(Okay, okay..we admit we've missed quite a few months with poets of the months. We're working to catch up on it ! Promise!)
June 2014: Poet Of The Month: David Lewis Paget
http://www.writerscafe.org/Dawei
AUSTRALIAN POET. Born in Nottingham, lived in Great Barr, Birmingham until the age of 13, when migrated to Australia. Lived in Adelaide, joined Royal Australian Air Force at 21 and became Instrument Fitter on Neptunes, Orions, Mirages and Winjeels. Eight years spent at bases; Edinburgh S.A., Wagga NSW, Townsville Qld., Point Cook Victoria and Williamtown, NSW.
In 1976 fulltime to Flinders University of South Australia, Bachelors degree in English and History. Medical Investigator for Dept. of Veterans Affairs, Senior Project Officer for Community Youth Support Scheme. Chairman of the Northern Yorke Peninsula Community Needs Forum, President of the Moonta Mines Narrow Gauge Railway Committee. Raised the finance for, and built tourist railway from Moonta Mines to the old Moonta Railway Station. Wrote and published a magazine for the unemployed called 'Bread'. Wrote and published monthly magazines 'Trader's Gate' and 'Central Yorke Peninsula Mercury' for three years in the late 1980's. Ran printing and publishing business Mushroom Graphics until 1990, then Cottage Print until 2005.
Father of 7, grandfather of 25, Great-grandfather of 5; until recently was Teaching English at Wenzhou Medical College, an arm of the Wenzhou University, Zhejiang Province, People's Republic of China. Now retired and living in Moonta, South Australia, an historical Cornish miners settlement. Author of the non-fiction 'Arrows from Wenzhou', a detailed account of the time spent in China.
Current books available.
1. Pen & Ink, Complete Works 1968-2008; A5 format, 452pp, soft coloured cover.
2. Timepieces, the Narrative Poetry Vol. I; A5 format, 214pp, soft coloured cover.
3. At Journey's End, the Narrative Poetry Vol. II; A5 format, 258pp, soft coloured cover.
4. The Demon Horse on the Carousel - and Other Gothic Delights, A5 format, 242pp, soft coloured cover.
5. Poems of Myth & Scare, A5 format, 193pp, soft coloured cover.
6. The Devil on the Tree, A5 format, 273pp, soft coloured cover.
7. Smugglers Pie, A5 format, 101pp, soft coloured cover.
8. The Season of the Witch, A5 format, 128pp, soft coloured cover.
9. My China, 33 Poems written in and about China, A5 format, 90pp, soft coloured cover.
10. Tales from the Magi, 60 poems, A5 format, 172pp, soft coloured cover.
11. Taking Root, 62 poems, A5 format, 180pp, soft coloured cover.
12. The Red Knight, Medieval Poems, 126pp, soft coloured cover.
13. Arrows from Wenzhou, A year in China, A5 format, 376pp, soft coloured cover
14. The Storm & the Tall-Ship Pier, A5 format, 200pp, soft coloured cover.
ALL BOOKS NOW AVAILABLE AS PAPERBACKS FROM LULU.COM
http://www.lulu.com/spotlight/david_lewis_paget
July 2013: Poet Of The Month: Lord Byron
The most flamboyant and notorious of the major Romantics, George Gordon, Lord Byron, was likewise the most fashionable poet of the day. He created an immensely popular Romantic hero—defiant, melancholy, haunted by secret guilt—for which, to many, he seemed the model. He is also a Romantic paradox: a leader of the era’s poetic revolution, he named Alexander Pope as his master; a worshiper of the ideal, he never lost touch with reality; a deist and freethinker, he retained from his youth a Calvinist sense of original sin; a peer of the realm, he championed liberty in his works and deeds, giving money, time, energy, and finally his life to the Greek war of independence. His faceted personality found expression in satire, verse narrative, ode, lyric, speculative drama, historical tragedy, confessional poetry, dramatic monologue, seriocomic epic, and voluminous correspondence, written in Spenserian stanzas, heroic couplets, blank verse, terza rima, ottava rima, and vigorous prose. In his dynamism, sexuality, self-revelation, and demands for freedom for oppressed people everywhere, Byron captivated the Western mind and heart as few writers have, stamping upon nineteenth-century letters, arts, politics, even clothing styles, his image and name as the embodiment of Romanticism.
George Gordon Noel Byron was born, with a clubbed right foot, in London on 22 January 1788, the son of Catherine Gordon of Gight, an impoverished Scots heiress, and Captain John ("Mad Jack") Byron, a fortune-hunting widower with a daughter, Augusta. The profligate captain squandered his wife’s inheritance, was absent for the birth of his only son, and eventually decamped for France, an exile from English creditors, where he died in 1791 at thirty-six, the mortal age for both the poet and his daughter Ada.
