dumbfoundry

Rita Dove hadn't really planned to write American Smooth (Norton, $22.95). Hadn't planned to deliver a collection of poems that move powerfully through war and motherhood and history and music. Hadn't planned to open a notebook and pour out its contents -- observations of life, really -- into an eighth volume of work.

But there was the matter of the fire. Four years ago, it stole Dove's home from her, without notice or invitation. Just like that.

In the healing that followed, Dove and her husband, German novelist Fred Viebahn, took to ballroom dancing. Something about its grace brought Dove some measure of peace.

''Sudden tragedy has a way of opening you up to other possibilities,'' says Dove, 51, a Pulitzer Prize winner and former Poet Laureate. ``We did it as an exuberant distraction from our lives. It allowed us to live again, and all of a sudden poems began to happen.'' [...]

You can hardly write the life of another human being without devoting your own lifetime to it, and Bevis Hillier has more or less done so with John Betjeman. He began work three decades ago, a few years before his subject's death; he has now published the last in his trilogy of vast volumes, safely installing Betjeman, as he puts it, 'in the national pantheon' (accompanied, I suppose, by his teddy bear). [...]

The title rightly emphasises Betjeman's chortling comedy, and the cover shows him baring his teeth in what Philip Larkin called his 'horse-laugh'. But what makes Hillier's study so compelling is its melancholy sobriety. He expertly exposes the depression and fury that underlay Betjeman's affable mask. We remember him as a harmlessly dotty enthusiast, cooing over scraps of Victorian wrought iron or flapping his hands at a venomous spider in an Australian loo. Hillier enjoys the performance, but sees through it.

He emphasises Betjeman's vulnerability, his capacity to be hurt and the talent for hatred that it provoked. This is the poet, after all, who appealed for a nuclear catastrophe to rain down on Slough, and wrote a lyric about road rage on the A30 long before anyone thought of calling it that. His favourite character on television was Warren Mitchell's Alf Garnett, who is given to sputtering, vitriolic rants against the modern world. [...]

Even at the beginning of his life, the received wisdom is wrong. Far from being an ill-educated dullard, Stalin was picked out as a boy of enormous promise. In 19th-century Georgia, the Orthodox Church seminaries offered a prestigious schooling for boys like him from poor backgrounds who would otherwise have had to become factory apprentices. He trained until his 21st year to become a priest, of all things. As an adolescent he read great swathes of secular literature against the seminary rules. Walking round the gloomy dormitories of this building in Tbilisi in summer 2002, I could well appreciate why he found the priestly atmosphere stultifying. One of his outlets was poetry, and such was the limpid quality of his verses that they were published in the chief Georgian literary journals of the 1890s. [...]

Joseph Stalin was a poet, although you wouldn't know it. Here are some of the lines written by the greatest mass murderer in human history: "The pinkish bud has opened / Rushing to the pale-blue violet / And, stirred by a little breeze / The lily of the valley has bent over the grass." Fluffy verses of the "Hello, sun! Hello, sky!" variety that would shame even Fotherington-Thomas poured from Stalin's pen when he was 16 and 17, before he embarked on his better known careers of revolution and genocide.

Robert Service believes that Stalin's poetry is helpful in understanding the romantic side to his temperament. Indeed, he is at considerable pains to portray Stalin as much more than just a dour but murderous backroom bureaucrat. In the course of this engrossing and well-researched book, Stalin emerges as a fascinating, complex figure.

The Red Room Company's new project, 'Poetry Crimes', wants 12 poems that explore the theme of crime and justice in Australia. Poetry Crimes will be an online and audio anthology, to be launched in 2005. Selected poets will be recorded reading their poems and interviewed by Johanna Featherstone for national and international community radio broadcast, plus online distribution at www.redroomorganisation.org

Poems can be any length and style but must be original and unpublished. Ballads on convict crime, odes on corporate greed, pantoums on plagiarism — any poem that responds to 'crime and justice' will be considered.

Send no more than 4 poems to PO Box 1389 Darlinghurst NSW 1300 by December 13 or visit www.redroomorganisation.org for details. Australian poets (citizens) living or working in New Zealand, USA or UK are also able to apply.

You have to be brave to take on Harold Pinter - not only the nation's most sacred living playwright, but also a gentleman not known for mincing his words.

However, poet Don Paterson is not daunted. "Anyone can do that," is his considered opinion on his fellow writer's poetic output.

As part of the annual TS Eliot lecture, which Paterson delivers today, he will urge poets to "flirt with real danger", and also launch a withering attack on his literary colleague.

"To take a risk in a poem is not to write a big sweary outburst about how crap the war in Iraq is, even if you are the world's greatest living playwright. Because anyone can do that." [...]

"[This] is a list of every book of poetry that ever won the Pulitzer Prize. It is, by definition, an American list. [...]

"I liked making this list because it focuses on books. Instead of focusing on 'superstar' poems, ripping them from their published contexts, I compiled this list by personally obtaining and seeing each of the books — most of them through the library. I was able to see the binding, the dedications, the order of poems, the signatures of the poets — all the things that make a book stand on its own two feet.

"So by focusing on the books I was able to see certain patterns — who's scratching whose back, which publishers keep winning no matter kind of crap they pump out, and what consistently gets ignored."

Poets are the rock stars of the literary world. Like the passionate wails of a lead guitarist, their words, however brief or lengthy, ignite our passions and fill our thoughts with images and emotions. If the novel is a symphony, the poem is a solo -- the money-shot that keeps us pressing the repeat button for another listen. [...]

"Your poems have been published in London under the title "In The Temple of A Patient God". Did the translator Ruth Christie find you or did you find her?

Bejan Matur: I met with Ruth through a book given to me by a professor from Bogazici University that I was asked to deliver to her. She'd already translated Oktay Rifat and Nazim Hikmet. I also gave my books to her as a present. Not long later, I received a letter from Ruth saying she loved my poems and wanted to translate them.

Not many poets get their books translated into other languages. Do you think Ruth would have wanted to translate your poems even if she hadn't met you?

Bejan Matur: If just meeting her were enough, the work of people putting so much effort into publishing their work in other languages would be easy; but it isn't. It is very difficult for poems, which have such a small audience, to exist in another language."

