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The T. S. Eliot Prize for Poetry was inaugurated in 1993 to celebrate the Poetry Book Society’s 40th birthday and honour its founding poet.
Described as ‘the prize most poets want to win’ (Sir Andrew Motion, former Poet Laureate) and ‘the world’s top poetry award’ (Independent), it is awarded annually to the author of the best new collection of poetry published in the UK and Ireland.
The T. S. Eliot Prize for Poetry was inaugurated in 1993 to celebrate the Poetry Book Society’s 40th birthday and honour its founding poet.
To mark the 25th anniversary of the T. S. Eliot Prize, the T. S. Eliot Foundation has increased the winner’s prize money to £25,000. Judges Bill Herbert (Chair), James Lasdun and Helen Mort have chosen the shortlist from a record 154 poetry collections submitted by publishers:
Tara Bergin – The Tragic Death of Eleanor Marx (Carcanet) PBS Autumn Recommendation
Caroline Bird – In these Days of Prohibition (Carcanet)
Douglas Dunn – The Noise of a Fly (Faber & Faber) PBS Autumn Recommendation
Leontia Flynn – The Radio (Cape Poetry)
Roddy Lumsden – So Glad I’m Me (Bloodaxe)
Michael Symmons Roberts – Mancunia (Cape Poetry) PBS Autumn Recommendation
Robert Minhinnick – Diary of the Last Man (Carcanet)
James Sheard – The Abandoned Settlements (Cape Poetry) PBS Spring Choice
Jacqueline Saphra – All My Mad Mothers (Nine Arches Press)
Ocean Vuong – Night Sky with Exit Wounds (Cape Poetry) PBS Summer Recommendation
Chair Bill Herbert said:
“This was a very strong year, and it was a privilege to read so many books that possessed as well as intrigued us; our shortlist explores grief, pleasure, place and history in a formidable variety of ways.”
The T. S. Eliot Prize is run by The T. S. Eliot Foundation. This is the richest prize in British poetry, with the winning poet receiving a cheque for £25,000 and the shortlisted poets each receiving £1,500.
The T. S. Eliot Prize Shortlist Readings will take place on Sunday 14th January 2018 in Southbank Centre’s Royal Festival Hall. The shortlist readings are the largest annual poetry event in the UK and will be hosted once again by Ian McMillan. Tickets are now on sale from Southbank Centre’s ticket office on 0203 879 9555 or via www.southbankcentre.co.uk/literature.
The winner of the 2017 Prize will be announced at the Award Ceremony on Monday 15th January 2018, where the winner and the shortlisted poets will be presented with their cheques. This continues the tradition started by Mrs Valerie Eliot, who provided the prize money from the inception of the Prize.
Last year’s winner was Jacob Polley for Jackself (Picador). The judges were Ruth Padel (Chair), Julia Copus and Alan Gillis.
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More in: Archive E-F, Awards & Prizes, Eliot, T. S., Literary Events, Ocean Vuong
Fet
De sterren
Haast sprakeloos stond ik te kijken,
Wel duizenden sterren zag ik, –
Ik had met die duizenden sterren
Een soort van verbinding, een klik.
Ik dacht… geen idee wat ik dacht toen,
Er klonk geheimzinnig gezang,
De sterren, zij twinkelden zachtjes,
De sterren waar ik naar verlang…
Afanasi Fet, Я долго стоял неподвижно,1843.
Vertaling Paul Bezembinder 2017.
Op dit gedicht bestaat een bekende, aan Ivan Toergenjev toegeschreven parodie; deze werd aangetroffen in zijn nagelaten archieven in Parijs.
Toergenjev
…
Haast sprakeloos stond ik te kijken,
Ik dacht haast dat ik er in bleef, –
Het waren maar vreemde gedichten,
Die verzen die Fet voor ons schreef.
Ik las… geen idee wat ik las toen,
Iets met geheimzinnig behang,
Het bundeltje viel uit mijn handen,
Het ligt hier nog steeds in de gang…
Ivan Toergenjev, Я долго стоял неподвижно, 1863?
