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

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

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

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.

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

I will grant that I live in one of the richer areas for poetry in the U.S. – the little northeast triangle between Boston, Providence and Worcester, Massachusetts – but even granting that, how can poetry be dying when any day of any week, I have at least one venue presenting poetry within easy driving distance? When I can add any one of half dozen “Poem a Day” subscription services to download or email poetry to me every single day of the year? When municipalities are spending money to put poems on the walls of their mass transit systems so that people can be exposed to it? When poets are _complaining_ that poetry is being commercialized by being featured on television programs and in television advertisments?

In the UK, there are grants available to hospitals to bring poets in to work with patients and staff. In the US, poetry is being acknowledged as a healing force at such nationally known institutions as Harvard Medical School and UCLA. Even the web site for the UK”s National Poetry Day declares:

Such a variety of poetry is being written and read these days that we decided to choose a different theme each year to highlight particular poets and styles of poetry.

And yet, the BBC mourned yesterday,

But with National Poetry Day seemingly stuck in quiet church halls and municipal buildings, the advocates of mass market verse have their work cut out.

And yet…

…my chldren – regular, everyday American teens – read poetry, both their own and that of others. When their friends find out that I write poetry and write about poetry, they bring me their journals and ask me to read the poetry that they write. All over the country, venues that host adult poetry readings are hosting youth poetry slams and poetry readings – and most have high attendance. Spoken word, written word, slam, performance, journals, subway walls, Def Poetry Jam – they”re finding their way to poetry in enormous numbers. My own favorite voices in the world of poetry – both writing it and writing about it – sell cars, practice law, write for newspapers, raise children, work as computer programmers – and this is no different than it ever was. In every generation, its poets have held down other jobs to make their living – while they lived their lives in poetry. In every generation, their have been voices decrying the lack of poetry, the death of the literate world and the coming of the Visigoths. I agree wholeheartedly with John Burnside, chair of the committee that awards the prestigious Forward Poetry Prize, when he says,

“Poetry doesn”t have to become relevant, it is relevant,” insists Burnside. “We turn to it in tough situations, when we are in moving situations and in tender situations.

“We bring it out when we marry, bury and christen, it”s part of our lives – it”s just that we forget it sometimes.”

I believe that we are at the beginning of a period of remembering it. And I celebrate that fact every day.

So – it may or may not be a financial success. I hope it is. I hope that people like me discover new artists there, new wordsmiths with whom to fall in love, new poets to emulate and read and delight in. I hope that even if it isn”t, that 57productions deems it worthy to keep going in the hopes that we really are moving toward a time when poets speak as loudly as movie makers and pop music artists. We can cross our fingers, at least. Poetry is a worthy art – and it deserves to be easily and widely heard. Check out iPoems – and prod them to include more artists and more poets!

Technorati Tags: ipoems, itunes, ipod poems

The perennial favorite by James Whitcomb Riley will be popping up in classrooms all around the U.S. any time now. It was always a mark of autumn chills and shivers when the English teacher stood up at the front of the room and intoned, “And the gobble-uns “ll git you ef you don”t… watch… out!” – a sign that Halloween was creeping nearer, with the spooky, delightful thrills of a night of haunts and howls.

The beginning of October is a wonderfully appropriate time for Indiana University-Purdue University to announce that the collected letters, photos and papers of poet James Whitcomb Riley will soon be available to net surfers. The Hancock County Public Library in Riley”s hometown of Greenfield, Indiana, received an $8,700 grant to digitize the collected works and archives from their collection of Riley artifacts. The library, with the aid of Indiana University-Purdue University, plans to scan 100 letters to and from the poet, as well as posters and handbills advertising his appearances, 200 photographs, handwritten poems and newspaper accounts. Riley, who died in 1916, would have appreciated the digitizing, says a Riley biographer. He would have found a way to publicize his poetry, says Elizabeth Van Allen. He was good at that.

He was indeed – and had, apparently, a rather wonderful sense of humor as shown in this story from the James Whitcomb Riley web site maintained by author Thomas E. Q. Williams. It details how Riley pulled off one of the most famous poetry hoaxes of the century.

The function of art in general and of poetry in particular has not been or is to solve the fundamental problems of men and women. Its function is to remind us, from an ever new perspective, the existence of these problems. And our potential to solve them. Poetry and art are there to widen our conscience, and to spur it on an emancipating direction.

