News at Eleven

In "The Ram," a neighbor asks [Simon] Armitage to help him in wringing the neck of a ram mortally wounded by a car:

To help finish it off, he asked me to stand
on its throat, as a friend might ask a friend

to hold, with a finger, the twist of a knot.
Then he lifted its head, wheeled it about
by the ammonite, spirograph shells of its horns
till its eyes, on stalks, looked back at its bones.

And so it ends, without editorial comment, but the reader flinches as Armitage, in a very Hughes-like move, expends his best aesthetic effort on the last two murderous lines.

from The New Republic: A New Head

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Anyway, I am whistling against the wind. Come the spring, there will be another Poet Laureate, so who should it be? Someone who deals in lyric verse, or someone who can do rousing rum-ti-tum with the common touch?

Carol Ann Duffy can do both, very well, and is justly celebrated for her imaginative engagement with children. Simon Armitage, a cool but blokeish Northerner with fluency and grit, could speak to the problem of disaffected teenage boys. Benjamin Zephaniah and Roger McGough do terrific rum-ti-tum and make people laugh.

from Telegraph: Poet Laureate: does poetry need one?

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While he [George Szirtes] knows the reified, talismanic England of "Sid James, Diana Dors/Brylcreem and Phyllosan" better than most of the natives, he also knows how little it might take to undo it, because he has inhabited an equivalent everyday world elsewhere, for example in the residential courtyards of Budapest, in which potted plants and bicycles are found within hailing distance of murder, as in "The Courtyards" (1986): "There's always someone to consider, one/you have not thought of, one who lies alone,/or hangs, debagged, in one more public square."

from The Guardian: One who lies alone
also George Szirtes: Guardian review of the New and Collected Poems

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With her pen, Tuba [Sahaab] is taking on the swords of the Taliban. She crafts poems telling of the pain and suffering of children just like her; girls banned from school, their books burned, as the hard-core Islamic militants spread their reign of terror across parts of Pakistan.

A stanza of one of her poems reads: "Tiny drops of tears, their faces like angels, Washed with blood, they sleep forever with anger."

from CNN: Girl poet takes on the Taliban with her pen

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Reporters Without Borders takes note of the government's decision, announced today, to start freeing 6,313 prisoners tomorrow, but reiterates its call for the release of the 16 journalists and cyber-dissidents held in Burma.

A Rangoon court also reduced blogger Nay Phone Latt's jail sentence from 20 years and six months to 12 years today, four days after comedian Zarganar's jail sentence was cut from 59 to 25 years. The original sentences were imposed last November by a special court inside Rangoon's Insein prison.

from Reporters Without Borders: On eve of major amnesty, call for release of 16 journalists and cyber-dissidents

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However unbalanced this coexistence may be in a person or culture at a specific time, neither gratuity nor utility ever entirely loses motivating force. A psychologically healthy society is one in which gratuitous values are in approximately equal balance with the sole pragmatic value, efficiency.

Postmodern life dehumanizes because utility now far outweighs gratuity, which traditionally has been expressed in domestic rituals, religion and the arts.

from The Globe and Mail: Poetry means the world to us

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Here is a stanza from Aleksandr Blok's famous steamy poem about wine drinkers in the version by [Vladimir] Nabokov, who calls it "The Strange Lady":

And her taut silks,
her hat with its tenebrous plumes,
her slender bejeweled hand
waft legendary magic.

And here is the same stanza from Schmidt, who titles his version, "The Lady Nobody Knows":

Her dress is silk, it whispers legends
and moves in waves against her skin;
her hat is a forest of black feathers,
her narrow fingers glow with rings.

from The New Republic: Vlad the Impaler

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"It was pretty revolutionary for me," [Hannah] Zeavin now recalls of O'Hara's poetry, which she devoured during her days off from school. She went on to take four years of poetry at Saint Ann's School in Brooklyn, work closely with a literary mentor, win a handful of distinguished prizes and read everything from classical to contemporary poetry. Now a published poet at the age of 18 with her first book, "Circa," Zeavin is both excited and afraid of what the book's official release in April will mean for her career as a writer--especially because she has not been able to write since arriving on campus.

from Yale Daily News: Student poet juggles writing, life at Yale

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The life of the city and of the millions of relationships that go to make it up hum through his poetry; a scent of garbage, patchouli and carbon monoxide drifts across it, making it the lovely, corrupt, wholesome place New York is."

O'Hara's poetry often has the feel of a late-night taxi ride through Manhattan in the company of a brilliant friend who is capable of pointing out the "ozone stalagmites/deposits of light" that make up the city's skyline.

from The Sunday Times: Frank O'Hara provides the poetry of Mad Men

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[David Lehman]: Hall is probably right. But that's like saying that in any age there are always at most five or six great poets whose work will survive a century hence. But I've noticed, too, that those who make this argument are seldom the ones most likely to endure. If you feel, as I do, that it is important to enlarge the audience for poetry, then you have to go beyond your own narrow self-interest; you have to go beyond the interest of your faction. Contemporary poetry is marked by factions and factionalism. Each faction thinks well of itself and belittles the others. This is a natural state of affairs.

from Eurozine: There's always someone who says that poetry is dead

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"Countries all over the world have their own poetry and well-known poets, but in my opinion, there is no nation where the people love poetry more and where poetry plays such an important role in life as much as in Viet Nam," says Huu Thinh, chief of the organising board.

"The audience can approach poetry in different ways. National Poetry Day also expresses the originality of Vietnamese culture," he says.

from VietNamNet Bridge: National Poetry Day unites lovers of verse

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Great Regulars

measureformeasure.blogs.nytimes.com
Nestling in a corner of the NYT website is this high-quality offering, subtitled How to Write a Song and Other Mysteries. Regular contributors include Andrew Bird and Suzanne Vega, so the insights come straight from the horses' mouths.

daytrotter.com
Based in Rock Island, Illinois, Daytrotter is a blog, of sorts, and then some. [. . .]

from Bryan Appleyard: The Sunday Times: A guide to the 100 best blogs: part II

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[Stanley] Banks, 52, has taught creative writing and literature courses at Avila University in Kansas City for 12 years. The school's artist in residence and an assistant professor, he has published four books of poetry. The most recent is "Blue Beat Syncopation," published by BkMk Press.

Banks is accompanied at poetry readings by his wife, Janet M. Banks, who has published her first book, "Stewed Soul."

The following poem will be published in the Coal City Review.

Twice on the Road to the Funeral Home

from Walter Bargen: The Post-Dispatch: Missouri poet: Stanley E. Banks

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The speaker then realizes that the ease of just sitting and listening to the river could, in fact, become quite addictive, and he has seen this happen to so many other folks. But this speaker's conscience will not allow him to succumb to a way of life that will eventually provide him nothing but poverty and stagnation. Instead of allowing himself to become a bum on the river, "somp'n way inside me rared up an' say,/'Better be movin' . . . better be travelin' . . ./Riverbank'll git you ef you stay. . . .'."

from Linda Sue Grimes: Suite101.com: Brown's Riverbank Blues

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His life is "dead" even as he prays for "lively bliss." He will flaunt his sorrow and misery while looking for more ways of expressing his melancholy. His exaggeration saturates his dramatic expression, as he continues to complain, mourn, and yearn for his absent beloved.

from Linda Sue Grimes: Suite101.com: Edmund Spenser's Sonnet 89

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He emphasizes the necessity of living in the moment by rightly calling it "the uncertain harvest." By looking so far ahead and not appreciating the beauty of the current moment, the individual not only loses that current moment but also may be disappointed by that future harvest, if it fails to produce enough quality fruit.

from Linda Sue Grimes: Suite101.com: Frost's A Prayer in Spring

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But once she is on her way, she realizes "the world's open." She then observes that the sky is turning pink with the rising of the sun, but she dramatizes that sunrise in a very telling way: "the sky begins to blush/as you did when your mother told you/what it took to be a woman in this life."

from Linda Sue Grimes: Suite101.com: Rita Dove--Two Sonnets

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The speaker then poses two questions instead of offering claims motivated by his observations about "reckoning Time." He wonders why, even knowing about and "fearing Time's tyranny," he is unable to simply say, "Now I love you best."

He is certain that the statement is true, and he assumes that he should be able to make this remark without having to know all future thoughts and feelings that might assail him. But the statement offers such a bald assertion that it does not seem to capture completely all he truly feels.

from Linda Sue Grimes: Suite101.com: Shakespeare Sonnet 115

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The speaker in this regard then seeks out his Muse as a devotee would seek out a priest for confession. His Muse behaves as his anchor as well as his inspiration; she has the power to absolve his transgressions, but this power comes solely through the speaker/artist's ability to create his salvation in art. The complexity of his relationship with his Muse remains a unique achievement with this speaker/poet.

from Linda Sue Grimes: Suite101.com: Shakespeare Sonnet 117

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However, he did not actually do anything to bring on true illness, he only used a preventative medicine, which makes the patient ill in order to prevent a worse illness, for example, taking a vaccine. The patient may experience a slight fever or other symptoms, but these are far preferable to having the disease itself.

Even so, the speaker is using all this as a metaphor. He does not mean that he took a physical medicine; he is referring only to a way of thinking; therefore, the medicine to which he refers is mental, his thinking process, not physical, not actually swallowing medicine.

from Linda Sue Grimes: Suite101.com: Shakespeare Sonnet 118

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He then addresses "Disease," commanding it, "ply your tortures." Despite the ravages of illness, the speaker can again repeat, "Still I am free, ever free." When the opposite of "Disease," that is, "Health" has been one's fortune, the human may become overconfident; thus, the speaker commands, "Health, try your lures."

from Linda Sue Grimes: Suite101.com: Yogananda's Freedom

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Just as we had suspected, the strike-hard campaign has been re-launched in Tibet and there is a heavy presence of armed security and military forces in most of the cities all over Tibet. In all the places those who dare to come out even with a slight hint of their aspirations have to face torture and detention. In particular, special restrictions have been imposed in the monasteries, patriotic re-education has been launched, and restrictions have been imposed on the visit of foreign tourists. Provocative orders have been passed for special celebrations of the Tibetan New Year. Looking at all these developments it becomes clear that the intention and aim behind them are to subject the Tibetan people to such a level of cruelty and harassment that they will not be able to tolerate and thus be forced to remonstrate. When this happens the authorities can then indulge in unprecedented and unimaginable forceful clampdown. Therefore, I would like to make a strong appeal to the Tibetan people to exercise patience and not to give in to these provocations so that the precious lives of many Tibetans are not wasted, and they do not have to undergo torture and suffering.

from Tenzin Gyatso: The Office of His Holiness the 14th Dalai Lama: New Year Message of H.H. the Dalai Lama to the Tibetan People

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Millions watched Elizabeth Alexander read a poem last month at President Barack Obama's inauguration. But few, so far, have chosen to buy it.

Nielsen BookScan, which tracks about 75 percent of sales, says Alexander's "Praise Song for the Day: A Poem for Barack Obama's Presidential Inauguration" has sold just 6,000 copies so far.

from Hillel Italie: Associated Press: Remember the inaugural poem? Few apparently do

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For those unlucky in romance, I offer this embittered, anti-love poem by Alan Dugan to relieve the sting of last week's heart-spattered holiday. "Love Song: I and Thou" takes its mocking title from Martin Buber's philosophical treatise Ich und Du, which posits that only human relations lend life meaning. By loving others, the great 20th-century thinker contends, we engage with God -- our perpetual spouse, our Thou. Against that backdrop, Dugan's poem opens with a man in a shakily framed house, the life he has inherited or been born intoor married into.

Love Song: I and Thou

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

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6
by Gary Snyder

"In that year, 1914, we lived on the farm

from Garrison Keillor: The Writer's Almanac: 6 by Gary Snyder

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Doesn't Matter What It Looks Like
by Hal Sirowitz

"When you have blown your nose,
you should not open your handkerchief
and inspect it, as though pearls or rubies
had dropped out of your skull."
The Book of Manners (1958)

After you have blown your nose,

from Garrison Keillor: The Writer's Almanac: Doesn't Matter What It Looks Like by Hal Sirowitz

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History of Desire
by Tony Hoagland

When you're seventeen, and drunk

from Garrison Keillor: The Writer's Almanac: History of Desire by Tony Hoagland

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Linguini
by Diane Lockward

It was always linguini between us.

from Garrison Keillor: The Writer's Almanac: Linguini by Diane Lockward

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Optimism
by Jane Hirshfield

More and more I have come to admire resilience.

from Garrison Keillor: The Writer's Almanac: Optimism by Jane Hirshfield

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Tossing and Turning
by John Updike

The spirit has infinite facets, but the body

from Garrison Keillor: The Writer's Almanac: Tossing and Turning by John Updike

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What She Was Wearing
by Denver Butson

this is my suicide dress

from Garrison Keillor: The Writer's Almanac: What She Was Wearing by Denver Butson

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Memories form around details the way a pearl forms around a grain of sand, and in this commemoration of an anniversary, Cecilia Woloch reaches back to grasp a few details that promise to bring a cherished memory forward, and succeeds in doing so. The poet lives and teaches in southern California.

Anniversary

from Ted Kooser: American Life in Poetry: Column 204

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When I was an emerging poet, I was given the Jordan Davidson Poetry Prize from Barry College in Florida, and I hasten to state that, although the cash award was miniscule, it gave my faith in my talents a tremendous boost. Indeed, that is what literary prizes are supposed to do: Elevate a struggling poet's self esteem. But does this psychological dynamic work for poets of integrity who are honest and truthful enough with themselves to realize there are thousands of poetry prizes being awarded in this country? At best, many of these prizes are questionable. At their worst, they are a swindle when they charge an entry fee.

from Anthony Maulucci: Norwich Bulletin: Not all contests legitimate, worth worrying about

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Overall, posts related to Falun Gong, the 1989 Tiananmen crackdown, and Tibet independence were the most heavily censored, as expected.

