The rise of poetry in advertising
More companies, including McDonald's, are being moved to verse to advertise their products. Is this a welcome development?
full story: The rise of poetry in advertising | Television & radio | The Guardian
I made a swing through the blog neighborhoods that I hang out in and these things caught my eye.
If you are a poet, you no doubt have friends that simply don’t understand the “poet” in you. I saw something that cracks me up -thanks to Jilly that came from the blog of Don Share is Senior Editor of Poetry magazine. HOW TO DEAL WITH POETS
Rachel Dacus has an interesting rant at ROCKET KIDS about paper & the digital times.
Christine Hamm has new material published in The Loch Raven Review and The Holly Rose Review,
Ted Hughes has been dead about eleven years now and legacy as a poet is again in public view as some have taken up the cause of him being honored by inclusion in Westminster Abbey's Poets' Corner - poetry's holiest of holies. Those enshrined there include Chaucer, William Shakespeare, TS Eliot, Alfred Lord Tennyson, Robert Browning, William Blake and Sir John Betjeman the last admitted in 1984.
Nobel Laureate Seamus Heaney is one of several who have called called for Ted Hughes to be honored in the Poets’ Corner. Others include Andrew Motion, who took over from Hughes as poet laureate, Lord Melvyn Bragg.
“In proclaiming and embodying in his work a holistic sense of life on earth, he became one of the vital presences in 20th Century poetry.” ~ Seamus Heaney
The final decision on admitting Hughes to this honor belongs to the Dean of Westminster, the Very Reverend Dr John Hall.
Outside of his homeland, Hughes is perhaps best known as the husband of Silvia Plath. The whole Plath / Hughes relationship would likely overshadow such talk in this country where the nearly myth like lore perhaps surpasses real critical view of his own poetry.
Yes, I know thanksgiving is over, but it was in the quiet of my office today during my lunch hour that the gratitude bug hit me.
As far as stress goes, this year has been on overload at times. Still, I cannot deny there are many things I have to be grateful for. A few of them that came to my mind today are the following.
I’m grateful for:
An Associated Press wire story indicates that the couple who crashed President Barack Obama's first state dinner are trying to peddle their story for hard cash. Call me mean if you wish, but the only thing I’m wanting to see this couple get is some hard time.
I’m tired of people scamming in order to get paid to do reality shows. As far as I’m concerned Michaele and Tareq Salahi have had their 15 minutes of fame. I think fifteen months of jail should be about right.
Representatives for the couple are looking for a mid-six figure price tag for an interview. Any network or show that rewards them by shelling out money has lost my respect. If they reward this couple for what they did they only encourage this kind of behavior. I’m more than willing to wait to hear what story they tell a judge.
I return you now to regularly scheduled blogging.
HOW COOL IS THIS.........
This looks really interesting, if anyone is close to Farmington, CT on December 3rd it might be worth taking in.
If any readers make it to this, I’d love to hear from them about it.
Submitted by Melissa Lamar, Tunxis Community College, on 2009-11-23.
The public is invited to attend "Philosophy of the Supreme Fiction: In and Beyond the Metaphysics of Wallace Stevens," a free talk by James Finnegan at Tunxis Community College on Dec. 3, from 1-2:30 p.m., in Founders Hall. Lunch will be provided.
Finnegan will explore the common ground of poetry and philosophy, with Wallace Stevens as a guide and muse. Hartford's most noted poet and once one of its more prominent insurance executives, Wallace Stevens has often been studied for the philosophical character of his work. Considered a true American heir to the English Romantic poets, he was also influenced by philosophers as diverse as Nietzsche and such pillars of American pragmatism as Ralph Waldo Emerson and George Santayana. With verse so invested in the problems of epistemology and metaphysics, Stevens' poetry has been freshly examined in the light of current philosophical trends with each new decade. However, the unique way he explores the interaction between imagination and reality resists dissection by logicians and diehard rationalists.
Finnegan is a poet, thinker, and founder of The Friends and Enemies of Wallace Stevens, a Hartford area arts organization that supports the cultural legacy of Wallace Stevens and promotes poetry in the community. With Dennis Barone, he edited "Visiting Wallace: Poems Inspired by the Life and Work of Wallace Stevens" (University of Iowa Press, 2009). Finnegan's poems have appeared in Ploughshares, Poetry East, The Southern Review, and The Virginia Quarterly Review among others. He is a senior vice president at Lee & Mason Financial Services, Inc.
The lecture is one of a two-part "Proof & Possibility" series of talks on philosophy and the history of ideas. For more information, call 860-255-3623 or 860-255-3500, or e-mail jabbot@txcc.commnet.edu. Visit Tunxis at tunxis.commnet.edu. Tunxis is located at the junction of Rtes. 6 and 177 in Farmington.Technorati Tags: Tunxis Community College,Wallace Stevens quote
I’ve been looking forward to the Elton John-Billy Joel concert at the Sprint Center in Kansas City on December 1st but learned it’s been postponed till February. [insert sigh here] On a positive note, my tickets for the Kansas City Symphony’s production of Handel's Messiah with 250 voice choral accompaniment arrived in the mail yesterday! To this day I get chills down my neck when I hear the Hallelujah Chorus. Going back to grade school, we would sing this in Choir. I recall the stories – and there are many, of King George standing at the beginning of this chorus, thereby causing everyone else to stand, and how this tradition has lived for the hundreds of years since.
The funny thing about my memory of this was that my voice was high then and I was placed in the choir section with the older girls [mostly 7th and 8th graders] singing soprano. They were forever teasing me and making me blush. I became like some kind of mascot to them. The choir director [I bet most grade schools have had this position cut from their budgets long ago] preferred the term descants to soprano, or at least used it as often if not more. As a mousy little kid who hears thing but didn't always get them, I for years though she had called us “desk hands” and could never find anyone who knew what the hell I was talking about. It’s funny how such things come about and decades later you realize why no one knew what you were talking about. It’s like a light comes on and “well duh” it wasn’t desk hand! Oh, and my voice changed!
photo credit: Michael A. Wells
Haven’t don this for a while. From the pages of my journal…
Congratulations Ivy Alvarez on your Pushcart Nomination! Way to go!
Dog sitting for my son this weekend. It’s become a mini writing retreat of sorts. I’ve stayed off TV – so I’ve not had that distraction. Also worked on some “office work” and in-between took our sick car to the shop for which the issue remains unresolved.
In terms of writing, I’ve done some on my laptop and some in my journal. It helped to brake up things to give my eyes a change of focus. By late last night my eyes were pretty fuzzy and my head spinning. I did ultimately unwind listening to some music from Yusef Islam a.k.a. Cat Stevens. Some of his music is especially comforting like the denim jeans he sings of in Oh Very Young.
One of the neat things about writing this weekend is that I started with an epigraph from Anne Sexton and was able to write for a while and hit a wall. I stopped for a while and read some of her work just to get my mind to move beyond where I was. Later I was able to go back and successfully write more. Not from the original draft but with a new slant from the epigraph. Again I hit a wall, but I have parts of the two different drafts that have portions that show promise and will at some point I am confident prove useful. Then later this morning – another whole draft – this one the process has reached conclusion. It’s very workable and I already know some changes I will make; tighten it up and work on line breaks and toy with the stanzas trying to get the best flow from it and improve it lyrically. This one has a broadly political / philosophical tone and these are so hard to do without preaching. This will not be preachy.
That is my roundup for the weekend. I’m going to stop now and write a bit longer and head to bed. Morning comes soon.
A Few Poetry Workshops You May Have Missed
