IBPC: Poetry and Poets in Rags

News at Eleven

[Derek] Walcott, 79, said: "I withdraw from the election to be professor of poetry at Oxford. I am disappointed that such low tactics have been used in this election and I do not want to get into a race for a post where it causes embarrassment to those who have chosen to support me for the role or to myself.

"I already have a great many work commitments and while I was happy to be put forward for the post, if it has degenerated into a low and degrading attempt at character assassination, I do not want to be part of it."

from London Evening Standard: Nobel winner quits Oxford poetry race over sex claims
also The Sunday Times: Sex pest file gives Oxford poetry race a nasty edge

Boring, predictable, repetitive. I don't like the current state of poetry generally, especially in the states. You would think that there was no such thing as the war, the subjects that they write about. When you look at the subject of American torture, that's horrific.

Ginsberg used to write about contemporary events. Poets also do, but I don't think the American poet engages in the reality of America as an empire. As an empire, its poets don't write about that. [--Derek Walcott]

from Next: A conversation with Derek Walcott
also Times Online: Forty Acres: a poem for Barack Obama from Nobel winner Derek Walcott

"The U.S. government is concerned about reports that Aung San Suu Kyi needs medical care and that the Burmese authorities have detained her primary personal physician, Dr. Tin Myo Win," State Department spokesman Ian Kelly said.

"We urge the Burmese regime to allow Aung San Suu Kyi to receive immediate medical care from a doctor. We further call on the regime to permit Aung San Suu Kyi to meet with her personal attorney immediately," Kelly said.

He also called for the immediate and unconditional release of Aung San Suu Kyi--a Nobel peace laureate and leader of the opposition National League for Democracy (NLD)--as well as of the more than 2,000 political prisoners in Burma.

from Radio Free Asia: Opposition Chief 'Needs Medical Care'

On the other hand, if we allow certain traits, like one's blackness or one's poverty, to act as empathetic footholds, we have to ask where to draw the line.

It's a difficult, if not impossible, question. "[T]hree-quarters of my poems wouldn't be written if I had to be there and actually go through it," [Patricia] Smith tells the Times. Indeed, any limit placed on empathetic ability is a limit on the human imagination. Furthermore, if we were to posit an empathetic inability on the part of an outsider writer, then that inability would apply to an outsider reader as well. Thus, even if a book on Katrina were written by one of its victims, the author would still have to find a way to relate their experience to someone we've posited as being incapable of understanding it. Victims don't have a special language; we are all limited to the same dictionary.

from Bookslut: The Right to Write About It: Hurricane Katrina in Poetry
also The Day: Patricia Smith And The Poetry Of Katrina

The deer-boy is liberated by acting out a genetically predetermined disposition. He is aware of it all, haughty but apologetic, mother-pleasing but cognizant that he must eventually buck her wishes as well, flashing his antlers on the air. Transformation continues in the second, title poem, which recalls the herb the pig-men knew would throw off Circe's spell and restore Odysseus's crew to human form. [Thom] Gunn here gives the nod to his new-found psychedelics, but seems also to be honoring any number of transfiguring processes, for "man cannot bear too much reality:"

from Bookslut: Selected Poems by Thom Gunn, edited by August Kleinzahler

Of the seven poets who were the key members of the group, only two are still reasonably famous: DH Lawrence, who was briefly roped in for publicity purposes, and Ezra Pound, who despite having invented the movement soon went on to co-found "vorticism". For the record, the other imagists were: Pound's sometime girlfriend Hilda Doolittle, aka HD, and her husband Richard Aldington; FS Flint; John Gould Fletcher; and, a late jumper on the bandwagon, the plump and plutocratic Amy Lowell.

from The Sunday Times: The Verse Revolutionaries: Ezra Pound, HD and the Imagists by Helen Carr

[Taha Muhammad] Ali taught himself to read and write. When he'd saved money from his shop, he knew how he wanted to spend it: "In the 50s, with 30 liras you could buy a dunam of land. I decided to buy a dictionary."

In the 1960s Mr. Ali began writing the poems that would make him famous--they are filled with longing for his hometown and for the girl he was supposed to wed in an arranged marriage before they were separated in the turmoil of 1948--but his first book was not published until 1983.

from The New York Times: A Merchant of Trinkets and Memories

Carol Ann Duffy has said that she accepted the laureateship on behalf of all women poets. This is a serious and unsentimental gesture from someone who has been supportive of emerging poets for more than twenty years. One of her first acts has been to showcase her female contemporaries in the Guardian and she has donated her £5,000 annual stipend towards a new prize.

She is, of course, a poet rather than a 'woman poet', although when asked about this label in an interview last week, she said she had no problem with it.

from Granta: The Public Poet

After some rehearsals with the quartet I'm more confident about being able to get it right on the night. We shall see.

[by Wendy Cope]

A date in row E

First Date: He

She said she liked classical music.

from The Times: Poet Wendy Cope and the voices from the crowd

[Kenneth] Rexroth's means would have satisfied St. Jerome's demands for general style and emphasis. He once explained how he did it. "The basic line of good verse is cadenced . . . built around the natural breath structures of speech." This results in a rare naturalness. Here are several examples.

From Ki no Tsurayuki: "Out in the marsh reeds/A bird cries out in sorrow,/As though it had recalled/Something better forgotten."

from The Japan Times: Gained in translation: bringing Asian poetry to the English language

What did [J.R.R.] Tolkien aim to do? In his own words, he meant "to unify the lays about the Völsungs from the Elder Edda . . . to organise the Edda material dealing with Sigurd and Gudrún". These are perhaps understatements. In a lecture on Eddic poetry given at Oxford and here reprinted, Tolkien said that the poems had attracted "connoisseurs of new literary sensations" and the main aspect of that sensation was "an almost demonic energy and force".

from The Times Literary Supplement: Tolkien out-Wagners Wagner

Great Regulars

In the end, the power of Pushkin's masterpiece lies in its fast-paced and wonderfully balanced storyline and in the interplay between Onegin and Tatiana. The latter, "Russian to the core", is repeatedly linked to the traditions and landscapes of an older, more intuitive Russia, in fierce contrast to the sophisticated posturings of Onegin.

from Charles Bainbridge: The Guardian: Eugene Onegin

As much as America finds President Zardari repellent, we in Pakisan do, too. But you made him our president, and now you're about to give him billions of dollars in aid. We cannot foster any democratic alternatives to Zardari while his government gets bucketloads of American money. Local activists, secular parties, and nascent opposition groups can't fight that kind of money--it's impossible to compete with a party that has access to billions of dollars. Pakistan is at a crossroads. We are either going to save our country from its descent into fundamentalism and lawlessness, or we are going to have Zardari as president, bolstered by American aid and support.

from Fatima Bhutto: Obama's Murderous Guest

The language starts out all flowery and charming. Its tone is like a Shakespearean sonnet. "Deign" (condescend), the speaker starts up--but "deign" to what? He doesn't finish his thought until the end of the poem! He's getting as distracted by his darling Laura's beauty as she herself is distracted. Each line is an image of her, and we remain off-balance, not sure what we're reading, until we get to the end.

