Poetry

Yumna Kassab's impressionistic novel Politica considers moral dilemmas and harsh choices in a time of war

Retrieved on: 
Wednesday, January 17, 2024

Politica is the fourth novel by Yumna Kassab, who has made a significant impact on the Australian literary scene since the publication of her debut novel The House of Youssef in 2019.

Key Points: 
  • Politica is the fourth novel by Yumna Kassab, who has made a significant impact on the Australian literary scene since the publication of her debut novel The House of Youssef in 2019.
  • Politica is written in Kassab’s now signature polyphonic style.
  • Set in a small community, the novel is sparsely written, with minimal description of character, place or historical moment.
  • Politica achieves its impressionistic effects through quirky vignettes, poetry, fable, gnomic aphorisms, and arguments between conservative forces and those seeking to redefine their values.
  • Some of the characters are resistance leaders and their heirs; others are ordinary people with everyday aspirations.
  • Accept the political as the only authentic option or seek the consolations of private life?
  • Politica has allegorical ambitions, so these dilemmas cannot be resolved by referring to a describable geopolitical reality.
  • The novel spans decades, yet no particular enemy or threat can be consistently identified, nor does it identify the nation in which it is set.
  • idolise death over life […] Such is the tendency of one who has not yet learned to live.


Read more:
Colonial and nationalist myths are recast in Yumna Kassab's Australiana

A moral project

  • This is of crucial importance when Arab and Muslim political movements, including that of the Palestinians, are relentlessly delegitimised and dehumanised.
  • Politica wants to show what a resistance movement might look like from the side of the oppressed.
  • The novel questions the total warfare the West now excuses as a drive for security.
  • Yet there is always a danger that a novel seeking to say something about politics will begin to moralise.
  • A war that began with noble ideals comes to resemble a plague laying waste to all who experience it.
  • It prefers bathos in a minor key to the ambitious scope of historical fiction, now an abundant postcolonial genre.


Ned Curthoys does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.

Brave Healer Productions Announces the Release of its First Poetry Collection: 100 Poems and Possibilities for Healing

Retrieved on: 
Monday, January 15, 2024

BETHESDA, Md., Jan. 15, 2024 /PRNewswire/ -- Brave Healer Productions announces the release of 100 Poems and Possibilities for Healing , its first poetry collection, with more to come aimed at a group of some 22.4 million American adults who read poetry, based on figures released by the NEA's 2022 Survey of Public Participation in the Arts.

Key Points: 
  • BETHESDA, Md., Jan. 15, 2024 /PRNewswire/ -- Brave Healer Productions announces the release of 100 Poems and Possibilities for Healing , its first poetry collection, with more to come aimed at a group of some 22.4 million American adults who read poetry, based on figures released by the NEA's 2022 Survey of Public Participation in the Arts.
  • Di Franco says, "I've written so many poems (hundreds in the last several years) that it was truly difficult to choose just a few for you.
  • The ones I chose have a main message: Your worst pain or fear can be your opportunity for healing.
  • Every poem I write is channeled from a place much bigger than me.

Teen Poetry Collection Offers Seasonal Poems About Love and Living

Retrieved on: 
Wednesday, January 10, 2024

The collection, titled to Rose Buds, is a seasonal journey, taking the reader on an embodied walk through a year’s worth of emotions.

Key Points: 
  • The collection, titled to Rose Buds, is a seasonal journey, taking the reader on an embodied walk through a year’s worth of emotions.
  • Penned by the talented A. Orpel, the book expertly encapsulates love, heartbreak, and the sometimes gut-wrenching inner work that leads to self-understanding.
  • Orpel also aims for a structure in her work that is less common, for example, in the Instagram poetry scene.
  • “I feel [my poetry] is different because my poems are longer than a lot of modern-day poetry,” says Orpel.

GOLDEN HAIKU POETRY COMPETITION MARKS 11th YEAR OF BRINGING POEMS & CREATIVITY DOWNTOWN

Retrieved on: 
Tuesday, January 9, 2024

WASHINGTON, Jan. 9, 2024 /PRNewswire/ -- The Golden Triangle Business Improvement District (BID) today announced the opening of its highly anticipated Golden Haiku poetry competition. Poets of all ages from DC and around the world may submit original haiku until Feb. 4 at 11:59 p.m. ET.