Posts mentioning "sudden incidents," the Olympics, and corruption were also highly likely to be deleted.

Censorship methods varied from deleting entire posts with no explanation, to replacing offending posts with an apology note, to hiding posts from public view, to replacing forbidden words with asterisks while leaving the rest of the text on view.

from Luisetta Mudie: Radio Free Asia: How China Censors Blogs

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Consider how Robert Pinsky describes the laughter of the Polish émigré and Nobel Prize-winning dissident Czeslaw Milosz: "The sound of it was infectious, but more precisely it was commanding. His laughter had the counter-authority of human intelligence, triumphing over the petty-minded authority of a regime." That's one hell of a chuckle. The problem isn't that Pinsky likes and admires Milosz; it's that he can't hear a Polish poet snortle without having fantasies about barricades and firing squads. He's by no means alone in that. Many of us in the American poetry world have a habit of exalting foreign writers while turning them into cartoons. And we do so because their very foreignness implies a distance--a potentially "great" distance--that we no longer have from our own writers, most of whom make regular appearances on the reading circuit and have publicly available office phones.

from David Orr: The New York Times: On Poetry: The Great(ness) Game

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The sonnet is powered by the momentum established in the sestet, and somehow maintains the intensity of its indignation through the weaker octet--because the political emotion is genuine.

How pertinent those lines about the rulers "who neither feel, nor see, nor know" are to England, 2009, with its bankers unqualified to bank and its cabinet ministers unqualified, it so often seems, to (ad)minister. Where are today's Shelleys? Why can't political poetry be as good as any other? Distrust anyone who says the postmodern muse should be above such things.

England in 1819

An old, mad, blind, despis'd, and dying king,

from Carol Rumens: The Guardian: Books blog: Poem of the week

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But imagining might. And by imagining I do not mean merely the formation of images in our minds, but rather that process by which we take such images and the ideas we abstract from them and the feelings they generate in us and arrange them coherently and harmoniously into something new, in much the same way as the combination of two molecules of hydrogen and one of oxygen becomes a compound that is altogether different from either of its constituents by themselves. For all that we are hearing in this year of Darwin about a supposed connection between art and evolution, it seems worth noting that no other species has found it necessary for its survival to decorate a nest or lair with frescoes or adorn itself with jewelry or sit around and listen while one of their number sings a tale of bestial heroism or romance.

from Frank Wilson: When Falls the Coliseum: That's What He Said: Maybe man is the 'imagining animal'

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By Tom Keene

A meal of huevos rancheros in my belly,

from Express-News: Poetry: 'A tradition of breakfast'

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Editor's note: In this week's Poetry Corner, we feature the work of Rob Wilson who has published poems and reviews in Bamboo Ridge journal since 1979, and in various other journals from Tinfish, Taxi, Manoa, and Central Park to New Republic, Ploughshares, Partisan Review, and Poetry. He is a western Connecticut native who attended UC Berkeley, where he was founding editor of the Berkeley Poetry Review in 1974. His study "Be Always Converting, Be Always Converted: An American Poetics" is forthcoming from Harvard University Press in spring 2009; and a collection of cultural criticism from Asia/Pacific (co-edited with Christopher Connery) "The Worlding Project: Doing Cultural Studies in the Era of Globalization" appeared with New Pacific Press/North Atlantic Books in fall 2007. He currently lives in La Selva Beach and San Francisco, and he is a professor of literature and cultural studies at UC Santa Cruz.

Twelve for Kerouac

from Good Times Weekly: Poetry Corner: Spooning Out Wisdom

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[by Michael Donaghy]

The basic requirement of darkness

from The Guardian: The Saturday Poem: Darkness and the Subject

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By Ross Jacobs

Uncle Chuck has always been

from The Kansas City Star: Between the Lines: 'Uncle Chuck's Poem,' by Ross Jacobs

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A Street
by Leonard Cohen

from The New Yorker: Poetry: A Street

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Waiting and Finding
by Jack Gilbert

from The New Yorker: Poetry: Waiting and Finding

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With The Lost World reading campaign sweeping libraries near you, and the nation remembering Charles Darwin at 200, Ruth Padel pays tribute to her great-great grandfather in this compelling sequence of biographical poems (Darwin: A Life in Poems, Chatto & Windus, £12.99). This one imagines Darwin aged ten, in 1819, when his family went on holiday to Plas Edwards, or Barmouth, in North Wales.

'A child on a beach, alone.

from The Scotsman: Poem of the Week

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"Slightly Tearful"
By Mark Halliday

from Slate: "Slightly Tearful" --By Mark Halliday

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"The Sound That Wakes Me at Night, Thinking of It"
By Charles Harper Webb

from Slate: "The Sound That Wakes Me at Night, Thinking of It" --By Charles Harper Webb

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[by Amy Gottlieb]

Beit Daniel Guest House, 1994

Question:

What time capsule can I drop here for our baby son

from Zeek: Two Poems by Amy Gottlieb

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Poetic Obituaries

Myrtle [Lydia Abbott] was the youngest of the 13 children born to John and Lydia Forsythe, she entered the world on Oct. 10, 1913 in Dugdale, Minn. Times were rough for her pioneer family as they struggled to survive on their small farm through the harsh Minnesota winters. She especially loved high school where she learned German, studied poetry, and participated in competitive girls' basketball.

from Duluth News Tribune: Myrtle Lydia Abbott

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Mrs. [Betty S.] Ates was a member of the First Baptist Church, the Driftwood Garden Club and the Monsanto Bridge Club. She loved arts, crafts, playing bridge and writing poetry.

from Greenwood Today: Betty S. Ates

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A sports fan, he enjoyed watching football, baseball and boxing with his son, Anthony Andino, and was an enthusiastic fan of the New York Mets and Giants. He also enjoyed cooking shows.

Mr. [Theodore] Aviles liked to tell jokes to family members, draw pictures of people, and write poems.

from Staten Island Advance: Theodore Aviles, 58

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After creating "Jacques Brel," Mr. [Eric] Blau published several books, including poetry and novels, and created and produced a handful of small Off Broadway musicals, but he never came close to matching the success of "Jacques Brel." That never fazed him, his family said.

"He had a lot of ideas," Matthew Blau said. "He was a man who moved on."

from The New York Times: Eric Blau, a Creator of 'Jacques Brel' Show, Dies at 87

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Throughout their long marriage, Dorothy Bridges wrote poems and celebrated each Valentine's Day with a love poem to her husband [Lloyd Bridges].

In 2005, at age 89, she collected them in the book "You Caught Me Kissing: A Love Story," which chronicled their life together, with accompanying family photos and commentary by her and her children [Jeff and Beau Bridges].

from Los Angeles Times: Dorothy Bridges dies at 93; 'the hub' of an acting family

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[Herbert] Davison also belonged to poetry groups that met at Ferguson Library, and his family set up the Herbert Davison Poetry Fund in hopes of gathering enough donations to start a program there.

One of Davison's best poems was titled "My Soul Knows Things," [Eleni Begetis] Anastos said. With that in mind, she wrote a poem for him:

"At the end of your voyage, of your Stygian ride

from Stamford Advocate: Chiropractor arrested in deadly assault on 79-year-old Stamford man

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I visited Geof [Geoffrey Eggleston] at a run-down Koori rehab centre in Brunswick in Melbourne's poetry belt. In the unspeakable gloom of his sepulchral tomb I tried to make him laugh, but he was too far gone. Unheralded, he single-handedly organised the annual Mont Salvat poetry festival at Eltham, where hundreds of T.S. Eliots live only for poeticised sermons and getting their end in.

He attracted the best readers aloud. Yevgeny Yevtushenko and Alan Ginsberg came, and declaimed to great acclaim. Geof must have felt vindicated when poetry lovers clapped their brains out for the thrill of witnessing the cutting-edge of concrete poetry and lyrical poetry previously heard only on radio. Yet the Australia Council never gave Geof a buck.

from The Land: Poetic justice? None in a country that shuts its ears to the word

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It wasn't because of his name, but Walt Whitman Hollon enjoyed writing poetry.

He often kept a pad and pencil nearby for doodling. He'd dash off verse on special occasions--for Betty, his wife, on Valentine's Day. When his son, Terry, turned 21. And when his daughter, Janet, turned 16.

Walt Hollon liked to write poems for his wife on Valentine's Day, and for his two children when they hit certain ages."The poem for our son had 21 verses, mind you," said Mrs. Hollon, his wife of 61 years. "And of course for the children he'd interject a little lesson, something about life that you should or shouldn't do. Give a little advice along the way. We made a little booklet out of the things he's written over the years."

from The Atlanta Journal-Constitution: Walt Whitman Hollon, 90, salesman, family poet

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[Mary B. Honer] was an outstanding public speaker; winning first prize in public speaking at school, and first prize in the Goshen College Poetry Reading Contest.

Mary attended Goshen College in Goshen, Ind., graduating in 1965 with a BA degree in English. She was hired to teach English at Lowville Academy and taught there through 1968. After several summers and a year of graduate study at Columbia University, she earned an MA degree in English in 1969. She was then hired by Beaver River Central School as an English teacher, and she taught there until her retirement in 1998.

from newzjunky: Mary B. Honer

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Beginning with poetry and short stories, [Carridder M.] Jones later found her voice as a playwright. Her first play, "Lady of the House," was produced in the small Martin Experimental Theater at the Kentucky Center, a three-night run that sold out. Her plays also have been part of the Juneteenth Festival at Actors Theatre. Themes in her work include early African-American culture and contemporary society.

from The Courier-Journal: Carridder M. Jones

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[Bruce McKay] Lansdale's flair for diplomacy and dialogue weathered the AFS [American Farm School at Thessaloniki] through the Greek Junta.

His books, Master Farmer (1986) and Cultivating Inspired Leaders (2000), have been translated into several languages and have become established as recognised tools for global work in sustainable development. His long, autobiographical poem is published in the bilingual Greek and English book Metamorphosis: Why Do I Love Greece? (1979).

from Energy Publisher: Beloved American educator dies in Greece

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Jevonn [Lawson] was a well-liked eighth-grader at Blythewood Middle School, officials said.

"The ones who knew her all expressed a lot of sadness," Richland 2 psychologist Shirley Vickerysaid. "They'll miss her."

Chantel, a 10th-grader at Ridge View High School, was described by Principal Marty Martin as smart and cheerful.

"She had this loving disposition about her--always smiling even when things were tough, always trying to cheer people up, always exchanging pleasantries."

Chantel played volleyball while Jevonn wrote poetry, family members said.

from The State: Drowned sisters died holding hands

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[Nellie] McClung's best known work is probably My Sex is Ice Cream (Ekstasis Editions), a 1996 book of poems based on the life of McClung's hero, Marilyn Monroe. Her most recent book was I Hate Wives! a "short collection of terse verse and aphorisms on sexual politics" published by Ekstasis Editions in 2003.

from January Magazine: Canadian Poet Nellie McClung Dead at 80

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From the environmental challenges of the area to theatrical, cultural and political issues, [Bob] Nanninga had a hand in everything. "He was like a cultural icon, really, Tucker said.

One of his many passions was promoting the local arts community. Danny Salzhandler of the 101 Artists' Colony first worked with Nanninga a decade ago at the Full Moon Poets' Society Poetry Slam in Encinitas. Nanninga emceed the event and became synonymous with its success. "He really did give his heart to the poets," Salzhandler said. "And he shined brighter than the moon."

"I heard someone say that 'we're just another boring town without Bob,'" Salzhandler said. "They were right."

from The Coast News: Community activist, actor and businessman lived full life

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[Christopher Nolan] was physically disabled at birth. He wrote by tapping a keyboard with a device strapped to his head.

Despite the challenges he faced, Nolan won the Whitbread prize in 1988 for his debut novel Under the Eye of the Clock.

In an acceptance speech read by his mother, the author said: "I want to shout with joy. My heart is full of gratitude."

from BBC News: Whitbread winner Nolan dies at 43

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In the 1960s, as Mae Winkler Goodman, she had a column in The Cleveland Press called "The Week in ReVerse." She also published thousands of poems over the decades in The Plain Dealer, New York Times, Washington Post, Ladies' Home Journal, Saturday Evening Post and more.

"They aren't all good," she once confessed.

In her native New Orleans, a publisher put her poetry before Shakespeare's, Blake's and the Brownings' on a spoken record, "Soft Words, Warm Nights: The Most Romantic Poems Ever Spoken."

from The Plain Dealer: Mae Winkler Goodman Samuel, 97, leading poet, dies in New Hampshire

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Tara Jo [Schweigl] was employed full time at Wal-Mart in Manitowoc, part time at the Manitowoc Yacht Club and also was tutoring at LTC. She enjoyed writing, reading, poetry, playing cards and board games, and spending time with her family and friends.

from Manitowoc Herald Times Reporter: Tara Jo Schweigl

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Irene [M. Sprague] will be remembered for her passion for poetry, writing poetry and having published several poetry books and having received recognition as Author of the Year by the PDIMA, and was a regular guest writer for the Marion Star.

from The Marion Star: Irene M. Sprague

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[Bennett Taylor] wrote several textbooks that were adopted in several U.S. districts. He also was a president of the National Council of Supervisors of Mathematics. He joined the Minneapolis school board in 1994 and fought for equality for students of color. His signature touch during his time on the board was writing poems for retiring board members, which he would present at a member's last meeting, Farmer said.

from The Star Tribune: Bennett Taylor, math educator and advocate

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Kyle [Alan Tecca] enjoyed his life in New Jersey. He loved the ocean, Wildwood Boardwalk, and Atlantic City. He wrote poetry, loved fishing and was a sports fanatic.

from The Coloradoan: Kyle Alan Tecca

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News at Eleven

"I'm not a believer." Pleasantries exchanged, this is the first thing Andrew Motion says to me when we meet at his north London flat. So why is he so passionate about the Bible? "Simply because it is full of terrific stories. These stories are primitive. They speak to us about human nature and the recurring patterns of human behaviour."

