Monday, November 28, 2016

Monday Muse Asks Did You Know. . .

This is another in an occasional series presenting facts about poets and poetry that you might not know.

✦ In partnership with the charity Maggie's Centre Oxford and the spoken-word site Apples and Snakes, the Arts Council of England has created the multi-media project One Stage at a Time, for individuals with cancer, their caregivers, their loved ones, and anyone who'd just like to connect. You'll find at the site a mix of poetry prompts, texts, audio, digital postcards to send, live-events news, and more.

One Stage at a Time on FaceBookTwitter, and SoundCloud

Maggie's Centres on FaceBook and YouTube

Apples and Snakes on FaceBook and YouTube

✦ San Francisco's Arion Press has published a number of beautiful, limited-edition books of poetry, among them Sampler, with poetry by Emily Dickinson and more than 200 prints by Kiki Smith; The Structure of Rime, with prose poems by Robert Duncan and etchings by Frank Lobdell; I Love My Love, with a 14-stanza ballad by Helen Adam (the ballad is inspired by a Celtic interpretation of the Medusa theme) and 16 images by Kiki Smith; T.S. Eliot's The Waste Land, with illustrations by R.B. Kitaj from his painting If Not, a Helen Vendler essay on the poem, and a Marco Livingstone essay on the painting; and Poetry of Sappho, with prints by Julie Mehretu. Forthcoming is Poetry of Elizabeth Bishop, selections by Helen Vendler, and prints by John Newman.

Arion Press on FaceBook

✦ The Funeral Services Northern Ireland National Poetry Competition is an annual prize event limited to poets of Northern Ireland. Launched in 2012, the event typically mirrors the theme of the United Kingdom's National Poetry Day.

Funeral Services Northern Ireland National Poetry Competition on FaceBook

✦ The latest project from Sundress Publications is the free online reading series "Poets in Pajamas". The series was announced in early October.

Poets in Pajamas on FaceBook and Twitter 

✦ English poet Wendy Cope wrote what may be the first poem about "mansplaining". According to Cope's profile at the British Council Literature site, "Wendy Cope's poetry is perhaps best known for its humour and wit", with the joke most often "centred on men." The poem has been shared widely.

Read a selection from "Differences of Opinion" at Mashable.

✦ Having been buried in the grave of poet, artist, and model Elizabeth Siddal (1829-1862), Dante Gabriel Rossetti's manuscript for Poems could only be recovered by exhuming Siddal's body in 1869 from its resting place in Highgate Cemetery, London. Siddal, who was married to Rossetti, died from an overdose of laudanum.

"Worm-Eaten Manuscripts in Lizzie Siddal's Coffin" at Burying Books Blog

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