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All the headlines from February.
News
- The folk musician and cellist Leyla McCalla released her debut album Vari-Colored Songs: A Tribute to Langston Hughes in which she sets Langston Hughes’s poetry to music. Read more at Boston Globe, NPR and Mother Jones. Here is one of the tracks:
- A poetry app was released on Valentine’s Day which featured names such as Helena Bonham Carter, Emma Watson and Tom Hiddleston reading romantic poems from Allie Esiri’s anthology The Love Book. Read more at The Telegraph, CBR and Chicago Sun-Times.
- The actress Kristen Stewart revealed she has been writing poetry for years and published a poem in Marie Clare which she described as “embarassing.” Read more including the poem itself at The Independent, PopWatch and The Daily Mail.
- It was announced that a collection of poetry by Iain Banks, the novelist who died in June last year from cancer, will be published in 2015. Banks spoke about wanting to publish poetry in his final interview. Read more at BBC News, The Bookseller and The Star.
- The Arab-Iranian poet Hashem Shaabani, was executed in Iran for allegedly having links with a separatist terrorist organisation. The news shocked human rights groups worldwide. Read more at The Guardian, Huffington Post and Frontpage Mag.
Deaths
- Maxine Kumin, the Pulitzer-winning poet who work was known for exploring the most complex aspects of human existence, died aged 88. Read more at The San Francisco Chronicle, The New Yorker and The New York Times.
- Maggie Estep, the spoken-word poet who popularised slam poetry on US television, died aged 50. Read more at The New York Times, USA Today and The LA Times. Watch her performing ‘Emotional Idiot’ here:
- Michael Baldwin, the poet and novelist who had a passion for teaching others, died aged 83. Read more at The Guardian.
- Sebastian Barker, the lyrical poet much influenced by William Blake, died aged 68. Read more at The Guardian, Enitharmon Press and The Independent.
Awards
- Eduardo Lizalde won the Federico Garcia Lorca Poetry Award in recognition of his lifetime body of work. Read more at Global Post and Latin American Herald Tribune. Here is Lizalde reading his poem ‘El tigre en celo’:
Book Releases
- This is Yarrow, the debut collection from Tara Bergin (rated 4/5 based on 2 ratings at GoodReads). Read reviews at The Guardian, The Carcanet Blog and Tower Poetry. Read an interview with Bergin at The Poetry School.
- Mad Girl’s Love Song, a biography of Sylvia Plath by Andrew Wilson (rated 3.7/5 based on 282 ratings at GoodReads). Read reviews at The Guardian, The Telegraph and The Scotsman. Read an interview with Wilson at Interview Magazine.
- All One Breath, the latest collection from John Burnside (rated 4/5 based on 1 rating at GoodReads). Read reviews at The Guardian, David Green Books and Herald Scotland. Read an interview with Burnside at Herald Scotland.
- The Outnumbered Poet, a posthumous collection of critical and autobiographical essays by Dennis O’Driscoll (not yet rated on GoodReads). Read a review at The Guardian.
- Holding on Upside Down, a biography of Marianne Moore by Linda Leavell (rated 4.4/5 based on 16 ratings at GoodReads). Read reviews at The New York Review of Books, The Telegraph and The Wall Street Journal.
All ratings are from GoodReads as at 26/02/2014.