It just so happens to be Torture Awareness Month; I know, it's not in your calendar. Look under: "enhanced interrogation month," and it might show up.
Verga
"...women don't want the men to go into the
bush because the women will only be raped but
the men will be killed...I have seen a woman
who was caught in the bush by several men.
They tied her legs to two trees while she was
standing. They raped her many times and before
leaving her they put stones in her vagina..."
Abshiro Aden Mohammed, Kenya, 2000
Dagahaley Somali Refugee Camp
from A Camel for the Son,
by Fazal Sheik
Before leaving her they put stones in her vagina
The men will only be raped but the stones will be killed
The bush caught many men to go into the stones
The stones will be killed by several trees before leaving
The bush tied the men to the trees in their vaginas
Before bush go to trees they kill many stones
Many men will be caught by the trees in the bush
Several trees will be raped by the bush and killed
Only the caught men will be stoned and bushed by the .....trees
Several men were caught by the trees before leaving
The men will be killed but the stones will only be treed
The stones put many trees into the men's killed vaginas
By the bush, the trees were raped only several times
Before leaving, the vaginas were seen standing in the .....stones
-Robin Coste Lewis
Used by permission.
Robin Coste Lewis' work has appeared in various journals, including The Massachusetts Review, Callaloo, The Harvard Gay and Lesbian Review, GCN, The Pocket Myth Series, and anthologized in Black Silk and The Encyclopedia Project, F-K. She was a finalist for both the War Poetry Prize in 2010, and the National Rita Dove Prize iin 2004. A graduate of Harvard's Divinity School, where she received a Master's of Theological Studies degree in Sanskrit and comparative religious literature, Lewis was the Samuel Valentine Cole Professor of Creative Writing at Wheaton College and Assistant Professor of Creative Writing at Hampshire College. She has been awarded residencies and fellowships by the Caldera Foundation, the Ragdale Foundation, the Headlands Center for the Arts, the Can Serrat International Art Centre in Barcelona and the Summer Literary Seminars in Kenya. Recently, she was awarded a Goldwater Fellowship by NYU's Creative Writing Program in Poetry. Born in Compton, California, her family is from New Orleans.
Lewis was on the panel The Poet as Historian in the 21st Century: A Rare Opportunity in Difficult Times at Split This Rock Poetry Festival: Poems of Provocation & Witness 2010.
Please feel free to forward Split This Rock Poem of the Week widely. We just ask you to include all of the information in this email, including this request. Thanks!
Split This Rock
http://www.splitthisrock.org/
info@splitthisrock.org
202-787-5210
Wednesday, June 8, 2011
Kriyayoga Seminar on Truth and Nonviolence (Cleveland Area)
From Scott Lynch: you are warmly invited along with your family, co-workers, and friends to the 2011 Kriyayoga Seminar, June 15-22 in nearby Euclid, Ohio. All classes are free of charge. Pre-registration is requested but not required. Please contact us for registration requests or to answer any questions...
Because we are a local non-profit, our program is spread almost exclusively by word of mouth, so please pass this on to other friends and organizations...
Because we are a local non-profit, our program is spread almost exclusively by word of mouth, so please pass this on to other friends and organizations...
Tuesday, June 7, 2011
Friday, June 3, 2011
Our new translations of Arseny Tarkovsky in Poetry Magazine
Thanks to the great poet Arseny Tarkovsky, and my co-translator Dimitri Psurtsev, for making these poems happen.
Here's the opening of the essay on the translation:
Perhaps all translations are Frankenstein’s monsters. The main question then becomes: is the creature alive? We know that translations, like the monster, are a grab bag of other organs and skin, stolen from the graveyards of other traditions whose sensibilities are not always our own, grafted together into something that approximates a whole. But has the translator provided the lightning rod, gathered the electricity? In the end, does it breathe?
read more...
Thursday, June 2, 2011
"Laundry" by Alicia Ostriker: another installment of SPLIT THIS ROCK
LAUNDRY
Just finished folding laundry. There's the news. A slender prisoner, ankles shackled, nude back and legs striped by a brown substance you might take for blood but which probably is feces, hair long, arms extended at shoulder level like a dancer or like Jesus, walks toward a soldier with rolled-up pants and a gun, posed legs akimbo in the tiled corridor. I cannot say from the image if the soldier is smiling, too few pixels to tell. Barely do the prisoner's elegant feet touch the floor. In another nude photograph a prisoner with shorter hair cowers against a wall while two dogs whose leashes are held by soldiers examine him. I cannot say from the photograph if the dogs are snarling or drooling. And in this one a girl soldier holds the leash, which leads to the neck of a prisoner lying on concrete.
