By way of example, the term can serve in practical usage in such ways as these:
"The Brazilian Afric population is the largest in the Western Hemisphere, but Caribbean Afric peoples are probably the most widely distributed, while American Afric people are the most politically noticed."
"The steel band and jazz are outstanding Afric additions to world music."
"Pele, Colin Powell, and Derek Walcott are three outstanding Africs in today's world."
"Paul Boateng is the first ever Afric to be appointed to the British Cabinet."
"Barack Hussein Obama is the first unquestionably Afric president of the United States of America."
[continue there...]
30 January 2009
29 January 2009
28 January 2009
Philp's "Ode to Eurydice"
He'd made the boast to the heavens
he'd brave the tortures of Hades,
if need be, to win Eurydice back.
So, the gods, ever obliging,
set a snake in Eurydice's path...
[continue there...]
he'd brave the tortures of Hades,
if need be, to win Eurydice back.
So, the gods, ever obliging,
set a snake in Eurydice's path...
[continue there...]
NB: There are three poems in all there.
John Updike: RIP
Renowned US novelist John Updike has died at the age of 76, his publisher has announced. He had been suffering from lung cancer.
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27 January 2009
Quote: Barack Obama
My job to the Muslim world is to communicate that the Americans are not your enemy.
~President Barack Obama, speaking on Arabic cable TV network al-Arabiya
~President Barack Obama, speaking on Arabic cable TV network al-Arabiya
[source...]
Yvette Holt
Award winning Black Australian poet, Yvette Holt talks to Lesley Woodburn about her life and love of words.
Yvette Holt is a descendant of the Bidjara and Wakaman Nations of Queensland the youngest of four, Yvette says she "is more of the twisted branch on the family tree. Always one in the family, I am the radical in a lovingly conservative family". Yvette still lives in the Brisbane suburb of Inala 4077.
[continue there...]
Yvette Holt is a descendant of the Bidjara and Wakaman Nations of Queensland the youngest of four, Yvette says she "is more of the twisted branch on the family tree. Always one in the family, I am the radical in a lovingly conservative family". Yvette still lives in the Brisbane suburb of Inala 4077.
[continue there...]
26 January 2009
American Sentence: "Gender and/or Colour"
If you haven't yet met God, then I think you oughtta know that she's black.
~seen on a T-shirt in London
~seen on a T-shirt in London
24 January 2009
Gabeba Baderoon's "Breath"
Language is breath,
is touch, is spit,
is the silence before speaking.
Russian
A woman learning Russian describes
the new inclination of her head,
her chest, her hands,
the tightening of her upper lip
like bee stings around the mouth,
the muscular changes in her tongue
an invasion from the inside.
Arabic
I teach you to say the first letter of my name,
a sound between g and h,
for which there is no letter in English.
Breathe in,
take a sip of water,
breathe out.
The sound of breath leaving the throat
is the start of my name.
(from A Hundred Silences, Cape Town, Kwela/Snailpress, 2006.)
Gabeba Baderoon is the author of 'The Dream in the Next Body' (2005) and 'A Hundred Silences' (2006). She is the recipient of the Daimler Award for South African Poetry 2005 and was the TrustAfrica Writer in Residence at the University of Witwatersrand in 2008. Please visit her site for more of her work.
This poem also appeared in the Winter 2008 issue of Canopic Jar
23 January 2009
Brutus's "Amerika" and a quote
"After throwing a shoe at the US Consulate in Durban today to wish the Bush regime good riddance, I remind myself that this sentiment of disgust has occurred repeatedly. In 1987, it was Reagan in the White House, tomorrow it will be Obama, but the problem is not the person, it is the system."
~Dennis Brutus
~Dennis Brutus
AMERIKA
Wraiths are racing down Fifth Avenue
over ice-crystals ignited by streetlights:
spectres fleeing vainly their grisly deaths
and premonitions of the undead
doomed to be struck down tomorrow:
Amerika, Amerika, where will you find compassion?
February 8, 1987
[source...]
1st African American from my Alma Mater
William H. Franklin was the first African-American to graduate from Maryville College [Ed: my alma mater, in East Tennessee]. He earned a bachelor’s degree in 1880 and went on to earn a divinity degree from Lane Theological Seminary in 1883. He founded Swift Memorial Institute, a school for African-American youth, in Rogersville, Tenn.
22 January 2009
Bicycles
"I'm very proud of this book -- it's the one that makes me smile," Giovanni said last week. "There has been a lot of loss. I am a writer. I write my way through it."
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Alexander's "Praise Song for the Day"
Each day we go about our business, walking past each other, catching each others’ eyes or not, about to speak or speaking. All about us is noise. All about us is noise and bramble, thorn and din, each one of our ancestors on our tongues. Someone is stitching up a hem, darning a hole in a uniform, patching a tire, repairing the things in need of repair.
Someone is trying to make music somewhere with a pair of wooden spoons on an oil drum with cello, boom box, harmonica, voice.
A woman and her son wait for the bus.
A farmer consider the changing sky; A teacher says, "Take out your pencils. Begin."
We encounter each other in words, Words spiny or smooth, whispered or declaimed; Words to consider, reconsider.
We cross dirt roads and highways that mark the will of someone and then others who said, "I need to see what's on the other side; I know there's something better down the road."