"In death, we often appreciate our writers more. Of Janet Frame, of course, much of our recent knowledge has been informed by Michael King's biography, Wrestling With the Angel, and by Jane Campion's film, An Angel At My Table, rather than by the author's work. Stories and Poems re-addresses this imbalance, puts us back in touch with Frame at the start of her career when she was most strident and cutting-edge, when as a poet she was a visionary and as a short story writer she was avant-garde."

Three poems

The National Park Services offers opportunities for two-dimensional visual artists, photographers, sculptors, performers, writers, composers, and craft artists to live and work in the parks. There are currently 29 parks participating in the Artist-In-Residence program.

"We're looking for three strong poems that work separately but rely on the series for the full meaning. Images that nimbly echo each other from one poem to another without being blatant. Subjects that are miles apart, drawn together to serve and deepen the theme. Show us facets of sense, wit, and sound.

"Are you up to the challenge? Will you be our next serial poet?"

Ars Poetica by Czeslaw Milosz
"The purpose of poetry is to remind us
how difficult it is to remain just one person,
for our house is open, there are no keys in the door,
and invisible guests come in and out at will."

The Contractor is one of the most perfectly conceived plays of the past 50 years. [...] What is completely silly, and beyond the bounds of imagination, is that David Storey wrote it in two days. [...]

Shakespeare can't have been a slouch, either. The academic industry would love us to think he spent long months drafting and redrafting his works. Well, he wrote 37 plays in 20 years, on top of the poems, and running a theatre, and acting, and building up his property portfolio, and schlepping between Stratford and London. I'd give each play three weeks. Tops. He sponged up his literary sources, then wrote fast. [...]

Selected Works, by John Wilmot, Earl of Rochester, ed Frank H Ellis (Penguin, £4.99)

On the front cover of this brief selection is a discreet roundel which proclaims: "the original writings of the libertine poet". The idea, I suspect, is to attract filmgoers who have seen Johnny Depp in The Libertine, out this week. It is easy to react snobbishly, but Depp tends not to involve himself in worthless films and besides, you can at least note the physical resemblance between Depp and Rochester. Crucially, though, the book only costs a fiver and I am amused by the idea of commuters reading a work of Restoration poetry in public places, particularly when it so often contains the word "fuck". (If such language offends you, then now might be a good time to stop reading this review.)

For Rochester, if people know anything about him, is the poet who uses rude words a lot. And not just the f-word. The c-word is one of his favourites, too, as a word and the thing it refers to. I wonder how the Americans are going to react to the Rochester film, if that word appears in it. For Americans, the word is a vile misogynist insult, used only towards women. Here it is used only to insult men, and with ambiguous significance. Used to describe the vagina, it is not automatically insulting. Don't take my word for it - ask Germaine Greer. [...]

Out to Lunch Poetry Readings 2004 take place on Fridays at the Bank of Ireland Arts Centre, Foster Place, Temple Bar, Dublin 2 and start at 1.15pm sharp. Admission is free.

...[T]he seventh annual Dylan Thomas Festival launches ... a major new Dylan Thomas Literary Prize, and celebrates two notable anniversaries – 50 years since the publication of Dylan’s classic Under Milk Wood, and 20 years since the death of Richard Burton, Milk Wood’s star in recorded and film form, friend of Dylan and Wales’ greatest actor.

Guidelines and required entry forms for the 2005 Alberta Prize and the 2005 Fence Modern Poets Series are now up on the Fence Books website in downloadable PDF and RTF formats. http://www.fencemag.com/contest/guidelines.html

The Alberta Prize (postmark deadline November 1-30, 2004) is for a first or second book by a woman writing in English.

The Fence Modern Poets Series (postmark deadline February 1-28, 2005) is for a man or woman writing in English at any stage in his or her career.

Past winners:

Zirconia, by Chelsey Minnis (2001 Alberta Prize)

The Red Bird, by Joyelle McSweeney (2001 FMPS)

The Real Moon of Poetry and Other Poems, by Tina Brown Celona (2002 Alberta)

Apprehend, by Elizabeth Robinson (2002 FMPS)

Sky Girl, by Rosemary Griggs (2003 Alberta Prize)

The Opening Question, by Prageeta Sharma (2003 FMPS)

A Magic Book, by Sasha Steensen (2004 Alberta Prize)

Povel, by Geraldine Kim (2004 FMPS)

You may also send an SASE to [name of prize]/Fence Books/303 East Eighth Street, #B1, New York, NY 10009

"I want your list poems. No restrictions in terms of subject matter. But please restrict your entries in length. I'm suggesting the poems be no longer than 26-50 lines.

"And this time I mean it when I say to include your entry in the body of an e-mail. I'm not crazy about attachments.

[...]

"Have fun.

"Deadline for submissions: October 29, 2004."

"Edinburgh University has lost the funding for its writer-in-residence, just as the Capital becomes the world’s first City of Literature.

"The Scottish Arts Council has withdrawn cash for the post as part of a policy shift towards more community-based projects.

"But the move was criticised as contradictory."

[...]

Hear poets Seamus Heaney, Jo Shapcott, Benjamin Zephaniah, Stevie Smith [and more] read poems in their own distinctive voice.

Friday-Sunday
January 21-23, 2005
Billy Collins, Thomas Lux, Sharon Olds & Patricia Smith present workshops, panel discussions, and readings at Lynn University in beautiful, sunny South Florida.

Sask. poet laureate will read to strangers, then give away free book

If a gentleman offers to read you poetry this week, take him up on it. He is Glen Sorestad, poet laureate of Saskatchewan, and you could receive a free book in the bargain.

Sorestad is participating in the 27-poet, cross-Canada Random Acts of Poetry week. Each poet will read to strangers, and then give away 50 of his or her own books. [...]

The Bat Centre buzzed and burbled and bopped with poetry on Saturday as the lights faded and the curtains were drawn on the 8th International Poetry Festival.

What a night it was. With poets like Feelah Sistah, Hymphatic Thabs and Omekongo Luhaka Wa Dibinga from Congo entertaining the massive crowd, it was an experience not to be missed. [...]

A last-minute change to Gabriel Garcia Marquez' new novel has dealt a blow to pirates who flooded his native Colombia with bootleg versions.

Pirate copies of the book, Memories of My Melancholy Whores, forced the author to rush-release the official version.

But the final chapter of the authorised story has been altered. [...]

