Excerpt: I Am the Earth the Plants Grow Through
The skin rejoices. An excerpt from Jack Hannan's second novel, I Am the Earth the Plants Grow Through.
The $50,000 Montreal International Poetry Prize has just announced that Australian poet and essayist Mark Tredinnick, who lives in the highlands southwest of Sydney, has been awarded the inaugural prize for his poem, "Walking Underwater."
The winning poem was selected from a shortlist of nearly 50 poems (including a second poem by Tredinnick, “The Kingfisher”) by former UK poet laureate Andrew Motion.
"This is a bold, big-thinking poem,” Motion says
of “Walking Underwater, “in which ancient themes (especially the theme of our
human relationship with landscape) are re-cast and re-kindled. It well deserves
its eminence as a prize winner.” The poem has been published on the Montreal
Prize website,
with a recording of Tredinnick reading the winning poem.
The nonprofit Montreal International Poetry Prize represents a new approach to major literary awards,
being the first major literary prize to be awarded "blind," meaning the author's identity is not revealed to the judge until after the winner has been selected. Funding from the prize comes from a $50,000 catalyst donation and community contributions. “Our project represents a challenge to the traditional hierarchies and conservative instincts that characterize much of the modern literary world,” says Montreal Prize co-founder, Len Epp.
A second poem was selected from the shortlist by U.S. painter and sculptor Eric Fischl as the basis for a "broadside," or illustrated poem. Fischl's selection, "The Grasshoppers' Silence" by Canadian poet Linda Rogers is based on the true story of Rumana Monzur, who was blinded in an attack by her husband in Bangladesh in June. "I've chosen this poem because the image of the one-legged grasshopper won't let me sleep," Fischl says of his selection.
The shortlisted poems were chosen from 3,200 entries from 59 different countries by a group of ten distinguished poets from Australia, Canada, Guyana, India, Ireland, Jamaica, Malawi, Nigeria, the U.K., and the U.S.
“Everything we accomplished,” Epp says, “we did on a 100% volunteer basis and with pretty much no budget for anything besides the absolute essentials. We're proud of what we accomplished in our startup year and have received a lot of support from around the world.”
On the funding issue, he adds, “We are still raising funds for a 2012 prize. It looks like we're going to need another push on the swings before we achieve real independence, so we're currently asking for micro- (or macro!) donations, preparing a sale of the broadside, and seeking traditional sponsors.”
© Linda Leith
.ll.
[Posted on the Globe Books site on Thursday, December 15th.]
The skin rejoices. An excerpt from Jack Hannan's second novel, I Am the Earth the Plants Grow Through.
The Toronto battle has not yet made its mark nationally, but it should. If Toronto library users and supporters lose this fight, you can depend on it that other municipalities will be encouraged to follow suit. I am a Montrealer, not a Torontonian, but I know this is my battle, too. And I think it’s a battle we should all be fighting.
When it comes to the future of public libraries, we are all Torontonians.
by Kenneth Radu
Wicked company, therefore, is to be understood as the hostile official attitude towards men (mostly men) of intellectual daring who challenged the assumptions of religion and society. Inconvenient thinkers could be imprisoned and atheists could still be executed at the time, a practice I believe some would wish to continue today. That was the purpose of the radical salon: room for a coterie of free thinkers to converse bravely on many subjects, including dangerous critiques of the ancien régime and the Church, without fear of reprisal, at least from their fair hostess.
Reggae music linked up to the anti-colonial, back-to Africa, enlightenment-seeking Rastafari movement that originated in the 1930’s. It became the only widely popular recent music to transmit religious and political beliefs, and many other outgoing messages. Jah-struck roots reggae (or “culture,” pronounced “culcha”) works like gospel music.