Poetry Planetariat · (Madách Prize, Lucian Blaga Prize, Arghezi Prize. POETRY PLANETARIAT ISSUE...

Poetry Planetariat

Issue 2, Fall 2019 Istanbul / Medellin

Poets of the World Unite Against Injustice

Issue 4, spring 2020 Istanbul / Medellin

Poets of the World Unite Against Injustice

Copyright 2020 World Poetry MovementPublisher: World Poetry [email protected]

Editor: Ataol Behramoğlu [email protected]/[email protected] Editor: Pelin [email protected]

Editorial Board: Mohammed Al-Nabhan (Kuwait), Ayo Ayoola-Amalae (Nigeria), Francis Combes (France), Jack Hirschman (USA), Jidi Majia (China), Fernando Rendón (Colombia), Rati Saxena (India), Keshab Sigdel (Nepal)

Paintings by Egon Schiele Layout by Gülizar Ç. Çetinkaya [email protected]

Adress: Tekin Publishing House Ankara Cad.Konak Han, No:15 Cağaloğlu-İstanbul/TurkeyTel:+(0212)527 69 69 Faks:+(0212)511 11 12www.tekinyayinevi.come-mail:[email protected] XXXXXPoetry Planetariat is published four times a year in Istanbul by the World Poetry Movement in cooperation with

Ataol Behramoğlu-Pelin Batu and Tekin Publishing House

CONTENTS

POETRY ON THE CORONA DAYS./ATAOL BEHRAMOĞLU

POETRYCHRIS ABANI (NIGERIA, 1966)

AYO-AYOOLA AMALE (NIGERIA,1970)IDRAN AMIRTHANAYAGAM (SRI LANKA)

BALÂZS F. ATTILA (HUNGARY, 1954)SALİM BABULLAOĞLU (AZERBAYJAN, 1972)

ALESSANDRA BAVA (VATICAN)DMİTRO O. TCHYİSTİAK(UKRAİNE,1987)

MARCO CINQUE (ITALY) FRANCİS COMBES(FRANCE,1953)

JOHN CURL (USA, 1940)AMİT DAHİYABADSHAH(INDIA)

JEAN-LUC DESPAX (FRANCE, 1968)MAURO FORTISSİMO (ARGENTINA)STEVEN GRAY (SOUTH AFRICA, 1941)

MARİA CRİSTİNA GUTİERREZ (COLOMBIA/USA)JACK HIRSCHMAN (USA, 1933)

ANTONELLA IASCHI(İTALY,1956)AMAL AL-JUBOURI (IRAQ, 1967)

JETON KELMENDİ(BELGİUM, 1978)RAQUEL LANSEROS (SPAIN, 1973)

ANGELINA LLONGUERAS(CATALONİA) ANNA LOMBARDO (ITALY)

MOEZ MAJED (TUNISIA, 1973)BIPLAB MAJEE (INDIA)

KAREN MELANDER-MAGOON (USA, 1943)SARAH MENEFEE (USA)

MARIA MISTRIOTI (GREECE)IMEN MOUSSA (TUNISIA)

KEMANDJOU NJANKE MARCEL (CAMEROON, 1970)KATE NEWMAN (IRELAND,1965)

BILL NEVINS (USA)RATI SAXENA (INDIA)

KESHAB SIGDEL(NEPAL,1979)DİNOS SİOTİS (GREECE,1944)JURI TALVET (ESTONIA, 1945)VADIM TERYOHIN (RUSSIA)

WHAT POETRY MEANS TO ME

FORCES HIDDEN IN POETRY/ JIDI MAJIA

IN MEMORIAMAPOLLINAIRE, THE POET ASSASSINATED/ FRANCIS COMBES

POETRY PLANETARIAT | ISSUE 4, SPRING 2020, ISTANBUL / MEDELLINPOETS OF THE WORLD UNITE AGAINST WAR

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POETRY ON THE DAYS OF CORONA

AtaolBehramoğlu

The Corona virus disaster is the revenge of nature that we have ravaged and deranged. Free market economy that has reigned over the world is a system where money dominates labor, and as in the case of all social relations, it sees to it that capital rather than its citizens’ health is in the forefront- all these factors heighten the scope of the disaster.Poetry is the calling of love and concern from human to human, human to nature, to all creaturesanimate and inanimate, to being itself.Poetry advocates life not death.Along with all art forms, poetry is the search for peace, freedom, the courage to create and happiness.On these dark days and difficult times, we sense the magic of using words to touch people when we cannot come into physical contact with each other due to societal restrictions; we realize how estranged we had become from this “touch” due to the hustles of everyday life. Poetry is the name of this touch, the touch extended from one human to another via words…Confined to small places, stuck in contracted living spaces we are surprised to realize lines that come to the tip of our tongues from the far depths of our memory, and we add novel lines to those of old to reach other people, the fellow human beings with whom we share the same fate. Poetry is the voicing of our shared fate…It is meaning “we” when we say “I”…That is where its immortality comes from…As we are going through these calamitous days, it is this connective and healing characteristic of poetry that invokes our desire to hold onto it firmly.In this issue of Spring 2020, we had really hoped it would be a Spring timeissue.We are postponing this wish to next Spring.In this issue you will find the World Poetry Movement’s appeal, along with call of poets from all corners of the world on the subject of these days we are collectively going through.You will find also Jidi Majia’s philosophical and poetical text of his speech “Forces Hidden on Poetry”In our In Memoriam corner, we are commemorating the great French poet Guillaume Apollinaire who lost his life to one of the greatest calamities of the history, the Spanish Influenza that scourged the world between 1918 and 1920. We celebrate this great poet with two of his poems and an article written about him by his compatriot, the esteemed poet Francis Combes.One other feature of this issue is another victim of the aforementioned calamity, the great Austrian painter EgonSchiele.


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POETRY


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IDRAN AMIRTHANAYAGAM (SRI LANKA,1960)

after listening to murder most foul

( With debt to Dylan, Wormser, Teachers)

I keep listening as well, Baron, to Murder Most Foul. I hear and feelthe melancholy, the public grief for a generation, its dreams, its innocence.The song is important like Blowing in the Wind, A Hard Rain’s Gonna Fall--

important because it uncovers layers and layers of social crust overa wound that remains a cold case, unresolved, but alive, beatingthen as now, the nightmare woken up out of hibernation. What

a terrible power the dirge has, you call it right Baron, to bring backthe demon while helping us understand what we lost that dayin Dallas and the losses to come, Malcolm, Martin, Robert,

and now we confront two steps forward and one step backyet again (thank you Sonia Sanchez for the phrase), the Great Society,the battle over oil, the defeat of the Soviet twist of communism.

But we did not reach the end of history. No sir. We learnedthere is another emergency, from Nature itself, climate outof sync, everybody flying this way and that, consuming everything

and yet the resistance, environmentalists, and now we arebeing decimated by an unseen virus that may have left a batin a marketplace, and for which we have no antibody,

no bullet proof vest, and again the jury is out, the case cold,suppositions, jealousies, bigotry, and countries of the worldclosing borders, iron curtains, ICE, no buses or trains,

millions marching home in India, quarantine without a plan,tourists stranded in Peru, given hours to get out, surprised,trapped, the food chain snapped in Chile, no food on the shelves

of the supermarkets, and in Iran the minister of health falls illon television, and the bear hug- loving Boris in Britain catchesthe virus and disappears behind a screen. Great men and women,


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musicians, playwrights, and surgeons. And ordinary people.Who are you, walking downtown in Los Angeles? Whyare you in that cell? For bank robbery, larceny, rolling a joint?

Are you one one of the two hundred thousand who will diein the United States alone before the vaccine is tested,found to be safe, delivered? Murder most foul.