Reciting The Iliad could have epic effects on your health. German physiologists have recently shown that such poetry can get your heart beating in time with your breaths. This synchronization may improve gas exchange in the lungs as well as the body's sensitivity and responsiveness to blood pressure changes.

The Translation Project seeks to track the rich tradition of Persian poetry in the diaspora since the 1979 revolution, now that so many Iranians reside outside of their home country.

Prize: a full scholarship to the Kenyon Review Young Writers workshop, and the winner's poem will be published in the Kenyon Review.

[...]

To enter the 2005 contest, visit the site between November 1-30, 2004. Must be a high school sophomore or junior to participate.

Pam Ayres received an MBE from the Queen today for her services to literature and entertainment.

[...]

The poet’s humorous take on the mundane and her distinctive voice have seen her perform one-woman shows in theatres across the globe.

Pam Ayres's poems:

• The Wonderbra Song
  
• Yes, I'll Marry You
  
• In Defence of Hedgehogs [my favourite Pam Ayres poem—Ivy]
  

Anthony Hecht, one of America's most distinguished poets of the past half-century, whose musically exquisite verse expressed dark observations about mankind, died Oct. 20 of non-Hodgkin's lymphoma at his home in Washington.

Mr. Hecht, who was 81, had won the Pulitzer Prize and many other awards when he moved to Washington in 1982 as poetry consultant to the Library of Congress -- one of the nation's highest honors for a poet. In 1985, after his two-year term expired, he became a professor at Georgetown University, from which he retired in 1993. He continued to write poems until near the time of his death. [...]

• The Academy of American Poets [profile and poems]


• Between The Lines [interview]


• NY Times [obit]

The editors of To This Revolution We Will Rise: Poets of Color Dissent from Around the Globe are calling for contributions for the forthcoming anthology to be published by Third World Press.

This anthology will serve as a space for contemporary radical poets of color to speak to a primarily U.S. and English speaking audience about issues related to anti-colonialism, self-determination, occupation and resistance.

...

We are especially seeking poets representing Africa, the Caribbean, Latin America, the Arab region, Aboriginal Australia, Asia, South Asia, indigenous North America and their diasporas.

Postmark deadline: December 1, 2004.

Electronic contributions accepted from poets residing outside of the United States. These can be mailed to shenoda @ sfsu. edu (please include “Anthology” in the subject line.)

'Hello Kitty is a night where Asian stereotypes are subverted and literature becomes glamorous.

'Four Asian-Australian writers sing karaoke and read their own brilliant writing. A mix of literature and power ballads, this fun and dynamic show presents contemporary perspectives of Asian-Australian identity. This event asks all the hard questions: Are all Asians really that good at maths and science? Is karaoke an Asian form of mateship? Does every Asian household own a pingpong table?'

Presenting work from three poets:
Rebecca Edwards, a poet & visual artist living in Brisbane, Queensland.
Solrun Hoaas, Norway-born teacher, journalist, interpreter, lecturer, & writer/director of several films.
Yong Shu Hoong, a Singaporean poet with an MBA in Computer Science from Texas A&M University at College Station.

The Browsing Room of the Knight Library was packed Monday for the reading from Bei Dao, one of China's most treasured writers in the 1970s. In 1976, Bei Dao's poetry was instrumental in the formation of the April 5 Democracy Movement and later, the Tiananmen Square demonstration. Bei Dao was also the poet that started a particular style of poetry called "menglong shi" or "misty poetry." [...]

One has to be patient with Bei Dao's poetry. Most of us know of Chinese poetry only indirectly, from Gary Snyder, Kenneth Rexroth, Ezra Pound, and others who have attempted to glean from the ancient world something holy or stable in the chaos of today. Bei Dao's China, however, is 1200 years removed from the ethos these American poets have plumbed; thus his poetry should no more resemble that of the Tang Dynasty masters than John Ashbery's should resemble Beowulf. Bei Dao's lines are also not what anyone only familiar with contemporary American poetry would expect to hear: Bei Dao is one of the creators of a new tradition in Chinese poetry, making him seem all the more innovative when placed alongside poets in this language. While some of his lines could be lifted from Paul Celan or César Vallejo, we have here what we want, if not expect, from a translated author of great magnitude: something very foreign. Indeed, Bei Dao's poetry employs a totally different approach to language itself, rendering his work all the more individual. While many readers will find themselves sliding across his poetry, when his poetry catches them its hold is strong. [...]

Winner of the Pulitzer Prize for Poetry, Paul Muldoon was born in County Armagh and is now based at Princeton University where he is Director of the Creative Writing Program.

He has been described by The Times Literary Supplement as "the most significant English-language poet born since the second World War" while his poetry has been praised as "Grounded, glistening, gritty, graceful and capable of taking in almost anything and anybody."

The reading takes place on Friday, 5 November, 6.30pm at the King's College Centre, King's College, University of Aberdeen.

In poetry, Mariana Marin, Romania's Sylvia Plath, confronts her Karenina complex, and Marta Petreu conflates the all-consuming fires of love and death.

'Michael - known to many of us as "Spike" - was an immensely kind, gentle and wise soul with an outrageous sense of fun, who would both light up and civilise any company he joined. He never really stopped being a boy, either in appearance or behaviour. (I realise now, depressingly, I could never convincingly imagine Michael in his seventies.) No doubt in the future I'll have time to reconstruct his brilliantly witty, casually erudite conversation - but what I treasure right now are other things. Spike stunt-diving into a pile of bin-bags on the street; Spike, drunk, innocently playing hopscotch on an art installation made of giant bar-codes, while the artist looked on in ashen horror; Spike on BBC2, introducing a traditional Irish air to a besotted and misty-eyed presenter, then lifting his flute to play a very slow, heavily-ornamented version of "Meet the Flintstones".'

Also: Michael Peich's tribute on CPRW E-Verse [scroll to the bottom]

Margaret Atwood: Do you have your devices plugged in?

Matthew Fox: I do, and I’m recording as we speak.

Margaret Atwood: Okay.

Matthew Fox: Have you chosen from my questions which ones you prefer to answer?

Margaret Atwood: I’ve looked at the questions. They’re good questions for you to write about. They are not always good questions for me to answer. [...]

'This is a gentle reminder that the closing date for entries in our robopoetry competition is Friday, 22 October 2004. It costs you nothing to enter, you can do it by email and our robotic munchkins are currently manning the terminals, waiting for your poems. Get under it!'

