The Poetry Foundation has launched a free iPhone app. The app contains a library of hundreds of poems by classic and contemporary poets. The app includes a search that lets you search through the lines of all the poems in its database. You can also shake your iPhone to randomly discover a new poem. Users of the app can also share poems with others using email, Facebook or Twitter. The app can be downloaded here from iTunes. The Poetry Foundation also has a webpage about the new app here.
Bill Murray Reads Poems to Poets House Construction Workers
Members of the construction team which built Poets House's new home were joined by actor Bill Murray for the first poetry reading at 10 River Terrace. Take a look:
Carol Ann Duffy Writes Poem About Eyjafjallajokull Ash Cloud
British Poet Laureate Carol Ann Duffy wrote a poem about Eyjafjallajokull and its volcanic ash cloud that disrupted so many travel plans. You can listen to the poem here.
Five miles up, the hush and shoosh of ash,
yet the sky is as clean as a wiped slate-
I could write my childhood there. Selfish
to sit in this garden, listening to the past-
a gentleman bee wooing its flower, a lawnmower-
when grounded planes mean ruined plans, holidays
on hold, sore absences from weddings, funerals,
wingless commerce.
But Britain's birds
sing in this spring, from Inverness to Liverpool,
from Crieff to Cardiff, Oxford, London Town,
Land's End to John O' Groats; the music silence summons,
that Shakespeare heard, Burns, Edward Thomas; briefly, us.
Haiku Herman: European Union President Publishes Poetry Book
European Union President Herman Van Rompuy is also known as Haiku Herman because of his love of haiku. Reuters reports that Rompuy's love for haiku poems became better known because of his role as EU President.
Van Rompuy, 62, was chosen to be the president of the European Council -- effectively a president for the 27 countries in the European Union -- at a summit last November.
Since then his love of haiku poetry has come more prominently to light, with fan clubs emerging on the Internet and poetry masters in Japan taking note. He said there had been calls for him to publish some of his work and he had obliged.
In a preface to the short hardback book, only 2,500 copies of which have been produced, Van Rompuy said he was drawn to haiku for its simplicity, its compact use of language and its concentration on nature.
Here is one of Haiku Herman's haiku poems.
In a nearby ditch
Toads mating passionately
Inaugurate spring
Brave Saudi Woman Finishes Third in Million's Poet Contest
Voice of America is reporting a brave Saudi woman named Hissa Hilal defied death threats to finish third in the Million's Poet contest. Her poetry has also criticized religious extremism. She finished third and took home $800,000.
In the weeks leading up to Wednesday evening's final she wrote and recited poetry condemning the strict laws in her country that separate men and women and also spoke out against Islamic clerics who issue hard-line religious decrees.
Her work was applauded by many who labeled her "brave," but it was also met with resentment from conservative members of Saudi society, some of whom issued death threats against her. Despite the dangers, Hilal refused to back out of the tournament, saying she had a message to get across.
The BBC says the death threat against Hilal were posted on the Internet. You can read more about Hissa Hilal here in the Christian Science Monitor. You can listen to her reading one of her poems in the video below. Take a look:
Harryette Mullen Wins $50,000 Jackson Poetry Prize
Poets & Writers Inc. has announced that Harryette Mullen won a $50,000 Jackson Poetry Prize. The $50,000 prize honors an American poet of exceptional talent who deserves wider recognition.
The judges described Ms. Mullen's poems as "brilliant and enigmatic, familiar and subversive. Like jewels, her poems are multifaceted and shoot off lights. Mullen uses the techniques of sound association, innuendo, and signifying, and this way makes the reader alert to the cunning of the English language."
You can read more about Harryette Mullen here, here, here and here.
April is National Poetry Month. National Poetry Month (NPM) is month-long national celebration of poetry established by the Academy of American Poets in 1996. You can read a faq about National Poetry Month here.
National Poetry Month has media oulets linking to poetry resources. USA Today mentions a few in this post, such as the Poem Flow iPhone app. The Huffington Post has a good roundup here about what some more media oulets and websites are doing for National Poetry Month.
New Shel Silverstein Poetry Collection Coming in 2011
Publishers Weeklyreports that a new Shel Silverstein poetry colleciton will be released in 2011. The poet died in 1999, but there are lots of Shel Silverstein poems that were never published.
Given the author's creativity and output, there is no dearth of material. "Every time Shel did a collection, he had more material than could fit in one book, so he'd put aside the extra material and take it out when he began another book, and would again end up with more than he could possibly use," Markiet recalls. Twelve previously unpublished poems were included in HarperCollins' 2004 30th-anniversary edition of Where the Sidewalk Ends, and another 12 in A Light in the Attic Special Edition, released last fall.
"There is a wealth of material in the archives, and so many fans still write to us and to Shel's family saying how important his work is to them, that the family decided it was the right time to consider another book from that material," says Markiet of the new anthology. She explains that the Silverstein family is carefully considering all the work in the poet's archives to compile the collection, along with members of the HarperCollins staff.
The new collection of 120 to 130 poems will be published by HarperCollins Children's Books in Fall, 2010. You can find out more about Shel Silverstein on the official website at shelsilverstein.com.
Ted Hughes Given Permanent Memorial in Westminster Abbey
The BBC reports that poet Ted Hughes will be recognized with a permanent memorial in Poets' Corner in Westminster Abbey.
His name will feature alongside some of the country's best-loved poets including T.S. Eliot, William Blake and William Wordsworth.
The former poet laureate, who died in 1998, was accepted for the honour by the Dean of Westminster, Dr John Hall.
Dr Hall said it was "right" that Hughes should be remembered for hundreds of years to come.
Ted Hughes was the British Poet Laureate from 1984 until his death in 1998. You can read more about the Westminster Abbey Poet's Corner here.