He is a Sri Lankan-American poet-diplomat, essayist and translator in English, Spanish, French, Portuguese and Haitian Creole.He was born in Colombo, Ceylon (now Sri Lanka) He writes poetry and essays in English, Spanish, French, Portuguese and Haitian Creole Amirthanayagam’s The Elephants Of Reckoning won the 1994 Paterson Poetry Prize.[4] The poem «Juarez» won the Juegos Florales of Guaymas, Sonora in 2006. Amirthanayagam has received the Superior Honor Award and the Meritorious Honor Award (thrice) from the Department of State for his diplomatic work..


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AYO-AYOOLA AMALE(NIGERIA,1970)

No GoodA day is a centuryswellinginto hellish clutches.We tumbled inside like an old cripple– faint than a flea on anabundant wretched foothills –as impenetrable as fog.The walls kicked us in the faceblustering, hungering – for breathfor the sun’s howling gale, dreadful of droplets –whipping for an unending mask-against the jagged rocksof a weary world–washed lifeless–smashed– spreading wide to make our hearts large.This, the purpose we are hereis all the reason in the worldto liveto ride out the storm to reach root.

She was born in Jos, Nigeria May 21, 1970. She is a Poet, Author, Lawyer, Conflict-Resolution professional, and Spoken-word performance artist whose voice is noted for its peace, harmony, humanity, political, surrealistic and dynamic innovations in lyricism and visceral sound. She is a director of Splendors of Dawn Poetry Foundation. She was the Legal Advisor at the Ghana Association of Writers. Ayo is a member of the International committee of the World Poetry Movement.


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BALÁZS F. ATTILA (HUNGARY, 1954)

i turn sand in my fingers

(during epidemics)

thebrokenupremnants of memorystirsomething in meI catchmyselftryingtoputtogethersomethingthat is notsodifferentandyetwhichseemsthesameorsimilar

I seemyfingerstremblingso I stopthensoastorelaxmymusclesI turnsand in myfingersdrydogshit is left in mypalm

then I drawshapesinthesandagain and again I erasesignslinescircles

howcanyoucreateorderinthedisorderthereinside?

order is notneatnessthingsfallapartthingsseparatethingsclub together


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order is an invisible netit is vulnerableit can be obliteratedquestionedrearrangedsuddenly

it occurs to meam I defined by my name?am I my nameor is it just junk that I wearwhich you can’t get rid of

words like hatchling turtlesscramble toward the waterrocked by the wavesin the safety of the watera huge greedy mouth swallows them but some of them survivein the volatile beautyin the sparkling life-death

He graduated in Library science and Literary translation in Bucharest. In 1994, he founded AB-ART Publishing (Bratislava), of which he is the director since then. He is a founding editor of Poesis International Satu Mare and editor-in-chief of SzőrösKő. Attila F. Balázs has received numerous awards and prizes in acknowledgement of his various literary activities (Madách Prize, Lucian Blaga Prize, Arghezi Prize


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SALİM BABULLAOĞLU (AZERBAYJAN, 1972)

the hymn of the masked people(From the series of verses “Photos book of Ilyas Gochman”)

Who will read wrinkles in our forehead like hemistiches?Who? What linguist, what calligrapher?Anyone looking at these lines will not recognize them, you know.Tears are not only to water our cheeks, evenSlake our thirst you will not perceiveLooking at our faces…We washed our eyes with tears, butIt made no difference for eyelashes, as theyWere not able to protect as from dust, fear and evil eyesWho will divine hardness from shuddered eyes?Who will feel heart pain from our faces?If these questions have no answers,Why will the people l see our faces?If the people got accustomed to our face are numerous,Meanwhile, there is a need to hide it from you.Who will divine, perhaps we have to be entangledLooking in the mirror,Perhaps, we have to look at our facesSometimes through the eyes of others …

Translated by JavanshirYusifli

Azerbaijani poet, translator, essayist, one of the leaders of “new modern poetry”. Works by him have been translated into many languages of the world and published in several prestigious literary magazines of the world. His books were published in Turkey, Poland, Ukraine, Romanian, Germany, Iran, Georgia, Serbian and and so on.


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ALESSANDRA BAVA (VATICAN)

life in suspension

We are on lockdown. I tread the empty country road walking my dog -no masks are required here- &watch two butterflies waltzing their love dance. My thoughts veer from the heat of the sun pervading my bodyto hundreds of bodies prey of the virus lying on the hospital beds.

It’s 3 AM when I realize that the one I am hearing is the first plane of theday crossing my sky. I feel the isolation, even if people talk to me on the phone or write to me to inquire as to how I am doing. Birds still flockin the yard. I feed them as always, lulled by their landing and departing.

It seems life is in suspension. Bees buzz their violet symphony in therosemary bush as I keep workingat my translations. Business as usual at Covid-19 times. I take a break to eat a cookie and can’t help checking the expiry dates. October 2020, I read. I pray to last more.

Alessandra Bava is a poet and a translator living in the Eternal city. Her poems and translations have appeared in magazines such as Gargoyle, Lunch Ticket, THRUSH Poetry Journal, Tinderbox and Waxwing. Her poetry books and chapbooks have been published both in Italy and in the US. When she is not translating, she keeps working on a biography of SF Emeritus Poet Laureate Jack Hirschman.


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DMYTRO O.CHYSTİAK(UKRAİN, 1987)scales of spring 1. A red thread is woven, Hanging over madness. A beast burst into spring’s sight, And a plague burst into world’s sleep. In a green joy, Laughter falls into sin, And temple falls into sale. An old man at the gate, On the seven hills, Where lava flows in place of glory. Virgin’s throne is falling, And the Dragon is rising on the other. A new way is sawn Between the two eagles. New moon is not a ring, Red cube is not an egg. Wings bring not only storms, Seas are not filled with tears: Scale and weigh At the new shore.

2. Olive branch is cut. Stoneworkers’ nets are fading. Brothers in Christ languish Having lost birds’ language. New pastors fornicate In turbid milk. A needle can’t plug Starlit fires. Fire does not purify, And neither does gold. Rooster chokes with sagebrush, Lion disturbs the sea. The intoxicating adulation of six Will be buried in a mausoleum. Smoke over the sea dreams Of striking down Jerusalem. But over the rales of the dead A torch is risen, And those who blossom Will be brought to the golden gates.


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3. On a digit’s forehead Is apple orchard mist. From the eyes chained to screen The dark night is mined. For the sleepy fish, The snow is unrelenting. But from the empty throat A sword will stream out. The fallen cannot run On a starlit way. Their squamous lids Don’t let them fly. Their life smolders Only through the blood of gold. But neither storm nor beast Can capture the stars. Every child in them Is only a reflection.

4. The stars have rolled From the northern blast. The paper holds the stamps Of the pyramids long gone. Anchors do not free From unfrozen seas. Shadows, scarlet and vastness Radiate from the cracks. Let the fiery flow Under thrones glow. Sacrifice of snowstorms Awakens not the serpent: Mountains will rise over mountains, Shedding their crust like scales. Not wolverines but maidens Will greet the thunderer: Their fairy unfleshly sons Are the dreams for the spring.

Dmytro O. Chystiak (born in Kyiv, on 22 August 1987) is a Ukrainian-speaking and French-speaking poet, short story writer, literary critic and translator, art critic, university scholar and journalist.


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MARCO CINQUE (ITALY)

sepulchers

Wehad just finishedcelebrating the last supperangels with a face masktellinguslies and betrayalsof the Tablets, of the Plagues, of Original SinHercules’ hair, David’ssling, of allHeroes

for the solemnbingeat the pub of penitentssothatwhen the choirreleaseditsvertical voicethecircularexistenceended up shattered, sendingtohell the unique and sole truth: Goddoesnotexist!