The poet laureate believes all children should be taught the Bible from an early age. Sadly, he says, many children miss out, and not just on the stories themselves. Poor knowledge of the Bible limits understanding of a whole raft of literary work, from John Milton through to TS Eliot.

from The Guardian: Book of revelation
also The Guardian: Poems which passeth understanding

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This is presumably what King James had seen in [John] Donne as a potential priest, when he argued that no one would take him seriously as a religious man. He was known as the poet and fool who married for love, he said. This is partly true. His poems were heralded, and censured, as rhetorically virtuosic, wrenchingly romantic, coming from a man who flagrantly disregarded traditional poetic meter and had a spectacular sex life. Like so many, Donne had written to woo, and he really meant it. Consider this sly entreaty in 'The Flea': 'And in this flea our two bloods mingled be;/Thou know’st that this cannot be said/A sin, nor shame, nor loss of maidenhead,/Yet this enjoys before it woo,/And pampered swells with one blood made of two,/And this, alas, is more than we would do.'

from CUNY Graduate Center Advocate: Every Man Alone, A Phoenix

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I asked him to consider if there was anything he could do on their behalf, if he could add his voice to the growing complaints. For example, Archbishop O Fiaich had, by this time, visited the H-Blocks and, to the embarrassment of the British government, had compared the prison to the sewers of Calcutta.

Seamus [Heaney] told me he was writing a poem and had been thinking about the prisoners. He told me the story from Dante's Inferno of Count Ugolino who was imprisoned with his children and grandchildren underground and left to starve, Ugolino's eating his dead children's flesh to delay his own starvation. Seamus said he imagined that this could be some sort of metaphor for hunger striking though I was lost as to what he meant.

from Danny Morrison: Seamus Heaney Disputed
also The Guardian: Strangers on a train: Heaney and Sinn Féin

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When [Charles] Diodati died in 1638, aged twenty-nine, [John] Milton commemorated him in an elaborate Latin pastoral elegy called Epitaphium Damonis, which was published in 1640. [Samuel] Johnson contemptuously calls it "childish"; he also detested "Lycidas," written to mourn the death by drowning of a Cambridge friend, as belonging to the same artificial genre. "Surely no man could have fancied that he read Lycidas with pleasure, had he not known its author." So much for a poem so illustrious that it was once conventional to accept the judgment of the nineteenth-century author and scholar Mark Pattison and call it "the high-water mark of English Poesy."

from The New York Review of Books: Heroic Milton: Happy Birthday

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Poetry that puts an emphasis, as [Henri] Cole's does, on directness and the avoidance of comforting illusions and consolations inevitably raises questions about the relation between poetry and truth. Given the opacity of our own inner lives and the difficulty of knowing ourselves, the risk of adopting the guise of the truth teller is that one is liable to lose sight of the fact that it is, in the end, a guise, though often a necessary one.

from The Nation: Henri Cole: The Art of Violent Concision
also The Nation: Three Poems

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What [Adam] Foulds is particularly adept at conveying is the shock of violence that sits at the at the heart of the story, without ever resorting to gratuitous imagery. He does this via dynamic language but also by using those 'technical resources'. Breaking lines up as a poetic device allows him to enhance the impact of his words, but the greatest shock is the way he manages to convey Tom’s shift from innocence to a man haunted by his experiences.

The way the violence takes place reinforces the idea its culprits are actually normal human beings with lives and families, but are still capable of terrible brutality.

from The National: The better for verse

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Indeed, the most interesting work in the book is also the most ambitious--those poems that allow [Emma] Jones time and space to develop her ideas, and which make use of a specific historical moment or situation, something solid for her imagination to work upon, such as the library-sailboat in "Citizenship". In two movements, "Zoos for the Living" describes the "drowned town of Adimanaby" in New South Wales, which was dismantled and shifted uphill in 1957, "in convoys, brick by brick,/like that agile forest in Macbeth", so its valley could be dammed and flooded for a hydro-electric scheme.

from The Guardian: And a wind carries birds

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But the North East writer retorts: "Have we so totally lost faith in a poetry of public feeling that we no longer think it worth attempting? Is our country now so diverse and disunited that it is impossible for any poet to find ground that all can share?"

Dr. [William] Radice has written to the Culture Secretary, Andy Burnham, suggesting that the Poet Laureate "should be able to write strong poems for public occasions--witty or moving or passionate or indignant as the occasion demands".

from The Journal: Laureate quest is poetry in motion

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That Actor Kiss
By Michael Hartnett

I kissed my father as he lay in bed

from The Irish Times: Remembering Michael Hartnett

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My late husband, the actor David (Coleman) Dukes, once played a killer-with-an-icepick (opposite Frank Sinatra, as the hardened detective on his trail) in the film First Deadly Sin. In a few of the essays, I tried to provide a sense of what it was like to live, as a poet, in a town whose central industry was the creation of illusion--where people confused the two regularly. (Arriving late to a dinner party one evening--entering a room in which guests were already seated--a woman rises up, dropping her napkin, pointing at my husband: "You're the one who raped Edith Bunker!" I glance at him and he answers her calmly, "No" he says, "I tried to, but she hit me in the face with a cake from the oven.")

from The Huffington Post: A Poet in Hollywood

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When she wasn't writing or working or thinking about him, [Margaret] Carne was knocking on doors, appealing for help from human rights groups, asking embassies from all over the world if their countries would accept [Pradeep] Thapa. Only Jamaica agreed. But immigration officials refused to allow Thapa to leave Elizabeth. He could only be deported to the country from which he had come.

In detention, Thapa spent his days writing poems and interviewing other detainees and reading a battered Bible, the Quran and the Bhagavad Gita. But mostly he just anticipated Carne's visits, dreaming of when he would see her again, feeling such lightness of spirit that at times he almost forgot he was imprisoned.

from Real-Time News: Detainee and his Dearest Meri find happiness

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Great Regulars

No, the reason I keep wanting to quit is the intimacy and exposure of the blogscape. ("Blogosphere" is the name everybody else uses, but I've invented my own, slightly better word.) I am, because of my blog, "out there" in a way that, three years ago, I would have found inconceivable, terrifying. I still do. I am also, thanks to Thought Experiments (the title of my blog), exposed to the tribulations of an enormous extended family of commenters, linkers, gypsies, tramps, thieves and, worst of all, intellectuals. Being a nuclear type myself, this is traumatic.

from Bryan Appleyard: The Sunday Times: A guide to the 100 best blogs--part I

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"There were these older girls ... ," Matthew Dickman said and laughed. "This is starting to feel like a mythological story, but anyway, Michael's was reading Neruda, and mine was reading Anne Sexton. I thought maybe if I wrote something, she'd take her shirt off ... I know, that's been the motive for centuries. I know."

Michael Dickman went to the mall and bought "The Captain's Verses" by Pablo Neruda and was blown away. He read it twice and wrote some imitation Neruda, which didn't work on that particular girl but got him started down the road that never ends.

[by Dorianne Laux]

Savages

Those two shelves, down there.
--Adrienne Rich

For Matthew, Mike, Michael and Carl

from Jeff Baker: The Oregonian: Northwest writers at work: The poetry posse

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In 2002, an illiterate woman named Mukhtaran Mai was punished for something her brother did. He committed the unforgivable crime of falling in love with a young woman outside his tribe. So, in accordance with tribal tradition, a local council of elders decided that instead of punishing him directly, his sister Mai would be gang raped and paraded across her small village of Meerwala half naked.

Five days after this rape occurred, Mai did the unthinkable: She pressed charges.

from Fatima Bhutto: The Daily Beast: Does Pakistan Have No Shame?

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The transcript recorded a case in which Abraham Lincoln successfully defended a young man, Peachy Quinn Harrison, who was on trial for murder of a man called Greek Crafton.

I was struck that so much has been said and written about Lincoln but we do not know what his own voice sounded like. And here was the first record we had of his colloquial speech.

When I wrote "Of Lincoln," I was thinking about the power of the voices that have shaped our nation. [--Cynthia Zarin]

from Jeffrey Brown: PBS: Newshour: Transcript of Lincoln Inspires Poem for 16th President

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But, it appears, [D.A.] Powell has been holding back. "Chronic," his fourth book, is one of those rare collections that moves beautifully between poetry's inner/outer stereopticon. Powell, who lives in the Bay Area, can paint the weed-choked cemeteries of the Central Valley and also the cluttered toy chest of his memory. Writing on love, his powerful double vision becomes one.

Like Louise Glück and Marie Ponsot, two of our best poetic double-seers, Powell achieves this through the precision of his language.

from John Freeman: Los Angeles Times: 'Chronic,' by D.A. Powell

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Despite the strength and determination of this sturdy flower, it displays humble surroundings: "Yet slight thy form, and low thy seat,/And earthward bent thy gentle eye." The flower is small and grows low to the ground, as it appears to bow its head, not showing its "gentle eye." It is unlikely that one passing by casually would even notice the little flower, and other flowers by comparison are "loftier," and they "are flaunting nigh." This little flower remains humble and unobtrusive

from Linda Sue Grimes: Suite101.com: Bryant's The Yellow Violet

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This otherworldly light/color may be sensed nearby as "upon the Lawn," but it also appears in trees that are very far away, and even on hillsides far from the speaker's location. She then asserts that this strange vision "almost speaks to you." She is drawing out of the reader a response that will be difficult to articulate, because she is finding herself transported by this light to an ineffable location within.

from Linda Sue Grimes: Suite101.com: Dickinson's A Light exists in Spring

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The speaker has just described a scene of pure beauty and wonder brought about through the natural evolution of one season into another. He then asks rhetorically, what is the cause of all this magnificence and splendor. It is but a "strain of the earth's sweet being."

It reminds him of the first garden, in Eden, before the fall, before "it cloud//and sour with sinning." He thinks of the "innocent mind//in girl and boy." And most of all he remembers, "O maid's child, thy choice and worthy the winning."

from Linda Sue Grimes: Suite101.com: Gerard Manley Hopkins' Spring

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The speaker's first question poses the possibility that because he is blessed with an able Muse, he might be susceptible to flattery, which he calls "the monarch's plague." A king, and thus any person holding a lofty societal position, always has people looking for favors, and those seekers are prone to say kind things about the king simply to win those favors.

The artist who gains some critical attention during his/her own lifetime has to guard against useless criticism.

from Linda Sue Grimes: Suite101.com: Shakespeare Sonnet 114

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This fabulous ambrosial liquid offered for imbibing has figuratively been "stolen from nature's nooks" by the gods of domesticity. The speaker implies that his attention has been suffering "sullen sleep," instead of observing all of these magnificent God-given gifts that should inspire and motivate him. Thus he commands his lagging mood, "Wake, wake, my sleeping Hunger, wake!"

from Linda Sue Grimes: Suite101.com: Yogananda's Wake, Wake, My Sleeping Hunger, Wake

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You know what? I'm pissed that I can't write poems all day to make a living! What happened to the days of poet-as-shaman? When the poet was revered and everybody looked to the poet for guidance? When the poet simply needed to impart her wisdom in verse to earn a slice of the bison and a place by the fire? Poets can't do what they do best these days, which is write poetry.

from Kristen Hoggart: The Smart Set: Ask a Poet: Will Compose for Food

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It had all the feeling of a farewell, which is what it was. Seeming reluctant to leave the stage he has held for 43 years as Pittsburgh's poetry impresario, Sam Hazo said goodbye to the poetry forum.

Stepping forward after his final poem, ironically titled "And The Time Is," Dr. Hazo said quietly, "It looks like this is the last year" for the forum.

Messages about the evening's announcement had gone out earlier in the day to the forum's board members, advisers and longtime supporters. They responded by filling the hall.

from Bob Hoover: Pittsburgh Post-Gazette: Poetry Forum utters its final verse
also Bob Hoover: Pittsburgh Post-Gazette: Coming: rough year for local arts

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[Paul Muldoon] distracts us from such unpleasantries, just as the boy might have steered his disgruntled mother with debate topics.

How naturally the poem ripens at the end. In some ways, she devoured her son, and yet he seems to have tamed her. He exhales her warmth even now. This melding of the generations gives me gooseflesh.

The Windshield

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

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The Bat
by Jane Kenyon

I was reading about rationalism,

from Garrison Keillor: The Writer's Almanac: The Bat by Jane Kenyon

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Coming Home
by Mary Oliver

When we're driving, in the dark,

from Garrison Keillor: The Writer's Almanac: Coming Home by Mary Oliver

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Drumming Behind You in the High School Band
by William Trowbridge

Rehearsing in street clothes after school,

from Garrison Keillor: The Writer's Almanac: Drumming Behind You in the High School Band by William Trowbridge

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Love Poem
by Donald Hall

When you fall in love,

from Garrison Keillor: The Writer's Almanac: Love Poem by Donald Hall

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Mary Bly
by James Wright

I sit here, doing nothing, alone, worn out by long winter.

from Garrison Keillor: The Writer's Almanac: Mary Bly by James Wright

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Snowbound
by David Tucker

The runways were covered by early evening,

from Garrison Keillor: The Writer's Almanac: Snowbound by David Tucker

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The Twelfth Year
by Mary Jo Salter

That autumn we walked and walked around the lake

from Garrison Keillor: The Writer's Almanac: The Twelfth Year by Mary Jo Salter

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To read in the news that a platoon of soldiers has been killed is a terrible thing, but to learn the name of just one of them makes the news even more vivid and sad. To hold the name of someone or something on our lips is a powerful thing. It is the badge of individuality and separateness. Charles Harper Webb, a California poet, takes advantage of the power of naming in this poem about the steady extinction of animal species.

