The Xenotext Experiment is
Christian Bök's [
Previously],"nine-year long attempt to create an example of “living poetry.” I have been striving to write a short verse about language and genetics, whereupon I use a “chemical alphabet” to translate this poem into a sequence of DNA for subsequent implantation into the genome of a bacterium (in this case, a microbe called Deinococcus radiodurans—an extremophile, capable of surviving, without mutation, in even the most hostile milieus, including the vacuum of outer space)."
[Via] [more inside]
posted by Fizz
on Apr 4, 2011 -
25 comments
Anne Spencer (1882-1975) (
video tribute from the State Library of Virginia) was a Harlem Renaissance poet, a gardener, a librarian, and an activist. Her work was influential among her peers and successors - as was her legendary and beloved
garden in Lynchburg, Va, where she lived for her entire adult life. She wrote only 50 known poems - 25 to 35 of which were published in her lifetime - on topics that were important to her - the beauty of nature, racism and equality, and her faith, including
these 8 of her better-known poems ,
Before the Feast of Shushan, and
Lady, Lady. Many of her poems were reprinted in anthologies, but the controversial
White Things (c. 1918, published c. 1923, inspired by a particularly horrible lynching of a pregnant woman) was never reprinted.
[more inside]
posted by julen
on Apr 20, 2010 -
7 comments
April 13th is
Seamus Heaney's 70th birthday, and to celebrate, the Irish press have honored him in many ways. A Catholic from Northern Ireland, his early poems reflected his upbringing on a farm, but his later poems (and time in the States) spoke powerfully of 'the Troubles.' I thought he deserved a mention in the Blue.
[more inside]
posted by dbmcd
on Apr 12, 2009 -
13 comments
Should you find yourself wandering around the city of Leiden, the Netherlands sometime, you may
notice some curious markings on the city's walls.
These
Muurgedichten ("Wall Poems") adorn many of the town's streets
(clickable map), and many English-language poets are represented:
one John Keats, for instance, inside a bookshop;
Dylan Thomas,
E. E. Cummings,
W.B. Yeats, some guy
called William Shakespeare, or this
ode to Charlie Parker by American
William Waring Cuney.
[more inside]
posted by goodnewsfortheinsane
on Apr 5, 2009 -
15 comments
Eun
oia ("beautiful thinking") is the shortest word in the English language that contains all five vowels.
It is also the title of a
poetry collection by Canadian author Christian Bok. In addition to writing each chapter using only words that contain one vowel, (
Flash presentation of Chapter "E") Bok also
greatly limits himself in other ways.
An amazing accomplishment that won the $40 000 Griffith Poetry Prize in 2002,
Eun
oia is best experienced in its spoken form. (
MP3 links)
(If you don't know Bok's poetry, you still might know his other work. He has also created artificial languages for two television shows: Gene Roddenberry's Earth: Final Conflict and Peter Benchley's Amazon.)
posted by Jaybo
on Jul 22, 2004 -
18 comments
Burns Night. 'Robert Burns: poet and balladeer, Scotland's favourite son and champion of the common people. Each year on January 25, the great man's presumed birthday, Scots everywhere take time out to honour a national icon. Whether it's a full-blown Burns Supper or a quiet night of reading poetry, Burns Night is a night for all Scots.'
More on
the Robert Burns Tribute site.
posted by plep
on Jan 23, 2004 -
3 comments
And death shall have no dominion.
Dead men naked they shall be one
With the man in the wind and the west moon;
When their bones are picked clean and the clean bones gone,
They shall have stars at elbow and foot;
Though they go mad they shall be sane,
Though they sink through the sea they shall rise again;
Though lovers be lost love shall not;
And death shall have no dominion.
Fifty years ago,
Dylan Thomas - one of the greatest poets of our time -
drank himself to death in New York's Hotel Chelsea at the age of 39.
Swansea, his Welsh hometown, will be commemorating his life all year, culminating in a
festival in the fall.
[more]
posted by madamjujujive
on Jun 18, 2003 -
58 comments
America, America: I too love jeans and jazz and Treasure Island. A poem from Saadi Youssef, published in this Saturday's Guardian (scroll down past Seamus Heaney):
Take what you do not have
and give us what we have.
Take the stripes of your flag
and give us the stars.
Take the Afghani Mujahideen beard
and give us Walt Whitman's beard filled with
butterflies.
Take Saddam Hussein
and give us Abraham Lincoln
or give us no one.
Saadi Youssef was born in 1934 near Basra, Iraq. He is considered to be among the greatest living Arab poets. Youssef has published 25 volumes of poetry, a book of short stories, a novel, four volumes of essays, a memoir, and numerous translations. In addition to being imprisoned for his poetry and politics, he has won numerous literary awards and recognitions. He now lives in London. [more inside]
posted by jokeefe
on Feb 14, 2003 -
8 comments
Positive, by Ian Stephens. Not, perhaps, in the tradition of Day Without Art. But...
Ian Stephens was a poet, musician, and performer from my neighbourhood in Montreal who died in 1996.
posted by mikel
on Dec 1, 2000 -
0 comments
