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.”

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Poetry News Round Up: March 2013

Tags

actor, Aime Cesare, album, An Appointment with Mr Yeats, Auden, Australian, award, Azerbaijani, Bashar al-Assad, BBC, Bedouin, Bombardment of Homs, book, Brand New Ancients, Cecil Day-Lewis, censorship, chicken, Christopher Pollnitz, Clive James, Clothes that Escaped the Great War, comic, competition, contest, Daily Times, death, DH Lawrence, Ehsan Sehgal, Emilie Blachere, English, fast food, First World War, food safety, French, Glastonbury, Greek, illness, John Ashbery, Kate Tempest, KFC, love, Love Letter from Emilie Blachere to Remi Ochlik, Marie Ponsot, Million's Poetry, music, Nabati, National Poetry Competition, New York, news, Pablo Neruda, Paddy O'Connell, Pakistani, Patricia McCarthy, performance poetry, Peruvian, photography, poetry, politics, Quick Question, radio, Radio 4, Raghda, Remi Ochlik, rhyme, rhyming, Ruth Lilly Poetry Prize, Scottish, Siegfried Sassoon, social media, Suhail Al Mazroue, Syrian, Ted Hughes Poetry Prize, terminal illness, The Guardian, The Poems, The Waterboys, TV, twitter, UAE, UNESCO, Urdu, war, Wilfred Owen, World Poetry Day, X Factor, Yeats, Zarb-e-Sukhan

All your essential poetry news from the month of March, delivered straight to your door with no extra charge for postage and packing.

Poetry and War

There’s always been a close relationship between war and poetry, as successive people have sought to make some sort of sense of evil and death.

This was brought home to us again this month by the astonishing ‘Love Letter from Emilie Blachère to Rémi Ochlik,’ a love poem written by the girlfriend of Rémi Ochlik, the French photographer who was killed a year ago during the bombardment of Homs in Syria.

Rémi Ochlik, the night before he was killed
[Source: Flickr Creative Commons © FreedomHouse]

The BBC presenter Paddy O’Connell was left choked with tears as Emilie’s poem was read out during his Radio 4 programme and he left the airwaves silent for 12 seconds before regaining his composure.

Poetry and the Syrian conflict appeared a further time in the news when Raghda, a famous actress, was attacked in response to explicitly supporting President Assad and reciting anti-Islamist poems.

Poetry and Illness

On a similarly sobering note, the veteran Australian broadcaster Clive James has penned a moving poem about the effects of his terminal illness and the way in which he is retreating from the world.

Rhyming can be Fun

Another Cecil Day-Lewis poem was discovered this month. Well, I say ‘poem,’ it is more a sample of quirky rhymes produced to help a pupil and is in fact a response to a similar effort from WH Auden. The second stanza reads: “To ignite / Sticks of dynamite / Is not the chief delight / of Norman Wright / Which is proved by the fact that he is still in sight”.

Also this month, an album by the Scottish group Waterboys was released called An Appointment with Mr Yeats,’ in which they have set Yeats‘s poetry to music in 14 songs. (This is the US release. The album came out in the UK in 2011.)

The Waterboys in Concert
[Source: Flickr Creative Commons © denaflows]

Poets in High Places

Suhail Al Mazroue has become the UAE’s new Energy Minister. Among other things, Suhail is known for having a passion for Nabati poetry, an art form with Bedouin roots. In 2006, he even took part in Million’s Poetry, an X Factor-like TV contest for Arab poets. Lines of poetry still dominate his Twitter feed.

Chicken Poetry

That’s right – chicken poetry. The fast food chain KFC launched a contest on social media asking fans to pen a poem which included the line “the chickens are innocent.” The initiative is part of a media campaign designed to be a riposte to food safety criticisms of the chain.

An Inspiration for Poetry?
[Source: Flickr Creative Commons © isriya]

World Poetry Day

On 21 March (which happens to be my birthday!), UNESCO celebrated World Poetry Day, focusing on the poetry of William Butler Yeats, Pablo Neruda and Aimé Césaire and also some lesser-known authors from Azerbaijan and Greece.

Awards

• Kate Tempestwon the Ted Hughes Poetry Prize for her hour-long ‘spoken story,’ Brand New Ancients. Kate is a well-known poet who has performed at Glastonbury.
• Patricia McCarthy won the UK’s National Poetry Competition with a First World War poem inspired by her mother’s stories, ‘Clothes that Escaped the Great War.’ The poem has drawn comparisons with Wilfred Owen and Siegfried Sassoon.
• Marie Ponsot won the lucrative Ruth Lilly Poetry Prize. She pocketed $100,000 in recognition of a lifetime’s achievement in poetry.

Book Releases

Notable book releases in the month of March included:

• The Poems by DH Lawrence, a new uncensored edition of his poems that the editor, Christopher Pollnitz, claims “reveals him as a brilliant war poet.”
  
• Zarb-e-Sukhan by Ehsan Sehgal, a collection of Urdu poems that was written over a span of 42 years. The Daily Times describes it as a “splendid poetry collection.”
• Quick Question by John Ashbery, a collection comic poems about urban New York scenes. The Guardian says there’s a “renewed vigour to this latest offering from one of America’s most accomplished poets.”