The BBC reports that a "once in a lifetime" lineup of poets helped raise money for Haiti in an event organized by UK's poet laureate Carol Anne Duffy. The event was held at the Queen's Hall in Edinburgh.
Ms Duffy, one of the main organisers of the event, admitted that "poetry makes nothing happen."
But she said it "has the power of prayer and is the place in language where we are at our most human."
She added: "The people of Haiti need our humanity right now."
The BBC says the event was sold out. Money raised by the event will go to Mercy Corps.
The BBC reports that city officials in Oxford, UK have decided to appoint a poet laureate for the city. The Oxford poet laureate will promote Oxford's culture and participate in literary events.
The honorary role would see the successful candidate promote the city's culture, as well as literary events.
A "clear majority" voted in favour of the voluntary position on Monday night. The city will now follow in the footsteps of Cambridge and Birmingham.
Councillor David Williams, who proposed the idea, said the move would encourage new talent.
The Times Onlinereports that several leading poets are after the job of Oxford poet laureate as well as the University of Oxford's Professor of Poetry position.
The BBC reports that British Poet laureate Carol Ann Duffy has written a Christmas poem. The poem was commissioned by the Radio Times. The poem mentions a number of famous people including US President Barack Obama.
The poem begins: "On the first day of Christmas, a buzzard on a branch. In Afghanistan, no partridge, pear tree; but my true love sent to me a card from home.
"I sat alone, crouched in yellow dust, and traced the grins of my kids with my thumb. Somewhere down the line, for another father, husband, brother, son, a bullet with his name on."
The other 11 verses see the poet give her interpretation of the traditional Christmas song while commentating on the state of society and politics.
The poem also comments on recent events like the financial crisis. Duffy refers to the fiscal crisis when she writes of "bankers' profits fired in greed."
The BBC reports that a dig may find the remains of Spanish poet Federico Garcia Lorca. The excavation is taking place in a remote spot between the Andalucian villages of Viznar and Alfacar. It is where Lorca is believed to have been murdered at the start of the Spanish Civil War. A historian believe his body could determine if he was tortured before he died.
"If they discover him it will lay a ghost to rest," says Ian Gibson, a Madrid-based historian who has penned a biography on Lorca.
"Through finding him, we will learn more. I think he was tortured before they finished him off.
"There may be bullets inside the grave, and who knows what else. It is vital that we find and open it."
The Poetry Society Rolls Out Kniited Dylan Thomas Poem
The Poetry Society rolled out its giant centenary poem at the British Library, in London on October 7th. The giant centenary poem is a hand-knitted version of Dylan Thomas's poem, "In my Craft or Sullen Art." More than one thousand knitters and crocheters worldwide contributed to the construction of the knitted poem.
The BBC reports that Scottish poet Don Paterson has won the £10,000 Forward Poetry Prize for his anthology entitled Rain.
Paterson, who won best first collection in 1993, is only the second poet in the prize's history to take both awards.
Emma Jones has become the first Australian to win the debut prize for her work, The Striped World.
Judge and former Forward prize winner David Harsent had high praise for Paterson's prize-winning anthology, "It is a book of great seriousness by a particularly gifted writer. It has enormous emotional depth and he is a very skilful writer in real command of his craft. Some of the work in it is tremendously moving and one or two of the poems really unsettled me – the book will stay with me."
The announcement coincides with Britain's National Poetry Day. You can see a list of the Forward Poetry Prize shortlist here.
The Washington Posttalked to U.S. Poet Laureate Kay Ryan at the National Book Festival.
Kay Ryan admits that she writes long hand, each morning, in bed. She also says she has a new Laureate wardrobe. She talked about how she thinks about poetry and how people appreciate poetry differently.
It isn't interesting to me. It is not a way that I sort poetry. I sort poetry by the feel it gives my brain. It has nothing to do with gender. I would put Emily Dickinson at the very top of the list, however... People appreciate poetry for many reasons other than poetry. Like, they like the fact that it talks about God, or that it talks about flowers, or that it talks about horses. Or they like it because it's written by women, or by Portuguese people... But I'm interested in--I don't even know what to call it--the essential feel element that doesn't have anything to do with gender.
She also says she even gets recognized now that she is the U.S. Poet Laureate.
I do! I was at a festival recently at Yosemite, and I was standing in line to use the bathroom. This was up in the Tuolumne Meadows, and the people said, You go first! And I said, Oh I couldn't possibly. They said, You must! There was quite a line, and I said, This is great! And then at the reading, I said: Auden said that poetry makes nothing happen, but that's not true--I got cuts in the bathroom line. But it is a little odd. I feel that my food selections at the local health food store are scrutinized a little too seriously.
You can read the full interview with Kay Ryan here.
The home of English poet John Keats is reopening following a renovation that cost over $800,000. John Keats lived in the Regency villa in Hampstead, a part of north London, from 1818-1820. It was here that he composed some of his famous works, including "Ode To A Nightingale."
The Wall Street Journalreports that Keat's home had been a "dilapidated state" before the renovation.
But the house had finished its last major overhaul in the mid-1970s and had been in a "dilapidated state," said Mr. Scott, who is employed by the City of London’s Metropolitan Archives, which has operated the site since 1997. "The floors were so damp and weak," said Geoff Pick, the restoration project’s director, that guides used to be able to take only a few people up to the second floor at a time.
After securing a £424,000 ($717,709) grant from Britain's Heritage Lottery Fund, a new steel frame was installed. Then, said Mr. Pick, the goal was to capture the feel of Wentworth Place during Keats’s time, down to the salmon-pink paint on his bedroom walls, the Chaucer and Milton books dotting the shelves and Brown’s grandfather clock in the corner.