Capitalism made itselfat home on the vacantthronebut the miracle of the promises of bread&fishturned out asanother last judgementand whetherthiswascalled “virus” or notwas just an unremarkabledetail. “Mother! Mother!” kept repeating the orphanafter having murdered her. “Son! Son!” replied the mother from her tomb as she returned him to her womb.

Earth has aborted the human.May the Earth take back what belongs to it.

Translated by Alessandra Bava

He is a poet, photographer, musician and superb activist member of the RPB/ROME. He is also the archivist of the newspaper, Il Manifesto.


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FRANCİS COMBES(FRANCE, 1953)

The Big Breakdown

When, after several weeks, everything had stoppedall around the Earth,suddenly, it appeared clearlythe sky could be blue,lives matter more than money,and among all the commodities we producesome are uselessand for the necessary ones2 or 3 hours’ work a day is enoughand we’d better giveeveryone what’s necessary to liveand take care of what’s actually important :love, children, life, poetry…

When everything had stoppedduring several weeksIt became clear, that, all around the Earththere was but one sea,one atmosphereone mankind.

Francis Combes was born in 1953 in Marvejols in France.. He holds a degree in Computer Science and studied oriental languages (Russian, Chinese and Hungarian). From 1981 to 1992 he was a member of the editorial board of the journal “Europe” and then he served as literary director at Messidor editions. In 1993, he founded “Le Temps des Cerises” editions; engaged in supporting independent publishers.. As a poet, he has published fifteen collections as well as several anthologies and books of prose. His poems have been translated into several languages.


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Egon Schiele(1890-1918)


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JOHN CURL (USA, 1940)

shelter in place If the entire economy collapsesfrom the pandemic, are they going to throw us all out on the street? As we plunge into the blind storm, desperation lurking in every shadow, the unknown sweeping away every high-water and low-water mark, the old casino house rules now dim false memories, relentless bills piling up and up, tornados roiling every dark cloud, cataclysmic change swirling among the reckless wise women of the craft, the unthinkable becoming common sense. All too soon, tens of millions of us may not be able to pay our rent or mortgage or afford to feed our kids. We’re not just helpless victims of a housing heartless system, we can’t escape to outer space. If your rent’s overdue but you still can’t pay, Shelter In Place If your mortgage banker threatens, Shelter in Place. If you shout at city hall but they won’t listen at all, if the sheriff ’s a disgrace and the police get in your face, tell your neighbors, blow the conch shell, sound the call. Defend our earthly home from the banker catacombs, don’t submit, don’t be compliant, don’t obey. Unite, defiant.


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If your credit’s overdrawn Shelter In Place If an agent’s banging on your door, Shelter In Place

If you have no place to stay and the next check’s far away, move into an empty building. Shelter In Place If your bank account’s malignant, if your mortgage is delinquent, ignite the housing justice lights. If they’re coming to evict you, don’t surrender, get indignant. A home to live in is a human right. Shelter In Place

He is an American poet memorist, translator, author, activist and historian.

He is author of seven books of poetry, including Scorched Birth (2004), which former San Francisco poet laureate Jack Hirschman called «a book of wonders.»


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AMIT DAHIYABADSHAH(İNDIA)

Hold on for dear life

In the days of the viruswe hung in there lost for choices and those who were loud and shrill made soft toys of their voices

And those of us who were never wrong prayed inside ourselves for a chance to make it rightBut the dark fear that locked us indoors was relentless until the redemption of the light

And when it was all over and the living all came outNo one celebrated no one dared to shoutFor death had paid her visit to every other doorAnd although she stopped at othersShe paused on every floor

When the keening and the wailing diminished to simperingOnly the cows dogs and horses remained stoic upon our whimpering

We stepped out when it was over the nightmare left behindWe found good manners and good reason though we had lost our mind

The search for the past continuesBut nothing shall be as beforeThe softness shall grow louderAnd less shall become more


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And the age of industry shall make room for some more artAnd the age of brain mind logic make way for the heart

And those who grimly pillared the economy all learnt sharing and givingSmiled for the virus taught us all the finer art of living

And those who were the loudest and still had anthems for their whimsThey discovered the succour and the meanings of their hymns


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JEAN-LUC DESPAX (FRANCE, 1968)

france disunitedUsing water cannons against demonstrators instead of cleaning the streets Gouging eyes Shutting mouths Fitting the riot police with masks when nurses are lacking them Destroying pensions Making illegal the right to withdraw Lying to the young Forgetting the old Starving the public service as they always have while singing its praises when it’s almost too late Handling big business with kid gloves while giving the working class and cashiers the kiss of death Watching over everybody Not testing anybody They wash their hands of this more than we do ours They call this: FranceUnited France cannot tell its own name but will remember theirs

April 2, 2020(Translated from French by Alexis Bernaut)

He is a professor of French in the University of Jean-Philippe Rameau in Versailles. As a poet he received the Arthur Rimbaud Prize in 1991. He has written on the Russian poet Ossip Mandelstam among numerous other books and articles. He was the president of PEN France and the member of L’AcadémieMallarmé and the jury of Grand Prix de la Critique Littéraire.


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MAURO FORTISSIMO (ARGENTINA)

100 seconds to midnight

Comrades, blow the whistle, sound the alarm :Capitalism got the virus!Wall street tested positive!We must act!No mask big enough to cover their facades.

It is time.All banks nationalized.Eminent domain to corporations.Universal health care.

Unemployed of the world: unite!Some always knew, people and planet before profits.The greedy others kept accumulating gold in their drawers,going on luxury cruises, traveling first class.

Now the fever of competition got the chills of the market,all sick.No life support for thee, no respirators to polluters.The oily industry bankrupted, we dance !This government of buffoons deposed, we sing!

A new dawn is at hand, not much time lefttill midnight arrives.So hurry and plant new gardens,sow the seeds of equality.Resist the urge of protection from the past,there is no going back to yesterday’s percentages.


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If we all stop and be quiet for twelve seconds,counting,that will leave us with just 88 to carry on,like the keys of a piano.What will you play then:a march, an anthem, the blues,more Chopin...Or Bach ?

He is an Argentinian-Italian musician, painter, poet and the featured performer in the moTwelve Pianos. He is an indefatigable organizer of sundry musicians and artists in San Francisco.


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STEVEN GRAY (SOUTH AFRICA, 1941)

corona

When you sink into a deep domestic meditationwhich is plausible because you’re out of work along withhalf the work force and it has been going on for months,you wonder who is in control and how much longer it will last. The occupants sequestered in their insulatedboxes, reading books about “the staggering collapseof U.S. intelligence” concerning the coronavirus as a heavy blanket settles on the continentconsisting of a quarantine that is unwarranted according to some and others think it’s warranted and no one

wants to die. You think about it while you’re on the roof deckwith a bottle of wine, your forehead being pounded byrelentless moonlight and the full moon is a tranquilizerwhen there is a lot to worry about, the disconcertingparallels between a medical necessityand an authoritarian lockdown where the citizensare not allowed to get together and their mouths are coveredlike their voices have been censored and they have to walkalone. You’re staring into space, communing with the mountainsof the moon, another way of social distancing.

There were warnings and rehearsals which were soon denied(like 9/11), sounding like “It can’t happen here.” And whether or not it was deliberate it is another occasion where the profiteering meets the mass psychology of fascism. The confusing information is a camouflage,you try to bring a constellation into focus,the tectonic shifts occurring in the government are throwing off a lot of people and a cloud of moneyflies around like starlings with the homing signal of a corporation. It requires our cooperation.


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The overlord who occupies the White House said, “I’ll be youroversight” and fired the man in charge of oversight. Our leaders have the insight of a bag of hammers, it was bred out of them by the system, it is adding to a sense of dread. It leaves you in an existential trance,you sit at home and listen to the sirens which are headed for the pier, the Bomb Squad setting up a tent, the vehiclesare black. Is it a drill? You hear the virus killed a folksinger and you want to write a song: “CORONA CORONA,what are you doing here… I really hope you’re gone next year….”

