The Reader Online

Liverpool’s museums are marking International Women’s Day 2010 with a week of special events which aim to explore and celebrate the contributions women have made to our culture. As part of the programme, the Walker Art Gallery is holding a session entitled ‘Women Artists – A Poet’s View’ on Monday 8th March which promises to give an insight to female poets, charting the rise of women artists through poetry.

Led by Gladys Mary Coles, the workshop also gives the chance for attendees to get in touch with their creative side and get writing themselves. Guidance will be on hand to help develop writing technique, so complete novices and practising poets alike are catered for. The array of works on display in the exhibition are sure to drum up inspiration for visitors to produce their own poetic masterpieces.

The session takes place from 10am to 1pm. Places are limited, to book call 0151 478 4178.

For more information on the programme of events taking place, visit the National Museums Liverpool website.

The competition is underway for the 2010 Dylan Thomas Prize, the world’s top literary prize for young writers. The annual prize, named in honor of the famous Welsh writer and poet, and sponsored by the government of Wales, brings with it international prestige as well as a cash award of £30,000 ($46,000).

The Prize honors its shortlist finalists and annual winner for published work in the broad range of literary forms in which Dylan Thomas excelled, including poetry, prose, fictional drama, short story collections, novels, novellas, stage plays and screenplays.

The official launch of the 2010 Prize will take place this year at a ceremony and reception hosted at the British Consulate-General in Boston on March 1. Special guests and speakers will include Harvard Review Editor Christina Thompson, Tessa Dahl and former U.S. Poet Laureate Robert Pinsky.

Entries for the competition must be submitted by the publisher, editor, literary agent, or in the case of produced film scripts and stage plays, by the producer. Writers must be 18-30 years old, and the literary works must have been published within the past year to be eligible for competition.

Submission deadline is April 30, 2010.

Ever fancied learning, or brushing up on, a skill in the French sunshine?

Les Soeurs Anglaises run three and five day textile, creative writing, and dance workshops led by the very best, and most experienced, internationally renowned artists/teachers. Our 2010 programme includes a ‘Poetry in Motion’ 5 day workshop led by internationally respected poet Roger McGough, as well as screenwriting, crime, and creative writing courses – all led by masters of their genre.

It’s that time of year again, when love is in the air (and in the windows of card shops, perhaps more appropriately…excuse the slightly cynical nature of a long-term singleton). Yes, the day of Saint Valentine is upon us once again – on Sunday to be precise, just as a reminder for anyone who’s forgotten and needs to make a dash for a token of love for their nearest and dearest.

Forget the chocolates, flowers and fluffy teddies, dogs and almost any other kind of animal imaginable (even though they are cute) – if you really want to win the heart of your valentine, then love poetry is definitely the way to go. According to a recent study, most members of the fairer sex would like nothing better as a Valentine’s gift than to receive a love poem or letter from their significant other. Unfortunately, the male population are less than forthcoming in the literary department, with 6% resorting to plagiarism of existing romantic poetry to make a favourable impression – well, at least they’re trying. (Although, to be fair to men, embarrassment may be a major factor in restraining the poet within – Aberystwyth University is conducting some rather intriguing research into whether reading love poems get us hot under the collar.)

No need to take such drastic measures – The Reader Online can come to the rescue for your romantic quandaries with a very special Valentine’s poem. Whether it’s for an unknowing object of desire or a long-term lover (or alternatively if you’re still waiting for Cupid’s arrow to strike, for yourself), nobody will be able to resist these beautiful words courtesy of Dante Gabriel Rossetti. Of course if you’d prefer to select your own Valentine’s poem, there are plenty to choose from on Poets.org. Also, The Poetry Archive and The Times Online have teamed up – together with a number of very famous names and poets – to offer recordings of love poems that can be sent to a loved one. So boys (and girls), there really is no excuse!

Lovesight

When do I see thee most, beloved one?
When in the light the spirits of mine eyes
Before thy face, their altar, solemnize
The worship of that Love through thee made known?
Or when in the dusk hours (we two alone,)
Close-kissed and eloquent of still replies
twilight-hidden glimmering visage lies,
And my soul only sees thy soul its own?

O love, my love! if I no more should see
Thyself, nor on the earth the shadow of thee,
Nor image of thine eyes in any spring,–
How then should sound upon Life’s darkening slope
The ground-whirl of the perished leaves of Hope,
The wind of Death’s imperishable wing?

