Poetry News Digest: January 2014

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2014, ABC, activist, advert, affair, American, Amiri Baraka, ancient, Apple, Argentinian, artsHub, August Kleinzahler, Australian, award, Bakery and Snacks, BBC, Black Arts Movement, book, BookReviewBlogger, Boston Music Spotlight, British, Cambrian News, Camden Review, Chinese, commercial, Dalit Panthers, Dannie Abse, death, DNA India, Dylan Thomas, English, Examiner, Express, Global Post, GoodReads, Gottfried Benn, Greek, guerrilla, Harvard University, heart attack, Herbie Hancock, HK Standard, Impromptus: Selected Poems and Some Prose, Indian, iPad, iPad Air, January, jazz, Jennifer Maiden, Jose Emilio Pacheco, journalist, Juan Gelman, lecture, Liquid Nitrogen, Literature Works, Liu Xia, Liu Xiaobo, Live Science, Marathi, mayor, Mexican, Minneapolis, music, Namdeo Dhasal, New Republic, New Statesman, New Welsh Review, New York Times, news, News 24, News International, Nobel Laureate, Norton Professor of Poetry, Oh Me! Oh Life!, papyrus, Parallax, PC Mag, Pearl Kazin, photo, Pilgrim's Flower, poet, poetry, prize, prose, Publishers Weekly, Pune Mirror, Rachael Boast, review, RS Thomas, RT Ryback, Russian, Sappho, sex, Sinead Morrissey, Sophie Hannah, Speak Old Parrot, Sydney Morning Herald, The Arts Fuse, The Daily Mail, The Guardian, The Hindu, The Hotel Oneira, The Independent, The Poetry of Sex, The Root, The Skinny, The Sunday Times, The Telegraph, The Washington Post, TS Eliot Prize, TV, TwinCities, twitter, Tyrrell's Crisps, University of Oxford, Victorian Prize for Literature, video, Wales Online, Wall Street Journal, Walt Whitman, Welsh, Yahoo!, Yahoo! Tech, YouTube

All the essential poetry news from the first month of 2014.

News

• A Russian poetry lover stabbed a champion of prose to death in drunken row over the merits of the two literary forms. Read more at BBC News, The Guardian and Global Post.

• A video of Liu Xia, the wife of imprisoned Chinese Nobel Laureate Liu Xiaobo, reading two self-written poems while under house arrest, was posted online. Read more at The HK Standard, The Guardian and News 24. Here is the video:

• The mayor of Minneapolis RT Ryback suffered a heart attack and posted a short poem about it on Twitter, which read: “My cardiac surprise/ Gave me quite a start/ But it proves this politician/ Has a great big heart.” Read more at TwinCities.

• A University of Oxford papyrologist said that a poem found on ancient papyrus is indubitably the work of the sixth-century Greek poet Sappho. Read more at The Guardian, Mail Online and Live Science. Read a translation of the poem at The Guardian.

• Apple released a iPad Air commercial that features quotes from Walt Whitman’s ‘Oh Me! Oh Life!’ Read more at Yahoo! Tech, New Republic and PC Mag. Here is the ad:

• It was announced that a forthcoming book will reveal a year-long love affair between Dylan Thomas and the American journalist Pearl Kazin. Read more at Wales Online, Express and Mail Online.

• An image of the Welsh poet RS Thomas appeared on packs of Tyrrell’s Sweet Chilli & Red Pepper crisps as pack of a promotion they were running which featured the tagline “Win a fleeting look of contempt… or £25,000.” Read more at The Telegraph, Cambrian News and Bakery and Snacks.

• Jazz musician Herbie Hancock was appointed the Harvard University 2014 Norton Professor of Poetry. He will deliver six lectures on a variety of topics. Read more at The Root, Boston Music Spotlight and Examiner.

Herbie Hancock
[Flickr Creative Commons © Evert-Jan]

Deaths

• Amiri Baraka, the provocative writer and leader of the 1960s Black Arts movement, died aged 79. Read more at The Wall Street Journal, The New York Times and The Guardian.

• Juan Gelman, the renowned Argentinian poet who was a left-wing activist and guerrilla in the 1960s and 1970s, died aged 83. Read more at BBC News, The Guardian and The New York Times.

• Namdeo Dhasal, noted Marathi poet and one of the founders of the radical organisation The Dalit Panthers, died aged 64. Read more at The Hindu, DNA India and Pune Mirror.

• José Emilio Pacheco, one of Mexico’s foremost poets, died aged 74. Read more at BBC News, The New York Times and News International.

Awards

• Sinéad Morrissey won the 2013 TS Eliot Award for her fifth collection, Parallax. Read more at The Guardian, The Independent and The Telegraph. Watch her read from the collection here:

• Jennifer Maiden won Australia’s Victorian Prize for Literature for her most recent collection, Liquid Nitrogen. Read more at The Sydney Morning Herald, ABC and artsHub.

Book Releases

• The Poetry of Sex, ed. Sophie Hannah (not yet rated on GoodReads). Read reviews at The Sunday Times, The Guardian and The Independent.

• The Hotel Oneira by August Kleinzahler (3.8/5 based on 11 ratings at GoodReads). Read reviews at The Washington Post, Publishers Weekly and New Statesman.

