Poets, Poetry, News, Reviews, Readings, Resources & Opportunities for Poets and Writers
Author: Jamie Dedes
Jamie Dedes is a Lebanese-American poet and free-lance writer. She is the founder and curator of The Poet by Day, info hub for poets and writers, and the founder of The Bardo Group, publishers of The BeZine, of which she was the founding editor and currently a co-manager editor with Michael Dickel. Ms. Dedes is the Poet Laureate of Womawords Press 2020 and U.S associate to that press as well. Her debut collection, "The Damask Garden," is due out fall 2020 from Blue Dolphin Press.
……It is difficult to get the news from poems …..yet men die miserably every day ……….for lack of what is found there.
—William Carlos Williams (1883-1963), Latino-American Poet
If you are of an age, you remember a time when newspapers and magazines, local and regional, regularly served up poetry and fiction, which was then read and enjoyed by masses of people. Many of the old iconic poets and writers you enjoy today began publishing that way. Now the Academy of American Poets is partnering with news syndicate King Features to bring its Poem a Day program (currently distributed by email subscription) to newspapers, websites and magazines.
In her announcement yesterday Academy of American Poets Executive Director, Jennifer Benka, said:
“It’s been a generation since new poems have been available to daily news readers. We’re thrilled to help renew this tradition, which will bring greater visibility to contemporary poets.
While we will make the poems available for free, the benefits of expanding the access to poetry in this way are undeniable. Readers who would never have otherwise encountered a poem, will find them amid current events.”
The effort is initiated this April in concert with the Academy of American Poets’ annual celebration of Poetry Month.
– Jamie Dedes
Thank you for sharing your love of words. Comments will appear after moderation.
… and you thought all your personal info was held just between you, your God, the NSA and that hacker in Eastern Europe who shall remain nameless. No poetry here!
I hoped I could spend the afternoon reading, settled comfy with Billy Collings’ Picnic, Lightning. I had to ruin things by checking my email first only to learn that while WordPress is safe, the technoscenti (no, there’s no such word, but you get the idea) recommend changing our passwords to Facebook and other social networking sites … and to gmail, by the way. I don’t use any of the other networking sites, but you might. Link HERE to Mashable’s list of sites that are vulnerable to this flaw. It includes corporations, government and tax sites, and banks and brokerage firms …
I originally posted this feature in June last year. Since April is Poetry Month and since one woman is running for Vice President and some 300 women are running in the provincial elections today in Afghanistan, it seems a good time to revisit.
پاس په كمر ولاړه ګله! نصيب دچايي اوبه زه درخيژومه O Flower that you grow on the mountain side; The duty to water you belongs to me, but to whom would you belong?
ستا به د ګلو دوران تير شۍ به پاته شۍ دزړه سوۍ داغونه The blooming season of your beauty will pass; But the scorched patches on my heart will always remain fresh.
Zarmina’s parents at her grave. She was a poet who died after setting herself on fire. Photo by Seamus Murphy, 2012, Courtesy of the Pulitzer Center on Crisis Reporting
In June 2013 The Poetry Foundation, publisher of Poetry magazine, devoted the month’s issue to Landays, the traditional poetic form of Afghan women. . .
After learning the story of a teenage girl, Zarmina, who was forbidden to write poems and burned herself in protest, poet and journalist Eliza Griswold and photographer and filmmaker Seamus Murphy journeyed to Afghanistan to investigate the impact of the girl’s death, as well as the role that poetry plays in the lives of contemporary Pashtuns. A year later, Griswold and Murphy returned to Afghanistan to study the effects of more than a decade of U.S. military involvement on the culture and lives of Afghan women. In the course of this work, Griswold collected a selection of landays, or two-line poems. These poems are accompanied by Murphy’s photographs from the same period and are presented in the June 2013 issue of Poetry.
My pains grow as my life dwindles, I will die with a heart full of hope.
A report on death and love by Eliza Grizwold and Seamus Murphy, a project of the Pulitzer Center on Crisis Reporting. .
