This week our poetry news round up takes a look at the prize-winning poet XJ Kennedy who has died aged 96 and the new poem by the poet laureate.
Prize-winning Poet XJ Kennedy Dies Aged 96
The award-winning poet, translator and author, X.J. Kennedy who schools millions of young people through “The Bedford Reader” and a number of other textbooks has died at the age of 96. In a statement, his daughter confirmed that he had died of natural causes at his home in Massachusetts.
Born Joseph Charles Kennedy, he decided early on in his career to choose the professional name X.J. Kennedy in order to avoid any confusion with the former ambassador to Britain, Joseph P. Kennedy. From the early 1960s he produced a significant number of both children’s books and poetry collections which contributed to the Bedford Reader. He also collaborated with Dana Gioia, a fellow poet, and onetime National Endowment of the Arts chair, on several anthologies of poetry, fiction, and drama.
He was often quoted as saying:
Established in the early 1980s The Bedford Reader is a composition book that is widely used for college students and has included things like Rev. Martin Luther King Jr.’s “I Have a Dream” speech and “The Lottery” a classic Shirley Jackson story.
Many of Kennedy’s poems were published in The Atlantic and The New Yorker. They were rhyming vignettes which were inspired by the everyday and a range of more macabre matter, such as ageing the discovery of a severed arm and bartending.
He received a number of awards for his work including a Los Angeles Times book prize, The Robert Frost Medal for lifetime achievement from the Poetry Society and the Jackson prize for an
He taught English at both the Woman’s College of the University of North Carolina (now UNC-Greensboro) and the University of Michigan. During the 1970s he was the poetry editor for Paris Review.
Cancer Research Progress Marked by Poet Laureate
Professor of Poetry and poet laureate Simon Armitage has written a new poem for World Cancer Day. The work has been inspired by Yorkshire patients and the researchers who are working to improve outcomes for cancer patients.
Titled “The Campaign” the poem pays tribute to 100 years of progress in early diagnosis, treatment, and prevention of cancer. The poem was commissioned by Yorkshire Cancer research, who fund pioneering cancer research both at the University of Leeds and the region.
Talking about the poem, Armitage said that it highlights the resilience and tenacity of the supporters and researchers who have helped to drive the breakthroughs and pioneering treatments of the last couple of decades. He also talked about the disproportionate number of people in Yorkshire who are diagnosed with cancer, and to reflect the fact than every 17 minutes someone in the region is told they have cancer he spoke to 17 individuals from the region before writing the poem.
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