[by Paul Valery]

Girl With Mind Wandering

from Fleda Brown: Traverse City Record-Eagle: On Poetry: First thought, full bloom

Lynnie Gobeille wrote the Poetry Corner column for the South County edition of The Providence Journal. Her work has appeared in Sow's Ear Review, Clear Creek Courant, and in the online version of A Prairie Home Companion. She's currently working on a collection called The Fine Art of Becoming Visible.

A Sign Outside Poetry ClassPlease Check Your Baggage at the Door

from Tom Chandler: The Providence Journal: Poetry Loft a welcome addition

John Clare was in fact at this time a patient in a private mental asylum. This was his first incarceration for mental illness, which would set the pattern for the rest of his life He would spend essentially the rest of his life in mental asylums. Tennyson had considered having himself become a patient of the asylum, but decided against it and just moved into a house nearby.

from Sarah Crown: The Guardian: Adam Foulds on The Quickening Maze

The author of 1977's Harp Trees, 1983's Syntax as well as Pell Mell (1988) and his collected lifework, The Holy Forest (1993), perhaps his greatest contribution to The Tradition, [Robin] Blaser's work was anthologised by Donald Allen in The New American Poetry while Even on Sunday, edited by the poet and Miriam Nichols (2002), followed the 1998 publication of The Recovery of the Public World: Essays on Poetics in Honour of Robin Blaser (edited by Charles Watts and Edward Byrne).

from Judith Fitzgerald: The Globe and Mail: In Other Words: Robin Blaser: Sic transit gloria mundi
also Judith Fitzgerald: The Globe and Mail: In Other Words: Sic transit gloria mundi

The speaker, Simon, then admits that when first commanded to take up the cross for the staggering Jesus, he balked. Although there is no evidence that Simon was of the Negroid race, because of the possibility that he was, the creator of the drama can feasibly infuse his own perception of his character, Simon, and proclaim that he is of that race, and therefore accuse the Roman soldier of racism in choosing him to shoulder the cross for the suffering Jesus.

from Linda Sue Grimes: Suite101.com: May Poet--Countée Cullen

The unfortunate child tries to catch the mother, wailing after her as she chases the bird. The child keeps his eye on his mother, who is hell-bent on retrieving the bird. Although the child is heartbroken while the mother runs after the critter, she is hardly cognizant of her baby at all, because she so covets recovery of the chicken.

from Linda Sue Grimes: Suite101.com: Shakespeare Sonnet 143

The better nature is masculine and the "worser" is feminine. These distinctions do not refer to human gender; they refer to principles that correspond to the pairs of opposites found in maya. Both women and men come equipped with the problem, and both have to solve the problem the same way through transcendence of the physical and mental to arrive at the spiritual.

from Linda Sue Grimes: Suite101.com: Shakespeare Sonnet 144

Sonnet 145 is a rather shallow attempt at cleverness that does not quite succeed. The speaker sounds goofy, as he seems to be contriving a situation while he recounts the linguistic event with the lady. He does not directly address the lady as he usually does.

from Linda Sue Grimes: Suite101.com: Shakespeare Sonnet 145

Paramahansa Yogananda's "My Cosmic Mother's Face" from Songs of the Soul features thirteen stanzas, celebrating the speaker's devotion to God as the Divine Mother.

from Linda Sue Grimes: Suite101.com: Yogananda's My Cosmic Mother's Face

But Ian, it's not the prospect of the kiss that's tragic, but the gap between the prospect and the kiss, the gap seized by science and rationality that makes everything predictable, measurable, and mundane. All right, I'll say it: I would probably kiss Michael Jackson, if and only if my husband understood that I would only do so to get the experience of kissing Michael Jackson (a poet's "research"), which of course would be tragic, because now I've seriously thought about kissing Michael Jackson and eliminated the surprise factor.

from Kristen Hoggatt: The Smart Set: Ask a Poet: Beat It

[John Updike] come to terms with the gravity of his health with the reaction of a man learning his car needs a new tire:

A wake-up call? It seems that death has found
the portals it will enter by: my lungs,
pathetic oblong ghosts, one paler than
the other on the doctor's viewing screen.

The poem, "Oblong Ghosts," quickly turns from the devastating news to the writer's satisfaction with the presidential election, comparing his feeling to "Christmas Day in Shillington," his childhood home.

from Bob Hoover: Pittsburgh Post-Gazette: 'Endpoint' by John Updike

"The Writer's Almanac" is about writers, also about scientists and inventors and people who made great discoveries and did great things. They came from all walks of life. A great many of them came from the bottom and worked their way up.

"The Writer's Almanac" is not about the serious study of literature. It really is a series of stories of personal heroism, of people who are intellectual heroes, who had a vision, a lonely vision, and who pursued it despite of all of the hazards and achieved something of what they set out to do. . . .

from Garrison Keillor: The Tribune: Interview: Garrison Keillor dropping by Cal Poly for a visit

Larson's Holstein Bull
by Jim Harrison

Death waits inside us for a door to open.

from Garrison Keillor: The Writer's Almanac: Larson's Holstein Bull by Jim Harrison

The Oldest Living Thing in L.A.
by Larry Levis

At Wilshire & Santa Monica I saw an opossum

from Garrison Keillor: The Writer's Almanac: The Oldest Living Thing in L.A. by Larry Levis

On a Perfect Day
by Jane Gentry

. . . I eat an artichoke in front

from Garrison Keillor: The Writer's Almanac: On a Perfect Day by Jane Gentry

Praise
by Michael Chitwood

Physical therapists have opened a clinic in the office next to mine.

from Garrison Keillor: The Writer's Almanac: Praise by Michael Chitwood

To My Mother
by Wendell Berry

I was your rebellious son,

from Garrison Keillor: The Writer's Almanac: To My Mother by Wendell Berry

The Waltz We Were Born For
by Walter McDonald

Wind chimes ping and tangle on the patio.

from Garrison Keillor: The Writer's Almanac: The Waltz We Were Born For by Walter McDonald

What Have I Learned
by Gary Snyder

What have I learned but

from Garrison Keillor: The Writer's Almanac: What Have I Learned by Gary Snyder

Not every poem is as riveting as this. Some are merely documentary; a certain amount of fact is necessary to push the story forward. In fact, there is little here that stands alone. When I put the book down and walked away, as I had to do more than once, I found myself thinking not of individual poems, as is usually the case, but of an overall effect, a sense of horror mixed with anger and disbelief.

from David Kirby: The New York Times: My Daughter's Murder

To commemorate Mother's Day, here's a lovely poem by David Wojahn of Virginia, remembering his mother after forty years.

