Today in our poetry news roundup we take a look at the Dubai
“Walk of Fame”, the statue for Banjo Paterson and the mystery of the
disappearing Lychees.
Dubai “Walk of Fame”
The latest project in Dubai has been causing lots of excitement,
the “Walk of Fame” which is to be in Downtown Dubai will contain a number of
stars that will eventually honour over 10,000 international stars of the stage,
screen, sports and the arts. In October the first batch of around 400 names
will be revealed.
It is hoped that the attraction will prove to be as popular as the
Hollywood Walk of Fame. A few of the names that are set to be unveiled in
October have already been revealed and include the Bollywood actor Shah Rukh
Khan, Jackie Chan who has recorded a number of his films in Dubai and “The
Rock” Dwayne Johnson one of the highest-paid actors in Hollywood.
The world of literature will be represented by a star dedicated to
Khalil
Gibran the Lebanese American poet. Gibran who was also a journalist,
illustrator and author died over 80 years ago.
Banjo Paterson Statue in Push for Funding
There are approximately 10 different projects in the Cabonne Shire
Council region that are all vying for the possibility of a sharing in a fund of
$260,000 that has been put aside for community projects.
One of the projects in question is being put forward in Yeoval who
are planning a major statue to the poet Banjo Patterson. Residents are being
asked to vote for the projects that they would like to see winning a share of
the money. The bronze statue of Banjo Paterson is expected to cost around $104,862.
Other projects include several different projects to upgrade the
current lighting for a number of different sports facilities, air conditioning
for a community hall and a play facility for children.
Squirrels Turn Poets Ancestral Home into Smorgasbord
The ancestral home of Su Dongpo, the
ancient Chinese poet, situated in Meishan in the Sichuan Province has been
subjected to visitors of the furry kind. The group of squirrels have been
attracted to the house not because of its history but because of the lychees
that grow there.
The building is the memorial temple belonging to the Su Family and
is the house where Su Xun and his sons lived. Lychees were a favourite fruit of
one of the sons, the poet Su Dongpo, so much so he even wrote poems dedicated
to them. The staff at the memorial temple says that until recently there was a
900 year of fruit tree located there which was supposed to have been planted by
the poet himself.
In the 1990s the tree became diseased and was dug up. In 2007 a
new commemorative lychee tree was planed and this year it has produced a huge
crop of ripe lychees.
A memorial event had been planned for later this month, during
which local residents would have been invited to taste the fruit. However, over
the last few weeks, the lychees have been disappearing, only the peel has been
left behind. Staff stayed behind one night to see what was going on and
discovered that a group of squirrels had been helping themselves!
