] uncle, Mark Forster, spokesman for the family, said Friday, "She was a very fine poet and a very good athlete. She ran track and participated several times in the 'Just Move It' events."

Day of Prayer
November 29, 2008 @ 5:00 p.m.

Memorial Day
April 4, 2009 @ 10:00 a.m.
(Placement of headstone)

The family of Tara Lynn Woodman is requesting support during this time of need. Anything that could be offered via support flowers, cards, headstone donation, etc. would be appreciated. Hopefully, before the day of the Memorial there will be more information. If you have any questions, you may contact the family . . .

As of October 6, 2008 the F.B.I. is waiting on results of Lab work, DNA and Hard Evidence for the murderer of our beloved child, sister, neice and grandchild: Tara Lynn Woodman. The family and detectivers are requesting prayer for the lab work and for detectives to find what is needed in order to put this case to rest.

In loving memory
of
Tara Lynn Woodman
April 01, 1986 - February 25, 2005

from Poetry & Poets in Rags: [Tara Lynn] Woodman was wearing

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News at Eleven

A Jordanian poet, whose writings have drawn the ire of the country's religious establishment over the interpretation of Quranic verses cited in his book, was detained by the general prosecutor for two weeks on charges of defaming and insulting religion.

Islam Samhan, 27, who is also a journalist, said he was innocent during his court session on Sunday.

from The National: Jordan detains poet for religious crime

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According to [Mirza] Sakit's wife, the satirist was seriously ill and handcuffed when prison officials beat him heavily on his abdomen and kidneys.

Journalists in Azerbaijan are planned to hold a protest action today to condemn the maltreatment

from Index on Censorship: Satirist beaten in jail

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"I do not know if they belonged to Lorca. The bones were yellow and old, he told me. They could easily have been the remains of some other poor soul. There are hundreds buried there in Alfacar.

"The mass graves must be shallow as while we were working around there, we would come across human bones sticking out of the soil.
Mostly it was the feet, sometimes wearing sandals or shoes," he [Francisco Vilchez] said.

from The Olive Press: Here lies Lorca?

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The 30th point in his [Ted Hughes'] list reads: "Your death--providing other people with life."

His 31st idea for a poem is: "How they built the mausoleum."

The pages also include spider diagrams showing themes he thought important to [Sylvia] Plath's life, such as the electric shock therapy she underwent for her depression, the publication of her poetry anthology The Bell Jar, jealousy, "being Christlike" and "You as traitor, tall-teller".

from The Times: Ted Hughes archive to remain in UK
from The Times: Erica Wagner on why Ted Hughes's papers are right where they belong
from The Times: Rough-hewn genius of Ted Hughes laid bare in unfinished verses

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[Nancy K. Pearson's] "Needle Girls" introduces an unhappy subject dancing on a dangerous wire; it can mean life or death if she tumbles.
A suicide mission: "A young girl pushes a prayer book embedded with a needle into her chest." A conflict of faith and a desire to end life is the immediate message that is made more clear when "Two centuries later, an ER doctor, thread in hand, holds a girl's sliced wrist in the air, and says this way, pointing with his pen, next time, cut th em both, this way."

from The Provincetown Banner: From anguish to tranquility, Pearson's poetry takes a poignant journey

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There's contradictory evidence about whether he [John Milton] deprived his daughters of education, or forced it on them then complained that they did not live up to his standards, [Neil] Forsyth reports, but what is certain is that at the Restoration this was one seriously unhappy household. In 1662 the daughters were collectively stealing from the household and selling his books, presumably because they felt inadequately provided for.

from Blogcritics: Book Review: John Milton--A Biography by Neil Forsyth

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[Michael Rosen] added: "At present, publishers are understandably cautious about bringing out books of new poetry because even the most successful poets aren't selling brilliantly. Of course they aren't selling--schools feel they can fulfil what's required of them by buying in a few anthologies that cover all the bases. What is needed is a specific poetry curriculum."

from Telegraph: Schools shunning poetry, says Children's Laureate Michael Rosen

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[Hovhannes] Shiraz' poem is hypnotic in a sense. We can almost hear him crooning his lo ver with the lines, with the repetitions of "such pretty eyes,"
"pretty, pretty eyes," or "prettiest of eyes." We're convinced that this man is really enamoured with this person and is doing his best to woo her and win her for eternity. And, as is usually the case, all of the familiar clichés are used, such as the lips, roses, cheeks, eyes, etc. At first, a reader isn't necessarily startled or drawn in by its originality, but by its familiarity and musicality.

from Armenian Reporter: Poetry Matters: Shards of Love from Shiraz

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Modernity always defines itself in relation to a past that it attacks and transforms. Here, the self-proclaimed poet of modernity ("We must be absolutely modern," he had written in A Season in Hell) presents us with the figure of a faun: just the sort of neoclassical kitsch we'd expect him to despise. What does he do with it? He brings it to life, awakening a myth.

from The Atlantic Monthly: "Antique," by Arthur Rimbaud
also The Atlantic Monthly: "Marine," by Arthur Rimbaud

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Ready-To-Eat Individual deserves a larger audience than the in-the-know poets already plugged in, as do so many poetic works published each day from apartments and houses everywhere. [Frank] Sherlock and [Brett] Evans' testament to the light and dark magic of New Orleans is insightful, heartbreaking, and sometimes hilarious. In this text message age of sudden, short and plentiful bursts of words, poems seem poised for a comeback, especially poems like Frank's, which blend pop culture, journalism, and a distinct lyricism together in short lines.

from Oxford American: Poems Ready-to-Eat: A collaborative poem by the city of New Orleans

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The Global Language Monitor, based in Austin, Tex., has been tracking words for the past five years. Using its own teams of experts and its own algorithm, they say English adds a new word every 98 minutes. This means there are more than 900,000 English words in the world, and the one-millionth will appear sometime in April 2009.

In contrast, most standard dictionaries have about 200,000 words, unabridged dictionaries about 600,000.

from Smithsonian: The Million Word March
also The Union-Tribune (April 2, 2006): Amateur's claim of near-seven-figure English lexicon unleashes a torrent of words from the pros

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Great Regulars

But what makes this book [The Alice Trap by Kate Rhodes] remarkable is the final section, a moving sequence describing the illness and death of a friend's daughter. Through a process of restrained detail and repetition the poems gradually build their effects--"you loved cocktails, parties and old films./You stayed up late, even when you were ill./You danced for as long as you could."

from Charles Bainbridge: The Guardian: The Alice Trap

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But it's in the fiercely imagined fragments of past lives that [Gabriel] Levin's writing is at its best, whether it's Caravaggio "floundering (his face horribly disfigured/in a Neopolitan tavern) and coming up for air/with each brushstroke applied to canvas" or the mysterious ancestor evoked in "A Capella" "collapsed at a burning door/coated in the cinders of a language seeded with hope".

from Charles Bainbridge: The Guardian: The Maltese Dreambook

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This [Mark Doty] poem goes on to describe how a small garden perched on the edge of the sidewalk is redefined as each passer-by glances towards it - "it took all of us to make/the garden known. No one could assemble/the entire vantage we made together . . ./I felt in that moment/not dissolved in anything, not selfless, but joined/in a layering of singularities".

from Charles Bainbridge: The Guardian: Theories and Apparitions

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Thanks to all for your amazing expressions of support and sympathy following Sherri [Eberhart]'s passing Monday morning.

from John Mark Eberhart: Parachute: Entry for October 15, 2008

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In that spirit, here, in alphabetical order by author, are a dozen books that, no matter what happens this fall, will make you happy to have access to 'merkan bookstores.

from John Freeman: Sacramento News & Review: Falling bookish

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The speaker then calls his target sex object a "feign'd vestal." He is not castigating for not being a virgin; obviously, he is not invested in her remaining a "virgin." He is claiming she is a pretending "vestal," because he doubts she will remain a virgin for thirty years as the Vestal Virgin priestesses of the Roman temples did.

He claims that when he returns as an "apparition," he will find her sleeping with someone "worse" than he is.

from Linda Sue Grimes: Suite101.com: John Donne's 'The Apparition'

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He then lists the attributes that attract him and make him love his
city: "Manhattan's sights and sounds, her smells,/Her crowds, her throbbing force," and he will also feel the loss of "Her shining towers, her avenues, her slums."

