Poetry News Round Up: June 2013

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Alexei Ulyukayev, American, army, award, Beattie's Book Blog, book, Booksellers NZ, Canadian, David McFadden, Economy Minister, Father Victor Phalana, Fleur Adcock, freedom, Ghassan Zaqtan, Glass Wings, Griffin Poetry Prize, In Flanders Fields, Israeli, Jeffrey Brown, John McCrae, John Redmond, loss, love, Madiba, Margaret Atwood, Mediclinic Heart Hospital, Natasha Trethewey, Nelson Mandela, New Zealander, news, NewsHour, Palestinian, PBS, photomosaic, poem, Poet Laureate, poetry, Poetry and Privacy, politician, politics, Pretoria, priest, radio, Russian, social media, society, soldier, South African, The Guardian, The Independent, visa, Vladimir Putin

We’re at the halfway point of 2013.  Here’s your regular poetry news round up. My pleasure.

A Poem for Madiba

As South Africans come to term with Nelson Mandela‘s recent deterioration in health, a Pretoria priest, Father Victor Phalana, has put his love and sense of loss for Mandela into a poem.

Mandela has been in the Mediclinic Heart Hospital for four weeks now and remains in a “critical but stable” condition. Here is an extract from Father Victor’s poem, which you can also read in full here:

“We are busy with your last paragraph and your last chapter

We have started to mourn and grieve as you melt away

We are anxious and worried; we are paying our respects,

We say Goodbye.”

– Nelson Mandela Photomosaic
[Source: Flickr Creative Commons © MastaBaba]

Poets ARE Fighters

A Israeli soldier was banned from reading his poetry out on the radio because officers said it would “ruin the image of the combat soldier.” Cue much media outrage.

As The Independent pointed out, “Can anyone really say that John McCrae was a wuss when he wrote ‘In Flanders Fields’ and before dying of pneumonia on a French battlefield in 1918?”

An Unfortunate Poem…

Vladimir Putin appointed a new Economy Minister, Alexei Ulyukayev – who it was recently revealed wrote a poem two years ago urging Russians to leave the country and seek freedom. The poems begins: “Get out, my son, get out of here.”

Natasha still going strong

The US poet laureate, Natasha Trethewey, has been reappointed for a second one-year term. According to mail.com, in her second term she will collaborate with PBS senior correspondent Jeffrey Brown and the NewsHour series of reports about poetry and society from around the country.

US Poet Laureate, Natasha Trethewey
[Source: Flickr Creative Commons © WTPfefferle]

A Trip to Canada

The 2013 Griffin Poetry Prize in Canada was won by David McFadden and Palestinian poet Ghassan Zaqtan. However, before the ceremony, Zaqtan had initially been the subject of refusal for a visa when Canadian authorities said the reason for his visit was “unconvincing.”

This unleashed a social media storm, with the likes of the novelist Margaret Atwood weighing in with their support. Happily, within 72 hours the visa was granted.

Book Releases

Here are a couple of highlights from the poetry books published during June.

• Poetry and Privacy by John Redmond, a study of the treatment of public and private spheres in contemporary poetry. The Guardian says there is “a cut and thrust to Redmond’s work” and that it is a “fine book.”
• Glass Wings by Fleur Adcock. Booksellers NZ assesses this collection as “a mixed bag,” whereas Beattie’s Book Blog thinks Adcock “has a stunning ear, pulling off rhyme- and rhythm-schemes which appear, deceptively so, easy.”

Poetry News Round Up: November 2012

Tags

Academy of American Poets, Amber Heard, American, Andrew Motion, Anne Evans, Arab Spring, art, autobiography, book, British, Canadian, Chinese, Coleridge, dissident, election, essay, film, First Person Sorrowful, French, gay, God, Jack Gilbert, Jacques Dupin, James Bond, James Dyson, Jane Yeh, Jonny Depp, Kathleen Jamie, Ko Un, Korean, L'Arriere-pays, lesbian, Li Bifeng, Louise Gluck, love, Michael Gove, Mohammed al-Ajami, news, Ninjas, poetry, president, Qatari, Raymond Souster, Rime of the Ancient Mariner, school, Skyfall, Stephen Romer, Tennyson, The Customs House, The Overhaul, TS Eliot, Ulysses, Valerie Eliot, Veterans' Day, Welsh, William Brandon Lacy Campos, Yves Bonnefoy, Zhu Yufu

Poetry news from the month of November, freshly squeezed for your delight and delectation.

We start off with the 2012 US Presidential election which of course took place in November. What better opportunity for the Academy of American Poets to publish a selection of “poems of American experience” to help inject the patriotic spirit into the occasion…

Jonny Depp has being wooing Amber Heard with handwritten daily love poems, apparently. Thankfully I don’t have any examples to share.

In the UK, the Education Secretary Michael Gove caused a stir by defending “French lesbian poetry” as a topic of study for university students, which had been criticised by the engineer James Dyson.

The new James Bond movie Skyfall featured the final lines from the Tennyson poem, ‘Ulysses.’ What better excuse to read the whole poem!

A staged version of Coleridge‘s Rime of the Ancient Mariner is making its way to London.

The American conservative media has been working itself up into a frenzy over the news that a six-year old girl was forced by her school to remove the word ‘God’ from a poem she was to deliver on Veterans’ Day.

It wasn’t a good month for poetry in China. An activist, Zhu Yufu, was put on trial accused of “inciting subversion of state power,” because of a poem called ‘It’s Time,’ which he circulated on the internet. The poem declares “It’s time, Chinese people!/ The square belongs to everyone/the feet are yours/it’s time to use your feet and take to the square to make a choice.” Another Chinese dissident poet, Li Bifeng, was jailed for 12 years for contract fraud.

Things didn’t look much better in Qatar, where the poet Mohammed al-Ajami, a supporter of the Arab Spring Uprisings, has been jailed for life.

We bade goodbye this month to the French poet and art critic Jacques Dupin, the teacher and Welsh poet Anne Evans, the great Canadian modernist poet Raymond Souster, the widow of TS Eliot and long time guardian of his poetic legacy, Valerie Eliot, the poet and gay activist William Brandon Lacy Campos, and the great but independently-minded American poet Jack Gilbert.

Here are some of new poetry books that were published in November. L’Arrière-pays by Yves Bonnefoy (translated by Stephen Romer), is a fusion of autobiography, art essay and poem. The publication of Louise Glück‘s Poems: 1962-2012 is an important American literary event. The Overhaul by Kathleen Jamie uses the figurative to understand the modern world. Ko Un‘s First Person Sorrowful introduces this Korean’s highly personal brand of poetry to a British audience for the first time. Ninjas by Jane Yeh is unsettling but funny. Andrew Motion tackles war in The Customs House.