Walking to School, 1964

from Ted Kooser: American Life in Poetry: Column 215

The Family Tree

By the time my son

from E. Ethelbert Miller: E-Notes: The Family Tree

I Remember the Day You Left
(for Ethelbert)

You've been building

from E. Ethelbert Miller: E-Notes: I Remember the Day You Left

Love Is Wet

I am a faucet.

from E. Ethelbert Miller: E-Notes: Love Is Wet

Although a successful novelist, [Mary Elizabeth] Coleridge was never sure of herself as a poet, and wrote under the melancholy pseudonym "Anodos", meaning "on no road". But she was, of course, firmly on the road to what we would now understand as a modern feminist poetics. The breakthrough to a self-image that is neither angel nor monster remains for most women, writers or not, a difficult work-in-progress.

The Other Side of a Mirror

from Carol Rumens: The Guardian: Books blog: Poem of the week: The Other Side of a Mirror by Mary Elizabeth Coleridge

It is a universally admitted fact that Mahakavi Ulloor, along with Mahakavi Kumaran Asan and Mahakavi Vallathol--all of whom were contemporaries--brought about a great renaissance in Malayalam Literature in the 1st half of the 20th century. Their literary, social and cultural influence on subsequent generations of Malayalam literary men and women has been profound. The cultural impact of this triumvirate on Malayalam literature in the 20th century can be compared with the influence of Mahakavi Gurajada Venkata Apparao (1862-1915) of Andhra on Telugu literature and that of Mahakavi Bendre of Karnataka on Kannada literature in the 20th century.

from V Sundaram: News Today: Baritone: A 'mahakavi' of Kerala

All these thoughts about poets and poetry rushed to my mind when I recently re-read the great poems of Robert W Service (1874-1958). The crown of literature is poetry. That is why W Somerset Maugham (1874-1965) observed: 'Poetry is the sublimest activity of the human mind. It is the achievement of beauty and delicacy. The writer of prose can only step aside when the poet passes.' Robert W Service, through his great poems, succeeds in giving this message to each one of his readers: 'My verse represents a handle I can grasp in order not to yield to the centrifugal forces which are trying to throw me off the world.'

from V Sundaram: News Today: Baritone: Tribute to a timeless people's poet

I also realized that I had been slipping into a dangerously passive attitude and made sure to be on guard against that from then on.

Had I not, I suspect I would have soon grown indifferent to all around me. I would have become bored. And [George] Sanders was right: That's as good a reason as any to kill yourself. In fact, it is a kind of living death, spiritual entropy, a long, slow descent to inertia.

from Frank Wilson: When Falls the Coliseum: That's What He Said: Boredom, a kind of living death

. . . for a poem (as Shameless would say):

Still Life

There is nowhere

from Frank Wilson: Books, Inq.--The Epilogue: A pause . . .

by Michael Collier

Embrace

The great flowery dress of my seventh-grade teacher,

from The Atlantic Monthly: Poetry: Embrace

by Elizabeth Spires

Riddle

Puffed like an adder.

from The Atlantic Monthly: Poetry: Riddle

by Anthony McCann

Here's something as thoughtful as chairs in the snow:

from The Brooklyn Rail: Four Poems

by Buck Downs

down by the river

quitting carnation

from The Brooklyn Rail: Six Poems

Loom
By G.S. Heiligschreib

It is the play

from CounterPunch: Poets' Basement: G.S. Heiligschreib and David Farrelly

[by Kathleen Flowers]

In These Five Remaining Days
After Hafez

from Good Times Weekly: Poetry Corner: What Ripens Below & When Words Stop

[by Fred D'Aguiar]

At Sea

from The Guardian: The Saturday poem: At Sea

This is something different. We recognise some themes in there--the Nile, the delta, the music--but essentially this is an avant garde excursion that's closer to music than most conventional poetry we see. There is a violin player recognisable at the start as the piece begins, and some descriptions of the dizzying, reeling, fragmented and discordant music being played. There is the "eventual pining deterioration".

from The Guardian: Poetry Workshop: collisions

by Jane Duran

The donkey stares

from Morning Star: Well Versed: Stone Walling

Bleecker Street
by Philip Schultz

from The New Yorker: Poetry: Bleecker Street

Delphiniums in a Window Box
by Dean Young

from The New Yorker: Poetry: Delphiniums in a Window Box

Lines on the Poet's Turning Forty
by Ian Frazier

from The New Yorker: Poetry: Lines on the Poet's Turning Forty

[by Alicia Cohen]

Landscape of the Gorge with Pascale and Justine

we wanderedunder pines thick with

from The Oregonian: Poetry: 'Debts and Obligations'

[by Maureen Hastings]

Monkey on my Back

from Portsmouth Herald News: Poem: Monkey on my Back

"Self-Made"
By Jeffrey Skinner

from Slate: "Self-Made" --By Jeffrey Skinner

The poem is a tour-de-force, a superbly controlled turning-to-account of anger and loathing. One of the most interesting aspects of [Carol Ann] Duffy's new public role, for admirers of this very talented, intelligent and risk-taking poet, will be how she modulates the compassion and indignation of her best work to the Laureate's essential duty to celebrate. We wish her well.

Fraud

Firstly, I changed my name

from The Times Literary Supplement: Poem of the Week: Fraud

The story of the Cocoanut Grove Fire of 1942 in Boston is part of my family's lore. I wrote a poem about it almost 35 years ago. But I found a reason to return to the story after reading Adam Zagajewski's essential poem "Try to Praise the Mutilated World," which appeared in the New Yorker soon after the World Trade Center attacks. The speaker of that wonderful lyric implores us to remember the world's ruined beauty. Adam's poem not only provoked me to answer, but pointed to something not yet articulated. I wrote my poem as if in dialogue with his, and also as if my daughters were listening in.

The Cocoanut Grove Fire took 492 lives.

from The Washington Post: Poet's Choice: 'Cocoanut Grove' by Ron Slate

Poetic Obituaries

Craig Arnold received his BA in English from Yale University and his PhD in creative writing from the University of Utah. Arnold's two collections of poems are Shells (1999), selected by W.S. Merwin as the winner of the Yale Younger Poets Award, and Made Flesh (2008), published by Ausable Press.

He received various honors and awards, including the Anthony Hecht Poetry Prize, the Amy Lowell Traveling Poetry Scholarship, the Joseph Brodsky Rome Prize Fellowship from the American Academy of Arts and Letters, the US-Japan Creative Artists Exchange Fellowship, the Alfred Hodder Fellowship from Princeton University, a Dobie Paisano Residency, a Fulbright Scholarship, and a National Endowment for the Arts Fellowship.

from One Poet's Notes: Recalling Craig Arnold
also Paul Lisicky: Craig Arnold, in Memory
also Los Angeles Times: Jacket Copy: Missing poet Craig Arnold presumed dead

Edward Berlinski, a lecturer with the English department's Professional Writing Program who colleagues said spent his life spreading his passion for literature, died of a seizure Wednesday morning at his home in Cheverly, Md. He was 48 years old.

Berlinski, who suffered from epilepsy for nearly two decades, was a poet and an avid reader. He devoted his career to passing down his love of writing, Professional Writing Program Director Lea Chartock said.

