Poetry Forum

https://www.theguardian.com/books/2018/ ... -in-poetry

It should be a poet who listens more than they talk, who reads more than they write, who thinks more of other poets’ work than they do of their own, and who knows and cares deeply about the poets of the past, because there are more of them than us and they are better. If you put the laurel crown on your head and you haven’t read the whole of Beowulf or the Iliad, or don’t know who wrote Lycidas, or can’t recite a poem by Sappho or Emily Dickinson, or can’t name a poem by Derek Walcott, then you are not worthy of the role. Prepare to be embarrassed at your first interview. The great majority of the best poetry ever written is freely available so not to have to read it – even just to disagree with it – is inexcusable.

Anyone we know?

I think this was his application.

I rather liked '(not) someone who is a shop-steward for contemporary values first and a poet second (or third).' No point at all if the poetry doesn't come first.

Ros

Ros wrote: ↑

Wed Nov 07, 2018 3:04 pm

I think this was his application.

I rather liked '(not) someone who is a shop-steward for contemporary values first and a poet second (or third).' No point at all if the poetry doesn't come first.

Ros

yep!

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/entertainment-arts-48228837

Armitage again showing how poems can be conveyed in different mediums:

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/49341002

Thanks mac, I'd missed that. What was his first commission?
Actually the only thing I liked about that poem (apart from its contextualisation) was the way the last line reads as if it's unfinished, so you'd automatically turn the pill over. On the other hand, perhaps there really is more on the other side. In which case that speaks volumes about how the actual words of actual poems are regarded in our culture. On the other other other hand if you place that whole bbc article into pentameters, what with all the interesting phrases Armitage employs to get across the methodologies of his (and in his ambassadorial role all) poetry's meanings I thought it make a pretty good 'found' poem (and ought to be lazer-engraved on at least one grain of rice).
Jules