As defined by the Forward Prize winner poet Mona Arshi, a ‘rupture of empathy’ is amplified around us. As a human rights lawyer, she often observes it at a touching distance; yet keeps nurturing life, but in the end, the lilies have to be sadly left to be ‘beauty-drained’.
Category: Poetry
Poet of Honour: Keki Daruwalla
The recipient of the Sahitya Akademi Award (1984) and the Commonwealth Poetry Prize (1987) for Asia, Daruwalla is at his best with his poems engaging with nature.
Poet of Honour: Raymond Antrobus
The Year 2019 can be emphatically coined as the Raymond Antrobus year! Deaf at birth and not diagnosed until he was seven, as Antrobus says, his poems are an ‘investigation of missing sounds’. Not to forget that he also investigates meaning; after all, how can any poem ignore that leap! He has emerged as one of our most revered contemporary poets.
Poems of the Month: Peter Cowlam
The landscape of social media is a noisy place! Sometimes the poets who shout little about their work are often difficult to discover! Hence, at Ars Notoria, the team has no hesitation in celebrating Peter Cowlam’s poem.
Poet of Honour: Ian Duhig
This month, Ian Duhig gives us a rare treat with his unique brand of poetry. Where Wendy Cope can be light-hearted, Ian is far more word-mischievous poet. From his palette comes a great mixture of intellect and humour that is highly inventive, eccentric and witty.
Poet of Honour: Moniza Alvi
This month, Moniza Alvi brings us such a shattering reality and leaves us asking to redefine the use of the word animal.
A key to notice is her craft very precise and incisive with each word weighing in with its presence. Just look at the poem Candle. With candle, caves, stalagmites and stalactites, does it need to say more?
Poet of Honour: Sinéad Morrissey
Sinéad Morrissey, is one of our most revered poets. There is a valid reason behind it. Even as I write this, she has been shortlisted for the 2021 Pigott Poetry Prize. You can see in her biog the list of many awards her work enjoys. Having taken a journey through various cultures, I suppose it comes naturally to her not only to capture a sweeping range of images, sculptures, monuments, and paintings, but to be touched by political, cultural and geographical aspects as well. -Yogesh Patel
Poet of Honour: Martina Evans
Shortlisted for the 2019 Irish Times Poetry Now Award, the Pigott Poetry Prize and the Roehampton Poetry Prize, Now We Can Talk Openly About Men is Martina Evan’s latest collection of poems. Almost a hundred years later, in an exceptional flip side of the fight recounted, the poet makes us relive the period of the men stifled by the Irish Conflict around 1919. I am thrilled that through her other poems selected here we can celebrate Martina Evans as our Poet of Honour. -Yogesh Patel
Poet of Honour: Tishani Doshi
Meet Tishani in a place between her playful disposition and our exigent reality. She puts god in the middle of our chaos, our storming contradictions, our cosmos. As a rare treat, here are three poems from her collection: ‘A God at the Door’ Tishani Doshi is a tempest of talents.
Poem of the Month: The Gallower
By Gordon Liddle My Grandfather’s nickname was The Gallower (pit pony). First day down the pit at 14, working miles out under the North Sea in a 22inch seam with a wheeled tub tied to his leg. Lost part of an ear in a tunnel collapse. I used to help…
Two Poems
A Storm A storm is brewing. Rain is sudden, heavy, falling with shadows, a thunder of echoes on the horizon. The summer air is thick and slow, waiting to be moved by a long awaited wind. Soon, raised hands will feel the change of the breeze, and breaths will taste…
Poet of Honour: Steven O’Brien
Pearl Fishers by Steven O’Brien Such ember-gold in your eyes,As no other girlAnd deep church-glass green,Purple, soft as smoke. Some daybreak soonWhen our blackbird is a high minstrelAbove the rippling treesSlip your hand in mine,No other girl but you And laugh with flashes of river jadeIn your gaze.Then vanish with…
Binary
by Yogesh Patel Saddens me we are binaryto my skin.Grandpa used to tell me a lie.Prof Macaulay would throwthe answer papers in the air.The ones landing on the table would pass!There is no random indiscrimination in most discriminations. Never for the skin.They locked me up in Harmondsworth prisonbecause I was…
Poet of Honour: George Szirtes
George Szirtes We remain rainless. The late sun draped on washing like a faded flag. This is our nation with its fabled history of bloom, fight and fade. We’re fading. Leaders at press briefings continue to conjure the great spirit of something burning on, conflagrations of nostalgic power. Meanwhile the…
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