Een parodie op een gelijknamig gedicht van Afanasi Fet.
Vertaling Paul Bezembinder, 2017
Afanasi Fet & Ivan Toergenjev: De sterren (vertaling van Paul Bezembinder)
Afanasi Afanasjevitsj Fet (Russisch: Афанасий Афанасьевич Фет, 1820 – 1892)
Ivan Sergejevitsj Toergenjev (Russisch: Ива́н Серге́евич Турге́нев, 1818 – 1883)
Paul Bezembinder studeerde theoretische natuurkunde in Nijmegen. In zijn poëzie zoekt hij in vooral klassieke versvormen en thema’s naar de balans tussen serieuze poëzie, pastiche en smartlap. Zijn gedichten (Nederlands) en vertalingen (Russisch-Nederlands) verschenen in verschillende (online) literaire tijdschriften. Voorbeelden van zijn werk zijn te vinden op zijn website, www.paulbezembinder.nl
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More in: Archive A-B, Archive E-F, Archive S-T, Bezembinder, Paul, Fet, Fet, Afanasi, Toergenjev, Toergenjev, Ivan
Wie Elsschot zegt, denkt niet meteen aan poëzie. Toch zijn het juist enkele van zijn dichtregels die iedereen zal herkennen: ‘tussen droom en daad staan wetten in de weg en praktische bezwaren’, bijvoorbeeld. Willem Elsschot. Dichter bevat alle gedichten uit Elsschots enige bundel.
Een select gezelschap van vijfentwintig scherpzinnige lezers geeft er commentaar bij, aangevoerd door Elsschotkenner Koen Rymenants en poëzie-expert Carl de Strycker. Ze verhelderen Elsschots proza met behulp van zijn poëzie en omgekeerd. Ze tonen ons Elsschot als gelegenheidsdichter en -vertaler en brengen onvermoede verwantschappen aan het licht: met Guido Gezelle en de gezusters Loveling, de Bijbel en Victor Hugo, maar ook met Herman de Coninck en Kees van Kooten.
Koen Rymenants (1977) promoveerde op een proefschrift over Elsschot: Een hoopje vuil in de feestzaal. Facetten van het proza van Willem Elsschot (2009). Hij publiceert over literatuur en is bestuurslid van het Willem Elsschot Genootschap.
Carl de Strycker (1981) is directeur van Poëziecentrum en hoofdredacteur van Poëziekrant. Met Yra van Dijk en Maarten De Pourcq stelde hij het boek Draden in het donker. Intertekstualiteit in theorie en praktijk (2013) samen.
Willem Elsschot. Dichter
Koen Rymenants, Carl De Strycker
Paperback
ISBN 978-94-6310-290-2
€ 22,50
Paperback
Formaat 140 x 215
Aantal pagina’s 304
Publicatiedatum 5 okt. 2017
Uitg. Polis Antwerpen
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More in: - Book News, - Book Stories, Archive E-F, Archive E-F, Art & Literature News, Willem Elsschot
Afanasi Fet
(1820 – 1892)
Bij de haard
De kolen gloeien. Haast doorzichtig
Speelt in de haard het donker vuur.
Zo danst om rozen, heel omzichtig,
Van vlindervleugels het lazuur.
Een bontgekleurde reeks figuren
Trekt aan mijn moede oog voorbij,
Onnoembaar veel gezichten turen
Vanuit de grauwe as naar mij.
Dan ziet mijn ziel, al is het even,
Verdriet en vreugde in de gloed,
En liegt zij dat zij best kan leven
Met alles wat zij missen moet.
Afanasi Fet, У камина, 1856
Vertaling Paul Bezembinder, 2017
Paul Bezembinder: zijn gedichten en vertalingen verschenen in verschillende (online) literaire tijdschriften. Zie meer op zijn website: www.paulbezembinder.nl
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More in: Archive E-F, Fet, Fet, Afanasi
Afanasi Fet
(1820 – 1892)
Kolkende storm . . .