He who was born in Cape Town.. He studied at St. Andrews College, Grahamstown and later at the University of Cape Town, Cambridge University, England, and the University of Iowa, US. Until 1992, he was Professor of English at the Rand Afrikaans University in Johannesburg.Gray is a prolific poet and has published eight novels.


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MARIA CRISTINA GUTIERREZ(COLOMBIA/USA)

Apocalypse

The virus that has Been able to do What man has refused to

While we humansHide and fearThe animals roam freeThe planet is healing And the water runs clear

Capitalism has dehumanized usWe need to accept the reality That we humans have been walking In the valley of deathWriting poetry booksIncluding political statementsBut unwilling to change

The virus is hereTo give us a chanceTo fight for freedomIt has become the forceThat is helping us to build A new world of loveCan we meet the challenge?I beg we do my lord

Capitalist relations Are broken are falling apartThe rich and powerful Are fighting to surviveIt is our time To rise! To fight To unite To find our futureIn the darknessOf the night


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But unfortunatelyAs the essential workersExcuse me, the sacrificial lambsAre dying like fliesWe continue to sit down and watch

The poor The workersThe people of colorAre looking for answersBut the revolutionaries Keep talking to one another Congratulating themselves About their latest political analysisBecause they know they say the answersThat will lead us to revolution But yet so far from the masses Sodivorced from the people So full of pride Lacking the love Observing letting the moment goHappy because deep in their hearts They are hopingThat everything goes back And is the same In their lives

Yes, it seems That it is this virusThat will do what so far Revolutionaries have refused to have done.

Maria Cristina Gutierrez is a Columbian-born poet who lives in San Francisco. She is a noted activist there, and the directress of the Black and Brown Social Club. Her poems have appeared in the Overthrowing Capitalism Anthology of the Revolutionary Poets Brigade.


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JACK HIRSCHMAN (USA, 1933)

the sur ivan o’roc arcane

1.Should I…?If I go there…?What if someone who has it touches me?

I’m 86, I’ve had pneumonia, been in hospital with C.O.P.D.as well. Should I

go on? It’s allover everything—computers, CNN, androids, smartphones. You’re 74

in a couple of weeks, love, which is alsoon its age-register.Keep your natural

humor strong; it’s important to laughat the unknown or even with it.

This coronavirus wants to destroy thePlanetarietjust as it was being

born. China’s smited, Italy smited, Japan,South Korea, Iran,the United States


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smited as well as any and everywhere else. This virus’s the crown of the

pantheon of dis-ease, the constellation of Being framed by the concealed true lie

that’s truly the bio-logical truth of the pandemic explosionin the atomic

devastation of the nucleus of the eye.

2.People are afraid of breath, that they’ll inhale this hell or exhale it on others.

Afraid of touching lest they pass it along. People are living asun-screamed shreiks,

in the anguish of an angst abated only by opiated oblivion.Sur Ivan O’Roc

I misheard, thinking it was an Irishmanwho’d picked up the virus in California,


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instead of the titleof this Arcane in reverse, that is, Coronavirus,

because everything’s in reverse, postponed, set back, from sports events, Disneyland,

operas, Broadway theaters, concerts. Laughter’s been restricted, belly

laughter zoned to a living room ora kitchen table. We’re all at home

anxiously waiting for it to end because a cough can nail meto it, or my breath

breathes and doesn’t know if my exhalationcarries the bug of the bat or the snake,

and all those Russianvodkas have failed. I’m telling you from my 86 years that

the whole world’s been 86’d from its happiness, forcedto live as if, as if


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a zero had arrived at all the numbers of the world’s peoples.But look, in Italy,

amid hundreds dying in a single day, people standon the balconies

of their apartmentsand sing the songsclose to their heartsto warm their hearts

and hopefully thiscan be a contagionof hope confrontingthe disease,

and houses of song be born allover the world to be the best vaccine there is: all

of us singing for realThe Internationale!

Jack Hirschman was born in New York City and grew up in the Bronx. A copyeditor with the Associated Press in New York as a young man, his earliest brush with fame came from a letter Ernest Hemingway wrote to him, published after Hemingway’s death as “A Letter to a Young Writer.” Hirschman earned degrees from City College of New York and Indiana University, where he studied comparative literature. He was a popular and innovative professor at UCLA in the 1970s, before he was fired for his anti-war activities. Hirschman has lived in California ever since, making an artistic and political home in the North Beach district of San Francisco. He is known for his radical engagement with both poetry and politics: he is a member of the Union of Street Poets, a group that distributes leaflets of poems to people on the streets. He has also been instrumental in the formation of the Union of Left Writers of San Francisco.


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ANTONELLA IASCHI (ITALY)

It’s called pandemic this cruel leveler,seeding death everywhere without asking passportsBringing fear into the streets without appearingAtomic shocks without fluttering the flags

A world of coffin trucks, travelling secretlyas if to hide the obvious impotenceAnd in all this the people realize their own destinyThose that die under a bridge, those cared for sterilely

Poverty and wealth are the dividing pointHealth care upon payment is still a luxury, but uselessThanatos does not look in the face of anyone and not even their capitalImpartial executors of this apocalypse

Huddled in camps or borders full of stray humansleft to the contamination as if rubbishSigning decrees or ordinances does not permit immunity to destinyand the king could die with the last of the refugees

In the meantime the earth takes advantage and retakes the skySpaces emptied of humans nature returnsto be possessor of a possible futurefor those species destined to extinguish in the capital

This is a message of repossession that we should listen toSolitude breaks us and we find ourselves incompletewhile outside the homes Gaia manifests its force:Nothing is more revolutionary than a bee making honey

Marche 2020

Translated by Danilo Koren

Antonella Iaschi was born in Parma in 1956. She chose to live in Roccella Jonica, on the coast of Calabria. She wrote several books of poems, novels, and theatre plays. She started writing when she was 13, after reading an interview to Lawrence Ferlinghetti, and she keeps on writing because she believes that “narrating the street” is the only weapon to exist and resist.


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AMAL AL-JUBOURI (IRAQ, 1967)

the triumph of humanity’s deathThe Triumph of Humanity’s Death Who knowswhy my heart still beatsafter a night of confused love?

My mother, who does not know howto receive love,overwhelms others by giving, andgiving, and giving, and . . .

Do mothers know life prays to death?Do they sense how graves celebrate every time a heart stops beating, a mouth stops speaking, or lungs stop breathing?

The country of Iraq resembles my mother,fleeing treachery and betrayal.

The country of Iraq still runs,carrying us and our fear of death, its hairs drawn and witnessed.

So my mother stumbleson her fears for her children, who celebrate death in a mass grave where the victim’s last threadsare a kind of triumph over life’s jailer.

Flies and worms beat and throbin the stilled hearts that still beat with spent dreams.


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What’s so glorious about life that I still fly my flag of hope?

Why are my country’s poems only written by the phosphoresent light of graves, which glow only after words have been choked by dirt?

And why are my country’s citiesbroken on the heads of the people with the twin laws of hatred and oppression?

Oh Death, you slay me. Ok, you can be the end of everything.

Go on, triumph over my life,but you’ll never kill me.

Co-translated by the poet and David Allen Sullivan.

She was born in Baghdad in 1967. When she was 19, al-Jubouri’s first anthology Wine from Wounds was published.After a dissenting article she wrote came to the notice of Saddam Hussein, Al-Jubouri was interrogated and put under surveillance. She fled Iraq and took political asylum in Germany in 1998. Her poetry collection Eheduanna, the Priestess of Exile (1999), won the Best Arabic Book Award at a Lebanese book fair. So Much Euphrates Between Us, another volume of her poems was published in 2003. The same year, she returned to Iraq just a few days after the fall of Hussein.


