Heather Dohollau: Poet who who was born in Wales but was acclaimed for her...
If it is rare for a poet to write in a language that is not her mother tongue, Heather Dohollau was that rarity: born and brought up in Wales with English as her first language, she wrote almost all...
View ArticleThe writer as translator
U.R. Ananthamurthy often said that he plunged into an intense reading of other poets when he felt that his writings failed to fully capture his own self and the world around him. This sometimes led him...
View ArticleCOLUMN: The poetry of shadows and dreams
WHEN he was translating St-John Perse’s poem Anabase, T. S. Eliot wrote to the French poet to say that he considered the poem “one of the greatest and most singular of modern times”. It was rare for...
View ArticleAn Interview With Hilary Kaplan
I readily admit I do not have the capacity to translate any of my books into Spanish. Though I am proud of my heritage, I stopped speaking both Spanish and English for a full year beginning at age...
View ArticleRas Beirut's English-language poetry scene finds a new place to express itself
By Alexander Besant Special to The Daily Star Wednesday, August 13, 2008 BEIRUT: Let it be known that the whir of espresso machines will not deter young poets from reciting their latest work. The...
View ArticleImages from a waking dream
One might be hard-pressed to review a book like Eileen R. Tabios Reflections of the Empty Flagpole, a collection of prose poems published by the New York-based Marsh Hawk Press, without the risk of...
View ArticleBreton coast invaded by stinking weed
The signs point, cheerfully, to the plage (beach) but what you see at the end of the lane resembles a monstrous, waterlogged lawn or an evil-smelling paddy-field. At low tide, the Bay of Saint Brieuc,...
View ArticleFamous poet Walcott to return to Taiwan
West Indian dramatist and poet Derek Walcott, winner of the 1992 Nobel Prize in Literature, is expected to appear at a colloquium to be held in Tainan City tomorrow, the National Museum of Taiwanese...
View ArticleO Holy Night: Christ was born to unite humankind
Chains shall he break, for the slave is our brother (& sister). And in his name all oppression shall cease. Struck by these words of the 1847 French poet, Placid Cappeau, of the original ‘O Holy...
View ArticlePoem of the week: Relational Epistemology by Heather Phillipson
This week's poem, by Heather Phillipson, is almost as full of philosophical nuggets as the rich cherry Genoa cake it celebrates is full of raisins. The poem appears in the artist-poet's new collection,...
View ArticleFranz Kafka Prize for Prof. Amos Oz (Ben-Gurion University of the Negev)
(Source: Ben-Gurion University of the Negev) 22/10/2013 תוכן Prof. Amos Oz will be awarded the Franz Kafka Prize this coming Thursday, 24th October, in Prague. The international literary Franz Kafka...
View ArticleComma chameleon
Eats, Shoots & Leaves presents itself as a last-ditch defence of the subtleties of English punctuation. "Despair was the initial impetus for this book," writes Lynne Truss, and she begins by...
View ArticleSacha's love of English out of tune with French
French singer Sacha Distel left his compatriots hopping with rage yesterday after admitting that he much prefers to sing in English. "It is a much easier and more beautiful language to sing in," he...
View ArticleFrench artist dies at 78
Paris - French artist Raymond Hains, a member of the New Realism movement who was famous for his shredded posters, has died at age 78, French officials said. Hains banded together with leading artists...
View ArticleCommuters get taste of Europe on Tube
LONDON (Reuters) - Commuters hurrying through the turnstiles at a London underground station could have confused the man spouting German poetry with a friendly busker. But Denis MacShane is the...
View ArticleLetters To The Editor: Waste disposal system
Sir, Apropos of Waste disposal system (Kolkata Plus, 25 February), it is felt that the present door to door collection is more prudent and efficient. Introduction of 240 garbage cans in different...
View ArticleWhere immortality spends the night
By Kristina Merkner That's something that will only sell in homeopathic doses. This is what the former head of record company BMG said six years ago when he first heard about the off-beat compositions...
View ArticleAn interview with 'The Trees Trees' author Heather Christle
Heather Christle is the poet behind The Difficult Farm (Octopus Books), The Seaside! (Minutes Books), and most recently, The Trees The Trees (Octopus, 2011). You can read my review of The Trees The...
View ArticleParallel lines
What's the best way to read Ronsard - or any other poet in a language we might not know too well? Pierre de Ronsard (1524-85) is to French poetry roughly speaking what Thomas Wyatt is to English, but...
View ArticleDylan’s Candor Gets Miscontrued as Hate Speech in France
By Ian BellDecember 7th 20135:45 am More Stories by Ian Bell The French award Dylan the Légion d’honneur, then place him under investigation for hate speech. Have they not been listening to what he’s...
