Letter in response to Ben Downings review of Daisy Hays Young Romantics.

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SAN DIEGO (AP) – Kenneth Branagh is directing “Thor” for Marvel Studios, and some think it’s a stretch for him to take on a superhero movie. He’s more Shakespearean, having adapted several of the Bard’s films for the big screen. But the 49-year-old actor-director says Shakespeare’s characters aren’t unlike today’s superheroes. Shakespeare …

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HANSEL AND GRETEL *** BYRE THEATRE, ST ANDREWS

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WHEN David Benson began writing a play about the Lockerbie bombing, he had no idea the issue was about to erupt once again.

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Zach Braff follows Scrubs with a dream job Off Broadway, in Paul Weitzs new play, Trust, at the Second Stage Theater.

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Volunteers are hoping to take on the running of a cinema and theatre in Pembrokeshire to keep it open.

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The event, which attracted more than 920,000 people this year, is a raucous commercial affair that is extending its offerings to include more international authors and more English-language material.

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Booker prize longlist of 13 ignores Amis, McEwan and Rushdie for novels characterised by humour and storytelling What do you think of the Booker longlist’ Martin Amis may be getting heartily sick of people mentioning he’s never won the Man Booker. But the wait goes on, after his novel The Pregnant Widow along with books from Salman Rushdie and Ian McEwan today became the most surprising …

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What’s Your Reaction’ George Orwell never thought that his work would outlive him by much. After all, he considered himself “a sort of pamphleteer” rather than a genuine novelist. Yet sixty years later, Orwell endures, and I am not sure that this is a good thing.

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Australian authors Peter Carey and Christos Tsiolkas have been nominated for the prestigious Man Booker Prize for Fiction.

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One of the most accomplished poets of his generation, Iwan Llwyd explored all the media through which he might find a wider audience for his poetry, including radio and television, as well as public readings and musical performances in his native Wales and the Americas. He was particularly fond of marrying word and image, often in collaboration with artists such as Iwan Bala, Catrin Williams and …

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The 50th annual book fair at the Mark Twain Library is set for September, and although the venue has changed and the quantities of donated books vary — one thing remains the same: People power makes the enormous operation a success.

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SURGE FESTIVAL *** VARIOUS VENUES, GLASGOW

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A new biography by English professor Bob White examines the role that the study of medicine played in John Keats’ life and poetry–a subject most Keats biographers “gloss over.”

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Joan Bakewell takes in a performance of Romeo and Juliet, but instead of love struck teenagers- the story centres around pensioners.

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MISTY Tindall is on her way to playing a key part in the RSC musical Matilda after winning the part of Lavender. Misty, 11, a pupil at Aboyne Lodge School, St Albans, who has spent six years with Best Theatre Arts, had to attend audition after audition as part of a nationwide hunt.

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For a half-century, people have been donating their time to organize and sell books to raise money for the Mark Twain Library.

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On the night that Obama was elected as President of the United States, I was reminded of the end of Sam Selvon’s novel, The Lonely Londoners. Moses, one of the first wave of post-Windrush Jamaicans in London, is standing on the banks of the Thames, wondering “if he should save up his money and go back home”. “Under the kiff-kaff laughter,” he muses, “behind the ballad and the episode, the what …

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The Wylie Agency has signed a deal to bring the e-book editions of 20 classic titles, including Vladimir Nabokovs Lolita and Ralph Ellisons Invisible Man , exclusively to Amazon s Kindle Store for two years, the company announced Thursday. Publishers were,

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The state’s highest court on Friday rejected an appeal filed by a convicted killer who escaped from a Massachusetts jail and spent 20 years as an activist and poet in Illinois before being sent …

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Music: I loathe jazz. I listen to Radio 4 religiously; where I live in London is terribly noisy so I have it on all night and it keeps me fast asleep. I’ve been listening recently to Declan O’Rourke, who is fantastic.

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Weve just added some issues of Oxford Poetry magazine to our free access poetry magazine archive at www.poetrymagazines.org.uk .

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Pocket book in which poet denounced the Western Front carnage in A Soldier’s Declaration to be exhibited with manuscripts, sketches and diary The tiny black notebook in which the poet Siegfried Sassoon wrote his Soldier’s Declaration, a shout of rage against the first world war which could have cost his career or even his life when it was read aloud in parliament, goes on display for the first …

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A TREASURE trove of journals, manuscripts and letters belonging to a celebrated war poet sent to an Edinburgh military hospital when he refused to serve any longer has gone on

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If nothing is enough, why have any more’ The difficulty is that nothing cannot be achieved. We might well be satisfied with nothing, but we can’t get hold of it. Everything is something. Every gesture, however we strive to empty it, is loaded. The aim of minimalism in a universe of loaded gestures is to arrive at the emptiest possible gesture. A minimalist masterpiece is a gesture that …

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A TREASURE trove of journals, manuscripts and letters belonging to a celebrated war poet sent to an Edinburgh military hospital when he refused to serve any longer has gone on

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In Anne Carson and Rashaun Mitchells collaboration Bracko and Nox, performed on Tuesday in Boston, different kinds of poetry become layered upon one another.