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JETON KELMENDİ(ALBANİA/BELGİUM, 1978)

friendship in pandetime I Only myself accompanies me took the place of all the friends all dear girlfriends. And now only myself believe me when I approach him. All my people begins with numbers, in fact some with letters in the Messengers, it strikes me that they keep me away, I keep them away too. You sir you are the only one who does not scare me nor does it frighten you Sir yourself. II The days we spend closed, without any exit; only thoughts and a few words come out around the meaning. Every day we climbed to the top of memory, at night I go down to myself time stays there in its bed how to wake him up, or even time is scaring him from pandemic Covid 19.


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III Today’s life over the frame of tomorrow when love does not dare to love properly, so, in this Pandem. The fancy imagination out of delight equipped with dilemmas extinguished almost without occurrence, just like someone that I have dreamed, seek me something more, is it me, the one who transcended time or time is running out on me. Dukaj, Rugova, April 10, 2020

Born in the city of Peja, Kosovo. completed elementary school in his birth place. Later he continued his studies at the University of Prishtina ...He completed his graduate studies at the free Uiniversity of-Brusells.He is academic, journalist, poet, play writer translator, university professor and political analyst. His poetry has been translated to the many languages.


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RAQUEL LANSEROS (SPAIN, 1973)

herd immunity

If we want to run after health, it is convenient for us to find a way to organize ourselves in such a way that from what we want to find delight and rest we do not follow disgust and scandal. The Decameron. BOCCACCIO

And who would to tell us at this time of low-cost flights and high-tech cell phones that we have never ceased to be nature. Who would tell us that poses, profit, self-sufficiency were nothing but stage machinery, blind man’s buff. Welcome to the world that has conceived us the world that is, the world that will be, the world that is always being the one that nourishes us for what we are: living beings within a long chain where there is place for trees, atoms, volcanoes, birds, constellations, shadows, parables, bones. How old is suddenly the I postmodern and sterile I is another, the poet said thanks to others, with others, for others from one another others, which is one of the thousand names of love love that doesn’t do accounts love that measures its instants in centuries love that moves the sun and the other stars love also called herd immunity.

She is a professor of language and literature at the University of Zaragosa. Her poetry has been translated to English, French, Italian, Dutch, Hindi, Turkish, Greek, Russian, Armenian, Serbian, Croation, Arabic and Portuguese. Her poetry has appeared in numerous anthologies worldwide. He has collaborated on many poetry festivals and cultural activities. She is also a translator and has translated the works of Edgar Allan Poe, Lewis Carroll and Louis Aragon among others.


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ANGELINA LLONGUERAS(CATALONIA)

dismantling the coronavirus operation

How unlucky, in the middle of a pandemic,to feel sadness, not because of the sickness,but due to the rancor of a State that hates you,a psycopath who extorts and constraints,

You see the people who after long years of defeatin spite of all, look ahead, towards freedom,they want to heal their wounds of abuse, to leave behind authoritarians and idiots,

deaf autistic people incapable of listening,with an exploitative slave-owner soulof a flat ignorance that has no edgeswith hands dirty from the blood they enjoy spilling,

they are only good at making genocidesof defenceless people of the nations they ruin,cowards in battle, a field where they never win,we can leave them alone, so that lonely they rust.

Today I hear the voice of so many colonized people who ask themselves in an innocen way:«how can it be that everything goes so badly?»Because they have been deprived of their truths.

We need to believe in ourselveslet’s stop thinking about them, and get out of the holewhere their wrong doings have thrown us into, lets’ find the four cardinal points and our axis.

We need to find the way and get out of this mud.The old man tells us to look at the hook ups,to look at the instilled fear and its trickery,how they are done against us, and we need to wake up.


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To look up to the sky and the fumigations,to listen to every silenced voice,to feel the heart of those who were taken down,not to admit invisible radiations

because it is them that do not let us breathe.They put everything together while we are in prison,at home alone; they do not ask for, nor do deserve , forgiveness.So let’s employ out time to find out

for what reason have they confined us soand taken away the rights of all citizens?How is it that you give free reign to all these guardiansof chaotic order and let yourself be abused

by police, military and doctorsof the absurd global dictatorshipthat separates and distances us from the natural world,that with your fear of getting sick you do not even question?

They are all the viruses that scare youthere is none other, think and reflect,tell yourself the truth, look at what doesn’t work,help whoever asks you for, don’t let each other be fooled.

Do not allow yourself to be swallowed by screens,look there for solutions, allie,s and people who struggleall of you microscopic viruses in a hurry.Create networks, nodules and campaigns.Disconnect the megaphones of lies,unmount antennae, televisions and signals,center in yourself, look at what the animals do,how they do their own free thing, while playing they find the way out,


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of a long desperate submission,they recover their plot by taking long walks.Look at the stars that silently shine,look at the sea, how playfully she cleanses herself,look at the collective, it laughs tears of dawn.

Barcelona, April 2020.(Translated into English from original Catalan by Angelina Llongueras)

Angelina Llongueras is a poet, actress, who left San Francisco five years ago to return to her native Barcelona and to fight for the independence of Catalonia these days, and she has begun writing her poems in Catalan as well.


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ANNA LOMBARDO (ITALY)

how did we get here?

I don’t know what went wrong I don’t know if it was your fault Or the usual scratch of some human touch Poisoned sneezes all around my canals Over the old pompous marble of my city Then down to the endless slums of the planet How did we get HERE? You ask, Surrounded by this victorious solitude In the streets of our world And now, I cannot touch you I cannot hug you Because I love you so much No one can hold their beloved’s dying hands I‘ve heard about those bodies shrouded quickly, Then driven away like thieves in the night Be strong, my heart, be strong, my love, This new pandemic Has an ancient appetite for us And its history is a long one It comes in periodically, some said, Over our houses, above our lands We should have remembered We should have been prepared We should have Yes. And now we sing Each one in their room, Through rainbows on windows


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Yes. And now we come together And join poetic droplets of words Breathing, cautiously, all our best little things Yes, now can we see and scale the walls raised in our brains Clear the fog covering our eyes And change the twit tune poured into our ears

Yes, now, yes now, yesNow that it’s clear how little harmlessIt has been to fill only missiles in our barns

Leaving unnoticed the emptiness behind,And the angry echoes of suffering trees,Or the black smog of the winding wind

Yes, now, now yes, “people of all faiths, and none”

Venice, Italy, 04/06/20

Poet, teacher, and translator. She lives in Venice.

Bilingual poetry books: QuelQualcosachemanca/The something that’s missing, Sasso Marconi (BO), 2009; Nessun Alibi / NingunaCoartada, EdizioniUniversitarie, Venice, 2004; Even the Fish are Drunk / Anche I pesciubriachi, Marimbo editor, Berkeley (CA), 2002.Other Critical works and translations, among others, on: Jack Hirschman, Pier Paolo Pasolini, Joyce Lussu, K.J. Knox. Guest in many international poetry festivals.Artistic Director of the International Poetry Festival, ‘Palabra en el Mundo’ since 2011, in Venice.


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MOEZ MAJED (TUNISIA, 1973)

1.

This is a flame of pure Barus camphor.Flavour of empires consumed by great release.Flavour of a slow Orient,Flavour of ambergris and lust,Exquisite flavour of laziness as a shy adolescent love, twisting in the throes of exile.

This sea is purple as a dark ray of the moon, endowing grace to the corsair, glorious on his stand.O corsair, triumphing on the great fury of the supine!Through what portent did you see the face of the East?

Ah! What pain, beyond imagining!What impenetrable silences!What great expectations, impervious to oblivion!

Ah! What have you seized from the splendid waves of your time?And when, over there in the distance,Too distant from where the word begins,On the same crest of silence,The mist slowly weaves its language – Only then will your suffering end.…9. Oh perfidy … Oh treason …From them is this glory wovenand by them has it been tarnished …

far more than the hand that, at night, delivers the chance of a clear dawnto the ravages of fire,far more than twenty-one days of salt and of ashesand the tears of an enemy general,far more than the promise of demisehas your glory been tarnished!

