MetaFilter posts tagged with Poetry and obituary

How to Enjoy Reality

digaman — Tue, 14 Jul 2009 13:07:29 -0800

Rest in peace, Simon Vinkenoog [Dutch blog w/English option], poet, friend of artists like Karel Appel, translator of Beat Generation figures like Allen Ginsberg and Jack Kerouac, psychedelic enthusiast and "weed ambassador" of Amsterdam, and author of such guides to hip living as How to Enjoy Reality. One of the European jazz-loving proto-hippies who made the '60s swing and mentored several generations of culture hackers, though he was never widely known in the US.

Under the Eye of the Clock

a womble is an active kind of sloth — Mon, 02 Mar 2009 08:17:15 -0800

Irish poet and writer Christopher Nolan died on the 20 Feb. Nolan was born with cerebral palsy, and typed using a 'unicorn stick' attached to his head. Nolan has never spoken, yet his poetry has been compared to that of Joyce, Keats, and Yeats. Among firs, a cone high-flown, Winged, popped, Hied, foraying, embalming, Sembling tomb Among coy, conged fir needles, A migratory off-spring Embarks on life’s green film. A link from the Economist about him, and the Irish Times. He had an incredible vocabulary, and amongst other notable achievements provided the inspiration for a U2 song.

RIP Hayden Carruth 1921-2008

jessamyn — Tue, 30 Sep 2008 15:31:52 -0800

"Why don't you write me a poem that will prepare me for your death?" Hayden Carruth's wife, thirty years his junior, asked him. He did so, and it became one of his most popular poems. Carruth, who celebrated his 87th birthday last month died last night at his home in Munnsville New York. Carruth was the winner of the the Pulitzer Prize and the National Book Award for his poetry collection Scrambled Eggs and Whiskey. He edited Poetry magazine from 1949-1950 and was a poetry editor at Harpers. A few more news pieces: Lives of a Poet (U of Chicago), a book review and more bio at the New York Times, additional bio information at the birthdays of poets blog. A few more poems: Carruth describing and then reading a poem he wrote about Raymond Carver in May of this year, Of Distress Being Humiliated by the Classical Chinese Poets, The Cows at Night, The Afterlife: Letter to Stephen Dobyns II, and my favorite On Being Asked To Write A Poem Against The War In Vietnam (more) An excerpt from the U Chicago link

Carruth, whose grandfather wrote speeches for Eugene Debs, calls himself an “old-line anarchist” and a “rural communist with a small c.” On this day he grumbles about President Bush. In 1998 he declined an invitation to the Clinton White House for a celebration of American poetry, explaining in a letter that “it would seem the greatest hypocrisy for an honest American poet to be present on such an occasion at the seat of the power which has not only neglected but abused the interests of poets and their readers continually, to say nothing of many other administratively dispensable segments of the population.” He has long resisted the notion that politics—or anything else—doesn’t belong in poetry. His poems are democratic in the broadest sense, siding with the weak against the powerful, oppressed against oppressor. His sympathies extend even to despised creatures like rats and car salesmen. “I’ve always felt sorry for the rats,” he says.

A Real Man Passes

scruss — Mon, 06 Mar 2006 17:54:43 -0800

Ivor Cutler, 1923-2006; poet, artist, musician, mensch; passed away on Friday. (previously)

Child poet, old soul wisdom

moonbird — Wed, 23 Jun 2004 22:01:34 -0800

Remembering the amazingly mature poetry of Mattie Stepanek: national goodwill ambassador with muscular dystrophy, and 13 year old prodigal wordsmith.

Thom Gunn

digaman — Wed, 28 Apr 2004 11:22:22 -0800

One of the finest poets in English, Thom Gunn, has died. Along with Philip Larkin and Ted Hughes, Gunn became famous as a young poet in England in the 1950s as part of "The Movement," writing fine poems in rhyme and meter. But then he fell in love with an American soldier, Mike Kitay, and followed him to San Francisco, where he crafted one of the most daringly original voices in the 20th century, handling taboo subjects like LSD, orgiastic sex, and his 50-year relationship with Kitay with the precision of a diamond cutter. Gunn lived in my neighborhood, and was a dapper, subtle, sexy and hilariously witty man until the end. Ten years ago, when I asked him what music he was listening to he replied, "Oh, Nirvana and Social Distortion. I'm a flighty teenager that way."

Fernando Pessoa

ODiV — Fri, 12 Sep 2003 11:32:19 -0800

Fernando Pessoa was a Portuguese poet and mastermind. He created and maintained several heteronyms who each had their own distinct writings, went on to lead interesting lives, and even interacted with each other. All in the public eye.

The truth about their existence was only discovered after the death of Pessoa and the subsequent discovery of a trunk containing writings from all of them.

sugarfish — Mon, 04 Dec 2000 01:10:38 -0800

Gwendolyn Brooks, poet, died Sunday.