Dante Gabriel Rossetti (1828-1882)

There can’t be many films which would appeal to poetry lovers and rugby fans but that is what Clint Eastwood has set out to do with Invictus, his new release about Nelson Mandela and the South African Rugby World Cup. To see a poem take a starring role alongside Morgan Freeman and Matt Damon is quite something. And like Freeman and Damon,  ’Invictus’ does its job brilliantly.

People who are involved in Get Into Reading may know the poem because it’s been read in quite a lot of groups. It’s always a lovely surprise to see this Victorian gem, which might be considered a bit obvious, a bit corny, come to life in human hands. The poem has a  kind of magic about it, in that the more difficult the lives of its readers the more moving it becomes.

Invictus

Out of the night that covers me,
Black as the Pit from pole to pole,
I thank whatever gods may be
For my unconquerable soul.

In the fell clutch of circumstance
I have not winced nor cried aloud.
Under the bludgeonings of chance
My head is bloody, but unbowed.

Beyond this place of wrath and tears
Looms but the Horror of the shade,
And yet the menace of the years
Finds, and shall find, me unafraid.

It matters not how strait the gate,
How charged with punishments the scroll.
I am the master of my fate:
I am the captain of my soul.

William Ernest Henley

I hadn’t realised that it was a key poem for Mandela during his years of incarceration (and wish I had, as some politically correct persons have occasionally  told me that they are  troubled by the undercurrent of colonial racism hinted at in Henley’s use of the word ‘black’).

The film is an old-fashioned move-you-to-tears and to-punching-the-air triumph-over-adversity story, which had me in tears within minutes, perhaps seconds. Mandela’s calm determination and belief is worth learning from, there’s a terrific performance from an actor whose name I don’t know but who used to be nurse in Casualty, Damon has found his niche as a lumpen inarticulate but courageous sportsman, and Freeman was born to play Mandela: the two are now one in my mind, as if they always were one and the same. Go with a rugby fan, take hankies for two, and be prepared to be inspired.

Adrienne Rich posed the question – ‘ Where does poetry come from?’ and offered this answer:

… how we glimpse a blur of smoke in the air, look at a pair of shoes in a shop window, or a group of men on a street corner, how we hear rain on the roof or music on the radio upstairs, how we meet or avoid the eyes of a neighbour or a stranger. That pressure bends our angle of vision whether we recognize it or not…When poetry lays its hand on our shoulder we are, to an almost physical degree, touched and moved…

Penelope Shuttle, whom we have published in The Reader 18 (which you can buy here for only £3), has been in touch to tell us about a poetry residential course she is leading in France at Chateau Ventenac fro 24th April to 1st May. More details on the course, ‘Word and Self’, can be found here.

With the Oscar nominations being annoucned later today, we know that the season of awards and prizes is fully upon us. One award that has passed and that I haven’t yet commented on is the TS Eliot Prize, which was won by Philip Gross. His collection The Water Table won the award last month had we’re very proud to say that we have published two of him poems in The Reader 12, which you can buy here for only £3.

Poet Laureate Carol Ann Duffy is to join 21 other leading poets for a Poetry Live for Haiti.

Duffy, who was made poet laureate last year, told the BBC:

Like everyone else, I was very deeply affected by reports from Haiti about the earthquake and its aftermath, and I just thought to myself ‘this is going to take years to put right’. These people will need support for a long, long time to come.

Liverpool poet Roger McGough and recent contributer to The Reader magazine,  Andrew Motion, will be taking part, as well as Jo Shapcott, John Agard, Dannie Abse, Gillian Clarke and many others.

Poetry Live for Haiti will be held at Central Hall, Westminster on Saturday, from 2.30pm. It is hoped the event will raise £20,000 for the Disasters Emergency Committee’s Haiti Earthquake Appeal.

Christopher Reid follows in the footsteps of Douglas Dunn, Ted Hughes and Seamus Heaney by becoming only the fourth poet to win the overall Costa book of the year award with his collection A Scattering. The prize means he picks up, in total, a £30,000 prize and an incalculable increase in readership for a book which has sold less than 1,000 copies.

Read more here.

On Thursday 4th February the Indian poet, Mohan Rana, will read his poems in Hindi alongside newly commissioned translations read by Bernard O’Donoghue.

This special event, held at The Whitechapel Gallery in East London to coincide with their exhibition ‘Where Three Dreams Cross: 150 Years of Photography from India, Pakistan and Bangladesh’, will be the first time these translations are read in public.

For more information visit The Poetry Translation website.