WELCOME, my friends, to the fourth week of our April Poetry Celebration!
This week, we go deeper into our theme of CONNECTION with a gorgeous feast of poems from our community, inspiration to participate in poetry written in other languages and the opportunity to offer your own take on an early Irish poem, a silly poem from me, and our weekly Spark and Dare.
Thank you to everyone who is watching, sending poems, commenting, linking, sharing, subscribing, and participating. Because of YOUR presence, our Celebration continues to be effervescent and beautiful. I so appreciation your participation and support!
1. If you’d like to play this week, please send one or more poems to me at kate@katechadbourne.com by Friday, 30 April at 5 pm. Please put all of your weekly poems in one email and in one document (one attachment for me to open) or just pasted into the body of the email. Thank you so much for your help with this.
2. Remember that for each week you send one or more poems, you receive an entry into our journal drawing. Four weeks of poems = four entries in the drawing = four times the chance of getting a prize. 🙂 Next week in our fifth and final video of this year’s Celebration, I’ll be drawing names out of a magic hat!
3. If you’d like to learn more about Professor Patrick K. Ford, here is a link to an interview I did with him years ago: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7I3fY…​ If you ask me, it is truly inspiring, and so is he.
4. Here are the books I had on my little table this week – just a mere skimming of some of the translations and translators from my shelves. Do feel free to add to this list in the comments!
Patrick K. Ford, translator: The Celtic Poets – Songs and Tales from Early Ireland and Wales
Seamus Heaney, translator: Beowulf – A new verse translation
Barbara Hughes Fowler, translator: Medieval Irish Lyrics
Frank O’Connor, translator: Kings, Lords, & Commons – An Anthology from the Irish
Robert Bly, translator: The Winged Energy of Delight – selected translations
Robert Bly, translator: Friends, You Drank Some Darkness – Three Swedish Poets
Stephen Mitchell, translator: The Enlightened Heart – An Anthology of Sacred Poetry
Coleman Barks, translator: The Essential Rumi
Peggy O’Brien, editor: The Wake Forest Book of Irish Women’s Poetry 1967-2000 (contains some wonderful translations)
5. As promised, here’s a very rough translation of “the blackbird” poem discussed in the video. Do feel most welcome to take it and make it your own. If you feel like sharing the result, I would LOVE to see it!
The little bird let out a whistle from his very yellow beak;
a cry was cast over Belfast Lough
a blackbird on a golden branch
6. A correction: you may have noticed that I mistakenly called the language of Beowulf “Old Irish” when of course it is Old English. Sorry about that! My head was still in the “blackbird” poem. 🙂
My heartfelt thanks to The Academy of American Poets for the magnificent poster you see hanging behind me (Please visit them at https://poets.org/​​​​), and my continued thanks to Jumping Fox Design for the journal I’m using this month and for the three others waiting to be claimed as prizes. I’m filling it up with ideas, dreams, words, drafts, and POEMS.
My heartfelt thanks to YOU, wonderful community. Let’s be POETS this April! If you’d like to learn more about me, read my blog, or take a look at my selection of poetry books and music, please visit me at https://www.katechadbourne.com/​​​​
#NationalPoetryMonth​​​​ #NationalPoetryWritingMonth​​​​ #JumpingFoxDesign​​​​ #Journals​​​​ ​​ #uspoetlaureate​​​​ #AcademyofAmericanPoets​​​ #translation​ #PatrickKFord​ #HarvardCeltic
