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dumbfoundry

Poetry news, poetry blogs, poetry magazines, poetry journals, poetry sites, poetry links, etc.

Friday, March 31, 2006
Hearing again the life-altering, haunting words of poet Sexton

NaPoWriMo [blog, world]:
Care to write a poem a day for a month? Care to double that?

More info here.

napowrimo

Thursday, March 30, 2006
Calls for Translators' Work [US]:
Translations: New Poems Inspired by Artworks from Around the Globe

Editor: Jan Greenberg
Publisher: Harry N. Abrams, Inc., New York
A new poetry anthology seeks English-language translators who work with published international poets who would be interested in writing a poem inspired by an artwork. The poems in their original language will be published side by side with their translations, along with the artwork. Artworks can be from any period in that country’s history, but they must be in a museum collection.

Writer John McGahern dies

Wednesday, March 29, 2006
The emerging writers' festival [Australia]:
The 3rd annual Emerging Writers Festival, presented by Express Media with the Victorian Writers' Centre and supported by the Wilin Centre, is taking over the Melbourne Town Hall from 7–9 April in Melbourne, celebrating the best Indigenous and non-Indigenous writers you haven’t heard of — yet.

Tuesday, March 28, 2006
Soft Skull launches a subscription model...

Child poetry plagiarist unmasked [Amsterdam]:
The 10-year-old winner of a children's poetry competition had to hand back her prize money after newspaper readers noticed that her poem was the work of a well known writer.

Literary danger zones in poetry [US]:
Editor Michael Dumanis has a simple request: "Take off your shirt."

Editorial Personal Secretary to Scriptwriter and Poet [UK]:
Base Pay: £25,000 - £36,000/Year
...
DESCRIPTION
Gentleman scriptwriter and poet immediately requires an experienced editorial assistant to manage and assist in his film writing and its amendment, poetry collection publishing, and his full secretarial/organisation support.

Call for Submissions [US]:
"Bleeding on the Page: An Anthology of Women Writing About Menstruation

Edited by Parneshia Jones, Jo Ruby, Elizabeth Slade, and Julia Watts

This anthology is open to women of all ages."

Scotsman.com News - Scotland - 'Concrete poet' Finlay dies age 80[Scotland]:
THE ARTIST and poet Ian Hamilton Finlay, who devoted decades of his life to a living work of art, his garden at Little Sparta, has died.
Here is the Times's obit.

Quinn’s Bishop [US]:
The New Yorker’s poetry editor, Alice Quinn, edited and annotated “Edgar Allan Poe & The Juke-Box,” a new volume of Elizabeth Bishop’s uncollected poems, drafts, and fragments. Here, Quinn talks with Matt Dellinger about Bishop and her work, and reads selections from the book. [...]
Audio slide show.

Call for Poems: From the Garden of the Gods:
The Sun Rising Poetry Press is presently taking submissions for 'From the Garden of the Gods', a Mythological collection about Gods ** Goddesses ** Fairies ** Atlantis ** Imaginary Places (not Michael Jackson's 'Neverland') ** Mermaids **
and other things

Saturday, March 25, 2006
SYLVIA AND TED – I WAS THERE by Derek Strahan

Thursday, March 23, 2006
Pinoy Haiku Writing Contest [Philippines]:
A Call for submissions for the All-Filipino Haiku Contest in Commemoration of the Philippines-Japan Friendship Year 2006

Turn your company into an artist colony [US]:
"By understanding how poets, painters and writers tap into creativity, business professionals are hoping to learn new approaches to solving existing business problems."

The Paris Review: Open Letter [US]:
Six years ago, The Paris Review and the Zoo Press agreed to award a poetry prize in The Paris Review's name. The Paris Review has been deeply dismayed to learn, over the past year, that the Zoo Press has failed to pay prize money, or to publish prize-winning manuscripts, as it promised to do.
Plus the Univ of Nebraska Press. And Kenyon Review's own open letter.

Wednesday, March 22, 2006
Falling Into Place [US]:
"Arrange your poetry with a purpose to shape your collection into a cohesive, lyrical manuscript."