"He was a poet; he was a writer; he was a prolific reader; he was a scholar," said Lucretia Berlinski, his wife of nearly eight years.

from Diamondback: Lecturer hoped to pass down love of writing

[Robin] Blaser not only received the Order of Canada in 2005 for his contribution to the arts, but was winner of the Griffin Poetry Prize for lifetime achievement in 2006 and the Griffin Prize for Poetry in 2008. He was awarded an honorary doctorate by SFU in March 2009.

[George] Bowering said one of Blaser's major strengths was as a teacher. Despite taking early retirement from SFU in the 1980s, he continued to teach rising poets in his Kitsilano home.

from The Vancouver Sun: Kitsilano poet remembered for sense of humour
also Quill & Quire: Robin Blaser, 1925-2009
also Charles Bernstein: Robin Blaser (scroll to second article)

"The elder Chang and his daughter both contributed articles to The Korea Times as English professors, which is a rare case in any newspaper. (The younger) [Young-hee] Chang's work was never political and touched the hearts of many readers, both foreign and local," said Park Chang-seok, a former managing editor of The Korea Times and writer of the book "History of English Language Newspapers in Korea."

Both father and daughter also won in The Korea Times' Modern Korean Literature Translation Awards. The elder Chang picked up an award in the novel division for his translation of "Trees on the Mountain Slopes," while Chang won a prize 10 years later by translating the poem "The Fragrance of Autumn."

from The Korea Times: English Professor, Columnist Passes Away

In his generation, [Arthur] Cocks was a brilliant teacher of English literature, specialising in Shakespeare and the Romantic poets. He demanded immaculate prose, which he practised as editor of The Unicorn, the MHS magazine.

from The Age: To the end a teacher committed to his boys

[Kimberly D. Craig] loved to read, compose poetry and was a local Staunton history buff.

from The News Leader: Kimberly D. Craig

[Michael Freeman's] activities merely proliferated, earning him a wealth of administrative experience which proved of great professional benefit to Bristol where, from 2000-03, he chaired the School of Modern Languages with notable success.

As a teacher Michael was quite simply inspirational. His main areas were early modern literature and lyric poetry, though he also maintained an abiding and fruitful interest in Lusophone studies, and his classes flowed with erudition, wit, anecdotes and reminiscences to the vast appreciation of his students who esteemed, revered and befriended him throughout a career that ended only last session.

from Bristol University: Michael Freeman dies

Shields-born poet James Kirkup, whose work earned him an international reputation, has died.

from The Shields Gazette: Internationally acclaimed poet dies

[Lev] Loseff first joined the Dartmouth faculty in 1979 and had served as chair of the Russian department since 2000.

A lifelong friend of the late Nobel Prize winning Russian poet Joseph Brodsky, Loseff wrote nine volumes of poetry, numerous essays and two books during his life, Russian professor John Kopper said in an interview with The Dartmouth.

from The Dartmouth: Russian department chair dies at 71

[David Marcus] edited over 30 anthologies of Irish short stories and poetry and first published the work of writers such John McGahern, Colm Tóibín, Joe O'Connor and Anne Enright.

He had been ill for some time. Born in Cork in 1924, he was widely-regarded as a tireless advocate of the Irish short story.

Mr Marcus edited Irish Writing and Poetry Ireland for almost a decade prior to 1954.

from RTÉ News: Literary editor David Marcus dies
also The Irish Times: David Marcus

[James Mesa] moved to Santa Cruz and owned his own detailing business, where he was known as a man who touched people with his love and laughter. He was known as a talented writer, poet, athlete, healer, lover, fighter and inspiration.

from Register-Pajaronian: James Mesa

Far fewer people will have heard of Michael [Murphy] than of, say, U. A. Fanthorpe, but his late poems are magnificent, as good as anything written in these isles, and I fully intend saying so. Michael's partner is the poet Deryn Rees-Jones.

from George Szirtes: Michael Murphy
also George Szirtes: Michael Murphy: Allotments
also David Belbin: Michael Murphy, poet, RIP

In addition to her work in gender and sexuality studies, [Eve Kosofsky] Sedgwick published poetry, a memoir, and seminal essays on both psychoanalytic theory and Buddhism. Elected to the American Academy of Arts and Sciences in 2005 and to the American Philosophical Society in 2006, Eve was plainly nice, archly funny, witty, wry, and unfailingly interested in human emotion, culture, and life.

from The Advocate: Eve Kosofsky Sedgwick (1950-2009)

[Marcy Lynn Shurter] loved playing sports, taking dares and playing jokes, animals, crafts, writing poetry, solving crossword puzzles, home decorating, playing piano, gardening, plants and had a special gift for creating flower arrangements.

from Uinta County Herald: Marcy Lynn Shurter: May 20, 1969--May 8, 2009

Rhonda Thatcher said one of her most prized possessions is a Valentine's Day card Christy [Thatcher] gave her with a poem titled, "Where Would I Be Without You" that told Rhonda, "You raised me up the best you could/and taught me all you knew about good."

And she could always create song lyrics, which Mesman said Christy would randomly text while she was in classes in Lubbock.

from Clovis News: In tribute: Farwell woman put family first

Under [John] Withers' creative command, DDB London introduced innovations such as handcut typography and full stops at the end of headlines.

He is also credited with being one of the first creative chiefs in London to refuse to do creative pitches.

"Our clients pay us to solve their problems, not to solve other clients' problems for free in the hope of ingratiating ourselves," he said.

He retired to Suffolk in 1991 to develop his interest in foreign languages and poetry and his passion for fine wines.

from Brand Republic News: Former creative chief John Withers dies aged 79

News at Eleven

I believe that the continuance of the laureateship acknowledges that poetry is vital to the imagining of what Britain has been, what it is and what it might yet become. The laureateship shines a light not on one poet, but on many, as Andrew Motion has so perfectly demonstrated in his setting-up of the Poetry Archive. Someone, however, one of the tribe, has to tend the flame. And I suppose, gazing into that flickering flame, one realises that no poet truly knows where poems come from; that no poet has any guarantee, finishing a poem, that they'll ever write another poem again; that true poems make their own occasions.

from The Guardian: Sisters in poetry
also BBC News: Duffy on becoming Poet Laureate
also The Guardian: Carol Ann Duffy becomes first female poet laureate
also The Guardian: Portraits of the poet laureate through the ages
also The Guardian: Premonitions by Carol Ann Duffy
also Daily Mirror: Carol Ann Duffy: A previously unpublished poem on the nature of her work
also The Daily Mirror: Exclusive: poet laureate Carol Ann Duffy's poems for children
also The Guardian: New work from Carol Ann Duffy's favourite women poets
also BBC News: Poets advise new Laureate--in verse
also The Guardian: 'I still haven't written the best I can'
also The Independent: 'It was my daughter who made me accept Poet's job'

Chris Arnold is embarking on the journey of a lifetime to help save his brother--prize-winning poet Craig Arnold, who disappeared on a remote volcano in Japan five days ago.

Chris Arnold thinks his brother is still alive.

"My brother doesn't have a great sense of direction and uses a GPS to find my house in Brooklyn," he said. "But he's not a person who takes stupid chances. He is lost and he needs my help."

