A street has been named for poet & essayist Abdelwahab Meddeb (1946—2014) in el-Omrane, his native quarter in the city of Tunis. I am of course very pleased that his hometown is acknowledging Abdelwahab’s life, though some more information, at least his dates would have been useful. I still regret that I was unable to be in Tunis on 11/5/15 when many of our friends gathered at the National Library … Read more Rue Abdelwahab Meddeb à El-Omrane
via Tom Clark’s Beyond the Pale. MONDAY, 22 FEBRUARY 2016 Mahmoud Darwish: Psalm 9 (“O rose beyond the reach of time and of the senses”) / Stop Paying for Ethnic Cleansing and Send Your Kids To College For Free: A Modest Billboard Proposal Occupation, Colonialism and Apartheid in Israel – A Photo Essay by Mats Svensson #Palestine #EndTheOccupation: image via free falling upwards @philipgeany, 17 February 2016 Mahmoud Darwish: … Read more Darwish & Ethnic Cleansing in Palestine
Press release by the Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research (PIK) 02/23/2016 (embargo expired) Sea-level rise past and future: robust estimates for coastal planners Sea-levels worldwide will likely rise by 50 to 130 centimeters by the end of this century if greenhouse gas emissions are not reduced rapidly. This is shown in a new study led by the Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research that, for the first time, … Read more Sea-level rise past and future
La Fête chez Eco Umberto, ton idole dans nos mémoires d’hôte faunesque renaissant mallarméen enjouant tes amis sur les pipeaux du soir nous hanta tout cet été ménippéen Mon esprit trop français monoglotte et qu’on dit de l’escalier, d’étrange Étranger, mais pas de Mantinée, qui a perdu l’audace de faire chœur au Banquer Salue avec retard le génie de ton lieu, l’accordéon, le feu grégeois sur les terrasses la … Read more Michel Deguy: A Feast at Eco’s
BY MLYNXQUALEY on FEBRUARY 20, 2016 • ( 0 ) In a tremendous blow to Egypt’s novelists, publishers and readers, the Bulaq Criminal Court today sentenced experimental novelist Ahmed Naji to two years in prison for “public indecency” for the excerpt of his novel Using Life that appeared last year in the Akhbar al-Adab newspaper: According to several news sources (Mada, Al-Bedaiah), Akhbar al-Adab editor-in-chief Tarek al-Taher, who was also charged in this case, was given a LE10,000 … Read more Egyptian Appeals Court Sentences Novelist Ahmed Naji to Two Years
Last September I wrote a blog entry about the Syrian poet Adonis receiving the Erich Maria Remarque Peace Prize of the city of Osnabrück & the resistance from a range of quarters to this award. You can read my original post here. Since then a fair amount of pressure has been put on the award committee demanding the award be rescinded, while the man who was supposed to give the laudatio — last … Read more Adonis in Osnabruck
The Al-Mutanabbi Street Starts Here DC 2016 festival rolls on, with a poetry readings by Hala Alyan and DC-area Arab-American poets forthcoming February 20 and 21. Elizabeth Kelley was at two of the early February events: By Elizabeth Kelley I had the pleasure last week of attending not one but two events on translation from Arabic featuring ArabLit’s M. Lynx Qualey. The events, both part of the Al-Mutanabbi Street Starts Here … Read more Al Mutanabbi Street Starts Here and the Politics of Translation
Thinking back on my last post on Jacket2 (Dada to Daesh) I realized that the sense of poetry I was proposing (defending?) has been with me for a long time. So, here a short piece that expands on my sense of what poetry can / should be today if it is to be of use. I wrote this back in 1987 as introduction for an international anthology following a poetry … Read more INTRODUCTION TO « ANTHOLOGIE POÉSIE INTERNATIONALE »
Excellent essay on Lee Harwood at Intercapillary Space. Here’s the opening section: Six notes about Lee Harwood (while reading Penguin Modern Poets 19) by Michael Peverett 1. The English Channel Paul Nash, painting of Dymchurch sea-wall [Image source: from Cathy Lomax’s pretty wonderful blog: http://cathylomax.blogspot.co.uk/2013/08/paul-nash-and-dymchurch.html] Lee’s poems had about them a remarkable tone. They were ‘quiet’ compared to the work of the Americans I was reading, but they were … Read more Michael Peverett on Lee Harwood