First Place

Poems

2007 and 2008 Poetry Contest Winners2008 Society for Humanistic AnthropologyPoetry Contest Winners

First Place

MARILYN MERRITT

Department of Anthropology2110 G St, NWGeorge Washington UniversityWashington, DC 20052

Waiting for a Young Poet in Niamey

Having rushed out the dooren retard moi-même (late myself)

forgetting I now find even the poem whoseprinting out again was makingme late I arrive to hearfrom the gardener, “Elles sont parties.”

(They have left.)Seeming familiar obviouslyAmerican in this Sahelian landhe invites me in to waiton the terrace.On the table is a green and whitebox of Crane’s kid finish paper afine green ink pen green and blackmarbleized finish with gold trimand a new edition of V.S. Naipaul’sA HOUSE FOR MR. BISWAS—asubject of our last discussions.

The amber-eyed gray longhaired cat—the American cat they’ll take back with them—purrs and paws gently at my straw hatnow laid on the table with my purse and

Anthropology and Humanism, Vol. 33, Issue 1/2, pp 101–117, ISSN 1559-9167, online ISSN 1548-1409.© 2008 by the American Anthropological Association. All rights reserved.DOI: 10.1111/j.1548-1409.2008.00009.x.

Nigerien leather satchel of “writing things”a book I’m returning a magazine to showwith poems by W.S. Merwin.I begin to read Ian Buruma’s introductionto Naipaul—the writer’s probe into anotherwriter’s process and theme what has madehim what he is the telling of the objectsand rituals drawing us closer intothe web of why we should want to know tounderstand how we may hope to enter that world.

Gently the breeze tugs the hem of my skirtbrushing my attention with the scallopedpuffs of touching me my ankles now in thisvery present moment here where I am andout of the same movement I lift thegreen pen and my blue notebook listeningto this scene the fire finch serenadesmy fingers searching for words with which to seehow the breeze here is pleasant in Januarybougainvillea blossoms bouquet-like stems oftea roses and the frond-like green branches ofthe flamboyant trees the drooping arrowheadleaves of the eucalyptus all these swaying andrustling about in the morning air

how the terrace tiles are old some crackedpatterned in colors of sand and eucalyptus greenalmost blue and the black and tan stripedstraw canopy still strung with holiday coloredlights dusty saggingtelling a kind ofwarm-country luxury the denouement of post-colonialrhythms decreed even by the pair of small bronzelions left with two toy trucks and a pack ofcigarettes at the bar some of what the young poetonce described as

“the almost yellow color ofan era lingering on but passing by with the

wind and the harmattan of change”

how the walls of the house and the concessionare textured stucco the color of Saharan sandthe plain clay pots from women potters at Boubona bit more red with splotches of black firinghow the gardener collects dry leaves on the endof a sharpened stick how he rakes the sand-coloredgravel how Abdou the cook arrives from his shopping

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and we “bavardons un peu” (gossip a little) about Patrick anotherfriend already gone, “quitté le Niger” (left Niger) for Australia

how in this cool season air the leaf shadows areundulating shapes on the tiles and the wallsblurred but growing sharper as the sun rises towardnoon how a small slice of light captures thepunched aluminum pattern of the metal lounge chairsand spreads Islamic architectural lace onto a slimpatch of terrace and reminds me of Ramadan atthe next new moon how I am thirsty for a glassof cool water that Abdou will bring

The gray cat has moved off nowthe gardener ambled out of viewAbdou into the kitchen.Held back by the persistence of newlimbs rising from hacked off trunksof eucalyptus and flamboyant even gaothe fissured planes of each rockedging the flower beds the visual depthof having-lived-here texture still mountinga strong sense of time and landscape seepinginto a niche of solitudegifting a savor to this moment of waitingpoised at the edge of departurein this fine African mid-day brilliance.

