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2014, 3 Sections, A Poet's Glossary, actor, album, American, April, award, BBC, book, Border, Boy Meets World, British, Ceausescu, centenary, Claudia Rankine, death, Desert Island Discs, dramatist, Economic Times, Edward Hirsch, English, exile, First World War, folk, GoodReads, Imelda Staunton, Indian, interview, Jackson Poetry Prize, Jim Carter, John Drury, music, Music at Midnight: The Life and Poetry of George Herbert, New York Times, news, Nina Cassian, NPR, NY Daily News, Overdrive, performance poetry, Peter Bennet, philosophy, photo, poetry, Polish, prize, Publishers Weekly, Pulitzer Prize, Radio Times, reference, review, Rolling Stone, Romanian, Samuel L Jackson, satire, secret police, Show of Hands, Sitcom, slam poem, Tadeusz Różewicz, The Belfast Telegraph, The Courier, The Daily Mail, The Guardian, The LA Times, The Wall Street Journal, The Washington Post, The Write Web, The Yorkshire Post, TheNews.pl, Time, Tonight Show, TV, video, Vijay Seshadri, war, Warsaw Business Journal, witty, YouTube
The main stories about poetry from the month of April – a fairly quiet month by recent standards.
News
- The actor Samuel L. Jackson performed a slam poem about the 1990s sitcom Boy Meets World on the Tonight Show. Read more at Time, Rolling Stone and The Daily Mail. Watch this video of the performance:
- The USA celebrated its annual National Poetry Month, first introduced in 1996 by the Academy of American Poets. Read more at Poets.org, Chicago Now and ReadWriteThink.
- The British actors Jim Carter and Imelda Staunton teamed up with folk band Show of Hands to record a musical album of war poetry, that will be released later this year to mark the centenary of the First World War. Read more at Radio Times, The Yorkshire Post and The Belfast Telegraph.
- The exiled Romanian poet Nina Cassian, who sought refuge in the US after her poems satirising Ceausescu fell into the hands of secret police, died aged 89. Read more at The New York Times, The Guardian and The LA Times. Listen to Cassian appearing on the BBC’s Desert Island Discs.
- The Polish poet, dramatist and writer Tadeusz Różewicz, who belonged to the first generation of poets born after Poland regained independence in 1918, died aged 92. Read more at The Guardian, TheNews.pl and Warsaw Business Journal.
Awards
- Vijay Seshadri won the 2014 Pultizer Prize for Poetry for his witty and philosophical collection of poems 3 Sections. Read more at NY Daily News, Economic Times and The Wall Street Journal. Read an interview with Seshadri at NPR. Watch Seshadri reading one of his poems:
- Claudia Rankine won the $50,000 2014 Jackson Poetry Prize for her body of work that “pushes the boundaries of the contemporary lyric.” Read more at Publishers Weekly and The New York Times.
Book Releases
- Border, a selection of poems by Peter Bennet (not yet rated at GoodReads). Read reviews at The Guardian and The Courier.
- A Poet’s Glossary, an exhaustive resource on the tools of poetry by Edward Hirsch (rated 5/5 based on 5 ratings at GoodReads). Read reviews at Washington Post, Overdrive and The Write Web.
All ratings are from GoodReads as at 13/05/2014.