• Pilgrim’s Flower by Rachael Boast (not yet rated on GoodReads). Read reviews at The Skinny, The Guardian and BookReviewBlogger. Author interviewed at Literature Works.

• Speak, Old Parrot by Dannie Abse (4/5 based on 2 ratings at GoodReads). Read reviews at The Guardian, New Welsh Review and Camden Review.

• Impromptus: Selected Poems and Some Prose by Gottfried Benn (4.4/5 based on 5 ratings at GoodReads). Read reviews at The Arts Fuse and The Guardian.

All ratings are from GoodReads as at 10/02/2014.

Poems I Like (2)

Tags

Adrienne Rich, American, angel, Annabel Lee, Argentinian, Atlantic Wire, ballad, biblical, blogs, British, Cecil Day-Lewis, Charlie Clark, Chaucer, competition, Crabwise, Dead Stars and Poetry, death, doctors, e e cummings, English, Four Little Words, Gabriel, George Szirtes, GoodReads, Google Books, Huffington Post, Hungarian, i carry your heart, Irish Times, Jacob Polley, Jassy Melson, jazz, Leopoldo Lugones, life, Listening to Sun Ra Birds Convene Outside my Window, love, M Flynn Ragland, movies, New York Times, nursery rhyme, Poe, poetry, Pop Goes the Weasel, r-p-o-p-h-e-s-s-a-g-r, social network, Spanish, Story of My Death, The Guardian, The Havocs, The Old Municipal Pool, The Raven, The Weasel, twitter

In October 2012 I posted Part One of poems I like. This is Part Two.

The idea is very simple. This is a summary of all the poetry I’ve stumbled across online recently that I liked and thought worth sharing. I hope you find one or two gems in here that you enjoy too.

I’ll start with Edgar Allan Poe. I confess I’ve never read a single one of Poe’s poems before, despite him being a giant of American literature. At the recommendation of a fellow blogger over at Dead Stars and Poetry, I tried out his masterpiece The Raven, which is wonderfully atmospheric and haunting (“Only this, and nothing more”) and Annabel Lee, a delightful poem of love lost that feels a little ballad-like in form.

Mental note – read more Poe!

I’ve also been reading enjoying George Szirtes. Szirtes is a British poet, Hungarian-born. His poems have a surreal yet grandiose feel to them that is rather unsettling but also quite gripping. I would recommend Crabwise as a starting point. It beings in a comical vein but develops into an incredibly moving poem and features the wonderful description of doctors as “strange gods of hope / curators of the body and the edges of the soul.” Szirtes, by the way, writes a fascinating blog and is also on Twitter at @george_szirtes.

Death isn’t a subject anyone likes to dwell on too much, but it makes a moving subject for (well-written) poetry. So next, here’s two poems about death that you really must read.

Story of My Death by Leopoldo Lugones (translated from Spanish) is uncomfortable reading at first, but you only need to re-read it a couple of times before it becomes clear it is less about death and more about life and love. Four Little Words by Jassy Melson, on the other hand, is a meditation on how the death of one person is simultaneously both inconsequential and momentous. A real gem this one and very moving.

Jacob Polley has recently published an acclaimed collection The Havocs, and rather neatly you can preview a few of its poems on Google Books. I enjoyed his quirky poem The Weasel which plays on the traditional nursery rhyme Pop Goes the Weasel. Google Books looks like a good way to sample new poetry before you buy, assuming they do this for other collections too.

Gabriel by Adrienne Rich is a brilliantly judged, almost stream-of-consciousness depiction of a woman, reading alone, imaging a visit from the angel Gabriel. I like the interplay of biblical and modern language about love.

e. e. cummings isn’t a poet I’ve read for some time but he’s an old favourite from school, so it’s been an absolute joy to delve again into his raucous and even now startlingly original poetic forms. i carry your heart is a beautiful, wholehearted love poem, while r-p-o-p-h-e-s-s-a-g-r has to be one of the most fun poems ever written in English.

Sometimes a poem speaks to you in an unexpected way. I found this with Listening to Sun Ra, Birds Convene Outside my Window by Charlie Clark. It’s about a man who usually listens to conventional music making himself listen to Sun Ra, a jazz musician, and walking us through the experience. I related to the narrator very strongly and immediately marked this poem “all-time favourite.” I’d be interested to know what other people think of it.

The Old Municipal Pool by M. Flynn Ragland, seen here on the GoodReads poetry competition shortlist for January, is a really striking work, which deals with a serious subject (murder) in a subtle but effective way. Take a look and while you’re at it why not join GoodReads, which is brilliant social network for readers.

Finally, here’s a look at some of the poetry articles I’ve enjoyed reading recently.

The Huffington Post ran an interesting little article looking at when does quoting poetry in movies work. Meanwhile, I discovered from The Atlantic Wire that Chaucer coined the word “twitter.” There was a great study in The Guardian on what times of the day different poets like to write. I don’t usually think of food as being an ideal subject for poetry, but The New York Times proved me wrong in a recent article. Finally, the Irish Times has been arguing that Cecil Day-Lewis deserves a resurgence in popularity.

That’s all I’ve got for you now. It’s been a pleasure writing this and reading through all this wonderful poetry again. I hope you enjoy it too!

Thanks for reading.