MetaFilter posts tagged with poetry and poets

wetness ... pours onto my paper out of my pen

divabat — Tue, 07 Jul 2009 09:32:05 -0800

Suheir Hammad, a Palestinian-American poet and activist now based in New York, writes about being a Muslim immigrant and also a woman challenging conventions. Spotted by Russell Simmons for Def Poetry Jam, she has performed pieces about love in the time of war, exoticising beauty, and a touching ode to her father, among many others. Suheir has just produced and released her first feature film Salt of This Sea, up for the Cannes Films Festival and possibly an Oscar, and recently performed in Ramallah for the 2009 Palestinian Festival of Literature.

American Verse Project

Fizz — Fri, 19 Jun 2009 06:14:04 -0800

American Verse Project is assembling an electronic archive of volumes of American poetry. Most of the archive is made up of 19th century poetry, although a few 18th century and early 20th century texts are included. Notables Include: Edgar Allen Poe, Carl Sandburg, Ralph Waldo Emerson, Emily Dickinson (Series [1], [2], [3]), Hilda Doolittle (H.D.), James Russell Lowell. The full text of each volume is being converted into digital form and coded in Standard Generalized Mark-up Language (SGML) using the TEI Guidelines.(1) The volumes already online, which include books of poetry by a number of African-American and women poets, represent an interesting selection. In many cases, the texts selected are the only existing editions of the author's work.

Out of that I have written these songs

Potomac Avenue — Thu, 09 Apr 2009 07:34:29 -0800

Free Verse The result of a contest sponsored by the Academy of American Poets to promote Poem in your Pocket Day. Happy National Poetry Month ! Prev ious ly

in the street of the sky night walks scattering poems

goodnewsfortheinsane — Sun, 05 Apr 2009 19:58:29 -0800

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. But poets of many other languages and nationalities can be found throughout the city. Just to name a few: Charles Baudelaire (French), Jorge Luis Borges (Spanish - Argentina), Herman Gorter (Dutch). And being native to this here neck of the woods I would be remiss if I were to neglect mentioning some of my favourites: apart from the Cummings one mentioned above, my hero of Dutch poetry J.C. Bloem's appropriately overgrown tribute to Paul Verlaine; and Guillaume Apollinaire's Dadaist/Surrealist "Loin du Pigeonnier" ("Far From the Dovecote"). Lastly, Muurgedichten collects manifestations of public poetry found elsewhere under its "Not in Leiden" heading. I couldn't resist a selection:

Humorous medical one in Brazil (Portuguese).

Martin Carter (Netherlands Antilles, English)

Excerpt from JFK's inaugural address (Boston, English)

Childrens Rights (Zanzibar, English)

Policemans Prayer (Virginia, US, English)

Short, brilliantly framed Byron quote (Utrecht, NL, English)

No man is illegal (Sittard, NL, Dutch)

I am a poet. Should I want the rose to bloom, the rose will bloom. (Vlaardigen, NL, Dutch)

You'll Think, What's That Poet Doing (Monnickendam, NL, Dutch) You'll think, what's that poet doing In our alley On our wall In our town When he's not from 'round here. To be frank: so do I. But still, now you're looking at me. I can talk to you, say That I am happy you're looking at me And then you might for instance say "likewise". We wouldn't have done so otherwise.

Cave Canem Feature

netbros — Sun, 22 Feb 2009 09:33:13 -0800

The Drunken Boat publishes poetry from around the world, translations of poetry, reviews of poetry collections and anthologies, and interviews with well-known poets. The current issue features Cave Canem poets, home for the many voices of African-American poetry and committed to cultivating the artistic and professional growth of African-American poets.

Words, words, words...and moving pictures!

youarenothere — Fri, 09 Jan 2009 12:22:22 -0800

London-based videographer Jim Clark uses photographs and paintings to create wonderfully disturbing videos of celebrated poets posthumously reading their work.

We will remember

Abiezer — Mon, 10 Nov 2008 15:11:37 -0800

The Great War Archive goes live today (November 11), the 90th anniversary of the Armistice. Launched by the University of Oxford in March 2008, the initiative invited members of the general public to submit digital photographs, audio, film, documents, and stories that originated from the Great War. Although the dealine for submissions is past, photos can still be added to the project's Flickr group.