The tubercular Keats watched that clock during his final days at Wentworth Place, lounging on what he called a "Sopha bed," and penning letters to his lover Fanny Brawne next door. Eventually Keats shipped off to Italy in late 1820 for an unsuccessful attempt at convalescence, ultimately dying of the disease in February 1821, at just 25.
Keats House is now a thriving museum dedicated to the poetry of John Keats and to poetry in general. You can visit the official website here.
The shortlist for the Foreward Poetry Prize has been announced. Here are the six finalists.
Glyn Maxwell, Hide Now
Sharon Olds, One Secret Thing
Don Paterson, Rain
Peter Porter, Better than God
Christopher Reid, A Scattering
Hugo Williams, West End Final
The Guardianreports that all six of the poets named in the shortlist are well-established writers.
All six names shortlisted for this year's £10,000 best collection prize are well-established, with the youngest being Don Paterson, 45, who won the Forward best first collection 16 years ago. This year he is nominated for his yet-to-be-published Rain. A titan of an older generation is also nominated with Peter Porter, 80, a previous winner, shortlisted for his 18th collection Better Than God. The Guardian praised it as "a densely fleshed book by a poet at the height of his powers".
The Forward prize's founder, William Sieghart, said the entries – 109 submissions in the best collection category, 57 for best first collection and 120 for best single poem – highlighted "the rude health of the UK's contemporary poetry scene".
The winner of the £10,000 prize will be announed on October 7th.
A feature film adaptation of Edgar Allan Poe's macabre poem "Annabel Lee" will have its world premiere on Thursday, June 11th. The film celebrates the the 200th anniversary of the birth of Edgar Allan Poe. June 11th is the closing night selection of the Dances with Films independent film festival. It will screen at the Laemmle's Sunset 5 in West Hollywood at 9:30 pm. The independent film was written and directed by Michael Rissi and stars newcomers Kristen Hagen, Jon Woodward and Bill Bordy.
"Poe has a classically tragic, yet romantic voice that is at its best in Annabel Lee," said the film’s screenplay writer and director Rissi. "It has been quite awhile since film audiences have been treated with a filmed adaptation of any of his work."
The adaptation of Edgar Allan Poe's "Annabel Lee" tells the story of Jack Blythe, an artist who rents a summer house in a quiet seaside town to find creative inspiration. He gets more than he bargained for when he meets a captivating but hauntingly mysterious woman who offers to be his subject for a painting. When Jack discovers that his seductive stranger resembles a woman presumed dead for 18 years, he becomes obsessed with uncovering the truth. Soon, Jack is caught up in a terrifying struggle that will unravel a mystery and reveal a horrific secret.
More information about the film can be found here.
First lady Michelle Obama and President Barack Obama welcomed actors, poets and writers to the East Room on Tuesday. Some of the legendary performers included Joshua Bennett, James Earl Jones, Eric Lewis, Jamaica Heolimeleikalani Osorio, Mayda Del Valle and Esperanza Spalding.
Fanny Howe has won the prestigious Ruth Lilly Poetry Prize for Life Achievement. The Poetry Foundation announced the award, which carries a $100,000 prize. The prize will be presented on May 19, 2009.
Howe, a professor emerita of writing and literature at the University of California San Diego is renowned for her experimental writing. She has written 21 books of poetry; her most recent poetry title, The Lyrics, was published by Graywolf Press in 2007. Howe has also written 13 fiction titles, and two collections of essays. Graywolf has just released her memoir, The Winter Sun. Besides this most recent honor, Howe was the recipient of the 2001 Lenore Marshall Poetry Prize, 2005 Griffin Poetry Prize, a Guggenheim fellowship, and an award from the Academy of Arts and Letters.
The Lilly Prize, established in 1986, is presented annually by the Poetry Foundation to a living U.S. poet of extraordinary achievement. A total of more than $1 million has already has been awarded to 23 poets, including Adrienne Rich, Lucille Clifton, Donald Hall, John Ashbery, and Richard Wilbur.
Fannny is also known as a short story writer, a novelist and an essayist.
Scott Griffin, founder of The Griffin Trust for Excellence in Poetry and David Young, trustee, have announced the Canadian and International shortlist for this year's prize. The C$100,000 Griffin Poetry Prize is one of the most lucrative poetry prizes in the world.
Canadian Shortlist
Revolver by Kevin Connolly (House of Anansi Press)
Crabwise to the Hounds by Jeramy Dodds (Coach House Books)
The Sentinel by A. F. Moritz (House of Anansi Press)
International Shortlist
The Lost Leader by Mick Imlah (Faber and Faber)
Life on Earth by Derek Mahon (The Gallery Press)
Rising, Falling, Hovering by C. D. Wright (Copper Canyon Press)
Primitive Mentor by Dean Young (University of Pittsburgh Press)
Reuters reports that Seamus Heaney has won the 40,000 pound ($56,000) David Cohen Prize for poetry.
"Much about the David Cohen Prize makes it highly honorific," Heaney, 69, said in a statement.
"First of all there's the list of the previous winners, a roll call of the best; there's the fact that you don't enter for it but are chosen from the wide field of your contemporaries."
Poet laureate Andrew Motion, who chaired a panel of judges, said Heaney's poems had "crystallized the story of our times.
"The self-renewing force of his writing, and the sheer scale of his achievement make the award of the Cohen Prize an absolutely right and proper act of recognition," Motion said.
The judges said the liked the "self-renewing force" of Heaney's. Heaney also won a Nobel Prize in Literature in 1995 "for works of lyrical beauty and ethical depth, which exalt everyday miracles and the living past."
Edgar Allan Poe once apologized to New York publishers for his drunken behavior. The University of Virginia put a letter written by Poe on display. In the letter Poe blames his behavior on juleps.
The university bought the July 18, 1842, letter in a Sotheby's auction after the document spent years in private hands. University officials declined to disclose the price, but said it was purchased with endowment funds.
