{"id":6225,"date":"2011-04-15T07:47:29","date_gmt":"2011-04-15T11:47:29","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/pierrejoris.com\/blog\/?p=6225"},"modified":"2011-04-15T07:47:29","modified_gmt":"2011-04-15T11:47:29","slug":"mehdi-akhrif-half-a-line","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/pierrejoris.com\/blog\/mehdi-akhrif-half-a-line\/","title":{"rendered":"Mehdi Akhrif: Half a Line"},"content":{"rendered":"<p style=\"text-align: justify;\">I have been way too busy, travelling for all the wrong reasons, teaching &amp; trying to get the anthology of Maghrebian Writing I&#8217;m doing with Habib Tengour ready to send to the publisher in time, to be able to concentrate on this blog \u2014 except for announcements of this or that order. What I do want to do over the next month or so, is to post some of the Maghrebian poets we are including in the anthology \u2014 for your pleasure, &amp; of course to whet your appetite for the whole book which should be out in the fall of 2012. Here is a first installment, a poem by the\u00a0Moroccan\u00a0poet <strong>Mehdi Akhrif<\/strong>:<\/p>\n<p><strong> <\/strong><\/p>\n<blockquote><p><strong> <\/strong><br \/>\n<strong>HALF A LINE<\/strong><br \/>\n<strong> <\/strong><br \/>\nHalf a line of poetry<br \/>\nis enough<br \/>\nfor a lifetime<br \/>\nEdgar Poe spent the whole of his mad life<br \/>\ntranslating unsuccessfully<br \/>\nhalf a line of poetry<br \/>\ninto incredible prose<\/p>\n<p>The other half of the line<br \/>\nwill come from another world<br \/>\nfurther away than poetry<br \/>\nand the voyages<br \/>\nfaster<br \/>\nthan the sound of a rope<\/p>\n<p>As far as you\u2019re concerned<br \/>\nit will be enough to prevaricate in the coming years<br \/>\nto be yourself<br \/>\nand to give yourself over to half a line of prose<br \/>\nthat you have always skillfully missed<br \/>\npretexting that we had gotten<br \/>\nto our appointment thirty years late<br \/>\nLet\u2019s add that to be standing up thus<br \/>\non one single leg<br \/>\nlike a heron<br \/>\nthe voice turned toward your wet nurse the sea<br \/>\n(we wrote about the two of you<br \/>\nin <em>Low Ceiling<\/em><br \/>\n\u2014 remember?)<br \/>\nenjoying in the here below and the beyond<br \/>\nonly the sense of smell<br \/>\nis proof that the other half<br \/>\nof your line of poetry<br \/>\nwas written well in advance<br \/>\ninside the bubbles<br \/>\nof this cold glass<br \/>\nfoaming<br \/>\nempty<br \/>\n<strong> <\/strong><\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: right;\">translated by P.J.<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\">&nbsp;<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>I have been way too busy, travelling for all the wrong reasons, teaching &amp; trying to get the anthology of Maghrebian Writing I&#8217;m doing with Habib Tengour ready to send to the publisher in&#46;&#46;&#46;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[66,91,103,1],"tags":[1746,979],"class_list":["post-6225","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-maghrebi-literature","category-poetry","category-translation","category-uncategorized","tag-maghreb","tag-mehdi-akhrif"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/pierrejoris.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6225","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/pierrejoris.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/pierrejoris.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pierrejoris.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pierrejoris.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=6225"}],"version-history":[{"count":7,"href":"https:\/\/pierrejoris.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6225\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":6237,"href":"https:\/\/pierrejoris.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6225\/revisions\/6237"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/pierrejoris.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=6225"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pierrejoris.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=6225"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pierrejoris.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=6225"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}