Kolkende storm in de luchtzee,
Kokend van woede het sop;
Kolkende zee van gedachten,
Kokend van woede mijn kop;
Kolkende zee van gedachten,
Stortvloed van drift in de kop;
Donkere wolken op wolken,
Kokend van woede het sop.
Afanasi Fet, Буря на небе вечерный, 1842
Vertaling Paul Bezembinder 2016
Paul Bezembinder studeerde theoretische natuurkunde in Nijmegen. In zijn poëzie zoekt hij in vooral klassieke versvormen en thema’s naar de balans tussen serieuze poëzie, pastiche en smartlap. Zijn gedichten (Nederlands) en vertalingen (Russisch-Nederlands) verschenen in verschillende (online) literaire tijdschriften. Voorbeelden van zijn werk zijn te vinden op zijn website: www.paulbezembinder.nl
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More in: Archive E-F, Fet, Fet, Afanasi
F. Scott Fitzgerald
Rain before dawn
The dull, faint patter in the drooping hours
Drifts in upon my sleep and fills my hair
With damp; the burden of the heavy air
Is strewn upon me where my tired soul cowers,
Shrinking like some lone queen in empty towers
Dying. Blind with unrest I grow aware:
The pounding of broad wings drifts down the stair
And sates me like the heavy scent of flowers.
I lie upon my heart. My eyes like hands
Grip at the soggy pillow. Now the dawn
Tears from her wetted breast the splattered blouse
Of night; lead-eyed and moist she straggles o’er the lawn,
Between the curtains brooding stares and stands
Like some drenched swimmer — Death’s within the house!
F. Scott Fitzgerald (1896 – 1940)
Poem: Rain before dawn
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More in: Archive E-F, F. Scott Fitzgerald, Fitzgerald, F. Scott
Anne Finch
To A Husband
This is to the crown and blessing of my life,
The much loved husband of a happy wife;
To him whose constant passion found the art
To win a stubborn and ungrateful heart,
And to the world by tenderest proof discovers
They err, who say that husbands can’t be lovers.
With such return of passion, as is due,
Daphnis I love, Daphinis my thoughts pursue;
Daphnis, my hopes and joys are bounded all in you.
Even I, for Daphnis’ and my promise’ sake,
What I in woman censure, undertake.
But this from love, not vanity proceeds;
You know who writes, and I who ’tis that reads.
Judge not my passion by my want of skill:
Many love well, though they express it ill;
And I your censure could with pleasure bear,
Would you but soon return, and speak it here.
Anne Finch (1661 – 1720)
To A Husband
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More in: Archive E-F, CLASSIC POETRY
Anne Finch
Adam Posed
Could our first father, at his toilsome plow,
Thorns in his path, and labor on his brow,
Clothed only in a rude, unpolished skin,
Could he a vain fantastic nymph have seen,
In all her airs, in all her antic graces,
Her various fashions, and more various faces;
How had it posed that skill, which late assigned
Just appellations to each several kind!
A right idea of the sight to frame;
T’have guessed from what new element she came;
T’have hit the wav’ring form, or giv’n this thing a name.
Anne Finch (1661 – 1720)
Adam Posed
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More in: Archive E-F, CLASSIC POETRY
Eugene Field
(1850–1895)
Be my sweetheart
Sweetheart, be my sweetheart
When birds are on the wing,
When bee and bud and babbling flood
Bespeak the birth of spring,
Come, sweetheart, be my sweetheart
And wear this posy-ring!
Sweetheart, be my sweetheart
In the mellow golden glow
Of earth aflush with the gracious blush
Which the ripening fields foreshow;
Dear sweetheart, be my sweetheart,
As into the noon we go!
Sweetheart, be my sweetheart
When falls the bounteous year,
When fruit and wine of tree and vine
Give us their harvest cheer;
Oh, sweetheart, be my sweetheart,
For winter it draweth near.
