Oxfam's Back To School Poetry Event October 12!

BACK TO SCHOOL – FIVE POETS FOR OXFAM!

SPONSORED BY THE KINGSTON WRITING SCHOOL

HOSTED BY TODD SWIFT

OXFAM BOOKS AND MUSIC

91 MARYLEBONE HIGH STREET

LONDON W1

CLOSEST TUBES BAKER STREET, BOND STREET

WEDNESDAY, OCTOBER 12^th, 2011

7PM START TIME

ADMISSION £5/ £3 CONCESSION

ALL PROCEEDS TO OXFAM, REGISTERED CHARITY

KHIN AUNG AYE – BURMA (Translated by JAMES BYRNE)

TODD COLBY – USA

ANNIE FREUD - UK

ILYA KAMINSKY – USA

MIKE LOVEDAY – UK (Launching his debut pamphlet)

Khin Aung Aye is one of the leading Burmese poets of his generation. His work is translated into English by poet and editor James Byrne.

Todd Colby has published four books of poetry: Ripsnort, Cush, Riot in the Charm Factory: New and Selected Writings, and Tremble & Shine, all published by Soft Skull Press. He was also the editor of the poetry anthology Heights of the Marvelous: A New York Anthology (St. Martin’s Press). He was the lead singer for the critically-acclaimed band Drunken Boat. Colby serves on the Board of Directors for The Poetry Project, where he teaches poetry workshops.

Annie Freud is the daughter of painter Lucian Freud, and the great granddaughter of Sigmund Freud. She saw her father regularly throughout her childhood and he painted many portraits of her. Since 1975, she has worked intermittently as a tapestry artist and embroiderer. Her first full collection from Picador ,The Best Man Who Ever Was was a Poetry Book Society Recommendation in 2007. Her second collection, The Mirabelles, was shortlisted for the TS Eliot Prize earlier this year.

Ilya Kaminsky was born in Odessa, former USSR and arrived in the United States in 1993 when his family was granted asylum by the American Government. He is the author of Dancing in Odessa, which won the American Academy of Arts and Letters' Metcalf Award. He has received a Lannan Fellowship, Whiting Writers Award, and a Ruth Lilly Fellowship from Poetry Foundation. Kaminsky lives in San Diego where he teaches at SDSU.

Mike Loveday studied English Literature at Merton College, Oxford. He is completing an MA in Creative Writing at Kingston University. Loveday is editor-publisher of 14, an illustrated magazine devoted to sonnets, ghost-sonnets and stranger fourteen-line poems. His poetry and prose appears in many publications. His debut pamphlet, He Said / She Said was published by HappenStance in July, 2011.

IQ AND THE POETS - ARE YOU SMART?

When you open your mouth to speak, are you smart? A funny question from a great song, but also, a good one, when it comes to poets, and poetry. We tend to have a very ambiguous view of intelligence in poetry, one that I'd say is dysfunctional. Basically, it goes like this: once you are safely dead, it no longer matters how smart you were. For instance, Auden was smarter than Yeats , but most would still say Yeats is the finer poet; Eliot is clearly highly intelligent, but how much of Larkin 's work required a high IQ? Meanwhile, poets while alive tend to be celebrated if they are deemed intelligent: Anne Carson, Geoffrey Hill , and Jorie Graham , are all, clearly, very intelligent people, aside from their work as poets. But who reads Marianne Moore now, or Robert Lowell , smart poets? Or, Pound ? How smart could Pound be with his madcap views? Less intelligent poets are often more popular. John Betjeman was not a very smart poet, per se....

Poetry vs. Literature

Poetry is, of course, a part of literature. But, increasingly, over the 20th century, it has become marginalised - and, famously, has less of an audience than "before". I think that, when one considers the sort of criticism levelled against Seamus Heaney and "mainstream poetry", by poet-critics like Jeffrey Side , one ought to see the wider context for poetry in the "Anglo-Saxon" world. This phrase was used by one of the UK's leading literary cultural figures, in a private conversation recently, when they spoke eloquently about the supremacy of "Anglo-Saxon novels" and their impressive command of narrative. My heart sank as I listened, for what became clear to me, in a flash, is that nothing has changed since Victorian England (for some in the literary establishment). Britain (now allied to America) and the English language with its marvellous fiction machine, still rule the waves. I personally find this an uncomfortable position - but when ...

"I have crossed oceans of time to find you..."

In terms of great films about, and of, love, we have Vertigo, In The Mood for Love , and Casablanca , Doctor Zhivago , An Officer and a Gentleman , at the apex; as well as odder, more troubling versions, such as Sophie's Choice and Silence of the Lambs . I think my favourite remains Bram Stoker's Dracula , with the great immortal line "I have crossed oceans of time to find you...".

E Y E W E A R, THE BLOG - FREEDOM MEANS BEING UNAFRAID TO WRITE WHAT YOU THINK

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