Posts tagged with poetry
Weekly Book Giveaway:Ruslan and Lyudmila, by Alexander Pushkin
We're starting off 2024 by giving away the literary equivalent of a deep, deeeeep cut: a copy of Alexander Pushkin's 1820 fairytale-esque poem "Ruslan and Lyudmila". I'm curious to see if this one will even get any takers, but if you've ever wanted to be one of those characters in old books who appear to honestly delight in super-long poems about knights and stuff, today's your day!
Buckets of tears
According to Publishers Weekly, HarperCollins Children’s Books plans to publish Neil Gaiman's poem What You Need to Be Warm as a picture book featuring illustrations by 13 well-known children's artists. Gaiman wrote the poem after asking his Twitter followers...
Small Kindnesses
I've never heard of the writer Danusha Lameris, but I absolutely love this poem. It was published in the New York Times Magazine, and I found it via Bailey Richardson's...
Interesting
There have been a flurry of trailers released recently, and I'm, oh, 40% intrigued and 60% confused by this AppleTV trailer for Dickinson. Are they really attempting the full-blown A Knight's Tale-style anachronistic take...
Nightmare fuel
If you haven't already seen the trailer for the upcoming movie adaptation of the musical Cats, get ready to pinch yourself: don't worry, you're not high (I mean... I assume) and you're not having a nightmare...
I'm so proud
I don't know how I missed this, but I was delighted to discover that Simon Armitage—author of my all-time favorite poem, "I am very bothered"—was announced last month as the UK's next Poet Laureate...
I DO, as it happens!
Today, the website Cup of Jo wrote a lovely essay about poetry, and asked their readers if they have a favorite poem. I do have a favorite poem, actually, and I encourage everyone to read it, because...
By popular(?) demand
According to Variety, Apple's streaming service has placed a straight-to-series order for a half-hour "comedic" series about 19th century poet Emily Dickinson, starring Hailee Steinfeld. The series is described as a humorous look into the poet's world...
Not totally inappropriate, though
According the Guardian, the remains of English poet Samuel Taylor Coleridge were recently rediscovered in a wine cellar. Fans of Coleridge's work had been paying their respects to the more respectable (and safely accessible) memorial plaque in the church above, but...
This woman's accomplishments merited a BIG tombstone.
I was listening to The Writer's Almanac today, and Garrison Keillor's soothing voice introduced me to the wonder that was Sarah Josepha Hale, the editor and poet who is widely credited with successfully campaigning to make Thanksgiving a national holiday. Hale was also a major force behind...
Those hairstyles, though...
I just saw the trailer for Terrence Davies's 2016 movie about the life of poet Emily Dickinson, A Quiet Passion. It looks very elegant and tasteful, but maybe a little low on actual plot...
Reworking the story
There's a glowing review up on NPR of the animated Japanese movie Your Name, which is apparently based on a classic Japanese poem by author Ono no Komachi. I'm not sure which poem, but you can read a selection of Komachi's work...
Bewildering
According to Deadline, Warner Bros. plans to make a film version of Dante’s Inferno that will focus on the poem's "epic love story", which the article summarizes as "Dante [descending] through the nine circles of hell to save the woman he loves." I am so confused about this...
But why?
And speaking of inexplicable projects, FOX Soccer asked actress Helen Mirren to read Shel Silverstein's "Where the Sidewalk Ends" as a voice-over for their visual recap of the 2015 FIFA Women's World Cup. Don't get me wrong: I love Helen Mirren, Shel Silverstein, and the Women's World Cup, but...
Busy guy
The Library of Congress announced yesterday that the next U.S. poet laureate will be Juan Felipe Herrera. Herrera, a California-based activist, teacher, and author of poetry, "novels in verse", and children's books, is the first Latino poet to be appointed to the position...
Lost and found
According to NPR, the long-lost Neal Cassady letter that inspired Jack Kerouac's stream-of-consciousness novel On the Road has been found, and will be auctioned off next month...
Maybe satirical rhyming?
NPR has a great article up about the newly-announced Poet Laureate: Charles Wright, a retired professor at the University of Virginia. So far, his reaction has not given me much faith in his eloquence...
Unexpected
According to The Daily Beast, a scholar recently discovered fragments of two previously unknown poems by the ancient Greek poet Sappho. The private owner of a 3rd century A.D. papyrus recently consulted Oxford classicist and "world-renowned papyrologist" Dr. Dirk Obbink about the Greek writing on his papyrus scraps...
Congratulations, Ms. Tapahonso!
In a bit of closer-to-home poetry news, the Navajo Nation has just announced its first Poet Laureate: Luci Tapahonso, a poet, college professor, and novelist whose writing often blends English with Diné, the Navajo language...
Poetry in space
If you have dreams of becoming an intergalactically famous poet, now's your chance: NASA is promoting its upcoming launch of the Mars Atmosphere and Volatile Evolution spacecraft (MAVEN) via its "Going to Mars with MAVEN" project. Mission managers have invited the poetry-writing public to submit haiku written for the occasion...
Poetry in the wild
Just in time for National Poetry Month, the New York Times has created Times Haiku, a website devoted to "serendipitous poetry" featured on the paper's front page. The paper uses an algorithm that automatically scans text for naturally-occurring haiku. Human editors pick the best options, which are posted daily...
A treasure trove for Kipling fans
The Guardian informs me that more than 50 previously unpublished Rudyard Kipling poems will be released for the first time this month. The poems were apparently discovered by American scholar Thomas Pinney. Some were stashed...
Solving a mystery
In a bit of interesting (if gross) news, poet Pablo Neruda's body is going to be exhumed and tested for evidence of poisoning, according to Time. Neruda's family has always maintained that he died at age 69 of advanced prostate cancer, but a judge in Chile has ordered the autopsy in response...
Literary speculation
There's a new biography out that claims–without any actual evidence, as far as I can tell–that the poet John Keats was an opium addict, and wrote many of his most famous poems under the influence of laudanum. There's no way to prove the situation either way, of course, but I can't help but think of Cold Comfort Farm's Mr. Mybug...
"Only the shallow know themselves."
Flavorwire recently posted an audio clip (via Open Culture) of Oscar Wilde reciting two verses of his 1897 poem The Ballad of Reading Gaol. It's initially tough to make out Wilde's voice, but if you listen carefully...
Postcard Poets
I love this idea: 2 or 4 curated poems mailed to you via real postcards over the course of a month, costing either $5 or $9. You get to choose which type of poetry you receive—comic, romantic, existentialist, or dreamlike. Wouldn't that be an awesome gift for a school classroom?
Poetry Speaks Who I Am, edited by Elise Paschen
Poetry Speaks Who I Am is the latest anthology to come from Sourcebooks' Poetry Speaks line, and the first—perhaps only?—poetry collection aimed specifically at middle-school-age readers. This ...
Inappropriate in so many ways...
Little known fact: the story of The Sorcerer's Apprentice, that creepy bit in Fantasia with Mickey Mouse battling the brooms (which terrified me as a child, BTW), is actually based on a poem by Go...