Dickinson Sculpture / Murdoch Published – Poetry News Roundup October 24th

This weeks poetry news round up takes a look at a sculpture honouring Emily Dickinson and poems by the late Iris Murdoch.

New Sculpture in Poets’ Garden of WT Cornette Library Honours Emily Dickinson

Enthusiasts of the poetry of Emily Dickinson gathered last week for which took place at West Texas A&M University Cornette Library. The evening was a special event which saw the unveiling of a new piece of artwork.

The Dickinson statue, which is inspired by her poem, is to be placed in the Cornette Library’s Poets’ Garden once landscaping work has been completed. It will be joining a statue dedicated to the poet Robert Frost.

Both the Dickinson and Frost statues were commissioned by the Advisory Board of the Texas Poets’ Corner. The special space was made possible thanks to a gift of $2.8 million which was bequeathed by the estate of the former Texas Poet Laureate Dr. Jenny Lind Porter Scott.

The statue was created by Jane DeDecker. She visited four different quarries in order to find the perfect piece of stone to create it, and the finished article weighs in at around 400 pounds.

Poems by Iris Murdoch to be Published

The late philosopher and novelist Iris Murdoch is well known for her writing; however, it is her unpublished poetry that is set to bring her back into the limelight.

Drawn predominantly from notebooks that were discovered in the attic of her former home in Oxford the new collection, which spans a period of 60 years, is set to be published in early November. The series of poems which touch on a series of deeply personal themes shed new light on the relationships and life of Murdoch. They are also the first time that her bisexuality will be explored in any of her published works.

Titled the collection collates several decades of work that Murdoch kept private, and which were stored in a chest in her home. Although her poetry was largely unknown Murdoch wrote poetry throughout her life. She is celebrated as one of the foremost novelists of the 20th century and in 1978 won the Booker prize for her novel “The Sea, The Sea”.

The collection contains 88 poems, which cover a period of almost 60 years. Themes include Murdoch’s bisexuality, the joys of friendship and also offer offers a brand-new perspective on her life.

Most of the poems in the collection have been taken from a set of 10 notebooks that were found by Miles Leeson and Anne Rowe when they were offered the chance to explore the attic of the home in Oxford that Murdoch shared with her husband during the last decade of her life. Only a small handful of the poems have ever been published before.