Monday Muse: Poetry Events of Note

Today's post features a roundup of poetry-related events to consider whether you're traveling this summer or fall or reading in place during your staycation.

✭ Lewis & Clark University, where poet William Stafford (1914-1993) taught for nearly three decades, is celebrating the 100th anniversary of Stafford's birth. Retrospective exhibitions (on view through December 31), musical tributes, readings of Stafford's work sponsored by Oregon Library Association (see Oregon Reads), and an academic symposium are among the William Stafford Centennial events on campus, in downtown Portland, Oregon, and around the state. Visit the Multimedia Resources section for the centennial Website for access to photographs, audio, video, digitized poems, recordings, and more. 

Here is the first of three-part video series with Kim Stafford, who discusses his father as teacher, writer, and witness:

William Stafford Archives

✭ This month, Graywolf Press releases the 10th volume in its Art of series: poet Carl Phillips's The Art of Daring: Risk, Restlessness, Imagination (August 5). I have several volumes from the series and can attest to its quality. Also look for poet Matthea Harvey's If the Tabloids Are True What Are You? (August 19). If you read Harvey's Of Lamb, you'll want to order her new book, which includes an erasure of a Ray Bradbury text.

✭ The 100th anniversary of the birth of Octavio Paz, one of the 20th Century's most important Spanish-language poets and writers (he was awarded the Nobel Prize in Literature in 1990), is being celebrated throughout Mexico through the end of December. "Centenario de Octavio Paz" includes exhibitions, lectures and conferences, readings, a four-part televised series Vida y Obra de Octavio Paz, and numerous other activities.

Centenario de Octavio Paz on FaceBook

✭ The 100th anniversary of the birth (August 26, 2014) of poet and writer Julio Cortazar and the 30th anniversary of Cortazar's death (February 12, 1984) is, has been, or will be marked in France, Argentina, Mexico, and Spain. Read "Argentina Celebrates Writer Julio Cortazar's Life of Poetry and Prose"at Voxxi, and "Remembering Writer Julio Cortazar 30 Years On" in Buenos Aires Herald.

✭ This October marks the 100th anniversary of the birth of Welsh poet Dylan Thomas. A "new look" exhibition at the Dylan Thomas Centre in Swansea is on display that includes Thomas's death mask, the manuscript of "Poem in October" as well as other original manuscript pages, the doors of Thomas's writing shed, one of Thomas's suits, and the last known photographs of Thomas. Find links to all this information and more at Dylan Thomas Exhibition. Also visit the Visit Wales site for centennial information.

✭ This final item is a save-the-date feature for Chicago residents. During its 2014-2015 season, University of Chicago Presents has scheduled for May 1, 2015, harpist Benjamin Bagby's version of the Old English poem Beowulf (read "Benjamin Bagby's Beowulf").

Among other poets for whom centennial celebrations were observed earlier this year: Julia de Burgos (1914-1953), Randall Jarrell (1914-1965), and Dudley Randall (1914-2000). For a list of poets and authors born in 1914, see Literary Centennials at LibraryThing.

Also worth noting: the publication and release this past February of Florida Academic Press's  comprehensive anthology The British Poetry of WWI (Centenniial Edition), edited by Candace E. Barnes; the creation of Female Poets of The First World War, a research project seeking to inform the public about WWI through exhibitions of the work and lives of women who wrote poetry during the war; the publication in June by City Lights of Frank O'Hara's Lunch Poems: 50th Anniversary Edition; and the publication, also by City Lights of Gertrude Stein's Tender Buttons The Corrected Centennial Edition.