The Animals are Leaving

from Ted Kooser: American Life in Poetry: Column 203

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[Amy Fleury] contrasts the dark New Hampshire woods with "sun-doused sedge" and also graveside and life. The last stanza integrates opposites with affirmation of the continuity of wind, which tells stories everywhere, and the land, which "will take us in," whether in forests or on the plains. Fleury herself recently moved to Louisiana, but will never truly leave Kansas.

At Cather's Grave

from Denise Low: Ad Astra Poetry Project: Amy Fleury (1970-)

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[by E. Ethelbert Miller]

The Morning After

The day after St. Valentine's Day

from E. Ethelbert Miller: E-Notes: The Morning After

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[by E. Ethelbert Miller]

Salat

poetry is prayer

from E. Ethelbert Miller: E-Notes: Salat

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[by E. Ethelbert Miller]

Untitled

On your left hand

from E. Ethelbert Miller: E-Notes: Untitled

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The sonnet fad produced still-admired sequences like Samuel Daniel's "Delia," Michael Drayton's "Idea," Edmund Spenser's "Amoretti," and Thomas Lodge's "Phyllis"--as well as more or less forgotten efforts such as Barnabe Barnes' "Parthenope and Parthenophil" and E.C.'s "Emaricdulfe."

For all the formulaic elements in these works, their authors frequently achieved surprising things in the endless search for ingenious new similes, zany puns, and outrageous metaphors: a language show of seduction staged within narrow limits of form and content.

from Robert Pinsky: Slate: Lovers' Laments

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The Dirge was popularised by a number of folk groups in the 1960s, notably The Young Tradition and Pentangle. There are many versions of the lyrics: mine draws on several of the more idiomatic, preserving much of the dialect spelling and re-creating the orality of the original.

A Lyke-Wake Dirge

This ae neet, this ae neet,

from Carol Rumens: The Guardian: Books blog: Poem of the week

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And it was the sound of them, not the sense--after all, what exactly are "eternal condor years"?--that enthralled me. Earlier, nursery rhymes had had the same effect. "Hey, diddle, the cat and the fiddle …"--I could repeat that one to myself endlessly. There is a phrase from Keats's "Ode to a Nightingale"--"O for a draught of vintage!"--that from the first time I read it to this very day casts a magic spell over me, transporting me simply by its melody and rhythm to a sunny day in a sunny clime in a time of romance.

from Frank Wilson: When Falls the Coliseum: That's What He Said: Listening to the aural magic

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by Robert Wrigley

Cemetery Moles
Most are not blind, but still,

from The Atlantic Monthly: Poetry: Cemetery Moles

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Glimpse Into Nature?

By Caroline Richardson

What shall you be called

from Express-News: Poetry: 'Glimpse Into Nature?'

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At Night by Sharon Olds

from The Guardian: The Saturday poem: At Night by Sharon Olds

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Concrete imagery. Successful love poems tend to involve memorable appeals to the senses of sight, touch, taste, hearing or smell, whether through description or metaphor.

Make form work for you. A lyric poem aims for feelings more than thoughts, so the caress of rhyme or the seductive swing of rhythm--indeed, any kind of regular repetition of the sounds of language--can be useful in helping move your reader. I'd love to see sonnets, villanelles, ballad stanzas, chants, refrains, or poems in unusual metres for this workshop.

from The Guardian: Poetry Workshop: Annie Finch's workshop

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by Novica Tadic translated by Charles Simic
Conversation (1)

A two-legged bag

from Guernica: Poetry: Three Poems

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By Alarie Tennille

An old woman

from The Kansas City Star: Between the Lines: 'Shiver'

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Poem of the week: Somali tales, by Jeremy Kingston

The Somali troops stationed in Lancashire

from Morning Star: Well Versed: Poem of the Week

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Crowning

by Kevin Young

from The New Yorker: Poetry: Crowning

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Like

by Frank Bidart

from The New Yorker: Poetry: Like

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[by Carl Adamshick]

You had been gone a few days.

from The Oregonian: Poetry: "Home"

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Between 1749 and 1750, a young and seemingly lovesick George Washington went on a surveying expedition for Lord Thomas Fairfax in Virginia's Northern Neck. He kept a diary on the trip traipsing through wild Virginia, and in it he wrote two love poems. Here's one of them:

Oh Ye Gods why should my Poor Resistless Heart

from PBS: Newshour: Weekly Poems: By Washington and Lincoln

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[by Janice Mulcahey]

Finally

from Portsmouth Herald News: Poem: Finally

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Poetic Obituaries

Betty [L. Aloway Cato]'s professional career was real estate and interior design, she also enjoyed cooking, sewing, painting and writing poetry, but she was most passionate and devoted to being a mother and grandmother to her children and grandchildren. As she would state, " they are all my babies, and I love them more than they could ever know".

from The Coloradoan: Betty L. Aloway Cato

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Dyvena [Stiles Crawford] was a member of Emmanuel Baptist Church, Electa Chapter No. 13 Order of the Eastern Star, The Historical Society and the Farmington Museum. She was Past Matron of the Eastern Star. She taught Sunday School for 35 years. In her later years, she was the author of a number of poems and three books, "Under The Apple Tree," "Dyvena Remembers" and "Earth Angels."

from The Daily Times: Dyvena Stiles Crawford

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[Mahmoud] Darwish's mother [Huriyya Darwish] was a central figure in his poetry, immortalized as a symbol for the earth of his homeland in his famous poem, "For my mother" turned into a song by Syrian singer Marcel Khalifah.

I long for my mother's bread

from Ma'an News Agency: Mahmoud Darwish's mother, immortalized in poetry, dies at 96

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Coletta [Virginia Degenfelder] had been a communicate of St. Mary's Roman Catholic Church in Mayville since it was built, where she taught religious education and sang in the choir, she had also volunteered at Mayville Central School as a ''Foster Grandparent''.

Coletta was interested in organic farming, animals of all sorts, reading, and writing poems.

from The Post-Journal: Coletta Virginia Degenfelder

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[Josephine Marguerite Gaines-Williams] recited dialect poetry of Paul Lawrence Dunbar for the Fort Wayne Schools during Black History Month for many years. She was also an accomplished violinist in the 1940's through the 1960's.

from Mansfield News Journal: Josephine Marguerite Gaines-Williams

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[Allama Syed Pir Naseer-ud-Din Naseer Gillani] was a renowned poet and author of almost 36 books on Islam, Quran and the Holy Prophet (Peace Be Upon Him), including "Lafz-e Allah ki Tahqiq," "Quran Majid key Aadab-e Tilawat," "Mawazna-e Ilm-o Karamat," "Kia Iblees Alim Tha," "Pakistan men Zalzala ki Tabah Karian," and "Musalmano k Arooj-o Zawal k Asbaab."

Mysticism was his field of specialization. He had conducted extensive research in history and religion.

from Associated Press of Pakistan: Custodian of Golra Sharif Pir Naseer passes away

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[Charles Warren Dyer Greening] was a member of the Woodbridge, VA Division I Ancient Order of Hibernians, and the Marsch-Kellogg American Legion Post #139 in Milford. He was a lover of all sports, but especially baseball, coaching little league in his spare time during his younger years. His favorite pastimes were golfing, crossword puzzles, gardening, writing poetry, and above all, trout fishing.

from The Times Herald-Record: Charles Warren Dyer Greening

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"She was really an animal lover and her friends and family started this fund to remember her," [Kari] Bogison said [of Mariel Hannah].

Efforts to reach Hannah's survivors were unsuccessful Tuesday.

A Web site created in her memory portrays a young lady with a creative flair who enjoyed art and poetry.

from The Gainesville Times: Slain teen inspires Humane Society award
also In Loving Memory of Mariel Elisabeth Hannah

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Many of [Don] Maclennan's works were published commercially and in his later years, privately.

"He kept on putting out slim volumes year after year," said his son Ben.

A few years ago he won the national Sanlam Poetry Prize.

Friends described his work as raunchy, with some despair, full of love, lean, frank, unpretentious but richly compressed.

from IOL: Poet and playwright Maclennan dies at 79

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[John McLure's] science interests ranged through archaeology, botany, biology, entomology, geology, mycology, ornithology and paleontology, with most of these reflected in his writings. He was active athletically in volley ball, jogging, swimming and Tai Chi. John was a published essayist and poet. His last essay, "The Hen of the Woods," about a species of mushroom, was published last year in the "Wapsipinicon Almanac, Number 14" by the Route 3 Press.

from Iowa City Press Citizen: John McLure, 74

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A Wellesley teen [Elizabeth Mun] who died Sunday after being pulled from an icy brook is believed to have penned a sorrowful poem about grief and regret that was published just months before her death.

Teen Voices, a Boston-based publication for teen girls, confirmed yesterday that in October 2008 it printed in its online edition the dark and lyrical poem submitted by "Lizzy Mun."

from Boston Herald: Dark poem penned before tragedy
also Boston Herald: Lizzy Mun's poem 'The Beach'

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[Sylvia M. O'Reilly] was a homemaker who enjoyed painting and writing. Sylvia lived in Mountain Home for 29 years, moving from Park Ridge, Ill. She was a former active member of the Mountain Home Poetry Club.

from The Baxter Bulletin: Sylvia M. O'Reilly, 97

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[Balachandra] Rajan wrote one of the most highly regarded scholarly books on Milton, Paradise Lost and the Seventeenth Century Reader, as well as critiques on other poets, plus two novels, Too Long in the West and Farewell, My Friend.

He was a superb prose writer, a revered researcher, a beloved teacher and "a true poet" as a human being, said UWO English teacher John Leonard.

from The London Free Press: Milton scholar, public servant regarded as 'true poet'

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"He wrote a book of poetry and I have read it again now.

"We had some great times as children and I have very fond memories of Jimmy--my thoughts are with his family." [--Linda Allen of James 'Jim' Reed]

from Reading Evening Post: Tributes paid to James 'Jimmy' Reed

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[Shabnam Roomani] first book of poetry came in 1959 under the title of "Masnavi Sair Karachi" and later his three poetry compilations were published, titled as "Jazeera", "Tohmat" and "Doosra Himala".

Besides, compilations of Naat and Manqabat, and a compilation of his literary columns titled as "Hyde Park" have also been published.

from The News International: Poet, columnist Shabnam Roomani passes away

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Entering the media field in the early 1990s he [Puniyamoorthy Sathiyamoorthy] began contributing to "Pulika'lin Kural" (Voice of Tigers) besides writing short-stories, poems and articles in the media including 'Ve'lichcham' magazine.

In the late 1990s he developed into a serious political analyst and also reported on military matters.

He wrote the military column in 'Eezhanaatham' daily.

from TamilNet: Journalist Sathiyamoorthy killed inside Safe Zone

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Ruth [Elizabeth Sewell] enjoyed a variety of things. She really loved writing poems and wrote prayers for the Monte Vista American Legion Auxiliary, serving as their chaplain.

from Center Post Dispatch: Ruth Elizabeth Sewell, 92

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[Bret Addison Smith] graduated from high school in Indianapolis, IN and later served in the United States Navy. He received a degree in electrical engineering. Bret was a renowned poet. He was employed with Project Associates where he was involved in robotics.

from News 25 WHET: Bret Addison Smith

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Dr. [William P.] Swisher loved his family, gardening, classical music and the arts. He was gifted with a prodigious intellect. He voluntarily completed the Illinois State Medical Exams a second time in mid-career as an exercise in keeping current with new developments in the field. At age 76, he took up painting and writing. He exhibited his paintings in Evanston and Ludington, Mich. and published several books on the Mills and Swisher families, on the evolving practice of medicine during the 20th century, poetry, and numerous essays.

from The Mendota Reporter: William P. Swisher, M.D.

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Relatives say [Ronald] Trick was an experienced hiker who shared his enthusiasm for the outdoors with his family. He and his wife, Sheryl, recently traveled to Yellowstone National Park, and Trick enjoyed taking his grandchildren on hikes.

His travels inspired him to write poetry documenting his observations and his fascination with nature.

"He loved exploring and adventure," said daughter Natalie Cenci, 40, of Lewis Center.

from The Columbus Dispatch: Fall in Kentucky park kills Powell hiker, 63

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[Edward Upward] did this in his notorious essay entitled Sketch for a Marxist Interpretation of Literature (1937), in which he denounced his own style of "literary allegories and fancies" and pronounced that unless a writer "has in his everyday life taken the side of the workers, he cannot, however talented he might be, write a good book, cannot tell the truth about reality." It was a cry in favour of the Soviet realist style of writing--a style as far removed from Upward's own as can be imagined.

The following year Upward published a short novel, Journey to the Border, which illustrated his theme and which Stephen Spender considered "contains some of the most beautiful prose poems of the century".

from Telegraph: Edward Upward

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[Bakhtiyar] Vahabzadeh published over 70 books of poetry, 11 scholarly books, more than 20 long poems and hundreds of articles on literature. He was mainly popular in Turkey for his article "Yel Kaya'dan Ne Apar?r?" (What Does the Wind Steal from the Stone?), which was published in the Varl?k literary journal in reply to critics of the divan poet Fuzuli.