Geoffrey Chaucer Hath A Blog. Classic!

Ancient Coffin Depicts Scenes from Homer's Odyssey, Iliad [Greece]:
NICOSIA, Cyprus (AP) -- A 2,500-year-old sarcophagus with vivid color illustrations from Homer's epics has been discovered in western Cyprus, archaeologists said Monday.

Tuesday, March 21, 2006
reading revival is a blog promoting Australian poetry books & criticism, written by poet Michael Farrell.

Deadline is April 1 [US]:
The Society for Humanistic Anthropology Announces the 2006 Poetry Competition as a means to encourage scholars to use alternative literary genres to explore anthropological concerns. These concerns may be any of those associated with the fields of anthropology: Archaeological, Biological, Linguistic, Sociocultural and Applied Anthropology.

CALL FOR SUBMISSIONS [US]: Seattle Area Poets, send 7-10 poems.

Monday, March 20, 2006
Vote for the Greatest Living British Writer

'a.pos.tro.phe is fresh.

Saturday, March 18, 2006
Poets launch fund-raising drive [Taiwan/Philippines]:
The group is also famous for its 'Balagtasan,' a traditional poetic joust or poetry debate in Tagalog conceived by Francisco 'Balagtas' Baltazar, the father of modern Tagalog poetry. The poetry duel usually focuses on a social, political or cultural issue, and features a pro (in favor), a con (against), and a lakandiwa (moderator). The poet who gets a more enthusiastic and rousing reception at the end of the debate wins.

Poet back with his new book [Bahrain]:
The name of Saeed Qais is synonymous with the art of expression in fine and delicate Urdu verses.

The Bahrain-based poet and author is an acclaimed intellectual in the mainstream of contemporary Urdu literary personalities of Pakistan.

He is widely revered and deeply respected by a cross-section of Bahrain's Pakistani community.

Poet's Choice:
Sappho still inspires

Black Pride Poem Ignites Controversy in Westchester [US]:
With the ease and style of a seasoned reverend addressing her congregation, seven-year-old Autum Ashante addressed the crowd at City Hall on March 14. The little girl has become the center of controversy after she said her poem was not for White people.

White parents and children in the Peekskill school system in Westchester were offended when she prefaced a reading of a poem she had written for Black History and Women's History months with the an aside that the poem was written specifically for Black and Hispanic children—not Whites. Administrators made apologetic phone calls to upset parents and there is talk of banning Autum from ever again speaking publicly in the school system.

Chen Shi-Zheng Brings Chinese Poet, Ax Murderer to Berlin Stage [China/Berlin]:
It all went horribly wrong. In China, Gu Cheng was one of the most celebrated poets of the 1980s, a rebel reading for cheering stadium crowds.

As an emigrant in New Zealand, he lived an increasingly isolated and unstable life. In 1993, at the age of 37, he murdered his wife with an ax and then hanged himself.

Well I'll be rooned - fetish goes from fad to verse [Australia]:
IT IS one of the nation's best loved pieces of verse, but - like so much that seems quintessentially Australian - it is also very Irish.

The poem 'Said Hanrahan' still perfectly captures the famine and feast cycle of life on the land.

More importantly, with its Irish cadence and humour, it gently raises a laugh out of the gloomy yet stoic nature of bark-chewing Australian farmers.

'We'll all be rooned,' said Hanrahan,
In accents most forlorn,
Outside the church, ere Mass began,
One frosty Sunday morn.


And as they do every St Patrick's Day in the Riverina town of Narrandera, they celebrated the Irish-Australian author of 'Said Hanrahan' yesterday with a feast of poetry, song and food. Under the pen name John O'Brien, poet-priest Patrick Joseph Hartigan (1878-1952) chronicled the lives of his pioneer Irish Catholic parishioners.

Glass resurrects Gage through poetic alchemy [Japan/US]:
Since self-publishing his first poems at age 16, Jesse Glass has been using alchemical motifs to render lived experience on paper. [...]