Key Points: 
  • WASHINGTON, Jan. 9, 2024 /PRNewswire/ -- The Golden Triangle Business Improvement District (BID) today announced the opening of its highly anticipated Golden Haiku poetry competition .
  • "Golden Haiku is one of the ways we welcome spring to DC," said Leona Agouridis, President of the Golden Triangle BID.
  • Golden Haiku follows the Haiku Society of America's guidelines for modern haiku, which does not require the traditional 5-7-5 structure.
  • Submissions for the 2024 Golden Haiku poetry competition will be accepted through Feb. 4, 2024.

Literature inspired my medical career: Why the humanities are needed in health care

Retrieved on: 
Friday, January 5, 2024

As a published poet and scholar of the health humanities and ethics, I have a foot squarely planted in each field – or perhaps more accurately, I stand in what I perceive as the overlapping field of healing and poetic practices.

Key Points: 
  • As a published poet and scholar of the health humanities and ethics, I have a foot squarely planted in each field – or perhaps more accurately, I stand in what I perceive as the overlapping field of healing and poetic practices.
  • I think literature can do this for other health care providers, too.

Narrative competence in medicine

  • Narrative medicine is the practice of close reading and reflective writing to build narrative competence.
  • Physician and narrative medicine scholar Rita Charon describes narrative competence as “the ability to acknowledge, absorb, interpret and act on the stories and plights of others.” Narrative competence, then, could inspire a person to pursue a career in health care and possibly make them a better clinician.
  • In fact, studies of narrative medicine programs have demonstrated that they tend to not only increase students’ empathy and communication skills but also their tolerance for ambiguity and self-confidence.

Using the humanities to address health inequity

  • Might narrative competence also expand clinicians’ understanding of health disparities and urge them to act in ways that lectures full of statistics couldn’t?
  • The burgeoning field of critical health humanities theorizes that stories and art can help clinicians understand the unequal realities of different people’s lives and make clinician-patient relationships more therapeutic.
  • This could lead her to make her practice more accessible to her patients – an action that would improve equity in health care for people with disabilities.
  • Before ever meeting my first patient, I gained an expanded knowledge of the diversity of human experience from the books I read.
  • This negates the fact that disease and health happen in varied and disparate social, cultural and political contexts.

Fitting in health humanities education

  • There are ways to fit in more health humanities in all the busyness and bustle of notoriously grueling medical education.
  • I’ve also led other health care providers in creative writing exercises during workshops, lectures and classes.
  • Many institutions host book clubs, story slams, film screenings and other opportunities for medical learners to engage with the humanities.
  • Monica Sok’s “ABC for Refugees” powerfully paints a portrait of a young child caught between languages and cultures – a reality that many pediatric patients face.
  • “Ode to Small Towns” by Tyree Daye upends common assumptions about rural life and demonstrates the meaning of place in hymnlike vernacular.
  • This article is part of Art & Science Collide, a series examining the intersections between art and science.

Melding literature and medicine

  • The possibilities for collaboration between literature and medicine are wide open.
  • The history, sociopolitical context, imaginative perspective and reflective practices the humanities offer may improve the practice of medicine.


Irène Mathieu, MD, MPH is an iTHRIV Scholar. The iTHRIV Scholars Program is supported in part by the National Center for Advancing Translational Sciences of the National Institutes of Health under award numbers UL1TR003015 and KL2TR003016.

The Cooperation Base of Innovation on Cultural Communication-Shanghai Center was Officially Established

Retrieved on: 
Friday, January 5, 2024

Shanghai, China--(Newsfile Corp. - January 4, 2024) - On December 29th, the Cooperation Base of Innovation on Cultural Communication·Shanghai Center, jointly established by the CICG Center for International Cultural Communication and Shanghai University, was officially inaugurated.