Oil oozes a mile or two underground. Like sand, it was once alive.
In another photo the nude prisoners have been formed into a pyramid. They look like something in the back of a butcher shop. A stack of magnified calves' livers. Now the girl soldier leaning over a bleeding prisoner--are those dog bites--gives the thumbs' up sign and smiles her toothy wholesome Homecoming Queen smile, a smile descended from a Good Housekeeping cover, twinkle twinkle little... Oil oozes a mile or so underground. Atop it stands a palace of air conditioning. Somewhere in the green zone is a swimming pool for the officers, its water chemically purified. Stagnant waters are also good--to the flies. As is blood. A fly's life there would be prosperous. I put away the laundry. I put my nose in the laundry, it smells warm and well. My husband's underpants and undershirts I lay in his dresser drawer. In my dresser drawer go my underpants and t-shirts.
The correct word is not prisoner. The correct word is detainee.
Speaking of correctness, some other terms have lately come into play: hooding, waterboarding, rendition. The bleaching of the news. The rinsing and spinning. Some of the laundry items are not quite dry, a knit sweater of mine, a flannel of his. I hang them on plastic hangers in the bathroom. The bathroom is tiled in white, the tub is tourmaline. Above our twin sinks hangs a large flat mirror in which we are obliged to see ourselves each day, and on the opposite wall, that is to say behind us when we stand at the sink, a Rodin watercolor sketch depicts a semi-nude woman in some sort of peach diaphanous garment, seated, holding one pink knee in her hands, her shaven pubes showing, the lines at once easy, comfortable, and elegant. The correct word is detainee. The sweaters hang patiently. The mirror ponders a rebuke.
-Alicia Ostriker
Used by permission.
Alicia Ostriker is a major American poet and critic. Twice nominated for a National Book Award, she is author of twelve volumes of poetry, most recently The Book of Seventy (2009), which won the Jewish Book Award for Poetry. Ostriker's poems have appeared in The New Yorker, The Paris Review, Antaeus, The Nation, Poetry, American Poetry Review, Kenyon Review, The Atlantic, MS, Tikkun, and many other journals, and have been widely anthologized. She has received awards from the National Endowment for the Arts, the Poetry Society of America, the San Francisco State Poetry Center, the Judah Magnes Museum, the New Jersey Arts Council, the Rockefeller Foundation, and the Guggenheim Foundation. Ostriker lives in Princeton, NJ with her husband and is Professor Emerita of Rutgers University and a faculty member of the New England College Low-Residency Poetry MFA Program.
Ostriker was a featured poet at Split This Rock Poetry Festival: Poems of Provocation & Witnes 2008 and on the panels Fire & Ink: A Social Action Writing Anthology, and the Rewards of Teaching Activist Writing and Birth and the Politics of Motherhood in Poetry at Split This Rock Poetry Festival: Poems of Provocation & Witness 2010.
Please feel free to forward Split This Rock Poem of the Week widely. We just ask you to include all of the information in this email, including this request. Thanks!
Split This Rock
http://www.splitthisrock.org/
info@splitthisrock.org
202-787-5210
Just finished folding laundry. There's the news. A slender prisoner, ankles shackled, nude back and legs striped by a brown substance you might take for blood but which probably is feces, hair long, arms extended at shoulder level like a dancer or like Jesus, walks toward a soldier with rolled-up pants and a gun, posed legs akimbo in the tiled corridor. I cannot say from the image if the soldier is smiling, too few pixels to tell. Barely do the prisoner's elegant feet touch the floor. In another nude photograph a prisoner with shorter hair cowers against a wall while two dogs whose leashes are held by soldiers examine him. I cannot say from the photograph if the dogs are snarling or drooling. And in this one a girl soldier holds the leash, which leads to the neck of a prisoner lying on concrete.
Oil oozes a mile or two underground. Like sand, it was once alive.