On Thursday, the Right Livelihood Award Foundation announced the 2006 recipients of the Right Livelihood Award. Among the three are a U.S. man who exposed corruption in government, an Indian woman who has dedicated her life to securing equal rights for other women, and a poetry festival that is an inspiration to the entire world. The three recipients of the RLA for 2006 are Daniel Ellsberg of the United States of America, Ruth Manorama of India and The International Poetry Festival of Medellin. The Foundation Right Livelihood, headquartered in Sweden, annually makes an award to those who offer an outstanding vision and work on behalf of our planet and our people. Established in 1980, the $230,000 (approx) award has become widely known as the Alternative Nobel.

The Right Livelihood Award is about changing the world. It is about giving a little more scope and influence to people who have a vision and a commitment to better futures for all. And it is about shifting the balance in their favour against the Goliaths who will otherwise continue destroying the world for power or profit.
-RLA Aims and Objectives.

Historically, the RLA has been awarded to individuals and organizations whose work promotes peace, sound ecological policies and practices, social justice and human rights for all. In making the award to the Medellin poetry festival, the award”s granters stated that it is “…for showing how creativity, beauty, free expression and community can flourish amongst and overcome even deeply entrenched fear and violence.”

The Medellin Poetry Festival began in 1991 as a protest against political violence and hatred. It was, said the festival”s initiator, an attempt “to create through poetry an atmosphere that without ignoring the spiral of death and the inertial strength of hate could put a little light in this sombre scene.” The first Festival was organized by a group of 13 people. In the fifteen years since its inception, the “little light” has grown to a shining beacon with 200,000 people in attendance to hear and participate in 80 to 100 readings over the course of ten days.

The award will be presented in a ceremony to take place in Stockholm on December 8, the day before the presentation of the Nobel Peace Prizes.

In 1993, Vice President Al Gore read a poem by a woman named Dana Shuster at the dedication of the Vietnam Women”s War Memorial. The poem, Hello David, was read by Laura Palmer, author of Shrapnel in the Heart, on NPR”s morning radio show when the book was published. The poem is simple – a few heartfelt lines that begin, “Hello, David. My name is Dusty. I”ll be your night nurse.” Says Palmer in a recent interview with NPR, “Her poetry helped people appreciate the sacrifice that women made in Vietnam.” The daughter of a man killed in Vietnam, Karen Spears Zachariah, says that the poetry has an emotional truth that still moves her, even now after learning that the poet, Dana Shuster, invented her tours of duty in Vietnam.

On the front page of the Vietnam Women”s Memorial Foundation, the bright red letters of the word Bulletin call attention to the legend, War Poet Dusty not a veteran. War poet Dusty, aka Dana Shuster, had been interviewed for Moran”s book as a war nurse who served two tours of duty in Vietnam. The book “Visions of War, Dreams of Peace“, a collection of poetry by women Vietnam veterans, contained a full dozen poems written by either Dusty or Dana Shuster. “What do you pack/to take to a war?” Shuster asks in the opening poem of the book. Other poems detail the emotional havoc of holding the hands of dying soldiers, of being entrusted to pass last messages, of being over and over and over, in Shuster”s words, “The last person who will love you.”

But over the years since the dedication of the Women”s Veteran”s Memorial, people were asking questions. No one could remember serving with Dusty, and eventually, author Palmer received a call asking if she was sure that Shuster had actually ever been to Vietnam. Pressed, Shuster admitted to Palmer that she had no way to corroborate her stories. For whatever reasons she might have, it appears that poet Dana Shuster invented her years of service, imagined and gave voice to a war nurse named Dusty who wrote poems about something the poet never experienced.

There is certainly a betrayal here – but the betrayal is not in the writing of the poems. The use of a poetic voice is a long-standing tradition, one of the tools of poetry used by most poets at one time or another. The betrayal is in assuming that persona as truth, as a part of the poet”s own history, as if the words don”t have emotional truth behind them. Shuster”s poems ring with that emotional truth, despite the fact that she never lived the life from which they were born.

Poets are not journalists. We are not bound to relate events as truthfully as possible. Rather, we are encouraged to take “poetic license” with facts to make them more real, more emotional, more telling. In this case, though, the poet took on the persona of her poems, and the end result is hurt and betrayal. One has to wonder if the poems would have been any less effective had Shuster presented them simply as a heartfelt tribute to women who served side by side with men in Vietnam.

On a side note, if you want to spend half an hour in tears, visit the Vietnam Women”s Memorial Foundation web site and read the poems of tribute there.

Technorati Tags: poetry, poems, Vietnam Women”s Veterans Memorial, Dana Shuster, Dusty, veterans poems