Poetry News Round Up: February 2013

Tags

A E Housman, African, African-American, ambassador, American, animation, Archangel, auction, award, BBC, Black History Month, Black Panthers, book, British, bullying, Charlotte Bronte, childhood, Chris Beckett, civil rights, Dear Boy, Democrat, East Sussex, Emily Berry, English, Ethiopian, Ethiopian Boy, European, expressive men, February, Frost Medal, graffiti, Guardian, handwritten, He Wonders Whether to Praise or Blame Her, Henry Shukman, Herald Scotland, Japanese, Jewish, John Boehner, John Clare, Jupiter Hammon, king, Latin American, Leicester, Les Ballons, London, Manhattan, manuscript, medieval, Mohammed al-Ajami, New Mexico, obscene, Oscar Wilde, Patty Murray, poetry, Poetry Society of America, politics, Qatari, radio, Radio 4, Republican, Richard III, Robert Bly, Romanian, Rudyard Kipling, Rupert Brooke, Russian, Saudi, school, Senate, Shane Koyczan, Telegraph, To This Day, Tony Harrison, translation, treasure, twitter, unpublished, v, Valentine, Valentine's Day, VAWA, video, Welsh

Your summary of all the essential poetry news from the month of February, painstakingly distilled by yours truly…

Be My Valentine

A study in the UK for Valentine’s Day showed that a quarter of women would like their partner to write them a handwritten poem on February 14^th, compared to just 1% of women who said they wanted lingerie.

Love Poem
[Source: Flickr Creative Commons © paloetic]

The Republican House Speaker, John Boehner, on the other hand, probably didn’t want or expect the poem he received on Twitter from Democrat senator Patty Murray, which read: “Roses are red. Violets are blue. The #Senate passed #VAWA. Now it’s up to you.” VAWA is the Violence Against Women Act.

Bullying

An animated video about bullying went viral this month. The video is an animated version of Shane Koyczan’s excellent and harrowing poem ‘To this Day’ about the impacts of bullying and it’s a must see.

v

On the 18^th February BBC Radio 4 read out Tony Harrison’s landmark but controversial poem v. The poem was inspired by an incident when Harrison visited his parent’s grave and discovered it has been desecrated by obscene graffiti.

The Guardian published an excellent article about v examining its links to social changes in the north of England.

 “A horse, a horse! My kingdom for a horse!”

The recent news that the body of the medieval English king Richard III has been found in a Leicester car park has attracted a lot of attention.

Richard III’s Remains
[Source: Flickr Creative Commons © fotemas]

One interesting story reported that a Welsh poem was being used to work out exactly how Richard died. The poem describes how Richard’s head was scalped or “shaved” and this is being compared to forensic evidence from the remains.

Black History Month

It was Black History month in the USA and this threw up a few stories. A student at the University of Texas at Arlington discovered a poem written by the USA’s first published black writer, Jupiter Hammon. The poem dates from 1786 and is an important addition to the history of African-American literature.

Meanwhile, a poem read out over the intercom at a high school as part of Black History month caused controversy when it was discovered that it was written by a Black Panther. The Black Panthers were a controversial 1960s civil rights movement that supported militant action.

News from the Gulf

The life imprisonment of the Qatari poet Mohammed al-Ajami, which I reported in November, has been reduced to 15 years on appeal.

Poetry in Translation

A Saudi university student attracted plenty of attention in local media by skillfully writing and delivering a poem in perfect Japanese to government officials.

Equally impressively, the British ambassador to Romania wowed local senators this month by reciting an iconic Romanian poem.

Treasure Troves

50 unpublished Rudyard Kipling poems have been found during renovations at a house in Manhattan. The hoard has been described as a “treasure trove.” There are hopes the poems could be displayed at the family home in East Sussex.

Rudyard Kipling’s House in Sussex
[Source: Flickr Creative Commons © florriebassingbourn]

Meanwhile a real treasure trove of millions of dollars has been hidden by a New Mexico multimillionaire who has sensationally published a poem revealing clues to its whereabouts.

Up for Auction

There was an unusually steady stream in February of rare poetry manuscripts going up for auction. These included:

• A rare handwritten A E Housman draft of a poem about unrequited love.
• The manuscript of Oscar Wilde’s poem ‘Les Ballons.’
• An extremely rare handwritten poem by Charlotte Bronte.
• A Rupert Brooke poem, ‘He Wonders Whether to Praise or Blame Her,’ which contains multiple revisions in his own hand.
• An unpublished John Clare verse of 12 lines.

Awards

The American poet Robert Bly received the Poetry Society of America’s Frost Medal for a “distinguished lifetime achievement in poetry.” Bly is known for being part of “the expressive men’s movement” that sought to reconnect men with their masculinity, and for his translations of European and Latin American poetry.

Book Releases

Notable poetry book releases in February included:

• Archangel by Henry Shukman, which tells the story of several thousand Jewish tailors who were forcibly repatriated from London to Russia in 1917. Herald Scotland describes the poems as “moving and narrative-led.”
• Dear Boy, a debut collection from Emily Berry. The Guardian says that Berry’s voice is “new yet anything but hesitant” and that “she approaches poetry as a flexible, permissive, dynamic ally.”
• Ethiopian Boy by Chris Beckett, inspired by the author’s childhood in Ethiopia. The Telegraph says that his “colourful incantations evoke the sights and sounds and above all the food of the East African nation.”

Archive: Poetry News from January 2013 can be viewed here.