Yantala Nouveau Plateau, Niamey

Dakar Rhythms of Ramadan

Loud talking outside our balconyOn Place de l’IndependanceAvenue Leopold Sedar Senghor

People who have risen before dawnto drink tea to eat before the sun rises andsays no more no more to eat or to drink

or even swallow untilsunset and the other twilightand after the evening prayers

Now in the darkness turning grayThe motored sounds of tall city busesAnd early bird calls from the trees below

Mingle with greetings and incantationAlhumdoulilayeand Insha Allah—

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Praise be to GodMay it please GodMay it be so—Insha Allah

I will go to Wolof class todayAnd study the verbs of native sayingsWalk briskly through the narrow streets

Smile and greet the sidewalk sellersThe cheerful beggars and hawkersCalling all around to give or buy—Insha Allah

Both “Waiting for a Young Poet in Niamey” and “Dakar Rhythms of Ramadan”were written during the five years I lived in francophone West Africa, in the countriesof Niger and Senegal. The basic rhythm and flow of each poem is distinct, reflecting theslower pace of Niamey and the metropolitan air of Dakar. The presence of languagesother than English, and the cultural pervasiveness of Islam, appear in both poems, andis partly the subject of the second.

As with much of my poetry, the impetus for writing each poem was a moment ofheightened awareness in which the sensate detail of simply “being there”—what is seen,what is heard, what is touched, maybe even what is smelled or tasted—is emotionallycompelling and almost “demands” written expression. This moment of impetus is, infact, folded into the first poem (“Waiting for a Young Poet”), so that I become an almostexternalized part of the scene being described.

In the field, or when I am traveling, I find that the act of writing poetry sharpens myperceptions and cultural sensitivities to the local interpretation of behaviors and pat-terns of social interaction, and to the juxtaposition of remembered experience alwayswith me. When I write a poem about a place while I am there (sur place as one says inFrench speaking West Africa), I have full access to my immediate sensibilities as well asto my imagination and reflections on practices and past events. My creative involve-ment with formulating a unified expression that is aesthetically satisfying within thatmoment (typically, of course, only a draft) is also mnemonic.

In the case of poems written in the field, this helps to keep the experience of being inanother physical and cultural space alive in my memory over long periods of time, andallows me to “return” to that moment whenever I reread the poem. (I would hope, ofcourse, that reading the poem also allows the reader or audience to explore the imageryof that scene as well.) Though neither of these poems relates directly to the applied workon educational settings that I was undertaking at the time, both poems engage the paceof shared daily life and situate the perspective of foreign witness that I bring to myethnographic writing.

I am deeply committed to the study of creativity and human understanding in thisera of massive social change. Poetry affords a voice for saying some of what I know andlove about Africa that does not quite fit (yet?) into a classic anthropological genre. Aftertravel to twenty-one countries and nine years of living there, Africa remains a treasuredmystery, one that I continue to explore.


Second Place

PETER A. NELSON

Research AssistantNSF Recruitment Research Project Materials Science TechnologyEdmonds Community College20000 68th Ave. WestLynnwood, WA 98036-5999

A Tuscan Necropolis

The house is silent, but her guests remainAnd dance and drink and fornicate alongThe colored walls, the painted, sweet refrains.

She lies, one breast uncovered and untamed,While wild Bacchants sing lustily and throng;The house is silent, but her guests remain.

Her servants bring her lions, golden-maned,Uncaged save for a simple leather thong.The colored walls, the painted, sweet refrains

hold fruit, while blue adorns the ceiling stainedwith stars. This night no planets move along.The house is silent, but her guests remain.

Outside, the men are digging and will claimHer body, riches, and destroy how strongThe colored walls, the painted, sweet refrains

can shine; her image thins and she in painWill leave her bones and live alone in song;The house is silent, but her guests remainThe colored walls, the painted, sweet refrains.

A Short Statement about “A Tuscan Necropolis”

I wrote this villanelle while walking through various Etruscan tombs in 2007. Ioriginally intended it to comfort a friend whose relative recently died, but it moves awayfrom the subject of death alone and explores archaeological ethics. The woman in thepoem experiences a sort of second birth and death because of the excavation of her tomb.This situation invites the question of whether we as anthropologists should pursue suchdestructive forms of research. On the one hand, archaeological excavations damage ordestroy their subjects of study as when frescos fade due to exposure or when items areseparated from their stratigraphic context. On the other hand, we would know far lessabout the Etruscans, and I would not have had the chance to view these tombs and writea song for them, had the tombs not been uncovered and studied.

