The Paris Review's 1970 interview with Pablo Neruda. [more inside]
posted by simulacra on Apr 20, 2012 - 11 comments

Günter Grass barred from Israel over poem. [Guardian.co.uk] Nobel laureate, who says he had not meant to criticise Israel but Netanyahu government, declared persona non grata. The celebrated German author Gunter Grass has been declared persona non grata in Israel following the publication of his poem [Guardian.co.uk] warning that the Jewish state's nuclear programme was a threat to an "already fragile world peace". [more inside]
posted by Fizz on Apr 9, 2012 - 191 comments

Did you know the recently elected president of Ireland is actually a noted poet? [The Guardian] Here is another of his works. The Guardian's own Carol Rumens is not a fan.
posted by Fizz on Nov 4, 2011 - 15 comments

"It was no accident that arts funding was once again brought to national attention with the exhibit Hide/Seek: Difference and Desire in American Portraiture. Since the 80s, the enemies of the NEA have not been those with differences of opinion about what art should be supported or how. Instead they oppose any support at all for art of any kind." Hide/Seek, Culture Wars and the History of the NEA (NSFW, art)
posted by The Whelk on Nov 1, 2011 - 115 comments

Everyone and his or her uncle has griped about the mediocre official inaugural poems heralding recent new U.S. presidencies. Meanwhile, poets Arielle Greenberg & Rachel Zucker have put together a blog, STARTING TODAY, commissioning a poem a day from many of those they consider the best contemporary poets writing today, documenting in verse life under the new ruling paradigm.
posted by aught on Feb 6, 2009 - 16 comments

A small selection of parodic poetry inspired by the Illinois corruption mess. [more inside]
posted by casarkos on Jan 11, 2009 - 10 comments

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 by homunculus on May 6, 2008 - 15 comments

The poppy is bitterly ironic this Remembrance Day. Borrowed from John McRae's classic In Flanders' Fields, the poppy has shifted from a symbolic meaning to the central subject of an ongoing conflict. As international intervention in Afghanistan continues, opium production has reached record-breaking heights, with this single country now producing 90% of the world's total supply (utterly dwarfing global licit supply). Meanwhile, the world suffers a global opiate shortage(pdf), Canada's heroin maintenance project is threatened by politics, and the National Review of Medicine suggests that prescription opiates are far more dangerous than the "usual suspects".
posted by mek on Nov 11, 2007 - 26 comments

Boris Johnson, poet.
posted by fearfulsymmetry on Nov 9, 2007 - 16 comments

Risking all: the Burmese jokers who laugh in the face of danger. In Burma (Myanmar), comedians are targets in the junta's war on words. [Via BB.] [more inside]
posted by homunculus on Oct 17, 2007 - 23 comments

There aren't many places in the United States that can count poetry societies run by Afghan cab drivers. Washington has two. And they don't like each other.
posted by jason's_planet on Jul 21, 2006 - 23 comments

The Liberal Limericker. Yep... just another site dedicated to astute political commentary in limerick form.
posted by crookdimwit on Sep 13, 2004 - 9 comments

It figures the only election haikus I'd find are at FreeRepublic.com. Can anyone find more?
posted by Neb on Nov 9, 2000 - 9 comments