We need to find a place where we are safe; We walk into that which we cannot yet see.
Say it plain, that many have died for this day. Sing the names of the dead who brought us here, who laid the train tracks, raised the bridges, picked the cotton and the lettuce, built brick by brick the glittering edifices they would then keep clean and work inside of.
Praise song for struggle; praise song for the day. Praise song for every hand-lettered sign; The figuring it out at kitchen tables.
Some live by, "Love thy neighbor as thy self."
Others by, "First do no harm," or, "Take no more than you need."
What if the mightiest word is love, love beyond marital, filial, national. Love that casts a widening pool of light. Love with no need to preempt grievance.
In today's sharp sparkle, this winter air, anything can be made, any sentence begun.
On the brink, on the brim, on the cusp -- praise song for walking forward in that light.
[source...]
Some reactions:
Someone is trying to make music somewhere with a pair of wooden spoons on an oil drum with cello, boom box, harmonica, voice.
A woman and her son wait for the bus.
A farmer consider the changing sky; A teacher says, "Take out your pencils. Begin."
We encounter each other in words, Words spiny or smooth, whispered or declaimed; Words to consider, reconsider.
We cross dirt roads and highways that mark the will of someone and then others who said, "I need to see what's on the other side; I know there's something better down the road."
We need to find a place where we are safe; We walk into that which we cannot yet see.
Say it plain, that many have died for this day. Sing the names of the dead who brought us here, who laid the train tracks, raised the bridges, picked the cotton and the lettuce, built brick by brick the glittering edifices they would then keep clean and work inside of.
Praise song for struggle; praise song for the day. Praise song for every hand-lettered sign; The figuring it out at kitchen tables.
Some live by, "Love thy neighbor as thy self."
Others by, "First do no harm," or, "Take no more than you need."
What if the mightiest word is love, love beyond marital, filial, national. Love that casts a widening pool of light. Love with no need to preempt grievance.
In today's sharp sparkle, this winter air, anything can be made, any sentence begun.
On the brink, on the brim, on the cusp -- praise song for walking forward in that light.
[source...]
Some reactions:
21 January 2009
Quote: George W. Bush
"When I go home tonight and I look into the mirror, I'm not going to regret what I see."
~George W. Bush, speaking to a crowd of supporters in Midland, Texas following President Obama's inauguration
[source...]
~George W. Bush, speaking to a crowd of supporters in Midland, Texas following President Obama's inauguration
[source...]
Quote: A musician friend of Rethabile's
"You don't have enough time? Then give to the world the poetry you can write in the time you have."
~A musician friend of Rethabile's
~A musician friend of Rethabile's
20 January 2009
The Inauguration poem
Visit msnbc.com for Breaking News, World News, and News about the Economy
----------
Nicked from Poetmom
Barack Superman?
Playwright Wajahat Ali has compared Barack Obama to Superman. He has a point. On his way to the White House, Obama shattered a whole bunch of stereotypes and cliches about black life and, like a cool man of steel, deflected the outpouring of racist bile aimed at him. (My favorite was a banner put up by the Republican Party in New Jersey: "Obama loves America like O.J. loved Nicole.") Maybe young people will learn from his campaign that words and a cool demeanor can be as effective as an Uzi. Don't riot, get a blog.
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Quincy Jones is right
The United States is one of the few Western countries which does not have a secretary of the arts, something which music producer Quincy Jones aims to change by begging Obama to create such a cabinet post.
"I have traveled all over the world all the time for 54 years. The people abroad know more about our culture than we do," Jones told the Washington Post on Wednesday.
"A month ago at my high school in Seattle, I asked a student if he knew who Louis Armstrong was. He said he had heard his name. I asked him about Duke Ellington and John Coltrane. He didn’t even know their names. That hurts me a lot."
By Friday 122,439 people had signed an online petition triggered by Jones’s plea to the incoming poet president.
[continue there...]
"I have traveled all over the world all the time for 54 years. The people abroad know more about our culture than we do," Jones told the Washington Post on Wednesday.
"A month ago at my high school in Seattle, I asked a student if he knew who Louis Armstrong was. He said he had heard his name. I asked him about Duke Ellington and John Coltrane. He didn’t even know their names. That hurts me a lot."
By Friday 122,439 people had signed an online petition triggered by Jones’s plea to the incoming poet president.
[continue there...]
19 January 2009
18 January 2009
What's inauguration poet Alexander reading?
As you've been preparing, what poets have been on your mind?
So many of the great poets from the ages — Yeats, Auden, Robert Hayden. Walt Whitman has been on my mind a great deal with his expressions of the power of diversity found with Americans and how such diversity makes this an incredibly rich nation. There's also Gwendolyn Brooks, whose work serves the present occasion well. She's from the very community that Obama came out of.
So many of the great poets from the ages — Yeats, Auden, Robert Hayden. Walt Whitman has been on my mind a great deal with his expressions of the power of diversity found with Americans and how such diversity makes this an incredibly rich nation. There's also Gwendolyn Brooks, whose work serves the present occasion well. She's from the very community that Obama came out of.