Even though some of the things on the list are not particularly beautiful and inspiring, especially to those attracted to a rural setting, this speaker has fallen in love with those attributes and is decrying the fact that death will deprive him of their enjoyment.

from Linda Sue Grimes: Suite101.com: Johnson's 'My City'

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As Tomlinson tries to enter the gates of Hell, he is stopped by the Devil, who commands him, "Sit down, sit down upon the slag, and answer loud and high/The harm that ye did to the Sons of Men or ever you came to die." Again, Tomlinson claims that a former lover could testify to his cruelty on Earth, and the Devil's reply parallels that of Saint Peter that each must answer for his own sin: "For the sin that ye do by two and two ye must pay for one by one!"

from Linda Sue Grimes: Suite101.com: Kipling's 'Tomlinson'

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He is growing more urgent in his painful condition. But instead of sinking a third time, the speaker jumps out of the water for the strange reason that the water was so cold. His dedication to suicide is impeded by the discomfort of having to suffer the cold water.

from Linda Sue Grimes: Suite101.com: Langston Hughes' 'Life is Fine'

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He has castigated poetasters for their betrayal of truth, and he has rebuked pretenders who use poetic devices as mere cosmetics. He holds special scorn for those who abuse love. In this sonnet, the speaker is especially concerned with truth; he insists that soul knowledge is the answer to the opening question.

from Linda Sue Grimes: Suite101.com: Shakespeare Sonnet 84

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The speaker then emphasizes the soul force of his writing by referring to his sonnet as a "hymn." And to every one of them, he owes his fame, praise, and recognition. He would heartily agree that he writes, "In polish'd form of well-refined pen." By separating his ego from the sonnet and the process, he can remain humble while still agreeing that he deserves all the praise his sonnets attract.

from Linda Sue Grimes: Suite101.com: Shakespeare Sonnet 85

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The peacock, however, is a bit more arrogant with his description by claiming that the "monstrous peacock," or more glorious version of himself, also made grass and worms. The peacock implies that his Creator has made these creatures for the sake of the peacock. And the peacock also likens his beautiful tail feathers to stars hanging in the skies.

from Linda Sue Grimes: Suite101.com: Yeats' 'The Indian Upon God'

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So adroit is [Roger] Fanning's wizardry with the vernacular that this sounds almost ordinary at first glance, like a complaint overheard on the bus. But listen to the artistry here: the first two lines with their hissing "s" sounds (itemiZe, person'S, laSt aSpirin), and the imagery--"fake lamb's wool" (like the redemption of a false "lamb"20or Christ), the eyes fixed on digital clocks, the sleight-of-hand in which numbers morph into dollar signs.

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

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by Garrison Keillor

My Career in Radio

I'm a radio man for thirty-some years

from Garrison Keillor: The Atlantic Monthly: My Career in Radio

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Candlelight
by Tony Hoagland

Crossing the porch in the hazy dusk

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

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Classic Ballroom Dances
by Charles Simic

Grandmothers who wring the necks

from Garrison Keillor: The Writer's Almanac: Classic Ballroom Dances by Charles Simic

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The Cows at Night
by Hayden Carruth

The moon was like a full cup tonight,

from Garrison Keillor: The Writer's Almanac: The Cows at Night by Hayden Carruth

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Medallion
by Michael Heffernan

I'm going to go out and walk around a little,

from Garrison Keillor: The Writer's Almanac: Medallion by Michael Heffernan

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Personal Address
by Pat Schneider

Welcoming An
gels
by Pat Schneider

Personal Address

To you only I speak,

from Garrison Keillor: The Writer's Almanac: Personal Address by Pat Schneider Welcoming Angels by Pat Schneider

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Planting a Sequoia
by Dana Gioia

All afternoon my brothers and I have worked in the orchard,

from Garrison Keillor: The Writer's Almanac: Planting a Sequoia by Dana Gioia

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Stopping along the Way
by David Wagoner

Heading south toward campus, my car

from Garrison Keillor: The Writer's Almanac: Stopping along the Way by David Wagoner

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Bunsen, who is married to somebody else, meets Angelica online and then in the flesh in a scene of astonishingly incandescent physicality; even godless readers will need to wear oven mitts while they're taking in this passage, and Lutherans shouldn't read it at all.

Garrison Keillor, erotic writer: who knew?

from David Kirby: The New York Times: Patriot Games

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Every child can be seen as a miracle, and here Minnesota poet James Lenfestey captures the beautiful mystery of a daughter.

Daughter

from Ted Kooser: American Life in Poetry: Column 186

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[Elizabeth Dodd] includes the speaker of the poem--"I turn sideways"--as another natural element, not a dominator of wilderness. The poet's "hillside" consists of unseen realities, including song, the essence of lyrical poetry. Her verse transcends matter, and her answer to Bishop Berkeley is "Yes." Poetry is a sixth sense.

Lyric

It doesn't matter

from Denise Low: Ad Astra Poetry Project: Elizabeth Dodd
(1989 - )

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About 100 years later, Shakespeare had Hamlet proclaim, in one of his non-ironic moments, "What a piece of work is man. How noble in reason.
How infinite in faculties . . ." These ideas express [Walt] Whitman's beliefs exactly.

The following poem, "To a Stranger," will serve to represent the many poems in Whitman's body of work that illustrate his profound empathy for others:

Passing stranger! you do not know how longingly I look upon you,

from Anthony Maulucci: Norwich Bulletin: Poetry teaches, inspires compassion for fellow humans

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[Matthew] Arnold was not wholly comfortable with the idea of himself as a poet. He wrote: ". . . It is not so light a matter, when you have other grave claims on your powers, to submit voluntarily to the exhaustion of the best poetical production in a time like this . . .
It is only in the best poetical epochs . . . that you can descend into yourself and produce the best of your thought and feeling naturally, and without an overwhelming and to some degree morbid effort." In Dover Beach, the poet in Arnold has insisted that the descent be made, however painful.

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

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I would go visit my relatives in India. My cousins would tease me mercilessly and say that I sounded like John Wayne or something. I speak Tamil. That's my mother tongue. And my accent in Tamil was kind of terrible. And then I would come back to the US and I was jeered at for being different.

When you're very young I think you feel that very keenly. But as I grew older what I realized was, it helped me contruct my own identity and not feel like I had to partake in just one fixed identity. And I actually found that very liberating, both for my writing and also for the kind of life I was choosing to lead in the world.

from Belinda Subraman Presents: Ravi Shankar: Poet and Professor

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by Thomas Lynch

Father Andrews

Jake, for the record, life does go on. Tuesday

from The Atlantic Monthly: Poetry: Father Andrews

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By Diane Gonzales Bertrand

On the way through this unfamiliar

from Express-News: Poetry: 'Cross Winds'

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Novelist, poet and translator Ursula Le Guin is best known for creating worlds of fantasy and of the far future, but that is only part of an acclaimed body of work that incorporates Eastern philosophy, anthropology, linguistics and feminist principles.

from findingDulcinea: Happy Birthday, Ursula Le Guin

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Throughout his career, [Robert] Pinsky has been praised for both his deep understanding of the human experience and the melodic form of his poems.

In 1994, after years spent poring over the original Italian text, Pinsky published his translation of Dante's "The Inferno," in which he painstakingly recreated in English the rhythm of the original verse.

from findingDulcinea: Happy Birthday, Robert Pinsky

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In this week's Poetry Corner, we feature poems written by incarcerated children in Santa Cruz County Juvenile Hall. Recognized throughout the nation as one of the most progressive juvenile detention centers in the country, the local facility has, for over 10 years, hosted writing workshops led by staff and volunteers of The Beat Within. Writing generated by The Beat Within workshops is typed, edited, commented on, and published in a journal of the same name. The journal, often 60 pages, or more, in length, is distributed to the minors on a weekly basis.
There is also an on-line version of The Beat Within (thebeatwithin.org).