Vahabzadeh's articles and poems also appeared in the Turkish review magazine Türk Edebiyat? for years.

from Today's Zaman: Poet Vahabzadeh reiterates love for Turkey before death

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In 2007, 20 years after [John] Whinnery retired from UC Berkeley, the Department of Electrical Engineering and Computer Sciences dedicated a room at the campus's Cory Hall to Whinnery.

Outside of his professional life, Whinnery was known for his love of writing poetry and children's stories, cultivating fine wines, and hiking in the mountains.

from UC Berkeley News: John Whinnery, University Professor Emeritus and distinguished innovator in electromagnetism, dies at 92

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[Keith Wilson's] honors included the D.H. Lawrence Fellowship, P.E.N.-America Center Writing Grant, a National Endowment for the Arts Creative Writing Fellowship, a Senior Fulbright-Hays Fellowship to Romania, New Mexico Governor's Award for Excellence in the Arts, Authors of the Pass Western States Arts Foundation Book Award, P.E.N.-West Book Award, the Border Book Festival's Premio Frontereza Award for Lifetime Achievement, the Doña Ana Arts Council's Papen Award and the Westhafer Teaching Award, NMSU's first such award to a professor in the creative arts.

Wilson's "Graves Registry" was nominated for the National Book Award in 1992. He was named a Knight of Mark Twain for his "outstanding contributions to American literature."

from Las Cruces Sun-News: Las Cruces poet laureate, Keith Wilson, dies at 81

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News at Eleven

A few weeks ago Professor J.D. "Sandy" McClatchy GRD '74 received a phone call and learned he was elected to serve as the next president of the American Academy of Arts and Letters.

"I couldn't say no to a complete stranger," he quipped, "so I said yes."

As the President of an 111-year old institution, McClatchy said he hopes to make the Academy more active both nationally and internationally, reaching out to a broad range of artists.

from Yale Daily News: McClatchy to head arts organization
also American Academy of Arts and Letters: J. D. McClatchy Elected 55th President of the American Academy of Arts and Letters

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[Kevin] Davies's poetry is mercifully free of that kind of self-regard, which it has replaced with an even better, more archaic form of self-regard: alienation and self-loathing. This is actually a promising development. For all its proclaimed devotion to negativity, the poetic avant-garde has until now had no curmudgeon with the charm or persistence of a Philip Larkin or Dorothy Parker.

In the twilight of what our major critics agree is "the Age of Ashbery," genial surrealism has gradually replaced grand mania as the period style (a shift that tracks the change in Ashbery's manner over his past seven books).

from The Nation: Happy Thoughts!: The Poetry of Kevin Davies

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Where boundaries are closed and wired no healthy painless culture can grow and develop. Perhaps, such an atmosphere might provide a foundation for revolutionary poetry or poetry of resistance, but that is not modern. It is a reactionary or political protest expressed artistically. Or it might create another unique style of literature like symbolism or using symbols. I say using symbols to distinguish this symbolism from that of the European school of symbolism. But if there is no freedom of expression for critics to study and analyze symbols, how can a new style carve out its own path and become a fashionable? [--Farhad Shakely]

from Kurdish Globe: Reflections of a Kurdish poet--Part III
also Kurdish Globe: Reflections of a Kurdish poet--Part II
also Kurdish Globe: Reflections of a Kurdish poet--Part I

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For him, poetry is trying to make invisible the visible, an effort that is necessary and timeless. According to [Li-young] Lee, "Art is making unconscious things conscious. You're not just 19 or 20-year-olds in Spokane; you have 8,000 years of evolution in your DNA of the suffering and wisdom of the human race. Socrates said this: You're more than the sum of your years. We know truth by measuring it against this unconscious knowledge."

from The Gonzaga Bulletin: Li-young Lee: exterminator, restaurateur and poet

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The form of the poem, in other words, is crucial to poetry's power to do the thing which always is and always will be to poetry's credit: the power to persuade that vulnerable part of our consciousness of its rightness in spite of the evidence of wrongness all around it, the power to remind us that we are hunters and gatherers of values, that our very solitudes and distresses are creditable, in so far as they, too, are an earnest of our veritable human being.

from The Brooklyn Rail: Heaniverse

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"My wife and I--we've been married 43 years--have this agreement that we do not speak in the morning. There's nothing to say, no conceivable reason for addressing a word to another person. Don't you agree? And then, at one point, one of us will say to the other, 'Is the silence over?'"

He [Peter Cooley] begins his work, alternating writing with sipping coffee, then running or walking along the levee near his home near Ochsner Medical Center as he thinks the poem through, returning home for a bowl of cereal before finally heading off to his job as an English professor at Tulane University.

from The Times-Picayune: New Orleans writer Peter Cooley finds poetry in the morning light

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Drawing from a set of workshop conventions widely used by younger poets, [Elizabeth] Skurnick has cut her lyrics to the quick, shedding excessive words and animating what's left with unusual emotional weight, with such themes as the recklessness of young love and the diminishment implicit in most social roles. Proof again that a good writer can shape any form into an expressive vehicle.

from The Brooklyn Rail: A Poet Stretches

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The poems create images from a neighborhood swathed in the pain of memories that will not recede. The streets echoed with the sounds of a dozen languages that represented a roiling cauldron, not a melting pot. "The Ukrainians hate the Romanians while the Poles hate the Germans, but especially the Italians, who hate the blacks who haven't even moved into the neighborhood yet," [Philip] Schulz writes at the start of his book. "This is Rochester, N.Y. in the fifties, when all the Displaced Persons move in and suddenly even the elms look defeated."

from Democrat and Chronicle: A poet writes of the ghosts of his Rochester youth

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On one occasion, an open-mic poet broke [B.L.] Kennedy's ribs. According to Kennedy, a guy at Luna's was dishing dirt within earshot, so he approached the guy. "I went up to him and gave him a tap on his face--a Buddha slap--and he got up and gave me this roundhouse kick in the ribs," he says.

For those counting, even that trip to the hospital didn't shut Kennedy up.

from Sacramento News & Review: Is B.L. Kennedy dying?

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To boycott a repressive military state should not mean backing away from individuals struggling against the policies of that state. So, in continued solidarity with the Palestinian people's long resistance, and also with those Israeli activists, teachers, students, artists, writers, intellectuals, journalists, refuseniks, feminists and others who oppose the means and ends of the Occupation, I have signed my name to this call.

Adrienne Rich

from MR Zine: Why Support the U.S. Campaign for the Academic and Cultural Boycott of Israel?
also U.S. Campaign for the Academic & Cultural Boycott of Israel: Press Release

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[Sigifredo] Lopez, 45, passed his time writing poems and stories for his sons during his years in bug-infested camps deep in the jungle, but he was forced to leave them behind.

Rebels freed four members of the armed forces and a former governor this week. Analysts say the FARC, established as a Marxist-inspired army, is seeking more maneuvering room. But talks to end the insurgency appear distant and the FARC is still holding 22 soldiers and police captive for leverage.

Lopez was snatched during a daring raid by rebels posing as soldiers searching for a bomb at the Cali assembly. Guerrillas bundled the kidnap victims onto a bus and spirited them into the mountains.

from Reuters: Colombia's FARC rebels free hostage lawmaker

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Great Regulars

Nasa resisted the idea (it has since entirely accepted it) but [James] Lovelock developed it into his theory about the nature of our own planet. He remembers "that enthralling eureka moment 44 years ago . . . when I saw with my mind's eye our planet as something possibly unique in the universe, something alive".

Lovelock realised that the activities of life itself maintained the equilibrium of the Earth's key life-preserving areas, such as temperature and the salinity of the sea, by creating vast feedback systems.

from Bryan Appleyard: The Sunday Times: Shockwaves are the stock in trade of this father of the apocalypse

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[Carol Niederlander] writes: "Alzheimer's disease is a devastating illness. I have watched its progress twice now, once with an aunt, and then again with my father, whose early symptoms worried me even as I tried to deny them. This poem is about those signs and signals, coming at first from a distance, then ever closer, in ways that no one could finally deny. I thought my father faced it with a courage that reminded me of his days as a soldier in the South Pacific during World War II. We lost him at last on July 4th, 2008."

Storm Watch

For my father

from Walter Bargen: The Post-Dispatch: Missouri poet: Carol Niederlander

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There were rituals where they stripped people naked and beat them with sticks, immersed them in horse troughs full of piss, that sort of thing. But the education," he [Peter Porter] allows, "wasn't bad."

He goes further: "I often think now if I hadn't been educated there, I wouldn't have written at all. Neither my father nor my mother were readers; there were no books in the house. But when I got to school you had your nose shoved into them. I read endlessly: Donne, Shakespeare, the Victorians; I've always had a huge admiration for Robert Browning. And I began to find that I enjoyed writing poetry."

from Sarah Crown: The Guardian: Poetic Justice

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The Beckoning
By John Mark Everhart
(A poem based loosely on Oliver Onions' classic supernatural story, "The Beckoning Fair One.")

They asked me why

from John Mark Eberhart: Parachute: Come here . . .

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Gwendolyn Bennett's sonnet differs from the English sonnet form in line length and meter; instead of iambic pentameter, it employs iambic tetrameter. This simple love sonnet portrays a charming tone, dramatizing the simple pleasures that the speaker holds dear, as it cascades to a surprising ending.

from Linda Sue Grimes: Suite101.com: Gwendolyn Bennett's Love Sonnet

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The reader then is accosted with the fact that those underwater caves, which may be decorated or not, are filled with land-dwelling, air-breathing mammals. Thus, the piece becomes a fantasy verse or does it? The reader suspends belief and continues, learning that those animals, "apes," eat figs. This fact is nothing extraordinary; apes love fruit, but why the versifier chooses "figs" remains a mystery.

from Linda Sue Grimes: Suite101.com: Obama's Underground

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Because of his having to take "public means," he then has to perform certain duties that are distasteful to him. He is probably referring to having to write and stage the plays out of financial necessity rather than out of pure inspiration and love of the art.

His name becomes "a brand," quite possibly the reason he used the pseudonym, "William Shakespeare." At least this way, he keeps a portion of his privacy and dignity.

from Linda Sue Grimes: Suite101.com: Shakespeare Sonnet 111

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The speaker addresses his Muse, reporting to her, "Your love and pity doth the impression fill/Which vulgar scandal stamp'd upon my brow." He dramatizes accusations hurled at him by claiming that they have cut into his "brow" leaving a gaping hole. But fortunately, his Muse will bandage his wound and fill it is as one would fill in a divot.

from Linda Sue Grimes: Suite101.com: Shakespeare Sonnet 112

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His literal, physical eye seems to leave its "function and is partly blind." Exaggerating, he claims that he cannot see with the same visual acuity as when he is in the presence of his Muse.

The speaker interprets the act of "seeing" as a mental concept; while composing his poetry, he is so aware of himself as creator that he seems literally to see with his mind. Of course, the act of seeing with the mind is not literal, but quite figurative.

from Linda Sue Grimes: Suite101.com: Shakespeare Sonnet 113

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She adds that she wishes for blending with her beloved as "a snowflake in the sea." Of course, a snowflake in the sea would melt immediately, becoming one with the water. Despite the opening negative remark, the speaker has turned her claim around and even made it more intense than it would have been had she not begun by with the assertion, "I am not yours."

from Linda Sue Grimes: Suite101.com: Teasdale's I Am Not Yours

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"Behold the silvery river--in it the splashing horses, loitering, stop to drink"

The next offering features the river itself, which the speaker describes as "silvery," and then he lets his viewers see the "splashing horses," who take a drink when they are able to stop and wait for their turn to move ahead. However, instead merely stating the description, he commands his viewer to look, "Behold the silvery river."

from Linda Sue Grimes: Suite101.com: Whitman's Cavalry Crossing a Ford

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The Divine does not speak directly as a parent would directly instruct a child through language, but by meditating and "disconnecting" one's attention "from sensory distractions," the devotee who seeks to transform his life, to "tame" his "tiger" body, and "maim" his "failure's talons," may do so by freeing his attention from "sensory distractions." After that freedom is achieved, the devotee can perceive that unspoken name as "the Indwelling Glory.

from Linda Sue Grimes: Suite101.com: Yogananda's Silence

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The lack of political power has both plagued and inspired African-American poets since the nation was founded, but it's too early to tell if the election of Barack Obama will alter that traditional conflict.

Arnold Rampersad, biographer of Langston Hughes and Ralph Ellison, explored the issue Friday when he discussed "Poetry and Political Power in America" at the University of Pittsburgh.

from Bob Hoover: Pittsburgh Post-Gazette: Election challenges black poets

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In the many "appreciations" that followed his death Jan. 27, [John] Updike was distinguished as our guide to the lives of everyday Americans, as though he created a new form of literature.