Japanese officals have said they will end their six-day search on Sunday, the day Arnold's brother arrives.

from ABC News: Poet Craig Arnold Disappears at Volcano
also The Associated Press: Search for US poet in Japan to be scaled down

"You know, actually, a long time ago when most people were illiterate, more people memorised poetry. They had to. The irony is that having education and books made us memorise poetry less. The oral tradition in Britain has really died because of publishing and formal education. What we should be excited about, and what the statistics don't reflect, is the number of kids who say, 'I want to tell you about my life in Hackney, and here's my rhyme,' the kids who get up and go to poetry slams. You can go any night of the week to venues in London, Manchester, Birmingham; you can see them having competitions and freestyling--and, yeah, some of it's not great poetry, but it's their lives. It's relevant to them. And out of it you'll get some good poets of the future."

from The Times: Benjamin Zephaniah

"I got my introduction to poetry by getting up on stage and doing it, and there was always a mix of people in the audience—ex-cons, people who bag groceries in the supermarket, people with kids. There's something in poetry for just about everybody," she [Patricia Smith] says. The eclectic mix matters. "It's easy to kind of huddle around other people who are doing what you're doing and feel safe."

Safe is not Smith's flavor. Her poems employ a vast range of personae: child molesters, gang members, politicians, even storms (Katrina revels in "The difference in a given name. What the calling,/the hard K, does to the steel of me,/how suddenly and surely it grants me/pulse, petulance. Now I can do/my own choking".)

from Chronogram: Eye of the Hurricane

The degree helped him [Michael Rosen] to see how and why Kids' Lit should be subjected to critical rigour as much as grown-up writing. "Children's literature occupies a very different position from literature as a whole, largely because of two things: it's part of nurturing, in the anthropological sense, but it's also part of education. You can't say that of any other kind of literature," he says.

Rosen was oddly placed.

from Independent: Chapter and verse: Michael Rosen on why it pays to study children's literature

In these "Endpoint" summaries the Top Gun technician makes it easy for himself from the mechanical angle: the forms are loose and unrhymed, held together only by the beat of the iambic pentameter. But from the thematic angle there is a strict discipline in operation. Every recollection has to be specific. If it passes that test, it can come from as far back as early childhood.

The way these poems search their author's early mind suggests he has belatedly discovered a modus operandi that he might have used all along.

from The New York Times: Final Act

[George] Oppen's interest is nothing less than the negotiated relationship of the individual to the world around him. Having all of his poems together in one place makes clear that, although he may have started out as an Objectivist, his work cannot be pigeonholed into any particular -ism.

After Discrete Series, Oppen didn't publish another book until 1962. He kept silent for almost 30 years, in part because of the anti-Communist crusades of the 1950s and in part because he refused to let his work lapse be used or misused as mere propaganda. Or maybe he just had nothing to say? As the title of his nostalgic second book would indicate, The Materials was less about objects themselves than the memories we have of them.

from The Philadelphia Inquirer: Collected joy: Oppen's poems

It may come as a surprise that there is a poet--Detroit-born Philip Levine--whose major works, as well as being wonderful and sad portraits of a particular time and place in postwar America, provide a primer on the history of work and daily life associated with the heyday of the American automotive industry.

The two collections that evoke these things in the greatest detail are What Work Is (Knopf), which appeared in 1991, and The Mercy (Knopf), published in 1999.

from The Canadian Jewish News: Poems for a fallen industry: Philip Levine's Detroit elegies

By M.L. Liebler

The Letting Go

Little by little
It starts. In Siberia,

from Metro Times: Chapter and verse: A collection of poems by M.L. Liebler
also Metro Times: A day in the life: The M.L. Liebler interview

Lin Zhao asked the same question--in the time of Mao Zedong. I discovered Ms. Lin--an extraordinary individual by any reckoning--in my last months as a Monitor correspondent in Beijing. She was a prophetic voice, a thinker, a Vaclav Havel of China who believed deeply in the reality of what she called "truth."

She was executed in 1968 at the age of 36, probably by the order of Mao. She remains virtually unknown in her country.

Lin's main insight was that Mao, to put it mildly, was not serving the people. Her prison writings during the Cultural Revolution may constitute the most incisive critique of "Red China" extant; they remain forbidden, kept under lock and key at a Beijing archive.

from The Christian Science Monitor: Tiananmen Anniversary: Memory of executed poet resonates

When the Millions' Poet competition was launched with a six-week-long audition tour around the Gulf in 2006, thousands of young poets tried out, but less than 5 percent of them were women. This was understandable, considering that it's frowned upon for women to appear on camera, "exposing" themselves to millions of prying eyes.

As the show has steadily gained in popularity, however, the number of women competing has been on the rise. Today, approximately one in every four of those auditioning for the show is a woman. And this is causing a stir.

Aydah Al Jahani, a young Saudi poetess who wears a niqab--an outfit that covers not only the body, but also the face--faced the wrath of her family and tribe for entering the third and most recent season of the competition. Upon hearing the news, her family pleaded with her to withdraw.

from The Philadelphia Inquirer: Poetry is a voice for women

Great Regulars

There's a need for what I can provide here, which makes me think about the whole issue of writers helping writers, and what the role of a poet laureate is.

A person doesn't have to have the title to do that, any more than a person has to be a professor of English to write and publish.

What does it mean to "help" writers? First, I think, be a good example.

Do good work yourself, stay disciplined. Give readings. Be generous to those starting out. Read their work.

If you're a state poet laureate, use the recognition to make poetry visible.

from Fleda Brown: Traverse City Record-Eagle: The writing life, after retirement

According to Noah [Fraioli], his poem, The Ghost in the Rain, came about as a way to describe what he sees as the function of a poet. He says he takes this task seriously. He wants to see everything and remind everyone that the world really is beautiful, rain or shine. He refers to himself as the ghost in the poem because while on his walks he sometimes seems to almost transcend humanity and become an observer in the most acute way.

from Tom Chandler: The Providence Journal: Noah Fraioli is a young writer with spirit

Whether she's feeling her way into the mind of Marie Curie, devastated by the death of her husband ("I pulled apart your coat/looking for you. I kissed your cloth shadow . . .") or casting back to the lares and penates of her own childhood ("The ritual walk to the bakery, Fridays/before supper. Guided by my eldest brother/through streets made unfamiliar by twilight . . ."), [Anne] Michaels uses her poetry to excavate her chosen themes of love, language and memory in lines so rangy that at times they press up against the edges of what the medium is capable of containing.

"I haven't written poetry in a long time," she says now, "though I'd like to think maybe I'll go back to it, when I'm wiser. But it's such a good discipline for a novelist: it makes you aware that even if you have four or five hundred pages to play with, you mustn't waste a single word."

from Sarah Crown: The Guardian: Anne Michaels, fugitive author

Congratulations to/Félicitations à Pierre DesRuisseaux, the 63-years-young poet, editor, translator, fictionalist and anthologist just named to the post of Canada's Parliamentary Poet Laureate who shall abso-deffo rise to the occasion replacing the accomplished and awe-inspiring John Steffler for a two-year term. According to "the job description," DesRuisseaux will compose poetry (especially for state occasions [unless, of course, he comes down with a case of Motionitis :)]), sponsor poetry readings; and, bien sûr, advise the parliamentary librarian on appropriate poetic acquisitions.

from Judith Fitzgerald: The Globe and Mail: In Other Words: Magnifique!

