John Heath-Stubbs, British poet famed for his poetry inspired by classical myths and winner of the 1973 Queen”s Gold Medal for Poetry, died this morning at the age of 88. His most famous poems include his long poem on King Arthur, Artorius, in 1972, and a series of poem sequences written for Hearing Eye Publications between 1987 and 1994.

Heath-Stubbs was born in 1918, and educated at Worcester College for the Blind and Queens College, Oxford. He was born with a congenital problem with his sight, and suffered from periods of blindness. By 1978, he was completely blind. Despite his blindness, he continued to write until the end of his life. He was noted for his translations of Middle Eastern poems, notably The Rubaiyat of Omar Khayyam, which he translated in 1979 with Peter Avery to mixed critical notice. The writing of his poem Ibycus was the subject of a documentary by Carlos Klein. Ibycus, the story of a poet who is murdered on his way to compete in a poetry contest, is written in the tradition of classical Greek tragedies. Heath-Stubbs is often credited with having kept alive the tradition of the long narrative poem.

Among the poet”s other honors were the St. Augustine Cross and the OBE. He was first published in Eight Oxford Poets in 1941, and has a distinguished and prolific career. Heath-Stubbs was widely regarded as a very versatile poet, as much at home in free verse as he was working in form. His sonnets, villanelles and couplets are especially noted, and his several collections of light verse include a pamphlet of eight poems about the cats of famous poets. Heath-Stubbs was diagnosed with lung cancer four months ago, and died at a nursing home in West London this morning.

Listen to Heath-Stubbs read several of his poems

Technorati Tags: poetry, John Heath-Stubbs, poets, deaths

Just a followup on this morning”s post about the best Christmas read aloud poetry.. Associated Press announced yesterday that the “CEO of a media company” paid $280,000 for a hand-written copy of Clement Clarke Moore”s 1822 poem, “Twas the Night Before Christmas”. The author apparently wrote the poem out and signed it for an acquaintance in 1860. There are only three other known copies of the poem still in existence, all of them in museum collections. The poem wasn”t auctioned; rather, the Dallas based Heritage Auction Galleries brokered the deal with a private collector who has been in possession of the document. Greg Rohan, president of the galleries, delivered the poem personally to the new owner”s Manhattan apartment, where there was a party in progress. The new owner immediately gathered his friends around him and read the poem aloud. “They thought it was the coolest thing ever,” said Rohan.

Technorati Tags: poetry, poems, auction, night-before-christmas

There”s been a round of interesting happenings and writings around the poetry world this week. Some of them are fascinating little tidbits to sprinkle into your conversation when you want to sound erudite. A few speak so well for themselves that any commentary from me would be completely superfluous. Check out a few of these links and find out what”s been news in the poetry world recently.

Ferlinghetti awarded French Title
The French government has given Ferlinghetti the title of Commandeur des Arts et Lettres, citing his poems such as “A Coney Island of the Mind”" (1958) and his role in publishing Beat poets like Allen Ginsberg in the 1950s and “60s. The French consul general, Frederic Desagneaux, presented him with a medal and a Gallic hug during a reception Friday evening at the French consulate in San Francisco. Does this mean we send him a snappy salute when we see him?

Poet Blog Appoints Unoffical Poets Laureate for Ten States
Matt Mikalatos thought he was just fooling around back in October when he announced his I Want to Be a Poet Laureate Contest at his Burning Hearts Revolutions blog. The response surprised him… and got him a newspapah headline.

Londoners Reading Poetry on the Subway for Over Twenty Years
It”s been twenty years since the London Underground decided to start putting up poetry on their walls and in their trains. The program proved so successful that it”s spawned ten anthologies of “Poems from the Underground”. Now, you can go to the British Council for the Arts website and Download Poems on the Underground audios or order the complete CD.

Keira Knightley and Lindsey Lohan to Star in Movie About Dylan Thomas
Who”d a thunk it? Keira Knightley and Lindsey Lohan are tentatively slated to star in a new movie about the life of Welsh poet Dylan Thomas – or more specifically, about the volatile relationship between himself, his wife and her best friend. Titled “The Time of Our Lives” the movie is scheduled for completion and release in 2008.

