Latest news with #poetry
CBS News
18 hours ago
- General
- CBS News
Detroit mural celebrates nonprofit's 30 years inspiring young storytellers
How a Detroit mural is celebrating 30 years of literary arts How a Detroit mural is celebrating 30 years of literary arts How a Detroit mural is celebrating 30 years of literary arts InsideOut Literary Arts is a creative writing and poetry organization in Detroit. The nonprofit is celebrating its 30th anniversary this year with a special piece of artwork on the city's west side. The mural was inspired by a poem from 17-year-old Charisma Holly. "If I were to wake up in Detroit 25 years in the future, what would I want to see, and what would I want to be different about my community?" Holly said. "And that is kind of what fueled the different imagery and the ideas." It's a visual representation of the work the nonprofit has been doing for three decades. "We wanted people to walk by and have a moment of joy and inspiration and remember how important it is to listen to young people," Suma Karaman Rosen, executive director of InsideOut Literary Arts, said. Oshun Williams, the muralist, says the flowers are part of his aesthetic as an artist and a nod to the young poet. "I like to give people their flowers. So, incorporating flowers into my paintings are always an important thing," Williams said. He says street art can have a tremendous impact on a neighborhood. "It's something to give the community, like a sense of appreciation, hope, to beautify it," Williams said. For Holly, her poem celebrates the city she loves. "I think that there's a certain quality to poetry that it is of the self. So it can be self-expression, but when you self-express, it connects to the most human part of the people around you," Holly said. She hopes to motivate other Detroit youth to go after their dreams. "I want you to know that you can do it. There's a world of opportunity waiting for you," Holly said. She says all you must do is reach out and grab it. The mural was made possible through a collaboration with Detroit City Walls, an initiative to enhance public spaces through art.
Arab News
a day ago
- General
- Arab News
What We Are Reading Today: The Fetters of Rhyme
Author: Rebecca M. Rush In his 1668 preface to Paradise Lost, John Milton rejected the use of rhyme, portraying himself as a revolutionary freeing English verse from 'the troublesome and modern bondage of Riming.' Milton, however, was not initiating a new line of thought — English poets had been debating about rhyme and its connections to liberty, freedom, and constraint since Queen Elizabeth's reign. 'The Fetters of Rhyme' traces this dynamic history of rhyme from the 1590s through the 1670s. Rebecca Rush uncovers the associations early modern readers attached to rhyming forms.
BBC News
a day ago
- Entertainment
- BBC News
Dylan Thomas: Unseen photos show the poet in a fit of rage
Dylan Thomas implored his readers to "rage, rage against the dying of the light". And newly uncovered photos, lost in a drawer for decades, show the Welsh poet heeding his own words as he wrecked an employer's office after finding out they had no pay for him. Thomas had a job making wartime documentaries for Strand Film Company in London in 1942 when a photographer captured him waiting to collect a cheque. When no money was forthcoming, he can then be seen breaking up the furniture like a spoiled rock star in the series of never-before published photos. A quick-thinking Strand receptionist told the photographer to document Thomas's outburst then tucked the evidence away, said Jeff Towns, a Dylan Thomas expert and author. He bought the photos and got the back story from the receptionist's daughter, telling Cerys Matthews on BBC Radio 6 Music he believed Thomas's violent tantrum was the result of him being desperate for money. "There's one picture of him looking immaculate [with a] big smile," he said. "No cheque and he's pulling the desk apart like a rock and roller throwing a TV out the window."The photos and story appear in Towns' new book, the Wilder Shores of Dylan Thomas. "I got this letter out the blue from a woman who said her mother had worked at Strand Films are straight away I knew how important it was," he said, explaining how it was the only time Thomas had "a proper job with a salary".Thomas definitely worked at Strand he said, because one of his friends, Julian MacLaren-Ross, wrote about it a book. "He writes about what they got up to at the [Strand] office, so everything rang true," he said. "Plus I know that [Thomas] was forever living from hand to mouth," he said of the Swansea-born writer, who had a wife and two children to support at the time. "So the guy was desperate for money and obviously when he went in he thought he was going to trouser a few quid to get through the next few days. "Even just to get to the pub that night. "When it wasn't there, he flipped." Originally from east London, Towns has been antiquarian book dealer for more than 50 years and currently runs Dylans Bookstore in has written several books about the Welsh bard and holds an important collection of his letters, photos and memorabilia. The outburst in Strand Films was unusual, he argued."He got into trouble when he was drunk, but he was a pacifist in his own way." Towns said Thomas, who was only 5ft 6in (1.68m), always said he was above average height "for Wales". "He knew he was small, but if a big soldier came in and started being jingoistic he would challenge them and get thrown out on his backside," he said. "He didn't fly off the handle a lot - there are a couple of times when things went a bit wrong - but by and large he was passive and talked his way out of problems." The poet's fans were his worst enemies in some ways, he said. "In America his favourite whisky was a bourbon called Old Grandad. "People would turn up at his hotel room with a bottle and want him to drink it in front of them."When people were feeding him lots of whisky he could get irascible."I think he liked to be the centre of attention, in a pub he would tell great stories and people would buy him drinks, but I don't think he was known for a temper in any way. "[His wife] Caitlin had the temper and she would give him a right hiding."
BBC News
a day ago
- General
- BBC News
Late Cornish Bard Hilary Keam's poems support hospice
A series of poems by late Cornish Bard Hilary Keam is being published to support healthcare charity Cornwall Hospice charity said the collection had been produced by her husband of 61 years, Dennis, in aid of Mount Edgecumbe Hospice in St Keam said his wife received "exceptional Lymphoedema treatment" from the hospice, adding "when Hilary passed away it made perfect sense to collate some of her favourite poems in to this new book".The charity said the book contained 150 poems that had been handwritten by Ms Keam, who passed away last year. The St Austell-born poet's work began after her Rayburn cooker began to leak, said Mr Keam."She wrote a poem about the Rayburn and then over some 30 years she wrote more than 200 other poems, many based on actual events," he added."It led to her being made a Cornish Bard in 2010 for her contribution to the Cornish dialect and for raising funds for local charities. She was thrilled."The book will be launched at 16:00 BST at Ladock Village Hall.
Irish Times
2 days ago
- Entertainment
- Irish Times
Poem of the Week: Snail Notes
Whorley snail, terrifier in its botanical realm, ravager of leaves with its shearing jellied mouth. Its shell protects only against shrivelling desiccation in a drought. It scabs a snotty screen across its home's gaping floor. A shrew's milk teeth could crush the crisp of its armour. As a baby, poised on a daffodil stalk, it is a mobile brown globule slowly pouring itself, a muddy raindrop, an uphill-drip. Sometimes slow enough to appear still, like an inedible stone or flake of wind-dropped bark to a cloud-high crow. For all its ponderous existence it extols no philosophies, but provokes thought in others, not least daffodils who rasp at one another through their roots at times of ooze and prowl, after dews and wind howl. Patrick Cotter's fourth collection, Quality Control at the Miracle Factory, was published recently by Dedalus Press.