Autobiography of Read

zoomorphic — Mon, 23 Jun 2008 07:27:18 -0800

Happy Birthday, Anne Carson! The iconoclastic modern poet who published the arresting, compulsively readable Autobiography of Red turned 57 this weekend. The Canadian writer has been called “a philosopher of heartbreak” and “unclassifiable” due to her genre-bending novel in prose poetry, though in her own words she is measured and cerebral. Professor of the Classics, recognized as one of the definitive translators of Sappho, Carson’s appealing mastery of ancient literature and contemporary prose has garnered her more mainstream attention than many of her contemporaries, as well as peer accusations of shilling pretentious, anti-bourgeois pastiche, fomenting an intra-critics debate. So where do you stand? Read her poetry for yourself. Enjoy.

This is the YouTube poetry post.

goodnewsfortheinsane — Mon, 26 Mar 2007 12:31:13 -0800

Poets on YouTube: Bukowski; Dylan Thomas; Jim Morrison; Allen Ginsberg; Sylvia Plath; Billy Collins; Cookie Monster; and what the hell, even Jacques Brel.

But there's plenty of readings by amateurs as well: for example, lilcutiewithabooty06 reads e e cummings; Michael reads cummings really fast; Tom Waits and Bono read Bukowski; bearded men read Lewis Carroll and Shakespeare; and what if Emily Dickinson had a ukulele?

Mouseover links to see titles; feel free to add your favourites.

John Banville's homage to Philip Larkin

matteo — Mon, 06 Feb 2006 12:49:56 -0800

He complained to [Kingsley] Amis in 1943...that "all women are stupid beings" and remarked in 1983 that he'd recently accompanied Monica [Jones] to a hospital "staffed ENTIRELY by wogs, cheerful and incompetent." ...His views on politics and class seemed to be pithily captured in a ditty he shared again with Amis. "I want to see them starving,/The so-called working class,/Their wages yearly halving,/Their women stewing grass..." For recreation he apparently found time for pornography, preferably with a hint of sado-masochism".
John Banville on Philip Larkin.

A Wild Perfection: The Selected Letters of James Wright

matteo — Tue, 16 Aug 2005 09:59:48 -0800

“To speak in a flat voice / Is all that I can do. / . . . I speak of flat defeat / In a flat voice.”
James Wright's letters chronicle many of the major innovations in American poetry in the middle of the twentieth century. They also provide a compelling personal narrative of his life. Here, the American Poetry Review publishes a selection taken from the new volume "A Wild Perfection: The Selected Letters of James Wright". More inside.

Anne Sexton- American poet

lee — Thu, 16 Sep 2004 23:08:04 -0800

Anne Sexton, American Poet.......172 of her poems online I am reading a biography on her and thought I would share with the class. She had a tough time.

Hip Hop Heaney

Shane — Mon, 19 Apr 2004 10:16:41 -0800

Seamus Heaney's Top Hip Hop Picks. Sort of. (You know: Seamus Heaney.)

Poets Against the War

fold_and_mutilate — Sat, 22 Mar 2003 12:20:57 -0800

Poets Against The War
Sons and Daughters of Baghdad:
The hour of your liberation draws near
We extend towards you our white hand
Once embraced by many in vain:
Indian, African, Vietnamese,
And washed clean of their colored red stain.

100 poets can't be wrong

jokeefe — Fri, 31 Jan 2003 21:06:10 -0800

Poets Against the War At Sam Hamill's Poets Against the War, the story of the recent cancellation (link to Canada's Globe and Mail), by Laura Bush, of a Feb. 12 poetry symposium at the White House. From the G and M article: Stanley Kunitz, poet laureate 2000-01, told reporters, "I think there was a general feeling that the current administration is not really a friend of the poetic community and that its program of attacking Iraq is contrary to the humanitarian position that is at the centre of the poetic impulse."
Hamill is gathering contributions from poets around the world, including Pulitzer Prize-winners Yusef Komunyakaa and W.S. Merwin, National Book Award winner Marilyn Hacker, novelist Ursula K. Le Guin, and Adrienne Rich.
This post is not intended the fan the flames of 'War on Iraq: Yes or No', but to explore Kunitz's contention: Is there at the centre of the poetic impulse a particular type of humanitarianism? Is there a space for poets and poetry in political debate? Are poets the "unacknowledged legislators of the world"? [more inside]

semmi — Fri, 16 Aug 2002 21:31:40 -0800

An aesthetics of inadequacy. "Despite Aeschylus's statement, 'All knowledge comes from suffering,' all that came from my suffering was suffering." An interview with Alan Shapiro, the author of Song and Dance, about poetry as an attempt of mourning.

rich — Mon, 03 Apr 2000 12:41:08 -0800

National Poetry Month begins, or rather, began.