In fact, Updike was simply doing what many writers who preceded him did.

from Bob Hoover: Pittsburgh Post-Gazette: Updike's novels followed the 'middle' road of William Dean Howells

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For Valentine's Day, consider Ezra Pound's tender rendition of Li T'ai Po's 8th-century poem "The River-Merchant's Wife: A Letter." (I memorized this in junior high while mooning behind an oblivious boy's blond and buzz-cut scalp.) Pound's famously fouled-up translation galled Chinese scholars. I'm told it contains misreadings akin to finding "flower" in the word "flour." But he freed the poem from antique verse that rocked through pentameter like a wild pony. Look at how W.J.B. Fletcher transformed Li Po's delicacy into bad Longfellow:

When first o'er maiden brows my hair I tied,

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

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[John Updike] was a charming and generous interview though he claimed to dislike being interviewed. He was dark on the subject of celebrity--"Celebrity is a mask that eats into the face," he wrote. "As soon as one is aware of being 'somebody,' to be watched and listened to with extra interest, input ceases, and the performer goes blind and deaf in his overanimation. One can either see or be seen."--but as a Famous American Writer, he was a champion, worthy to wear the belt.

from Garrison Keillor: Chicago Tribune: Appreciation for a great appreciator

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He Gets Around to Answering the Old Question
by Miller Williams

He doesn't see as well as he thinks he remembers.

from Garrison Keillor: The Writer's Almanac: He Gets Around to Answering the Old Question by Miller Williams

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Of The Terrible Doubt Of Appearances
by Walt Whitman

Of the terrible doubt of appearances,

from Garrison Keillor: The Writer's Almanac: Of The Terrible Doubt Of Appearances by Walt Whitman

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On the Back Porch
by Dorianne Laux

The cat calls for her dinner.

from Garrison Keillor: The Writer's Almanac: On the Back Porch by Dorianne Laux

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The Sweetest Woman There
by John Clare

From bank to bank the water roars Like thunder in a storm

from Garrison Keillor: The Writer's Almanac: The Sweetest Woman There by John Clare

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They say that 'Time assuages' . . .
by Emily Dickinson

They say that "Time assuages"--

from Garrison Keillor: The Writer's Almanac: They say that 'Time assuages' . . . by Emily Dickison

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Time + Distance
by Leslie Monsour

The tea you pour is black and strong.

from Garrison Keillor: The Writer's Almanac: Time + Distance by Leslie Monsour

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Uncle Jim
by Peter Meinke

What the children remember about Uncle Jim

from Garrison Keillor: The Writer's Almanac: Uncle Jim by Peter Meinke

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David Wagoner, who lives in Washington state, is one of our country's most distinguished poets and the author of many wonderful books. He is also one of our best at writing about nature, from which we learn so much. Here is a recent poem by Wagoner that speaks to perseverance.

The Cherry Tree

from Ted Kooser: American Life in Poetry: Column 202

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The New England poet Emily Dickinson may be the champion poet of despair. Living most of her life secluded in father's Amherst house after being jilted by a suitor, she seemed to feast on the spoils of that lost love for the remainder of her days. In her poem "I cannot live with you," she explains to her absent lover why their love would never have worked:

And were You lost, I would be--

from Anthony Maulucci: Norwich Bulletin: Poets have a way of bringing wayward love to forefront

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How would you best like to be remembered?

As somebody who has done a lot of things that converge on one point: that writing, whether it is spoken about, taught, written or encouraged by other means, is a way of making us more fully human.

from Andrew Motion: Telegraph: Culture Clinic

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While "reading" and "literacy" have been made into a top priority, reading books has been sidelined.

In practice, it means that a great deal of energy, money and focus have been put into teaching children how to read, while older children are given excerpts from books to read and then be quizzed about. It's quite possible to find primary schools where older children don't have the experience of reading a whole book, of talking about it in an open-ended way.

from Michael Rosen: The Guardian: Books blog: How to start a reading revolution

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Biography often concentrates on the tragedy of John Clare, but his work is full of sound and sunlight, vigorous movement, delicious relaxation. During his final asylum years he wrote a short poem called "The Peasant Poet" (perhaps, after all, the title didn't displease him retrospectively). The little self-portrait that concludes it is the one I like to think best captures him. No, he is not a bard, but "A silent man in life's affairs/A thinker from a Boy/A Peasant in his daily cares--/The Poet in his joy."

The Gipsy Camp

from Carol Rumens: The Guardian: Books blog: Poem of the week: The Gipsy Camp

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[Abraham Lincoln] is one of only a handful of U.S. presidents who, unassisted and alone, could write an original, beautiful, moving sentence full of content and consequence. What he wrote, we remember. We know what it did, and it still does it to us. Our idea of him is based largely on his words. You see it in the Gettysburg Address, of course, his most famous single writing. But it's there in his Second Inaugural, which is just about as good. It's there in many of his personal letters, his memos to generals in the field, the many essays and op-eds he wrote for newspapers.

from John Timpane: Philadelpia Inquirer: Man of Letters

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This, it seems to me, has much in common with that fatuous exercise known as explicating poems. A poem is all of what it says in the precise way that it says it. To explicate a poem is simply to devise a parallel, inevitably inferior statement. That is because the constituent elements of a poem affect the reader simultaneously, while the explication must treat them linearly, one at a time.

The same is true of life and reason. Reason is linear. Life is three-dimensional.

from Frank Wilson: When Falls the Coliseum: That's What He Said: Rationalism amounts to a misuse of reason

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I Hope You Die

by Michael Nicoloff

I have lots of feelings

from The Brooklyn Rail: I Hope You Die

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by Brandon Brown

Supremacy

I carry a bag of guts into the space of appearance

from The Brooklyn Rail: Six from Lunch Poems

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By Joan Seifert

Oak or maybe cherry wood,

from Express-News: Poetry: Old Parlor Table

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Laure-Anne Bosselaar is the author of "The Hour Between Dog and Wolf, of Small Gods of Grief," which won the Isabella Gardner Prize for Poetry, and she is also the author of "A New Hunger," which was selected as an ALA Notable Book for 2008. She is the editor of four poetry anthologies, and co-translated a book of Dutch poetry: "The Plural of Happiness, poems by Herman de Coninck." The recipient of a Pushcart Prize, she teaches at Sarah Lawrence College and at the Low Residency MFA in Creative Writing Program of Pine Manor College.

Garage Sale

from Good Times Weekly: Poetry Corner: Minutes Slush By

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Here the mixed feelings natural to elegy are very present. The details--each and cumulatively--are the bodily expression of love, they are its substance and, by means of lines of verse, they become its celebration. All the harder to bear then is the loss of them. The last two and a half lines have the keenness of poetry in the act of telling the truth.

from The Guardian: Poetry Workshop: elegies

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By Patricia V. Martin

We are a nation

from The Kansas City Star: Between the Lines: 'Transition'

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by Dennis Brutus

please keep in mind

from MR Zine: Prophetic Verse

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By Mary Szybist

))))) Listen

I didn't mean to say so much to you.

from PBS: Newshour: Weekly Poem: 'Apology'

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[by Joan C. Tobey]

The wooded garden path

from Portsmouth Herald News: Poem: The wooded garden path

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"It Takes Particular Clicks"
By Christian Wiman

from Slate: "It Takes Particular Clicks" By Christian Wiman

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Poetic Obituaries

Michael [Cullen] was also an accomplished and award-winning writer of poems, plays, novels, screenplays, fiction, writing texts, study guides, chapters and reviews. He was an active member of the Sidney community for many years, and he shared his enthusiasm for writing by organizing the Sidney Reading Series and by writing weekly columns for the Peninsula News Review, for which he won an award.

from The Ring: Michael Cullen

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[Verdun Cupp] also wrote a book of poems, stories she used to read to her children. Within the prose lies a message to moms.

"She'll call me and say,'I just wrote a poem and I want you to hear it.' Or 'I've written a song.' You know she just, she just sits out on the porch and the next thing you know she's got a song or a poem," said Lola Kehrer, Cupp's friend.

from KOMU: Poetic Mother Passes

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Dena [M. Evans] was a member of the Foster Grandparents Program. In 1997, she returned to Fort Dodge where she was a member of the Seventh Day Adventist Church. Dena enjoyed writing poetry and spending time with her family.

from The Messenger: Dena M. Evans

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Family members who live in Whiteville said [Helena] Haley was smart and liked to read and write poetry.

She had two children there, a boy and a girl, who stayed with their father when she chose to move to California in 2007, said Haley's mother, Geraldine Haley.

from Las Vegas Review-Journal: Young mother's body found in trash can in Las Vegas

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Journalist, columnist, translator of Faiz and Manto, people-watcher, press secretary to Zulfiqar Ali Bhutto, international civil servant, poet, intellectual-at-large, wonderful company, someone you could talk to for ever (he would do most of the talking), and much much more. To me, Khalid Hasan the person was always far more interesting than all the persona he had acquired over time.

from Pakistaniat: Khalid Hasan (1934-2009): Columnist Par Excellance Passes Away

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"She was just like a ray of sunshine," [Wendy] Burton said.

[Heather Lee Ann] Hibbs loved to dance, write poetry and being in the water. She was the oldest of Burton's three daughters, who grew up in the Suisun area, and inherited her tough, loud personality.

"If she saw something that wasn't right . . . she made sure that you knew it," Burton said.

from Times-Herald: Mom seeks tips in daughter's death

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[Leilani Karschney] worked as an EMT for Tigerton, Wittenberg, Marion and Clintonville. She also had worked as a CNA at the former Willow Brook CBRF, Birnamwood and for the Aspirus Comfort Care and Hospice. Leilani enjoyed writing poems, hunting, fishing, playing cards and spending time with her family.

from Oshkosh Northwestern: Leilani M. (Potschaider) Karschney

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[Richard] Kroll genuinely wanted to raise the standard in his classroom, never failing to mix his flamboyant presentation and sense of humor with the keenest, most nuanced analysis of any professor in the department. Kroll developed his own parlance to engage students, making sure everybody knew his playfully ironic distinction between the "Crap Poets" of Oxford and the "Good Poets" of Cambridge (of course, it was just a coincidence he went to Cambridge himself). To keep things interesting, there was always the possibility that a blue ball might glance the side of your head if you started nodding off.

from New University: Richard Kroll, 1953-2009

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[Fred Kuipers] was a member of the Holland Lions Club, a little league coach, a volunteer for Meals on Wheels, Holland Rescue Mission and a tutor for Kids Hope. He was named tutor of the year in 2007. Fred wrote poetry for the Holland Sentinel on Christmas, Easter and Thanksgiving.

from The Holland Sentinel: Fred Kuipers, 82

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[Richard Leck] first chapbook of poems, "Memory Hair," was published in fall 2008, and as recently as December he had attended the Indie and Small Press Fair on 44th St. to promote his book. He was working on his memoirs (titled "Jumped, Fell, or Was Pushed") at the time of his death, co-authoring them with the publisher of his poems, Karen Lillis, of Words Like Kudzu Press. Lillis plans to complete his memoirs, and hopes also to publish a second chapbook of his poetry.

from The Villager: Richard Leck, 75, poet and part of bohemian scene

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[Paul] Mathews always had eclectic interests--as a child, he loved Robin Hood and went through an archery phase, his sister said. He loved reading and writing poetry and was interested in world politics, his wife said.

But his passion was shoemaking, which he continued when he moved to New Hampshire. In 1968, he bought a 100-acre farm, which he later expanded by buying an additional 200 acres from two adjoining farms.

from Concord Monitor: Shoemaker learned from his father, passed it on to children

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A man of many talents, Leonard [Morley] enjoyed playing guitar, writing poetry, and was an amateur painter. He was able to trace his Scottish and English heritage back to the pre-1600's. He had a terrific sense of humor and was a great "raconteur"--(look it up!)

from The Post-Crescent: Morley, Leonard W. "Len"

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Composer of famous ghazal collection "Tapi Tirey", Asim Randeri died of old age here on Thursday. He was 104 years old and had received Vali Gujarati award in 2006. His revolutionary writings were hit with the people especially youth in 1920s.

from Gujarat Global: Gujarati poet Randeri passes away

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Mr. [George] Schneeman, who began the collaborations in the late 1960s, was not the first painter to work in double harness with a poet: Larry Rivers and Frank O'Hara had done so in the late '50s. But he was undoubtedly the most prolific. Over four decades Mr. Schneeman produced hundreds of collaborative pieces that were neither pure visual art nor pure verbal art but something tantalizingly indefinable between the two.

from The New York Times: George Schneeman, 74, Poet-Artist, Dies

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A lover music, Jack [Shockley] played guitar from the age of 14 until his death. Music was often known as his solace and his way of making it through all the hard times that were thrown his way. Writing was also an outlet, he wrote mostly music and poetry. He was a smart man always ready to have an intellectual and witty conversation with anyone who was ready to take him on.

from The Marion Star: Jackie A. "Jack" Shockley

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Republicans chose Rep. Maureen Walsh, R-Walla Walla, to take over [Mary] Skinner's position as House GOP vice chair after Skinner declined to run for re-election last November.

On a less dramatic scale, Skinner introduced, pushed and got passed the law creating the state poet laureate position.