In another photo the nude prisoners have been formed into a pyramid. They look like something in the back of a butcher shop. A stack of magnified calves' livers. Now the girl soldier leaning over a bleeding prisoner--are those dog bites--gives the thumbs' up sign and smiles her toothy wholesome Homecoming Queen smile, a smile descended from a Good Housekeeping cover, twinkle twinkle little... Oil oozes a mile or so underground. Atop it stands a palace of air conditioning. Somewhere in the green zone is a swimming pool for the officers, its water chemically purified. Stagnant waters are also good--to the flies. As is blood. A fly's life there would be prosperous. I put away the laundry. I put my nose in the laundry, it smells warm and well. My husband's underpants and undershirts I lay in his dresser drawer. In my dresser drawer go my underpants and t-shirts.
The correct word is not prisoner. The correct word is detainee.
Speaking of correctness, some other terms have lately come into play: hooding, waterboarding, rendition. The bleaching of the news. The rinsing and spinning. Some of the laundry items are not quite dry, a knit sweater of mine, a flannel of his. I hang them on plastic hangers in the bathroom. The bathroom is tiled in white, the tub is tourmaline. Above our twin sinks hangs a large flat mirror in which we are obliged to see ourselves each day, and on the opposite wall, that is to say behind us when we stand at the sink, a Rodin watercolor sketch depicts a semi-nude woman in some sort of peach diaphanous garment, seated, holding one pink knee in her hands, her shaven pubes showing, the lines at once easy, comfortable, and elegant. The correct word is detainee. The sweaters hang patiently. The mirror ponders a rebuke.
-Alicia Ostriker
Used by permission.
Alicia Ostriker is a major American poet and critic. Twice nominated for a National Book Award, she is author of twelve volumes of poetry, most recently The Book of Seventy (2009), which won the Jewish Book Award for Poetry. Ostriker's poems have appeared in The New Yorker, The Paris Review, Antaeus, The Nation, Poetry, American Poetry Review, Kenyon Review, The Atlantic, MS, Tikkun, and many other journals, and have been widely anthologized. She has received awards from the National Endowment for the Arts, the Poetry Society of America, the San Francisco State Poetry Center, the Judah Magnes Museum, the New Jersey Arts Council, the Rockefeller Foundation, and the Guggenheim Foundation. Ostriker lives in Princeton, NJ with her husband and is Professor Emerita of Rutgers University and a faculty member of the New England College Low-Residency Poetry MFA Program.
Ostriker was a featured poet at Split This Rock Poetry Festival: Poems of Provocation & Witnes 2008 and on the panels Fire & Ink: A Social Action Writing Anthology, and the Rewards of Teaching Activist Writing and Birth and the Politics of Motherhood in Poetry at Split This Rock Poetry Festival: Poems of Provocation & Witness 2010.
Please feel free to forward Split This Rock Poem of the Week widely. We just ask you to include all of the information in this email, including this request. Thanks!
Split This Rock
http://www.splitthisrock.org/
info@splitthisrock.org
202-787-5210
Wednesday, June 1, 2011
"Ballad of the Poverties" by Adrienne Rich
"Ballad of the Poverties" by Adrienne Rich
There’s the poverty of the cockroach kingdom and the rusted toilet bowl
The poverty of to steal food for the first time
The poverty of to mouth a penis for a paycheck
The poverty of sweet charity ladling
Soup for the poor who must always be there for that
There’s the poverty of theory poverty of the swollen belly shamed
Poverty of the diploma mill the ballot that goes nowhere
Princes of predation let me tell you
There are poverties and there are poverties
There’s the poverty of cheap luggage bursted open at immigration
The poverty of the turned head, the averted eyes
The poverty of bored sex of tormented sex
The poverty of the bounced check the poverty of the dumpster dive
The poverty of the pawned horn the poverty of the smashed reading glasses
The poverty pushing the sheeted gurney the poverty cleaning up the puke
The poverty of the pavement artist the poverty passed-out on pavement
Princes of finance you who have not lain there
There are poverties and there are poverties
There is the poverty of hand-to-mouth and door-to-door
And the poverty of stories patched-up to sell there
There’s the poverty of the child thumbing the Interstate
And the poverty of the bride enlisting for war
There’s the poverty of prescriptions who can afford
And the poverty of how would you ever end it
There is the poverty of stones fisted in pocket
And the poverty of the village bulldozed to rubble
Princes of weaponry who have not ever tasted war
There are poverties and there are poverties
There’s the poverty of wages wired for the funeral you
Can’t get to the poverty of the salary cut
There’s the poverty of human labor offered silently on the curb
The poverty of the no-contact prison visit
There’s the poverty of yard sale scrapings spread
And rejected the poverty of eviction, wedding bed out on street
Prince let me tell you who will never learn through words
There are poverties and there are poverties
You who travel by private jet like a housefly
Buzzing with the other flies of plundered poverties
Princes and courtiers who will never learn through words
Here’s a mirror you can look into: take it: it’s yours.
