Unlike the American Poet Laureate, the British national poet is expected to write commissioned poems celebrating special occasions in the life of the British royal family. But Carol Ann Duffy has taken her post as the United Kingdom’s designated public poet well beyond the royals, writing poems about political uproar in Parliament, climate change, and the deaths of the last two surviving British soldiers who served in World War I. Now she’s written a poem for the wounded warrior of soccer (or football, as everyone outside the US calls it), David Beckham:

from The Telegraph (UK):
“David Beckham’s Achilles injury commemorated by Poet Laureate,” by Nick Collins
“A new poem by Carol Ann Duffy immortalises David Beckham’s Achilles injury in a poem that compares the former England captain to the classical warrior.”

Other Posts on Poetry and Sports:
Baseball in Poetry (2009)
Poets in Baseball (2009)
Baseball Poems -- Often Populist Summer Perennials (2008)

More on Poets Laureate:
Poets Laureate, a Brief History
Poets Laureate of the U.S.A., a Net-Annotated List

Our Profiles of Recent U.S. Poet Laureates
Kay Ryan (2008-2010)
Charles Simic (2007-2008)
Donald Hall (2006-2007)
Ted Kooser (2004-2006)
Louise Glück (2003-2004)
Stanley Kunitz (2000-2001)
Robert Pinsky (1997-2000)

Not quite... There’s an animated version of her poem “Advertisement” in the Poetry Foundation’s Poetry Everywhere video collection. And if you were in London in 2006, you could have seen Jenny Holzer’s projections of her poems on landmark buildings there... But it seems you would have to get Polish television in order to see Wislawa Symborska herself, in the new documentary that has been reported, but apparently not released, all over the world.

from Associated Press:
“New documentary on Nobel laureate Szymborska,” by Agata Klapec
“The 70-minute documentary ‘Sometimes Life is Bearable’ by Katarzyna Kolenda-Zaleska being aired Sunday is the first time the notoriously media-shy writer has offered such insight into her life and fascinations. She let a crew from Poland’s TVN television visit her at home in Krakow and accompany her on travels throughout Europe from Italy to Ireland.... Viewers see Szymborska, 86, enjoying her less-known literary hobby—composing saucy limericks.... In more personal moments, the document details Szymborska’s insatiable love of a good prank, too.”

It sounds as if she embodies in her person the same startling combination of wit, fun and profundity carried in her poems—has any of our readers managed to see the film?

More films about poets and poetry:
Our reviews and articles
John Keats’ Bright Star (September 2009)
Charles Olson and the Persistence of Place (April 2009)
A new Poe(try) film: The Death of Poe (August 2006)
Neruda & Ferlinghetti: Two 20th century poetic icons captured on film (January 2006)

Thanks to the efforts of a few member poets, our Forum’s InterBoard Poetry Competition folder has become a very lively place, with a wealth of good poems nominated for the monthly InterBoard Poetry Competition. Here are the poems entered from our Forum for March:

• “Loss of Face” by Christine J. Schiff, a deceptively simple piece that applies great subtlety and a light touch in a single conceit that deals with faces, masks, images, everything connected with the physical expression of experience.
• Alcaeus’ “Your Face in the Mirror,” another “face” poem painting in great detail the interplay of consciousness and external reality sparked by a mirror reflection, in two parts, “Her” and “Him.”
• “To Die For” by Tim J. Brennan (68degrees), a poem that beautifully captures the intensity of details experienced under medical stress by a poet whose heart remains open to the people around him—
  
  “...with each elevator door
  that opens and with each new floor
  we arrive upon, another poem
  steps out”

Kudos and luck in the judging to all three poets!

More on the IBPC:
General information
Requirements for IBPC nominees
Anthology of the monthly IBPC winning poems
Archive of poems entered in the IBPC from our Poetry Forum Background information, reading and book-buying links for January-March 2010 IBPC judges Dorianne Laux and Joseph Millar

Here are the winning poems in last month’s InterBoard Poetry Competition, just announced by judges Dorianne Laux and Joseph Millar:

• In first place, “What” by Jude Goodwin (whose poem also placed first in January!), “a poem about poetry, but also about humanity and art, struck through with humor...”
• In second place, “A Question of Nakedness” by Melanie Firth, liked by the judges “for its generosity to the aging body in all its guises, its scars and scabs and folds, its furrows and deadly moles.”
• In third place, “Absence of Detail” by Debbie Calverley, a poem that “moves from image to image” and finally “becomes a poem in spite of the poet’s most common complaint”—“there is nothing to write.”
• Laux and Millar also made honorable mention without comment of three more poems: “Ars Poetica #7” by Tim Blighton, “O Be Joyful” by Judy Swann, and “Triolet on a Line by Billy Collins” by Antonia Clark.

None of these poems came from our Forum, but hope springs eternal, and the Forum poets have been busily nominating and polishing poems for entry in the past month, so we should have a fine choice of entries for March. We will be back to report when they have been submitted to the IBPC editors.

More on the IBPC:
General information
Requirements for IBPC nominees
Anthology of the monthly IBPC winning poems
Archive of poems entered in the IBPC from our Poetry Forum Background information, reading and book-buying links for January-March 2010 IBPC judges Dorianne Laux and Joseph Millar