For Tri-Citians, there's a direct connection to April 11, when Washington's first poet laureate, Samuel Green, appears at 7 p.m. on the HUB main stage at Columbia Basin College as part of this year's Lit Fest. Lit Fest begins next week.

from Tri-City Herald: Mary Skinner, 63; she worked for kids

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[Elbert C. (Al) Spurgeon] loved standing in the rain, reading, fishing, flying, arrowhead hunting, music, and poetry. He was very passionate about composing and writing his recollections of the past to memorialize family history and pass it down to his children and grandchildren.

from Mason Valley News: Elbert C. Spurgeon

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"Every year for my birthday, Evelyn [Strouse] would write me a poem," recalled Gail Fox, another friend and U.S.C.C. associate. "One day, I wrote a poem back to her and she called me and said she wanted to see me right away. She went over my poem line by line and corrected it."

from The Villager: Evelyn Strouse, 92, feisty doyenne of Union Square

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[Martha Violet Thompkins] was a 62-year member of the Coshocton Business and Professional Women's Club, a grange member for more than 55 years, last a member of the Bethlehem Grange, and a former member of the Grace United Methodist Church. She was a 1935 graduate of Coshocton High School. She loved to play bingo and write poetry.

from Coshocton Tribune: Martha Violet Thompkins, 91

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[Pavlo Zahrebelny] always showed an eager interest in young authors. In the 1960s, when he was the editor in chief of the newspaper Literaturna hazeta (eventually renamed Literaturna Uk­rai­na), he actively supported young prose writers, poets, and journalists who would later become known as the shistdesiatnyky. In fact, he was the first to publish poems by Vinhranovsky, Drach, and Oliinyk. He also supported Vasyl Symonenko and Lina Kostenko.

from The Day: In memory of Pavlo Zahrebelny

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News at Eleven

[by John Updike]

Perfection wasted

And another regrettable thing about death

from Tha Guardian: Updike on death: A poem
also The Guardian: When Amis met Updike . . .
also The Guardian: Beyond the bounds of realism
also The Guardian: John Updike interview: 'One writes by faith'
also The Guardian: John Updike: extract from Rabbit, Run
also The Guardian: John Updike

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By John Updike

It came to me the other day:

from The New York Times: Requiem
also Poetry Dispatch and other Notes from the Underground: Updike's Poems
also Spicezee: Late Updike on his image of India
also The New Yorker: Late Works
also The New York Times: A Sampler of John Updike's Prose
also The Times: John Updike: the character who was my ticket to the America all around me
also The Times Literary Supplement: War on West 155th Street
also The New Yorker: Hub Fans Bid Kid Adieu
also Morning Sentinel: John Updike: A reader's appreciation
also CBC Radio: The ‘kaleidoscopically gifted' writer John Updike talks with Eleanor Wachtel in an interview from 1996

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The rebuke arises partly because, in modern culture, we expect writers and film directors to take the spot philosophers and theologians occupied centuries ago. Too intellectually lazy to access our actual philosophers and theologians, we dictate that our writers be overt moralists, political theorists, social critics, even journalists. If they can write pretty, too, that's fine, but pretty without substance? No thanks.

The mistake about Updike from the beginning was to imagine that there's an "either-or" in literature as inevitable as the one delineated in morals by Updike's much-admired Kierkegaard.

from Philadelphia Inquirer: John Updike: There was style, and more
also The New Republic: Requiem: John Updike's productivity and proficiency
also The Baltimore Sun: Master of details made readers feel what he felt
also New York: Three Pages a Day

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Poet Mevlut Ceylan, editor of London based-Core Poetry magazin, wrote a poetry "for Gaza the killing field", following Israel's 22-day massive offensive in enclave.

Israel launched on Dec. 27 a massive offensive in Gaza, killing more than 1300 Palestinians, a third of them children, and wounded at least 5300.

Israel targeted hospitals, schools, mosques and government buildings and destroyed infrastructure system in Gaza, lefting Palestinians without electricity, gas and power.

Thou Shalt Not Kill

for gaza the killing field

am i a fly

from World Bulletin: Poet in Britain writes poetry "for Gaza killing field"

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Trees
A Prose Poem

Kaiser Haq

Surely you've noticed how, as soon as you get out of the city, the sight of trees and greenery lifts up the spirits, even to the point of elation.

from The Daily Star: Trees: A Prose Poem

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Barack Obama's inauguration teemed with details evoking the other Illinois upstart he has often claimed as his model: Obama, we were told, would be swearing in on Abraham Lincoln's Bible, eating his favourite dishes off replicas of chinaware Mary Todd Lincoln selected in 1861. Fewer noted, however, that the woman Obama chose as his inaugural poet reinforced the comparison. Throughout her career, Elizabeth Alexander has sought to position herself as an heir to Walt Whitman, Lincoln's fervent devotee.

Whitman only ever saw Lincoln from afar.

from The Guardian: I hear America singing
also Yale Daily News: Alexander: 'A lot of people stop me in the street'

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Newspapers cover the selection of a new laureate as if the post were the Wimbledon Championship of poetry--a Best Poet prize that all of us must surely want to win. This is absurd. For one thing, there are and always have been good poets who want nothing to do with it. Thomas Gray, Sir Walter Scott, William Morris and Rudyard Kipling turned it down. Kipling said that a poet has no business being a paid employee of the state--and I have some sympathy with that view.

from The Guardian: Abolish the post of poet laureate
also The Independent: Philip Hensher: Sorry Wendy, but we need to keep the Poet Laureate
also The Guardian: Poet laureate

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To call Poe's fiction misogynistic is, I believe, missing the point. Murder is, after all, the highest form of flattery. The poet writes, not from hatred, but from awe as well as from a basic need to keep under control a creative power superior to his own. Much of his fiction deals with this. In "The Thousand and Second Tale of Scheherazade", one of the very few of Poe's stories in which a female character plays an active role, Poe wittily disposes of a literary rival by having the legendary storyteller fail in her attempt to beguile the king with yet another tall tale, and has her strangled for her failure, thereby taking over himself her vacant post as chief storyteller to the king.

from Telegraph: Edgar Allan Poe, master of horror

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It is here that my praise for [Coleman] Barks flows in exactly the opposite direction of the criticism he has attracted. Although Barks may have had to escort Rumi through Ellis Island to import him to the United States, he has shown that one can Americanize an "other" without bastardizing him. The task of a translator working across vast expanses of time and space is not easy, and what Barks has done is beautifully--indeed, wondrously--rendered Rumi into an English that pierces through the souls of millions of Westerners, yet still remains reverently (if only relatively) faithful to the original Persian.

Poetically, this is significant. But politically, it is momentous.

from Religious Dispatches: Found in Translation: How a Thirteenth-Century Islamic Poet Conquered America

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Talking of an interrogation he [Agha Shahid Ali] writes "Drippings from a suspended burning tire/are falling on the back of a prisoner,/the naked boy screaming, "I know nothing."

Shahid Ali has love poems to Begum Akhtar, his mother, the Kashmir landscape. Poetry can't be reduced to eternal railing against a regime or an ideology. The staple of poetry, as we know it today, deals with a poet's inner life and how his soul deals with a complex world bearing down upon him.

from The Hindu: Poetry in a time of terror

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Zarganar, who kept a blog that was widely read by Burmese Internet users both in Burma and abroad, was arrested on 5 June 2008 for writing in his blog about the widespread criticism of the government's relief efforts after the country was devastated by a cyclone the previous month. Sentenced to 45 years in prison under the Electronic Act by the Insein prison court on 21 November 2008, he was given an additional 14-year jail sentence for unspecified "offences" six days later. He is due to be released in 2067.

Nay Phone Latt and Zarganar were awarded a special press freedom prize by Reporters Without Borders on 4 December.

Sign the petition

from Reporters Without Borders: Petition launched for release of two Burmese bloggers serving sentences of 20 and 59 years in prison
also Reporters Without Borders: Support RSF. Sign This Petition: Nay Phone Latt and Zarganar

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Great Regulars

John Updike: You know, I worked hard at that sentence, because I was trying, you know, having challenged myself to say, "What did I think I was doing?" I then had to find the phrases for it.

But I've always had, I think, even before I began to publish, this notion that the ordinary middle-class life was enough to write about, that there was enough drama, interest, relevance, importance, poetry in it.

from Jeffrey Brown: PBS: Newshour: Acclaimed American Author John Updike Dies at Age 76

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[John Updike] knew every corner of the museum; several times, as we waited for the cameras and lights to be set up and later, he said: "C'mon, let me show you something special." Then I was taken on a private tour by a man who'd spent a great deal of time looking at and thinking about art--his essays and art criticism attest to his keen knowledge and curiosity.

I should also add that Updike was, of course, a celebrity at the museum--perhaps its best known "regular"--and the museum was kind enough to cordon off one of its grandest rooms for us to do our interview.

from Jeffrey Brown: PBS: Newshour: Art Beat: A Setting Fitting for a Master

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Though [Nina] Cassian did eventually find her way back to verse, the blow to her communist beliefs (compounded by the USSR's repression of the 1956 Hungarian revolution) was fatal. In 1985 she accepted a visiting professorship at New York University; while she was there, a friend and fellow-poet, Gheorghe Ursu, was arrested by the Securitate for keeping a diary which happened to contain a handful of Cassian's poems lampooning the Ceausescu regime. Ursu was tortured and killed; fearing for her own safety, Cassian reluctantly applied for asylum in the US. At the age of 60 she found herself stranded abroad, ruthlessly scrubbed from her own country's literary annals and forced to fit her thoughts to a foreign language. Continuity was a luxury she had to do without.

from Sarah Crown: The Guardian: Where blue dolphins roam

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Poetry: Updike was a fine poet. But his early work could be viewed as lacking in seriousness, and thus my choice for his apex is Americana, the 2001 volume that would be the last verse collection to appear under his name (during his lifetime, anyway; I suspect we may see a posthumous collection). Some of the works here are formal, while others are free verse, but no matter the approach, the author was absolutely sure of himself and what he wanted to do. The language is beautiful without being gaudy; the poems brook no nonsense.

from John Mark Eberhart: The Kansas City Star: John Updike appreciation: His best and his not-quite-best

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The Star last spoke with Updike in October. He made no mention of illness. Knopf recently had published Updike's 23rd novel, The Widows of Eastwick. Updike also was the author of 15 short-story collections, nine volumes of essays and criticism, seven verse collections, five books for children, a volume of memoirs, and a play, "Buchanan Dying."

He was most famous for his Rabbit books: Rabbit, Run; Rabbit Redux; Rabbit Is Rich; and Rabbit at Rest.

from John Mark Eberhart: The Kansas City Star: John Updike, a humble man of letters, dies

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Haiku
by Jim Fox

from John Mark Eberhart: Parachute: A very wintry . . .

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[John Updike] possessed a twinkle in his eye, as if this miraculous zeppelin of work he launched weekly into the pages of magazines and yearly onto the shelves of bookstores was an act of mischief.

The truth was he knew how much was at stake in the act of writing -- that what we dream in the pages of books conditions our appetite for the world. He gave it back to us, sentence by beautiful sentence.

from John Freeman: John Updike: A post-war American chronicler is, sadly, silenced

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After describing an unthinking, unfeeling "individual," the questions of freedom and happiness represent the height of folly. But then the final comment twists the logic. If T.U.C. had perceived anything wrong in his life, he would have complained, and thus "we should certainly have heard."

from Linda Sue Grimes: Suite101.com: February Poet--Wystan Hugh Auden

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If, as is likely, the mother raised the child, then he would assume he would live and die as she did. If he were raised by the father, the same assumptions would hold true. But the stereotype of the conflicted mixed race child overshadows the possibilities that the speaker actually has. Because it attempts to air a grievance that has not been experienced, the poem merely offers a glance at a stereotype.

from Linda Sue Grimes: Suite101.com: Langston Hughes' Cross

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The speaker then avows that in "this wide universe," his Muse--his talent, his affinity for the beautiful and the true--alone and nothing else represents for him the creative nature that he most cherishes. Quite appropriately, he chooses to call his Muse "my rose," the symbol for beauty, which he fiercely defends and lovingly evokes in his sonnets.

from Linda Sue Grimes: Suite101.com: Shakespeare Sonnet 109

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This type of rime scheme fits precisely into the theme of deep meditation, which at first is accomplished by fits and starts. The speaker dramatizes the journey to peace and calmness that allows the deeply meditating devotee to view the all-important spiritual eye.

from Linda Sue Grimes: Suite101.com: Yogananda's In Stillness Dark

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Playing the Mission: Impossible theme song on your iPod, go under each person's desk and tape the appropriate poem face up: one for Basketball Lady, one for the coworker obsessed with politics (Richard Shelton's "Politics Last Summer"), one for the optimist (Emily Dickinson's #254, "Hope is the Thing with Feathers"), one for the pessimist ("There is no hope" by Uruguayan poet Idea Vilariño).

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

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The granddaughter of a runaway slave, [Gwendolyn] Brooks was anointed into verse when her one-time schoolteacher mother took her to see Langston Hughes, who steered her to modernists like Ezra Pound, T.S. Eliot and e.e. cummings. No doubt their poems influenced her, as did the urban, streetwise Chicago school of writing. The way the speaker below is wholly absorbed by her lover echoes the work of metaphysical poet John Donne; her oddball punctuation recalls Emily Dickinson's poems. But Brooks is her own phylum.

To Be in Love

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

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Bright Sun after Heavy Snow
by Jane Kenyon

A ledge of ice slides from the eaves,

from Garrison Keillor: The Writer's Almanac: Bright Sun after Heavy Snow by Jane Kenyon

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Everything We Do
by Peter Meinke

Everything we do is for our first loves

from Garrison Keillor: The Writer's Almanac: Everything We Do by Peter Meinke

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'Faith' is a fine invention...
by Emily Dickinson

I like a look of Agony...
by Emily Dickinson

from Garrison Keillor: The Writer's Almanac: 'Faith' is a fine invention... by Emily Dickinson I like a look of Agony... by Emily Dickinson

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I Heard You Solemn-Sweet Pipes of the Organ
by Walt Whitman

I heard you solemn-sweet pipes of the organ as last Sunday

from Garrison Keillor: The Writer's Almanac: I Heard You Solemn-Sweet Pipes of the Organ by Walt Whitman

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Letter Home
by Ellen Steinbaum

I love you forever

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

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Personals
by Maxine Kumin

How did we get to be old ladies—
my grandmother's job-when we
were the long-leggèd girls?
—Hilma Wolitzer

Instead of marrying the day after graduation,

from Garrison Keillor: The Writer's Almanac: Personals by Maxine Kumin

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The Weight
by Linda Gregg

Two horses were put together in the same paddock.

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

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Don Welch lives in Nebraska and is one of those many talented American poets who have never received as much attention as they deserve. His poems are distinguished by the meticulous care he puts into writing them, and by their deep intelligence. Here is Welch's picture of a 14-year-old, captured at that awkward and painfully vulnerable step on the way to adulthood.