Read more..
George Gordon Noel Byron was born, with a clubbed right foot, in London on 22 January 1788, the son of Catherine Gordon of Gight, an impoverished Scots heiress, and Captain John ("Mad Jack") Byron, a fortune-hunting widower with a daughter, Augusta. The profligate captain squandered his wife’s inheritance, was absent for the birth of his only son, and eventually decamped for France, an exile from English creditors, where he died in 1791 at thirty-six, the mortal age for both the poet and his daughter Ada.
Read more..
MAY 2013 - POET OF THE MONTH: Josephine Vella
www.allpoetry.com/poetryintheblood
Josephine Vella is an award winning poet from Australia. She specializes in sensual and erotic poetry, but is known to work brilliantly across multiple genres. Check out her All Poetry page to see her work!
Her written work on Lulu.com
Josephine Vella is an award winning poet from Australia. She specializes in sensual and erotic poetry, but is known to work brilliantly across multiple genres. Check out her All Poetry page to see her work!
Her written work on Lulu.com
APRIL 2013 - POET OF THE MONTH: Lenny Chernilla
Lenny Chernila is a well known and well loved poet from around the Denver area. Hard edged, intense and passionate, Lenny hits on a gut level.
Check in during the next few days for a podcast where we interview Lenny and tell you ways you can find his work.
But, in the mean time, here's a video of Lenny doing his own "Into The Ether":
Check in during the next few days for a podcast where we interview Lenny and tell you ways you can find his work.
But, in the mean time, here's a video of Lenny doing his own "Into The Ether":
MARCH 2013 - POET OF THE MONTH: AMERA
Amera is a classically-self-taught poet, award-winning author, social-butterfly and Renaissance thinker who leads from the heart toward a world of unlimited possibilities, and believes that every person is worthy of being loved and deserves to know and explore their own unique and beautiful talent. Amera believes that poetry is a gift and with help and support from other poets that gift can be perfected and carry the art to a new level. She is a formal poet and have written in more than 50 poetic forms. She is the creator of the Shadow Sonnet. Form source: shadowpoetry.com
http://www.amera.iwantapoet.co.uk
http://www.amera.iwantapoet.co.uk
JANUARY 2013 - POET OF THE MONTH: ROBERT BURNS
Robert Burns (25 January 1759 – 21 July 1796) Sometimes known as the 'ploughman poet', was the eldest son of a poverty-stricken farmer. Though his father had moved to Ayrshire, where Burns was born, in order to attempt to improve his fortunes, he eventually died as a bankrupt - after taking on first one farm and then, unsuccessful, moving to another - in 1784. Robert, who had been to school since the age of six, and was also educated at home by a teacher, had, by the age of fifteen, already become the farm's chief labourer. He had also acquired a reading knowledge of French and Latin and had read Shakespeare, Dryden, Milton and the Bible. After his father's death, he and his brother continued farming together, working now at Mossigiel.
The poverty of Burns' early life, though far from being overcome, had produced in him a supporter of the French Revolution and a rebel against both Calvinism and the social order of his time. His rebellious nature soon became evident in his acts. Burns' first illegitimate child was borne to him by Elizabeth Paton in 1785. Two sets of twins later followed, and various amorous intrigues, from Jean Amour, whom he afterward married.
It was also during this period that Burns' first achieved literary success. Though he had thought of emigration to Jamaica as a possible way to avoid his mounting problems, he published his Poems Chiefly in the Scottish Dialect on July 31 1786 at Kilmarnock. This volume contained, among others, 'The Cotter's Saturday Night', 'To a Mouse', 'To a Mountain Daisy' and 'The Holy Fair', all of which were written at Mossigiel. The volume brought him immediate success.
After 1787 Burns, married in 1788 and having moved to Ellisland with his bride, worked chiefly for James Johnson, whom he met in Edinburgh, and, later, for George Thomson. It was for these men that Burns compiled and added to the two great compilations of Scottish songs: Thomson's Scott's Musical Museum and Johnson's Select Collection of Original Scottish Airs for the Voice. Alongside this work, which Burns did on an unpaid basis, he also worked, from 1791 onward, as an Excise Officer. This allowed him to give up farming and move to the Dumfries. He died from rheumatic fever just five years later, having also published, again in 1791, his last major work, a narrative poem entitled 'Tom O'Shanter'.
FACT: He is also an ancestor of WPOM Show co-host Michael Amidei!