No other song is hers but that of the crowd drunk on its power,no other fealty than the one sworn to those most unruly amongst us:she finds shelter in the folds of our cities’ closed shores,across the vast expanses of this world,

Our glory is in the open!Our greatness is on the streets!


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But many brave ones have bowed to the new caste of masters,many brave ones have conceded, for pride, their tribute of fealty.And they tell us that it is not treason at all,but that the honour of the beholden sprouts wherever the prince’s desire goes.

Robbers of figs! cries the oracle amongst us,Dishonourable robbers of dreams,of wishes and of prophecies …

From them is this glory woven!By them has it been tarnished!

Translated from the French by Dr. Norbert Bugeja

He was born in Tunis in 1973. He is an editor and poet who studied biology and mastered in management at the L’EcoleCentrale de Lille in 2000. His notable works of poetry included L’Ombre…la Lumiére(1997), Les Reveries d’un Cerisier en Fleurs(2008), L’Ambition d’un Verger (2010), Gisants(2012) and Chants de L’Autre Rive (2014).


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BIPLAP MAJEE (INDIA)

this is perhaps our last meet

The way you are looking at me as if this is our last meeting The darkness is crippled the roads are like poisonous snake the doors are locked.

There is all emptiness around when I look through the window The desert has seized the shinning earth.

The coronavirus has scratched every page of the newspaper There are red spots everywhere .

We are locked in the housesstill we are looking at each other suspiciously We are seeing each other as if this is our last meeting... ##

Translated from Bengali into English by Nandita Bhattacharya

BiplabMajee is an Indian poet who has authored 28 books of poetry, 30 books of prose, 15 books on translation, 5 novels, and 6 children’s books as well, and he has been the recipient of national and international awards. Nandita Bhattacharya is the wife and translator of BiplabMajee’s Bengali poem. She has a master’s in English and is an editor with India’s Writer’s Forum.


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KAREN MELANDER MAGOON (USA, 1943)

covid 19 requiem

Sylphs stretch themselves in cornersSliding under incipient rosebudsCareful of thornsCocoons await a finger of sunTo transform them into naiadsGolden hands of dryadsGrow green upon their naked limbsNymphs blow sweetly through spruceCrevices of fuzzy spirit wakeningTo forest shadowsLurking vestiges of illnessSing startle in the warm breezeHiding from the sun’s embraceYet caught in her warmthSuccumb to beckoning earthBurying remnants of Corona dustRusty coffins made of winter’s debrisHuddled hubris of yesterday’s ill windCrushed beneath a naiad’s stepDancing now in perfumed graceRacing to embrace the spring

Born in Iowa, Karen Melander graduated from Indiana University in Music and received her Masters Degree from BostonUniversity. She spent two decades in Europe singing on the major stages of Germany and Austria. In 2008 she received her Doctor of Ministry from the Graduate Theological Union in Berkeley. She has been active as Chairman of UnitarianUniversalist Forum for two years, addressing issues of social justice, human rights and ecological responsibility. She has published numerous books, written musicals and songs.


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SARAH MENEFEE (USA)

already already have livedin a plague for a very long timeoutside of it resistant to allbut themselves in their naked campsthat blow away they stay and staywhile all else disappears waiting here

She lives in San Francisco. Her books include Like the Diamond (Calliope Press, 2001), Reamed Heart (Deleriodendron Press, 1997), This Perishable Hand (Multimedia Edizioni, 1995), The Blood About the Heart (Curbstone Press, 1992), Please Keep My Word (Worm in the Rain Publishing, 1991).


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MARIA MISTRIOTI (GREECE)

here we sail in…

‘’Then we entered the Straits in great fear of mind…’’ [Odyssey, m ver. 234 ]

The sea is not always calmThe ship is not always strong. Deep wound what we love. ***The horizons of the least light I detectThe long journeys of dangers I continue The night has moved on… *** I talk to you about those which have no more return About those which we can no more hope for You know even if you ask why I am crying… *** About what has almost ended without the possibility of re-issues and repetition Like a bitter song travelling in the wind I am writing you a few words. ***Fog covers the black ship. In flames the eyes of those whose strength is enhanced by despair In the deep ocean. ***The times lessen And you travel between fog and sleeplessness.who lament in the ways of waves for those who are closed in the land of Cimmerians.


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For the navigatorwho struggles in the ways of waves who follows reckless routes who thinks of the time of return what words can I speak with…

Translation by Prof. LambriniBotsivali


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IMEN MOUSSA (TUNISIA)

dagana’s parisian

Quechua ripped backpack A large Carrefour shopping bagfull to bursting I cover the floor with a Darty cardboard On the platform of this station I made myself a small country Legs foldedI’m a paper burnerI came from the other sideHere I have respected no bordersHere I am a migrant of the Earth ExiledHarraga1, HarragaidentityYour Decolonized DaughterI am the unwanted productOf a story that you once knitted.In Châtelet station,I’m going now,To live.

Paris 23.12.2019

Shewas born in the city of Bizerte in Tunisia on October 6, 1987. After studying literature, language and French civilization at the Higher Institute of Languages of Tunis, she moved to Paris where she focuses her research work on the situation of women in the contemporary Maghreb and engages in associations to help refugees and asylum seekers.

1Harraga is a term in Maghrebian dialect, referring to “those who burn”. The Harga is the action of “burning papers and laws” by embarking at sea in clandestine boats.


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KATE NEWMAN(IRELAND,1965)

Is April the Cruellest Month?

You couldn’t imaginethe small boatoutlined in the baywithout Francis – alwaysCon and Francis and the dog alwaysFrancis and Con.

They kept that old balancethe one or the otherknowing the lilt of the geeragh - the small waves –and how to answerthe boat to the tidal pull.

It was a funeral no onecould attend. The priestnever came to givethe Last Rites. The fishermenwondered – if they stood far enough apart - would they be allowed to give Francis a guard of honour.

I dreamt a darkest night where the blackwas salty with storm’s spittle,Francis’ voice out-roaring the gale,Francis – not Con – bellowingWhat did you do that for?

Waking back into the daywith the virus wallpaperingall the rooms of our fearfeeling I was still in some wild night


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where it’s the deadwho howl for the living

where we are two metres apart from ourselvestrying not to breathea word of it to each other.

Before reading English at King’s College, Cambridge, Kate Newmann worked at the Museum of Cretan Ethnology. She was Junior Fellow at the Institute of Irish Studies, Queen’s University, Belfast, where she compiled and published the Dictionary of Ulster Biography. She has published five collections of poetry, the most recent, Ask me Next Saturday.. She lives in Ireland and her sixth collection is due by the end of 2019.


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MARCEL KEMADJOU NJANKE (CAMEROON, 1970)

corina!

In her diction, my little beloved daughter calls this global inedible upset Corina.She doesn’t know that what shenames so poetically is a kind of invisible beastpouring mud into the fast-movingmood of humans and trouble into the hearts.

She thinks Corina is the name of a new playing boxor a new video game app and one night, she foundherself in my bed and said with that gratefuland always wonderful smile that queens carry in tales:“dad.., daddy…, for my next happy birthdaywould you please gift me a Corina game?…,”

What would you answer, brother poet?

She is happy to have me working at homenow and she hopes her nanny won’tcome anymore and will leave we alonein our nest-home like two friendly birds.Does she know that outside there, in the streets,the only inhabitants are rays of sun, policemen with their fine form andshadows walking eyes attached to the soilholding tight their movement permit?

Brother poet, could you help me with a word?

My daughter doesn’t know all this and she Saidthe other night: “dad…, daddy…, for my happy birthday will you bring to life your promiseto help me pay a visit to grand mum?