"Will you be so kind enough to put the best possible interpretation upon my behaviour while in N-York?," Poe asks New York publishers J. and Henry G. Langley. "You must have conceived a queer idea of me - but the simple truth is that Wallace would insist upon the juleps, and I knew not what I was either doing or saying."
He closes the letter expressing his hopes that he'll see the Langleys again "under better auspices." The enclosed article was rejected, but published elsewhere later that year.
That must have been quite a hangover Poe had when he realized he had embarrassed himself in front of his publishers. The University of Virginia exhibit was to mark Poe's 200th birthday. Poe attended the University in 1826.
Russian Artist Creates Miniature Poetry Book Out of Dried Rose Petals
A Russian artist named Anatoly Konenko made a miniature book out of rose petals. The book contains Pushkin poems on its pages. It contains a selection of 28 dried rose petals and measures just 27 X 32 mm. The Reuters video clip below shows Konenko working on creating the tiny rose petal poetry book.
Elizabeth Alexander Talks About Her Role as Inaugural Poet
Poet Elizabeth Alexander was selected as the Inaugural Poet. She will read a poem for the President-elect Barack Obama's historic inauguration on January 20th. Byron Pitts reports on how Alexander's past has led her to this day. She will be only the fourth person to read a poem during a presidential inauguration. Alexander says the inaugural poem is finished.
Poet W.D. Snodgrass has died: he was 83. Snodgrass won a Pulitzer Prize for his poetry and taught for nearly 40 years. He suffered from lung cancer.
His family said he died Tuesday at his home in Madison County, just east of Syracuse.
Snodgrass won the Pulitzer Prize for poetry in 1960 for his first book, "Heart's Needle," which grew from heartbreak at losing custody of his daughter in a bitter divorce.
Although widely credited as a founding member of the "confessional" school of poetry, Snodgrass himself dismissed the label.
Born William DeWitt Snodgrass in Wilkinsburg, Pa., on Jan. 5, 1926, he was known to friends throughout his life as "De," pronounced "dee." He briefly attended Geneva College in Pennsylvania before he was drafted into the Navy during the Second World War.
Although he aspired to a career in music before the war, Snodgrass enrolled afterward in the Writer's Workshop at the University of Iowa, hoping to become a playwright. Instead, he drifted into some poetry classes and studied with such greats as John Crowe Ransom, Karl Shapiro, John Berryman, Randall Jarrell and Robert Lowell.
Snodgrass wrote more than 30 books of poetry and translations. He taught at several colleges and universities, including Cornell and Syracuse University.
You can learn more about W.D. Snodgrass and his poetry
here.
Impeached Illinois Governor Rod Blagojevich ended his defiant press conference with a couple lines from Alfred Tennyson's "Ulysses."
"We are not now that strength which in old days moved earth and heaven; that which we are, we are. One equal temper of heroic hearts, made weak by time and fate, but strong in will to strive, to seek, to find, and not to yield."
Poets & Writers has received the largest donation in its 38-year history. The Liana Foundation (established by the John and Susan Jackson Family) are donating $2 million to endow the Jackson Poetry Prize. The annual $50,000 prize, which was initiated in 2007, honors an American poet of exceptional talent who has published at least one book of recognized literary merit but has not yet received major national acclaim. The award is designed to provide what all poets need– time and the encouragement to write.
"Receiving this generous gift during such a challenging time reminds us of the importance of literature," said Elliot Figman, Executive Director of Poets & Writers.
Here's a downloadable Edgar Allan Poe paper toy. You can download the toy from E.A. Coobie. Everyone needs a gloomy Edgar Alan Poe paper toy for their writing desk. (via Boing Boing)
Louise Glück has won the Wallace Stevens Award and the $100,000 stipend. The Wallace Stevens Award was established in 1994 and is given annually to recognize outstanding and proven mastery in the art of poetry. Averno is one of Glück's recent collections of poetry.
Poets.org has a bio for Louise Glück here. The New York Times also has an entry about Louise Glück winning the poetry award. A list of past winners can be found here.
Grudge Between Florence and Dante's Descendants Still Going Strong
A direct descendant of Dante Aligheri is now boycotting
a ceremony by the city of Florence, Italy which was to posthumously pardon the famous writer for alleged crimes that got him expelled from the city. Apparently, the city council of Florence wasn't sorry enough to suit the present Count Aligheri.
Dante, the father of the Italian language, fled his native city in 1302 after being sentenced to death for crimes including fraud and extortion.
Florence council was to have healed the 700-year rift with the poet by presenting the city's golden florin to Count Pieralvise Serego Alighieri. The count, however, believes the Florentines are not sorry enough.
Last month, a meeting of the council's cultural committee, held to annul the expulsion order, prompted the kind of rancorous divisions that led to Dante's exile. Five councillors voted against the annulment and several others stayed away.
Count Pieralvise said it was "anything but a collective 'mea culpa' and symbolic ending of [Dante's] exile".
"I could have wept when I read the comments of some of the councillors," he said.
The proposed reconciliation, the initiative of two councillors from Silvio Berlusconi's People of Freedom party, ran into fierce opposition from the radical left. Nicola Rotondaro, the leader of a communist group on the council, said Dante "did not need the council to rehabilitate him".
"If he had been sent to his death, would we perhaps have asked for his resurrection?" he said.
The count said it was "as if the people of Stratford-upon-Avon had quarrelled over an event in memory of Shakespeare".
Dante had a dispute with the Papacy, which resulted in him being charged with various crimes and his departure from Florence. The bad blood between his descendants and the city remains to this day, which is really quite impressive. Now, that's what we call holding a grudge.