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A former soldier turned playwright is on the longlist for a £30,000 Dylan Thomas literary award for young writers.

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The Glass Room, At Home and Sissinghurst The Glass Room , by Simon Mawer, read by Jefferson Mays (15hrs unabridged, Whole Story Audio, £24.99) Manderley, Brideshead, Cold Comfort Farm houses that feature as the central character in novels have their own distinctive place in literature. The Landauer House, built in Czechoslovakia in the 1930s, has a vast, glass-walled living area suspended …

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Irish poet Seamus Heaney is is among six poets on the shortlist for the 19th Forward Prize for Poetry worth £10,000.

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Khidr Suleman, V3.co.uk , Tuesday 20 July 2010 at 16:34:00 Device takes on the iPad with ability to play audio and video Sharp has announced plans to develop an e-book reader that will allow users to view audio and video content in much the same way as Apple’s iPad. The device will run the latest version of the Japanese firm’s ever-eXtending Mobile Document Format (XMDF). “The next-generation …

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Are you a budding Poet Laureate’ Would you like to try your hand with a poem about place to The John Betjeman Poetry Competition open to 11-14 year olds’ The first prize is £1,000, (£500 to the winner and £500 to the English department of their school).

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On a warm summer’s evening can there be a more satisfying blend of words and music than the jazz and poetry dished up at this year’s Jazz Cafe’ And what a high quality blend. Sax in the City’s vibrant sounds welcomed the audience.

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The British author of a book about Singapore’s use of the death penalty is freed on bail pending trial for defamation.

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The Bega Valley Shire Council in South East New South Wales is being urged to consider an historic theatre on Bega’s main street as a new performing arts space for the region.

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Final call for entries to the John Betjeman Young People’s Poetry Competition: Are you a budding Poet Laureate’ Would you like to try your hand with a poem about place to The John Betjeman Poetry Competition open to 11-14 year olds’

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BENNINGTON, Vt. (AP) A student poetry workshop to be held at a Robert Frost museum in Vermont has ended as “The Program Not Taken,” after only one person enrolled.

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A British author promoting his book on the death penalty in Singapore was arrested there on Sunday for alleged criminal defamation.

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Yevgeny Yevtushenko, Russia’s most renowned living poet, has given his house along with an extensive art collection to the state as a museum.

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A BLIND boy who suffers from major health problems has won an award for his poetry, which he writes by blinking to choose words and syllables.

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A London Macbeth for ages 6 and up adds singalongs while showing a severed head.

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Some of the residents of Shenval who have forced SSE to look again at the siting of its work camp. Gary Anthony AN energy giant is being forced to rethink plans to site a large industrial compound and camp in a scenic Inverness-shire hamlet for the construction of the Beauly to Denny power line.

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Music can be a powerful influence. It affects us emotionally, physically, mentally and, as vibrations, even moves us at a molecular level. Many writers employ music in their novels as a way of communicating emotions beyond words, or to encourage consistency in character, tone, and language. Music in fiction can create the mood of a time like John Updike’s Rabbit Run , set in the late 1950s, or …

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Music can be a powerful influence

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The Instant Shakespeare Company presents Shakespeare, the text. Never mind the sets or costumes.

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NEW YORK Just a year ago, there were very few electronic book readers available, and Amazon.com’s Kindle dominated the field. Now, there are Barnes and Noble’s Nook, Sony’s Readers and Borders Group’s Kobo e-reader not to mention Apple Inc.’s iPad, …

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Theatre may not return to the Hackney Empire stage until at least 2011, the Gazette has learned. The Mare Street theatre, which reopened in recent weeks after financial woes closed its doors in February, may not see drama back on the programme for another Read more >

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As sales of e-books on various platforms continue to rise — Publisher’s Weekly reported a 176% increase over the past year — poetry appears to be getting lost in the shuffle.

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Theatre may not return to the Hackney Empire stage until at least 2011, the Gazette has learned. The Mare Street theatre, which reopened in recent weeks after financial woes closed its doors in February, may not see drama back on the programme for another Read more >

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What’s Your Reaction’ NEW YORK Billy Collins, one of the country’s most popular poets, had never seen his work in e-book form until he recently downloaded his latest collection on his Kindle.

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