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Orbis open mic
Wednesday 21st @ 8pm
DEAD GOOD POETS SOCIETY GUEST NIGHT
Celebrating Orbis 145 – Special Liverpool and Culture Edition
Open Floor, readers welcome:
first come, first to book a spot
Readings from contributors
Dinesh Allirajah, Carole Baldock, Mandy Coe, Gladys Mary Coles,
Lizzy Dening, Pat Fearon, Rebecca Goss, Colin Harris, Ade Jackson,
Aileen La Tourette, Sarah Maclennan, Janine Pinion, Pauline Rowe,
Colin Salmon, Paul Sutherland, Colin Watts.
The 3rd Room, Everyman Bistro, Hope Street, Liverpool. £3 / £2
DEAD GOOD POETS SOCIETY GUEST NIGHT
Celebrating Orbis 145 – Special Liverpool and Culture Edition
Open Floor, readers welcome:
first come, first to book a spot
Readings from contributors
Dinesh Allirajah, Carole Baldock, Mandy Coe, Gladys Mary Coles,
Lizzy Dening, Pat Fearon, Rebecca Goss, Colin Harris, Ade Jackson,
Aileen La Tourette, Sarah Maclennan, Janine Pinion, Pauline Rowe,
Colin Salmon, Paul Sutherland, Colin Watts.
The 3rd Room, Everyman Bistro, Hope Street, Liverpool. £3 / £2
The colours in Komunyakaa's dreams
In a colourful article laced with concrete situations, Yusef Komunyakaa considers skin colour and Mr Obama's election in today's United States of America. He begins with when he 'sealed the envelope and dropped [his] absentee ballot into the mail slot at the post office, then wondered if a majority of other citizens would also cast their votes on Nov. 4 to elect Sen. Barack Obama as the 44th president of the United States.' And goes on from there. Here's an excerpt:
"Son, do you ever smile?"
"I smile at school when I play baseball," I said.
"You miss your mama, doncha?"
"I miss my brothers and sister."
"Do you miss her?"
"Yes, sir."
"You see, that ain't so hard to say, is it?"
"No, sir."
"Look me in the eyes, son."
I gazed into his eyes. There was almost something like a sad smile behind his eyes.
"Good."
"Yes, sir."
"Look a man in the eyes. Especially a white man. Always look him in the eyes."
"Yes, sir."
"Something else."
We held each other's gaze. He drew the words out of himself.
"Never work -- for no man -- who can't treat you with respect."[continue there...]
17 January 2009
A six-line comma-less sentence in the passive voice
My computer suddenly becomes a space for conversing and company, as opposed to a great ball and chain that sucks all the social oxygen out of life. Whenever I think I’ll scream if I see one more six-line comma-less sentence in the passive voice, I can find a fascinating post or a sympathetic ear out there on Book SA. Or I can ROFL, thanks largely to Richard (de Nooy), Louis (Greenberg), Rustum (Kozain) and Sven (Eick). Writing is lonely work,and the kind of editing I often do is even lonelier, a form of ghosting that literally erases me.
[source...]
[source...]
Your own inaugural poem?
SALEM - Gulu-Gulu Café will hold an Inauguration Day poetry reading
Tuesday, Jan. 20, 7-9 p.m., at 247 Essex St.
Celebrate the inauguration of President Barack Obama with poetry. Bring an 'inaugural' poem — an original poem inspired by our new president, the presidential election or politics in general — to read at this open mic. Poets should sign up early. There will be 20 slots and each poet can read for three minutes.
The event is hosted by January O’Neil; learn more about her at http://poetmom.blogspot.com.
For information on Gulu-Gulu, visit www.gulu-gulu.com or call 978-740-8882.
Celebrate the inauguration of President Barack Obama with poetry. Bring an 'inaugural' poem — an original poem inspired by our new president, the presidential election or politics in general — to read at this open mic. Poets should sign up early. There will be 20 slots and each poet can read for three minutes.
The event is hosted by January O’Neil; learn more about her at http://poetmom.blogspot.com.
For information on Gulu-Gulu, visit www.gulu-gulu.com or call 978-740-8882.
[source...]
16 January 2009
Jésû
Jésû walked
into a chapel
from the street
and saw them
swinging smoke,
burning wax in
his name, there
on each side of
a large garland
donated by
a fat lady.
From his waist
he pulled a rope,
folded it in two
and flogged them,
knocked money-boxes
over to get him
some of the choir
members, too, and
the white-dressed
boys, and the curate
in purple garb,
and the guy who,
for it's a guy,
sits on a gold
throne some
where near Rome.
© Rethabile Masilo
into a chapel
from the street
and saw them
swinging smoke,
burning wax in
his name, there
on each side of
a large garland
donated by
a fat lady.
From his waist
he pulled a rope,
folded it in two
and flogged them,
knocked money-boxes
over to get him
some of the choir
members, too, and
the white-dressed
boys, and the curate
in purple garb,
and the guy who,
for it's a guy,
sits on a gold
throne some
where near Rome.
© Rethabile Masilo
Komunyakaa's "You and I are Disappearing"
The cry I bring down from the hills
belongs to a girl still burning
inside my head. At daybreak she burns like a piece of paper.
She burns like foxfire
in a thigh-shaped valley.
A skirt of flames
dances around her
at dusk.
We stand with our hands hanging at our sides,
while she burns
like a sack of dry ice. She burns like oil on water.