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Third Place

MARIE GERVAIS

Educational CoordinatorNorthern Alberta Alliance on Race Relations (NAARR)#4, 10865-96 StreetEdmonton, AlbertaCanada T5H 2K2

On This Day Nobody Die

on this day nobody die

This is what we say on this day, Mah-rie.Listen to me,I tell you what my people say on this blessed day.

We sing—(she bursts into song, hugging me fiercely, then stops, takes a blanket from

the couch and wraps it around her, sarong-style)like this, Mah-rie.I sing it for you.

Happy New Year!Everybody happy sing and dance!(her new husband beams from the table, “This is my wife, always singing and

happy”)Happy New Year Mah-rie!On this day nobody die!

And I remember the stories,8 years of killing, killing, executing “operation no living thing”all the men, her first husband,cut apart one piece at a timein front of the family

while rebels laughing, stuffed bleeding body parts down the water well,as far upstream the river as possibleto kill more, but a slower, more agonizing death.

Those left behind, fled the death squadto camps.And to survive, she, my now jubilant and singing friend,left her youngest daughter as ransomto wash clothes for the enemyearning a meal,feeding, but barely, those still alive.Knowing full wellthe little one may be dead,


each day upon her return.Shutting her mind and heart to the childwho would be rubbed with garbage, soiled, raped, God knows how many

timesat the age of four.

The tears come unbidden to my eyesand I watch this girl-who-lived, now 14, tall, beautiful and strong,smiling sweetly at her mother’s songAnd I sing too, remembering:

Happy New YearOn this day, nobody die.

We dance around the tiny living room,smells of pepper stew and rice filling the airpiles of food served by the older one—she cooks as well as her mother now—and the full table of neighbors, friends, anyone who is hungryalways welcome, freely invitedto the table of festivities

Sing Mah-rie! Sing all you people from Cah-nah-dah!Happy New Year !On this day NOBODY,NOBODY DIE!

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Honorable Mention Awards for 2007

FRANCES RAPPORT

Qualitative Health Research UnitSwansea UniversitySchool of MedicineCentre for Health Information, Research and Evaluation (CHIRAL)Grove Building, Singleton ParkSwansea SA2 8PPUnited Kingdom

“I Leave Everything with You”

A sister four years younger,a tiny girl with curly hairand really lovely face;my mother had to go to the gas chamber with her.

We were separated straight awayas we arrived at Auschwitz,the only sibling I had,I haven’t got much family.

I knew it all before I was ten—and I live on it even now—when I went to private grammar school,the only Jewess in the class.

We had English news on the radio,my father listened to every word.It always started—Beethoven.Quietly, so next door didn’t hear.

There was a date they created a ghetto,everybody would have an address.My father kept on paying,leave it a little bit longer.

Non-Jewish, knowledgeable people,came the last few weeks,said, “If you like, we’ll look afterthings you want to keep.”

We only moved in the last few days,We’d hardly settled in;in the district where we came fromthey all died, nobody escaped.

Young little daughterwasn’t much involved.


Suddenly, I became the big girlto see to everything.

German soldiers marchingon the main circle road,marching with tanks,go straight home.

Very, very silent,everybody on the street,“Stop the tram,” show identity cards.That day I left it at home.

I never looked Jewish—a little Dutch capnavy-lined with light blue—didn’t look Jewish in that.

He came up to me, burning red,“I’m awfully sorry, I left it at home,is it very important?”“Yes, don’t do it again.”

So worried, I didn’t noticehalf the people were taken;those people were never seen again;I got off and walked home.

One friend in authoritycame to see us off.People came out joining us,it was a long, long walk.

We were taken to a quarry,So, suddenly, that became a camp;spent three nights under the sky,bank holiday, end of May.

A seventeen-year-old girlwrapped in cotton wool,had to look after the familyand think for everybody.

At the beginning everybody was ashamed;after a few people diednobody was ashamed.There was nothing to do.

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Everybody to themselves,didn’t make big scenes.There was no point,nobody would open the gates.

You can’t imagine . . . you can’t imagine.Remember, it takes three days.You can’t for a lifetime remember,I talk, and the picture is there.It was written up, “Auschwitz-Birkenau.”The death, the hunger, didn’t stop,and they didn’t ask anything,they wouldn’t answer us.