Nigredo, or "blackening," is the first of the three alchemical refinement processes (the other two are albedo, or whitening, and rubedo, or reddening) and involves heating the prima materia, or first matter, until it burns to ashes. At the psychological level, nigredo suggests vastation of the ego (that is, the burning away of its impurities), melancholia, depression, self-doubt and the struggle to integrate the shadow side of one's personality. An apt title for a collection by an author in his late teens, one might think. [...]

Glass said his recent work is increasingly performance-oriented, mentioning a performance he gave at a poetry festival in Maastricht, Netherlands, in 2001 of his "Trope Event." The piece involves him reading a moderately long poem and burning each page after completion, then handing paper and pencils to audience members and asking them to write down--"resurrect, as it were, from the cooling ashes"--what they remember of the content.

Flexing Brains at the USA National Memory Championship [US]:
Joshua Foer, younger brother of author Jonathan Safran Foer and New Republic editor, Franklin Foer, took first place. The 23-year-old beat last year's winner, Ram Kolli of Richmond, Virginia, in the final round of the competition. [...]

Newcomer and finalist Erin Luley, 17, of Mechanicsburg, Pennsylvania, set two new records – one in the poetry-recall round and another in names and faces, where contestants must memorize names associated with pictures of people.

Making the Initial Cut: The literary prize selection process:
Setting restrictions on what books can be submitted is an effective way of keeping the number of books that must be considered manageable -- though it is not clear that the restrictions are always necessary. The list of Booker nominees appears to generally hover between 100 and 150, but the far more open Pulitzer reportedly only had 800 nominations for all five letters categories (an average of only 160 titles per category (Fiction, Biography, General Non-Fiction, History, and Poetry)).

Friday, March 17, 2006
Poet attacks 'joke' [Welsh Rugby Union] in verse [Wales]:
Wales' national poet Gwyneth Lewis has reacted to rugby misery by attacking Welsh rugby chiefs in verse.

Thursday, March 16, 2006
moria is fresh.

Galatea Resurrects (A Poetry Review) is fresh.

Tuesday, March 14, 2006
Jen Tynes says:
Part 3 of Don’t You Have A Map?

A collaboration twixt your horse less editors,

is now available at TYPO’s Burning Chair:

http://www.typomag.com/burningchair/2006/03/dont-you-have-map.html

[We had technical difficulties, but Ivy has solved them. Thanks, Ivy.]

Elizabeth Bishop's unfinished business [US]:
Elizabeth Bishop was asked in an interview in 1978 (the year before her death at age 68), "Do you start a lot of poems and finish very few?" To which Bishop answered, "Yes. Alas, yes. I begin lots of things and then I give up on them ..." Bishop's claim might seem surprising, given the sheer vital clarity and imaginative precision of her work, typified by now-canonical poems such as "In the Waiting Room," "Questions of Travel" and "One Art."

But Bishop was not exaggerating. Though she published only 80 poems in books and journals during her five decades-long career ("The Complete Poems" clocks in at 116), her notebooks, journals and letters -- 3,500 pages housed at the department of special collections at Vassar College, Bishop's alma mater -- reveal a dazzling store of orphaned poems [...]
Also:
Primary Stages, in association with Mahega Productions, will present the final production of its 2005-2006 season, the New York Premiere of A Safe Harbor for Elizabeth Bishop, by Marta Góes, featuring the OBIE winning and Academy Award and Golden Globe-nominated actress Amy Irving.

With direction by Richard Jay-Alexander, the show's preview performances are set to begin 7PM Tuesday, March 21, 2006 at 59E59 Theaters (59 East 59th Street between Park & Madison Avenues) for a limited run through April 30, 2006. Opening night is Thursday evening, March 30, 2006 at 7:00PM. [...]

Poet the perfect subject for prize winner [Australia]:
A LARGER-THAN-LIFE poet is the subject of Peter Wegner's winning entry in Australia's richest art contest, the $100,000 Doug Moran National Portrait Prize.

Saturday, March 11, 2006
Happy birthday!
Happy birthday, Eeksy!

