Category: Poems

A poem for Valentine’s Day

Posted on by amanda.woodman-hardy

In celebration of Valentine’s Day, Genevieve Liveley, Senior Lecturer in Classics, reads her selection from Ovid’s Amores.

Of her choice of poem, Genevieve Liveley said:

As Valentine’s Day is supposed to have its roots in the Roman fertility festival of Lupercalia (also celebrated in mid-February), it seems appropriate to have a Latin poem to celebrate the occasion. This elegy from the Roman poet Ovid’s Amores (Love Songs) is more than 2000 years old, yet in both tone and content it feels like the work of a contemporary. There is almost a cinematic quality to Ovid’s description: the soft-focus lighting that spotlights the bed upon which Ovid rests, his lover’s dramatic entrance, the slow striptease which reveals her naked body – and then the cut away to a final shot of the couple, post coitus, relaxed on the bed.

Dr. Genevieve Liveley is Senior Lecturer in Classics and academic lead for the Bristol Classics Hub, a project that develops the study of Latin and Greek in schools and colleges. Her research interests lie in ancient (especially Augustan) narratives and narrative theories (both ancient and modern). Her recent publications include a monograph for OUP’s Classics in Theory series on Narratology and two books on Ovid: A Reader’s Guide to Ovid’s Metamorphoses and Ovid’s Love Songs.

Further information

The Comemmorative Poem Initiative was established in 2017. The project is run by the Bristol Poetry Institute.

Cian Murphy selected in 2018 Best New British and Irish Poets Anthology

Posted on by amanda.woodman-hardy
BPI poet, Cian Murphy

Cian Murphy’s poem, ‘At the Clinic’, will be published in the 2018 Best New British and Irish Poets Anthology.

‘At the Clinic’ was selected by the American poet and writer Maggie Smith-Beehler. The poem will be published in April by Eyewear Publishing as part of their forthcoming anthology of the 50 best new British and Irish poets.

Cian Murphy was born and raised in Cork. He is Senior Lecturer in Public International Law at the University of Bristol, where he also sits on the board of the Bristol Poetry Institute. His poetry has appeared in Ink, Sweat and Tears, The Honest Ulsterman, and Envoi.

Further information

For further information on the Bristol Poetry Institute, please contact: poetry-institute@bristol.ac.uk.

Poem at the New Year

Posted on by amanda.woodman-hardy

To mark the coming of the New Year, Rebecca Kosick, Lecturer in Translation Studies, reads a poem by John Ashbery.

Of her choice of poem, Rebecca Kosick said:

I chose ‘Poem at the New Year’ to honor the great American poet John Ashbery, who died in 2017. I admire how this poem draws together the many, at times contrasting, significances of a new year’s arrival—there’s melancholy but also the promise of new chances. There’s the feeling of being outside of time alongside the feeling of time’s passing. There are questions about the everyday and questions about the far away. Though Ashbery’s poetry can be challenging, I appreciate how this poem allows these contrasts to coincide and how it invites the reader to question and wonder along with it.

Dr. Kosick is the new co-director of the Bristol Poetry Institute. Her research focuses on 20th century and contemporary poetry and art in hemispheric America, with interests in word and image studies, experimental approaches to the practice and theory of translation, and materialisms old and new. She is currently at work on a book project entitled Word, Image, Object: On the Matter of Poetics in Hemispheric America.

Further information

‘Poem at the New Year’, 1992, in Hotel Lautreamont, copyright © 1992, 2017 by John Ashbery, All rights reserved, Published in the UK by Carcanet, Used by arrangement with Georges Borchardt Inc. for the author’s estate.

Jack Thacker wins first prize in international poetry competition

Posted on by amanda.woodman-hardy

Jack Thacker’s poem, ‘The Load’, has been judged by Sir Andrew Motion as the winner of the 2016 Charles Causley international poetry competition

Jack Thacker’s poem, ‘The Load’, has been judged by Sir Andrew Motion as the winner of the 2016 Charles Causley international poetry competition.

The Load by Jack Thacker (PDF, 174kB)

Jack Thacker grew up on a farm in Herefordshire. He lives in Bristol, where he is studying for a PhD on contemporary poetry and agriculture at the Universities of Bristol and Exeter. His poetry has appeared in PN Review, The Clearing and The Literateur and has been commissioned

by the Bristol and Bath Festival of Nature and the Bristol Nature Channel. He is the co-founder of the University of York-based poetry magazine Eborakon and is a board member of the Bristol Poetry Institute.

Making my final decision about the poetry prize, I wanted to balance my admiration for risk and the spirit of adventure with my liking for poems that obey their own laws of organisation. I felt ‘The Load’ managed to get the best of both these worlds, and in the process to achieve something at once clear and suggestive.

— Sir Andrew Motion, Chair of the Judges

As part of his first prize award, Jack Thacker will receive £2,000 and a week long residency at Cyprus Well, the former home of Charles Causley, in which to work on his writing and explore North Cornwall.‌

Further information

This year’s entries to the Charles Causley poetry competition came from a diverse range of poets, both established and emerging. There was a considerable increase in the number of international entries, and the panel of shortlisting judges – Dr Kym Martindale, Dr Luke Thompson, and Charlotte Walker, writer-in-residence at Cyprus Well, spent a day at Charles Causley’s house reading and discussing the poems before selecting a shortlist to send to Head Judge, Sir Andrew Motion.

For more information on the Charles Causley Trust please visit www.thecharlescausleytrust.org.