.Griswold describes the characteristics of a landay in her introduction: “Twenty-two syllables: nine in the first line, thirteen in the second. The poem ends with the sound “ma” or “na.” Sometimes they rhyme, but more often not. . “In Pashto, they lilt internally from word to word in a kind of two-line lullaby that belies the sharpness of their content, which is distinctive not only for its beauty, bawdiness, and wit, but also for the piercing ability to articulate a common truth about war, separation, homeland, grief, or love. Landays are centuries-old custom among Afghans, traditionally passed along in the oral tradition, and passed down through generations. The topics of the landays included in the June 2013 issue run the gamut—love, marriage, war, the status of women, drones, politics, courage, nature, and the Internet. Sometimes humorous, sometimes heartbreaking, these captivating two-line poems offer unique insight into the contemporary life of the more than twenty million Pashtun women who span the border between Afghanistan and Pakistan.” .
*****
About Poetry Founded in Chicago by Harriet Monroe in 1912, Poetry is the oldest monthly devoted to verse in the English-speaking world. Monroe’s “Open Door” policy, set forth in Volume 1 of the magazine, remains the most succinct statement of Poetry’s mission: to print the best poetry written today, in whatever style, genre, or approach. The magazine established its reputation early by publishing the first important poems of T.S. Eliot, Ezra Pound, Marianne Moore, Wallace Stevens, H.D., William Carlos Williams, Carl Sandburg, and other now-classic authors. In succeeding decades it has presented—often for the first time—works by virtually every major contemporary poet. The entire June 2013 issue is available online as of June 3 HERE. Digital copies of the June issue of Poetry magazine, as well as a digital subscription, are also available.
.
About the Poetry Foundation The Poetry Foundation, publisher of Poetry magazine, is an independent literary organization committed to a vigorous presence for poetry in our culture. It exists to discover and celebrate the best poetry and to place it before the largest possible audience. The Poetry Foundation seeks to be a leader in shaping a receptive climate for poetry by developing new audiences, creating new avenues for delivery, and encouraging new kinds of poetry through innovative literary prizes and programs. For more information, please visit http://www.poetryfoundation.org.
.
About Everything Afghanistan “Afghanistan’s recent history is a story of war and civil unrest. A country once prosperous now suffers from enormous poverty, a lack of skilled and educated workers, a crumbling infrastructure, and widespread land mines. It’s being heard about in the news every day but the media approaches this country from its dark side only. Here at Everything Afghanistan we try to show the world the other side of this war torn country. Despite years of bloodshed and destruction, there is still so much beauty that remains unseen. Here we post about Afghan related things, from politics and events to its culture and traditions. This blog is against the US invasion of Afghanistan.” Aminajalalzei, a.k.a. Vicoden.
.
About Mirman Baheer, the Ladies Literary Society “Over 300 members of Mirman Baheer, the Ladies Literary Society, stretch across the provinces of Afghanistan. Women write and recite landai, two-line folk poems that can be funny, sexy, raging or tragic and have traditionally dealt with love and grief. For many women, these poems allow them to express themselves free of social constraints and obligations. 5 out of 100 women in Afghanistan graduate from high school, and most are married by the age of 16. This kind of expression is looked down upon in society, forcing the women writing to keep their craft a secret.” The Pulitzer Center on Crisis Reporting Meetings of the poetry society are held in Kabul, but with 8 out of 10 Afghanistan women residing in rural areas, many women call in to the meetings. Zarmina Shehadi was one of those callers. She lit herself on fire two years ago. Her family denies her suicide, claiming that she lit herself on fire to get warm after a bath. “She was a good girl, an uneducated girl. Our girls don’t want to go to school,” her mother said. Zarmina is the most recent of Afghanistan’s poet-martyrs.
.
About the Pulitzer Center on Crisis Reporting The Pulitzer Center on Crisis Reporting is an innovative award-winning non-profit journalism organization dedicated to supporting the independent international journalism that U.S. media organizations are increasingly less able to undertake. The Center focuses on under-reported topics, promoting high-quality international reporting and creating platforms that reach broad and diverse audiences. .MOREPhoto credit ~ Seamus Murphy for The Pulitzer Center on Crisis Reporting Video by Seamus Murphy for the Pulitzer Center on Crisis Reporting
Thank you for sharing your love of words. Comments will appear after moderation.
Jamie Dedes' THE POET BY DAY Webzine 