She burns like a cattail torch
dipped in gasoline.
She glows like the fat tip
of a banker’s cigar,
silent as quicksilver. A tiger under a rainbow
at nightfall.
She burns like a shot glass of vodka.
She burns like a field of poppies
at the edge of a rain forest.
She rises like dragonsmoke
to my nostrils.
She burns like a burning bush
driven by a godawful wind.
© Komunyakaa
[source...]
belongs to a girl still burning
inside my head. At daybreak she burns like a piece of paper.
She burns like foxfire
in a thigh-shaped valley.
A skirt of flames
dances around her
at dusk.
We stand with our hands hanging at our sides,
while she burns
like a sack of dry ice. She burns like oil on water.
She burns like a cattail torch
dipped in gasoline.
She glows like the fat tip
of a banker’s cigar,
silent as quicksilver. A tiger under a rainbow
at nightfall.
She burns like a shot glass of vodka.
She burns like a field of poppies
at the edge of a rain forest.
She rises like dragonsmoke
to my nostrils.
She burns like a burning bush
driven by a godawful wind.
© Komunyakaa
[source...]
New Jayne Cortez book?
Jayne Cortez is so in the air here. Her new book is out or coming soon from Steve Cannon's Fly by Night Press over at Gathering of the Tribes. Jayne herself lives part of the year in Dakar.
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15 January 2009
Who's Your Daddy?
Anyone who has read Barack Obama's Dreams from My Father understands the ache of a fatherless boy to discover the missing part of his life, the lost biological and psychological part of the equation that will help him to figure out what part he inherited and what makes him an individual. The stories in Who's Your Daddy?: And Other Stories are about boys like these from Jamaica, the Caribbean, and Miami.
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14 January 2009
Quote: Oscar Wilde
This morning I took out a comma, and this afternoon I put it back again.
~~Oscar Wilde
~~Oscar Wilde
Poems for the inauguration of Obama
LAUNCH (by Billy Collins)
A boat is sliding into the water today
to test the water and the boat
which glides down a grassy bank
the prow touching the wavelets
then another push
and the length of it up and buoyant
the tapered length of it floating
toward the middle on its own
as we watch from the shore
pointing to the heavy clouds coming in
[continue there...]
**********
THE LAND WAS NEVER OURS (by Julia Alvarez)
The land was never ours, nor we the land's:
no, not in Selma, with the hose turned on,
nor in the valley picking the alien vines.
Nor was it ours in Watts, Montgomery-
no matter what the frosty poet said.
We heard the crack of whips, the mothers' moans
in anthems like an undertow of grief.
The land was never ours but we believed
a King's dream might some day become a deed
[continue there...]
**********
And many more, without forgetting Walcott's, though.
A boat is sliding into the water today
to test the water and the boat
which glides down a grassy bank
the prow touching the wavelets
then another push
and the length of it up and buoyant
the tapered length of it floating
toward the middle on its own
as we watch from the shore
pointing to the heavy clouds coming in
[continue there...]
**********
THE LAND WAS NEVER OURS (by Julia Alvarez)
The land was never ours, nor we the land's:
no, not in Selma, with the hose turned on,
nor in the valley picking the alien vines.
Nor was it ours in Watts, Montgomery-
no matter what the frosty poet said.
We heard the crack of whips, the mothers' moans
in anthems like an undertow of grief.
The land was never ours but we believed
a King's dream might some day become a deed
[continue there...]
**********
And many more, without forgetting Walcott's, though.
Odes to Obama, an article about these poems.
13 January 2009
American Sentence: "Getting up"
On sand-filled mattress we leave ourselves imprinted, and we rise like souls.
12 January 2009
Amplifying the voices of black women
Through years of writing and a dedication to poetry, Waltham-based artist and "recovering journalist" Joyce Jellison has found freedom, passion and an unvarnished voice. Now, through her Write Out Loud workshops, her mission is to work to help other black women find their own unique way of expressing themselves.
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11 January 2009
Another Paton fan
A congregant gave me his paperback copy of Alan Paton's Cry the Beloved Country, a book that has been on my "to-read" list forever. I immediately read it and was amazed by Paton's simple, yet expressive prose.
[source...]
[source...]
10 January 2009
The house that words built
http://zimbabwe.poetryinternationalweb.org/piw_cms/cms/cms_module/index.php?obj_id=11660
A House of Hunger. Hungry for freedom. Hungry to be heard. Hungry to fill the room with words. This is the House that we, as poets and spoken word activists, built two and a half years ago. Today, The House of Hunger Poetry Slam, Zimbabwe’s first poetry slam, has grown from a handful of poets performing to each other to a cult event overflowing with performers and audience members alike.
[continue there...]
A House of Hunger. Hungry for freedom. Hungry to be heard. Hungry to fill the room with words. This is the House that we, as poets and spoken word activists, built two and a half years ago. Today, The House of Hunger Poetry Slam, Zimbabwe’s first poetry slam, has grown from a handful of poets performing to each other to a cult event overflowing with performers and audience members alike.
[continue there...]
9 January 2009
Canopic Jar #22 is out!