----------------------------------------------------
for Jim and Arlene Scully
with gratitude to François Villon and to Galway Kinnell
first appeared in Monthly Review
from Adrienne Rich's recent book Tonight No Poetry Will Serve
purchase here
There’s the poverty of the cockroach kingdom and the rusted toilet bowl
The poverty of to steal food for the first time
The poverty of to mouth a penis for a paycheck
The poverty of sweet charity ladling
Soup for the poor who must always be there for that
There’s the poverty of theory poverty of the swollen belly shamed
Poverty of the diploma mill the ballot that goes nowhere
Princes of predation let me tell you
There are poverties and there are poverties
There’s the poverty of cheap luggage bursted open at immigration
The poverty of the turned head, the averted eyes
The poverty of bored sex of tormented sex
The poverty of the bounced check the poverty of the dumpster dive
The poverty of the pawned horn the poverty of the smashed reading glasses
The poverty pushing the sheeted gurney the poverty cleaning up the puke
The poverty of the pavement artist the poverty passed-out on pavement
Princes of finance you who have not lain there
There are poverties and there are poverties
There is the poverty of hand-to-mouth and door-to-door
And the poverty of stories patched-up to sell there
There’s the poverty of the child thumbing the Interstate
And the poverty of the bride enlisting for war
There’s the poverty of prescriptions who can afford
And the poverty of how would you ever end it
There is the poverty of stones fisted in pocket
And the poverty of the village bulldozed to rubble
Princes of weaponry who have not ever tasted war
There are poverties and there are poverties
There’s the poverty of wages wired for the funeral you
Can’t get to the poverty of the salary cut
There’s the poverty of human labor offered silently on the curb
The poverty of the no-contact prison visit
There’s the poverty of yard sale scrapings spread
And rejected the poverty of eviction, wedding bed out on street
Prince let me tell you who will never learn through words
There are poverties and there are poverties
You who travel by private jet like a housefly
Buzzing with the other flies of plundered poverties
Princes and courtiers who will never learn through words
Here’s a mirror you can look into: take it: it’s yours.
----------------------------------------------------
for Jim and Arlene Scully
with gratitude to François Villon and to Galway Kinnell
first appeared in Monthly Review
from Adrienne Rich's recent book Tonight No Poetry Will Serve
purchase here
Tuesday, May 31, 2011
Monday, May 30, 2011
Shara McCallum's "History is a Room": Widening the Frame of Memorial Day
I first discovered Shara McCallum's poetry while co-editing the anthology, Come Together: Imagine Peace. Her "The Story So Far" was stark and vivid enough to lead off the "witness" section of the book. Her "History is a Room" explores that odd awareness we have, in imperial America, of our privilege and dislocation, our protection and vulnerability, on the "homefront." What better poem to dilate our sense of what to memorialize on this Memorial Day--not just the soldiers who've fought in wars, but the civilians who've engaged in their own battles to reclaim rights and dignity at home and abroad.
History is a Room
The study of History is the study of Empire.
—Niall Ferguson
I cannot enter.
To enter that room, I would need to be a man who makes History, not a girl to whom History happened.
Mother to two daughters, I guard their lives with hope, a pinch of salt I throw over my shoulder.
To enter that room, I would need to wield a gun.
Here, I brandish weapons that serve an art my mother and grandmother knew: how to make of plantain and eggs a meal.
To enter that room, I would need to live in the past, to understand how power is amassed, eclipsing the sun.
Beneath my children's beds, I scatter grains of rice to keep duppy at bay.
To enter that room, I would need to live in the present: This election. This war.
Beneath my children's pillows, I place worry dolls to ensure their peaceful sleep.
To enter that room, I would need to bridge the distance between my door and what lies beyond.
Standing in my foyer at dusk, I ask the sea to fill the crevices of this house with its breath.
History is recounted by the dead, returned from their graves to walk in shriveled skins.
In our yard, I watch my daughters run with arms papering the wind.
History is recounted by children in nursery rhymes, beauty masking its own violence.
In my kitchen, I peel an orange, try to forget my thumb must wrest the pulp from its rind.