400-year-old Shakespeare Volume Recovered Intact After Theft
A volume of Shakespeare's works worth millions of dollars which was stolen from a museum ten years ago has been
recovered. The 400 year old book is still intact.
Police have recovered a 400-year-old volume of Shakespeare stolen in England a decade ago and worth millions of dollars (pounds) after a man walked into a library in Washington, D.C., and asked to have it authenticated.
Police in Durham, northeast England, said Friday they had arrested a 51-year-old man over the theft of the First Folio edition of 1623, which scholars consider one of the most important printed books in the English language.
It was among seven centuries-old books and manuscripts stolen in December 1998 from a display case at the Durham University library.
*****
he mystery began to unravel two weeks ago when a man brought the First Folio to Washington's Folger Shakespeare Library and asked to have it verified as genuine. The man claimed to be an international businessman who had bought the volume in Cuba.
"We have people come to us from time to time with questions about books," said Garland Scott, head of external relations at the library, one of the world's leading centers of Shakespearean research. "It's not every day that someone walks in with a First Folio."
Scott said library staff members soon had their suspicions raised. The book was largely intact, but the end boards and some early pages -- which bore marks that would have identified them as the Durham copy -- had been removed.
What an idiot. A first Folio is too recognizable by experts to be sold on the open market. The museum staff asked to keep the book to authenticate it, then called the FBI. The thief is now in jail, where he belongs. The Folio is in a climate-controlled room at the Folger. Somehow the museum director convinced the FBI that the volume was safer there than in an FBI evidence room full of drugs and murder weapons.
Alex Boyd, Anne Simpson Wins Lowther and Lampert Prizes
The Canadian Press reports that Alex Boyd and Anne Simpson have won the 2008 Pat Lowther and Gerald Lampert Memorial Awards.
Boyd was the winner of the $1,000 Lampert award for his book "Making Bones Walk" (Luna Publications), which the judges said was "rich with innovative language and Boyd's very original way of looking at the world."
The Lampert award recognizes the best first book of poetry published by a Canadian in the preceding year. Lampert was an arts administrator who organized authors' tours and took an interest in the work of new writers.
Simpson won the $1,000 Lowther award for "Quick" (McClelland & Stewart). The judges said her poems have "extraordinary range, intelligence and empathy."
The awards were announced at the League of Canadian Poets annual conference. You can find background about Pat Lowther here. Information about the Gerald Lampert Memorial Award can be found here.
The teenagers who held a party in the historic home of Robert Frost in Vermont will finally face their punishment. That terrible punishment, reports the WSJ Law Blog, is merely two sessions of study with Frost biographer and professor Jay Parini.Parini is the author of Robert Frost: A Life.
For their transgressions, each was found guilty, mostly of trespassing, and sentenced to two sessions of study with the Frost biographer, poet, and professor Jay Parini — a "punishment," notes The New Yorker, for which Middlebury students normally pay a hefty sum. The prosecutor, John Quinn, told the magazine, "I guess I was thinking that if these teens had a better understanding of who Robert Frost was and his contribution to our society, that they would be more respectful of other people's property in the future."
For the first class, Parini reportedly turned to Frost's poem "The Road Not Taken." Parini told the students: "Believe me, if you're a teenager, you're always in the damned woods. Literally ... And metaphorically you're in the woods, in your life. Look at you here, in court diversion! If that isn't 'in the woods,' what the hell is 'in the woods'? You're in the woods!"
We hope the teen vandals learn something from being forced to study poetry but this really isn't enough punishment. Is it really fair to young students who actually want to learn poetry that vandals get the lectures they would pay to hear? You can find more discussion of the vandal's punishment on PrawfsBlawg and About.com.
The winners of the Griffin Poetry Prize have been announced. The C$100,000 Griffin Poetry Prize is the richest poetry prize in the world for a single volume of poetry. The prize money is divided among the two winners. 83-year-old Robin Blaser was the Canadian winner for his collection, The Holy Forest: Collected Poems. New York's John Ashbery won the international prize for Notes from the Air: Selected Later Poems. The National Postreports that Blaser said, "Vive la poesie. Long live poetry." as he took the podium.
"Life is full of surprises, isn't it?" said Blaser as he took the podium. "Vive la poesie. Long live poetry."
The prize was founded in 2000, and is awarded to two books of poetry - including translations - published in English the previous year. The two other finalists on the Canadian shortlist were David W. McFadden for Why Are You So Sad? Selected Poems of David W. McFadden; Erin Moure and Robert Majzels for translating Nicole Brossard's Notebook of Roses and Civilization. The three other finalists on the International shortlist were Elaine Equi for Ripple Effect: New and Selected Poems; David Harsent for Selected Poems 1969-2005; Clayton Eshleman, translator of The Complete Poetry of Cesar Vallejo.
This year's jury was comprised of Vanouver writer George Bowering, New York-by-way-of-London writer James Lasdun, and Mexican poet Pura Lopez Colome. The judges read over 500 books from 31 countries before deciding the finalists.
China's massive 7.9 magnitude earthquake that killed tens of thousands in Sichuan's province also greatly rattled the city of Chengdu, China. You can see a detailed map of where the quake was felt here.
NPR says that Chengdu is known as a "a city of writers -with an especially strong community of poets." NPR reports that the massive earthquake that struck China last week has already "started filtering into local writers' works." They tracked down a couple of writers who have already authored poems about the tragedy.
One of the poems is by 45-year-old He Xiaozhu who was working on a novel on the second floor of a teahouse in Chengdu when the earthquake hit. The other poet listed on NPR's website is Wu Qing, who was visting Shanghai at the time of the earthquake.
You can read and listen to both of the poems here.
Gary Snyder has won
the $100,000 Ruth Lilly Poetry Prize, which awarded annually by the Poetry Foundation.
