Prayer
Give us the courage to think for ourselves
to question the authority that lives in us
When blackness befalls the history we make
Don't seduce us to become what we hate most
In the name of the father, the son, and the holocaust.
Month: October 2017
Looking for a web designer
If you have an 'Eye' for the design of Internet websites and have some clear and distinct ideas about how you would redesign the very website you are looking at right now, I'd like to hear from you. I have designed this by myself, so naturally I cannot look at it with the eyes of ...
Profession: poet
I am a poet. Where do I work? In a bank. In a bakery. At a gas station. At a convenient store Or in a flower shop. The people just need me around While they go about their business, I sit in silence I don't say a word but the people know they know a ...
Reading: To Death by Anna Akhmatova
Today I read fragment number 8 from the cycle 'Prologue', called 'To death' by one of the most famous Russian poets of the twentieth century, Anna Akmatova (1889-1966) in a translation by A.S. Kline . Translations of a lot of other Akhmatova poetry is also available on his website. To Death You’ll come regardless – ...
Reading: Tenebrae by Emile Verhaeren
The Belgian poet Emile Verhaeren (1855-1916) was one of the most prominent poets of his day. "His Black Trilogy, Les Soirs (1888), Les Débâcles (1889), and Les Flambeaux Noirs (1889–90) explores the spiritual abandonment of a soul lost in the recesses of its own involution." (Donald Flanell Friedman) I discovered the English translation of a ...
To survive myself I forged you like a weapon,
like an arrow in my bow, a stone in my sling.
(Pablo Neruda)
For Octavio Paz
I read in a poem by Octavio Paz: The word of man is the laughter of death. When I look again it says: The word of man is the daughter of death. We talk because we are mortal: words are not signs, they are years. I close my eyes and smile. Paz is the poet ...
Pop-up human
I am a pop-up human put me anywhere pop me up in the street: exposure guaranteed. Your target group can sample the human brand / all from a temporary stand. I am a pop-up human with traces of life on my face 100% authentic, foldable at the knees trust me, we can talk about the ...
Reading: The Meaning of Simplicity by Yannis Ritsos
Let's do another Ritsos (1909-1990) poem today. I've read 'Injustice' before but felt like more Ritsos. You are looking at a translation by Edmund Keeley here, quoted (not 'reprinted'!) from an anthology of international poetry: The Meaning of Simplicity I hide behind simple things so you'll find me; if you don't find me, you'll find the ...
Reading: Injustice by Yannis Ritsos
Yannis Ritsos (1909-1990) is one of the greatest poets of the twentieth century (according to Luis Aragon, the greatest). Brilliant as his arcane, mythological works (The fourth dimension about the house of Atreus) are, critics consider his shorter poems that transform simple experiences into surrealist insights, his best work. Dicit George Economou: Ritsos "records, at times celebrates, ...
Reading: Under the poplars by Cesar Vallejo
The Peruvian poet Cesar Vallejo (1892-1938) was a very innovative poet who write lines praised for their authenticity. Edith Grossman says, he “created a wrenching poetic language for Spanish that radically altered the shape of its imagery and the nature of its rhythms […] He saw the world in piercing flashes of outrage and anguish, terror and pity
Reading: A Life by Edith Södergran
Edith Södergran (1892-1923) published 5 collections of poetry. She was one of the first modernists of Swedish-language literature. Browsing her poetry, I liked this one, called 'A life'. I read an English translation by Averill Curdy that goes as follows: A life That the stars are adamant everyone understands— but I won’t give up seeking joy ...
Reading: The second Madrigal by Anna Swir
Today my eye fell on Polish poet Anna Swir (Świrszczyńska) (1909-1984). I read the translation by Czeslaw Milosz: The Second Madrigal A night of love exquisite as a concert from old Venice played on exquisite instruments. Healthy as a buttock of a little angel. Wise as an anthill. Garish as air blown into a trumpet. Abundant ...
Great was that chase with the hounds for the unattainable meaning
of the world.
And now I am ready to keep running
When the sun rises beyond the borderlands of death.
- Czesław Miłosz
Message to the future
I risk an early death by sitting down for this so listen: my clavicles move like daggers to write cut-throat poetry for you no jokes. no mirrors. This here is a message you cannot unread. Also, it ages less quickly than we do. When you and I have turned into dust, this thing will be ...
Reading: Via Velasca by Leonardo Sinisgalli
Leonardo Sinisgalli (1908-1981) studied engineering and mathematics before he became a poet, and they appear to call him the "engineer poet". Here is a collection of his poetry in Italian. I found this impressionist poem about a street, in the translation of W.S. di Piero, and I quote: Via Velasca Years of pounding have nearly Caved ...
The Gods are Back
The gods are back, companions. Right now they have just entered this life; but the words that revoke them, whispered underneath the words that reveal them, have also appeared that we might suffer together. - René Char
For though I'm small, I know many things,
and my body is an endless eye
through which, unfortunately, I see everything. - Gloria Fuentes
Reading: I hear that the axe has flowered by Paul Celan
Today, let's dive into a mysterious poem by the great Paul Celan, in a translation by Michael Hamburger. I hear that the axe has flowered I hear that the axe has flowered, I hear that the place can't be named, I hear that the bread which looks at him heals the hanged man, the bread ...
Reading: Female author by Sylvia Plath
An anthology has to have some Plath in it, or so they say. This one convinced me by its metaphorical precision. I would have liked it even if I didn't know the author was Sylvia Plath (1932-1963). All day she plays at chess with the bones of the world: Favored (while suddenly the rains begin ...
Poetry
Poetry is always celebration
or its opposite. Making blackness
the word for everything:
A symbol, a sound,
To fill us
and to fill the tombs in our midst.
Reading: St. Sava’s Journey by Vasko Popa
The following poem by Serbian poet Vasko Popa (1922-1991) in the translation of Anne Paddington, did impress me. St. Sava's Journey He journeys over the dark land With his staff he cuts The dark beyond him into four He flings thick gloves Changed into immense cats At the grey army of mice Amid the storm ...
Reading: Meeting by Marina Tsvetsaeva
Marina Tsvetsaeva (1892-1941) I read Meeting in an English translation by Ilya Shambat who prepared it for the 110th anniversary of her birth in 2002. Meeting Evening dimmed, like ourselves charmed With this first warmth of the spring. Stirring alive, Arbat was alarmed; With sympathetic tenderness, the kind Gale touched us with a tired wing. ...