Tuesday, April 24, 2007
In the distance fires break
Some lines from the poem "The Other Person" by Saadi Youssef:
Saadi Youssef was born in Iraq in 1934, in a village near Basra. He received a degree in Arabic from Baghdad University in 1954. Baghdad University was a center of much left-wing political activity at that time, and Youssef became politically active during those years, and started writing poetry as well. He was imprisoned for his political activities for a time during the 1960's, left for Algeria, then returned to Iraq in 1971 where he worked for the Ministry of Culture. In 1979 when one of the C.I.A.'s "assets," Saddam Hussein, became head of the government, Youssef left Iraq again, and has since lived in exile in various countries mostly in the Mediterranean region, working mostly in publishing and journalism, and of course writing poetry.
Youssef's poems move easily among details and commonplace objects, as though holding onto solid things as a kind of grounding. A bowl of soup, coffee grounds, a sparrow on a stalk of corn. From the details, worlds emerge, the push of history.
Living and dealing with daily survival under extreme and dangerous conditions can affect one's perceptions of the most ordinary things and events. The line may blur between common reality and hallucination. Simple description can transform into something resembling surrealism.
A quiet stubborn persistent hope repeatedly emerges in Youssef's poems, even those written out of the bleakest despair or in the longing that can grow from exile. In this respect his work sometimes reminds me of the poetry of Yannis Ritsos, the great 20th century Communist poet of Greece. From silence and mystery, in the most routine scenes, a shout of life comes forth in Youssef's poems, a strength subtle and unbroken. This, from the poem "The New Baghdad":
In a restaurant in winter, I heard him cough,(From the book Without an Alphabet, Without a Face: Selected Poems of Saadi Youssef translated from Arabic by Khaled Mattawa, published 2002 by Graywolf Press. All quoted passages here are from the above book.)
watched him wipe his hands with a handkerchief
and muffle a laugh in the depth of his eyes.
I watched him notice me for the first time,
mocking me without letting me hear a vowel,
or even stirring the silence that dozed.
The windows of the winter restaurant were wet.
Then suddenly, he left,
wrapped in his pale coat.
Saadi Youssef was born in Iraq in 1934, in a village near Basra. He received a degree in Arabic from Baghdad University in 1954. Baghdad University was a center of much left-wing political activity at that time, and Youssef became politically active during those years, and started writing poetry as well. He was imprisoned for his political activities for a time during the 1960's, left for Algeria, then returned to Iraq in 1971 where he worked for the Ministry of Culture. In 1979 when one of the C.I.A.'s "assets," Saddam Hussein, became head of the government, Youssef left Iraq again, and has since lived in exile in various countries mostly in the Mediterranean region, working mostly in publishing and journalism, and of course writing poetry.
They will not steal any of your flowers(From the poem "Oleander Tree.")
because you're lost between the thing and its image.
Your names are lost,
lost like water.
Forgotten citadel, your locks are deserted.
You stand stubborn between
carriage horses and black shoes,
raising your red flags in the square.
Youssef's poems move easily among details and commonplace objects, as though holding onto solid things as a kind of grounding. A bowl of soup, coffee grounds, a sparrow on a stalk of corn. From the details, worlds emerge, the push of history.
This is how these sour mornings pass,(From the poem "Days of June," written in July, 1982, in Beirut, during the seige and invasion of Lebanon by the Israeli military.)
living tissues leavening,
the sun a muddle,
the sea fogged up,
and the record spins around itself
like the newspapers,
like the PLO,
like Sinnin water,
and civilian planes
and anti-Marxist think tanks
and the ideal methods for two bodies to join.
The tree near my window doesn't want to spin.
The sea has no wish to soften into green.
The passersby have no desire to walk on.
And I stutter here in secret like a swing
seeking the water in the trees,
hoping the sea will soften to green,
the sea that will rise to my window.
Living and dealing with daily survival under extreme and dangerous conditions can affect one's perceptions of the most ordinary things and events. The line may blur between common reality and hallucination. Simple description can transform into something resembling surrealism.
On the radio, yesterday, I heard a voice:(From the poem "Maryam Comes.")
Maryam's voice.
Is she living among the "explosions" between Lailki and Sullam?
Beirut, against whose stones I rest my back,
Beirut is startled like a seabird
and the lovers swing their machine guns
and the sea calms.
The children listen for a treacherous sound
and in the distance fires break
and planes gyrate in a leaden horizon.
For you, Maryam, lovers and explosions.
A quiet stubborn persistent hope repeatedly emerges in Youssef's poems, even those written out of the bleakest despair or in the longing that can grow from exile. In this respect his work sometimes reminds me of the poetry of Yannis Ritsos, the great 20th century Communist poet of Greece. From silence and mystery, in the most routine scenes, a shout of life comes forth in Youssef's poems, a strength subtle and unbroken. This, from the poem "The New Baghdad":
At nightWithout an Alphabet, Without a Face includes an informative introduction by translator Khaled Mattawa, and a few endnotes illuminating various literary, political, historical and mythological references that occur in some of the poems. The poems of Saadi Youssef speak with passion and clarity about the world and the times in which we live, and in which we continue to find our own voices. We are the makers of our history, and we will not be silenced.
she roams among houses abandoned by the poor
and churches where a muffled mass fades
and huts where poor girls faint.