What I Saw Today

from Good Times Weekly: Poetry Corner: Poems from The Beat Within

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The Olden Days by Monica Ali

from The Guardian: The Saturday poem: The Olden Days by Monica Ali

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I Think of Pilgrims

by Terese Svoboda

Not Cameroonians curled in the landing gear,

from Guernica: Poetry: I Think of Pilgrims

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[by Jeff Guess]

Classic Pose

In King William Road there is an old carved frieze

from The Independent Weekly: Poet's Corner: Jeff Guess

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Michele Nardelli

The Magician

In one fading photo you were wearing a tuxedo.

from The Independent Weekly: Poet's Corner: Michele Nardelli

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By Ginny Lowe Connors

Five dark rocks,

from The Kansas City Star: Between the Lines: 'Zen Garden,'
a poem by Ginny Lowe Connors

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In this video, Missoula Mayor John Engen reads and discusses his favorite poem by20Ogden Nash.

from New West: The Favorite Poem Project: Mayor John Engen

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As part of the Montana Festival of the Book's Favorite Poem Project, Amber Greymorning shares a traditional Arapaho prayer she learned as a child in Wyoming.

from New West: The Favorite Poem Project: Amber Greymorning

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In this video, Executive Director of Humanities Montana Mark Sherouse discusses one of his favorite poems.

from New West: The Favorite Poem Project: Mark Sherhouse

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The Crossing
by Gerald Stern

from The New Yorker: Poetry: The Crossing

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Learning to Make an Oud in Nazareth
by Ruth Padel

from The New Yorker: Poetry: Learning to Make an Oud in Nazareth

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[by Karen Smith]

Saying Good-bye

I see you walking ahead of me

from Portsmouth Herald News: Poem: Saying Good-bye

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He may have lived his working life in South Africa, but Charles Murray did not lose command of his native Aberdeenshire tongue, nor, judging by t his robustly (to our eyes) incorrect piece, his couthy sense of humour. A new edition of Hamewith (with glossary) has been published by Alden Press, priced £9.99.

The Golden Age

I'll leave you the lasses that's still i' their teens,

from The Scotsman: Poem of the Week

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"Reading Faulkner at 17, You Foresee Your Reckoning"

By Catherine Pierce

from Slate: "Reading Faulkner at 17, You Foresee Your Reckoning" --By Catherine Pierce

---

[by Yehoshua November]

An Opening

It is said that if a Jew makes an opening in his heart for G-d to enter,

from Zeek: Two Poems by Yehoshua November

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Poetic Obituaries

[Aliscia] Ball loved animals, [her mother, Melinda] Gallo said, and took in all types, including tarantulas and pythons.

"She was like a blond Wednesday Addams," she said. "She loved all of them."

The death has been difficult, Gallo said.

"How does anybody deal with the loss of an only child," she said. "She had so much potential and so much to offer."

Gallo hopes the firefighters and hospital staff who helped Ball will attend her funeral, where Ball's poetry and artwork will be on display.

from The Times of Trenton: Hamilton woman burned in car explosion dies in hospital

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"To many, what you did is unforgivable," Shannon [Braithwaite] wrote in her poem.

A prolific writer, Shannon left behind a drawer full of poetry that her mother discovered after her death. In another poem, "My America,"
she recounted the history of the civil rights movement from slavery up through Barack Obama's presidential campaign.

"My America has learned to turn hate into love," she wrote.

from Daily News: Stabbed girl penned words of warning to cousin busted in killing

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[Donna Jean Canfield] was a very active member of the Beta Sigma Phi and was a member of Sixth Avenue United Methodist Church. Donna had a love for all people, a talent and love for the arts. She enjoyed ceramics, poetry, reading, flowers and her pet cat, "Callie."

from Lancaster Eagle Gazette: Donna (Friesner) Canfield

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In his poems, he [Faz?l Hüsnü Da?larca] took a stance against exploitation, condemned imperialism, and sympathized with the struggle of abused peoples.

Da?larca is also known as the innovator who introduced the genre of epic poem into Turkish literature. Da?larca believed that "poetry should emphasize the elements that turn a society into a nation; it should feature its triumphs, and pains."

from Today's Zaman: Da?larca, inventor of modern-day epic Turkish poetry dies

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[Gwen] Engert was often lovingly referred to as the "Ellie May Clampett of Summit County" given her love of pets and animals.

In honor of her memory, family and friends wanted to include a poem written by Engert in 1998.

Old friends are people I miss

from Summit Daily News: Gwen Engert passes away

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Though [Spc. 4 Stephen] Fortunato, Beverly High School Class of 2002, enlisted during a time of war and knew he would be placing himself in harm's way, [his mother Elizabeth] Crawford and [his Aunt Patricia] Wentworth draw a portrait of a man far different from a gung-ho warrior.

A talented artist, he wrote poetry and was planning to enroll in college to become a graphic artist once his enlistment was over.

"He won an award when he was in school for writing and illustrating a children's book," says Wentworth.

Yet, when his mother asked him, upon his enlistment, if he could really kill someone, he answered, "If he were going to do harm to me or to my family or my loved ones, I could."

from Beverly Citizen: Beverly loses native son to roadside bomb

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We read books like "Catcher i
n the Rye" that even today get targeted by book-banning fanatics. She shared her love of poetry, including favorite works by John Ciardi, and with the English team of teachers, introduced us to film study.

Sister Virginia Ann [Gardner, SSJ,] and her colleagues broadened our horizons, but they kept us humble. To get my foot in the door at the newspaper, she advised me to offer to do any task, including emptying the wastebaskets.

For college, she recommended Marquette University, where she spent 10 summers studying journalism and earning a master's degree in English.

from Erie Times-News: Gospel truth unveiled about career

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As for his [John Downhower's] partner, Dave [Garrett]'s family says he was going back to college to finish his degree. He loved writing poems and playing the guitar. And both men loved flying.

from ABC 13 Eyewitness News: Families mourn our pilot, photographer

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Elizabeth [E. Huppler] was always interested in the out-of-doors, went on her first birdwatching trip in 1954 and has never stopped wanting to see more birds. She and John traveled to 70 different countries, not only to see the birds, but to become immersed in the life of each country and its peoples. The flowers, trees, geology and culture of each country fascinated her. Together with her husband, she gave slide shows of their travels t o many organizations. Other hobbies were gardening, cooking, camping, fishing, reading, playing bridge and writing poetry and letters

from The Post-Crescent: Huppler, Elizabeth E.

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"She had exceptionally good taste at all levels of literature," he [Ion Trewin] said [of Pat Kavanagh]. "Most agents are known for one author or style of writing but she represented a phalanx of authors from Ruth Rendell and Joanna Trollope to Andrew Motion. As an editor if she came to you, you took her seriously immediately because she never wasted your time with rubbish."

Kavanagh's authors lined up to pay tribute.

from The Times: Writers mourn their no-nonsense friend Pat Kavanagh, the doyenne of Britain's literary agents

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[Edmund] Stonier, who celebrated his 90th birthday "early" in June at home in Barton, to where he moved with his wife from Tatenhill a decade ago, was a life-long Aston Villa fan and enjoyed gardening and poetry, of which he could recite long passages.

from Burton Mail: Dunkirk hero dies aged 89

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"Tony was what I would call under the underground," said North Beat poet Neeli Cherkovski [of Tony Vaughan]. "As a poet and painter, he bridged the Beat and '60s aesthetic with his own profound lyricism over man y decades. His poetry had a quiet rigor. He was warm and compassionate. He was a real cultural fighter, but not in an ideological way."

from San Francisco Chronicle: Memorial for Tony Vaughan, S.F. poet, painter
also S.F. Heart: Tony Vaughan

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News at Eleven

The judging process for the best collection was a much easier one, said [Frieda] Hughes, a poet, author and painter herself. "I had imagined, when the judges re-convened, that there would be some heavy debate about the possible winner of this category. But it was unanimous: Mick Imlah's collection, The Lost Leader, 20 years in the coming, is worth the wait."

Imlah, 52, picked subjects from sport and whisky to classical mythology and historical figures (including a poem about Gordon Brown, the rugby player) for The Lost Leader, with their defining thread being Scotland.

from The Guardian: Mick Imlah takes Forward prize after 20-year silence
also The Times Literary Supplement: Upwardly Mobile Moral tales

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Frieda Hughes, the judges' chairwoman, said: "These are fabulously wrought lines of devotion from a benevolent stalker who should be given free concert tickets for life.

"No poet can possibly have done more to elevate our awareness of a pop star or the benefits of Google as Don Paterson does.

"I did 'Google' Natalie, and she does exist--interesting music too. This is an impassioned love poem for a distant idol."

from The Scotsman: The distant enchantress who stole a poet's heart

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[Jean-Marie Gustave] Le Clezio, 68, is the first French writer to win the prestigious award since Chinese-born Frenchman Gao Xingjian was honored in 2000 and the 14th since the first Nobel Prizes began in 1901.

