Tags
2013, Ahmed Fouad Negm, Ahram Online, Anne Michaels, anniversary, Anvil Press Poetry, Arabic, Arsene Wenger, assassination, BBC, Bernice Eisenstein, British, celebrity, Chilean, Christopher Reid, colloquial, Correspondances: A Poem and Portraits, Daniel Weissbort, Danish, death, death threat, December, Douglas Dunn, eastern Europe, Egyptian, Euronews, football, GoodReads, Herald Scotland, interview, Islam, Modern Poetry in Translation, Mubarak, Musa Okwonga, Muslims, National Post, news, Pablo Neruda, patriotic, poet, poetry, Queen's Gold Medal for Poetry, racism, rap, RAPSI, reading, review, revolutionary, Scottish, Six Bad Poets, sport, Steven Gerrard, The Boston Globe, The Copenhagen Post, The FA, The Football Association, The Guardian, The Houston Chronicle, The Jewish Press, The Poetry Archive, The Spectator, The Telegraph, Theo Walcott, translation, tribute, uprising, video, Who Ate All the Pies, Write Out Loud, Yahya Hassan
All the essential poetry news from the month of December.
News
Yahya Hassan, the Danish rap poet, was charged with racism over poems fiercely criticising the actions of fellow Muslims in Denmark. Hassan has also faced 27 death threats and was recently assaulted. Read more at The Copenhagen Post, The Guardian and The Jewish Press.
Poet and sports writer Musa Okwonga produced a tribute to football to celebrate 150 years of the FA. He was joined by Steven Gerrard, Arsène Wenger, Theo Walcott and a number of celebrity guests. Read more and watch the video at The Football Association, Who Ate All the Pies and The Guardian.Members of the Chilean poet Pablo Neruda’s family contested toxicology reports that appeared to conclusively prove that he died of natural causes rather than being assassinated. Read more at The Guardian, RAPSI and The Houston Chronicle.
Deaths
Ahmed Fouad Negm, Egypt’s ‘poet of the people’ who used colloquial Egyptian Arabic to write patriotic and revolutionary poetry and supported the 2011 uprising that toppled Mubarak, died aged 84. Read more at The Telegraph, Euronews and Ahram Online.
Daniel Weissbort, the translator and poet who founded Modern Poetry in Translation and brought the work of eastern European poets to the West, died aged 78. Read more at The Guardian, Modern Poetry in Translation and Anvil Press Poetry.Awards
Douglas Dunn won the Queen’s Gold Medal for Poetry 2013 in recognition of his lifetime contribution to literature. Read more at BBC News, Herald Scotland and Write Out Loud. Listen to Dunn reading some of his poems at The Poetry Archive.
Book Releases
Six Bad Poets by Christopher Reid (4/5 based on 2 ratings at GoodReads). Reviewed at The Spectator and The Guardian. Author interviewed at The Telegraph.
Correspondances: A Poem and Portraits by Anne Michaels and Bernice Eisenstein (4.4/5 based on 8 ratings at GoodReads). Reviewed at The Guardian, National Post and The Boston Globe.
(all ratings are from GoodReads as at 31/12/13).