Julian May on Seamus Heaney

Seamus Heaney died 10 years ago. Marking this I’ve made a series of four programmes for @BBCRadio4 each looking at a different aspect of his work, each with a different presenter. ‘Four Sides of Seamus Heaney’ begins this afternoon at 4.30. Poet of Place. https://t.co/5gJIpRbdRZ

— Julian May (@julian_may) August 20, 2023

Winters in the World

I recently finished reading @ClerkofOxford's 'Winters in the World' and thoroughly enjoyed it. Some of the Anglo-Saxon poems in it have since inspired a few of my paintings. This is a great review. https://t.co/VLmjNKPcKy

— Amy Browning (@AmyBrowningArt) April 17, 2023

Anglo-Saxon Harvest Poetry for Autumn

In many early medieval calendars, 7 August - halfway between midsummer and the autumnal equinox - is the beginning of a new season. It's the first day of autumn, when the earth is rich with the abundance of the harvest. Some Anglo-Saxon harvest poetry: https://t.co/mVAnDVogNv pic.twitter.com/penuaoEGGg

— Eleanor Parker (@ClerkofOxford) August 7, 2021

Marly Youmans Interview

Author @marlyyoumans discusses "Charis in the World of Wonders" at @cworldreport: "We have a convention that calls some stories realistic, but even the most mundane stories reach toward the fabulous."https://t.co/QimRzEDEIZ

— Ignatius Press (@IgnatiusPress) November 25, 2020

Don't miss this interview w/ @marlyyoumans: https://t.co/TmYObO4GZ2

— John Wilson (@jwilson1812) November 23, 2020

The Importance of Poetry

The Wrath of the Awakened Saxon

Plus

Anthem for Doomed Youth by Wilfred Owen

If

Joseph Pearce Writes a Play about Siegfried Sasson and Wilfred Owen

CWR Dispatch: Joseph Pearce reflects on his “dramatic verse tapestry” about two “war poets”

“I really have to thank God, the giver of the Muse, the source of all true inspiration,” says the prolific biographer and critic, “for enabling me to assist in the bringing of this wonderful thing”—Death Comes for the War Poets—”into being.”

Wilfred Owen, "Dulce et Decorum Est"

Christopher Eccleston reads:




(via Burned-Over District Observer)

750th Anniversary of Dante Alighieri's Birth

And Rod Dreher has a book on Dante...

Pope Commemorates the 750th Anniversary of Dante Alighieri's BirthHighlights Union Between Famed Italian Poet and the See of St. Peter

Posted by Zenit News Agency on Monday, May 4, 2015

Pope Francis has sent a message to the President of the Pontifical Council for Culture, Cardinal Gianfranco Ravasi on...

Posted by Vatican Radio - English Section on Monday, May 4, 2015

750 years ago Dante Alighieri was born, and today the long shadow of his art, wisdom and insight still shapes and...

Posted by Vatican Radio - English Section on Tuesday, May 5, 2015

Some Good News for Tolkien Fans

Medievalists.net: The Fall of Arthur by J.R.R. Tolkien Released Today

But how many in Great Britain will read it? Will it rouse them from their stupor? (Look at the behavior of the bystanders in the murder in broad daylight of a British soldier in London yesterday.)

TEDxSonomaCounty - Dana Gioia - A Sense of Place

Mark Anthony Signorelli on poetry

Poetry and the Common Language

If there is one principle which is nearly axiomatic among our contemporaries who regard themselves as poets and critics of poetry, it is that poetry should be written in the language of the everyday. This opinion can be traced back to Wordsworth’s famous assertion that poetry ought to be composed in “the real language of nature” or “the real language of men”—further evidence that we have not yet left behind the Romantic era and its presuppositions. Yet even among the New Critics, who were in general so suspicious of the Romantic project, this standard of sound poetic practice is affirmed; so we find F. R. Leavis praising Eliot’s verse because “its staple idiom and movement derive immediately from modern speech.” Our contemporaries, especially among those referred to as the New Formalists, echo this belief; thus Dana Gioia tells us that he strives to keep his language “contemporary,” and critic Robert McPhillips notes that New Formalism is marked by its “colloquial diction.”