Dear artists, friends, family,
Phil and I are proud to announce the arrival of Canopic Jar #22. It features
poetry by
arleneAng, coreyMesler [from our archives], gabebaBaderoon, isobelDixon, johnMcCullough, kayMckenzieCooke, leeAnnPickrell, leeStern, matthewGillis, michelleMcgrane, myeshaJenkins, patrickSullivan, phillippaYaaDeVilliers, rethabileMasilo, roseDewyKnickers, ruthSabathRosenthal, santiagoDelDardanoTurann,
prose by
amandaLawrenceAuverigne, ashHibbert, billGreen, liamLeddy, pollyTuckett, rickNesSmith, tomSheehan [from our archives], williamAlexander,
and visual artwork by
didiMenendez, sarahHastyWilliams [from our archives].
We'd like to thank the artists, new and regular, and encourage you all to continue submitting. This issue is the first one to have a comment section. The idea is to see how we can communicate better and more artistically. The comment section is Facebook enabled, so logging on to comment can be done with FB username and password.
There's a new page in this issue, the contributor's page. It shows the names of those who have had work admitted in The Jar, from the first issue to that before the current one. Please remember to submit (scroll down for English).
We would like to wish everyone a happy New Year, filled with art and prosperity; and no war, please.
In the meantime, the fun's this way: http://canopicjar.com
Best
Phil and I are proud to announce the arrival of Canopic Jar #22. It features
poetry by
arleneAng, coreyMesler [from our archives], gabebaBaderoon, isobelDixon, johnMcCullough, kayMckenzieCooke, leeAnnPickrell, leeStern, matthewGillis, michelleMcgrane, myeshaJenkins, patrickSullivan, phillippaYaaDeVilliers, rethabileMasilo, roseDewyKnickers, ruthSabathRosenthal, santiagoDelDardanoTurann,
prose by
amandaLawrenceAuverigne, ashHibbert, billGreen, liamLeddy, pollyTuckett, rickNesSmith, tomSheehan [from our archives], williamAlexander,
and visual artwork by
didiMenendez, sarahHastyWilliams [from our archives].
We'd like to thank the artists, new and regular, and encourage you all to continue submitting. This issue is the first one to have a comment section. The idea is to see how we can communicate better and more artistically. The comment section is Facebook enabled, so logging on to comment can be done with FB username and password.
There's a new page in this issue, the contributor's page. It shows the names of those who have had work admitted in The Jar, from the first issue to that before the current one. Please remember to submit (scroll down for English).
We would like to wish everyone a happy New Year, filled with art and prosperity; and no war, please.
In the meantime, the fun's this way: http://canopicjar.com
Best
Will people stop writing?
John Baker has an interesting post about how some "are worried about the publishing industry failing to adapt to the digital age," and therefore dying out. Do you think writing will stop?
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8 January 2009
South African literature in English
The beginning of modern South African literature in English may be dated through the combination of four specific publications: Alan Paton's Cry, the Beloved Country in 1948, which inaugurated a tradition of protest in white English-speaking South African writing; Herman Charles Bosman's Mafeking Road (1947), with its use of Afrikaans storytelling traditions and its sharp, home-grown humour; Nadine Gordimer's Face to Face (1949), which marked the start of her lifelong focus on white consciousness (her later work would measure itself against Paton's liberal protest); and then, before all this, H. I. E. Dhlomo's essay "African Attitudes to the European" (1945), which not only heralded a transition to modern themes and settings in his own plays and short stories but also defined "the new African" as a modern, urban figure opposed to European versions of the African past.
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6 January 2009
The Guardian's top 100 books
Chinua Achebe, Nigeria, Things Fall Apart
Hans Christian Andersen, Denmark, Fairy Tales and Stories
Jane Austen, England, Pride and Prejudice
Honore de Balzac, France, Old Goriot
Samuel Beckett, Ireland, Trilogy: Molloy, Malone Dies, The Unnamable
Giovanni Boccaccio, Italy, Decameron
Jorge Luis Borges, Argentina, Collected Fictions
Emily Bronte, England, Wuthering Heights
Albert Camus, France, The Stranger
Paul Celan, Romania/France, Poems
Louis-Ferdinand Celine, France, Journey to the End of the Night
Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra, Spain, Don Quixote
Geoffrey Chaucer, England, Canterbury Tales
Anton P Chekhov, Russia, Selected Stories
Joseph Conrad, England, Nostromo
Dante Alighieri, Italy, The Divine Comedy
Charles Dickens, England, Great Expectations