Gary Snyder, a poet known for his verse about nature and spirituality and a former member of the beat movement along with Allen Ginsberg and Jack Kerouac, has won the $100,000 Ruth Lilly Poetry Prize, awarded annually by the Chicago-based Poetry Foundation.
"Gary Snyder is in essence a contemporary devotional poet, though he is not devoted to any one god or way of being so much as to Being itself," Christian Wiman, chair of the selection committee, said in a statement Tuesday.
"His poetry is a testament to the sacredness of the natural world and our relation to it, and a prophecy of what we stand to lose if we forget that relation."
Snyder, who turns 78 in May, has published such collections as "Regarding Wave," "No Nature" and "Turtle Island," winner of the Pulitzer Prize in 1975.
Songwriter Bob Dylan finally received
a Pulitzer Prize.
Dylan, the most acclaimed and influential songwriter of the past half century, who more than anyone brought rock from the streets to the lecture hall, received an honorary Pulitzer Prize on Monday, cited for his "profound impact on popular music and American culture, marked by lyrical compositions of extraordinary poetic power."
It was the first time Pulitzer judges, who have long favoured classical music, and, more recently, jazz, awarded an art form once dismissed as barbaric, even subversive.
"I am in disbelief," Dylan fan and fellow Pulitzer winner Junot Diaz said of Dylan's award.
Diaz's "The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao," a tragic, but humorous story of desire, politics and violence among Dominicans at home and in the United States, won the fiction prize. Diaz, 39, worked for more than a decade on his first novel - "I spent most of the time on dead-ends and doubts," he told The Associated Press on Monday - and at one point included a section about Dylan.
"Bob Dylan was a problem for me," Diaz, who has also published a story collection, "Drown," said with a laugh. "I had one part that was 40 pages long, the entire chapter was organized around Bob Dylan's lyrics over a two year-period (1967-69). By the end of it, I wanted to throttle my like of Bob Dylan."
Simon and Schuster says that Dylan is working on volume two of his memoirs.
You can see the full list of Pulitzer Prize winners here.
Tom Sleigh Wins $100,000 Kingsley Tufts Poetry Award
Poet Tom Sleigh has won the $100,000 Kingsley Tufts Poetry Award for his collection of poetry called Space Walk. The Associated Press says the prize is given to a poet who "who is past the very beginning but has not yet reached the acknowledged pinnacle of his or her career."
Janice N. Harrington's "Even the Hollow My Body Made Is Gone," a debut collection, received the $10,000 Kate Tufts Discovery Award.
Administered by Claremont Graduate University, based in Claremont, Calif., the awards were established in the early 1990s by Kate Tufts in honor of her late husband, poet Kingsley Tufts. Previous winners include Alan Shapiro, Carl Phillips and Michael Ryan.
You can read about the Kingsley Tufts Poetry Award and the Kate Tufts Discovery Award here on the official website. You can read about poet Kingsley Tufts here.
The Edgar Allen Poe fan who leaves tributes at the writer's grave every year on his birthday has struck again. The mysterious visitor appeared once again, leaving three red roses and a half-full bottle of cognac. He then slipped away into the night.
Nearly 150 people had gathered outside the cemetery of Westminster Presbyterian Church, but the man known as the "Poe toaster" was, as usual, able to avoid being spotted by the crowd, said Jeff Jerome, curator of the Poe House and Museum.
The tribute takes place every Jan. 19 - the anniversary of Poe's birth.
The visitor did not leave a note, Jerome said, electing not to respond to questions raised in the past year about the history and authenticity of the tribute.
*****
Jerome invites a handful of Poe enthusiasts to join him inside the church every year but withholds details of the tribute in an effort to help the toaster maintain his anonymity. He said the visitor no longer wears the wide-brimmed hat and scarf he donned in the past.
In 1993, the visitor left a note reading, "The torch will be passed." A later note said the man, who apparently died in 1998, had handed the tradition on to his two sons.
This year's visitor was the same man who has come to the grave site many times in the past, Jerome said.
"We recognize him from his build, the way he walks," he said. "It would be very easy for us, visually, to see if this were a different person."
No one has managed to get a photo of the Poe Toaster. The toasts have been going on since 1949.
Robert Frost, the famous New England poet, had a summer home in Vermont, which has been maintained since his death and is open to visitors in the summer. But the home was badly vandalized
by underage drinkers last weekend.
Homer Noble Farm, a historic landmark in Ripton, Vt., was ransacked Friday night during what police say was a party attended by up to 50 young people.
No arrests have been made, but police said Monday that they have tracked down some of the partygoers and believe they are minors.
Police Sgt. Lee Hodsden says the intruders broke a window to get into the two-storey wood frame building - a furnished residence open to tourists in the summer.
Once inside, they destroyed tables, pictures, windows, light fixtures and dishes. Wicker furniture and dressers were smashed and thrown into a fireplace and burned, apparently to provide heat.
Empty beer bottles and cans, plastic cups and cellophane, apparently used to hold marijuana, were also found.
Hodsden said the vandals vomited in the living room and discharged two fire extinguishers inside the building, located on a dead-end road.
The caretaker had left on Friday and a hiker discovered the damage. What a bunch of losers! We hope the Vermont police track them down and throw the book at them. It sounds like there will be plenty of DNA evidence at the crime scene.
Viggo Mortensen Reportedly Eying Edgar Allan Poe Role
Viggo Mortenson is reportedly in talks to play legendary American horror writer Edgar Allan Poe in a new film about his life.
Sylvester Stallone is currently busy finishing up work on Rambo IV, and may even end up doing a Rambo V, but the Sly project I'm most interested in is the one he's doing after Rambo, a film about tortured poet Edgar Allan Poe. The movie's traveled a rocky road to get going, but it's starting to look like Poe will actually get made. If the film finally does happen, we may know who Stallone is casting as his Edgar Allan.