Serving Neither Master – Victor Infante Sees New Directions for Poetry
And finally, Victor Infante, editor-in-chief of The November 3rd Club has a new column up at his regular spot at GotPoetry, and this one is a must-read for anyone who takes poetry seriously. He talks about the directions in which today”s poetry may be heading, the integration of page and stage poetry, and the value of poetry in today”s world. The column is insightful and thought-provoking, and should be on the required reading list for anyone studying poetry.

Technorati Tags: poetry, victor infante, november 3rd club, ferlinghetti

“Poets don”t just come out of an overwhelming emotional experience. They come out of study and hard work.”
-Gregory Donovan, co-editor Blackbird magazine

A grad student at Virginia Commonwealth University has unearthed a previously unpublished sonnet by Sylvia Plath. The poem was apparently written in Plath”s senior year at Smith College, and was written in reaction to the poet”s reading of F. Scott Fitzgerald”s “The Great Gatsby”. Entitled “Ennui”, the poem will be published by Blackbird, VCU”s online review. The AP release about the discovery and publication has some interesting quotes, among them the one that starts off this post. Gregory Donavan, the co-editor of Blackbird, stated that the poem is just another example of how hard Plath worked at her craft early on as a student. It is, he said, what made it possible for her to write such amazing poetry later in her life. Plath biographer Linda Wagner-Martin wouldn”t be surprised to find more early, unpublished work by Plath, whom she says was a prolific writer.

The discovery, and a number of other similar discoveries of previously unpublished works by other poets earlier this year, has me pondering the question of writers and their letters again. I can”t help thinking back to the years in high school and college when I was writing constantly, trying on new forms, playing with ideas and themes in poetry, and the dozens of notebooks and scraps of paper and letters and napkins that I left here and there as I moved from apartment to apartment to dorm room to apartment again. Would I really want those poems discovered in fifty years in the unlikely event that my poetry is ever taken seriously? Putting aside considerations of watching someone”s art develop as they practice their craft, and mature as they do – do I really want the general public – or at least a few grad students – poring through one of those steno books I used to love to write in, examining my self-pretentious and self-conscious notes on my poetry? Or worse, dissecting the hearts and doodles and scribbles that adorn the margins of those early notebooks?

I confess to a bit of voyeuristic curiosity. Part of me wants to sit down and go snooping through Plath”s notebooks and textbooks from her high school and college years to see.. did she scribble boys” names in the margins? Doodle pictures of eyes and puppies, draw skulls, circle page numbers with little flowers? If I ever have the luck to pore through the personal papers of a famous poet, those are the things I”ll be looking for – the unconscious remnants of mindless doodles and long-forgotten dramas. Given that, I suppose it”s a good thing that I”m NOT the one poking through Plath”s old journals and notebooks. I probably would have put the poem aside unread to read her mash notes to friends.

What is news about an economist doing on a blog about poetry? Because occasionally, I find something that I believe is so important, everyone should hear it and know it. This is one of those things – not just the announcement about the award of a Nobel Peace Prize, but the person and organization that was chosen, and the reason for choosing it. Because this was a socially conscious choice, a choice that speaks to a new awareness among people that there is more to peace than stopping war. There are issues of basic human dignity and human rights involved. There are issues of poverty and injustice and whether or not it is fair that a woman in Bangladesh is trying to support her family on wages that could not support a flea while a 15 year old in the US can serve food at McDonald”s and make more money in a week than the Bangladeshi will see in a year. Because human dignity is intertwined with the ability to support oneself and provide for one”s family, and all of that is intertwined with the quest for world peace.

And because poetry IS a socially conscious art. It can move mountains, given a chance. It can reawaken dignity in someone who thought it was long lost. Because I enjoy them, I attend a lot of open mikes in slam venues, and listen to an awful awful awful lot of poetry (which isn”t awful at all). And I hear a LOT of political rants, some of which qualify as poetry. What I seldom hear and would love to hear far more of is positive political poetry, poetry that celebrates and offers solutions and rallies people to those solutions. I salute Muhammad Yunus and his concept of a bank that offers human dignity by providing the means for a person to rise above poverty and provide for himself and his family. And I would sincerely love to hear and read more poetry that celebrates the sort of spirit that led to the founding of the Grameen Bank in 1976. It”s a worthy subject for fine poetry.

BBC NEWS | Europe | Nobel for anti-poverty pioneers