They shouted “Raus, Raus,”hurried you out of these trucks.People working in Auschwitzwould whisper in your own language.

I don’t think your imaginationCould extend that far.Everything within a week,Everything got mixed.

Lots of people, lots of people.“Father, Mother, where are you?”The decent chaps were saying,“Get in line, otherwise you’re in trouble.”

Mengele, a good-looking officer,sitting at a table,wanted to look at my eyes, my hands.Nobody is behind us.

“Mum, where did you go?” I started to stop.I didn’t want to go any further.“Don’t worry, meet them later.”“Don’t worry, she is with your sister.”

“They went straight to the gas.”The unwanted ones. I never saw them again.“See that smoke coming out of the chimney?That’s where your mother is going.”

I was shoved at the end—little windows.no glass, horse blankets of course.And when it started snowingI was snowed in.


The woman, soldier, in German,“What are you laughing about?”I answered her in German.We could cry, but instead we were laughing.

At the beginning I had lace-up boots,not high; they didn’t last long.Then I found large Dutch clogsand had to walk in those.They shaved our heads completely,my beautiful hair was dropping.I’m shuddering when I remember.We were laughing at each other.

In the morning we had black water,We washed our faces with it,your face and hair and hands.You wanted to keep on washing.

Counting outside each morninguntil they found the person;if it took the whole day, we had to stand there.And they will shoot you, right on that spot.

I saw a few things happening,that is one of my nightmares;a mother and daughter together,they tried to look after each other.

The mother got ill and fragile,the German came and kicked herin front of all of us, and her daughter.She wasn’t able to do anything.

We were freezing. They counted againand again.It was nightfall, the snow came down,it stopped and we froze to the ground.

I don’t know how many hours.I just couldn’t move.On my knees I crawled in.I couldn’t get up.

We were all friends and nobody was friends.I mean, what can you do for each other?Don’t steal from me—that was a friendship,that was friendship.

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No pillow, but we undressed,folded your dress and then put it under.Nobody would go under the window,a bit of ice to get under my head.

I talked to God,I had no one else.I discussed everything with him,“I leave everything with you.”

The genesis of this poem, as part of a corpus of work toward the book, Narrating theHolocaust: In Pursuit of Notions of Health and Well-Being, was a lengthy con-versation between the author and her mother that took place in a quiet restaurant on theoutskirts of town. The conversation centered on the retelling of a Holocaust survivor’sexperience of internment in Auschwitz and the subsequent birth of a baby girl on anopen, typhoid-infested coal wagon ascending the hill to Maunthausen. During theconversation one of the diners strode across the restaurant and in a state of extremeagitation chastised them hotly for openly conversing about the Holocaust. “What doyou know about the Holocaust? You are putting me off my meal,” he remonstrated,“You have no right to talk like that in public.” With one hand holding tightly onto along blue cross around his neck and the other pointing accusingly at us, he marched tothe door and proceeded to goose-step up and down outside the restaurant window. Thesepoems form part of a Holocaust archive that must continue to bear witness to survivortestimonies despite any attempts at their disavowal.


Honorable Mention

BROOKE BOCAST

Department of AnthropologyTemple UniversityGladfelter Hall, 2nd FloorPhiladelphia, PA 19122

A Good Woman

a good woman is ever cleanwhen she has soft skin, a good face of looking, good eyes, and long hair—a woman must have these thingson her body she must have reproductive organsshe must have breasts which will help her to feed the youngshe must have hands which will help her in working

a good woman cooks well foodshe should be good in performing houseworkand in digging, washing clothes, cooking, washing plates, sweeping in the

house, fetching water—these things also make a good womanI will also be a good woman in the future; I help my mother in these things

a good woman loves her husbanda good woman should be submissiveshe should be under the command of a manshe must respect her husband and accept that a man is the headshe must not be selfish in a family for the husband to appreciate her

a good woman walks with peoplea woman must come from a well-behaved family where people are manyand they greet every person who has come to their compoundand those who pass on the waywhen a visitor comes to the home, she welcomes them

a good woman must be educatedwhen you are educated then you become a good woman with intelligence,a studied woman who can use her common sense to act after something

a good woman loves God every timea good woman must follow the requirement of kashrutas well as Jewish or religious ritualslike when she participates in synagogueshe now becomes a good woman

