Song of the Azria on Poems & Poetics

please note. a list of postings after january 12, 2012 can be found here

NOTE.  The following is part of Pierre Joris’s ongoing exploration of North African (Maghreb) culture, a work as big & multifaceted as his own sense of the dynamics & far reach of poetic imagination & fancy.  Yet the stakes here, as with much real poetry, go well beyond poesis as such, to exemplify & expose an area of religion & sexuality that has been a given in many parts of the world, “from origins to present.”  Here the azria(courtesan) asserts the role of the outsider, still not forgotten, to raise new/old powers of body & mind in the service of vision & desire. (J.R.)

 Adapted by Pierre Joris from Y. Georges Kerhuel’s French version

I am beautiful Azria
I am unfaithful Azria
I am the tender fruit
of a tree with tight clusters

ctd. here.