The decision was in line with the Swedish Academy's recent picks of European authors and followed days of vitriolic debate about whether the jury was anti-American.

from Daily Herald: France's Le Clezio wins Nobel literature prize

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Seamus Heaney, the English language's most-read living poet, should surely, I thought, be digging a sod somewhere or debating poetry over a Guinness. And, even at 78, his fellow grand old man of letters, the Caribbean author Derek Walcott, would have looked more himself striding from the waves on to one of the St Lucian beaches evoked in his great poem, Osmeros.

But here the two friends were in southeast London, scruffy jackets, crumpled brief-cases at their feet, up to their ears in a project that in itself sounds like a game of Consequences: an opera adapted from Heaney's The Burial at Thebes, a version of Sophocles' Antigone, to be directed by Walcot t and staged at Shakespeare's Globe.

from The Times: Derek Walcott and Seamus Heaney take on The Burial at Thebes
also The Wall Street Journal: Putting Antigone's World in Context

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[Mary Ann Hoberman's] memories, fashioned in catchy rhymes and wordplay, have rung true with two generations of young readers in a 51-year career that has produced 45 books and netted such prizes as a National Book Award (for "A House Is a House for Me").

In honor of her career, Chicago's Poetry Foundation, publisher of Poetry magazine, has named her its children's poet laureate.

from Chicago Tribune: Poetry Foundation names children's laureate, humor winner

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It's self-evident that examining oneself predicates a pair. But "I is another" is exhilarating, a revelation, which, at the very least, acknowledges one's undifferentiated human substance or collectivity, as for a child . . .

On a blue summer evening I shall go

from The New York Times: I Is Another

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"It is the nature of our culture," [Robert] Pinsky said, "that we do not have a unifying folk=2 0tradition to pass on the poems, stories, jokes, riddles and recipes."

Unlike other cultures where grandparents fill that roll, the United States has a myriad of cultures. He explained how teachers and librarians have become our society's agents for the transfer of folk tradition, passing the culture from generation-to-generation.

from Norwich Bulletin: Robert Pinksy shares poetry wisdom
also The Boston Globe: Hanging with . . . Robert Pinsky

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With David Hinton as our guide, Classical Chinese Poetry: An Anthology comes across as something akin to a magical artifact, full of potential energies and untapped motes of poetic inspiration. Anyone, especially poets looking outside the western canon for transformative verse and fresh inspiration, should include this book in their library.

from The Brooklyn Rail: Anthology: The Task of the Translator-Poet

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Alphabets are unreadable, roadblocks stop traffic, and poem titles sound the alert by reaching for the Old Testament ("How Long, O Lord, Will You Leave Them?"). The book opens with "Fire Regs", in which [Michael Symmons] Roberts captures the inertia of public speech in the face of mayhem: "In the event of a ram ra id/on the atrium, a van stuffed/with explosives, please take sides."

from The Guardian: Messages from the conflict zone

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Night, Morning: Poems, a newly-published selection of poems from [Hamutal] Bar-Yosef's four-decade career, is a probing of this painful place. Her poems, appearing as a collection in English for the first time, tackle love, solitude, suffering, and life in Israel under the promise and then the fact of statehood. For Bar-Yosef, the "painful place" is also the poetically generative one, and her best poems seem to be written on raw, exposed nerves.

from Nextbook: Mourning Glory

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[Harry P Graham's] poems, including one where he hopes his wounds are serious enough for him to be sent home, were recently discovered in a wartime diary kept by one of his comrades on the Western Front.

In a poem entitled C.C--which stands for Convalescent Camp--Harry wrote: "Happy I lay upon my bed, pains in my arms, my legs, my head,(At least I told the doctor so), To Blighty now I'm sure to go, I thought, and broadly smiled within; In fact, I could do naught but grin. [. . ."]

from The Daily Record: Newly discovered dia ries reveal horror of forgotten Scots WW1 hero

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Great Regulars

Breathing in the Dark

By Howard Schwartz

So many months breathing in the dark--

from Walter Bargen: The Post-Dispatch: Missouri poets: Howard Schwartz

---

So often a poet will want to force the emotion of an experience into the foreground. [Linda] Bierds' poem does the opposite. She resists the emotional business of art giving life, of art being life, until that understanding lifts, crests and surfaces out of the poem naturally. By letting the materials expose the emotion, she makes something that's Original.


Zuni Potter: Drawing the Heartline

from David Biespiel: The Oregonian: Linda Bierds' poem reshapes experience into metaphor

---

Kwame Dawes: Well, the difference is that the commitment in the journalistic piece is one idea of truth, that is, the truth of fact and the truth of information and the truth of data. That is actually the commitment, the contract you make with the reader.

In the poem, that's not your commitment. But if you look for the poems for an emotional truth, a kind of psychic truth, and a way in which the contradictions of experience are arti culated through rhythm, and sound, and the beauty of language, and the quest for language and meaning, then that's what you find in the poems.

from Jeffrey Brown: PBS: Newshour: Dawes, Pulitzer Center Take On HIV/AIDs in Jamaica

---

Sherri
By John Mark Eberhart

"I don't live today . . .

from John Mark Eberhart: Parachute: Sherri

---

The speaker finally reports that although he remained in Baltimore for the next eight months, from May to December, and had many experiences there, all he can now recall from that visit is the ugly face of the little bigot who poked out his tongue and called the speaker that deplorable epithet.

from Linda Sue Grimes: Suite101.com: Countée Cullen's 'Incident'

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Instead of undergoing the discipline of spirituality that keeps these saintly women thin, the speaker asserts that she will be found "lolling in the garden/munching on the apples."

The "apple" is a symbol of the fall of Adam and Eve after engaging in sexual experience, and literally the apple, as part of the human diet, is not notorious as a culprit in keeping the human frame covered with excess flesh.

from Linda Sue Grimes: Suite101.com: Huff's 'The Hymn of a Fat Woman'

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The speaker then uses a twisted kind of reasoning, saying that their blood mingling in the flea's body is not considered "a sin, nor shame" and not loss of virginity. Yet if they had intercourse, they would also cause bodily fluids to "mingle" and that is less than the mingling of blood in the flea.

from Linda Sue Grimes: Suite101.com: John Donne's 'The Flea'

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Those skeptical friends do not become enthused about this new poet, whose poems "grow in splayed rows/down the whole length of the page." The new poet's work looks unusual to the others, but to the speaker they bring forth much interest. The new poet's work brings back to the speaker her own experiences: "the very page smells of spilled// red wine."

from Linda Sue Grimes: Suite101.com: Linda Pastan's 'A New Poet'

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He also realizes that the brooks that appear in songs and poems never appear in this form.

However, to the speaker his love of this brook is just a strong as when it flows with waters and boasts those Hyla frog whose croaking sounds remind him of "ghost of sleigh-bells in a ghost of snow." He then makes his profound observance , framing it philosophically, "We love the things we love for what they are."

from Linda Sue Grimes: Suite101.com: Robert Frost's 'Hyla Brook'

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He thus demonstrates the unity of the muse and his own creative self, even as he has separated them, merely for the purpose of examining them. Again, the speaker displays his humility by claiming, "I am a worthless boat," at the same time averring, "He (his self that functions as the muse) appears "of tall building and of goodly pride."

from Linda Sue Grimes: Suite101.com: Shakespeare Sonnet 80

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And he then indicates that it is being written for "eyes not yet created." The speaker often projects his thoughts far into the future.

Not only will eyes play lovingly over his "gentle verse," but also "tongues to be your being shall rehearse."

from Linda Sue Grimes: Suite101.com: Shakespeare Sonnet 81

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In the couplet, "And their gross painting might be better used/Where cheeks need blood; in thee it is abus'd," he compares his sonnet to a painting, which has to use gross physical forms, where the painter must put blood in the cheek of his subject.

But such grossness is not required for the written word, and this speaker avers that in the sonnet "it is abus'd."

from Linda Sue Grimes: Suite101.com: Shakespeare Sonnet 82

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The "modern" way always brings with it some shallow writers who depend on disingenuousness and cosmetic touches to make their poetry appear original, even as it merely shows pretension and conformity. Such a situation can be seen in poets who become critics in order to make a case for their own poetry.

These artists behave like adolescents, who must change their style out of an ignorant rebellion and an immature attempt to belong to something they do not completely understand.

from Linda Sue Grimes: Suite101.com: Shakespeare Sonnet 83

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After taking out her glasses, "there/in the bookstore," she samples a few poems, but then chooses not to buy the book. She simply returns the book to the shelf.

