A new translation of the 15th-century Indian poet Kabir is making waves.
Sticks and stones can break my bones, but words can help me heal.
Joel Brouwer: “It’s harder to talk about poetry. Poetry is a subject, not an object. You can’t see poetry; you can only see poems. Poems are poetry like raccoons are nature. It isn’t nature that’s made a nest in your attic and given birth to four more mewling natures, batting their little black claws at the air.”
So who’s the “Master” in these un-mailed letters by Emily Dickinson?
Arundhati Roy on political turmoil in India: “Can the hungry go on a hunger strike? Non-violence is a piece of theatre. You need an audience. What can you do when you have no audience? People have the right to resist annihilation.”
Forget the Kindle, forget Twitter–pen and paper are still the tools of choice for the Iowa Writers’ Workshop, which just recently turned three-quarters of a century old.
A group of Albuquerque poets has set out to establish the largest poetry library in the United States.
New York Times on the inaugural Poetry Competition of the Iraqi Resistance Movement: “The rules were straightforward enough. The contest was open to all Iraqis as well as Arabs outside the country. Entries could be no shorter than 20 verses, and they had to follow Arabic rules of grammar and style. No invectives against Iraqi politicians or other ethnic groups or religious sects. And–most important–???Must paint an impressive and beautiful picture of the resistance movement.’”