The mention of scrapple--a loaf made of flour and meat-ends--solidifies [George] Bowering's realisation we must always make the best of a raw deal: ". . . You have to hand it to someone/who makes an asset out of what looks like a drawback . . .." Thus, while the work's entitled, "I Like Summer," readers ultimately discover Bowering's less in step with the seasons and more in tune with the likes of Anton Chekhov (who wrote, "People don't notice whether it's winter or summer when they're happy"). Nevertheless, I mean it when I say . . .

I Like Summer

from Judith Fitzgerald: The Globe and Mail: In Other Words: In celebration of planetary poetry month 24

"See," a self-portrait sparked by a corruption of a photograph of her own heavily kohled eye, appears in Boki, but one example among many demonstrating the unique way in which [Nitoo] Das takes great pleasure in uglifying the beautiful in order to paradoxically renew and/or amplify the greater beauty inherent in such enterprises. Naturally, it will come as no surprise Das is particularly drawn to insects and creepy-crawlies (not to mention rust, decomposition and decay).

See

from Judith Fitzgerald: The Globe and Mail: In Other Words: In celebration of planetary poetry month 25

On one particular journey up the Amazon, [Patrick] Woodcock encountered a pod of pink dolphins (as well as learning the local legends and lore surrounding same: The dolphins, according to the inhabitants, actually represent the reincarnated souls of recently departed loved ones). Still alive to the memories of his deeply missed mother, Woodcock took comfort and solace in the stories which inspired this simply stunning poem included in his forthcoming ECW collection.

Swimming with Pink Dolphins
and My Dead Mother

from Judith Fitzgerald: The Globe and Mail: In Other Words: In celebration of planetary poetry month 26

As it burned, the speaker visualizes the possibility that it brought "To the midnight sky a sunset glow." He creates the image of a flower whose leaves have blown away leaving only the protruding pistil to dramatize how only the chimney of the house is left standing.

from Linda Sue Grimes: Suite101.com: Frost Speaker Explores Connection of Two Worlds

This change of heart could merely be a ploy, just another attempt to curtail the woman's infidelity. He might be trying to break her hold on him. Knowing that she is vain about her appearance as well as her personality, he is probably trying to employ reverse psychology to make her more attentive to him. If she thinks he does not really care so much for her looks, he might dump her before she can dump him.

from Linda Sue Grimes: Suite101.com: Shakespeare Sonnet 141

The speaker then suggests an alternative that if she concludes the comparison and still prevaricates with "those lips of thine," it is because her lips have "profan'd their scarlet ornaments." Again, he is accusing her of giving herself promiscuously to others: she has "seal'd false bond" with other men, to whom he lies as often as she does with him. (Pun intended.)

from Linda Sue Grimes: Suite101.com: Shakespeare Sonnet 142

The speaker begins with the assertion, "One must have a mind of winter," which puts forth a fascinating proposal that demands attention. What exactly is "a mind of winter"? Is it a clear mind, a cool mind, or simply a mind-set that is capable of grasping the significance of a winter scene? Perhaps it is merely a mind full of winter, a mind that lets itself engulf the whole idea of winterness.

from Linda Sue Grimes: Suite101.com: Wallace Stevens' The Snow Man

The guru/speaker of Paramahansa Yogananda's "The Noble New" from Songs of the Soul offers eight loving commands to devotees in an octet that consists of two quatrains; the first quatrain features two riming couplets, and second quatrain has the traditional rime scheme of an Elizabethan sonnet, ABAB.

from Linda Sue Grimes: Suite101.com: Yogananda's The Noble New

Now my days were ruled by George's deafening demands to be fed. Six-inch worms disappeared into his extended neck as if he were a sewage pipe; sometimes they would curl around his beak in a desperate attempt to save themselves, and I would have to shovel them down his throat.

My dogs were riveted; they spent happy hours Georgewatching. I feared that they might kill him if he escaped his cage.

from Frieda Hughes: Daily Mail: They're the scavenging, screeching hooligans of the bird world, but this orphaned magpie stole my heart

Craig Arnold, 41, an assistant professor of English at the University of Wyoming, went missing Monday during a visit to a volcano on the island of Kuchinoerabu-jima in the northern Ryukyu Islands of southern Japan.

Japanese law only requires authorities to look for missing people for three days but University of Wyoming officials say the search has been extended through Sunday.

Arnold went for a hike up the volcano around mid-afternoon Monday, shortly after arriving at the island by ferry and checking in at an inn, according to his brother, Chris Arnold, of Brooklyn, N.Y.

from Hillel Italie: Associated Press: The Canadian Press: Well-known U.S. poet Craig Arnold missing on Japanese island

In Blackwater Woods
by Mary Oliver

Look, the trees

from Garrison Keillor: The Writer's Almanac: In Blackwater Woods by Mary Oliver

Leisure
by William Henry Davies

despite it all
by Denver Butson

Leisure

What is this life if, full of care,

from Garrison Keillor: The Writer's Almanac: Leisure by William Henry Davies despite it all by Denver Butson

Letter of Resignation
by William Baer

Dear [blank]: After much deliberation,

from Garrison Keillor: The Writer's Almanac: Letter of Resignation by William Baer

Little League
by Paul Hostovsky

When the ump produces

from Garrison Keillor: The Writer's Almanac: Little League by Paul Hostovsky

Mammoth
by Robert Wrigley

Returning the refilled feeder to its hanger on the tree,

from Garrison Keillor: The Writer's Almanac: Mammoth by Robert Wrigley

Music
by Anne Porter

When I was a child

from Garrison Keillor: The Writer's Almanac: Music by Anne Porter

La Strada
by George Bilgere

A dollar got you a folding chair

from Garrison Keillor: The Writer's Almanac: La Strada by George Bilgere

Sometimes I wonder at my wife's forbearance. She's heard me tell the same stories dozens of times, and she still politely laughs when she should. Here's a poem by Susan Browne, of California, that treats an oft-told story with great tenderness.

On Our Eleventh Anniversary

from Ted Kooser: American Life in Poetry: Column 214

Sylvia Plath did it in 1963, Ann Sexton in 1974 and Reetika Vazirani (who also took the life of her son) in 2003 ... and now poet Deborah Digges has just committed suicide in Amherst, Mass.

Perhaps poets, more than others, are more prone to despair and depression. But if poetry is a form of self therapy, then those who write therapeutic personal poetry theoretically should be healthier than the average person, right? Unfortunately, it doesn’t seem to work that way.

from Anthony Maulucci: Norwich Bulletin: On Poetry: Perhaps it’s time for us to move past self indulgence

Lessons From You

I want to speak Spanish

from E. Ethelbert Miller: E-Notes: Lessons From You

"I wandered lonely as a cloud." After reading such a line, comment seems superfluous. Time appears to stop. We look up from the page. We feel happy.