Sweetheart, be my sweetheart
When the year is white and old,
When the fire of youth is spent, forsooth,
And the hand of age is cold;
Yet, sweetheart, be my sweetheart
Till the year of our love be told!
Eugene Field poetry
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More in: Archive E-F, Archive E-F, Field, Eugene
Eugene Field
(1850–1895)
A drinking song
Come, brothers, share the fellowship
We celebrate to-night;
There’s grace of song on every lip
And every heart is light!
But first, before our mentor chimes
The hour of jubilee,
Let’s drink a health to good old times,
And good times yet to be!
Clink, clink, clink!
Merrily let us drink!
There’s store of wealth
And more of health
In every glass, we think.
Clink, clink, clink!
To fellowship we drink!
And from the bowl
No genial soul
In such an hour can shrink.
And you, oh, friends from west and east
And other foreign parts,
Come share the rapture of our feast,
The love of loyal hearts;
And in the wassail that suspends
All matters burthensome,
We’ll drink a health to good old friends
And good friends yet to come.
Clink, clink, clink!
To fellowship we drink!
And from the bowl
No genial soul
In such an hour will shrink.
Clink, clink, clink!
Merrily let us drink!
There’s fellowship
In every sip
Of friendship’s brew, we think.
Eugene Field poetry
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More in: Archive E-F, Archive E-F, Field, Eugene
Gustave Flaubert
(1821 – 1880)
La Mort d’Emma
Éperdu, balbutiant, près de tomber,
Charles tournait dans la chambre.
Il se heurtait aux meubles, s’arrachait les cheveux, et jamais le pharmacien n’avait cru qu’il pût y avoir de si épouvantable spectacle…
Puis, revenu près d’elle, il s’affaissa par terre sur le tapis, et il restait la tête appuyée contre le bord de sa couche à sangloter.
—
Ne pleure pas ! lui dit-elle.
Bientôt je ne te tourmenterai plus !
—
Pourquoi ?
Qui t’a forcée ?
Elle répliqua : —
Il le fallait, mon ami. —
N’étais-tu pas heureuse ?
Est-ce ma faute ?
J’ai fait tout ce que j’ai pu pourtant !
—
Oui…, c’est vrai…, tu es bon, toi !
Et elle lui passait la main dans les cheveux, lentement.
La douceur de cette sensation surchargeait sa tristesse ; il sentait tout son être s’écrouler de désespoir à l’idée qu’il fallait la perdre, quand, au contraire, elle avouait pour lui plus d’amour que jamais ; et il ne pouvait rien ; il ne savait pas, il n’osait, l’urgence d’une résolution immédiate achevait de le bouleverser.
Elle en avait fini, songeait-elle, avec toutes les trahisons, les bassesses et les innombrables convoitises qui la torturaient.
Elle ne haïssait personne, maintenant ; une confusion de crépuscule s’abattait en sa pensée, et de tous les bruits de la terre, Emma n’entendait plus que l’intermittente lamentation de ce pauvre cœur, douce et indistincte, comme le dernier écho d’une symphonie qui s’éloigne.
Gustave Flaubert poésie
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More in: Archive E-F, Archive E-F, Gustave Flaubert
14.01.2016 – Worldwide Reading of selected poems and other texts in support of Ashraf Fayadh.
The international literature festival Berlin (ilb) calls on all individuals, institutions, schools and media outlets that care about justice and freedom to participate in a worldwide reading of selected poems and other texts in support of Ashraf Fayadh, on 14 January 2016.
Ashraf Fayadh, a 35 year-old Palestinian poet and art curator, who lives in Saudi Arabia, has been sentenced to death by a Saudi court on 17 November 2015 for the “crime” of apostasy. He was denied access to a lawyer throughout his detention and trial.