*****
Our source says, "Stallone has recently met with Viggo Mortensen and has offered him the role of Edgar Allan Poe in the film. Mortensen is considering the role although he wants some slight revisions in the script."
At one point Robert Downey Jr. was rumored to be up for this part, but that was so long ago he's almost certainly moved on by now. Viggo Mortensen is currently shooting a movie called Appaloosa for Ed Harris, but after that he may be free to squeeze something like Poe in. Of course with the strike on, who knows when they’ll be able to start filming Poe anyway, so scheduling wouldn't be a problem. And if what our source says is true, then it sounds like he's not only been offered it, but he's at least a little interested in it.
So far it's just a rumor, but we think Viggo would make an excellent Poe. Dark, twisted and creepy -- what's not to love?
Charles Simic, a Pulitzer Prize- winning writer, will receive two major honors today. He will be named the 15th poet laureate of the U.S. by the Librarian of Congress, succeeding Donald Hall, and he will receive a $100,000 award from the American Academy of Poets.
The laureate appointment, which can be one year or two, comes with a $35,000 annual stipend. Separately, the American Academy of Poets said it plans to announce that Simic is the winner of its Wallace Stevens Award for "outstanding and proven mastery" of the art of poetry. Executive Director Tree Swenson said the announcement was moved up today from Friday because of Simic's laureate appointment.
"The fact that he has been appointed just reconfirms the importance of Charles Simic's work in the contemporary poetry landscape," Swenson said in a phone interview.
Simic, 69, received a MacArthur Foundation "genius" grant of $500,000 for the period 1984-1989. He won the 1990 Pulitzer for poetry for his collection The World Doesn't End: Prose Poems.
His reaction to the brace of honors today was humorous. "Now I just have to break a leg. It's just too much luck," he said in a telephone interview. "I'm just overwhelmed by the amount of good luck, being a superstitious person."
You can read more about Charles and his work here.
USA Todayreports that British poet and playwright John Heath-Stubbs has died at age 88.
John Heath-Stubbs, a British poet and translator who used classical myth as an inspiration for his verse, died Tuesday. He was 88. The 1973 winner of the Queen's Gold Medal for Poetry died at the Athlone House Nursing Home in west London, the facility said. The cause of death was not announced.
Heath-Stubbs' works included poetry, plays, criticism and translations, including The Rubaiyat of Omar Khayyam with Peter Avery in 1979 and his own epic poem, Artorius: A Heroic Poem in Four Books and Eight Episodes published in 1973.
Other works included 1969's Satires and Epigrams and The Immolation of Aleph published in 1985.
A close friend, Guthrie McKie, said Heath-Stubbs, who slowly lost his eyesight and went completely blind in 1978, had been diagnosed with lung cancer earlier this year.
Stubbs' classmates at Queen's College, Oxford included writers C.S. Lewis and J.R.R. Tolkien. More information about John Heath-Stubbs can be found on The Poetry Archive, Rochester.edu and Wikipedia. The BBC also has an article about John Heath-Stubbs.
The Author, The Addiction and the Amazon.com Ranking System
Lyn Gardner, theatre critic for The Guardian (U.K) has just published her first novel, an adventure story for the 8-12 set. Being published has led to a terrible addiction to checking her book's Amazon.com rankings. She
blogs about the addiction that seems to take over the lives of so many new authors.
A friend rings and tells me that my novel Into the Woods (David Fickling Books) is at 2,993 in the Amazon rankings. This is like offering crack cocaine to a recovering drug addict. I have been trying to wean myself off my obsession with the Amazon rankings. I'm not quite ready to go cold turkey, but I am desperately trying to limit myself to just one hit a day.
Why are we first-time authors so obsessed with the Amazon rankings? Partly because, like pretending to do your tax return or essential research, it offers yet another displacement activity to avoid the real hard business of writing. But it's also because once your book is out there, all alone in the big wide world, you desperately want to know if it's thriving or has got completely lost - and for a considerable period nobody can tell you.
The Amazon rankings are something to cling to, even though you know in your heart and head that they are both meaningless and psychologically damaging - unless you are a consistent bestseller like Jacqueline Wilson or God. (I have taken ridiculous and entirely childish comfort from the fact that that while the King James Bible sits many thousands of places above Into the Woods in the rankings, it only has an average 4.5-star customer review rating, while my novel has five).
In fact an Amazon ranking pretty well tells you nothing at all unless you are an Amazon sales executive or the kind of person who, when logging on with the intention of buying Into the Woods suddenly decides that The Institute of Electrical Engineers On Site Guide (BS7671: 2001 16th Edition Wiring Regulations Including Amendment 2: 2002) might be a far better read because it sits at number 69 in the top 100. I suppose for some readers there is probably a perceived safety in numbers.
Into the Woods is currently available from
Amazon UK. It will be released in the United States in June, 2007. But why not give the author a thrill and
pre-order a copy from Amazon.com in the U.S.?
British entertainment company 57 Productions has launched
a new service which allows users to download and listen to poetry on their iPods and other MP3 players.
The modern poetry site, called iPoems, became available to the public last week, 57 Productions spokesman Philip Abraham said.
About 1,000 readings from poetry written in English are available for 95 cents for each audio poem and $1.80 for a video poem.
The company offers a free one-month trial membership. After that, subscriptions are $18 a year.
One featured artist is Jean "Binta" Breeze who performs a Caribbean version of Geoffrey Chaucer's "Wife of Bath" tale.
You can visit the company's website at: ipoems.org.uk.
A heretofore unknown poem by Robert Frost has been discovered.
Graduate student Robert Stilling found the elusive poem written in the front of a book, eighty-eight years after it was written by Frost.
