We begin the week with a look at the 159th anniversary of the birth of WB Yeats, the Chinese poets life in dance and the bronze winner of the INDIES 2023.
159th Anniversary of Birth of WB Yeats Celebrated
13th June will mark Yeats Day, the anniversary of the birth of the poet WB Yeats, and there are a number of events being planned in Sligo to mark the occasion.
The traditional birthday cake for the event will be baked by the bakery who have produced a cake every year since Yeats Day began in 2012. There will be poetry recitals and also a lecture, the Nora Niland lecture, during the event. This will be given by Jan Carson who will be talking about “Becoming Various – Untangling the Knots of Northern Identity.” Carson, who is a writer, is a winner of the EU Prize for Literature and the Irish Book Awards Novel of the Year.
Nora Niland was the founding member in 1958 of the Yeats Society Sligo and also helped to set up the Yeats International Summer School which will be 65 years old this year. She helped created the Niland Collection which includes 20th century works of art that include works by Jack Yeats, the younger brother of WB Yeats.
The Yeats Society will also be helping to mark Bloomsday which falls on 16th June. This is the day selected by the writer James Joyce after the characters in Ulysses, his famous book.
Life of Chinese Poetess Adapted into Dance Drama
The life story of Li Qingahao, the Song Dynasty poetess who lived from 1084 to 1155 has been adapted into a dance drama. Titled “Azure After the Rain” the drama began its run at the Shanghai International Dance Center Theatre last week.
The work tells the story of the poet’s life, looking at her childhood, her marriage and the societal and family changes that she faced.
Li, who is considered to be one of the greatest female poets in the history of China, was well known for her literary temperament and the strength and romance of her work. She was born into a family of scholar-officials and started writing poetry as a teenager. Her poetic style was elegant and calm during the period that fell before the war between the Jurchens and the Song Dynasty.
Her husband died during the war and the works that she produced following this event are full of nostalgia both for her husband and her hometown.
Much of the scenery and choreography for the show takes its inspirations from Jiangnan; a region to the south of the country where Li spent some time.
Bronze Winner of the 2023 Foreword INDIES Book of the Year Announced
The poet Trista Mateer has been announced as this years Bronze Winner of the 2023 Foreword INDIES Book of the year for her collection “I Swear Somewhere This Works: Selected Poems 2013-2023”. The INDIES is a celebration of the best books published in a year by university and independent presses as well as by self-published authors.
This year there were over 2,400 entries for the competition across 55 categories. This was narrowed down to roughly 12 finalists per category. From these the gold, silver, bronze and honourable mention winners were selected.
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