Listening to the opening ceremonies of the Paris talks on French radio on this pre-dawn morning, I remembered a poem I wrote years ago, & want to repost here today: [Introït to my Purgatory] the biggest lie is that we were kicked out of Paradise no one kicked us out of Paradise. No one. Not even ourselves. We did. We did besmirch the place. Shat on the floor of paradise. … Read more A Poem For The Paris Climate Talks
A Nomadics blog & Straight Up tradition (well, must be the third or fourth or fifth repeat — when does ‘tradition’ begin?) continues. William S. Burroughs’s words of gratitude on Thanksgiving Day paired with two collages by Norman O. Mustill. Look and listen. It’s delish . . . Collages © 1967 by Norman O. Mustill, excerpted from ‘Flypaper’ [Beach Books, San Francisco, 1967] Thanks for the wild turkey and the passenger pigeons, destined to … Read more Going Traditional Again on This Day…
In 2016 Reality Street will be publishing just two (big) titles, wrapping up two (big) projects. Allen Fisher‘s Gravity as a consequence of shape was a large and complex poetic project begun in 1982 and completed about two decades later. Most of it has been published in one form or another – but now Reality Street will be bringing together the complete text in one volume (much as we … Read more Reality Street Editions 2016: Fisher & Griffiths: A Must!
from: The White Review: A fascinating reflection on Celan and translation from Yōko Tawada, a Japanese writer currently living in Berlin, Germany who writes in both Japanese and German. I missed the piece when it first cam out in 2013, but very happy to have come across it now. Opening paras below, then click on “here.” THERE ARE SOME WHO CLAIM THAT ‘GOOD’ LITERATURE IS ACTUALLY untranslatable. Before I could read … Read more YOKO TAWADA: CELAN READS JAPANESE
from: Poetry Project Newsletter: November 18, 2015 In the exploration of borders and boundaries of poetry, I can think of no better guides than Jerome Rothenberg and Pierre Joris. They both graciously agreed to participate in a discussion of what’s happening in poetry at the moment– poetry as outsidered, what identity can mean, where and why boundaries are erected and dismantled. Following are excerpts from an email exchange I … Read more Interview with Jerome Rothenberg & Pierre Joris
Yesterday I received a letter — an outcry, really, and a cogent reflection on the Paris massacres — from Hind Meddeb, the daughter of Abdelwahab Meddeb, written in collaboration with the painter Federica Matta who also contributed the drawing. Moved by her outcry, I asked her for permission to reprint it here on Nomadics, first in French, and later, when I’ll have a moment in English translation. Face à l’horreur … Read more Hind Meddeb & Federica Matta: “Face à l’horreur”
via Arab Literature (in English): BY MLYNXQUALEY on NOVEMBER 18, 2015 • ( 2 ) By Alessandro Columbu On October 2, Segamentu de Ancas, the Sardinian translation of Zakaria Tamer’s Taksir Rukab(Riyad el-Rayyes Books, Beirut, 2002) appeared in Sardinia’s bookshops. It was brought out by an independent publishing house based in Casteddu, Condaghes, which has pioneered the publication of novels, short stories, and poetry in Sardinian. These include works written … Read more Why translate Zakaria Tamer’s stories into Sardinian when you could translate them into Italian?
7:30. a.m. Paris. Right now a moveable disaster. Saturday dawn’s here but no noise outside, no one visible on the street under my window. As a writer I should have words. But none have come yet. Made coffee. Which brought to mind those pages from Mahmood Darwish’s “Memory of Forgetfulness,” where he describes making coffee as he wakes up in Beirut after a night of bombings. The coffee is … Read more The Days After (The Paris Massacre)
Press Release by the Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research (PIK) 11/02/2015 Local destabilization can cause complete loss of West Antarctica’s ice masses The huge West Antarctic ice sheet would collapse completely if the comparatively small Amundsen Basin is destabilized, scientists of the Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research find. A full discharge of ice into the ocean is calculated to yield about 3 meters of sea-level rise. Recent … Read more West Antarctica’s ice masses
via Arab Literature (in English) on NOVEMBER 4, 2015 : Blasim reading. Image from his website. A short text by Iraqi short-story writer and filmmaker Hassan Blasim, translated by Jonathan Wright: You escape death. They hit you on the border. They insult you in the racist newspapers. They analyse your child’s dead body on television. They get together and discuss your past and your future. In their pictures they draw … Read more Hassan Blasim: ‘A Refugee in the Paradise that is Europe’