The speaker does not allow himself the audacity of having her actually buy the book. And if she did buy the book, his little drama could not end with the punch he has in store.

from Linda Sue Grimes: Suite101.com: Ted Kooser's 'Selecting a Reader'

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Guelf by Mick Imlah

from Mick Imlah: The Guardian: The Saturday poem: Guelf by Mick Imlah

---

[Bill] Knott embodies what poet and critic Octavio Paz describes as modern poetry's "heroic-burlesque remedy," for in trying to marry the sublime to the ridiculous, he's attempting, perhaps futilely, to unite humor and love, life and art. In "A Lesson From the Orphanage," he uses the brutal social structure of foundlings to refute war:

If you beat up someone smaller than you

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

---

Adding It Up
by Philip Booth

My mind's eye opens before

from Garrison Keillor: The Writer's Almanac: Adding It Up by Philip Booth

---

Elegy
by Arthur Guiterman

The jackals prowl, the serpents hiss

from Garrison Keillor: The Writer's Almanac: Elegy by Arthur Guiterman

---

Hummingbirds
by Ann Iverson

Now five have come to dine

from Garrison Keillor: The Writer's Almanac: Hummingbirds by Ann Iverson

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The=2 0Poet Goes to Indiana
by Mary Oliver

I'll tell you a half-dozen things

from Garrison Keillor: The Writer's Almanac: The Poet Goes to Indiana by Mary Oliver

---

Sleeping
by Raymond Carver

He slept on his hands.

from Garrison Keillor: The Writer's Almanac: Sleeping by Raymond Carver

---

Truth
by Leonard Nathan

As children in the schoolroom game

from Garrison Keillor: The Writer's Almanac: Truth by Leonard Nathan

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Warnings
by David Allen Sullivan

A can of self-defense pepper spray says it may

from Garrison Keillor: The Writer's Almanac: Warnings by David Allen Sullivan

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But the real scandal of [Horace] Engdahl's comments is not that they revealed a secret bias on the part of the Swedish Academy. It is that Engdahl made official what has long been obvious to anyone paying attention: The Nobel committee has no clue about American literature. America should respond not by imploring the committee for a fairer hearing but by seceding, once and for all, from the sham that the Nobel Prize for literature has20become.

from Adam Kirsch: Slate: Nobel Gas

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When I was a boy, there were still a few veterans of the Spanish American War, and more of The Great War, or World War I, and now all those have died and those who served in World War II are passing from us, too. Robert Hedin, a Minnesota poet, has written a fine poem about these people.

The Old Liberators

from Ted Kooser: American Life in Poetry: Column 185

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I've decided to cut down a few trees instead of returning to my roots. Why do I feel so Haitian right now. Do I need the charcoal to cook or write? But what if it's my bones that are burning? Where is the joy in that?

What follows is a revision of a few of the poems that appeared in Andromeda.

One thing I would change is the title of the collection. I would call the book Andromeda Suffering a more direct link to Alice Coltrane's music and my current state of mind.

from E. Ethelbert Miller: E-Notes: E-Talk

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Those whose education is a distant prospect are inclined to say the experience stood them in good stead and has since become a source of silent comfort and entertainment. Those still in school, or who l eft more recently, generally make a face: learning poetry is boooring.

Why such a difference?

from Andrew Motion: Telegraph: National Poetry Day: Andrew Motion takes poetry to heart

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While Beijing's leaders will probably heave a sigh of relief following the announcement Friday that the 2008 Nobel Peace Prize was awarded to former Finnish president and peace mediator Martti Ahtisaari, reaction online was more mixed.

"Very disappointed," one prominent blogger commented on the live update service Twitter.

Another said, "I guess Hu Jia just wasn't international enough."

from Luisetta Mudie: Radio Free Asia: Chinese React to Nobel Award

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Yet, lost in the usual Nobel drama was a larger, stranger and nearly unexplainable fact: While American fiction and theater can boast of at least a few Nobel winners (nine, to be precise), no American poet has won the Nobel Prize in Literature. Not one, in more than 100 years.

There are two typical responses to this information.

from David Orr: The New York Times: Yet Once More, a Laurel Not Bestowed

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And of course, [Robert] Burns sneaks in a neat touch of anti-clericalism for good measure. Rea ders wishing to enjoy more of the bard in Calvinist-baiting vein may like to sample Holy Willie's Prayer - with the help of Michaelian's Glossary, of course.

To A Louse
On Seeing One On A Lady's Bonnet, At Church

Ha! whaur ye gaun, ye crowlin ferlie?

from Carol Rumens: The Guardian: theblogbooks: Poem of the week: To a Louse

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Just look at [Horace] Engdahl, whose statement that "Europe still is the center of the literary world" reveals a cultural blindness as pervasive as anything he accuses American writers of.

"I'd be more inclined to take Engdahl at his word," [David] Kipen writes in an e-mail, "if his championing of European literature didn't also ignore all the great writing coming from the rest of the planet just now. Africa, India and China, to name just three not inconsiderable land masses, are producing wonderful stuff."

from David L. Ulin: Los Angeles Times: Le Clezio--who's he?

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The Elected

by Donna Brook

from The Brooklyn Rail: Poetry: The Elected

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The New Boys

by Mei-mei Berssenbruge

from The Brooklyn Rail: Poetry : The New Boys

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Poetry

by Simon Pettet

from The Brooklyn Rail: Poetry: Poetry

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By Trudie Homan

Czar Nicholas and family were shot,

from The Kansas City Star: Between the Lines: 'All Accounted For,' a poem by Trudie Homan

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Mu Ch'i's Persimmons
by Gary Snyder

from The New Yorker: Poetry: Mu Ch'i's Persimmons

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Nymph and Shepherd
by Donald Hall

from The New Yorker: Poetry: Nymph and Shepherd

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Poem by the Bridge at Ten-shin
by Frederick Seidel

from The New Yorker: Poetry: Poem by the Bridge at Ten-shin

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By Jehanne Dubrow

Ida Lewin (1906--1938)
AlwaysWinter, Poland

37.

Those women who sit shiva

from Nextbook: Fragments from a Nonexistent Yiddish Poet

---

Carcanet has recently published an expanded edition of the remarkable work of20the 20th-century poet, Sylvia Townsend Warner (New Collected Poems, £18.95). In this evocation of the handing on of a beloved place, the concern for due regard for heritage can perhaps be read as both public and private.

The Old Squire

Squire England has grown old:

from The Scotsman: Poem of the Week: Sylvia Townsend Warner

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"Spring Comes to Ohio"
By Joseph Campana

from Slate: "Spring Comes to Ohio" --By Joseph Campana

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Poetic Obituaries

[Katherine] McKenzie turned toward the defendant and showed him photos of her son [Brad Avants] and told him, "I would just like you to see what you've taken."

McKenzie read a poem written by her son and later finished by her after his death.

from Valencia County News-Bulletin: Manslaughter sentence handed down

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Velma [Rose Brown] was a devoted wife and mother, accomplished painter, poet and dedicated Sunday school teacher. She was an avid reader and letter writer who loved to sing and travel the world, and before settling in Ohio, lived in Japan, California, Virginia, Georgia, Kansas and Massachusetts

from Newark Advocate: Velma20R. Brown

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The other side of Ahmed Faraz was that he was an incurable romantic. It is due to his exquisite romantic poetry written in the idiom of classical Urdu and Persian verse that he is by popular consensus the greatest 20th century Urdu poet after Iqbal and Faiz. The lyricism and beauty of his romantic verse is the reason that his ghazals have been sung so often and to such popular acclaim. This romantic poetry (along with his anti-establishment credentials) is also the reason for his immense popularity among the younger generation.

from Chowk: Ahmed Faraz (1931-2008)--The Romantic Rebel

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Martha [R. Gay] was very artistic and loved reading. She wrote poetry, liked to cook and found pleasure in teaching her children Bible interpretation.

from Palladium-Item: Martha R. Gay

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Miss Nellie [Gold] recently wrote a poem about the poor people she loved. Her family estimates she served a million and a half meals to the Indianapolis homeless during her lifetime. When she wasn't cooking food, she was collecting it.

from WISH TV 8: Advocate for the poor dies at 78

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At her [Floretta Gunn's] 103rd birthday party=2 0in August, her friends and relatives marveled at how she could still recite Bible verses from memory.