But why do we feel happy? What is it about this line that gives us the unmistakable shiver of poetry? Why is it so beautiful? Perhaps it has something to do with its balance of sadness and wonder.

from Christopher Nield: The Epoch Times: The Antidote--Classic Poetry for Modern Life: A Reading of 'Daffodils' by William Wordsworth

That volume, still the poet [W.D. Snodgrass]'s best, included a line that provides this new collection with its alluring title: Not for Specialists. The work that contains it, "April Inventory", is a wry, somewhat elegiac poem that I memorised when I first read it, 40 years ago, and recite in my head more often than you would believe. The opening stanza sets the pace and tone:

The green catalpa tree has turned
All white; the cherry blooms once more.
In one whole year I haven't learned
A blessed thing they pay you for.
The blossoms snow down in my hair;
The trees and I will soon be bare.

from Jay Parini: The Guardian: Whim of steel

As my spell as children's laureate comes to an end, so does 10 years of the institution. It was cooked up by Ted Hughes and Michael Morpurgo, and even if they didn't quite know how it would work out, it has become a way of giving the press and all the various bodies that try to foster an interest in children's books a figurehead to talk to. More than that: Quentin Blake, the first laureate, was so industrious and committed that he ensured none of us who followed after him could get away with merely being a figurehead and no more.

from Michael Rosen: The Guardian: The week in books

The beasts take advantage of the chaos and try to seize the throne. Humility is too humble to claim what is rightfully hers, the proud plume now spoiled by her tears, but she exhorts the Virtues to fine the beasts by demanding they bring double the number of gifts to the next meeting of the (now legislative) court.

That's the bare and somewhat tortuous story: what it symbolises is a more complicated matter. The rich interpretative possibilities, will, I am sure be fully explored by that clever and dedicated band, the posters of Poem of the Week.

[by George Herbert]

Humilitie

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

And Ursula Fanthorpe has been that essential figure, a literary foremother, for several generations of women poets. Perhaps this was an irony for a writer who escaped the life of a teacher--she was head of English at Cheltenham Ladies' College--because she wanted growth and change of her own. Yet she brought me, for one, back to poetry after bad experiences at school, when I heard her read at the last Albert Hall Poetry Live in the late 1980s.

from Fiona Sampson: The Guardian: UA Fanthorpe inspired generations of women poets

It was like trying to clutch at water.

I thought to call my older brother and go over some things with him. But he might well remember them differently, and then I would have to choose between his version of events and mine. I decided instead that memory is something we create and must be taken as it occurs to us and not subjected to cross-examination. It is a poem, not a chronicle.

from Frank Wilson: When Falls the Coliseum: That's What He Said: The mystery of memory is the mystery of ourselves

Poison and Cluster Bombs
By Tinker Dominguez

When I read about lack of anger,

from CounterPunch: Poets' Basement: Dominguez, Orloski and Springate

By Lee Robinson

We want

from Express-News: Poetry: 'Want'

[by John Updike]

Needle Biopsy 22/12/08

All praise be Valium in Jesus' name:

from The Guardian: The Saturday poem: Needle Biopsy 22/12/08 by John Updike

Geomancy

by F. Daniel Rzicznek

The feathered saints of evening flit

from Guernica: Poetry: Geomancy

Continue

by A.C. Jacobs

Despite the real spite

from Morning Star: Well Versed: Continue

Hackers Can Sidejack Cookies
by Heather McHugh

A collage-homage to Guy L. Steele and Eric S. Raymond.

from The New Yorker: Poetry: Hackers Can Sidejack Cookies

Obscurity and Regret
by C. D. Wright

The hand without the glove screws down the lid

from The New Yorker: Poetry: Obscurity and Regret

We hear the unemployment figures pretty commonly now about Michigan. It's kind of the poster child for the trouble we're going through. But the way that that shows up in people's lives, even though we hear those stories, to have a more intimate connection to them shows you just what it means to lose a home, to lose a job, to have to move back in with your folks.

These are things that people had no expectation of ever having to deal with. And I would say people are substantially floundering.

'In These Times'

from PBS: Newshour: Poet Hicok Reflects on Economic Hardships in Mich.

By Russell L. Goings

)))) Listen

I am, I am,

from PBS: Newshour: Weekly Poem: An Excerpt from 'The Children of Children Keep Coming'

Among the poems submitted for this column, Julie Wheeler's caught my attention immediately with its opening lines. She took a familiar metaphor (He devoured her with his eyes) and added an original twist that brought the image to life with gritty reality. The entire poem extends and sustains this image of destruction to develop the character of what Julie describes as "a wanna be lover; he is just chipping chipping shady as a fox to get some piece of you, anything . . . ."

The Thief in a Hungry Man

His eyes eat you up

from Portsmouth Herald News: Poems from the Hoot

Birds have that reputation of marking the passages of life, and the glimpse of one rising, omen-like, through the mist, makes you shiver. This is from James Robertson's new pamphlet in Scots, Hem and Heid: ballads, sangs, saws, poems (Kettillonia, 2009)

The Heron

from The Scotsman: Poem of the Week: James Robertson

"Men's League Softball, Gillette, Wyoming"
By Lucas Howell

from Slate: "Men's League Softball, Gillette, Wyoming" --By Lucas Howell

To Say Nothing But Thank You

by Jeanne Lohmann

All day I try to say nothing but thank you,

from The Sun Magazine: Poetry: To Say Nothing But Thank You

In Harrison County, Mo., a remnant of grassland supports a population of greater prairie chickens (Tympanuchus cupido), a bird on the verge of extinction. In spring, during mating season, the males stomp their feet in dance, emitting low-pitched calls. I had the good fortune to witness this strange spectacle on Easter weekend of 2007. As I sat in a canvas blind in the pre-dawn cold, this poem began to take shape.

from The Washington Post: Poet's Choice: 'Early April' by Devin Johnston

Poetic Obituaries

To mark Pooh's 50th birthday in 1976, [Peter] Dennis gave an impromptu late-night reading at Cambridge University and was stunned to perform before a packed house.

His show, "Bother!"--named for a favorite exclamation by Pooh--was born. Dennis would perform it in more than 100 venues in the United States and Europe, including the Hollywood Bowl and Westminster Palace in London.