At midnight
she returns to her enchanted shelter
behind muddy streets,
carrying the bread of the dead,
myrtle flowers,
slivers of buffalo liver
and two bones for a bowl of soup.
At dawn she stops by all her houses,
waking all her children,
dragging them to the street,
the thousands waiting to march on Baghdad.
On the third of May I saw six walls crack.(From the poem "In Those Days.")
A man I knew emerged through them, wearing
workers' clothes and a black leather cap.
I said: "I though you left. Wasn't
your name among the first on the list?
Did you not volunteer in Madrid? Did you
not fight along the revolution's ramparts in Petrograd?
Weren't you killed in the oil strike?
Did I not see you in a papyrus thicket
loading your machine gun? Did you
not raise the commune's red flag? Did you not
organize the people's army in Sumatra?
Take my hand; the six walls may collapse
at any moment; take my hand."
Neighbor, I believe in a strange star.
Neighbor, life's nights echo: "You are my home."
We've travelled wide and long
and the heart is still aimed at home.
Neighbor, don't stray.
My path leads to Baghdad.
Friday, April 20, 2007
Nikki Giovanni on the shootings at Virginia Tech
Poet Nikki Giovanni is on the faculty at Virginia Tech. From the Virginia Tech website, a transcript of an address she gave at a public gathering on the campus shortly after the shootings, here.
Wednesday, April 18, 2007
Good essay on literature and politics
One of the best pieces of writing I've come across over the years on the relationship between literature and politics is an essay by Joseph Freeman, written as an introduction for the 1935 anthology Proletarian Literarure in the United States edited by Granville Hicks, et al.
The anthology itself, out of print for decades, is itself one of the better collections of politically radical writing from the period. Freeman's highly insightful introduction is available online, in the Modern American Poetry website hosted by Cary Nelson at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champagne.
Joseph Freeman's Introduction to the anthology is here. (At the top of the page is the text from the book jacket flaps; scroll down a little for the text of the Introduction.)
The main page for Joseph Freeman (in the Modern American Poetry website) is here.
For anyone who's not familiar, the main page of the Modern American Poetry website is here.
The host of the website, Cary Nelson, has written a couple of effective literary historical and critical works I found informative
Repression and Recovery: Modern American Poetry and the Politics of Cultural Memory, 1910-1945 (University of Wisconsin Press, 1992), offers a broad and detailed survey of American poetry of the period; Nelson gives most of his attention to poetry that the entrenched academic and critical establishments over the decades have chosen to omit from reading lists, syllabi, and the recognized "canon" in general, whether for reasons of left-wing political content of the writing, or because of the poets' gender or ethnic background, or the experimental or avant-garde character of the work. Although Nelson at times seems to me overly cautious in his critical comments about the more conservative sectors of the academic world, I found the book deeply rewarding and useful. In general, I find it difficult to read literary criticism; I read this book cover to cover and found it hard to put down.
Another book by Cary Nelson, Revolutionary Memory: Recovering the Poetry of the American Left (Routledge, 2001) explores of the work of several of the poets in greater detail. It's well worth reading too.
The anthology itself, out of print for decades, is itself one of the better collections of politically radical writing from the period. Freeman's highly insightful introduction is available online, in the Modern American Poetry website hosted by Cary Nelson at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champagne.
Joseph Freeman's Introduction to the anthology is here. (At the top of the page is the text from the book jacket flaps; scroll down a little for the text of the Introduction.)
The main page for Joseph Freeman (in the Modern American Poetry website) is here.
For anyone who's not familiar, the main page of the Modern American Poetry website is here.
The host of the website, Cary Nelson, has written a couple of effective literary historical and critical works I found informative
Repression and Recovery: Modern American Poetry and the Politics of Cultural Memory, 1910-1945 (University of Wisconsin Press, 1992), offers a broad and detailed survey of American poetry of the period; Nelson gives most of his attention to poetry that the entrenched academic and critical establishments over the decades have chosen to omit from reading lists, syllabi, and the recognized "canon" in general, whether for reasons of left-wing political content of the writing, or because of the poets' gender or ethnic background, or the experimental or avant-garde character of the work. Although Nelson at times seems to me overly cautious in his critical comments about the more conservative sectors of the academic world, I found the book deeply rewarding and useful. In general, I find it difficult to read literary criticism; I read this book cover to cover and found it hard to put down.
Another book by Cary Nelson, Revolutionary Memory: Recovering the Poetry of the American Left (Routledge, 2001) explores of the work of several of the poets in greater detail. It's well worth reading too.
Monday, April 16, 2007
Birdie Jaworski on Kurt Vonnegut
Found a wonderful account by writer Birdie Jaworski of a chance encounter she had with Kurt Vonnegut at an out-of-the-way location in Indiana. It's here.
Thanks to Pris Campbell, in whose blog Songs to a Midnight Sky I originally found a link to the story.
Thanks to Pris Campbell, in whose blog Songs to a Midnight Sky I originally found a link to the story.