She made it a lifelong mission to memorize scripture and poetry. She'd recite Lincoln's Gettysburg Address with passion, or a Milton sonnet and other classic works.

"She always said it kept her mind sharp," said Daisy Stroud of Charlotte, another longtime friend. "And it did."

from iStockAnalyst: Civil Rights Advocate, 103, Dies: Floretta Gunn Taught in Charlotte Schools for 43 Years, Took Public Stance Against Racial Disparities.

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Obaidul Huq's speech was smooth and clear, and he used quotations so nicely that it taught us a lot. He was called "king of quotations." He was a time film director, producer, script writer, novelist, poet and journalist.

from The Daily Star: A legend and doyen in journalism

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Mr. [Mario] Maya toured internationally and performed on Broadway, staging productions that combined flamenco dance and song with poetry and drama. They were programmatic works with a text and theme, often a message of Gypsy pride.

from The Washington Post: Renowned Flamenco Dancer Mario Maya

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[Rev. L. Henry Mayle's] life was producti ve and active, having officiated hundreds of funerals. It was his blessing to have written 850 gospel songs, and more than 2000 poems. Across those years found him engaged in the service of the Lord by way of radio.

from Zanesville Times Recorder: The Rev. L. Henry Mayle, 86

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[Dawn McCreery] was a 20-year-old artist and a poet, the girl who could turn thrift-store finds into high fashion, the designer, the hard worker, the penny saver, voracious reader, the "best dressed" sorority sister two years running who still considered herself a little frumpy, the individualist with a streak of purple in her hair.

from The Plain Dealer: Family of Dawn McCreery, murdered by Richard Wade Cooey, endures years-long wait for execution

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[Rev. Louis Geza] Mesko published four volumes of poetry and read poetry every day, said his great-nephew Zsolt Mesko. He believed that reading literature and poetry was a way to train the mind, and his intellect remained clear to the end, Mesko said.

from The Philadelphia Inquirer: Rev. Louis Geza Mesko, 97, founder of Devon Preparatory School

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0AAt the age of twenty, he was appointed by his master, Munis 'Ali Shah, to the position of Shaikh (spiritual director). Upon the death of Munis in 1953, Dr. [Javad] Nurbakhsh was named in succession as Master of the Nimatullahi Order.

Dr. Nurbakhsh was an accomplished Sufi poet and spent more than 50 years writing, editing and publishing definitive and comprehensive works on the Sufi spiritual path.

from Payvand's Iran News: Sufi Poet Dr. Javad Nurbakhsh: 12/10/1926 - 10/10/2008

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[Dennis] Quinn said his brother was a peaceful person, who loved to play guitar and write poetry. Kyle Quinn was a sophomore studying history at Kutztown University when he died.

Dennis said he'll start the hike next spring in mid-March, and he hopes to finish on Sept. 7, 2009, two years to the day of Kyle's death. Kyle would have wanted him to carry out their hike, he said.

from Grand Junction Sentinel: Brother's murder haunts hiker, whose long-distance trek will honor sibling

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[Alta Z. Peterson] was a counselor at the high school for a number of years but returned to teaching for 10 years, before retiring in 1984, because she felt she could help more children in the classroom, said her daughter, Anne. She shared her appreciation of literature and poetry with her students, her daughter said.

from The Philadelphia Inquirer: Alta Z. Peterson: Teacher, counselor, 90

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Prof [Joginder] Puri was a great philosopher and a mesmerizing speaker as well as an accomplished poet with numerous writings to his credit in Punjabi, Urdu and English. His work has been published under two tiles, "Kahdaa e Mana" and "Purifying Experiences".

from India Post: Nirankari Mission Preacher passes away

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Randy [Randolph] was a true Renaissance man and polymath. He loved reading and writing poetry, listening to a variety of music, and reading books on just about any subject. He had an amazing grasp of history, especially as it related to military events and international affairs. He had an unquenchable thirst for knowledge. He was also a photography enthusiast, and documented his life in pictures.

from The Daily Journal: J. Lonny 'Randy' Randolph, 70

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News at Eleven

So does the sardonic "Oh, My God!" [by Billy Collins] in imagining that teenage girls who utter that outburst capriciously are deeply devout. ("Wherever they go/prayer is woven into their talk/like a bright thread of awe.")

The deliberate jumble of clichés in "Adage" is another jab at linguistic lassitude. ("A wise man once said that love/was like forcing a horse to drink/but then everyone stopped thinking of him as wise.")

from The New York Times: Tripping To and Fro, Happily Skewering Poetry

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[" . . .] If you can say God is dead, then harmony is dead, melody is dead, music is dead, therefore faith is dead. Therefore it's easy to do what you have to do in the name of necessity. The rules no longer apply. You have something that is a semi-poem, just as you have something that is a semi-democracy or a semi-foreign policy. And you don't count the dead in Iraq because it's not part of the melody." [--Derek Walcott]

from The Guardian: You promised me poems

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The fact that his dialect writing sold better than his standard poetry "was a perfect example of the dilemm a he was in," [Gene] Jarrett told IBD.

[Shelley Fisher] Fishkin ranks three of [Paul] Dunbar's works among the top American poems. They are: "We Wear the Mask," "An Ante-Bellum Sermon" and "When Malindy Sings."

Of the three, only "We Wear the Mask" was written in standard English. It tells readers: "We wear the mask that grins and lies. . . . With torn and bleeding hearts we smile."

from Investor's Business Daily: Paul Dunbar's Lasting Poetry

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[Czeslaw] Milosz returned to America only once. In the summer of 2002, he flew to San Francisco, where Carol was being treated for bone marrow cancer. "The real catastrophe was her sudden death," explains Aleksander Fiut, interlocutor for "Conversations With Czeslaw Milosz." "He was extremely depressed after her death. Before, he was able to laugh. After, sometimes he smiled."

from Los Angeles Times: Poet Czeslaw Milosz's last days

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But now, [Islam] Samhan, 27, who is also a journalist, has been accused of apostasy, a crime that can carry the death sentence in the Islamic world.

Last week, Jordan's grand mufti, Noah Alqdah Samas, the kingdom's highest religious authority, called Samhan an enemy of religion for his poetry, some of which included lines comparing his loneliness to t hat of the prophet Yusuf in the Quran.

from The National: Poet accused of being enemy of Islam

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After the gas-oven suicide of his wife Sylvia Plath in 1963, when he was 32; and the mirroring suicide of his lover Assia Wevill six years later, [Ted] Hughes's writing changed. He tried to enter the continent straight away, leaving the words to loosen and turn hortatory. No longer did he hold Creation in his foot. Creation--a mystical, grandiose, legend-ridden kind--held him in its foot.

from The New York Times: Yours Sincerely: A Poet on Fish, Bulls and Love
also The New York Times' Paper Cuts: Dear Mrs. Plath

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The most important thing I learned in business is something that few artists ever learn: the importance of creating win-win situations. In art, one person tends to win the prize, and the others do not. One person gets the part; the others do not. So artists tend to think of the world as a zero-sum game. [--Dana Gioia]

from Artinfo: Dana Gioia

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Any child who wants to enter should lobby a teacher to get the school involved. All this information can be found on the BBC learning website, which has the poems that the children need to learn.

This competition is modelled on similar schemes run in America and Ireland, where they have proved hugely popular. Last year more than 150,000 children took part in the contest in the United States.

from The Sunday Times: A poem learnt by heart is a friend for life

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In April, when flowers should have nodded,
And farmer's draft horses should have plodded
Through fields agreen with rows of growing grain,
The dust bowl came and blew it all away.

What I like about this almost-parody is the way [Jilly] Dybka captures the slightly-off experience of reading Chaucer today. This is a literary in-joke, I guess, but it's not a very exclusive one.

from Bookslut: Trouble and Honey by Jilly Dybka

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For a grim second I thought he was going to recite poetry. I steeled myself for a Vogon moment. No, he wanted me to know that a few month's ago he'd put a poem up on the board at work an unprecedented, unheard-of act. No one said anything, but no one took it down, and a few day's later someone put a poem up beside it. He took his down and put another up. People began to talk about the poems.

from The Guardian: Poetic licence

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I kid you not. Nor is this roster, at 3,164 names as complete a collection of mostly post-avant poets I have ever seen, the quirkiest thing about Issue 1.

