Taking Poetry to Heart? Can memorising poetry really help teach us something? – Poetry News 11th August

 

Today’s poetry news looks at the issue of whether learning poetry by heart is relevant in the modern world and if so, what can it teach us? Columnist Fleda Brown this week wrote a column discussing this possibility and it made very interesting reading. Most of us will remember being at school and having to learn everything by heart, from times tables ...

Dmitry Bykov – The Russian American? causes controversy – Poetry News 10th August

 

The Weekly Standard, an American political opinion magazine, has published their take on America’s obsession with Russia, as imagined by Russian writer and poet Dmitry Bykov.The none too certain, shaky relationship between the United States of America and Russia is frequently in the news of late owing largely to the investigation centred around whether President Donald Trump did or did not receive ...

Hugging Poet John Horder Passes Away Aged 80 – Poetry News 9th August

 

The hugging poet, John Horder, has sadly passed away at the age of 80. John’s favourite saying, Meher Baba’s maxim “don’t worry, be happy,” couldn’t sum him up better. In fact, it was his interest in the teachings of Baba, the Indian mystic, which led to his association as the hugging poet. It came about as Horder referred to Meher Bab as ...

The Poetry World Cup draws near – Poetry News 8th August

 

The Nimbin Performance Poetry World Cup is only a few weeks away. The 15th edition of the popular poetry competition is to be held in the first weekend of September, with last year’s winner, Robin Archbold, returning to judge the competition. You can view his winning performance here.   Each poet will have eight minutes to perform one poem or a collection of ...

Ugandan Poetry Prize Nomination/Whittier Celebrated/ Bengaluru Poetry Festival – Poetry News Roundup 7th August

 

With the global nature of poetry continually changing, here we have 3 news stories from across the globe: Ugandan poet shortlisted for award It is often thought that some of the greatest poetry is borne from great suffering, and it seems that the old adage is true for at least one poet, Nick Makoha, who has used his experience of the horrific nature of ...