My Recommended Poetry Websites

As I may have mentioned in past years, I'm not much for end-of-the-year lists: other people do them  better, my mind doesn't really work that way, I spent much of 2017 reading spy novels (all actual excuses for me this year.)

However, I thought I'd share some of my go-to poetry and poetry in translation websites, where you can find the finest and most varied poetry and work around poetry. Many of these are probably obvious already if you read my blog, they're also probably obvious even if you don't read my blog, and I've left out a lot (call this a small sampling rather than a list). But anyway, all of these come highly recommended and if you don't already know them, they will expand your poetry world.

As further proof of my laziness, I won't recommend blogs specifically, but will instead point out to Matthew Stewart's list at the Rogue Strands blog: http://roguestrands.blogspot.co.uk/2017/12/the-best-uk-poetry-blogs-of-2017.html

Poetry websites

Poetry Foundation
Poets.org
Poetry Archive
Forward Arts Foundation
And Other Poems
Ink Sweat & Tears
Poethead
Divedapper

Poetry in translation websites

Modern Poetry in Translation
Poetry Translation Centre
Lyrikline
Poems Found In Translation
Words Without Borders
Jacket2
Asymptote

Iraj Ziayi: 'Tehran letter'

I recently went to my first Poetry Translation Centre workshop in a while, where we translated a couple of poems by the Persian poet Iraj Ziayi (using a literal translation by Alireza Abiz, who was also present, as a starting point). He is known as "the poet of objects", often imbuing inanimate things with an unusual charge of meaning in his poems.

One of the poems in particular, 'Tehran letter', affected me deeply. It accomplished what honestly I'd probably like to do in all of my own poems: in a brief format (14 lines) it evokes the emotions and memories that cling to a place, and a non-linear sense of time. The intimacy of translation - and in a Poetry Translation Centre workshop every line is carefully debated, discussed and decided on, with an expert in the original language present - immersed us in the poem and its mysterious approach to time.

By the end of the poem, I realised that it reminded me of TS Eliot's Four Quartets, perhaps 'Burnt Norton' in particular. "If all time is eternally present/ All time is unredeemable": in 'Tehran letter', "they came and killed and burnt" is a reference, well-known to Iranian readers, to the 13th-century Mongol invasion. To me, there was a kind of agitation in the postman's repeated return to number 49, even if it's to seek birdsong (also reminiscent of 'Burnt Norton': "Quick, said the bird, find them, find them/ Round the corner..."), a sad sense of a broken automaton. The poem is beautifully constructed and deeply poignant, but the way the central image of a letter exists and un-exists, writes and unwrites itself, is also disturbing. It seems to spool in a motion that suggests both the "river-that-isn't", and a kind of eternal Mobius strip (as another workshop member said), even a trap.

As well as the final translation of 'Tehran letter', do read the 'About this poem' section, describing the meanings that we explored - some of them nearly impossible to translate without a considerable loss of the original meaning. Translation, especially of poetry, really is a joy and a sadness.


Photo: Glassware and Ceramics Museum by reibai. Used under Creative Commons license 

Robert Bridges: 'London Snow'

snow in london by myrealnameispete. Used under Creative Commons license


When cold weather comes, I often think of Robert Bridges's 'London Snow'. The fact is, though, that recent London winters have been mild (I think the last really cold and fairly snowy one was 2012-2013) and this poem just hasn't seemed as appropriate. But today (yesterday? and maybe again today) it did snow, substantially. I was out and about in it for a while, but didn't get a chance to visit a park, which would have been a good idea; it usually sticks for longer there. We had big fat flake snow, wet snow, rain, more big fat flakes... When I walked down the road later to my favourite local coffee shop, the large, airy flakes fell and I had a moment of...whatever snow conjures. Motion, stillness in motion, nostalgia (something I indulge in far too much these days).

The languid movement of the poem is exceptional in conveying the coming of snow, the gentle swing through the poem's lines of the present participles - "flying", "settling", "lying", "hushing". After the snowfall, the language becomes brisker and more descriptive, but still conveying the transformative nature of snow ("the solemn air," "crystal manna".) I also like how the poem describes the conflict between fallen snow's stillness and beauty, and the struggle of human beings in a big city who need to clear the snow away and get on with their lives.


LONDON SNOW (Robert Bridges)

When men were all asleep the snow came flying, 

In large white flakes falling on the city brown, 

Stealthily and perpetually settling and loosely lying, 

      Hushing the latest traffic of the drowsy town; 

Deadening, muffling, stifling its murmurs failing; 

Lazily and incessantly floating down and down: 

      Silently sifting and veiling road, roof and railing; 

Hiding difference, making unevenness even, 

Into angles and crevices softly drifting and sailing. 

      All night it fell, and when full inches seven 

It lay in the depth of its uncompacted lightness, 

The clouds blew off from a high and frosty heaven; 

      And all woke earlier for the unaccustomed brightness 

Of the winter dawning, the strange unheavenly glare: 

The eye marvelled—marvelled at the dazzling whiteness; 

      The ear hearkened to the stillness of the solemn air; 

No sound of wheel rumbling nor of foot falling, 

And the busy morning cries came thin and spare. 

      Then boys I heard, as they went to school, calling, 

They gathered up the crystal manna to freeze 

Their tongues with tasting, their hands with snowballing; 

      Or rioted in a drift, plunging up to the knees; 

Or peering up from under the white-mossed wonder, 

‘O look at the trees!’ they cried, ‘O look at the trees!’ 

      With lessened load a few carts creak and blunder, 

Following along the white deserted way, 

A country company long dispersed asunder: 

      When now already the sun, in pale display 

Standing by Paul’s high dome, spread forth below 

His sparkling beams, and awoke the stir of the day. 

      For now doors open, and war is waged with the snow; 

And trains of sombre men, past tale of number, 

Tread long brown paths, as toward their toil they go: 

      But even for them awhile no cares encumber 

Their minds diverted; the daily word is unspoken, 

The daily thoughts of labour and sorrow slumber 

At the sight of the beauty that greets them, for the charm they have broken.

The Rogue Strands 'Best UK Poetry Blogs of 2017'

On his blog Rogue Strands, Matthew Stewart's list of Best UK Poetry Blogs of each year is definitely one of the most interesting end-of-year lists to look forward to in the poetry world.

Matthew was kind enough to once again include The Stone and the Star on his recently published Best UK Poetry Blogs of 2017 list. (I was also pleased by his comment that my blog is "international in scope and range".) His blog, and all of those included, are musts for regular blog reading or at least for occasional browsing.

In other news, the Poetry Translation Centre published my recent tribute to their founder Sarah Maguire on their website, and you can read it here.