Tag: Literature

  • How far ‘outside’ is the poetry of diaspora ?

    I often wonder at the definition of Outsider Poetry just a little bit, and have made allusions to the poetry of diaspora before now on this blog. Of course the poetry of  alienation/diaspora, be it in the wake of cataclysm, war or economic circumstance is more than just that. The exilic condition forms a thread in world literature that we recognise historically in the poems…

  • Paul Muldoon and the Art of Poetry, No.87, Paris Review

    The Griffin Poetry Prize has been making excellent use of Social media, including Twitter to publicise this year’s prize list and as little of note happens in the Irish Sunday papers, I thought to add in by way of my blog their link to the Paris Review interview with Paul Muldoon . Poetry readers familiar with this site will know that it is  a rare occurrence for me to link to…

  • Online sounds , the spoken word.

    Writers encounter archives mostly, and sound-work is no exception, for instance I encountered UBUWEB whilst researching Celtic mouth Music and Joesph Beuys. Kenneth Goldsmith’s idea to make film, poetry and music available online was sheer avant-gardeism. I have written about UBUWEB before now here, and I recommend the Poetry Foundation link at the top of this page as an…

  • David Orr is entitled to question the relevance of modern poetry.

    For me, ‘Relevance’ is a dirty word, it kills the creative impulse and grounds poetry is mechanism. I thought to add a link to the ongoing discussion about relevancy in modern poetry centred in a critique (Huff Post) of Beautiful and Pointless, a Guide to Modern Poetry. Dadaists and Surrealists would rightly cut up and rearrange…

  • ‘Strip-Tease’ by Eithne Strong.

    Strip-Tease   A poet must talk in riddles if he will not risk himself   for fear of public eye and tongue blaspheming privacies :   a host of leeches sucking parallels carnivores to strip his shivering secrecies   wrapped intricately. he should be silent or speak out.   No one asked for his arbitrary…

  • ‘Flaxman’ by Margaret Fuller.

    Flaxman by Margaret Fuller. We deemed the secret lost, the spirit gone, Which spake in Greek simplicity of thought, And in forms of gods and heroes wrought Eternal beauty from the sculptured stone,- A higher charm than modern culture won With all the wealth of metaphysic won With all the wealth of metaphysic lore, Gifted…

  • A Saturday Woman Poet , Prageeta Sharma.

    On Rebellion, by Prageeta Sharma. (for Katy Lederer) “It was not a romantic sentiment , nor self-determined; rather , it was embarrassing. My love of spearheading, from introvert to extrovert, from cowardice to consequence, from the enjambment to the unspecified dunce. It was a sabotage, a reckless moment : a purulent, tawny decree. All temptation…

  • Elizabeth Kate Switaj, a response to Peter Stothard TLS

    Vida, Women in Literary Arts published a list in 2010 which showed that there is , indeed, a gender-imbalance in literary publication. The figures for 2010 have borne out the VIDA Count. The Guardian Newspaper published those VIDA figures in the  following linked article, Research shows male writers still dominate books world (Friday 4 February 2011) ,…

  • Two poems by Anne Stevenson.

    Making Poetry. by Anne Stevenson. ‘You have to inhabit poetry if you want to make it.’   And what’s to ‘inhabit ‘ ?   To be in the habit of, to wear words, sitting in the plainest light, in the silk of morning, in the shoe of night; a feeling bare and frondish is surprising…

  • ‘No Earthly Estate’, the poetry of Patrick Kavanagh, Padraic Colum and Eithne Strong.

    The title of this small post and book recommendation is somewhat misleading, the post is not wholly about Patrick Kavanagh‘s poetry. I have been reading No Earthly Estate in conjunction with poetry by Padraic Colum and Eithne Strong during this week. Having today published a poem by Eithne Strong, and indeed there a few of the Poet’s Circuits…