Poésies complètes

Emily Dickinson is enjoying Paris this autumn. At least figuratively speaking, the "Recluse" is alive and well and living in Paris. French students are reading her work in preparation for the competitive teacher's examination, the agrégation, and her complete poems have just been translated as Poésies complètes by Françoise Delphy (published by Flammarion, November 12, 2009). Delphy follows several other translators in popularizing Dickinson to the French: there is the magisterial work of Claire Malroux, based on the Johnson edition, in Car l'adieu, c'est la nuit (Gallimard/NRF, 2007), following her earlier translations (Belin, 1989 and Corti, 1998). Even earlier, there was Guy Jean Forgue's translation, Poèmes, published by Aubier-Flammarion (1970).

Links

Flammarion Editions (editions.flammarion.com).

Patrick Kéchichian, "Emily Dickinson ou la trace de l'ange," La Croix (November 19, 2009).

Bibliography for the English Agrégation and Capes from the Bibliothèque Nationale de France (www.bnf.fr) and from the SAES site, as prepared by Isabelle Alfandary and Antoine Cazé (web.univ-pau.fr/saes).

In the nation's throat

"The St. Gauden's memorial was installed at the edge of Boston Common and dedicated amidst a large public ceremony on Memorial Day, 1897," wrote Denise Von Glahn Cooney in "New Sources for 'The "St. Gaudens" in Boston Common (Colonel Robert Gould Shaw and His Colored Regiment)'" (Musical Quarterly 81.1, 1997). In that article, Von Glahn traces the poetic sources behind the musical composition of "Three Places in New England" by Charles Ives (first performed in 1931). It would not be the last time that poetry, music, and film would take up the memorial (see "Robert Gould Shaw" by Paul Laurence Dunbar, "Saint-Gaudens: An Ode" by Robert Underwood Johnson, "For the Union Dead" by Robert Lowell, "Boston Common" by John Berryman, the film Glory, and the recent PBS documentary about Saint Gaudens, etc.).

The monument by St. Gaudens, wrote Robert Lowell, "sticks like a fishbone / in the city's throat." Clearly Lowell was on to something. His poem sticks in the nation's throat, calling for less empire and more humanity. My guess is that Lowell would have enjoyed David Armitage's The Declaration of Independence, A Global History (2007).

Links

Text of "For the Union Dead" and biography of Robert Lowell (www.poets.org).

*Hear Lowell read the poem (http://college.holycross.edu).

*Hear "For the Union Dead" read by Frank Bidart, Peter Davison, and Robert Pinsky, The Atlantic Monthly (November 1960 and April, 2001).

Commentary about "For the Union Dead" by Helen Vendler, Thomas Travisano, Michael Thurston, Paul Doherty, Alan Williamson, Paul Breslin, on "Modern American Poetry" (www.english.illinois.edu).

Reginald Shepherd, "Robert Lowell and the Massachusetts 54th," (March 28, 2007).

Concerning Charles Ives, "Three Places in New England" (www.musicweb-international.com).

Robert Gould Shaw Memorial Project (www.nga.gov).

Trailer for Glory, directed by Edward Zwick (1989).

2009 Augustus Saint-Gaudens exhibit at the MET, June 30-November 15, 2009 (www.metmuseum.org) (www.tfaoi.com).

David Armitage, The Declaration of Independence, A Global History (2007).

How to write a review...

Stephen Yenser has written a letter to the editor in the November issue of Poetry that deserves attention for saying something essential about book reviewing: reading a book in good faith is a pre-requisite for any review. Thanks for reminding us!

Stephen Yenser, "Letter to the Editor," Poetry (November 2009).

Where did you read T.S. Eliot for the first time?

You may have first read T.S. Eliot in the classroom or as an assignment. You may not even remember where you first read the poet. You probably have not wondered about where the poet did his composition work, although you may have made the pilgrimage to Russel Square. In today's Guardian (November 9, 2009), Stephen Moss shares his visit to the Margate shelter where T.S.E. wrote the third part of The Waste Land.

Links

Stefan Collini reviews the second volume of T.S. Eliot's correspondence in the Guardian (November 7, 2009).

Phillis Weatley & Henry Louis Gates Jr.

