POETIC NEWS
Third Wellington International Poetry Festival 3 -6 November 2005
FEATURING EVENTS IN 2005: The N.Z launch of the Poetry in Wartime / Voices in War Time Film
Admission Free
Saturday November 5 at 12:15 p.m. Soundings Theatre/Te Papa.
Introduced by Sam Hamill with discussion time after the screening.
This film is a feature-length documentary that uses powerful images and the words of poets (unknown and world-famous) to
help us all understand the experience of war. In addition to the testimony of poets, soldiers, journalists, historians
and experts on combat add diverse perspectives on war's effects on soldiers, civilians and society.
Poet Sam Hamill
Hamill has been in the news recently for his work with "Poets Against the War," whose mission is to "...continue the
tradition of socially engaged poetry by creating venues for poetry as a voice against war, tyranny and oppression."
Hamill is the author of 14 volumes of original poetry including Almost Paradise: Selected Poems & Translations, Dumb Luck, Gratitude, and Destination Zero: Poems 1970-1995. He has also published three collections of
essays, including A Poetís Work, and two dozen volumes translated from ancient Greek, Latin, Estonian, Japanese, and
Chinese, most recently, Tao Te Ching, The Essential Chuang Tzu and The Poetry of Zen (with J.P. Seaton), Narrow Road to
the Interior & Other Writings of Basho, and Crossing the Yellow River: Three Hundred Poems from the Chinese. He is Founding Editor of
Copper Canyon Press, serving as editor from 1972 through 2004. In January 2003, he founded Poets Against War, compiling
the largest single-theme anthology in history, and editing a best-selling selection, Poets Against the War. His work has
been translated into more than a dozen languages.
Hamill has taught in prisons for 14 years, in artist-in-residency programs for 20 years, and has worked extensively with
battered woman and children.
He has been the recipient of fellowships from the National Endowment for the Arts, the Guggenheim Foundation, the
Woodrow Wilson Foundation, the Mellon Fund, the U.S.-Japan Friendship Commission, two Washington Governorís Arts Awards,
the Stanley Lindberg Lifetime Achievement Award for Editing, and the Washington Poets Association Lifetime Achievement
Award for poetry.
ENDS