View ArticleFrench poet receives Czech prize
The Associated Press AP Photo This file photo from Nov. 18, 1987 shows French poet Yves Bonnefoy. Bonnefoy was in Prague, the Czech capital, to receive the Franz Kafka Prize, a prestigious Czech...
View ArticleThe poet reaches for what lies beyond words
TIME AND MATERIALS: Poems, 1997-2005, by Robert Hass. HarperCollins. 88 pages. $22.95. BY TOM D'EVELYN Special to the Journal Robert Hass' new collection, Time and Materials, which just won the...
View ArticleExclusive Interview With Pulitzer Prize-Winning Poet Franz Wright
Over the last few years, it's been an honor for me to get to know Franz Wright, winner of the 2004 Pulitzer Prize for "Walking to Martha's Vineyard" (his father, James Wright--whom I consider one of...
View ArticleSlick interpretation lacks warmth
The Beginning and the End of the Snow Collins Street Baptist Church, Melbourne, August 4. CONTEMPORARY composition is not fashionable. All credit, then, to 37-year-old composer David Chisholm, whose...
View ArticleAll about Yves
1936 Yves Mathieu Saint Laurent is born in Oran, Algeria. 1954 Moves to Paris. Wins first prize in a competition sponsored by the Secrétariat International de la Laine, for a cocktail dress. 1955 Hired...
View ArticleFinally found in translation
Orpheus by Don Paterson Faber £12.99, pp84 When John Berryman wrote in his third Dream Song that 'Rilke was a jerk', a lot of readers of Rainer Maria Rilke in translation were probably relieved. The...
View ArticleHaddad wins Al Majidi Ibn Dhaher Arab Literary Prize
MONTREAL - Blue Metropolis Foundation will be awarding the 2010 Blue Metropolis Al Majidi Ibn Dhaher Arab Literary Prize to Lebanese poet Joumana Haddad. The prize, which was established in 2007, is...
View ArticleThe Big Question: How does the French honours system work, and why has Kylie...
Why are we asking now? Kylie Minogue, the Australian actress and pop singer, has just been made a French cultural knight - or "chevalier dans l'ordre des Arts et Lettres". She cannot, unfortunately,...
View ArticleAndré du Bouchet
André du Bouchet, poet and translator: born Paris 7 May 1924; married first Tina Jolas (two children), second Anne de Staël; died Crest, France 19 April 2001. One of the world's greatest contemporary...
View ArticleLetter to the Editor
Diplomatic faux pas? I have read with great interest the "rapportage" which has appeared in your paper and other media concerning this year's celebration of La Fête Nationale Française which was...
View ArticleDavid Gascoyne
David Emery Gascoyne, poet: born Harrow, Middlesex 10 October 1916; FRSL 1951; married 1975 Judy Lewis (née Tyler); died Newport, Isle of Wight 25 November 2001. When a poet as pure as David Gascoyne...
View ArticleWhen Night Forgets to Fall
By Charles Simic There was a time in this country when every poet and student of literature read some French poetry. To both sophisticates and provincials, Paris was the eternal capital of everything...
View ArticleSecular response to spiritual need
THE musical cycle of seasons does not have to begin with The Rite of Spring's primal urges and end with a wanderer's demise in Winterreise. There is scope for the feminine and the beautiful, says...
View ArticleRilkes Elegies and Sonnets published in Iran
Tehran Times Culture Desk TEHRAN -- The bilingual book Elegies and Sonnets published by Hermes Publications in Iran, the Mehr News Agency reported on Friday. The...
View ArticleAmong a chorus of angels
Who, if I cried out, would hear me among the angels'hierarchies? and even if one of them pressed me suddenly against his heart: I would be consumed in the overwhelming existence. For beauty is nothing...
View ArticleFrench poet Yves Bonnefoy dies
Yves Bonnefoy, one of France's most esteemed modern poets, has died at the age of 93, French media report. His more than 100 books were translated into 30 languages. He was also a...
View ArticleThe Greatest Poet Alive
André Carrilho If you’re a certain kind of reader, with a certain kind of brain, you’re always on the lookout for the poem that will save your life. Existence heaps itself upon you; your tongue...
View ArticleInsurance Man
Paul Mariani’s excellent new book, “The Whole Harmonium: The Life of Wallace Stevens” (Simon & Schuster), is a thrilling story of a mind, which emerges from a dispiriting story of a...
View ArticleWhen I read Rimbaud’s verse I heard the call at the bottom of the sea
Du mußt dein Leben ändern. You must change your life, says Rainer Maria Rilke’s Archaic Torso of Apollo (translation by Stephen Mitchell). Not modify your life. Not change your lifestyle. Not take more...
View ArticleYves Bonnefoy obituary
French poet and essayist who believed in the sacredness of the here and now...
View Article
More Pages to Explore .....