We have reached the end of another week here at My Poetic Side and today’s news roundup brings another poetry prize winner. We also take a brief look at Shane Koyczan and think about the poetry of Patrick Kavanagh on the 50th Anniversary of his death.
Geoffrey Faber Memorial Prize
The 2017 winner of the biennial Geoffrey Faber Memorial Prize, which is named after the founder of the firm Faber & Faber, has been announced. The Cumbrian poet and former trumpet teacher, Kim Moore has won with her debut poetry collection
The prize which carries a cash sum of £1,500 is awarded to both a volume of verse and one of prose fiction that show
Moore joins past winner such like Seamus Heaney, JM Coetzee, Eimear McBride and Tony Harrison in taking the prize
takes inspiration from Moore’s own life, encompassing her experiences as a teacher of the trumpet, with domestic violence and also her father’s profession. The main piece in the book is
which draws on Moores very personal experience as a woman in a relationship that was violent. When she wrote it, it felt like therapy, the feelings it portrayed very raw, she rewrote it a number of times. Then she looked at how other poets like Ovid wrote about violence, and realised the poem was exactly as it should be.
The judges were impressed not only with the emotion that Moore managed to get into her poetry but also her command of each poems closing lines “she knows when to leave quietly and when to jolt the heart”.
Poet Returns Home
In 2010, Shane Koyczan, was catapulted to international stardom during the opening ceremony for the Winter Olympics when his ode to Canada was recited. Several years later To This Day, his spoken word piece about bullying went viral when it was made into an animated video.
He has spent the years since on the road, touring but will shortly be returning to the home he shares with his grandmother in Penticton. He will be doing a number of performances locally before hopefully taking a well-deserved break, although in January he is already planning to begin work on a web series on the subject of literature.
50th Anniversary of Poets Death
Yesterday marked the 5oth anniversary of the death of Irish poet Patrick Kavanagh, and poets gathered at his graveside to pay tribute. The weather in Iniskeen, Co Monaghan was as predicted; cold with showers, weather which someone seemed fitting for the occasion. 9 of Kavanaghs best loved poems were read by the poets and writers who had gathered for the occasion.
The event which was available to view all over the world via live streaming saw writers including John McArdle, Pat McCabe, Theo Dorgan, and Caitríona Ní Chléirchín reading works which included Stony Grey Soil, Father Mat and Shancoduff.
Whilst all this was going on, one of the Irish Newspapers published an article reminding its readers how much a part of the national psyche Kavanagh’s poetry was and asking the all-important question….
Can you recite a few lines from one of Kavanagh’s poems?
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