THOR KAH HOONG interviews Malaysian poet Raja Ahmad Aminullah, resulting in gentle observations of Raja Ahmad's newly published book of poetry.

To: soulship@rumahykp.org.my
Subject: Menyarung Jiwa Soulship

Dear Raja Ahmad,

In the conversation we had in my bookstore last week, you made a point of noting the e-mail address (the one above) printed on the last page of your collection of poems. That and a postal address were there because you sought opinions, views, feedback.

When you made that point, my mind took an unexpected quirky leap and landed on a humorous observation that I had read decades ago (possibly one of those one-liners that padded space at the end of a feature in the Readers' Digest), something that I had forgotten until you expressed your wish for a response.

Don Marquis, the humorist: "Writing a book of poetry is like dropping a rose petal down the Grand Canyon and waiting for an echo." [...]

By and large poetry doesn’t sell, isn’t read. The Nobel Prize must help the circulation of those occasional poets who are honoured. Without his adoption in syllabi all over the English-speaking world, would T.S. Eliot have been read voluntarily by the thousands who have done so? [...]

But for every Emily Dickinson or Robert Frost or Rendra who can strike a resonant echo in thousands of people with the sound and meaning of their words, there are hundred of others whose work are known only to a coterie (and thousands of aspiring others who, frankly, deserve the oblivion that greets their gushing sentiments). [...]

A-dziko Simba launches her debut album Crazi Ladi Dayz on Tuesday, October 26 at the Poetry Society of Jamaica Fellowship scheduled for the Edna Manley College Amphitheatre in Kingston.

Crazi Ladi Dayz is an eclectic blend of spoken word, song and African percussion with the flute. The work spans a range of vocal and rhythmic styles reflecting A-dziko's diverse backgrounds, with musical accompaniment by Mbala and Atiba Kwabena-Wilson. [...]

Simba performed two of the poems from Crazy Ladi Dayz, Le Urve and Wordsoundpower. She began with Le Urve which is a countdown of all the things that a loved one can be compared to. A few of them were quite conventionally poetic, with comparisons such as moonlight casting silver shadows on silken sheets. Others such as "You remind of 'Woa mi Mumma," broke with convention.

In the spirit of the recent hurricane and quite in keeping with several of the night's performers, Simba performed an Ivan poem. Like Sage who had performed shortly before her, Ivan was a metaphor. The poem Dis One Ya Name declared that "Dis one ya called 500 years of staying alive." It used the dangerous power of a hurricane as a metaphor for a struggle for freedom which will make all "bush fret" (pun apparently intended). [...]

'The Aldeburgh Poetry Festival is Britain's best-attended annual international poetry festival, attracting the largest, most loyal audiences (200+ per reading) and enjoying the highest reputation among poets.'

Follow the link on the page for a complimentary copy of the CD [EU residents only].

Call for contributions on themed issue: DOGS. 'Princely pedigrees, mangy mutts, hell hounds: do you love 'em or hate 'em? Is it a dog-eat-dog world? Life in the old dog yet? Let your creativity off the leash and give us a dog's life. Closing date: 31 December 2004.

'Poets, send up to four poems (up to 40 lines each). Fiction writers, up to two stories (under 3,000 words a piece). Please label your envelope DOGS and enclose a stamped addressed envelope and daytime telephone number. We promise a response within three months of any closing date.'

PLEASE NOTE: no email contributions accepted, except from overseas writers.

The presence of M Karunanidhi’s grand-nephew and the DMK’s most high profile face in Delhi, Dayanidhi Maran, at the book release of the Hindi translations of the works of Tamil poet Vairamuthu was surprising considering that the DMK first came to prominence on an anti-Hindi agitation. Maran’s explanation was that his party was not against Hindi per se but only against its imposition on the South. But an older generation of the party which had participated in violent street battles against the three-language formula was less tolerant. Only four of the 12 central ministers from Tamil Nadu showed up for the function.Curiously, just recently Maran himself had suggested that a Hindi translator should be present at Cabinet meetings. [...]

IN protest against President Olusegun Obasanjo’s handling of the nation’s affairs, literary icon, Professor Chinualumogu Achebe, has rejected the national honour awarded him by the Federal Government.

“Nigeria’s condition today under your watch is ... too dangerous for silence. I must register my disappointment and protest by declining to accept the high honour awarded me in the 2004 Honours List”, Achebe said in an open letter to Obasanjo dated October 15, 2004. The action instantly drew applause from Lagos lawyer, Chief Gani Fawehinmi, who said it added a new impetus to the crusade against misgovernance and anti-people programmes in Nigeria.

Said Fawehinmi: “I love that man. I doff my hat for him. I adore him. He has confirmed that he is a true nationalist, a patriot, an outstanding Nigerian, a humanist, a kind man, a masses-oriented intellectual and, above all, a man of God, truth and equity, honour and integrity”. The literary icon had last Thursday been named a recipient of the Commander of the Order of the Federal Republic (CFR) alongside 190 other eminent Nigerians who bagged various national honours awards. [...]

Considered to be a living history of the country, being a social activist, an MP in Bulgaria's Great National Assembly and its first honorary chairman in 1990, the renowned Bulgarian poet Yossif Petrov died Saturday at the age of 95. [...]

During the 1956 riotous events in Hungary, he was arrested by then communist regime and imprisoned in the Belene camp where he stayed until 1959.

His first poetic works collected under the title Homeland was published in 1939. Later, in the prison he used to remember his rhymes for years and then write them down on a paper, which he dug in earth for another 30 years. After democratic changes in late 80s, Petrov published them in a book titled "Yell from Prison".

CBC Radio and Radio-Canada invite you to put your talent to the test and enter your short stories, poetry, and travel writing. The deadline is November 15, 2004.

The CBC Literary Awards Competition is the only literary competition that celebrates original, unpublished works, in Canada’s two official languages. There are three categories—short story, poetry, and travel writing—and awards totalling $60,000, courtesy of the Canada Council for the Arts. In addition, winning entries are published in Air Canada’s enRoute magazine and broadcast on CBC radio.

New Rivers Press invites Minnesota women to send in 3-5 poems for possible inclusion in a new anthology of Minnesota women poets to be published in 2006.

The anthology will take a comprehensive, historical approach, presenting poems by Minnesota women from pre-territorial days to the present.