While conducting my Master’s research in anthropology in Nabagoye Village,Uganda, I taught English composition at the village secondary school, Semei KakunguluHigh School. My research focused on the relationship between secondary school

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pedagogy and discourses about gender; in particular, I wanted to know how mystudents, including the first female cohort to attend high school, navigated the shiftingterrain of local and national gender expectations. “A Good Woman” is compiled fromstudents’ written responses to the question: “What makes a good woman?” This poemhas about twenty authors, both boys and girls, and reflects the major themes of students’essays.

I should also note that Nabagoye Village is the nexus of Uganda’s small Jewishcommunity. This community, known as Abayudaya, is composed of indigenous Ugan-dans who, following the teaching of local military leader Semei Kakungulu, convertedto Judaism at the turn of the twentieth century.


Honorable Mention

JENNIFER WOOTEN

Department of Language and Literacy Education125 Aderhold HallUniversity of GeorgiaAthens, GA, 30602

¿De Dónde Es Usted?

The taxi driver asks me in Spanish where I am from,says he hears a little bit of Cuba.But I am from the British clan of Wootton

Antique plantation housessurveying fields once speckedby bleached cotton blossoms and dark hands.

Childhood of soft moccasins and doll papoosesDaydreams on a tree swing with a wooden seatCracker Florida, sweet tea, fried cornbread

Great-grandma Blackbird,who Daddy swears was the meanest IndianColonial guilt.

The Fountain of Youth’s sediment-richwater in white paper cupsThe safety of library caves

Spanish cathedralsFlamenco lessonsConversations with invisible consonants of mucha’ gracia’

Pale skin made dark by prolonged sunsIndiana corn-fed hipsProfound pride for passing en español

The secondhand Cuba of worn pagesRolled tobacco in TampaPressed ham sandwiches

The New York of tragic ash, paper rain,and collapsed steel,A new Georgia driver’s license.

So I tell him “Estados Unidos,”as if my statescould be united.

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I wrote the poem “¿De Dónde Es Usted?” in Costa Rica after being repeatedly askedby costarricences if I was from Cuba. The first few times I was secretly pleased that myaccent sounded native enough for Spanish speakers to inquire about my origins.Excited, I explained I was from the United States, but this answer only led to furtherinterrogation: “Where in the United States? Is your family Hispanic? Why do youspeak so well? Why Spanish?” The articulation of my identities was difficult for tworeasons. First, as a qualitative researcher, I am accustomed to asking the questions ininterviews, which focuses my attention on my participants’ stories rather than sharingmy own. Second, after the postmodern turn, succinctly categorizing myself seems animpossible task. Answers about identity do not come easily, even when the question isas simple as “Where are you from?”

Poems by Victor Turner

(written 1945–55)

Measure Past Measure

With the clearness but none of the cloy of honeyThe feel not the look of the eveningTells the heart something,Emits from a slit in the membraneNot passion, vast glory,But measure past measure, plethoraOf mild, rich existence. Such life as enlivensRound rock pools the serious faces of childrenSelf-assured and forgotten.

Vision Most Holy

Vision most holy, nigh, live-light, so mild,Animate crystal, infinite, local,Pulsate, warm without warmth,Knowing me as permeance—Me the thin shell—Not the face.Neither personalBeyond nor behind.Not light—for my light the most beautiful was outside me,Not darkness—for this is the reality of Darkness.

A Lunda Ancient

I see in the lean black’s ancient faceThe crimson empires through the forest creepHoarse veins of proud and pounding warAnd for his desolation weep.


I know no melody of yellow fruitGrafted with deft and modern handsSo sweet as that unyielding woodThat cenotaphs his buried lands.

South Africa 1952

Wherever life lies down with bitter breadBeside her lonely stubborn choice to eatWith pain today for meatAnd all tomorrow sauced with dread,Beside her lie the deadThe dead who tasted ashen foodThe dead who drank the vinegarBut savage and proud held to their starOf human brotherhood,The legion of the mild and goodFulfilled collect around her griefAround their hungry sister life.

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First Place

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