Denis Diderot, France, Jacques the Fatalist and His Master
Alfred Doblin, Germany, Berlin Alexanderplatz
Fyodor M Dostoyevsky, Russia, Crime and Punishment
Fyodor M Dostoyevsky, Russia, The Idiot
Fyodor M Dostoyevsky, Russia, The Possessed
Fyodor M Dostoyevsky, Russia, The Brothers Karamazov
George Eliot, England, Middlemarch
Ralph Ellison, United States, Invisible Man
Euripides, Greece, Medea
William Faulkner, United States, Absalom, Absalom
William Faulkner, United States, The Sound and the Fury
Gustave Flaubert, France, Madame Bovary
Gustave Flaubert, France, A Sentimental Education
Federico Garcia Lorca, Spain, Gypsy Ballads
Gabriel Garcia Marquez, Colombia, One Hundred Years of Solitude
Gabriel Garcia Marquez, Colombia, Love in the Time of Cholera
Gilgamesh, Mesopotamia
Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, Germany, Faust
Nikolai Gogol, Russia, Dead Souls
Gunter Grass, Germany, The Tin Drum
Joao Guimaraes Rosa, Brazil, The Devil to Pay in the Backlands
Knut Hamsun, Norway, Hunger
Ernest Hemingway, United States, The Old Man and the Sea
Homer, Greece, The Iliad
Homer, Greece, The Odyssey
Henrik Ibsen, Norway, A Doll's House
The Book of Job, Israel
James Joyce, Ireland, Ulysses
Franz Kafka, Bohemia, The Complete Stories
Franz Kafka, Bohemia, The Trial
Franz Kafka, Bohemia, The Castle Bohemia
Kalidasa, India, The Recognition of Sakuntala
Yasunari Kawabata, Japan, The Sound of the Mountain
Nikos Kazantzakis, Greece, Zorba the Greek
DH Lawrence, England, Sons and Lovers
Halidor K Laxness, Iceland, Independent People
Giacomo Leopardi, Italy, Complete Poems
Doris Lessing, England, The Golden Notebook
Astrid Lindgren, Sweden, Pippi Longstocking
Lu Xun, China, Diary of a Madman and Other Stories
Mahabharata, India
Naguib Mahfouz, Egypt, Children of Gebelawi
Thomas Mann, Germany, Buddenbrook
Thomas Mann, Germany, The Magic Mountain
Herman Melville, United States, Moby Dick
Michael de Montaigne, France, Essays
Elsa Morante, Italy, History
Toni Morrison, United States, Beloved
Shikibu Murasaki, Japan, The Tale of Genji
Robert Musil, Austria, The Man Without Qualities
Vladimir Nabokov, Russia/United States, Lolita
Njaals Saga, Iceland
George Orwell, England
Ovid, Italy, Metamorphoses
Fernando Pessoa, Portugal, The Book of Disquiet
Edgar Allan Poe, United States, The Complete Tales
Marcel Proust, France, Remembrance of Things Past
Francois Rabelais, France, Gargantua and Pantagruel
Juan Rulfo, Mexico, Pedro Paramo
Jalal ad-din Rumi, Afghanistan, Mathnawi
Salman Rushdie, India/Britain, Midnight's Children
Sheikh Musharrif ud-din Sadi, Iran, The Orchard
Tayeb Salih, Sudan, Season of Migration to the North
Jose Saramago, Portugal, Blindness
William Shakespeare, England, Hamlet
William Shakespeare, England, King Lear
William Shakespeare, England, Othello
Sophocles, Greece, Oedipus the King
Stendhal, France, The Red and the Black
Laurence Sterne, Ireland, The Life and Opinions of Tristram Shandy
Italo Svevo, Italy, Confessions of Zeno
Jonathan Swift, Ireland, Gulliver's Travels
Leo Tolstoy, Russia, War and Peace
Leo Tolstoy, Russia, Anna Karenina
Leo Tolstoy, Russia, The Death of Ivan Ilyich and Other Stories
Thousand and One Nights, India/Iran/Iraq/Egypt
Mark Twain, United States, The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn
Valmiki, India, Ramayana
Virgil, Italy, The Aeneid
Walt Whitman, United States, Leaves of Grass
Virginia Woolf, England, Mrs. Dalloway
Virginia Woolf, England, To the Lighthouse
Marguerite Yourcenar, France, Memoirs of Hadrian
[source...]
Hans Christian Andersen, Denmark, Fairy Tales and Stories
Jane Austen, England, Pride and Prejudice
Honore de Balzac, France, Old Goriot
Samuel Beckett, Ireland, Trilogy: Molloy, Malone Dies, The Unnamable
Giovanni Boccaccio, Italy, Decameron
Jorge Luis Borges, Argentina, Collected Fictions
Emily Bronte, England, Wuthering Heights
Albert Camus, France, The Stranger
Paul Celan, Romania/France, Poems
Louis-Ferdinand Celine, France, Journey to the End of the Night
Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra, Spain, Don Quixote
Geoffrey Chaucer, England, Canterbury Tales
Anton P Chekhov, Russia, Selected Stories
Joseph Conrad, England, Nostromo
Dante Alighieri, Italy, The Divine Comedy
Charles Dickens, England, Great Expectations
Denis Diderot, France, Jacques the Fatalist and His Master
Alfred Doblin, Germany, Berlin Alexanderplatz
Fyodor M Dostoyevsky, Russia, Crime and Punishment
Fyodor M Dostoyevsky, Russia, The Idiot
Fyodor M Dostoyevsky, Russia, The Possessed
Fyodor M Dostoyevsky, Russia, The Brothers Karamazov
George Eliot, England, Middlemarch
Ralph Ellison, United States, Invisible Man
Euripides, Greece, Medea
William Faulkner, United States, Absalom, Absalom
William Faulkner, United States, The Sound and the Fury
Gustave Flaubert, France, Madame Bovary