Deadline: January 15, 2005. There is no entry fee. Contributors must be Minnessota residents, or must have lived in Minnesota for at least 12 of the 36 months preceding the deadline.

Michael Leunig's name does not immediately bring poetry to mind. After all, he is one of the best cartoonists in Australia. But he not only uses verse as an element in his cartoons, he writes poems for their own sake, poking fun at human folly and pretentiousness, deploring the idiocy of war and revelling in the redeeming power of love.

In this program of PoeticA (ABC Radio), you can hear Leunig discuss what attracted him to poetry as well as a selection of his verse, taken from the collection Poems, published in 2003 by Viking Press. Read by actor Geoffrey Rush.

The Guide contains a detailed listing of over 1,500 small and independent press publishers and magazines in the UK, Europe, USA, Canada, NZ and Australia.

Published in CD-Rom format, it has a host of useful features, including direct links to publishers' and magazines' websites.

It costs only £6.00 (for UK customers) and $10.00 for overseas customers. These prices include postage/air mail.

UK customers can pay by cheque or postal order, made payable to Dee Rimbaud, 7 Lothian Gardens (GFL), Glasgow, G20 6BN, United Kingdom.

tangent.radio features 'live and recorded poetry, news, interviews, and music, as well as the weekly "prison corner".'

On October 20 • Dub poetry by Linton Kwesi Johnson and more...

The BlazeVOX Prize for Poetry is awarded annually for an original manuscript of poems. The contest is open to poets either with or without previously published books. BlazeVOX [books] Press publishes the winning manuscript, and the author receives a $1,000 award and publication of the winning manuscript. The first three runners-up will have their winning manuscript published as an electronic book with BlazeVOX [books]. Final judge: Kent Johnson. Contest Administration Fee: $20. Deadline: January 30, 2005.

Radio National's daily arts and music program, the Deep End, is currently seeking contributions from writers who want to perform their work in Australia's first national poetry slam.

The Deep End Poetry Slam, in the tradition of Australian Idol, will add its own twist to slam history by allowing all its listeners to vote for their favourite performance online.

October 14th, Irish Film Institute, 6.45pm
To mark the centenary of the birth of Patrick Kavanagh, the Irish Film Archive presents a programme of films celebrating the life and work of one of Ireland's leading poets and writers.

Where Genesis Begins
The late Bill Miskelly's 1978 documentary, was retrieved and is re-introduced here by Davey Hammond. The film, presented by Seamus Heaney, is not autobiographical but is instead a lyrical and measured exploration of the people and places which inspired Kavanagh's work.

The Writers: Patrick Kavanagh
In this documentary, filmed by Godfrey Graham in the summer of 1966, Kavanagh himself explores his Monaghan and Dublin haunts, and his homestead in Inniskeen, Pembroke Road and the South Canal. T.P. McKenna reads his poetry.

Contact: Kasandra O'Connell, Head of the Irish Film Archive, Irish Film Institute, 6 Eustace Street, Dublin 2. Phone 01 6795744 ext 12. Email: koconnell @ irishfilm. ie

A DIFFERENT SEPTEMBER 11: POESÍA 100%: Martín Espada, Yusef Komunyakaa, Raúl Zurita, Mark Doty, Cecilia Vicuña, Marie Ponsot & Cristóbal Bianchi with Casagrande. Oct. 16 at 8 pm. The New School, Tishman Auditorium at 66 West 12th St., New York City. $5 donation to Casagrande. Advance tickets: 212-229-5488. Hosted by Rattapallax, New School Graduate Writing Program,
LouderArts & Terra Incognita. Hosted by Idra Novey.

Rattapallax's SONGS & BOMBS:
Launch of Emily XYZ's Songbook with Emily XYZ and Myers Bartlett. Also, featured Edwin Torres, Rodrigo Toscano, Idra Novey & Cristobal Bianchi. Oct. 15 at 10:30 pm. Poetry Project at St. Mark's Church, 131 E. 10th St. & 2nd Ave., NYC. $8. Hosted by Regie Cabico.

Poets from as far afield as Manchester and London will be travelling to Coventry on Saturday for a black poetry festival. [...]

Organisers say the festival, which coincides with the start of Coventry's peace month, is the first of its kind in the UK.

Entry is free to all the events and everyone is welcome to attend.

GREENSBORO -- Krispy Kreme's trademark neon lights have gone dark on East Market Street, shutting down what some hoped would be an anchor for redevelopment in east Greensboro.
The fanfare surrounding the opening was huge, with speeches by Project Homestead's leader, the Rev. Michael King, Krispy Kreme Chairman Scott Livengood and famed poet Maya Angelou.
Angelou praised Krispy Kreme for opening in an economically depressed area that had once been home to many successful black-owned businesses before urban renewal efforts drove them away.
"One hundred businesses gone and one starting up to replace 1,000 dreams," Angelou said at the opening.

NEW YORK, Oct. 12 /PR Newswire/ -- PLAYGIRL just got back from college and did we learn a thing or two. Campus guys are hot, sexy, smart and romantic. Choosing the top five for our Campus Hunks feature was as difficult as any exam we've ever taken, but we studied hard and think we aced it. Highlights from the November issue of PLAYGIRL include: [...]

Abercrombie & Fitch Centerfold (p. 40) -- Pete Maneos made us lusty when we first spotted him on the pages of the Abercrombie & Fitch catalog. Now he's on our pages wearing even less. We had no idea he was a published poet and a Lord Byron scholar plus he loves to cook for his girl. Could there be a guy any more perfect? You decide.

Poetry Ireland in association with the French Embassy and Alliance Francaise presents Vendages Poetiques: Heather Dohollau, Michael Longley & Bernard Noel. Translations by Michael Brophy and Roger Little. Held at the Bank of Ireland Arts Centre, Foster Place, Dublin 2, on Thursday 14th October, 7pm.

B.V.Ramana Rao, India/Andhrapradesh: Poetry has some flavour, and an expression to touch our mind. When you are writing a poem what type preferences to be given to your expressions. Or the incident which touches your heart then you will paint the poem in your form.

Jorie Graham: The dominant flavors?: amazement that there be anything at all, curiosity, fear.

...

The 22nd annual Tucson Poetry Festival highlights and explores poetry's connection to other forms of artistic expression, such as film, dance, and painting. This year's guest poets are Sherwin Bitsui, Dana Gioia, Paul Pines, and Eliana Rivero.