Critique Magazine:
Each year, Critique Magazine's staff compiles essays by and interviews with writers, teachers, and translators of merit for inclusion in the special anniversary edition "On Writing".

Friday, March 10, 2006
Ivor Cutler [UK]:
Despite being a late starter, Ivor Cutler, who has died aged 83, leaves behind several life-times' worth of work across a wide range of artistic disciplines. His creative canon includes 12 albums, dozens of BBC radio broadcasts and 15 radio plays, as well as 33 books. He was a wordsmith, a songwriter, a poet, a cartoonist, a singer and a humorist. [...]

bear parade is new:
raaaar.

electronically published collections
of poetry and short fiction.

free for everyone.

bearparade@gmail.com
First publication: this emotion was a little e-book

Thursday, March 09, 2006
Other Magazine [US]:
Now reading for issue #10, the Monkey/Ape Issue.
Deadline: March 17.

Wednesday, March 08, 2006
Call for Poems [UK]:
This poem is sponsored by... Poems in the face of corporate power

Deadline for submissions: 1st July 2006

Calling all writers and worriers, lyricists and layabouts, radicals and revolutionaries, thinkers and storytellers, performers and poets...

'This poem is sponsored by...' will be a world-changing collection of poetry: a rich source of inspiration and insight to help us to take action.


Outside Voices 2008 Anthology of Younger Poets [US/world]:
... edited by John Sakkis & Jessica Smith. Submit work to poetry2008 @ gmail.com or visit outsidevoices.org for more info.

An introduction to spoetry

Tuesday, March 07, 2006
Poets now selected for A Slice of Cherry Pie, launching Summer 2006 [though it'll be winter in the antipodean climes, of course.]

Friday, March 03, 2006
Mazaar razed, but four years on Wali Gujarati not forgotten [India]:
AHMEDABAD, MARCH 2: Nafrat phailah rahe hain yeh mazhab ke naam par
Satta ke bhookhe logon se mazhab bachaiye

(They are spreading fear in the name of faith/ Save faith from those hungry for power)

Four years after his tomb fell to mob fury in the Godhra aftermath, the renowned 16th century Urdu poet Wali Gujarati was remembered again. NGO Act Now For Harmony And Democracy (ANHAD) paid floral tributes to Ahmedabad’s cultural icon and lit candles at the site where his grave used to be.

Located in the middle of a busy road in Shahibaug, the grave was just 50 metres from the police headquarters. But that couldn’t save it from being vandalised on March 1, 2002, with a tarred road being laid over it barely a week later. Despite repeated requests to the government by various NGOs, permission to reconstruct the tomb has not yet been granted. [...]
More here:
Today a slight unevenness and discolouration in the road that runs adjacent to the Ahmedabad Police Headquarters is the only surviving vestige of a man who is acknowledged by all with a knowledge of Indian culture as one of the founders of modern Urdu poetry. [...]

Symphonic songs translate a poet's anger and passion [US]:
The New York Philharmonic has doled out the first of the season's two world premieres, a set of finely chiseled orchestral songs by John Harbison, loosely spun around the poetry of Czeslaw Milosz. [...]

Banker by day, poet by night [India]:
During the day he works at the Lucknow Urban Co Operative Bank of which he is the deputy manager. At night, he is busy increasing his 'intellectual capital' bank. His eyes light up when he is successful giving wings to his thoughts.

Yet, despite thousands of Urdu couplets and two hugely impressive works on poetry, he says he doesn’t know "the Urdu script still." This, despite the fact that his poems have been appreciated by Pakistan's leading poet, Amjad Ali Amjad, filmmaker Mahesh Bhatt and famous singer Anoop Jalota among a host of others. He is Bharat Bhushan Pant, a poet par excellence. [...]
This article about Pant is pants, but maybe you're interested in Ghalib's ghazals?

foam:e is fresh.

Thursday, March 02, 2006
DIAGRAM is fresh.

Wednesday, March 01, 2006
Ottakar's and Faber Poetry Competition [UK]:
Deadline: 16 March 2006

Makata is fresh.