History is recounted in The Book of Explanations: AK-47 begat UZI, which begat M-16 ... and all the days of their lives were long.
Pausing at the sink, I think of how a pepper might be cut, blade handled so the knife becomes the fruit slit open, its seeds laid bare.
History is recounted in The Book of Beginnings: the storey of a people born of forgetting.
In our yard, I name the world for my children—praying mantis, robin's egg, maple leaf—words for lives they bring me in their palms.
To enter that room, I would need to look into the mirror of language, see in collateral damage the faces of the dead.
In our yard, I sow seeds, planting myself in this soil.
To enter that room, I would need to uncover the pattern of a life woven onto some master loom.
Here, I set the table, sweep the floor, make deals with the god of small things.
To enter that room, I would need to be armed with the right question: is History the start of evening or dawn returning the swallow to the sky?
Here, I light candles at nightfall, believe the match waits to be struck.
Shara McCallum
This Strange Land
Alice James Books
thanks to Poetry Daily for reprinting this poem.
History is a Room
The study of History is the study of Empire.
—Niall Ferguson
I cannot enter.
To enter that room, I would need to be a man who makes History, not a girl to whom History happened.
Mother to two daughters, I guard their lives with hope, a pinch of salt I throw over my shoulder.
To enter that room, I would need to wield a gun.
Here, I brandish weapons that serve an art my mother and grandmother knew: how to make of plantain and eggs a meal.
To enter that room, I would need to live in the past, to understand how power is amassed, eclipsing the sun.
Beneath my children's beds, I scatter grains of rice to keep duppy at bay.
To enter that room, I would need to live in the present: This election. This war.
Beneath my children's pillows, I place worry dolls to ensure their peaceful sleep.
To enter that room, I would need to bridge the distance between my door and what lies beyond.
Standing in my foyer at dusk, I ask the sea to fill the crevices of this house with its breath.
History is recounted by the dead, returned from their graves to walk in shriveled skins.
In our yard, I watch my daughters run with arms papering the wind.
History is recounted by children in nursery rhymes, beauty masking its own violence.
In my kitchen, I peel an orange, try to forget my thumb must wrest the pulp from its rind.
History is recounted in The Book of Explanations: AK-47 begat UZI, which begat M-16 ... and all the days of their lives were long.
Pausing at the sink, I think of how a pepper might be cut, blade handled so the knife becomes the fruit slit open, its seeds laid bare.
History is recounted in The Book of Beginnings: the storey of a people born of forgetting.
In our yard, I name the world for my children—praying mantis, robin's egg, maple leaf—words for lives they bring me in their palms.
To enter that room, I would need to look into the mirror of language, see in collateral damage the faces of the dead.
In our yard, I sow seeds, planting myself in this soil.
To enter that room, I would need to uncover the pattern of a life woven onto some master loom.
Here, I set the table, sweep the floor, make deals with the god of small things.
To enter that room, I would need to be armed with the right question: is History the start of evening or dawn returning the swallow to the sky?
Here, I light candles at nightfall, believe the match waits to be struck.
Shara McCallum
This Strange Land
Alice James Books
thanks to Poetry Daily for reprinting this poem.
Thursday, May 26, 2011
Rae Abileah Disrupts the Fantasy
AMY GOODMAN: Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu’s speech was warmly received by Democrats and Republicans in Congress. According to ABC News, Netanyahu received 29 standing ovations during his address, four more than President Obama received during his State of the Union earlier this year. However, there was at least one dissenting voice inside the halls of Congress Tuesday...
....
RAE ABILEAH: I just wanted to say that the people that were sitting around me in the gallery of Congress yesterday were mostly wearing badges from the AIPAC Israel lobby conference. And I did not expect that people holding such power and representing such a huge lobby group would respond so violently to my peaceful disruption. And after I spoke out, Netanyahu said, you know, "This is what’s possible in a democracy. And you wouldn’t be able to get away with this in other countries like Tunisia." And I think that is ridiculous and absurd. If this is what democracy looks like, that when you speak out for freedom and justice, you get tackled to the ground, you get physically violated and assaulted, and then you get hauled off to jail, that’s not the kind of democracy that I think I want to live in.
Read more from this courageous woman.
Wednesday, May 25, 2011
"Literature and Uprising": My Interview on Kenyon Review Online
Here's a recent interview I did with Hilary Plum for Kenyon Review Online on the recent uprisings in the Arab world.
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