At 14

from Ted Kooser: American Life in Poetry: Column 201

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And other writers surely admired--and maybe envied a little--Mr. Updike's success, his ability to make a living just from the fashioning of sentences, without selling out himself or others. He seldom took an advance and he never tailored his work to suit the fashion. The literary life as he led it seemed a higher calling, not a grubby one. Charmed as it sometimes seemed, though, his career had its ups and downs. Not all his efforts were successful, and he took his share of lumps from the critics, especially in the later years. But he got up every day uncomplaining and went to his desk with joyful industriousness. He had a faith in the literary enterprise that was noble and touching.

from Charles McGrath: The New York Times: John Updike's Mighty Pen
also Charles McGrath: The New York Times Video Library: John Updike: A Life in Letters

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"They were asking about a T-shirt. I told them I had seen a cool T-shirt featuring Charter 08 online, and I forwarded it to the 'Free China' forum," said Liu [Di], who was arrested in November 2002 after she posted several articles on Chinese Internet sites satirizing the government and the Communist Party's failure to protect freedom of expression. She afterward spent a year in prison.

from Luisetta Mudie: Radio Free Asia: No New Year Celebration for Writers

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Anyway, Updike was kind of impenetrable for me. I shrugged at "A & P." I made it twenty pages into Rabbit, Run before declaring it crap. At first I assumed it was because he was a bad writer. I'm still slowly learning that, about ninety-eight percent of the time, authors regarded as great are usually great.

from Max Ross: The Rake: Cracking Spines: Thoughts on Updike

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So, if you're in the same boat, limber up for the epic marathon by reading aloud the short poems like the Complaint. The Canterbury Tales, Troilus and Creseide and The Book of the Duchess, are great medieval works of fiction. Add them to that list of novels to read before you die.

The Complaint of Chaucer to his Purse

from Carol Rumens: The Guardian: Books blog: Poem of the week: The Complaint of Chaucer to His Purse

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(When I read this poem to my four-year-old he jumped and hooted, laughed and wagged and wiggled with fleshy fullness). The nominal amplification provides poetic texture in the syllabic exchange of vowel and syllable, the quick, trochaic Anglo-Saxon stresses hitting the first beat of most words: "dipper, dapper, dopper, broad-bill, blue-bill." The alliterative distribution of the alveolars /d/ and /t/, along with the bilabials /b/ and /p/, maintain a drum-like rhythm that is syncopated by subtle vowel cadences: "dumb-bird, dumb-gird, mud-dipper."

from Dale Smith: Bookslut: Marsupial Inquirer: Birds and Words

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For Updike, it didn't happen unless he'd thought it through, reflected on it. If that, at times, could keep us at a distance, it was the clearest expression of who he was.

This is why, of all his contemporaries, Updike was the most effective critic; for more than 40 years, he reviewed books and art for the New Yorker and the New York Review of Books with acuity and grace.

from David L. Ulin: Los Angeles Times: For better or worse, John Updike produced a nearly endless stream of work

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"The trouble with today's snarky pipsqueaks who break off a sentence or two, or who write a couple of mean paragraphs," [David] Denby notes, in a snarky aside of his own, "is that they don't go far enough; they don't have a coherent view of life. Spinning around in the media from moment to moment, they don't stand for anything, push for anything; they're mere opportunists without dedication, and they don't win any victories."

What Denby's really talking about is consciousness, the idea that writers, thinkers, commentators ought to have a point of view. This seems obvious enough, but it tends to get lost in the noise of constant conversation, all the commenting and cross-posting, the tiny feuds and insignificant disputes.

from David L. Ulin: The Houston Chronicle: Snark by David Denby

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The other day, for instance, I was watering the plants in the bathroom. It was cold outside and a clear, bright winter light was shining through the window, causing the white walls to gleam. At one point I blinked and for an instant it seemed that the light had blinked as well and was, for just that instant, no longer that day’s light, but a similar light on a day years past, and for just that instant I felt a strange wrenching of the heart.

from Frank Wilson: When Falls the Coliseum: That's What He Said: Sadness and sweetness of musing over the past

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by Pablo Miguel Martinez

Ramiro flattens fichas, shiny bottle caps

from Express-News: Poetry: 'Praise Song'

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Throughout his life, [José] Marti never lost sight of his ultimate passion: promoting Cuban independence. In doing so, he would take on various roles, including teacher, diplomat and poet. His first poetry volume, “Versos Libres” (Free Verses), was published in 1878. More than a decade later, Marti’s “Versos Sencillos” was published, the first poem of which became his most notable work and “an unofficial national anthem for Cuba,” according to Bella Online.

from findingDulcinea: Happy Birthday: José Marti, Cuban Poet and Revolutionary

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by Cynthia Cruz

Cheyenne

Beautiful, finally, inside the quiet

from Guernica: Poetry: Two Poems

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Poem of the week: The Old Campaigner, by Dinah Livingstone

The old campaigner still keeps on the go.

from Morning Star: Well Versed

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French Horn
by Jane Hirshfield

from The New Yorker: Poetry: French Horn

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In the Attic
by Seamus Heaney

from The New Yorker: Poetry: In the Attic

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The Two Yvonnes
by Jessica Greenbaum

from The New Yorker: Poetry: The Two Yvonnes

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In honor of the Steelers' Super Bowl victory, we've gone into the Poetry Series archive:

Pittsburgh
by Terrance Hayes

from PBS: Newshour: Weekly Poem: 'Pittsburgh'

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[by Pat Parnell]

Poem: Senryu for the 2008 N.H. Ice Storm

Sleeping on the couch

from Portsmouth Herald News: Poem: Poem: Senryu for the 2008 N.H. Ice Storm

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Hot on the heels of Robert Burns's 250th comes the Scottish Poetry Library's 25th birthday. How better to celebrate fresh beginnings, and the poet's art of making old things new, than with this poem by one of the SPL's former honorary presidents, the much-loved Iain Crichton Smith?

Early Spring

from The Scotsman: Poem of the Week: Iain Crichton Smith

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"Paradise"
By Emma Jones

from Slate: "Paradise" By Emma Jones

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Cleaning Out Zaide's Apartment

by Yehoshua November

--for my grandparents

His scent still lingered in the black heat

from The Sun Magazine: Poetry: Cleaning Out Zaide's Apartment

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Poetic Obituaries

Gen. [David] Baker composed a poem while in Viet Cong captivity that he wrote down after his release, which thanked God for keeping the camp's seven men alive despite Communist brutality. It concluded by imagining the day they would be freed:

"We will be a little older, but much more wise,
And I don't mean from listening to Communist lies.
If there is one thing upon which seven men can agree.
That one thing is: Freedom is not free!"

from The Washington Times: Gen. David Baker dies at 62

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Elsie [Campbell] was a homemaker, member of the Eastern Star and a test baker for Betty Crocker Kitchens, winning many awards for her original recipes. She loved to read and was a published poet.

from The Record Delta: Elsie Anita Knutson Campbell

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An expert in experimental nuclear physics, [John Michael] Finn authored over 90 scientific papers and published a textbook on classical mechanics in 2008. The prolific professor also published a memoir about his time in the Vietnam War and two volumes of poetry, "Flashback: A Journey in Time" and "The Butterfly Girl."

He served as the chairman of the York-Poquoson Democratic Committee.

from The Flat Hat: Professor dies of heart attack

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[Daniel Frederickson] was a poet and singer/songwriter and sang his truth on his CD "Black Magic." Daniel was a soccer player at Bolinas-Stinson Elementary School and Tamalpais High School.

from Coastal Post: The Death of Daniel Frederickson

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[Jim Hackworth] worked as a laborer for Sandusky Athol for 20 years. James was an avid reader. He was very passionate about music. He played the bass guitar, wrote songs and poetry. James dearly loved his family.

from Port Clinton News Herald: James Robert Hackworth

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Ruth [A. Hazen] will always be remembered for her piano and organ playing, her cooking, stories, original poetry, jokes, limerick, faith in God and her exceptional gift of hospitality. Her family members are proud of the gifts and traditions she has passed on to them although her raspberry pies, popcorn, coffee creamer eyes and Christmas grab bags will always be her unique legacy.

from The Post-Journal: Ruth A. "Smith" Hazen

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[John Heffron] was a fluent Irish speaker and also had an avid interest in literature, publishing poetry occasionally.

He served as secretary of Donaghpatrick Fianna Fail cumann for a time.

from The Meath Chronicle: Recent deaths 31-01-09 (Scroll to John Heffron)

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[Mick Imlah] had been in charge of Chatto and Windus's poetry list before taking up the post of poetry editor at the Times Literary Supplement in 1993, and through all that time little of his own work appeared. His earlier poems commanded respect, showing both ingenuity and a sometimes lurid imagination, but little could prepare readers for his last, most substantial book, which appeared shortly after he had been diagnosed with motor neurone disease.

The collection is at once brilliant and unfashionable.

from Telegraph: Mick Imlah

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"There were few local environmental or human rights groups that she was not involved in," said her granddaughter. "Her personal crusades were against drivers crossing the yellow line, restaurants wasting water, and litter. When she saw trash tossed on the ground, she picked it up."

Mrs. [Marie Waldron] Inslee had an artistic side. She self-published a book of poetry, Light and Shadow, in 2002, played the piano, and was an accomplished painter. She collected antiques, jewelry, napkins and stray dogs.

Mrs. Inslee was a teacher until the end.

from The Philadelphia Inquirer: Marie Waldron Inslee, 88, longtime teacher

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Last week at a special assembly, students learned that their 58-year-old mentor [C.Mitchell 'Skip' Johns] had died Monday at his Richmond home. He had another heart attack.

Many former students from Trinity and from Collegiate School, where he also had coached, returned from college to attend a funeral service for the writer, poet and former athlete held Saturday at Lewis Ginter Botanical Garden.

from Richmond Times-Dispatch: C.M. 'Skip' Johns dies at 58

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[Rev. Samuel Preston] Jones was a history buff, poet and a sports nut who loved jazz and big band music. He even recorded songs for family and friends.

"He preached with a sense of humor," said the Rev. Tara Sutton, of Bethel United Methodist Church.

from Flint News: Rev. Samuel Preston Jones dies of heart failure two hours after returning home from daughter's funeral

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Mr. [Nathaniel M.] Kirkland was a graduate of Central High School in Philadelphia, where he was president of the audio-visual club and a producer for the school's television station, CBN.

He was passionate in all endeavors and had completed many poems, screenplays, short films and documentaries, said his half-brother Brandon Bruce.

from Philadelphia Inquirer: Nathaniel M. Kirkland: College sophomore, 20

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Liam [Munn] worked at the family business, Dollars Urban Wear in Greyhound Street, and was a talented artist, constantly being requested to do stitching on the caps sold by the shop.

He also loved drawing, writing poetry and achieved 98% when he took an NVQ in Sports and Leisure at South Nottingham College.

from Evening Post: 'Liam lived for everything and died for nothing' says mum

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[Edna Rickert] enjoyed Home Arts Homemaker's, crossword puzzles, gardening, bus tours, crocheting, and writing poems for her grandchildren. She was a life long member of the Poy Sippi United Methodist Church where she dedicated her time as a Sunday School Teacher and church treasurer.

from Oshkosh Northwestern: Edna Ruth Rickert

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Vivian Ridler, who has died aged 95, was Printer to Oxford University and the elder statesman of the printing world; the books and documents he produced were always elegant and beautifully designed--from the Bible on which the Queen swore her Coronation Oath to the labels for sausage merchants which he turned out early in his career.

For the 20 years after his appointment to Oxford as Archetypographicus academicus in 1958, he continued a tradition of fine scholarly production that stretched back to Archbishop Fell in the 17th century.

from Telegraph: Vivian Ridler

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Heart's Needle dealt directly with [W.D.] Snodgrass's own life, particularly the loss of his daughter Cynthia in a harsh custody battle with the first of his four wives. The title poem demonstrates most formidably his poetic range and power. One verse in its fifth stanza is justifiably his best-known:

Winter again and it is snowing;
Although you are still three,
You are already growing
Strange to me.

But the next stanza demonstrates Snodgrass's dramatic range.

from The Guardian: W.D. Snodgrass

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[Judith Strasser] penned two memoirs, the aforementioned "Black Eye" and "Facing Fear: Meditations on Cancer and Politics, Courage and Hope," along with two poetry collections, "Sand Island Succession: Poems of the Apostles," and "The Reason/Unreason Project," which won the Lewis-Clark Expedition award.

She also was co-editor with Robin Chapman of "On Retirement: 75 Poems."

from The Capital Times: Well-known writer, radio interviewer Judith Strasser dies

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And, the hard part for his colleagues and friends to square, he was also one of the greatest of all modern writers, the first American writer since Henry James to get himself fully expressed, the man who broke the curse of incompleteness that had haunted American writing. As well as any writer ever has, he fulfilled Virginia Woolf's dictum that the writer's job is to get himself or herself expressed without impediments--to do so as Shakespeare and Jane Austen did, without hate or pause or protest or obvious special pleading or the thousand other ills that the embattled writer is heir to. Woolf meant not that the writer's job was to write a lot, or to register the self with a splash, but to get his or her real experience down: all the private pains and pictures, the look on a loving parent's face when humiliated in a school corridor, or the way girls smell in football season--to get it down and fix it there for good.

from The New Yorker: John Updike
also The Times: Obituary of John Updike: novelist who wrote the Witches of Eastwick
also BBC News: Tributes paid to 'great' Updike
also Beverly Citizen: Writer at rest: Beverly Farms loses Updike, its lion of literature

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