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Adios, Janine Pommy Vega
The extraordinary Janine Pommy Vega passed away two days ago—a loss for her family and friends and a loss for American poetry. Here are a couple of her poems, the first written in 1996 and the second in 2000, both published in The Green Piano: Christmas at Woodbourne Sodden cardboard mangerat the front gateto Woodbourne Prisonshrouded hills, lone gull’sscreech stop the searchlight Who says we are separatefrom what we love?Ramakrishnawould call that ignoranceSeparate voices, separate troubles, separate cells—connectedness isinseparablefrom the consistencyof grace.Read More
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Adios, Andrei
Andrei Voznesensky has passed away in Moscow, age 77. Robert Bly has written about Voznesensky in a piece collected in Reaching Out to the World: New & Selected Prose Poems: Andrei Voznesensky Reading in Vancouver Andrei Voznesensky has a curious look like a wood animal, one that often lives not far from marshes, near places where the deer sink in up to their knees.Read More
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Together Again
(Wedding Photo, June 4, 1947) Helen Hutchison April 14, 1923 – April 8, 2010 Joseph Hutchison September 4, 1919 – July 7, 2005 ~~~~~ westwarding river— red-gold shreds of Sun scattered on it and in itRead More
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Adios, Dic Jones
Another poet introduced to me via death notice. I could not read Dic Jones if I wanted, unless he’s been brought over into English (I can’t find a trace of it if so). But I was able to find this fascinating video of the poet reciting his poem “Y Gwanwyn” (“To Spring,” I believe), apparently on his farm at Blaenannerch, near Cardigan. It’s wonderful hearing the moist Welsh words lovingly uttered under a sky full of clouds, upon a field of green, by an elder poet leaning comfortably back against a tractor wheel.Read More
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Adios, Craig Arnold
From yesterday’s Salt Lake Tribune: An extended search of the Japanese island Kuchino-erabu for traces of Craig Arnold had offered up hope the poet might be injured, but still alive, among one of the island’s many crevices. That hope died Friday afternoon once a search team announced that a trail discovered the previous day showed signs that Arnold, 41, suffered a leg injury, then fell from a steep cliff to his death soon afterward. The whole sad story here.Read More
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Nicholas Hughes, Individual
We finally have a fairly lengthy portrait of Nicholas Hughes from his good friend, Joe Saxton. It’s a welcome resurrection of Nick Hughes the man from the mausoleum of his role, so fanatically designed by the literary Death Eaters, as the Tragic Victim of his parents’ marriage, his mother’s depression, his father’s infidelity, his genetic heritage, or some combination of all or some of these elements. The Tragic Victim makes a perfect figure for the Death Eaters’ favorite narrative; but Hughes’s real life story is more significant than these cannibal fantasies.Read More
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Adios, Nicholas Hughes … Hello, Death Eaters
I’ve felt mysteriously shaken by the suicide of Nicholas Hughes, son of Ted Hughes and Sylvia Plath. In part it’s because I remember with such affection the tenderness in Ted Hughes’s letters to and about Nicholas, whose deep knowledge of the natural world Hughes loved and admired. But part of my feeling involves the dread of Death Eaters; not those demonic Harry Potter wizards and witches, but their literati equivalents: critics, biographers, opinion page hacks and the like.Read More
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Adios, Bill Holm
I was saddened to find out, via Jilly Dybka’s Poetry Hut Blog, that Minnesota poet Bill Holm passed away on February 25th at age 65. You can find a lovely article with a haunting photo of the man in his home landscape here. I’m not as familiar with Holm’s work as I wish I was, even though I’ve enjoyed his collection The Dead Get By with Everything each of the many times I’ve read it.Read More
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A Tribute to Michael Hartnett
Irish poet Michael Hartnett passed away 10 years ago, and today The Irish Times offers this rich remembrance by his friend and fellow poet, Michael Smith.Read More
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A Tardy Adios to Adrian Mitchell
I somehow failed to note the passing of British poet Adrian Mitchell, maybe because I never read a poem of his I really liked. From my limited perspective, it seems he had all the plusses of a good performance poet, but none of enduring qualities that made for powerful poems on the page. He reminds me of a socially and politically engaged Stevie Smith.Read More