Afternoon Reading To Save The High Park Zoo Toronto, Canada 29th April 2012

An awesome literary zoo to help save the High Park Zoo ( and have a nice afternoon at the Cafe Novo). Readers include Myna Wallin, Karen Correia Da Silva, Royston Tester, Dayle Furlong, Sue Bowness, Karleen Pendleton Jimenez, Robin Akimbo, and Nyla Matuk

Find it from 1pm until 4pm at 1986 Bloor St W, ON M6P 3K9.

More information at http://www.facebook.com/events/291140177628028/.

They may have llamas or pictures of llamas or possibly guanacos or even vicuña. But we have no confirmation of that (there is just one on the poster).

Habits of buzzards

With the rain - three days of it - I have had to walk close to the city after a lift from the side of a flooded A-road. I had been examining the beech trees, an outgrown hedge, tangled with itsself and the beech mast a carpet cloth thrown down the hill in ruffles. Its colour greened from leaflings and reproductive parts torn from the tree by hail, then brown and then black like grit hemming the roadside puddles.

A car stopped and I got in.

It brought me to a world of dyked farms enclosed by suburbs, petrol stations and arterial roads and scrub copses that turn out to be railway  embankments. Rich picking for wild camping and I am now the proud owner of a tarpaulin.

So there was a logic to this.

The tarpaulin came from a builder's lorry I suppose; it carries a logo but I stay dry.

And the buzzard that hunts this busy road next to my camp perches uncomfortably on thin sapling tops and telegraph wires admired by the pigeons.

Dear Heart Poetry Reading at Meow Wellington, NZ 9th May

Love poems and poets at the Meow Cafe, 9 Edwards St, Wellington from 6pm. This may be free.

Celebrate the publication of Dear Heart: 150 New Zealand Love Poems written from the 1930s onwards. Editor Paula Green and esteemed contributors including

• Jenny Bornholdt 
• James Brown
• Anna Jackson
• Bill Manhire 
• Gregory O’Brien
• Harry Ricketts 
• Chris Tse

Books will be available for purchase and signing. More information available here http://www.facebook.com/events/425162377511331/ and here http://www.welovemeow.co.nz/events.html.

Anne Sexton live

Anne Sexton (1928 - 1974), the sometimes overlooked sister of Sylvia Plath and Adrienne Rich, can be listened to here at the Poetry Archive:

http://www.poetryarchive.org/poetryarchive/singlePoet.do?poetId=7172

More information about her work and life available here http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anne_Sexton

Elizabeth Bishop live

Listen here at the Poetry Archive historic recordings:

http://www.poetryarchive.org/poetryarchive/singlePoet.do?poetId=8982

Translating poets alive New York, USA May 3rd 2012

An event that focuses on the creative gap and sheer excitement of translation from one language to another. We would love to attend. Poets read excerpts of their work together with their translators, 5 students from the MFA in Creative Writing in Spanish at NYU. This is the first event of its kind in the United States. With Yousef Komunyakaa, Charles Simic, Tracy K. Smith, and Anne Waldman, with their translators, MFA in Creative Writing in Spanish students Valerie Mejer, Claudira Mora, Edgardo Núñez Caballero, Florencia San Martín, and Kadiri Vaquer.

At the King Juan Carlos I of Spain Center, 53 Washington Sq. South (between Thompson and Sullivan), New York City at 4 p.m. Free and open to the public co-sponsored by New York University.

You may find yourself wanting to translate poetry or simply to write after this event.

Find out more here http://www.pen.org/viewmedia.php/prmMID/6439/prmID/2206.

Alfonsina Storni tweet poetry

Alfonsina Storni (1892 – 1938) was an Argentinian poet and feminist of the modernist period. Her work has inspired many writers, artists and musicians including Ariel Ramírez and Félix Luna who composed the song Alfonsina y el Mar ("Alfonsina and the sea"), performed by Mercedes Sosa, Tania Libertad, Mocedades, Andrés Calamaro, Katia Cardenal and many others.

poetandgeek.com ‏ @poetandgeek

Cuando picada el alma de tristeza sombría Sabedora de engaños me pasada los días Besando las dos manos que me ajaban la vida

You can find more information about Storni here http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alfonsina_Storni or listen to Mercedes Sosa's very beautiful rendering of Alfonsina y el mar here http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6O7vewJGMYk&feature=related.

The full poem:


Dulce tortura

Polvo de oro en tus manos fue mi melancolía
Sobre tus manos largas desparramé mi vida;
Mis dulzuras quedaron a tus manos prendidas;
Ahora soy un ánfora de perfumes vacía.

Cuánta dulce tortura quietamente sufrida
Cuando, picada el alma de tristeza sombría,
Sabedora de engaños, me pasada los días
¡Besando las dos manos que me ajaban la vida!


Sweet torture


My melancholy was gold dust in your hands;
into your long hands I scattered my life;
my gentleness remains taken by your hands;
now I am a phial empty of perfume.

How much sweet torture quietly suffered
when stung by the soul of dark sadness,
aware of the lies, I pass my days
kissing the two hands that stifle my life!