The recently-concluded Nairobi International Book Fair recognised the centrality of poetry in our lives and put this art at the centre of its programmes this year. Key poets such as Marjorie O. Macgoye, Stephen Partington, and Jack Mapanje participated, while Jared Angira and David Rudadiri each launched a new book of poetry in the one-week event. The books are published by the East African Educational Publishers. [...]

Our earlier poetry valorised traditional culture against westernisation. The writers wanted to sing into existence a new nation independent from Western cultural and political colonialism. [...]

From the late 1960s, our poets started singing of the disillusionment that became our lot after independence. They abandoned the earlier empty nationalism and became critical of the new political leadership which was little different from colonial rule despite declaration of flag freedom. [...]

All this happened while the poets weaved universal themes such as love, guilt, nature, communication into poems about alienation, urbanisation and politics. The trend continues, but it is marked by a higher celebration of hybridity and simplicity of delivery. [...]

The libraries at Emory University have received what is considered the largest poetry collection ever built by a private collector, some 60,000 books, as well as tens of thousands of periodicals, manuscripts, correspondence, and other materials. Emory officials called the trove, donated by London art dealer Raymond Danowski, "breathtaking." The collection, which required four tractor trailers to transport, immediately makes Emory one of the world's most renowned destinations for the study of contemporary English-language poetry, according to Stephen Enniss, director of special collections at Emory. Highlights of the collection include a rare first printing of Walt Whitman's Leaves of Grass (1855), T.S. Eliot's Prufrock and Other Observations (1917), and Allen Ginsberg's second book, Siesta in Xbalba, which was printed on a mimeograph machine on a ship near Icy Cape, Alaska. [...]

For contributions to its November issue, send 3-6 poems in the body of your email, along with a short bio. Guidelines here.

Canadian Book Publishers with copyrights are invited to submit to Quills a selection of 5 poems from poets who die in the current year along with year of birth and death. Subject line in email should read 'DEAD POETS SUBMISSION'.

Selima Hill launches her latest book, Lou-Lou at the Whitstable WORDfest, on Saturday, October 16th, 6pm at the Playhouse Whitstable [01227 272042]. Tickets £2.50

This one-month, all-expense paid fellowship offers recognition to an overlooked but gifted writer. It is awarded annually to a writer of fiction (novels, short stories, poetry, or plays) whose work shows demonstrated ability and gift, but has never achieved the success it deserves, either because the writer is early in his or her career and still unpublished, or because the work is more 'literary' than commercial.

Pune, September 26: I leave behind this cancer-ridden body like a discarded piece of clothing, and set off to fill the universe with the last of my tear’s compassion.

'For him, all that mattered was his work. He’d spend hours researching. He wanted to be accurate and true to life. Privacy preserved that space for him.

'And since he was also wary of things ostentatious, he avoided big publishing houses, invariably choosing the little magazines over them.'

Bon appetit
The Butterfly

The poetry of Aurelio Arturo is both a world and a frame of mind. It is a dazzling and intimate world revealed through the poet’s sympathy with nature. It is a self-contained, complete universe in which every object is a living being, defined by its relations with the other beings that inhabit the same world.

Song of the Quiet Night
Word

Emory University: Creative Writing Fellowship. Review of applications begins January 15, 2005.

Two-year fellowship in poetry in lively undergraduate English/Creative Writing program, beginning Fall 2005. Load 2-1, all workshops, competitive salary, benefits. Required, MFA or Ph.D, with Creative Writing teaching experience. Desirable: record of publication, with a book underway; interest in secondary genre, such as Creative Non-Fiction.

We actively seek applications from women and minority candidates.

Patrick O'Keeffe Traditional Music Festival 2004 at the Crown Hotel, Castleisland, Co. Kerry

Sunday 24 October 2004, 3.00 p.m. - 5.00 p.m. Admission: FREE

Poetry recital and open mic session. Over two hours of great entertainment is ensured and all are welcome.

The Guest line-up this year is: Joe Keane, Tom Woulfe, Anna Brosnan, Paddy O'Donnell, Pat Moore, Mike Joe Thornton, Martin McCarthy, Jimmy Cullinane, Timmy Browne, Eimear Cullinane, John Roche, Paddy Joe Murphy, Tara Howarth, Donal Kelly, Danny Kelly, Timmy Joe Scanlon, and Áine Nelligan.

Chicago, IL, October 6th — The Poetry Foundation announced that Samuel Menashe and former U.S. Poet Laureate Billy Collins are the winners of its first Pegasus Awards. The announcement was made at a dinner ceremony last night on the new Pritzker Stage at Millennium Park in Chicago. The prizes honor achievements not already acknowledged by other awards.

The Neglected Masters Award of $50,000 was presented to Samuel Menashe of New York City. Designed to bring renewed critical attention to the work of an under-recognized, significant American Poet, the Award includes publication of a volume of Menashe’s selected poems by the Library of America. [...]

Billy Collins received the “Mark Twain Poetry Award” of $25,000, recognizing a poet’s contribution to humor in American poetry. [...]

Both prizes are given for a lifetime’s work. No applications or unsolicited nominations are accepted. The Poetry Foundation believes that targeted prizes can help redress underappreciated accomplishments, diversify the kinds of poetry being written, as well as widen the audience for the art form. With this in mind it intends to create additional prizes in the years ahead.

To mark 20 years of the Irish Writer Fellow at Trinity College Dublin, the School of English is hosting a reading on the eve of Oscar Wilde's 150th anniversary at the Swift Lecture Hall, Arts Building, Trinity College on Friday 15th October at 7pm.

Writers taking part include Sebastian Barry, Marina Carr, Anne Devlin, Peter Fallon, Michael Longley, Deirdre Madden and Tom Mac Intyre, with guest of honour Merlin Holland.

Copies of a specially printed The Writer Fellow: an anthology will be available on the night with monies donated going to the graduate publication fund. The event, open to the public, is free.

For further information: Lilian Foley, Oscar Wilde Centre, School of English, TCD, tel.01.6082885 (mornings)/email: lifoley @ tcd. ie

In her mesmerizing autobiography Dictee, Theresa Hak Kyung Cha brilliantly reveals the importance and limitations of translation, which not only bridges the gaps between languages but also marks the borders, where one ends and another one begins.