What would have beenyour answer, brother poet?


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My little beloved daughter doesn’t know what school is.She is under 3 and does she care? For her,time is nota border line drawn by regulationsand mother destiny.For her, time is movement: eating, playing,asking numerous questions and sleeping and waking up…

Would you dare to argue with time, brother poet?But she asked no question about Corina.Corina is everywhere in televisions and looksso familiar to her that she often jumps shoutingCorina ! Corina ! Corina ! Corina! Corina!And one night she invited me to come and join herin her jumping-cheering party.

Brother poet, what would you do with this invitation ?

I was to travel to Antananarivo this monthto meet and share the sweetness and perfumeof words and rhythms with other brothers poetsbutCorina has cancelled this celebrationdoes my daughter care about all this ?

Last night I decided to confuse her by asking:What’s poetry and what’s a poet?”It was the first timeshe heard about those two terms.So she ran in the parlour and started to danceButsuddenly stopped and said:“this is poety, this is poety[she means poetry]and a poet, dad, a poet, daddy, is my grand mum who is always smiling”.

Brother poet, would you have added something morein this time of Corina lockdown and quarantine?

He was born in Douala, Cameroon. After his unfinished studies of law, he dedicated himself to the resale of harberdashery. He won the prize of the young Central African poetry in 1994. After this he started publishing, Cries of the Soul, a selection of poems published in 1997 and followed by The Blue Beggar (short novel) in 2000. In 2003 he published Poto-poto blues (poems) and in 2005, The Room of Crayon, a collection of texts. He lives in Douala and there he leads Open Book, an association for the promotion of the book and the reading.


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BILL NEVINS (USA)

better day

Just doin’ their job but still, Ain’tit a cryingshame? New Orleans PD Had to break- up a Second Line today ThoughangelsfromTrememayflyanyway“Mount weunto the sky” thatoldpoetcried. A betterdaydrawsnigh, far faraway, Soon come, come soon, friends A daywhenweshall dance and hugagain: That plantingdaywhenourstarryplow willdelve new ground for seed, for joy, for whatwillbe the Jubilee-- ‘Redemption Song’ as NattyDreadsaid: Singitfrom the balconies, “All I everhad”. By these waters of Babylon, All Rebel childrengonebe free.

3/29/2020

He was born in New York City, attended Iona College and the University of Connecticut before traveling to Ireland, Spain, and Mexico. Settling in New Mexico, he taught at the University and at high schools in Albuquerque, as well as freelancing on cultural issues for several national publications.In 2014, Swimming With Elephants Publications published Heartbreak Ridge and Other Poems, dedicated to his son, Liam Nevins, a decorated U.S. Army Special Forces Green Beret killed in Afghanistan.


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RATI SAXENA (INDIA)to my granddaughter

My granddaughter is not talking to meNeither on skype nor on what’s AppShe is no more interested in the stories Of naughtiness of ZuZu squirrel and Lina princessShe does not like to talk about the monkey and tree, Which lived in our hearts

My granddaughter lost her childhood on the dayher birthday was not celebrated due to lockdownherDadda gone for special duty to the hospitalherDadda did not hug her after returning back home

he was a different man,staying in separate roomwith mask onEating in separate utensilsconferencing over phone.

She is lost her smile on the day, she was asked not to hug him orClimb on his shoulders,

Her only rest place is right knee of motherWho is working whole day on the computer from home

I understand that this is not time to tell her the stories ofJungle or animals, princes or squirrelBut I must tell her that there is always a struggle in this worldWhich is sometimes called warThis war is against darkness for the light This war is against evilness for the goodnessThis war is against death for the life


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In this war, there are some warierWho fight for evil in the front lineThey standup in front darknessAnd try to give life to light

In every war the warier have different dress codeIn this war the warriors have white and blue dresses

Your Dadda is standing in the front row He is fighting he is Collecting a bit darkness in his cells

When he returns homeHe wants to save you,

I am sure, she will get back her childhoodWhen she her dadda will tell her stories of life after the war.

Poet, translator, editor, director of poetry festivals and Vedic scholar. She has 6 collections of poetry in Hindi and two in English (Translated by poet) and numerous languages. She has two travelogues, a memoir and a criticism on the work of famous Malayalam Poet Balamaniyamma’s. Her study on the Atharvaveda has been published as “The Seeds of the Minda fresh approach to the study of Atharvaveda” under the fellowship of the Indira Gandhi National Center for Arts. Her Awards-Fellowship by Indira Gandhi National Centre for Arts in 2004–5, SahityaAkademi Award for Translation 2000, Sate Bank of Travancore Award for poetry 2001, NajiNaaman’s Literary Prizes for 2016.


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KESHAB SIGDEL (NEPAL,1979)

elixir

When drops of the ancient bliss Flow with the river of my desiresDivine inspiration oozes out of your lipsAnd I dance in ecstasy O, my spirit! The leaf that sways all alone with the wind Knows it wellIt’s not the breeze, nor its wingsThat stirs him to dance. The sound of the cuckoosThe whispers of the dried leavesThe glitters of the rosy cheeks of the mountain girlAnd the pang of a lover who waited his loveBefore the dews flew to the clouds All dissolve mysteriously in the air. I inhale the air And see you dancingO, my poetry!

And now, I have your eyesTo see the gods descending to the pass of the mountains on earthThe swans too dive into the fresh water lakeFishes jump out in excitementOnly the peahens wait patiently Until the peacocks spread their feathers in ecstasyAfter they drink from the pond of divinity; I swim in my imaginationAnd reach youO, my dream!


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When one day, I went to a salt lake,The lake appeared thirsty itself;It was probably waiting for the Dinosaurs to come back From their hibernationsBefore the lake could sip from its own body;Who else could quench her thirst? Only the magic in youO, my spirit!

When my body retired, one fine day,My soul jumped into a chariot Of nine white horsesAnd marched through the paddy fieldsTo find the farmer’s daughterWho had given me the last bouquet of flowersBefore I drank from her bodyThe elixir of life!

Before it was completely dark,I saw her standing at the door of her houseI could not separate whether it was she or the colourful lightsThat smiled at me;Love’s nectar still oozed from her lipsI turned into liquid myself And blended with her sap;Only you who have drunk from this air can tellIf I am anything other than herO, my poetry!

He (born in 1979 in Bardiya, Nepal) is a poet, editor, academic and a rights activist based in Kathmandu. He teaches at the Central Department of English, Tribhuvan University, Kathmandu, as an assistant professor of English. His published poetry books include Samaya Bighatan (Dissolution of Time, Kathmandu: 2007), Six Strings (co-authored, Kathmandu: 2011), and Barve Sonca/Colours of the Sun (Poesis, Slovenia: 2017).


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DINOS SIOTIS(GREECE,1944)

While.

While. I was trying to find you among the crowd my blood pressure fell I bent. Down to pick it up while. I was trying to find you suddenly. I fell

asleep there. And as I was sleeping I found many blank immature pages waiting for me to wake up. The words were nearby on line ready to be used.

I had stayed home for ten days reading Decameron. One could say in a lockdown because of the horrorof the coronavirus the news were no good even

though. The Prime Minister with constant discourses was trying to calm down the people. Then someonecame and asked me to go to a nearby hospital in the

north of town to keep company and to say a few comforting words to a moribund old lady who. Knew she was about to die and wanted to say goodbye to

her granddaughter. I found her an iPhone and through a video call she talked to her. She was there in bed dying being fully aware of what was happening to her.

I had serious doubts that I was going to make it. I was wondering if there was someone nearby to bit goodbye while. The end of an annoying harvest was approaching.