Gustave Flaubert, France, A Sentimental Education
Federico Garcia Lorca, Spain, Gypsy Ballads
Gabriel Garcia Marquez, Colombia, One Hundred Years of Solitude
Gabriel Garcia Marquez, Colombia, Love in the Time of Cholera
Gilgamesh, Mesopotamia
Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, Germany, Faust
Nikolai Gogol, Russia, Dead Souls
Gunter Grass, Germany, The Tin Drum
Joao Guimaraes Rosa, Brazil, The Devil to Pay in the Backlands
Knut Hamsun, Norway, Hunger
Ernest Hemingway, United States, The Old Man and the Sea
Homer, Greece, The Iliad
Homer, Greece, The Odyssey
Henrik Ibsen, Norway, A Doll's House
The Book of Job, Israel
James Joyce, Ireland, Ulysses
Franz Kafka, Bohemia, The Complete Stories
Franz Kafka, Bohemia, The Trial
Franz Kafka, Bohemia, The Castle Bohemia
Kalidasa, India, The Recognition of Sakuntala
Yasunari Kawabata, Japan, The Sound of the Mountain
Nikos Kazantzakis, Greece, Zorba the Greek
DH Lawrence, England, Sons and Lovers
Halidor K Laxness, Iceland, Independent People
Giacomo Leopardi, Italy, Complete Poems
Doris Lessing, England, The Golden Notebook
Astrid Lindgren, Sweden, Pippi Longstocking
Lu Xun, China, Diary of a Madman and Other Stories
Mahabharata, India
Naguib Mahfouz, Egypt, Children of Gebelawi
Thomas Mann, Germany, Buddenbrook
Thomas Mann, Germany, The Magic Mountain
Herman Melville, United States, Moby Dick
Michael de Montaigne, France, Essays
Elsa Morante, Italy, History
Toni Morrison, United States, Beloved
Shikibu Murasaki, Japan, The Tale of Genji
Robert Musil, Austria, The Man Without Qualities
Vladimir Nabokov, Russia/United States, Lolita
Njaals Saga, Iceland
George Orwell, England
Ovid, Italy, Metamorphoses
Fernando Pessoa, Portugal, The Book of Disquiet
Edgar Allan Poe, United States, The Complete Tales
Marcel Proust, France, Remembrance of Things Past
Francois Rabelais, France, Gargantua and Pantagruel
Juan Rulfo, Mexico, Pedro Paramo
Jalal ad-din Rumi, Afghanistan, Mathnawi
Salman Rushdie, India/Britain, Midnight's Children
Sheikh Musharrif ud-din Sadi, Iran, The Orchard
Tayeb Salih, Sudan, Season of Migration to the North
Jose Saramago, Portugal, Blindness
William Shakespeare, England, Hamlet
William Shakespeare, England, King Lear
William Shakespeare, England, Othello
Sophocles, Greece, Oedipus the King
Stendhal, France, The Red and the Black
Laurence Sterne, Ireland, The Life and Opinions of Tristram Shandy
Italo Svevo, Italy, Confessions of Zeno
Jonathan Swift, Ireland, Gulliver's Travels
Leo Tolstoy, Russia, War and Peace
Leo Tolstoy, Russia, Anna Karenina
Leo Tolstoy, Russia, The Death of Ivan Ilyich and Other Stories
Thousand and One Nights, India/Iran/Iraq/Egypt
Mark Twain, United States, The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn
Valmiki, India, Ramayana
Virgil, Italy, The Aeneid
Walt Whitman, United States, Leaves of Grass
Virginia Woolf, England, Mrs. Dalloway
Virginia Woolf, England, To the Lighthouse
Marguerite Yourcenar, France, Memoirs of Hadrian
[source...]
Message from Orbis
www.kudoswriting.wordpress.com
Kudos 74
JANUARY/FEBRUARY 2009
£3.00
All’s well that ends well for the first year of Kudos
and for the winner of the Orwell Prize
A bird in the hand? An entire issue of Birds on the Line
will be dedicated to one Poet
Turn over a new Leaf, to find their competition for young writers,
or try cramming in some nano-fiction
A first for Mslexia - short stories, and for Stafford, poetry;
both, for Grace Dieu, thank goodness.
Lost in translation – find inspiration from the David Burland Prize
or the John Dryden Competition
Plus new thoughts about old favourites –
stories inspired by Jane Austen, Rider Haggard
and Wind in the Willows; poems, courtesy of Tennyson,
for the Words by the Water/Mirehouse Prize
And shift yourself or you could end up spitting feathers,
if you miss out on submissions for Samhain’s Sexy Shape Shifter Anthology.
[BTW, my poem is in this issue of Orbis: http://kudoswriting.wordpress.com/about-orbis-2/orbis-143/]
Kudos 74
JANUARY/FEBRUARY 2009
£3.00
All’s well that ends well for the first year of Kudos
and for the winner of the Orwell Prize
A bird in the hand? An entire issue of Birds on the Line
will be dedicated to one Poet
Turn over a new Leaf, to find their competition for young writers,
or try cramming in some nano-fiction
A first for Mslexia - short stories, and for Stafford, poetry;
both, for Grace Dieu, thank goodness.
Lost in translation – find inspiration from the David Burland Prize
or the John Dryden Competition
Plus new thoughts about old favourites –
stories inspired by Jane Austen, Rider Haggard
and Wind in the Willows; poems, courtesy of Tennyson,
for the Words by the Water/Mirehouse Prize
And shift yourself or you could end up spitting feathers,
if you miss out on submissions for Samhain’s Sexy Shape Shifter Anthology.