Making the life and work of Phillis Wheatley more available to the public has been one of Henry Louis Gates, Jr.'s recent preoccupations. His The Trials of Phillis Wheatley (2003), based on the Jefferson Lectures in Humanities that he delivered at the Library of Congress in 2002, will come out in paperback in 2010. The cover flap of the first edition of the book states: "The slave Phillis Wheatley literally wrote her way to freedom when, in 1773, she became the first person of African descent to publish a book of poems in the English language." Wheatley was put on trial in 1772 in Boston, before Governor Thomas Hutchinson, Andrew Oliver, Reverend Mather Byles, Joseph Green, Reverend Samuel Cooper, and others. Gates writes, "The panel had been assembled to verify the authorship of her poems and to answer a much larger question: was a Negro capable of producing literature?"

Links:

Henry Louis Gates Jr., "Mister Jefferson and the Trials of Phillis Wheatley," Jefferson Lectures in the Humanities (March 22, 2002).

"Henry Louis Gates, A Critic At Large," The New Yorker (January 20, 2003), p.82.

Brief biography of Phillis Wheatley, and four poems to read on-line from The Academy of American Poets (www.poets.org).

Rhythm in Twentieth-Century British Poetry

ENS Lyon will hold a two day conference on this topic, November 13-14, 2009, with keynote speaker Derek Attridge (http://rythme.ens-lsh.fr).

Susan Howe to read at the Centre Pompidou in Paris

Thursday October 29, at 7:30 p.m., Susan Howe will give a reading at the Centre Georges Pompidou.

Friday October 30, beginning at 9:30 a.m., a series of talks about Howe's work ending with a reading from Howe, will be given at University Paris VII, Institut Charles V, room A 50, 10, rue Charles V, 75004 Paris. Organized by Abigail Lang and Antoine Cazé.

Hélène Aji (Université du Maine), “I [will not] Gather the Limbs of Osiris”: Susan Howe’s Mystical History.
Isabelle Alfandary (Université Lyon II), “Reading Emily Dickinson: My Emily Dickinson by Susan Howe”.
Will Montgomery (Royal Holloway), “Susan Howe’s Later Lyric”.
Antoine Cazé (Université Paris-Diderot), “Susan Howe: TransParencies”.
Christine Savinel (Université Paris III), “Of Lateness and Lapses in Susan Howe’s Souls of the Labadie Tract”.
Redell Olsen (Royal Holloway), “Book parks: scripted enclosures and Susan Howe’s spatial poetics”.
Susan Howe (The American Academy in Berlin), “Poems and Documents".

Saturday, October 31: Susan Howe speaks about Emily Dickinson at the Petit Palais.

"Autour d’Emily Dickinson avec Susan Howe et Dominique Fourcade

En partenariat avec Double Change, avec Abigail Lang.Susan Howe, l’un des plus importants poètes américains aujourd’hui, chercheuse passionnée, évoquera « son » Emily Dickinson. L’essai lyrique qu’elle a consacré à Dickinson en 1985, My Emily Dickinson, éd. A New Directions Book 2007, renouvelle la critique de ce poète majeur du 19ème siècle. Pour cette rencontre au Petit Palais, Susan Howe est allée à Amherst étudier les derniers fragments de Dickinson qui juxtaposent écriture, signes graphiques, marques acoustiques. Une sélection de ces fragments sera projetée. Susan Howe a demandé, pour la circonstance, à Dominique Fourcade d’en donner une traduction et d’improviser avec elle un commentaire. de 15 à 17h" (www.paris.fr/portail/Culture)

Links:

Susan Howe, portrait (www.poets.org).

Susan Howe page (epc.buffalo.edu)

Susan Howe, My Emily Dickinson (1985), excerpts (www.writing.upenn.edu).

Recordings of Susan Howe from Line Break (www.writing.upenn.edu).

Double Change (www.doublechange.org).

2009 Poets Forum starts tomorrow

Three days of poetry readings and critical discussion sponsored by the Academy of American Poets begin tomorrow in New York City. Rita Dove talks about James Brown at the first Poets Forum:

Program (www.poets.org)

Get your IMAGISTES here

Thanks to the MIT Comparative Media Studies graduate class of 2010 and Nick Montfort, it is now possible to read Ezra Pound's anthology Des Imagistes (1912) on-line. Enjoy!

http://www.desimagistes.com/about.html

Other links:

Ezra Pound, "A Few Don'ts by an Imagiste," Poetry (March 1913).

Ezra Pound, "In a Station of the Metro," Poetry (April 1913).

