|
Poets in the News |
 |
| 2003 Archive |
|
A POET HIDDEN IN EVERY PERSON
10.6.2003
Our front-page About Poetry blog has largely replaced the ongoing page of Poets in the News you’re reading right now, at least with respect to the arrivals & passings of poets of national or international renown. But your poetry guides are still keeping an eye on local papers all over the world, and during the past few weeks we’ve noted a cluster of news stories revealing how many people whose lives have been devoted to other endeavors are also poets, and how many poets are devoting their names & their poems to actions in the world beyond poetry:
TED JOANS, 1928 - 2003
from The San Francisco Chronicle and T. Paul Ste. Marie
5.7.2003
Beat, jazz, surrealist poet & painter, musician & “lover of life” Ted Joans was found dead in his apartment in Vancouver, British Columbia on Wednesday, May 7th. Use the Ted Joans links in our library of contemporary poets to find more about him online; use the book links right here to read his work on the page: Teducation: Selected Poems, 1954-1999 (Coffee House Press, 1999), Our Thang: Selected Poems, Selected Drawings (ill. Laura Corsiglia, Ekstasis Editions, 2001), Black Pow-Wow: Jazz Poems (Hill and Wang, 1969). A tribute page is posted at Empty Mirror Books, where his long-time companion Laura Corsiglia suggests that Joans be remembered as he remembered Charlie Parker: “When Charlie Parker died, Ted Joans coined the phrase ‘BIRD LIVES’ and wrote it in chalk or charcoal on walls all over New York.... Grab some sidewalk chalk or charcoal and write ‘TED JOANS LIVES’ everywhere you can!” A memorial poetry reading in celebration of his life & words will take place at Bukowski’s Bar & Grill in Vancouver on May 14.
MOHAMMED DIB, 1920 - 2003
from Pierre Joris on the Buffalo Poetics List and The Guardian
5.4.2003
Algerian poet, novelist and playwright Mohammed Dib, who grew up speaking Arabic but wrote in French, died on Friday, May 2nd at the age of 82. He is best known for his exploration of sociopolitical realities in novels like The Savage Night / La Nuit Savage (trans. C. Dickson, Bison Books, 2001), and for his poetic forays into myth and consciousness. The only collection of his poems translated into English is Omneros (trans. Paul Vangelisti & Carol Lettieri, Red Hill Press, 1978). Double Change has selections from his poem “L.A. Trip” online in the original French and in Paul Vangelisti’s English translation.
BILL NEVINS suspended from his poetry teaching job after a student reads her anti-Iraq war poem on the school TV system
from Education Week, with thanks to Robyn Su Millerz for pointing out the story
4.30.2003
Bill Nevins is a well known poet, activist, teen slam team organizer & until now, teacher at Rio Rancho public high school in New Mexico. Not only was he suspended after his student Courtney Butler read her poem on the school’s closed circuit TV, but the Slam Team/Write Club he organized & coached was disbanded. A series of articles at Green Left Weekly, for which Nevins writes about cultural issues, recounts the controversy & includes the poem which aroused the ire of school officials, “Revolution X.”
STATE POETS LAUREATE gather for their first conference, “Poetry and Politics”
from The New York Times and the New Hampshire Writers’ Project
4.28.2003
New Hampshire Poet Laureate Marie Harris initiated this first-ever national gathering of poets laureate after realizing that while 31 states and the District of Columbia have laureates, most of them had never met their counterparts. The weekend meeting took place during National Poetry Month, April 25th and 26th -- Friday was devoted to a series of readings all over New Hampshire, and the laureates spent Saturday in panel discussions on the role of poets in public life. Audio clips from the conference are posted at New Hampshire Public Radio and Daisy Fried’s notes from the weekend billed as “Nations of the Mind” are online at Poetry Daily.
PAUL MULDOON wins the 2003 Pulitzer Prize for poetry
from The Daily Princetonian
4.17.2003
Muldoon was born in County Armagh, Northern Ireland, and worked for many years as a radio and television producer for the BBC there before coming to the U.S. in 1987. He currently directs the creative writing program at Princeton University. Moy Sand and Gravel (Farrar Straus & Giroux, 2002), for which he was awarded the Pulitzer, is his ninth book of poems. His other recent collections include Poems 1968 - 1998 (Farrar Straus & Giroux, 2001), Hay (Farrar Straus & Giroux, 1998) & Madoc: A Mystery ((Farrar Straus & Giroux, 1991, Noonday Press reprint edition, 1992), cited by many readers as his masterpiece.
ANDRE BRETON’s Paris home and collections on the auction block
from Larry Sawyer at Milk Mag
4.8.2003
Larry writes, “The entire contents of André Breton’s longtime Paris residence are on the auction block because the French government neglected to care enough to preserve this address and the contents therein for future generations. Although Breton’s wife and daughter made a valiant attempt to keep his personal effects/art collection intact, their efforts have reached the end of the road so that a quick 30 or so million can be made and the residence turned into condos.” A petition protesting the sale has been circulated on the Net and signed by the likes of Lawrence Ferlinghetti, Clayton Eshleman, Anne Waldman, Susan Sontag & John Ashbery. The catalog is online at the site of the auction house, CalmelsCohen. Reuters reports the proceeds of the auction “smashed estimates.”