Robert Stilling said he began searching for the poem after reading a 1947 letter by Frost's friend, Frederic Melcher, referring to the work in a copy of the poet's book "North of Boston."
He said that when he read the letter, it set off "little scholarly alarm bells."
Stilling found the poem among books and manuscripts purchased by the University of Virginia. Melcher, who founded the trade journal Publishers Weekly, once owned the collection.
It took several months to check whether the poem had been published before and to confirm that the handwritting was Frost's.
The poem is titled "War Thoughts at Home" and is dated 1918. It is 35-lines long and was apparently inspired by the death of another poet in World War I.
The poem will be published next week by The Virginia Quarterly Review.
Kevin Morrissey, managing editor of The Virginia Quarterly Review, told Reuters, "You can tell Frost is troubled by what is going on in Europe at the time."
Frost died in 1963 at age 88.
We can't wait to read it. And what a fantastic scholarly coup for Mr. Stilling!
Three Writers to be Honored With Lifetime Achievement Awards at National Book Awards
The National Book Foundation will bestow Lifetime Achievement Awards on three writers at the upcoming National Book Awards in November. The honorees are poet Adrienne Rich, Robert Silvers and, posthumously, Barbara Epstein. Silvers and Epstein were the co-founders of The New York Review of Books.
The National Book Foundation, presenter of the National Book Awards, will bestow its 2006 Medal for Distinguished Contribution to American Letters on Adrienne Rich in recognition of her incomparable influence and achievement as a poet and essayist. For more than fifty years, her eloquent and visionary writings have shaped the world of poetry as well as feminist and political thought. She won the National Book Award in 1974. Poet Mark Doty will present the Medal at the 57th National Book Awards Ceremony and Benefit Dinner in New York City on Wednesday, November 15. The evening will be hosted by writer and humorist Fran Lebowitz.
Also that evening, the National Book Foundation will award Robert Silvers and, posthumously, Barbara Epstein, co-founders of The New York Review of Books, with The Literarian Award for Outstanding Service to the American Literary Community. This award recognizes the important contributions they have made – through The New York Review – to the serious discussion of books for more than forty years. David Remnick, editor of The New Yorker, will present the Award.
In making the announcements, Harold Augenbraum, executive director of the Foundation, said, "Adrienne Rich, Robert Silvers, and Barbara Epstein have been major forces in the literary world for decades, mavericks and visionaries who have held all of us who love books and writing to the highest possible standard. They remind us that books have the power to enrich our world. Our Board of Directors is honored that they will accept these awards."
This is the second year that the National Book Foundation has presented the Literarian Award, which was established to recognize individuals whose life’s work has enhanced the literary world as a whole (Lawrence Ferlinghetti was the 2005 recipient). "With The New York Review of Books, Robert Silvers and Barbara Epstein raised book reviewing to an art and made the discussion of books a lively, provocative and intellectual activity," said Augenbraum. "From Mary McCarthy and Edmund Wilson to Gore Vidal and Joan Didion, The New York Review of Books has consistently employed the liveliest minds in America to think about, write about, and debate books and the issues they raise." Robert Silvers will accept the award on behalf of himself and Epstein, who died earlier this year.
You can find out more about the National Book Foundation here.
A rare Shakespeare folio was sold at auction for $4.6 million. The folio, a 1623 volume of Shakespeare's plays, was sold at a London auction to London rare book dealer Simon Finch who was the only bidder.
The seller was Dr. Williams's Library in London, which said it needed money to survive and preserve its research collections.
Five cameras stood on tripods at the back of Sotheby's book room for the sale of the volume, while at least two photographers took up posts nearer the front. For all the publicity, the auctioneer couldn't get the price higher. Sotheby's had valued the folio at as much as 3.5 million pounds, or about $6.1 million, above the record for such an edition.
"It's not a very nice copy," said Peter Grogan, a book dealer with R.A. Gekoski in London. "The title page is not in very good condition, and that's the face that the book shows to the world."
The collection of 36 plays, known as the First Folio, was published after Shakespeare's death in an edition of 750, and probably sold for 20 shillings, said Sotheby's. It includes 18 plays that might otherwise have been lost, experts said. The nearest comparable First Folio sold in New York in 2001 for a hammer price of $5.6 million, said Sotheby's.
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Only about 250 copies of the First Folio survive, and this one still has its mid-17th-century calf binding. There may be only one similar copy left in private hands, said Sotheby's, which holds sales of English literature twice a year.
Ok, who else here thinks that Peter Grogan is just jealous that he didn't get his hands on the Folio? Snipe, snipe, snipe.
Poets & Writers Inc. has 
The BBC 
The Washington Post 
The home of English poet John Keats is reopening following a renovation that cost over $800,000. John Keats 
A feature film adaptation of Edgar Allan Poe's macabre poem "Annabel Lee" will have its world premiere on Thursday, June 11th. The film celebrates the the 200th anniversary of the birth of Edgar Allan Poe. June 11th is the closing night selection of the Dances with Films independent film festival. It will screen at the Laemmle's Sunset 5 in West Hollywood at 9:30 pm. The independent film was written and directed by Michael Rissi and stars newcomers Kristen Hagen, Jon Woodward and Bill Bordy.
Reuters 
Poets & Writers has 
Louise Glück has won the Wallace Stevens Award and the $100,000 stipend. The Wallace Stevens Award was established in 1994 and is given annually to recognize outstanding and proven mastery in the art of poetry. 
A volume of Shakespeare's works worth millions of dollars which was stolen from a museum ten years ago has been
The teenagers who 
China's massive 7.9 magnitude earthquake 
Poet Tom Sleigh has won the $100,000 Kingsley Tufts Poetry Award for his collection of poetry called 
Robert Frost, the famous New England poet, had a summer home in Vermont, which has been maintained since his death and is open to visitors in the summer. But the home was 