Category: Poetry News (Page 3 of 6)

• The "Ferguson Poet" Marcellus Buckley (The Riverfront Times)
• Caitlin Clark reads Ferguson poem and "steals the show" at John Legend concert (Gawker.com)
• Maya Angelou Stamp (Penn Live)
• Former US Poet Laureate Natasha Tretheway Talks Race at KU (KSAL.com)
• Poet Pablo Neruda to be Reburied in Chile Following Judge's  Controversial Ruling (The Guardian)

• 50 Poets to Create Tribute Album to Seamus Heaney (The Guardian) Rock and Roll!!
    

Arkansas poet and father of singer Lucinda Williams, Miller Williams died on New Year's Day this year at the age of 84. Longtime fan of Lucinda Williams, I was lucky to see them perform together in song and poetry at Royce Hall at UCLA years ago.

I think I picked up his book, Making a Poem: Some Thoughts About Poetry And the People Who Write It, at that show.

Here are some prominent obituaries. As you may recall, Miller Williams read the inaugural poem for second term of President Bill Clinton.

• The Los Angeles Times
• The New York Times
• "Arkansas poet and editor Miller Williams left a lasting legacy in Kansas City" (The Kansas City Star)
• "Singer finds inspiration in father’s poem" — Her new double album Down Where the Spirit Meets the Bone "starts with something on Williams’ bucket list: "Compassion," a song based on one of her father’s poems."

In response to the story of the young New Jersey girl who lost control of a submachine gun at a shooting range outside Las Vegas and killed her instructor, poet Gregory Orr shares his own personal story of killing his brother in a hunting accident.

Poet Daniel Johnson writes an article and poem in remembrance of his slain friend, journalist James Foley, who was killed in Syria in August.

Article in Huffington Post | the poem

I’ve come to think most posts only get major notices in the newspapers when they die.

Canadian, Blackfoot Nation poet, Zaccheus Jackson,  dies in train accident. He was a prominent member of Vancouver's poetry slams.

NPR reports that outspoken Iranian poet, Simin Behbahani, called The Lioness of Iran, has died.

It's been a crazy summer! I've either been hosting guests or traveling since early June. I've been tooling around in New Mexico (Truth or Consequences, Manzano Mountains, Albuquerque as a tour guide) and Oregon (Bandon-by-the-Sea) for a family reunion (mother's side), then have been chin-deep sunk into projects and job changes. More on my summer adventures and pictures.

Meanwhile, I've been collecting a slew of poetry things. Some news I've been reading:

My friend Christopher sent me the LA Times story about the passing of poet Maxine Kumin, who died in February. I also found a Kumin tribute online from Carol Muske-Dukes.

Christopher also sent me an LA Times story about the passing of Maggie Estep, one-time MTV poet and performer at Nuyorican Poets Café and the Def Poetry Jam, who also passed in February.

He also sent me an LA Times piece on Richard Blanco, most interesting for a section at the end comparing about how Cuban relatives respond to poetry versus how Americans do.

Monsieur Big Bang also sent me the link of the James Franco review in the New York Times for his new book of poetry.  A good excerpt for those steaming in the ears over the idea that James Franco got reviewed by The New York Times:

“But is it, you may be wondering, good? No. But neither is it entirely bad…the sort of collection written by reasonably talented MFA students in hundreds of MFA programs stretching from sea to shining sea.”

“…Franco has a decent ear for speech, but a bad sense of the poetic line…He’s prone to phrases that sound good at first but collapse under scrutiny…[but] God knows he can write circles around Billy Corgan.”

“…This book wouldn’t be published by Graywolf (I hope) if James Franco weren’t “James Franco.” James Franco wouldn’t be doing events with Frank Bidart if he weren’t “James Franco.” For that matter, James Franco wouldn’t be getting reviewed right now if he weren’t “James Franco.” In fact, if James Franco were just another M.F.A. student struggling to catch the attention of the two part-time employees of Origami Arthropod Press, he’d probably be reading this piece and fuming about all the attention being given, yet again, to James Franco.

It’s easy to sympathize, even if one suspects some of the complainers are no better at writing poems than Franco is. Yet the annoyance this collection will inspire is rooted in a deeper anxiety: The attention commanded by James Franco’s poetry has everything to do with “James Franco” and almost nothing to do with poetry. And that cultural wealth is not transferable. Attention withheld from Franco’s poems will not instantly devolve upon some worthy but obscure poet; it will go to another actor, or singer, or commercial nonfiction writer, or memoirist — or even to James Franco in his novel-writing incarnation. Poetry is the weak sister of its sibling arts, alternately ignored and swaddled like a 19th-century invalid, and that will change only by means of a long, tedious and possibly futile effort at persuasion. Perhaps it’s a blessing to have James Franco on one’s side in that struggle.”

Dipping my feet back into the scene this month, I am very sad to see we've lost a three-some of poets recently:

• Amiri Baraka died on January 9 as reported by CNN – I saw him read once in the mid-to-late 1990s at one of the Dodge Poetry Festivals I attended in New Jersey with a gang from Sarah Lawrence College. Baraka was even mentioned in the snarky piece my fiction-writing friend Julie and I wrote for our zine, Ape Culture, called "How To Tell If You Are At Ozzfest Or Dodge Poetry Fest."
• Wanda Coleman died late last year on November 2013 as reported in the Los Angeles Times. I saw Los Angeles poet Wanda Coleman speak many, many times at the Los Angeles Times Festival of Books on the poetry panels where she was a staple panelist every year. She was outspoken and thoughtful and I always thought I would be seeing her again at the next bookfest I attended. Truly sorry she is gone.
• Argentine poet Juan Gelman died on January 14 as reported in the Los Angeles Times.

In other news, former US Poet Laureate Kay Ryan is recovering after a crash with a car while riding her bike.