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1. Letter from the Editors

Dear Readers,

On Tuesday we continue our series of prose features with Gianluigi Simonetti's "Italian Poetry Today: New Ways to Break the Line," translated by Geoffrey Brock, part of "Italian Poetry Portfolio" in the December issue of Poetry:

"The frequency of 'weak' tones across the spectrum of recent Italian poetry goes beyond individual preference or literary fashion; it can be seen as a symptom of a condition that affects all writers of verse, even those who continue to value clearly delineated subjects and more complex styles. Aesthetic judgments aside, a basic question arises: why continue to bet on poetry in the very moment when its flagging status and its difficulty in possessing reality are most glaringly obvious? If what was once the authoritative and defining perspective of the lyric 'I' now shows signs of aphasia, if the formal choices of even the best poets tell us that the guarantees of knowledge offered by the genre have diminished, then, as Walter Siti puts it, 'the question that genuinely arises is: why break the line?'"

Look for it on Tuesday on our news page.

We hope you enjoy this week's poems!

Warmest regards,

Don Selby & Diane Boller
Editors

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2. Sponsor Messages

Alhambra Poetry Calendar 2008

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A surprise-desk calendar and a poetry anthology in one, the beautifully designed and presented Alhambra Poetry Calendar 2008 contains 366 poems by 340 poets. Meant for your desktop or bedside table, the calendar showcases work by some of the best American, British, Canadian, Australian, and Irish poets from the 14th to the 21st century. Poetry calendars are also available in French, German, Italian, and Spanish.

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Poetry Speaks EXPANDED!
You've never experienced poetry like this before! Poetry Speaks Expanded is an innovative fusion of a poet's words and voice. Hear 47 of the greatest poets who ever lived read 107 of their best poems on 3 audio CDs, from Walt Whitman, Robert Frost, James Joyce and T.S. Eliot to Langston Hughes, Jack Kerouac, Sylvia Plath, and Gwendolyn Brooks. Read essays as written by today's most influential poets, including Al Young and Seamus Heaney. And experience all that poetry can be—only from Sourcebooks MediaFusion.

Colrain & Compleat Poetry Manuscript Conferences
For Poets With a Book-Length Manuscript: first conferences to provide the faculty, connections, and method necessary to set poets with a completed or in-process manuscript on a path towards publication.
 
Faculty includes editors and publishers Jeffrey Levine (Tupelo Press), Martha Rhodes (Four Way Books), Jeffrey Shotts (Graywolf Press), Chase Twichell (Ausable Press), Peter Conners (BOA) and others; workshop leaders include Joan Houlihan (Concord Poetry Center); Frederick Marchant (Suffolk University), Ellen Doré Watson (Smith College), Steven Cramer (Lesley University), Daniel Tobin (Emerson College) and others.

Shenandoah, Winter 2007
SHENANDOAH, Winter, 2007: Wells in a dry time / Mothers & Daughters / The Orchid of Divine Retribution / Weather inventions / The dirty shepherds / Poor Booker's bones / Lightning / Brahms / "No filthy doves that tempt" / Some unapproachable horses / Gone with the Wings / "Parable of the Capsized Canoe" / John Clare / Mistletoe / News of war /

Plus:  Poems by finalists for the 2007 Glasgow-Shenandoah Prize for Emerging Writers

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3. Poetry News Links

News and reviews from around the web, updated daily:

• Robert Pinsky introduces a poem by Jill Rosser. (The Washington Post)
• Edward Hirsch reviews Sir Gawain and the Green Knight, A New Verse Translation, by Simon Armitage. (The New York Times)
• Nicholas Lezard reviews Norton's new illustrated edition of Seamus Heaney's translation of Beowulf. (Guardian Unlimited)
• Niall O'Gallagher reviews The Fifty Minute Mermaid: Poems in Irish
  by Nuala Ní Dhomhnaill, translated by Paul Muldoon. (Guardian Unlimited)
• Guantanamo prisoners' poems are published in the UK. (Guardian Unlimited)
• Ted Kooser introduces a poem by Linda Gregg. (American Life in Poetry)

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4. Selected New Arrivals

These and other new arrivals are available for purchase via Poetry Daily/Amazon.com.

• Writing Anew: New and Selected Poems, Emanuel di Pasquale (Bordighera Press)
• The Alchemy of Grief, Emily Ferrara / tr. Sabine Pascarelli (Bordighera Press)
• Full Depth: The Raymond Knister Poems, Micheline Maylor (Wolsak and Wynn Publishers Ltd)
• Looking for an Eye, Peter Krok (Foothills Publishing)

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5. This Week’s Featured Poets

Monday - Randall Jarrell
Tuesday - Atsuro Riley
Wednesday - Elaine Sexton
Thursday - Afaa Michael Weaver
Friday - Jen Currin
Saturday - Fred Muratori
Sunday - Paul Éluard

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6. Featured Poets December 10 - December 16, 2007

These and other past featured poets may be found in our archive:

Monday - Philip Schultz
Tuesday - John Canaday
Wednesday - August Kleinzahler
Thursday - Barbara Hamby
Friday - R. T. Smith
Saturday - Karen Johnson
Sunday - Myra Shapiro

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7. Last Year’s Featured Poets

These poems will be retired from our archive during the coming week.

Joan Houlihan - "From 'The Us'"
David Citino - "We Owe the Dead"
J II / tr. Judith Hall - "Apocrypha" and "Prayer"
Christine Rhein - "Not Another"
Jamie McKendrick - "Ès el senyor Gaudí!" and "Twain"
Joel Brouwer - "A Report to an Academy"
William Greenway - "Orpheus and the Ex-Mrs. Lot: A Second Marriage"

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8. Poem From Last Year

From “The Us”

Where us stepped a water sprung
to leaf and green and goose crept round
and eyed us, with a soft grog, grog
and a nodding
each one big as a swollen dove
with hatching spot on the breast.

Us saw the speckled egg
unhidden for the taking.

Then horses low and red
came slow for us to ride
tame with neck outstretched for hands
the eye cast down and soft
and nuzzled forth and bent for us to climb.

Fire at night closed us round
with creatures us once killed
and now would live among.

                        _______

From branch shaked out and speckled egg
us made new eating, not to harm
the ones of hoof and horn
and ground was dug and seeded
steering those to plow who were ours tame.

Never counter, day and night,
sun and rain took up the work
and gave a take of all that fruited
ripe and sweet from green.

Us lived, and us of all, as to a light
and drinking from the sun
and night kept us as would a pelt
of highest fur, the stars its eyes around.

Joan Houlihan
Boston Review
November / December 2006

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Copyright © 2006 by the Boston Critic, Inc. All rights reserved. Reproduced by Poetry Daily with permission.