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China’s new economic ‘dual circulation’ strategy may not just be inward-looking, but also a pivot to Asia Amid a challenging geopolitical environment, it is unsurprising that China is looking to bolster its domestic market, but it is unlikely to completely turn inward While decoupling from the West, it is likely to expand regional cooperation 

Democrats outraged as Trump halts Covid stimulus talks until after election Pelosi: Trump ‘putting himself first at expense of the country’ President later offers to sign off fresh round of stimulus checks

Louise Glück wins the 2020 Nobel prize in literature The Swedish Academy has chosen the American poet, citing her ‘unmistakable poetic voice’  ..... One of America’s leading poets, the 77-year-old writer has won the Pulitzer prize and the National Book Award, tackling themes including childhood and family life, often reworking Greek and Roman myths. ........ comparing her to Emily Dickinson with her “severity and unwillingness to accept simple tenets of faith”. .........  She said the winnings – 10m Swedish kronor (£870,000) – would help her buy a home in Vermont. “But mostly, I am concerned for the preservation of daily life, with people I love … it is disruptive. The phone is ringing now, squeaking into my ear.” ........ “She is a very quotable poet – you can look her up on Instagram,” Clanchy said. “But it’s worth noting that her resonant aphorisms are always spoken by ironised voices – a wild iris, for example. Her poems are austere, difficult, very much alive. I’ve always admired her.” ........... Born in New York City in 1943, Glück grew up on Long Island and attended Columbia University. She has taught poetry in many universities, and is currently an adjunct professor of English at Yale. .......... “you have to live your life if you’re going to do original work”, because “your work will come out of an authentic life, and if you suppress all of your most passionate impulses in the service of an art that has not yet declared itself, you’re making a terrible mistake”. ........ had “no concern with widening audience”, and that she preferred her audience “small, intense, passionate”. ........ “astonished at the justice of the win”. .......... “She’s not a cheerleader. She’s in no way a voice for any cause – she is a human being engaged in the language and in the world. And I think there’s this wonderful sense that she is not polemical, and maybe this is what’s being celebrated. She’s not a person trying to persuade us of anything, but helping us to explore to explore the world we’re living in. She’s a clarifying poet. There doesn’t seem to be much political engagement in her poems. They’re really about the individual human being alive in the world, and in the language.” ......... the prize was moving away from a Eurocentric, male-oriented focus.

Louise Glück: where to start with an extraordinary Nobel winner Poet Fiona Sampson explains why she admires the 2020 Nobel laureate and picks her favourite poems from a long career ......... a quality of lucid, calm attention ......... She has the extraordinary writer’s gift of making clear what is, outside the world of her poem, complex. .......... 

There was 

a peach in a wicker basket. 

There was a bowl of fruit. 

Fifty years. Such a long walk 

from the door to the table.

........ classic Glück, distilling time, beauty, and emotional ambivalence in a single clarifying gesture. ......... Through decades of Anglo-American poetry alternating between over-intellection and misery-memoir confession, Glück has continued to write poetry that is accessible, despite its huge sophistication. ........ She’s neatly shown a path through the canon for everyone who feels themselves excluded by that white male norm we should be past questioning.  ........  

A child draws the outline of a body.
She draws what she can, but it is white all through,
she cannot fill in what she knows is there.
Within the unsupported line, she knows
that life is missing…
........... “Even now this landscape is assembling. /The hills darken. The oxen /sleep” .......... 

and the seeds
distinct, gold, calling
Come here
Come here, little one

.......... “The city rose in a kind of splendour /as all that is wild comes to the surface” .......... “The fundamental experience of the writer is helplessness,” she tells us in th essay Education of a Poet; their life “is dignified, I think, by yearning, not made serene by sensations of achievement. In the actual work, a discipline, a service.”

Essentials

The earth stands
In the middle of nowhere

Suspended in suspension

The fragile tango with the moon

Keeping alive the breath

That utters scripture

Bread.

The vast universe

Extending beyond where light goes

Something out of nothing.

The span of time

But who is measuring

Time that stands still

And time that moves

God's artwork.

The beauty of delight

Of simple gestures of kindness

And love

That capture

The essence.