No, the quirkiest thing about Issue 1 is going to be that, if it includes your name--and, hey, it probably does--you have no memory of having written that text, nor of submitting it to Issue 1.

from Silliman's Blog: One advantage of e-books is that you . . .

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Great Regulars

The loss referred to in the poem is both of childhood innocence and what results when the painter imagines them, placing their image on canvas for others to write the stories they see, to interpret who they are.

Everyone can and should head for the St. Louis Art Museum to begin writing poems based on the paintings they see.

"The Day the Painter John Singer Sargent Came Around" By Peter Carlos

from Walter Bargen: The Post-Dispatch: Missouri Poets: Peter Carlos

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One of the Three Blind Mice Finds Work
By Alarie Tennille

Joie de vivre. I know the secret.

from John Ma rk Eberhart: Parachute: Eek!

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Let's Kill All the Brokers
By Jon Herbert Arkham

from John Mark Eberhart: Parachute: The first thing we do . . .

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A Letter from an Imaginary Friend
By Tim Pettet

Dear Tim,

from John Mark Eberhart: Parachute: Um, hey, Tim . . .

---

Nevertheless, a second voice, indicated by italics, responds that you get through life by following a four-step plan: First, you walk. Second, you stop. Third, you hurt. Fourth and finally, you simply go on. And of course, while the plan itself is simple, following it not easy.

from Linda Sue Grimes: Suite101.com: Dick Allen's 'A Cautionary'

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By placing the flesh of animals into geometric shapes, these meat workers, these Gods, these Great Geometers eliminate the reality that those shapes once lived and breathed, circulated blood, reproduced, and had feelings just as the humans who consume them do. Those animals may not have the brain capacity of the human consumer, but they nevertheless walk around in bodies that work pretty much identically to their human counterparts.

from Linda Sue Grimes: Suite101.com: Nemerov's 'Grace to Be Said at the Supermarket'

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Such a bequest is also indicative of a stereotype of the Caucasian as materialist and authoritarian.

Interestingly, the speaker has chosen eye color to designate the Caucasoid, while he uses eye shape to designate the Mongoloid. A strict accounting of eye color and eye shape would reveal that all races have these traits, but the reader will have to suspend certain aspects of science for a clear reading of this poem.

from Linda Sue Grimes: Suite101.com: October Poet--Arna Bontemps

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She then comments on the many socks that she put "into the foam" together "like those creatures in the ark," but after the wash, they are "uncoupled," and her tasks if to make them "paired" again.

Sometimes items shrink, but through sentimentality, they find those items hard to part with "even for Goodwill."

from Linda Sue Grimes: Suite101.com: Ritchie's 'Sorting Laundry'

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The Muse is the "influence." It has come directly from her. She can take pride knowing the positive creations she helps create are shining examples of her high quality.

The speaker then compares his use of the Muse to that of other artists and find them lacking.

from Linda Sue Grimes: Suite101.com: Shakespeare Sonnet 78

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To be able to offer at least some token, he has to "rob" what the muse had earlier given him. The act does not make him happy, but he feels that he must do something other than whine and mope.

from Linda Sue Grimes: Suite101.com: Shakespeare Sonnet 79

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The speaker then continues to reveal his actions that enliven and glorify his days. He goes to the river, which is "Aflow in joyous quiver." He sees joy in the ordinary movement of a river. And this ordinary, even mundane, occurrence "soothes" his mind.

from Linda Sue Grimes: Suite101.com: Yogananda's 'For Thee and Thine'

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The speaker again reports that things sometimes seem very dark, and one may feel trapped by the exigencies of earth. At that time, again he questions, "Who shows my path and th' dark beguiles/With mildly mocking moonlit smiles?"

from Linda Sue Grimes: Suite101.com: Yogananda's 'Thy Call'

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I am deeply saddened by the loss of life and property as a result of the earthquake that struck Damshung county an d neighboring areas west of Lhasa on Monday, 6 October 2008.

from Tenzin Gyatso: The Office of His Holiness the 14th Dalai Lama: Message of H.H. the Dalai Lama To Those Affected by Tibet Earthquake

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I started the rethink my situation, and yes, in fact I did see the strange loveliness of it: after all, the bus passengers were all in that fix together. Needless to say, I felt better and endured the rest of the two-hour trip.

Rethink your situation, Mark B. After all, trees still grow in L.A.; the world still moves forward without complaint in the growing smog, and in a way, that raw endurance is simply . . . what? What do you think?

from Kristen Hoggart: The Smart Set: Ask a Poet: Insufferable

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"Only in one of the most militarized and dangerous places in the world can endangered species find a haven," pointed out [Robert] Hass, referring to several species of cranes now living there.

"If peace ever comes to the DMZ, commercial development's bound to start and these ancient birds will again be threatened," he said.

from Bob Hoover: Pittsburgh Post-Gazette: Writers urged by ex-poet laureate to defend wildlife

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[Hayden Carruth] gets "a bursitis in the elbow" after yanking the cord "450 times." Eventually, Old Stan (a neighbor) buys it from him. But a few days later when he asks how the chainsaw is working, Stan says, "I tooken/it down to scrap, and I buried it in three/separate places yonder on the upper side/of the potato piece. You can't be too careful/. . . when you're disposing of a hex."

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

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The Book of My Enemy Has Been Remaindered
by Clive James

The book of my enemy has been remaindered

from Garrison Keillor: The Writer's Almanac: The Book of My Enemy Has Been Remaindered by Clive James

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Composed Upon Westminster Bridge, September 3, 1802
by William Wordsworth

Earth has not anything to show more fair:

from Garrison Keillor: The Writer's Almanac: Composed Upon Westminster Bridge, September 3, 1802 by William Wordsworth

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Now
by Greg Watson

I told you once when we were young that

from Garrison Keillor: The Writer's Almanac: Now by Greg Watson

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The Pinnacle
by W. S. Merwin

Both of us understood

from Garrison Keillor: The Writer's Almanac: The Pinnacle by W. S. Merwin

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The Scientist
by Jonathan Holden

Other fathers might cuss out a lawnmower

from Garrison Keillor: The Writer's Almanac: The Scientist by Jonathan Holden

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A Woman Feeding Gulls
by David Wagoner

They cry out at the sight of her and come flying

from Garrison Keillor: The Writer's Almanac: A Woman Feeding Gulls by David Wagoner

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Words of wisdom
by Anonymous

Health Food

from Garrison Keillor: The Writer's Almanac: Words of wisdom by Anonymous

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I hope it's not just a guy thing, a delight in the trappings of work. I love this poem by John Maloney, of Massachusetts, which gives us a close look behind the windshields of all those pickup trucks we see heading home from work.

After Work

from Ted Kooser: American Life in Poetry: Column 184

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A lyrical image is "suspended wasp motion" as time itself continues to move forward like heartbeats and like the slow, floating wasp's flight. The ending thought, about the tension between immobility and action, resolves with the "& so on" of continuing creation as our galaxy continues to spread outward across the blue sky. This kind of poetry asks the reader to participate fully.

[by Judith Roitman]

As a Leaf

from Denise Low: Ad Astra Poetry Project: Judith Roitman (1945 - )

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Why should poets write for radio or an imaginary stage? In the right hands, radio brings out the magic of the language. Here's an excerpt from the opening of "Under Milk Wood" to prove my point:

from Anthony Maulucci: Norwich Bulletin: Radio drama, like poetry creates sense of place, stirs emotion

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All the same, any American foolhardy enough to bet on this year's prize--the announcement comes on Thursday--would be well advised to put his money on a writer whom nobody in this country has ever heard of and who is out of print here or, ideally, has never been published at all. For example, Ladbrokes, the British betting shop, has as the frontrunner, at 3 to 1 odds, the Italian essayist and novelist Claudio Magris, followed, at 4-1, by the Syrian poet Adonis.

from Charles McGrath: The New York Times: Lost in Translation? A Swede's Snub of U.S. Lit

---

Here is a poem that demonstrates how much can be done in just two lines. This epigram by British poet Walter Savage Landor (1775-1864) will revive Slate's custom of occasionally presenting a classic in the "Poem" column.

