A Lone Tibetan Voice, Intent on Speaking Out. Woeser (previously mentioned here) is a Tibetan writer and poet living under house arrest in Beijing, from where she blogs about the recent unrest in Tibet (there are English translations of her posts at China Digital Times). Last year she was awarded the Norwegian Authors Union Freedom of Expression Prize, but she was not allowed to travel to Oslo to collect the prize.
posted to MetaFilter by homunculus at 1:05 PM on May 6, 2008 (15 comments)

Wendell Berry is an agrarian writer, poet, and Mad Farmer. Perhaps most famous for his decision not to buy a computer, which stirred some controversy, Berry is an anti-war, anti-state, anti-capitalist, conservationist conservative.
posted to MetaFilter by anotherpanacea at 7:09 AM on April 10, 2008 (35 comments)

Robinson Jeffers: Peace Poet. [Via Hit & Run.]
posted to MetaFilter by homunculus at 1:05 PM on December 23, 2007 (4 comments)

Louis Wain became one of the most famous British illustrators of the late Victorian and Edwardian era after trying to cheer up his wife Emily by drawing portraits of their pet cat, Peter. In addition to publishing a popular children's book about kittens, he was a founder of the U.K's National Cat Club who was instrumental in promoting the Cat Fancy movement, which encouraged Britons of all classes to view cats as lovable pets instead of household pests. Unfortunately, after Wain's wife Emily died of breast cancer, Wain gradually went mad due to psychosis and late onset schizophrenia, ending up in London's notorious Bethlehem Hospital (the etymological origin for the word bedlam). While at Bedlam, Wain continued to draw, but his cat portraits transformed into pure geometric abstraction and psychedelic fractals, but some see harbingers of madness in cryptically titled works, such as Early Indian Irish and The Fire of the Mind Agitates the Atmosphere. For more insight on Wain, check out this 1896 interview and this short film dramatizing the progression of Wain's schizophrenia through his art.
posted to MetaFilter by jonp72 at 12:37 PM on August 12, 2007 (25 comments)

Christian the pet lion [yt] sees his former owners after being released in the wild. He was quite the sophisticated cat in his domestic days. Here is another video from prior to his liberation. [via reddit]
posted to MetaFilter by frecklefaerie at 8:09 AM on August 10, 2007 (46 comments)

Ezra Pound: The Complete Poetry Recordings at PennSound
posted to MetaFilter by ubueditor at 8:30 AM on April 10, 2007 (31 comments)

TVFolk is a collection of 400-odd videos of traditional music from nothern Europe, including a live (leek-free) performance from Loituma (below) in 2001. Other standouts include Hedningarna, JPP, and Garmarna.
posted to MetaFilter by Wolfdog at 4:50 AM on May 21, 2006 (12 comments)