Wednesday 28 November 2007

Blessings, Mr. Wm. Blake!

Blake, the visionary poet, hymn writer and artist, was born 250 years ago today. On 28th November 1757 he "leapt" into this "dangerous world" at 28, Broad Street, London, "helpless, naked, piping loud / like a fiend hid in a cloud" to "sulk upon" his "mother's breast".
Blake was the first poet to speak up for the rights of small children. And, although not a churchgoer himself, he believed mankind to be a divine creation. In his hymn "The Divine Image" he wrote:

And all must love the human form,
In heathen, Turk or Jew;
Where Mercy, Love & Pity dwell
There God is dwelling too.

(you won't find this last verse in a certain church hymnary!)

'I shall toast a glass and light a candle,' says P-i-R.

Free Competition

P-i-R has been notified by Vienna Lit. of a bona-fide free to enter poetry contest being run by the Arts Council of England on their website. The subject is food, the closing date is the end of November, the word limit is 250 words, the judges are reputable and include acumen's Patricia Oxley. The prize for the lucky winner is 500 pounds cash.
According to the rules 'anybody can enter' and a simple e-mail to the arts council will suffice. So what are you waiting for? Visit http://www.artscouncil.org.uk and click on the page headed 'My Region'. Everything you need to know is there. But one thing, your poem better be good for one of P-i-R's masterpieces is already winging its way through the electronic smog.

Monday 26 November 2007

P-i-R's Library Books for December

Poetry books:
Allen Ginsberg - Selected Poems 1947 -1995
Geoffrey Hill - The Orchards of Syon
Ted Hughes - Gaudete
Other books:
John Steinbeck - Tortilla Flat
Flann O'Brien - The Dalkey Archive

The Song of Wandering Aengus and the Wondering Minstrels

The Song of Wandering Aengus by William Butler Yeats and nearly 2,000 other poems from all corners of the poetic universe can be found at Abraham Thomas' and Martin DeMello's Wondering Minstrels site. http://www.cs.rice.edu/~ssiyer/minstrels/index.html should get you there. If this link fails simply google 'Wondering Minstrels'.
It's a great deep blue peaceful place, almost like the bottom of the sea, to go to read, to study, to explore, to leave comments on and so on. For simplicity, ease of use, lack of clutter, and amazing content it's got to be one of the best poetry sites on the internet. P-i-R says "Check it out!"

Sunday 25 November 2007

Poet-in-Residence's recommended blog

PIR has no hesitation in recommending http://www.ink-sweat-and-tears.com - quality writing and a cool Bob Dylan video. You ain't going nowhere until you've been to IS&T!

Kabir's Ramainis

The 15th cent. poet Kabir's mystical poems were written in Hindi. Rabindranath Tagore and Evelyn Underhill translated them into Victorian English from a Bengali translation. Robert Bly subsequently translated the Tagore/Underhill translation into modern English. Bly's book 'Kabir Book' was published by Beacon Press in Boston in 1977.
"Suppose you scrub your ethical skin until it shines, but inside there is no music, what then?"
"If you don't break your ropes while you're alive, do you think ghosts will do it after?"

Good Morning World!

The Poet-in-Residence is finally in residence. The date today is Sunday 25th November 2007. Is this auspicious I ask you? And I ask myself too. He checks. For the P-i-R is indeed an 'he'. The answer as always is 'Yes' and 'No'. Hymn writer Isaac Watts died on this day in 1748.
Painter & poet Isaac Rosenberg born in Bristol, son of poor Eastern European Jewish immigrants, this day in 1890. In the war he served with the Bantams; a regiment of undersized soldiers. Unfortunately he was killed on April Fool's Day 1918 (I kid you not!). "Droll rat, they would shoot you if they knew..." comes from his 'Break of Day in the Trenches'.