[BTW, my poem is in this issue of Orbis: http://kudoswriting.wordpress.com/about-orbis-2/orbis-143/]
4 January 2009
Walcott: "With a president who reads poetry, there's hope."
President-elect Barack Obama has a lot of writers excited about the next four years. He'll have a poet at his inauguration. He's said he's going to have more poetry readings at the White House. He's even quoted poetry on the campaign trail. In the speech he gave on Super Tuesday, Obama said, "We are the ones we've been waiting for." That line is from June Jordan's "Poem for South African Women." Nobel laureate Derek Walcott has been thinking about what it means to have a president who reads poetry. He talked with Weekend America's Larissa Anderson.Remember Walcott's poem for Obama? I've just listened to him read it, and discuss the election of Barack Obama. And talk about the poetic image that to me makes most of this piece: the plough and furrow image. Listen!
---
A few days after the election, poet and playwright Derek Walcott saw a picture in the paper of Barack Obama carrying around a copy of his collected poems. Walcott says he was flattered, "But for me, what that means is it's nothing to do with me so much as a fact if you have a president who reads poetry, there's hope because poetry tries to tell the truth."
[continue there...]
Poetry that matters
The modern state poet laureate is charged with being the official bearer of poetry in his or her territory. Each laureate can define the job’s particulars, but the main duty remains to share and advocate for poetry.
The artistic tension between fulfilling the duties of a government appointment while satisfying one’s creative impulses and needs has at times flowered into public controversy, most notoriously in 2002, when Black Arts poet/activist Amiri Baraka—New Jersey’s poet laureate at the time—came under fire from the Anti-Defamation League for a piece he wrote in response to 9/11 called 'Somebody Blew Up America' (sample line: 'Who told 4000 Israeli workers at the Twin Towers / To stay home that day').
The governor of New Jersey tried to remove Baraka from the post, but found that the only legal option was to abolish the office altogether. (New Jersey still does not have a state laureate position.)
Should Baraka have watched his words while he was a poet laureate? It’s a 'hairy question,' says Glaser, a professor emeritus at St. Mary’s College of Maryland and a twenty-year veteran of the Maryland State Arts Council’s Poet-in-the-Schools program. 'I think part [of the role] of any artist is to provoke discussion,' he says, and Baraka certainly succeeded in raising the profile of the craft. 'Amiri Baraka wrote a poem that mattered.'
[continue there...]
The artistic tension between fulfilling the duties of a government appointment while satisfying one’s creative impulses and needs has at times flowered into public controversy, most notoriously in 2002, when Black Arts poet/activist Amiri Baraka—New Jersey’s poet laureate at the time—came under fire from the Anti-Defamation League for a piece he wrote in response to 9/11 called 'Somebody Blew Up America' (sample line: 'Who told 4000 Israeli workers at the Twin Towers / To stay home that day').
The governor of New Jersey tried to remove Baraka from the post, but found that the only legal option was to abolish the office altogether. (New Jersey still does not have a state laureate position.)
Should Baraka have watched his words while he was a poet laureate? It’s a 'hairy question,' says Glaser, a professor emeritus at St. Mary’s College of Maryland and a twenty-year veteran of the Maryland State Arts Council’s Poet-in-the-Schools program. 'I think part [of the role] of any artist is to provoke discussion,' he says, and Baraka certainly succeeded in raising the profile of the craft. 'Amiri Baraka wrote a poem that mattered.'
[continue there...]
3 January 2009
Lionel Abraham's "Waste"
Who beside my mother knew
a cabbage stalk stripped of its leafage
contains more goodness than mere garbage?
Her quick sure knife would pare away
the fibrous husk, rough with leaf-stumps,
slice off the watery rootward end,
and bring to light a white, damp cone -
the cabbage-heart.
[continue there...]
a cabbage stalk stripped of its leafage
contains more goodness than mere garbage?
Her quick sure knife would pare away
the fibrous husk, rough with leaf-stumps,
slice off the watery rootward end,
and bring to light a white, damp cone -
the cabbage-heart.
[continue there...]
2 January 2009
100 years of Sesotho literature
Colleagues, 100 years ago the late Thomas Mofolo, who was a Lesotho citizen, started the process of writing in Sesotho. Thomas Mofolo is therefore a precursor in Sesotho Literature. We will certainly mark this centenary of Sesotho Literature with celebrations and unveiling of a bust of Thomas Mofolo in his honour. The first such event will be held on 21 September at Qibing (Wepener). We are in the process of engaging the government of Lesotho and the family of Thomas Mofolo to be a formidable part of this occasion.
[continue there...]
[continue there...]
1 January 2009
Nikki teaches and reads -- a lot
Nikki Giovanni was immortalized in Teena Marie's 'Square Biz' in the 1980s (during the rap portion, Marie mentions Giovanni as well as William Shakespeare,) but this author and academic is best known for her poetry, and is an icon in the genre. Recently, she has made a detour into the children's book market (including 'Hip Hop Speaks to Children: A Celebration of Poetry With a Beat') where she is finding best-seller success. In her spare time, Nikki Giovanni teaches and she reads -- a lot.
[source...]
[source...]
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