Key Points: 
  • Shanghai, China--(Newsfile Corp. - January 4, 2024) - On December 29th, the Cooperation Base of Innovation on Cultural Communication·Shanghai Center, jointly established by the CICG Center for International Cultural Communication and Shanghai University, was officially inaugurated.
  • Hundreds of distinguished guests participated in the event, witnessing the establishment of the base and the launch of the 2024 Global Conference for Reciting Chinese Poetry.
  • The base establishment aims to fulfill the core mission of China International Communications Group to share the Chinese culture globally and promote international exchanges.
  • The 2024 Global Conference for Reciting Chinese Poetry, as the first event after the establishment of the base, invites people from around the world to experience the charm of Chinese poetry, further promoting traditional Chinese culture and building bridges of understanding among people through beautiful poems.

Collaborative Anthology 'WYOMING' Launches Crowdfunding Effort as it Prepares for Publication

Retrieved on: 
Thursday, January 4, 2024

SOMERVILLE, Mass., Jan. 4, 2024 /PRNewswire/ -- WYOMING, a collaborative, nonlinear anthology featuring the fiction and poetry of three dozen authors, has launched a crowdfunding campaign as it prepares to publish both digitally interactive and print formats. To contribute, learn more and help spread the word, readers can visit the WYOMING Kickstarter page.

Key Points: 
  • To contribute, learn more and help spread the word, readers can visit the WYOMING Kickstarter page .
  • Each piece within the anthology was written to in some way "continue the story" of two previous entries, leading to hundreds of branching narratives and choices.
  • To invest in this choose-your-own-adventure experimental anthology and learn what perks come with your giving level, please visit WYOMING's Kickstarter page .
  • It was while serving in that role that the Emerson College theatre and literature grad conceived of the anthology.

15 literary podcasts to make you laugh, learn and join conversations about books

Retrieved on: 
Wednesday, January 3, 2024

But the soaring popularity of podcasts like The Penguin Podcast and NPR’s Book of the Day reveals something more.

Key Points: 
  • But the soaring popularity of podcasts like The Penguin Podcast and NPR’s Book of the Day reveals something more.
  • As writer Tom McCallister points out, while traditional reviews may be in decline, literary podcasts are not just “filling the void”.
  • Like community reviews and the more recent surge of #BookTok and #Bookstagram content on social media, literary podcasts feed the rich social networks that form around books.
  • But literary podcasts invite audiences to engage with books and writing in all kinds of ways.

1. The Garret


If books are divisive, literary podcasts are too. What’s enjoyable for one listener might not work for another. My own listening habits are driven largely by curiosity rather than loyalty: I listen to episodes haphazardly, when a particular guest, topic or title tempts me, dropping down the rabbit hole of whichever book I happen to be reading.

  • That said, I return most often to The Garret, an Australian podcast for “lovers of books and storytelling”.
  • She interviews authors about craft, criticism and some of the stories behind the stories that have found their way to publication.

2. Secrets from the Green Room


Australians are some of the world’s most enthusiastic podcast listeners, so it’s little surprise we produce some of the best bookish podcasts around.
Secrets from the Green Room is dedicated to author stories you “won’t hear anywhere else”. Irma Gold and Karen Viggers publish new episodes every few weeks. They invite guests to candidly share their own experiences navigating the world of publication, landing on topics as varied as ghostwriting, the “creep” of imposter syndrome, and the challenges of teaching writing at university.

3. Read This


The Monthly’s weekly offering, Read This, features interviews with prominent writers from Australia and around the world. Its first episode took host Michael Williams (editor of The Monthly) to Helen Garner’s house for “conversation and cake”. Later guests have included Rebecca Makkai and George Saunders.

4. Beyond the Zero


Beyond the Zero also spotlights new titles through extended conversations with both local and international authors. Each episode is a deep dive into the books and writers that have influenced the guest, so far ranging from Booker winner Paul Lynch to Australian literary authors like Emmett Stinson on Gerald Murnane.

5. The First Time


On The First Time podcast, novelists Katherine Colette and Kate Mildenhall take readers behind the scenes, into the “logistics and feels of writing and publishing a book”. They regularly feature debut authors, as part of their (paid) Featured Book series. There’s also a Masters series, with veteran writers like Richard Flanagan, and episodes that deal with “awkward” conversations, including how book endorsements work.

6 & 7. ABC RN: The Bookshelf and The Book Show

  • On The Bookshelf, Kate Evans and Cassie McCullagh review newly published fiction, alongside guest reviewers, in hour-long episodes broadcast every Friday.
  • This year, The Book Show also ran a fascinating four-part series on literary fakes and frauds, starting with the John Hughes scandal.

