D.A. Powell

In Memoriam: David Bromige

“Poetry is the theory of heartbreak” — David Bromige (October 22, 1933 to June 3, 2009)

Endowed with remarkable wit and a prodigious memory, David Bromige was a paragon of poetic virtues. Not only was he a master of both traditional and innovative forms, but, as a teacher, he exhibited enormous erudition and generosity.

David’s output included dozens of books of his own poems, as well as broadsides and chapbooks, collaborations, fiction, essays, plays. He co-wrote songs with Barry Gifford. And he brought to his public readings a true gift for performance and improvisation. His honors included the Western States Book Award, a Pushcart Prize, two fellowships from the National Endowment for the Arts and two awards from the Poetry Foundation.

06.10.09 PERMALINK | COMMENTS (7)

Travis Nichols

Elegies and Eulogies for Mahmoud Darwish

The BBC says, “It is easy to describe Mahmoud as a national poet, but he is much more than that.”
The New York Times says Darwish was “one of the greatest contemporary Arab poets”
The Los Angeles Times: “Despite his consistently nationalist themes, Darwish sometimes chafed under the title of Palestine’s unofficial poet laureate.”
Jordanian bloggers grieve.
The Lebanon Star presses for continued struggle in Darwish’s name
The United Arab Emirates National says “every cause needs a poet; in the late Mahmoud Darwish, Palestine got much more.”
Haaretz says “his greatness was rooted in his ability to capture and then forge the collective memory of the Palestinian refugee experience in his poems.”
The Jerusalem Post weighs Darwish inspired bleeding hearts vs. open minds.
The Telegraph on one of Palestine’s “most essential treasures.”
The Financial Times places Darwish at the center of the Arab-Israeli conflict.
The PLO’s farewell program.

08.12.08 PERMALINK | NO COMMENTS

Travis Nichols

End of the Line

After more than fifteen years, the Poetry in Motion program that put poems by W.S. Merwin, Lucille Clifton, Lorine Niedecker, and Emily Dickinson—among many, many others—alongside ads for Dr. Z’s acne treatment and Lasik surgery on New York City’s subways, has ended.
The New York Times reported last month that the “Poetry in Motion” partnership between the Poetry Society of America and the Metro Transportation Authority would phase out in May and transform into a new SubTalk program entitled “Train of Thought.”
The new program will still feature one poem a year, but will focus more on quotations from history, philosophy, and science. The new quotations will be chosen by Columbia University’s Graduate School of Arts and Sciences for, according to their press release, “both their significance and accessibility.”
Alicia Martinez, MTA’s Director of Marketing & Corporate Communications, says, “New Yorkers have wide-ranging interests, and we felt that we could include material from a variety of other disciplines in addition to poetry to bring important, engaging, insightful quotes to our riders, and entice them to explore the author or subject further. We believe this approach will reach a broader and larger audience.”
Jim Dwyer wrote a eulogy of sorts last week for “Poetry in Motion” that has made the rounds via email and blogs, but for the most part it has been a quite transition.
The program has spawned similar programs across the country, from Los Angleles to St. Louis to here in Seattle, where we have a Poetry in Motion-inspired program called Poetry on the Buses. Since I only saw “Poetry in Motion” in fits and starts, my main experience with the response to poetry on public transportation has been through Poetry on the Buses, which is mixed to say the least.

06.12.08 PERMALINK | COMMENTS (3)