February 31st

Intriguing, this. Why would someone write a non-existent date on a gravestone? Unless the entire existence of Christiana, wife of John Haag, is fake, but the gravestone is in a genuine graveyard (the Old Mission Church Cemetery in Upper Sandusky, Ohio) and I wouldn’t have thought the authorities would have allowed a stone for a fictional person. Perhaps no one noticed? Or is it just trick photography?

(Image reproduced under a Free Documentation License)

If I Had A Hammer

Mary Travers (1936-2009).

London Calling 2

In memory of the tragic death of a pop legend at only 50-years-old, a man who was deeply influential during the last decades of the 20th century and whose music I still love today – well, here he is below:



Fantastic stuff. The song segues into my London trip tomorrow with Andrew Philip where we’ll be joined in the Lemon Monkey Café, 188 Stoke Newington High Street from 7-9pm, by Katy Evans-Bush and Yang Lian. Hope any poetry fans around London who are free that evening will drop in. Entry is free but we will have books to sell. However, sneaking out the back door without buying anything is permitted, as long as we don’t notice. Otherwise we will send our monkeys after you with an artillery of lemons.

I just found a very interesting article by poet, Pascale Petit, on translating Yang Lian, followed by the poem she translated. Pascale will also be at the event to read her translation.

Here’s the event’s Facebook page.

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I should add that tomorrow, in addition to travelling to London, I will also be appearing at Claire Askew’s One Night Stanzas as part of my De-Cabbage Yourself! Cyclone tour. I’ll try to link directly to the post tomorrow if there’s time.

Mick Imlah (1956-2009)

I was planning to make a last minute prediction for the winner of this year’s TS Eliot Prize for Poetry. The ceremony is being held tonight.

However all speculation has been overshadowed by news that hot favourite, Mick Imlah, whose collection, The Lost Leader, won this year’s Forward Prize for Best Collection, has died today, aged only 52. He had been diagnosed with Motor Neurone Disease just over a year ago.

Desperately sad news

Duncan Glen 1933-2008

Colin Will has posted a short tribute to Scottish poet, publisher and activist, Duncan Glen, who died yesterday. Unlike Colin, I didn’t know Duncan well. I met him only on a few occasions, but he was a really nice guy, very encouraging to me, and had a great sense of humour. On two occasions he gave me a copy of his magazine Zed2o and refused my attempts to pay for them. Recently I read his editorial in the Spring 2008 edition of Zed2o, which reflected both his deep passion for poetry in Scotland and fearlessness in speaking his mind.

In my report on the By Leaves We Live 2006 event at the Scottish Poetry Library, when Duncan teamed up with Gerry Cambridge to talk about their respective publishing activities over some 40+ years (Duncan published poetry, criticism and history with his Akros Press since 1965), I wrote that they both exhibited “an emphasis on quality, a passion for making good poetry available, and a drive to surprise their readers and – no doubt – themselves.”

He’ll be greatly missed by many people.

Reginald Shepherd, 1963-2008

Like many people throughout the poetry blogosphere, I was shocked to hear about the death of American poet, critic, essayist and blogger, Reginald Shepherd.

In a pre-Internet world, there’s every chance I would never have come into any contact with Reginald Shepherd, but that would have been my loss. He wrote about poetry (and other subjects) with intelligence, clarity, and wisdom, and always came over as a fine person. He died on 10 September after illness, aged only 45. If you haven’t read his blog, do check it out and bookmark it. It’s packed full of terrific stuff.

I don’t normally like to breach copyright but, in the circumstances, I hope I can be forgiven, as this poem of his seems very apt. I’m indebted to Hedgie at The Compost Heap for bringing it to my attention:

A Handful of Sand

I'm always putting thing in poems
where I think they'll keep, lying
to the lying gods to make a way
out of whatever ways I have.
The rooms we wander through
on a day of no significance
are white, are beige, are gray, nothing
of any importance will happen
today. A fake fragment of Greek frieze
frames three plaster women in pleated chitons
sitting on a bus, or so it looks
from here, a krater holds a plastic plant
(saw palmetto, perhaps) that's following
them, but they don't seem to be
moved. Graffiti on the men's room stall
reads "TEXT," reads "SIGN,"
and also the word "DEUCE"
scratched into green-painted metal.

Think of all the blunder and fault
in the world, a noisy lexicon
of mistake, hoots, jargles, squawks,
and rasps, think of all the bending
and breaking of oak boughs.
Think of the quartz beach wrecked
by recent hurricanes, driftwood
and seaweed beginning to stink,
plastic cup lids I mistook for shells.
(We have seen the wind
by what it leaves behind, its wreckage
and detritus, but the water
won't be wounded.)

File this pearl-smooth conch interior
under no, press it against your ear
as if it were the spirit radio,
and you were walking down the street
tuned to just one voice, wading
waist-high through shallow light.
The minutes continue their shine, the shapes
of color change and turn; a wind
blows through my skin
and you renew the weather.
I will not entirely die.

(from Fata Morgana by Reginald Shepherd,
University of Pittsburgh Press, 2007)

Poet Assassinated

Astonishing story in the Guardian today about the murder of Sardinian poet, Peppino Marotto.

Described as “a man who helped many and did not have enemies,” we later learn of his “imprisonment in the 1950s for robbery and attempted murder, and his reported ties at the time with a notorious bandit, Pasquale Tandeddu.”

But he began writing in prison and seemed to change his life when he came out, acting as a local peacemaker and union official. He was a communist, believing passionately in equality and justice. Last Saturday, he was shot dead, almost certainly as a result of a vendetta held against him for his crime from over 50 years ago.

Of course, although he was shot in a busy street in broad daylight, no witness has yet come forward.

Olive Dehn (1914-2007)

Poet and writer, Olive Dehn, has died aged 92. At the age of 91, she published her first collection of poetry, Out of My Mind on HappenStance Press.

She led an incredible life, as is reflected by the obituary in the link above, written by Anne Karpf in The Guardian.