桂冠诗人达菲:微博短信息是一种现代的诗歌形式

卡萝尔·安·达菲(Carol Ann Duffy)是第一位女性桂冠诗人。在最近的一次访谈中,达菲发表了她对当代诗歌的一些看法。其中之一就是,她认为,当下盛行的微博短信息是现代诗歌的一种形式,是非常适合脸书一代(Facebook generation)的诗歌载体……为此,达菲发起了微博诗歌大赛。目的是让更多的孩子能够走进诗歌的世界……

Poet laureate Carol Ann Duffy says texting is a modern form of poetry and an ideal vehicle for the Facebook generation.

Duffy is the first female poet laureate

“The poem is a form of texting… it’s the original text,” Duffy said in an interview with the Guardian.

“It’s a perfecting of a feeling for language, it’s a way of saying more with less, just as texting is.”

Duffy is launching a competition for secondary school pupils, who will be invited to write their own anthologies.

Entrants can be groups or individuals. They will be given a budget to work with, and the aim is to encourage a stronger relationship between children and the world of poetry.

The deadline for entries is 1 March 2012 and the winning anthology will be announced three months later.

‘Bookless house’

The winner will be chosen by a panel of judges including Duffy, Liz Lochhead, the Scottish makar (national poet), and Gillian Clarke, the national poet of Wales.

Their anthology will be published by Picador, and Duffy will visit the winning school.

She told The Guardian she was passionate about placing poetry at the heart of the school curriculum because school was the first place she was introduced to poetry.

“I grew up in a bookless house… so if I hadn’t had the chance to experience it at school, I would never have experienced it.”

Duffy, who became the first female poet laureate in 2009, added: “The poem is the literary form of the 21st century.

“It’s able to connect young people in a deep way to language… it’s language as play.”

【信息来源:BBC News

本年度竞逐布克奖短名单出炉

本年度布克奖(Man Booker Prize)短名单公布。英国作家朱利安·巴恩斯(Julian Barnes)凭借其小说《终结感》(The Sense of an Ending)第四次入围。另外的5位入围者分别为史蒂芬·凯尔曼(Stephen Kelman),艾迪·米勒( AD Miller),卡罗尔·帕奇(Carol Birch),帕特里克·德维特(Patrick deWitt)和埃斯·埃杜基(Esi Edugy)。

【以下是来自BBC的相关报道

Bookies’ favourite Julian Barnes is among six authors featured on this year’s Man Booker Prize shortlist.

It is the fourth time Barnes has been shortlisted for the Booker

Bookmaker William Hill has put Barnes at 6-4 to win for his novel The Sense of an Ending.

Stephen Kelman, AD Miller, Carol Birch, Patrick deWitt and Esi Edugyan have also made it onto the shortlist.

The winner of the £50,000 annual prize – won last year by Howard Jacobson’s The Finkler Question – will be announced on 18 October.

Ladbrokes also named Barnes as favourite to win at 13-8 and made Birch second favourite at 7/2, as did William Hill.

Alan Hollinghurst, whose novel The Stranger’s Child had been second favourite to win, did not make the shortlist.

“Inevitably it was hard to whittle down the longlist to six titles,” said former MI5 chief Dame Stella Rimington, chair of this year’s judging panel.

“We were sorry to lose some great books. But, when push came to shove, we quickly agreed that these six very different titles were the best.”

Writer and journalist Matthew d’Ancona, author Susan Hill, author and politician Chris Mullin and Gaby Wood of the Telegraph are her fellow jurors.

Barnes has been shortlisted for the prize on three previous occasions, without success.

The 65-year-old was nominated in 1984 for Flaubert’s Parrot, in 1998 for England, England and in 2005 for Arthur and George.

This year’s shortlist contains two debut novelists – Miller and Kelman – as well as two women – Edugyan and Birch, who made the longlist for Turn Again Home in 2003.

Two of the authors are Canadian – Edugyan and deWitt – while the other four are British. Four of the novels are from independent publishers.

Kelman’s debut novel tells the story of an 11-year-old who, with his mother and sister, moves from Ghana to a rough London estate.

Booker judge Chris Mullin read 138 books before his panel whittled down the shortlist

Pigeon English follows him and a friend as they investigate the murder of a local boy who has been knifed to death.

Miller’s thriller Snowdrops, which reveals the dark underbelly of Moscow, was inspired by his time spent living in Russia.

Barnes’s novel has a middle-aged man reflecting on the paths he and his childhood friends have taken as the past catches up with him.

Edugyan’s Half-Blood Blues begins in 1930s Berlin with a jazz musician going missing as the Nazis take over the streets.