8 & 9. The New Yorker: Fiction and Poetry podcasts

  • Each month, the magazine’s fiction editor, Deborah Treisman, invites some of the world’s most celebrated authors to read aloud from another author’s work.
  • (And if you’re a fan of the read-aloud format, you might also enjoy The New Yorker’s Poetry podcast.)

10. Backlisted


Presented by John Mitchinson and Andy Miller, Backlisted solicits a writerly guest to choose a book they love and wax lyrical about why it deserves a wider audience (like Jennifer Egan and Nell Stevens on Elizabeth Gaskell’s North and South). Recently celebrating its 200th episode, Backlisted prides itself on “giving new life to old books” – a refreshing alternative to literary podcasts that focus almost exclusively on recent releases.

11. Overdue

  • Overdue, a podcast “about the books you’ve been meaning to read”, is also sure to add some dog-eared classics to your to-be-read pile.
  • Try the episode about Camus’s The Stranger if – like me – you only pretended to read it in high school.

12. Book Riot


For listeners interested in industry trends, the Book Riot podcast publishes weekly episodes that revolve loosely around “what’s new, cool, and worth talking about in the world of books and reading”. Jeff and Rebecca, who also edit the Book Riot website, serve up a gratifying mix of book-related commentary and news, including reading recommendations, awards chatter and emerging or evolving issues (think book bans and generative AI).

13. If Books Could Kill

  • If Books Could Kill offers a diverting but incisive take on “the airport bestsellers that captured our hearts and ruined our minds”.
  • As a scholar of self-help books, I was primed to regard this podcast with deep suspicion, but the episodes are well researched and thoroughly entertaining.

14. & 15. Reading Glasses and Marlon and Jake Read Dead People

  • Reading Glasses is a podcast about “reading better” that includes an episode on how to get borrowed books back.
  • And in Marlon and Jake Read Dead People, Man Booker Prize winning author Marlon James and his editor, Jake Morrissey, share big opinions on all things books, authors and writing – like our evergreen quandaries around reading good books by terrible people or judging a book by its cover.


Amber Gwynne does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.

House of Gamut Launches with First Anthology and a Free First Issue of the New Gamut eZine!

Retrieved on: 
Monday, January 1, 2024

ROSLINDALE, Mass., Jan. 1, 2024 /PRNewswire-PRWeb/ -- Today, the 501(c)3 non-profit House of Gamut imprint released its first anthology, closing the door on the original 2017 run of Gamut Magazine. Edited by co-founder and Creative Director Richard Thomas, "The Best of Gamut" is available via their shop (houseofgamut.com) and fine book retailers. The anthology features an amazing table of contents filled with dark speculative fiction award-winning talent from around the world, including:

Key Points: 
  • Non-profit House of Gamut goes live with their first anthology and the first issue of the reborn GAMUT MAGAZINE.
  • ROSLINDALE, Mass., Jan. 1, 2024 /PRNewswire-PRWeb/ -- Today, the 501(c)3 non-profit House of Gamut imprint released its first anthology, closing the door on the original 2017 run of Gamut Magazine.
  • Edited by co-founder and Creative Director Richard Thomas, "The Best of Gamut" is available via their shop ( houseofgamut.com ) and fine book retailers.
  • The "Best of Gamut" and the first issue of Gamut magazine are available now.

A worldwide poetry journey: CGTN rings in 2024 with global livestream

Retrieved on: 
Friday, December 29, 2023

This 24-hour event will start at 08:00 GMT (16:00 Beijing Time) with guests in Sydney, Xi'an, Changsha, Almaty, Cairo, Paris and Mexico City.

Key Points: 
  • This 24-hour event will start at 08:00 GMT (16:00 Beijing Time) with guests in Sydney, Xi'an, Changsha, Almaty, Cairo, Paris and Mexico City.
  • Along with anticipating the first dawn of 2024, we will also take pleasure in the city's renowned New Year's Eve fireworks.
  • Meanwhile, viewers can connect with pals online from China and Africa while appreciating the lyrical beauty of poetry.
  • Join us for a captivating poetry feast where individuals from diverse backgrounds come together to express their profound emotions about life.