The poverty of Burns' early life, though far from being overcome, had produced in him a supporter of the French Revolution and a rebel against both Calvinism and the social order of his time. His rebellious nature soon became evident in his acts. Burns' first illegitimate child was borne to him by Elizabeth Paton in 1785. Two sets of twins later followed, and various amorous intrigues, from Jean Amour, whom he afterward married.
It was also during this period that Burns' first achieved literary success. Though he had thought of emigration to Jamaica as a possible way to avoid his mounting problems, he published his Poems Chiefly in the Scottish Dialect on July 31 1786 at Kilmarnock. This volume contained, among others, 'The Cotter's Saturday Night', 'To a Mouse', 'To a Mountain Daisy' and 'The Holy Fair', all of which were written at Mossigiel. The volume brought him immediate success.
After 1787 Burns, married in 1788 and having moved to Ellisland with his bride, worked chiefly for James Johnson, whom he met in Edinburgh, and, later, for George Thomson. It was for these men that Burns compiled and added to the two great compilations of Scottish songs: Thomson's Scott's Musical Museum and Johnson's Select Collection of Original Scottish Airs for the Voice. Alongside this work, which Burns did on an unpaid basis, he also worked, from 1791 onward, as an Excise Officer. This allowed him to give up farming and move to the Dumfries. He died from rheumatic fever just five years later, having also published, again in 1791, his last major work, a narrative poem entitled 'Tom O'Shanter'.
FACT: He is also an ancestor of WPOM Show co-host Michael Amidei!
Wikipedia Page: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Robert_Burns
Poetry: http://www.poemhunter.com/robert-burns/
Poetry: http://www.poemhunter.com/robert-burns/
DECEMBER 2012 - POET OF THE MONTH: JAKE ADAM YORK
http://jakeadamyork.com
From Michael:
The literary and poetic community lost a brother this week. Jake Adam York, whose biography appears below, was a true poet and intellectual. His creative spirit will be missed, but even more so he will be missed as a man, a father, a teacher and friend.
Jake Adam York was the author of three books of poems--Murder Ballads (Elixir 2005), A Murmuration of Starlings (Southern Illinois University Press 2008), winner of the 2008 Colorado Book Award in Poetry, and Persons Unknown (SIU Press 2010)—as well as a work of literary history, The Architecture of Address: The Monument and Public Speech in American Poetry (Routledge 2005).
In 2011, York was the Richard L. Thomas Professor of Creative Writing at Kenyon College. He was a 2011-2012 Visiting Faculty Scholar at Emory University’s James Weldon Johnson Institute for the Study of Race and Difference, where he began a critical study of artistic responses to the Civil Rights Movement entitled Two or Three Forevers: Contemporary Art and Civil Rights Memory.
His poems have appeared in numerous journals, including The Southern Review, Third Coast, New England Review, The Rumpus, Cincinnati Review, Shenandoah, The Northwest Review, and DIAGRAM.
A former Creative Resident at PlatteForum and a 2002 Individual Artist Fellow of the Colorado Council on the Arts, he was an Associate Professor of English and Creative Writing at the University of Colorado Denver, where he collaborated with colleagues and students to produce the journal Copper Nickel. He also serveed as a contributing editor for Shenandoah.
From Michael:
The literary and poetic community lost a brother this week. Jake Adam York, whose biography appears below, was a true poet and intellectual. His creative spirit will be missed, but even more so he will be missed as a man, a father, a teacher and friend.
Jake Adam York was the author of three books of poems--Murder Ballads (Elixir 2005), A Murmuration of Starlings (Southern Illinois University Press 2008), winner of the 2008 Colorado Book Award in Poetry, and Persons Unknown (SIU Press 2010)—as well as a work of literary history, The Architecture of Address: The Monument and Public Speech in American Poetry (Routledge 2005).
In 2011, York was the Richard L. Thomas Professor of Creative Writing at Kenyon College. He was a 2011-2012 Visiting Faculty Scholar at Emory University’s James Weldon Johnson Institute for the Study of Race and Difference, where he began a critical study of artistic responses to the Civil Rights Movement entitled Two or Three Forevers: Contemporary Art and Civil Rights Memory.
His poems have appeared in numerous journals, including The Southern Review, Third Coast, New England Review, The Rumpus, Cincinnati Review, Shenandoah, The Northwest Review, and DIAGRAM.
A former Creative Resident at PlatteForum and a 2002 Individual Artist Fellow of the Colorado Council on the Arts, he was an Associate Professor of English and Creative Writing at the University of Colorado Denver, where he collaborated with colleagues and students to produce the journal Copper Nickel. He also serveed as a contributing editor for Shenandoah.
