Poetry & Poets in Rags of May 7 Options

[rus bowden]

Dear Poetry Aficionados,

Poetry & Poets in Rags blog

This week, we begin with a poem, an excellent poem and a timely one for review, as it has meaning for many readers in relation to the death of Sylvia Plath 50 years ago. The drafts of "Sheep in Fog" are up for auction with her notes, which is giving journalists reason to take another look, to see if the changes she made days before her death to the final stanza foreboded suicide. This lead story has several links to it, including two to Bonhams, which will take you to a video and an early draft of the poem. The artdaily.org link will give you what appears to be the final process of revision, striking out the old ending and title Fog Sheep, and writing in the new. Just for the sake of how a timeless poet crafts over time, these links are important any time. Go into our Great Regulars section, where there is an Olivia Cole link. She gives us Sheep in Fog's setting and has more to say on the matter. Frankly, as I read the poem, if we are to take these revisions and the poem somehow literally, which we should not be doing, it looks like she is expressing a threat to her life, not that she is threatening suicide. This leads me back to looking at the craft and how this confessional poet would weave ideas into a poem.

Our next link is somewhat related, in the sense that it has great import to women poets in their societies. It has to do with woman poets in Ghana, and refers to the Poetry Foundation of Ghana celebrating the women poets of Africa. This is followed by our next story, an interview with American poet Eileen Myles, who among others, answers the question, "In other words, if we’re so post-feminist, why do there still need to be his and hers anthologies?" For another related link, scroll down to Great Regulars, past the individuals, to the periodicals. Caravan brings us seven poems from the book Wild Girls Wicked Words, and discusses the situation of female Tamil poets saying, "As the writer and translator Lakshmi Holmström observes, 'For these past years, Tamil women poets have been categorized into "Bad Girls" who write "body poetry" and "Good Girls" who refrain from doing so.'"

We have dozens more items in a huge week for poetry in the news, from all over the world as you can tell already, and on many different topics. Let me note here, that on our Back Page, the eleventh story in News at Eleven you will find a gathering of articles with poems. Thanks for clicking in.

Yours,
Rus

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