The Poetry of D.H. RUMSFELD, “Recent works by the secretary of defense”
from Slate magazine
4.2.2003
Hart Seely gathered this collection of found poems from Defense Department transcripts of Rumsfeld’s interviews and press conference comments. It includes such gems as:
A CONFESSION
Once in a while,
I’m standing here, doing something.
And I think,
“What in the world am I doing here?”
It’s a big surprise.
POPE JOHN PAUL II publishes his “poetic last testament”
from Guardian Unlimited Book News
3.7.2003
Karol Wojtyla was a prolific poet before he became Pope John Paul II 25 years ago. Now the Vatican has issued Roman Triptych, a three-part poetic meditation on life and death, seen by representatives of the Catholic Church as a sort of last will and testament. Handwritten in Polish, the new book has not yet been published in English, but many of the Pope’s earlier poems are in an earlier collection of English translations, The Place Within: The Poetry of Pope John Paul II (Random House, 1994, paperback edition 1998).
ADRIENNE RICH wins the 2003 Bollingen Prize
from Yale University Office of Public Affairs
2.13.2003
Rich is one of our most essential, eloquent & powerful poets, cited by the Bollingen judges for her “honesty at once ferocious and humane, her deep learning, her continuous poetic exploration and awareness of multiple selves...” The award is for her 2001 book, Fox: Poems 1998-2000 (W.W. Norton & Company, 2001), and for her lifetime achievement. Her other recent books include The Fact of a Doorframe: Poems 1950-2001 (new edition, W.W. Norton & Company, 2002), Dark Fields of the Republic: Poems 1991-1995 (W.W. Norton & Company, 1995), An Atlas of the Difficult World: Poems 1988-1991 (W.W. Norton & Company, 1991), and What Is Found There: Notebooks on Poetry and Politics (W.W. Norton & Company, 1993). You can read a few of her poems online by following the Adrienne Rich links in our library of contemporary poets -- the taste will make you want to buy her books!
MORE ON THE CANCELLED WHITE HOUSE EVENT & THE FEBRUARY ANTI-WAR PROTESTS...
FEBRUARY 12, “A Day of Poetry Against the War”
In cities and towns all across the United States and around the world, poets gathered for readings against the war in Iraq. To join your voice in the chorus of poets protesting war and fostering peace, visit Poets Against the War or United Poets Coalition (Poets4Peace):
MORE SCHEDULED PROTEST READINGS:
- “Celebrate Peace at Bowery Poetry Club,” all day FEBRUARY 12 at Bowery Poetry Club, New York City
- “An Open Forum for Art, Poetry and Performance Against War” presented by The Poetry Center, Modern Times Bookstore & Artists Action Network, FEBRUARY 12 at Modern Times Bookstore, San Francisco
- Poets Against the War Reading sponsored by Ibbetson Street Press, FEBRUARY 16 at McIntyre and Moore Books, Someville, Massachusetts
- “Poems Not Fit for the White House,” FEBRUARY 17 at Lincoln Center, New York City
“A Day of Poetry For the War,” by James Taranto
from The Wall Street Journal
2.12.2003
Meanwhile, WSJ.com’s OpinionJournal felt compelled to counter the movement of poets against the war by collecting this group of poems in favor of the war on Iraq.
“A Song of Themselves,” by Leonard Garment
from The New York Times
2.8.2003
“The Poets vs. the First Lady,” by J. Bottum
from The Weekly Standard
2.7.2003
“Poetry Makes Nothing Happen? Ask Laura Bush,” by Katha Pollitt
from The Nation
2.6.2003
“Poets Pit Pens Against Swords,” by Martin Arnold
from The New York Times
2.6.2003
“U.S. Poet Laureate Opposes War With Iraq,” by Hillel Italie (Associated Press)
from Common Dreams News Center
2.6.2003
“With Antiwar Poetry Set, Mrs. Bush postpones White House symposium”
from The New York Times
1.31.2003
“Laura Bush has postponed a White House symposium on the works of Emily Dickinson, Langston Hughes and Walt Whitman after some of the poets invited said they hoped to use the event to protest American military action in Iraq.” Reactions from former U.S. Poet Laureates Rita Dove & Stanley Kunitz appeared in The New York Times, from David Lehman, Mary Oliver and former Laureate Robert Pinsky in The Boston Globe.
DANA GIOIA confirmed by the U.S. Senate as NEA Chairman
from the National Endowment for the Arts
1.30.2003
See our 2002 item on Gioia’s nomination for more information.
TODD SWIFT enlists “100 poets in protest against war”
from The Globe and Mail (Canada)
1.28.2003
Under the heading “Words want to be free,” 100 Poets Against the War and its two successor anthologies are available for download in PDF format (designed to be printed out, copied & distributed as chapbooks) at NthPosition.com. Swift calls the first collection “perhaps the speediest world poetry anthology ever -- one week from start to finish (27 January).”
SAM HAMILL calls on poets to “make February 12 a day of Poetry Against the War”
from Poetsagainstthewar.org
1.24.2003
After receiving an invitation to the White House for a poetry symposium, poet and Copper Canyon Press editor Sam Hamill sent an email asking poets “to speak up for the conscience of our country and lend his or her name to our petition against this war,” intending to compile an anthology of protest to be presented to the White House on the day of the symposium. In response, he received many thousands of emails, and is posting the poets’ names and poems at Poetsagainstthewar.org.
MORE POETS IN THE NEWS...
Most recent
2002 archive