In addition to "Winnie-the-Pooh" (1926), Dennis drew from "The House at Pooh Corner" (1928) and the poetry volumes "When We Were Very Young" (1924) and "Now We Are Six" (1926).

from Los Angeles Times: Peter Dennis dies at 75; actor made a career of one-man 'Pooh' readings

[Josiah "Joe"] Diamond was a regular at the Columbus Jazz & Ribs Fest and Comfest. He also could be counted on to play the sax at the annual Jack Kerouac poetry reading at Dick's Den, said Peggy Barry, a longtime fan.

from The Columbus Dispatch: For decades, his passion was jazz

Tom [Deitz] was an artist, a poet, a writer, one of the best Heralds that the SCA has ever known, and a good friend. His first novel was mentored by Katherine Kurtz when he was asked to illustrate a book project of hers. Sadly, the project fell through, but she encouraged him to develop his own stories that they'd discussed while working on her project. Now, 19 novels later, Tom has long ago proven himself as a writer.

from Wild Poetry Forum: R.I.P. Tom Deitz, 1952-2009

[UA Fanthorpe] was genuinely fond of the monarch, too. After receiving the Queen's Gold Medal for Poetry in 2003, she remarked: "You don't think this is an old lady of 80 or whatever she is, she's just somebody who's very good at her job."

She was one of the judges of the Golden Jubilee poetry competition, and in a poem called The Windsors: An Everyday Story of Royal Folk harmlessly evokes their unreal world by conflating it with that of the Archers.

But the predominant theme of her poetry is the cycle of life and death, with particular emphasis on dying.

from Telegraph: UA Fanthorpe
also George Szirtes: Ursula/The Laureateship
also The Associated Press: English poet UA Fanthorpe dies at 79

Speaking at a press conference on Monday about his fatal stabbing, Mrs Halipilias lovingly recalled her son [Phillip Halipilias]'s ability to see the truth and humour in every situation.

"He was cheeky, he was a mimic, he was a joker. My son was dyslexic but he was a poet and he wrote lyrics to make anyone cry."

The aspiring hip hop artist, who worked under the name "Affray", had recorded an album and was working on his second before he died.

from Wynnum Herald: Family seeks killer of much loved son

In some ways, Lt. Col. John Hillen seemed like a highly decorated, tough-as-nails retired Army officer, a former Army Ranger and Green Beret, who served two tours in Vietnam. He advised Iranian troops in the mid-1970s, before the Islamic Revolution, and developed a deep interest in Mideast policy.

Then there was the poem he wrote for his wife, a schoolteacher. He called it "A Teacher's Prayer," and it's widely reprinted, particularly as storms set in during early winter.

from The Washington Post: Decorated Combat Veteran Had Poetic, Scholarly Side

Brought up as a Roman Catholic, he [Tom McGrath] instinctively looked away from the repressiveness of Scottish Presbyterianism and towards the freedom offered by American culture, in particular Charles Olson, Gertrude Stein, Jack Kerouac and Charlie Parker. His first poems were published in 1962 and, by 1965, he was reading at the first international Poetry Olympics at the Royal Albert Hall alongside Allen Ginsberg.

While supporting a family in Bermondsey, south-east London--bringing up four daughters with his wife Maureen--McGrath was drawn to the burgeoning underground scene.

from The Guardian: Tom McGrath
also The Stage: Scottish playwright McGrath dies aged 68

[Lorraine E. Miland] brought joy to her family with her poems and her crocheting. She loved her friends, family and her many pets.

from The Dunn County News: Lorraine E. Miland

Mrs. [Elizabeth] Rimington was also a teacher and accommodation officer at Scarborough International Language School and a tutor for the University of the Third Age, teaching poetry and literature to the elderly as well as taking classes herself.

from Scarborough Evening News: Elizabeth, 95, enjoyed a full and varied life

Al Robles was a community activist and poet, long involved in the I-Hotel community and Kearny Street Workshop, and subsequently in the eviction protest and rebuilding of the I-Hotel through the Manilatown Heritage Foundation. He published a classic collection of poetry, Rappin' with 10,000 Carabaos in the Dark in 1996.

from Hyphen: R.I.P. Al Robles

Although he would win medals for his service, [Noel] Ryan wrote in his memoirs, "Let's set the record straight from the beginning. I'm no bloody hero. Nor was I a coward. I was concerned that Mrs. Ryan's little boy should not get his ass shot off. This meant that I would be very cautious at exposing myself to enemy fire while still doing my job and supporting my mates."

In 2004, Ryan held an exhibition of his work from 1965-75 at the Living Arts Centre, titled Juxtaposed. He also wrote poetry.

In an interview with local historian Kathleen Hicks, Ryan said, "I was never terribly interested in selling my (art) work. I gave away more than I sold. I regard myself as a dilettante."

from The Mississauga News: Library forefather was an avid art enthusiast

In his last days, [Qamar] Shahbaz was busy compiling his remaining work, as he had contributed a lot but could not see his books of more short stories, poetry and columns published.

Idrees Jatoi, author of a book on criticism, said that Qamar Shahbaz was the only writer of radio drama in early sixties. His poetry inspired later generations. Shahbaz was a vocal person as compared to other intellectuals advocating the issues of Sindhi language, art and literature. He has been a contributor for Sindhi dailies such as Hilal-e-Pakistan, Awami Awaz, Barsat, Ibrat and Kawish as a versatile columnist.

from The News International: Noted writer, poet Qamar Shahbaz passes away

[Ram Shewalkar] specialised in mythology (Ramayana and Mahabharata), poet saints of Maharashtra, like Dnyaneshwar, Tukaram and Samarth Ramdas and modern thinkers like Veer Savarkar and Vinobha Bhave.

from Hindustan Times: Noted writer Shewalkar dies

[Ella June Stringer] enjoyed playing and listening to music and was an organist. She also enjoyed writing poetry and had a poem published in a Veterans of Foreign War book.

from The Review: Ella June Stringer, 79

[Lois J. Ukrainetz] published poetry and her love of history will live on, too. Through her efforts alone, the Lindbergh Lake Lodge is now listed on the National Registry of Historic Places. Her poetry appears on the Internet and in publication

from Great Falls Tribune: Lois J. Ukrainetz

[Idea] Vilariño was one of the outstanding figures of Uruguayan poetry, with her lyric creations collected in works such as "La Suplicante" (The Supplicant), "Poemas de Amor" (Love Poems) and "Nocturnos" (Nocturnes).

Also known as an essayist and literary critic, she was a member of the writers' group called the Generation of 45, to which Mario Benedetti, 88, also belonged and who is currently in a Montevideo hospital in critical condition.

from Latin American Herald Tribune: Uruguayan Poet Idea Vilariño Dies

I remember how justifiably proud Paddy [Walsh] was when a few short years ago his book of Irish poems '"n Rinn Go Bearú' was launched here in Athy. In the introduction to the booklet Paddy wrote:

'Sna dánta símplí seo ar leanas tugtar pictiúr beo iontach dúinn den saol atá imithe, de na laethe a bhí--cois fharraige sa Rinn agus cois Bhearú inár mBaile Átha-_ féin.'

The following poem entitled 'Iascaire Átha-_' was Paddy's tribute to his adopted town.

from Kildare Nationalist: Passing of two of town's respected citizens

Theresa [Woodis] graduated from New Bedford High School and was employed at Brittany Dye & Acushnet Company for many years.

Theresa enjoyed singing, dancing and bingo. She took great pride in her many talents, cooking, poems and more.

from South Coast Today: Theresa B. Woodis