Kudos to Carol Rumens and Paul Laurence Dunbar

Thank you Carol Rumens for an excellent synopsis of Paul Laurence Dunbar, in your "Poem of the Week" column for the Guardian (September 28, 2009). Dunbar's talent is, as you put it, "bilingual," and both of his languages should be appreciated by readers. It seems to me that today we should be particularly grateful for the dialect poems, because they give testimony to the that era when reading and writing were not skills allowed to slaves. Dunbar's voice and humor influenced Langston Hughes. Both poets spent some important early days in Chicago, but never met, because Dunbar died so young, in 1906.

Poets House, NYC

"The goal of the place is to make everyone feel that poetry belongs to them," said executive director of Poets House. Poets House was founded twenty five years ago by Stanley Kunitz and Elizabeth Kray. First located in Chelsea, then SoHo, now it will have a contemporary glass front in Battery Park City at 10 River Terrace, at the corner of Murray Street, near the Hudson River (with a view of the Statue of Liberty). A housewarming party will be held today, and a free concert will be performed tomorrow. The Library of Poets House (more than 50,000 volumes) opens on Tuesday, September 29.

Links

Robin Pogrebin, "Transparent New Home for Poetry," New York Times (September 24, 2009).

Poets House (www.poetshouse.org).

"POLITICS POLITICS POLITICS."

"Politics" is Carol Ann Duffy's first official poem as laureate, published in the Guardian (June 13, 2009).

See also:

Mark Brown, "Carol Ann Duffy leaps into expenses row with first official poem as laureate," Guardian (June 13, 2009).

Short-lived win

The controversy about the election process for the Oxford Professor of Poetry has not been quelled, on the contrary, Ruth Padel felt compelled to resign from the position yesterday, when the news broke at the Hay festival.

Ruth Padel, who had denied leaking any information about Walcott,  admitted this weekend that she had informed the press of information that was already available in the public domaine.

A.C. Grayling, who nominated Ruth Padel for the Oxford position said he felt that Padel should step down.  

Links:

Patrick Foster, "Oxford poetry professor Ruth Padel quits after smear campaign against Derek Walcott," Times (May 26, 2009).

Charlotte Higgins, "Oxford professor of poetry Ruth Padel resigns after smear allegations," Guardian (May 25, 2009).

Haycast #3 from the Guardian (May 25, 2009).

Urmee Khan and Richard Eden, "Ruth Padel under pressure to resign Oxford post over emails about rival poet Derek Walcott," Telegraph (May 25, 2009).

Sarah Crown, James Sturcke, Charlotte Higgins, "Ruth Padel fights to keep Oxford post over tip-offs about her rival," Gardian (May 24, 2009).

Sarah Crown, Charlotte Higgins, "Poetry Professor Ruth Padel defends herself over smear campaign claims," Guardian (May 24, 2009).

Ruth Padel is the winner

Ruth Padel was elected as Oxford Professor of Poetry yesterday with 69% of the vote, making her the first woman to hold the position.  (That makes two women elected to previously all male poetry positions in two weeks).  

Links:

David Harrison, "Ruth Padel's win 'poisoned' by smear campaign," Telegraph (May 17, 2009).

Sarah Crown, "A Life in Poetry: Ruth Padel," Guardian (May 16, 2009).

BBC, "Padel named Oxford poet professor," (May 16, 2009).

AP, "Ruth Padel voted Oxford's Professor of Poetry," Real Clear World (May 16, 2009).

News release from University of Oxford (May 16, 2009).

Who will be the next Oxford Professor of Poetry?

Who will replace Christopher Ricks as Oxford Professor of Poetry, said to be second in prestige to poet laureate?  Elections will be held on May 16, in spite of protests from those who are still reeling from the shock of Derek Walcott's withdrawal, due to a smear campaign.  Peter McDonald feels that the remaining choice, between Ruth Padel and Arvind Mehrotra is too limited for the vote.

James Fenton, "The hounding of a Nobel poet has shamed Oxford," London Evening Standard (May 15, 2009).

Alison Flood, "Oxford refuses calls to postpone poetry professor election," Guardian (May 13, 2009).

Mary Fitzgerald, "Should Derek Walcott have been Oxford poetry professor?" Guardian (May 12, 2009).

Olivia Cole, "Nobel winner quits Oxford poetry race over sex claims," London Evening Standard (May 12, 2009).

Alison Flood, "Derek Walcott joins race to become Oxford professor of poetry," Guardian (March 16, 2009).

Nicholas Wroe, "Bringing it all back home" (about Christopher Ricks) Guardian (January 29, 2005).

The Guardian's articles on the topic "Oxford Professor of Poetry" (2009).