A performance artist and avant-garde filmmaker, Cha was tragically murdered by a stranger in New York City at age 31, a few days after the publication of Dictee, her first and only book. [...]

I heard the swans
in the rain I heard
I listened to the spoken true
or not true
not possible to say.

There. Years after
no more possible to distinguish the rain.
No more. Which was heard.
Swans. Speech. Memory. Already said.
Will just say. Having just said.
Remembered not quite heard. Not certain.
Heard, not at all.

Rain dreamed from sounds
The pauses. Exhalation.
Affirmations. All the affirmations.

Little by little

Not possible to distinguish the speech
Exhaled. Affirmed in exhalation.
Exclaimed in inhalation
To distinguish no more the rain from dreams
or from breaths.

Tongue inside the mouth inside
the throat inside
the lung organ alone. The only organ.
All assembled as one. Just one.

There. Later, uncertain, if it was the rain, the speech,
memory.
Re membered from dream.
How it diminishes itself. How to Dim
inish itself. As
it dims.

To bite the tongue.
Swallow. Deep. Deeper.
Swallow. Again even more.
Just until there would be no more of organ.
Organ no more.
Cries.

The Nobel prize winner Elfriede Jelinek is known as everything from a genius to Beelzebub in her native Austria.

One of the most famous women writing in German she was most controversially quoted in 1980 as saying "Austria is a criminal nation", referring to her country's participation in the crimes of the Third Reich. [...]

The Nobel Prize in Literature for 2004 was awarded this morning to Elfriede Jelinek, an Austrian novelist, poet, playwright, and translator. [...]

In its award citation, the Swedish Royal Academy noted that Ms. Jelinek's work analyzes "the cold-blooded practice of male power," making a "fundamental criticism of civilization by describing sexual violence against women as the actual template for our culture." There may be an element of self-criticism in the academy's decision, for Ms. Jelinek is only the 10th woman to receive the Nobel Prize in Literature since the award was first presented, in 1901. [...]

River Walk Journal, an online literary magazine, is actively seeking poetry, short fiction and creative nonfiction. We are a non-paying market right now, but hope to change that soon.

Submission guidelines and past issues can be seen at http://www.riverwalkjournal.org/

For only the third time in the Forward prizes' 13-year history, the lucrative award for best collection has been won by a woman.

Kathleen Jamie was today awarded the £10,000 prize for The Tree House (Picador). Previous female recipients of the prize were Carol-Ann Duffy and Jo Shapcott.

Lavinia Greenlaw, who chaired this year's judging panel and announced the winners in a ceremony at the Groucho Club this evening, praised the high quality of all the shortlisted collections, but concluded by saying that "in the end, The Tree House stood out as a book which enlarges not only Kathleen Jamie's own oeuvre but the scope and capacity of poetry being written today."

• Poetry Daily: "Before the Wind" [text]


• The Poem: "Julian of Norwich" [text]


• Griffin Trust: "Mr and Mrs Scotland Are Dead" [text & video]


• The Scottish Poetry Library: "The Creel" [text]

The great American poet will read from his work and Speculum Musicae will perform musical settings of Ashbery's poetry by leading American composers

Friday 8 October 2004, 7:30pm
Tickets (general admission): $20
The Great Hall at Cooper Union, Third Avenue @ 7th Street

Milton Babbitt: No Longer Very Clear
Elliott Carter: Syringa
Lee Hyla: At North Farm
Charles Wuorinen: Stanzas Before Time
John Zorn: Stanza X from Girls on the Run

Vocal soloists:
Kevin Deas, bass
Elizabeth Farnum, soprano
Ryan MacPherson, tenor
Mary Nessinger, mezzo-soprano

John Ashbery is one of the most excellent poets of our time. He is the author of more than twenty books of poetry, as well as Other Traditions: the Charles Eliot Norton Lectures.

The trustees of the late Katherine B. Kavanagh, RTÉ Radio 1 and the Gate Theatre present

A Patrick Kavanagh Centenary Celebration
Gate Theatre, 17 October, 7.30pm

Poets of Ireland assemble to read The Great Hunger and to pay tribute to Patrick Kavanagh on his 100th birthday.

The evening will be in two parts. The first, which will be broadcast live on RTÉ Radio 1 at 8pm, will consist of Macdara Woods, Leland Bardwell, Tom McIntyre and Dermot Healy reading The Great Hunger.

In the second half, Paul Durcan, Eiléan Ní Chuilleanáin and John Montague will be joining the other poets to read their favourite Kavanagh poem, plus one of their own. The evening will feature music played by the uileann piper Peter Browne.

An important and historic evening not to be missed. Tickets €15 from the Gate Theatre Box Office, (01) 874 4045 / 6042

Friday 15th October, 7.15 p.m at The Main Guard
Zlata Filipovic & Choman Hardi

Friday 15th October, 9pm at The Main Guard
Tony Curtis & Niall Williams

Saturday 16th October, 10.30am - 4.30pm at The Clonmel Resource Centre
‘In with the Old, Out with the New’: Poetry Workshop with Eva Salzman

Saturday 16th October, 8pm at The Main Guard
Eva Salzman, Claire Keegan & Dermot Healy

Sunday 17th October, 5pm at The Main Guard
Darren Shan

Sunday 17th October, 7.30pm at The Main Guard
The Laurence Sterne Lecture: Ulick O’Connor

I am looking for a reviewer that is interested in having a monthly column in MiPO. The candidate must have previous review credits or an amazing blog to be considered. The column will feature poetry reviews from other online magazines as well as MiPOesias Magazine. If you are interested, please use the form and place next to your name (REVIEWER). If you meet my requirements, I will respond immediately. Thank you.

One of its advocates writes, 'Aberdeen Council is going to run with our proposal for a city poet laureate!'

View the Cultural Strategy paperwork here [search for 'poet laureate'].

Judith Beveridge is the winner of the Arts Queensland Judith Wright Calanthe Award for Poetry for Wolf Notes, published by Giramondo Publishing [scroll down for title].

Michelle Langford at University of Technology, Sydney is looking for creative work inspired by movies. She's editing FINE PRINT, a UTS newssheet.

Send work ASAP to Michelle. Langford @ uts. edu. au

Limerick is to put on a feast of poetry this October.