The Sisters Brothers, deWitt’s second novel, is set against the backdrop of the 1850s Californian gold rush and is believed to be the first Western novel to feature on the shortlist.

Birch’s novel, Jamrach’s Menagerie, derives from a real-life incident – the sinking of the whale-ship Essex in 1820.

The competition is only open to those from the British Commonwealth and Ireland.

大卫·黑尔获颁本年度品特戏剧奖

Playwright Sir David Hare has been awarded this year’s Pen/Pinter Prize, it has been announced.

Sir David is known for his gritty portrayals of contemporary Britain

The award, set up by the writers’ charity Pen in memory of playwright Harold Pinter, is given to a British writer who casts an “unflinching, unswerving” gaze upon the world.

Pinter’s widow, Lady Antonia Fraser, said Sir David was a “worthy winner”.

He will be presented with his prize on 10 October at the British Library.

The award will be shared with an imprisoned “writer of courage” who has been persecuted for speaking out about their beliefs, to be announced at the event.

Lady Antonia said: “In the course of his long, distinguished career, David Hare has never failed to speak out fearlessly on the subject of politics in the broadest sense.

“This courage, combined with his rich creative talent, makes him a worthy winner of the Pen/Pinter Prize”.

Known for his gritty portrayals of contemporary Britain, Sir David’s notable works include Plenty, a portrait of disillusionment in post-war Britain, and The Absence of War, a drama about the Labour Party.

He was nominated for Oscars for The Hours, in 2003, and for Kate Winslet drama The Reader, in 2008.

新人新作获颁英最古老文学奖

Debut novelist Tatjani Soli has been announced as the winner of Britain’s oldest literary award.

Tatjani Soli won the prize for her debut novel The Lotus Eaters

The James Tait Black Memorial awards are given to one work of fiction and one work of biography each year.

Theatre critic Hilary Spurling claimed the biography prize for her book Burying the Bones: Pearl Buck in China.

American author Tatjani Soli won the fiction prize for her first novel The Lotus Eaters, which is set in the final days of the Vietnam War.

Previous winners include Ian McEwan, Cormac McCarthy and A S Byatt.

The winners of the prizes – awarded annually by the University of Edinburgh – were announced at the Edinburgh International Book Festival.

They are the only major British book awards judged by scholars and students of literature.

Also shortlisted for the £10,000 fiction prize this year were debut novelists Julie Orringer and Michael Nath, and acclaimed writer David Mitchell.

The biography shortlist included studies of Henry Ford by Greg Grandin, of EM Forster by Wendy Moffat and an autobiography by renowned Scottish author Alisdair Gray.

The James Tait Black Prizes were founded in 1919 by Janet Coats, the widow of publisher James Tait Black, to commemorate her husband’s love of books.

【资料来源:BBC新闻

Something About Richard Aldington

理查德·阿尔丁顿(Richard Aldington, 1892-1962),英国小说家、诗人、批评家、传记作家。以下是有关他的一些零散信息:

  •  Brigit Patmore (1882-1965) was an English writer and “literary hostess”. She was married to the grandson of Coventry Patmore. She had a long friendship with D.H. Lawrence, of whom she wrote several accounts. She was the model for Clariss Browning in Lawrence’s novel, “Aaron’s Rod”. She was also friends with Ezra Pound, Richard Aldington, H.D., Ford Hueffer and W.B. Yeats. 【补充一下,这位帕特慕夫人对阿尔丁顿非常重要,因为是她将他引入当时伦敦的文学圈子,使他有机会结识了那些先锋派文学作家。】
  •  理查德·阿尔丁顿和H. D. 几乎是一见钟情。他们是在庞德的引荐下认识的。据说庞德一直对HD有点那啥。甚至在阿尔丁顿和HD结婚之后,庞德对HD还是难以割舍。H. D. 和阿尔丁顿共同主持编撰当时意象派的杂志《自我主义者》(The Egoist)直到1917年。1915年,由于HD产下死胎,RA从此和HD分开。10多年后正式离婚。不过据说晚年的HD和RA又非常亲近。。。
  •  有部电影叫做《阿拉伯的劳伦斯》,所以知道了这个名字。并不知道这原来是一部小说。也曾以为这个劳伦斯就是D. H. 劳伦斯,后来知道不是那么回事儿。当然现在我知道了,Lawrence of Arabia《阿拉伯的劳伦斯》是阿尔丁顿的一部英雄传记,主人公是T. E. Lawrence,一位legendary hero。而且,当时这部作品遭到冷遇,至少有两家出版社拒绝接受它。阿尔丁顿也确实为D. H. 劳伦斯写过一部传记。他俩是特别好的朋友。。。