POTW--Dylan Thomas, The Force ... That Drives the Flower

This week's poem can best be explored using your colored pencils. It is recommended that you print out a copy of the poem and start circling repeated words in different colors. It is a bit like a complex puzzle you will try to take apart: you will probably need to read through the poem six or seven times before you locate every word that is repeated. These repetitions help create the music, in a poem that does not rely on end line rhymes. The poem is under copyright, so find it on poets.org. For those whose first language is not English, and even for native English speakers, the vocabulary may be a bit challenging. Look up the words, so that you can perceive the meanings.

The Dylan Thomas Center in Swansea, Wales, awaits your visit (http://www.dylanthomas.com/dylan-thomas-centre/history-dylan-thomas-centre), and you can read a good complete biography of the poet on their website.

Among the centenary sites, celebrating 100 years since the birth of Dylan Thomas in 2014 you might enjoy:

Another text of the poem, in the Telegraph (http://www.telegraph.co.uk/sponsored/travel/wales-dylan-thomas/10833448/dylan-thomas-force-green-fuse-drives-flower.html).

Dylan Thomas 100 (http://www.dylanthomas.com/dylan-thomas-100).

Translations into French:

Alain Suied has translated a large selection of Dylan Thomas's poems into French. Find out more about that via Esprits Nomades (http://www.espritsnomades.com/sitelitterature/dylanthomas/dylanthomas.html).

Line Audin has translated Dylan Thomas's most famous poem, "Do Not Go Gentle Into That Good Night" into French at La Cause Littéraire (http://www.espritsnomades.com/sitelitterature/dylanthomas/dylanthomas.html).

Teach others, or yourself

The Academy of American Poets, on their website Poets.org, features some pages devoted to lesson plans, notably "Women in Poetry" developed by Carolyn Kohll, who teaches in a New York City high school.  Other topics include "Committed to Memory" by John Hollander, "The Literature of War" by Harvey Starbuck, and "Poetry in Translation" by Carol McCarthy.

Whose hand?

Read R.S. Thomas's poem "The Hand" in English and in a French translation by Daniel Szabo from Temporel 5 (May 2008).

Temporel also hosts the first issue of the Bulletin de l'Association des Amis de l'œuvre de  Claude Vigée, "Peut-être," (March 2008).

Coleridge at Théatre National de Chaillot

Jean-Baptiste Sastre has produced a version of The Rime of the Ancient Mariner for the stage based on a rhyming translation by Alfred Jarry.  Jean-Marie Patte is the unique actor in the hour-long play, on stage now (September 17 - October 11, 2008) at the Théatre National de Chaillot (program).

Interview with Jean-Baptiste Sastre in La Terrasse (September 2008).

Text of The Rime of the Ancient Mariner (University of Virginia).

Michael Edwards on writing in English and in French

In an interview granted to Temporel 3 (March 2007), Michael Edwards speaks about writing poetry in English and in French, and specifically about Rivages Mobile (2003).  The same issue of Temporel also features a review of Edwards's critical study of English Poetry, Le Génie de la poésie anglaise (2006).

Darwish's translator gets a prize

Fady Joudah, who has translated Mahmoud Darwish's poetry into English, has just won the Saif Fhobash-Banipal Prize for literary translation from Arabic, as related in the Guardian (August 20, 2008).