Something for everyone, promises Barney Sheehan, one of the organising committee of Cuisle - Limerick's International Poetry Festival, and the man responsible for putting Limerick back on the poetry map through his work hosting the weekly White House Poetry Revival.

The emphasis this year is very much on giving poetry back to the people. Anyone who has a poem and wants to perform it will be given a chance.

There are four open-mic sessions and a grand slam, with a substantial cash prize, on the Saturday. There is plenty opportunity for poets and would be poets to perform their work.

Sheehan is calling on every poet in Ireland to gather in Limerick for the week to do their stuff and participate in in what promises to be the finest celebration of contemporary poetry in Ireland.

Final touches are being put to the programme at the moment but as well as the open-mic sessions, a number of top class
international poets have confirmed that they will be reading at the Festival.

For those wishing to brush up on their poetry skills, a series of Workshops facilated by Galway poet Kevin Higgins will commence at the Georgian House, 2 Pery Square on Saturday 16th Oct at 10.00am. Those wishing to take part are advised to send three poems to the Limerick City Arts Office, City Hall, Merchants Quay, Limerick to book their place.

Further details of Cuisle can be got from Sheila Deegan. Email sdeegan @ limerickcity. ie or cuise2004 @ eircom. net

RAISIN’ THAT CASH FOR ISSUE #2

Friday, November 19, 2004
Cocktail Hour: 7PM
Readings: Start at 8pm with one break

Suggested Donation of $20 scores you: Wine & Cheese Buffet, a raffle ticket which makes you eligible for fabulous prizes, and a complimentary copy of SSN #1.

Donations of $50 or more (you can submit check/cash/MO) will receive benefactor recognition in the second issue of small.spiral.notebook available on newsstands nationwide Winter 2005.

PRIZES: Autographed books, CDs/DVDs, gift certificates to fabulous shops, theatre tix and much, much more!

READERS
Hilary T. Hamann (author, Anthropology of an American Girl)
Rachel Sherman
Cris Beam
*BREAK*
Nic Kelman (author, girls)
Lisa Dierbeck (author, One Pill Makes You Smaller)
Merrill Feitell (Here Beneath Low Flying Planes)

LOCATION
Vernacular Press, 560 Broadway, Suite 509, NY, NY 10012, 212-343-9074?(the corner of Prince and Broadway)
Directions: N/R Prince Street; F/V to Broadway/Lafayette
www.vernacularpress.com

RSVP
No RSVP Required. Bring as many friends, colleagues as possible!

Say good morning to our 2nd chapbook!
http://www.horselesspress.com/chapbooks.html
Erika Howsare's ELECT JUNE GROOMS is now available, hand-bound, via pay-pal or money order. In the spirit of the embedded economy, we hope soon to make our chapbooks available as free downloads, too.

There are a few new projects afoot, including WANT/ADDS, a monster that makes itself.
http://www.horselesspress.com/wantadds.html
Please visit, browse, become part.

We have new friends
http://www.horselesspress.com/artists.html

and new accomplishments
http://www.horselesspress.com/localnews.html

and illusions of extra-sensory perception
http://www.horselesspress.com/bibliomancy.html

and we're still interested as ever in your contributions
http://www.horselesspress.com/contributions.html

in particular, to HORSE LESS REVIEW and the HORSE LESS COOKBOOK.
http://www.horselesspress.com/review.html
http://www.horselesspress.com/cookbook.html

"Poetry," said Christopher Fry, "is the language in which man explores his own amazement". It's no surprise that so many of us try our hand at it. But all those who have will be aware that one of the chief problems that poets encounter (apart, if you choose to pursue it professionally, from the vanishingly small chance of knowing the joy of the minimum wage again), is that it can be hard to ask for - and get - objective feedback.
With the launch of our poetry workshop, we aim to change that. Every month, the workshop will be hosted by a different poet who will set an exercise, choose the two most interesting responses and offer an appraisal of them, which will be posted here alongside the winning poems.

My name is Daniel Rice. I live in Dudley Massachusetts. I am a first time writer and have two more chapters to go, to complete my story. It's fiction, a coming of age story that would be most enjoyed by adults. It's a fascinating read that I had a couple of english teachers read themselves, telling me that they could not put my book down after the first chapter. It's filled with suspense, along with fear and anxiety. The story focuses on three 10 year old children, two girls and one boy. The story also focuses in on one of the father's dealing with nightmares, which are somehow linked to his childhood, past. Everything comes to an end with a absolution and a twist, making sense in a reality way. I had a english teacher tell me that this story would be a great one to watch, in a movie format. So what is this all about? Well here is the deal. I am putting my manuscript up for auction only to real popular writers and authors, which names are already known. Of course if just the ordinary joe wants to buy my script well, that's ok too. My manuscript may seem expensive to ordinary people like me, but to a real author like John Grisham>The Client, The Firm, and A Time to Kill well if he bought my manuscript for 150,000 dollars and put his own title on it and copyrighted it, putting his name on the book as the writer, how much do you think he would profit from it?

Wednesday 6 October, 8pm
Strike A Prose

Prizes. Come and be in the Open Section (note earlier-than-advertised start time).

What happens when you mix poetry and fashion together? As part of the Melbourne Fringe Festival, five poets will showcase the best 80s wear while knocking you out with their glitzy poetry.

There will be an open section so bring your best 80s poem. Prizes for best 80s clothes for audience members also.

Starring Emilie Zoey Baker, Sean M Whelan, David Prater, Klare Lanson, alicia sometimes with MC Michael Nolan.

Bar Open, 317 Brunswick Street, Fitzroy. $5/$7.

Poetry never looked so good.

Starting Oct. 10th.

In this workshop we will, through various exercises, explore the idea of character and voice. In this workshop we will attempt to shake the dust off your third eye. In this workshop, we will discover the importance of dreams in writing. Cut-ups and photographs will be a few of our methods. We will read the greats and use them as starting points for our own work.

In class writing exercises and take home assignments
Information about publication opportunities
Safe, female only atmosphere
Classes run by experience and published poetry teacher, Christine Hamm, MA

Christine Hamm has been teaching poetry classes for many years. She is the editor of several online and print magazines. She has been published in the Absinthe Literary Review, the Exquisite corpse, the Adirondack Review, Watchword Press and many others.

Fee: 155 dollars, 135 if you join the women’s studio center

For more information and to sign up and reserve a space, send an email here: WSC586@aol.com
or call: (718) 361-5649