Landor refreshes one of the great clichés--that time has wings and flies--with the observation that sometimes a wing is used not only for flying but for flicking water.

from Robert Pinsky: Slate: "On Love, on Grief"

---

Does my rambling thus far have anything to do with [Horace] Engdahl's comments? Let's take the phrases "too isolated" and "too insular." Well. I suppose geographically we're fairly isolated from Europe. And therefore farther from the Middle East and Africa and China. And this probably has some non-geographical ramifications. Like, I suppose we really don't identify as much with the secular/traditional culture wars going on in Turkey, and maybe we have a completely different concept of the Israel/Palestine situation than the rest of the world.

from Max Ross: The Rake: Cracking Spines: Philip Roth Aint's Gonna Win This One

---

While Anne Finch wrote serious nature poetry, admired by Wordsworth for the freshness of its imagery, her owls no less than her meadows and nightingales declare her powers of observation. As for the moral, proud parents and media-people alike, take heed!

The Owl Describing her Young Ones

from Carol Rumens: The Guardian: theblogbooks: Poem of the week: The Owl Describing her Young Ones

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[by Judith Arcana]

When death came in where love

from B.T. Shaw: The Oregonian: Poetry

---

It's a weird juxtaposition. "I turned over the bottle of shampoo," he writes, "and Frank O'Hara came out. I rubbed him all into my head, letting the foam rise, knowing I was just warming myself up, excited by the excess of what was to come." Later in the poem, Barbara Guest squirts out of a shaving cream can and James Schuyler is squeezed out of toothpaste. There is Ted Berrigan after shave and Kenneth Koch mouthwash. Between these satiric paragraphs we find narratives such as this:

from Dale Smith: Bookslut: Marsupial Inquirer: The Assholes of Assus: An Homage

---

by Sergio Lewis

Who are these people
Screaming to a sea of madness?

Heed The Cause

from Donna Snyder: Newspaper Tree: Tumblewords Poetry: Heed the Cause

---

Timothy Green lives in Los Angeles, where he works as editor of the poetry journal Rattle. His first book-length collection, "American Fractal," is forthcoming from Red Hen Press (January, 2009).

The Memory of Water

from Good Times Weekly: Poetry Corner: The Poetry of Timothy Green

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The Power Station

Paul Farley

from The Guardian: The Saturday poem: The Power Station by Paul Farley

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Plague

by Robert Thomas

Fold back your sleeve, cara, so I can see

from Guernica: Poetry: Plague

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By Jon Herbert Arkham

Twelve bars, eleven,

from The Kansas City Star: Between the Lines: 'Fractal Blues'

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Eclogue
by Spencer Reece

from The New Yorker: Poetry: Eclogue

---

Electra Woman
by Bryan D. Dietrich

from The New Yorker: Poetry: Electra Woman

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The Way
by Albert Goldbarth

from The New Yorker: Poetry: The Way

---

You could see it in the shadow. It was very, very strange, very ironic that we would be imprisoned whereas my uncle was free.

He brought me a cowboy belt. In essence, he told me, "You're not a prisoner or an internee. You're a cowboy." I wore that belt every day for about three or four years. [--Lawson Inada]

from PBS: Newshour: Oregon Poet Laureate Inada Reflects on Internment

---

[by H.J. Arey]

Thank you Charlie

One early morning my husband had a heart attack.

from Portsmouth Herald News: Poem: Thank you Charlie

---

Inevitably, however, she [Annie Dillard] does more than this: she asks what it all means. The hard, incredible beauty of a monarch migration, the cruelty of a female mantis eating her mate while they couple, the insanity of the pine processionary caterpillar that follows unswervingly a track laid down by its leader and does so even if the procession is in a circle, round and round until it dies of starvation,--what force lies behind such beauties, cruelties, insanities? Is it mindless or intelligent, evil or good?

from Powells: Review-A-Day: Attractions and Dangers of Nostalgia: A Review by Hayden Carruth

---

It's National Poetry Day on Thursday; the theme for this year's set of free poetry postcards is 'work'. Marion Bernstein, the Victorian feminist, writing in Glasgow in the 1870s, certainly gives us a daunting list of a woman's duties--one which, it appears, she firmly rejected.

from Wanted A Husband

from The Scotsman: Poem of the Week

---

by Naomi Shihab Nye

Arabic Room

The last month of your life

from The Sun Magazine: Poetry: Three Poems

---

Poetic Obituaries

One of Mr. [Hayden] Carruth's final books, "Letters to Jane" (2004), was a volume of his correspondence with poet Jane Kenyon, who died of cancer in 1995 at 47.

"He wrote her a letter every week," Kenyon's husband, poet Donald Hall, said yesterday. "He did not talk to her about her disease. He wrote looking out his window at a bird, at a leaf falling. They were absolutely marvelous."

"Silence"

Sometimes we don't say anything. Sometimes

from The Washington Post: Hayden Carruth, 87; Poems Reflected Struggles of Life
also The Post-Standard: Hayden Carruth Dies
also Los Angeles Times: Hayden Carruth dies at 87; poet wrote eloquently of farmers' lives even as he battled emotional ills

---

Speaking after the inquest, Ms [Marie] Corcoran described Daniel [Foster] as a "kind and loving son" who would write poetry and anti-war songs.

She said: "I still look at his artwork and poems and see such talent. He will be sorely missed."

from Islington Tribune: Inquest fails to solve mystery of teen's death

---

Throughout his life, he [Edler "Merthell" Gleave] remained a true patriot to the United States, joining the Army during WWII. He continued to voice his concerns about individual rights and freedoms as seen in his poetry and letters to the President of the United States of America.

from The Spectrum: Merthell Gleave

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[Paavo Haavikko] leaves behind him 70 literary works, which have been translated into 12 languages. In addition to poetry, he wrote prose, drama, opera librettos, as well as television and film scripts.

from YLE News: Author Paavo Haavikko Dies at 77

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[Shaharom Husain] was awarded the Tokoh Guru (exemplary teacher) at the Johor and national levels as well as various other awards for his contribution towards the country's cultural development.

He had also produced numerous literary works including stage play, novel, memoir, poem, short story and research paper.

from Bernama: Historian Dr Shaharom Husain Dies

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"She was indeed one the great literary journal editors in this country, ever, in her taste and her ability to attract outstanding contributors," said David Lee Rubin, a U-Va. professor emeritus of French whose association with the VQR dates to 1970.

Dr. [Charlotte] Kohler, who was little known outside the review's offices at the corner of university's central "Lawn," knew when to encourage and when to say no. After her predecessor had turned down several poems by John Berryman, Dr. Kohler wrote to the poet, saying "how pleased we would be if at some time you'd give us the opportunity of reading and considering some."

from The Washington Pos t: Virginia Quarterly Review Editor Charlotte Kohler, 99

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[Enid E.] Mark's limited-edition books explore the relationship between image and text, which are often from contemporary poems by women. Her book About Sylvia was a tribute to poet Sylvia Plath, a friend of hers at Smith. Other book themes include travel, mythology, botany, time and space.

from The Philadelphia Inquirer: Enid Epstein Mark, 76, maker of books

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[James R. McDermott] loved to write and is remembered by many for the "Scribbles" newsletters he produced over the years. He also enjoyed writing poetry commemorating events in his family's life. Among his hobbies were studying German and Latin, woodworking, and baking Irish bread.

from East Bay: James R. McDermott

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[Louisa Sedgwick Minot Moseley] loved helping people and was a funny, witty, classy lady who loved her poodles, classical music and drama. Louisa was a gifted poet, cook and flower arranger who enjoyed the outdoors: gardening, walking, swimming and picnics - she loved the ocean.

from San Francisco Chronicle: Moseley, Louisa Sedgwick Minot

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John B. Nickol, 89, who farmed and ranched in south Toole20County and enjoyed collecting firearms and playing the harmonica and was known for his ability at reciting poetry, died of natural causes Monday at his home.

from Great Falls Tribune: John B. Nickol

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"I'm leaving all my artwork to you," he [Christopher Steele Brower] said.

I agreed for two reasons. One, I felt for the guy.

Reaching out to a journalist he hadn't spoken to in 15 years meant he was completely alone at the end of his life. Second, I was curious. Detective novels begin with phone calls like his. And I've always been a steadfast believer in the big phone call that changes everything.

from The Plain Dealer: Poetic Justice: A dying artist, Christopher Steele finally gets recognized for his work

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[Angeline Toomey] stayed in Santa Monica and worked for McDonnell Douglas for 26 years until retirement.

She was a member of the Rebekah and Pythian Sisters lodges in Santa Monica and the Presbyterian Church. She loved to dance and enjoyed writing poetry.

from The Hillsboro Argus: Angeline Toomey, 103, wrote poetry

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