Frida Kahlo’s Moustache
I will ignore the smell of clay, the reproach of rain, and the choke that has long settled in my chest
and I will search for an appropriate condolence of my situation that doesn’t permit me
to explain your lips in the manner I’d hoped for
or to shake dew drops off your reddish petals
or to lessen the intensity of the obsession that overwhelms me whenever I realize
you’re not next to me now and won’t be…I’m forced to justify my position
to the silence that night punishes me with
Pretend that the earth is silent, just as we see it from afar,
and that all what happened between us was no more
than a poor prank that shouldn’t have gone this far
What’s your idea about the days I usually spend without you?
about my words that used to rapidly evaporate
about my heavy pain
and the knots that had sedimented inside my thorax like dried up algae
I forgot to tell you…that in the practical sense of the word
I’ve grown used to your absence
and that my wishes have lost their way to your desires
and my memory has begun to corrode
And that I still chase light, not because I want to see…the dark always frightens
even when we’re used to it
Is my apology for everything that happened while I was trying
to make up excuses for you enough?
Is it enough for the times jealousy raged in some place inside me
or when disappointment ruined yet another of my dark days
And for my repetition that justice will always suffer the disturbances of menstruation
and that love is a backward impotent man at the end of his days
I will be forced to trick my memory
and pretend that I have no problem sleeping
and rip all the remaining questions
the questions that now search for persuasive answers
after all punctuation has been dropped
for purely personal reasons
Let the mirror explain to you how beautiful you are
Remove my pile of dust, my words
Breathe deeply, remember how much I loved you and how
the whole thing turned into a brief electrocution
that almost caused a great fire in an empty warehouse
The sun is extremely polite when it comes to covering her mouth while yawning
The sun doesn’t know how to impose its total control over the earth
the same fate the sun has with darkness, the sun
has no choice but to resist the dark, even if Pluto
has lost its qualifications to remain among the vertiginous planets
The moon has a different take on imposing its will over the sea
And the sea can swallow whatever creatures it desires and lay claim to more land
on account of global warming, the punctured ozone, a woman’s right
to wear a bikini, and the temptation of birds with the riches of fish
I will no longer be pain pills for your monthly period
and won’t enjoy your exceptional conversation while you prepare for a long nap
or when you want to offload your anger
or while you spend some lovely time in a bar packed with lovers of Jazz
I won’t be able to sleep enough or explain Nietzsche’s moustache
or persuade you that Imad’s work is a unique experiment in art
I will busy myself with normalizing relations between earth and water
in order to obstruct fire on its way to becoming an ambassador of good will
Only then will the air cease to appear presentable
as it dries out your underwear on your laundry line
I walk in the street of the inexpressible and question the indifferent rain drops
I try to remove the rust that’s stuck in my throat
How many times should I refer to the wind’s guidebook to decipher your moods?
How many words have I silenced to spare you the smell of disappointment that my American cigarette blows?
I won’t be the piggybank you break whenever you run out of funds
and I won’t include as poetic chore an amorous description of your eyes
because your eyes, in the final analysis, are more fatal than those
that ruined Jareer’s mind, or more poetic than Sayyab’s palm tree groves
Your eyes are precisely the way angels prostrated to Adam,
and I exclude Satan, naturally, for rhetorical reasons
The world this morning resembles my stomach with its ulcers, resembles
the ache that spends its weekends in my head, resembles
the heaps of broken glass that fill my memory
The world is no longer alright since I’ve stopped worrying about glass
or the reply letter to my letter or Mrs. Clinton’s failure to lead the Democratic Party
Don’t look for me, I will be there
with every sip of coffee
and when you relax at a spa, or want to laugh or cry, or if you desire
to toss yourself into someone’s arms, or when you can’t
resist your insomnia or your mobile phone
that didn’t ring during your sleep
or when in the unconsciousness of writing, or when you want to talk
Ashraf Fayadh
Ashraf Fayadh: Frida Kahlo’s Moustache
Translated from the Arabic by Fady Joudah
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More in: Archive E-F, Art & Literature News, Frida Kahlo, REPRESSION OF WRITERS, JOURNALISTS & ARTISTS
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