POETRY FROM PARADISE VALLEY

POETRY FROM PARADISE VALLEY
Click Image to Visit the Pecan Grove Press Web Page for Poetry from Paradise Valley

POETRY FROM PARADISE VALLEY web page

Poetry From Paradise Valley

Pecan Grove Press has released an anthology of poems, a sampling of works published in Valparaiso Poetry Review during its first decade, from the original 1999-2000 volume to the 2009-2010 volume.


Poetry from Paradise Valley includes a stellar roster of 50 poets. Among the contributors are a former Poet Laureate of the United States, a winner of the Griffin International Prize, two Pulitzer Prize winners, two National Book Award winners, two National Book Critics Circle winners, six finalists for the National Book Award, four finalists for the National Book Critics Circle Award, two finalists for the Pulitzer Prize, and a few dozen recipients of other honors, such as fellowships from the Guggenheim Foundation, the National Endowment for the Arts, etc.

Readers are encouraged to visit the Poetry from Paradise Valley page at the publisher's web site, where ordering information about the book can be found.

Best Books of Indiana 2011: Finalist. Judges' Citation: "Poetry from Paradise Valley is an excellent anthology that features world-class poetry, including the work of many artists from the Midwest, such as Jared Carter, Annie Finch, David Baker, and Allison Joseph. It’s an eclectic and always interesting collection where poems on similar themes flow into each other. It showcases the highest caliber of U. S. poetry."
—Indiana Center for the Book, Indiana State Library

Sunday, July 26, 2009

John Keats's "Bright Star": Romantic Poetry and Romance Film



In the past few months readers have witnessed a series of events that have renewed interest in the brief life and influential works of John Keats. In the spring W.W. Norton published Stanley Plumly’s Posthumous Keats: a Personal Biography, a wonderful book concerning the English Romantic poet who died at the age of 25 in 1821. This weekend a greatly refurbished villa home of John Keats in Hampstead, North London—where a number of Keats’s famous poems were composed—has been reopened to the public. An important development in Keats’s life also occurred at that house, since it is the location where he met and fell in love with Fanny Brawne, who inspired some of his most emotional lyrics. The two were engaged but never married due to Keats’s worsening health and early death.

Now, a new Jane Campion film, Bright Star, focusing on John Keats and his relationship with Fanny Brawne, is in the process of being released. Readers can view a promotional preview clip above. The film’s title arises from Keats’s magnificent poem by the same name (below), composed in 1819-1820 and believed to be addressed to Fanny Brawne. Campion’s depiction of Keats in Bright Star was warmly received when premiered at the Cannes Film Festival in May, and the work received a nomination for the Golden Palm award. Los Angeles Times film critic Kenneth Turin described the movie as “one of the most deeply moving romantic films in memory,” perhaps allowing readers to apply the term “romantic” in more than one manner. Bright Star will be presented at various venues, such as the Toronto Film Festival, in the upcoming months and then will be available for general public release this fall.

BRIGHT STAR

Bright star, would I were stedfast as thou art—
Not in lone splendor hung aloft the night
And watching, with eternal lids apart,
Like nature’s patient, sleepless Eremite,
The moving waters at their priestlike task
Of pure ablution round earth's human shores,
Or gazing on the new soft-fallen masque
Of snow upon the mountains and the moors—
No—yet still stedfast, still unchangeable,
Pillow'd upon my fair love's ripening breast,
To feel for ever its soft swell and fall,
Awake for ever in a sweet unrest,
Still, still to hear her tender-taken breath,
And so live ever—or else swoon to death.


—John Keats

1 comment:

harold said...

hi
a favour please
where can i locate a list of the keats poems selected for the film?
and, if poss, the letters?
great blarg, hope it takes off