Hewas born in Tinos, Greece in 1944 and studied Law at Athens University and Creative Writing at San Francisco State University. A poet, novelist and literary critic, he lived in California, New York, Boston and Canada for 27 years where he edited and published eight literary and/or political magazines in English and Greek.He has published twenty books of poetry and fiction in English, French and Greek. His poems have been translated into nine European languages and in Chinese. In 2007 he received in Athens the State Prize for Poetry for his book “Autobiography of a Target”.


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JURI TALVET (ESTONIA, 1945)

homage to albert camus, march 2020

Would you mind going right now to grocery and market:buy toilet-paper, many rolls, and macaroni, noodles,butter, jam, and beet, turnips, as well as carrots,run, go fast, hurry up - before the market-place is emptied!

I run, I do, I bring. No reason, but I run,I do, I bring. For the first time ever in the Estonian statestate of emergency has been declared. Mouths of scientists are locked,nobody knows the cause. But people keep dying, the infection spreads!

States shut offices, close borders. Even business-sharks are filled with fear and tsars are trembling in their kremlins.It looks as if a new grand migration of peoples is impending,the start of the new long Middle Ages ‒ a sign of punishment from heaven!

Death can drag everybody to its dance. All of a sudden tame lifeseems to rebel against its lords - those who have caredonly of themselves in the tiny mote of life,have pulled out of it their wealth and treasures!

Run, go fast, hurry up - before the market-place is emptied!I run, I do, I bring. No reason can be seen, yet it seemsthat right time has come to read a small bookbefore it disappears from library shelves of the entire world!

Its author could not foresee his own death at the age of 47,yet, better than the bible or the koran he divinedwhat human soul could do in misery, such as war (that just had endedand of whose guilt no one was free). Let then read those who can read

and let others read to those who cannot! Let hands be washed, all body,and let soul be cleared of dirt, let awakening be tried,before it’s late, before death to dance invites!Garlic let be eaten without cause, also by those in perfect health!


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Let it be read to oneself and read to others ‒ the book whose titlevaries in any language, but its content is just the sameand is as short as “death”, a sole syllable or just a couple,a flash and all is lost ‒ a word that keeps together,

in any singe life binds fear, death, and hope of love: Peste!Plague! ‒ letbusinesssharks and tsars in kremlins tremble! Чума, पपपपप, पप!‒ let garlic be eaten, let souls be cleared of dirt!Mēras, maras, katk!‒ it keeps together fear and death and hope!

(Translation from the Estonian by the author and H. L. Hix)

Poet and academic, he is the author of various literary works including poetry, criticism, and essays... He has chaired the Estonian Association of Comparative Literaturesince 1994. He is the editor of Interlitteraria, the annual international journal of comparative literaturepublished by Tartu UniversityPress. In addition to hisuniversityroles, Talvet has alsoworked as an Estonian translator of Spanishworks by authorssuch as Francisco de Quevedo and Gabriel García Márquez.


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VADIM TERHOYIN (RUSSIA,1963))

it’s well-known that

It’s well-known that In accordance with all laws of nature, Water is unseen and dead On entering the supply network.

And waits to be rescued until It starts flowing through pipes. Water, like the language of poetry, Can’t live in captivity.

It’s devoted to flowing, To pressure hidden in the chest. And always beats its way Out of any kind of captivity.

And if you take a look at water, Compare it to our own meagre experience: As soon as it breaks loose into freedom, Water becomes alive.

Translated from Russian by Jenny Wade

Russian poet, co-chairman of Russion Writer’sUnion, president of Kaluga province.His poetry books are “ Transparent Time”, “Disappointed Wanderer”, Among The Vowels and Consonants” and others..


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WHAT POETRY MEANS TO ME


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JİDİ MAJIA

forces hidden in poetry: let’s make a rendezvous with tradition !—Address at the 2019 Qinghai Lake Intl Poetry Festival

Tradition is arguably one of the most important human institutions astride both good poetry and history. Then in what way does our poetic tradition let us into the secret of great poets? Our poetic tradition, as it stands, can be likened to a river, driblets at their glacial source, gathering many a streamlet before forming into a mighty current, rushing passionately over rapids and past gorges, down through a staggeringly long time. Or they can still be seen as the first note of the symphony score of a myth, prayer at the tongue tip of our Bimos(Yi priests or shamans). The idea is that no matter how much shrouded in antiquity of which the beginning of tradition, so far as our ears give due audience , we will be much reassured of the message , words of nature, speaking to us out of the dense darkness that it is still pretty much around, dying really hard.Tradition, if anything, lives in our language all the time, which, being a special human memory, is as indestructible as the most stubborn trace left by humans on earth. Indeed, no other power can boast of equal omnipotence . Historians, by fathoming the depth of this undercurrent of language, by piecing together innumerable evidences unearthed , countless artifacts and cultural relics scattered around the globe, conjure up the Neolithic sociological patterns of various migrating tribes and herds . While mountains and oceans have risen and drained away, human remains buried deep have turned into mulberry fields or fossilized, the baggage upon your back is no more a pack, millions and millions of years have elapsed during which your clear remembrance becomes a legend, and no amount of positivistic research and archeological reconstruction will tell the truth for sure: the truth about where we in the first place launch forth in life and wander widely asunder in the world. Only at this moment ,halting at the crossfire of reasoned speculation, all the elements of which the science is sure and frankly mysticism ,we are content ourselves with the reassuring oracle made of words that suggest some clues so as to appease our inquisitive turn of mind.Ever since the beginning of things, human travels fall into two categories: mental and physical. I must observe, of course, even physical wandering that I am talking here does not merely carry the Darwinian sense of linear progression . Human travels, mentally speaking, have utter metaphysical undertones, and because of this , I trust what is encrypted in language is far more a metaphor of eternity illumined by the torch through time.Tradition is both a state of mind and a mode of thinking and if it is set forth more distinctly with ontological implication, as to encompass mankind at large, it is the universal mental processes prevalent in all civilized lands, functioning in all aspects of social life, from philosophizing in the ivory tower to daily intercourse of ordinary folk, indeed, so deeply embedded in the unconscious of most of us(We are such unconscious people!).Our world has certainly become more worldly. Some mighty invisible forces are at work making havoc on manners, mores and customs of honest days of yore- when as yet I only believed them to be all that poets had painted them;- “ being gradually worn away by time, but still more obliterated by modern fashion.”But in this season of irreversible change, tradition, with a pleasing vengeance, asserts its immortality most vigorously , as tenacious as our gene chromosomes, empowering us to see the starry sky rarely seen by others, to sing the hymns which are Greek to everybody not of our paternal home, and more important, tradition-conscious, we have been able to keep watch on the returning dawn of another tomorrow. Tradition as human spirituality ,I claim proudly as


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core ICH(intangible cultural heritage) of our Yi people above all else. I plead ignorant when asked whether there is a poetic tradition of higher antiquity than ours, but this much I can tell you for sure: Once we have come to grips with the essence of our glorious poetic tradition, we will become the vanguard to usher in a new phase of artistic innovation.We often speak of modernity as approbative or synonymous of the frontier of modern poetry but we might remind ourselves that modernity is as inevitable as breathing, since we are all literally living in this modern age and that we should be none the worse for failing to record what happens under our very noses as chronicler and eyewitness, simply because we can not live elsewhere, say the Tang or the Pericles time, fully aware of the immortal pieces left to us by a Li Bai or Homer, all super beings “ radiant with the emanations of their genius”, secure in the quiet recesses of the bosom of time in perennial renown.For good or bad, “ it is still a turn-up of a die , in the gambling freaks of fate,” whether we do our part or fail in our ultimate capacity as poets of our age .One of the Chinese poets, not necessarily a prophet, whose name escapes my memory at the moment, is remembered as saying something to the effect: “ The past five decades could well be termed the most amazing period in this country’s history as it sees nothing short of a revolution being materialized.” Shame on us if we only sit idle decrying economic growth, deploring galumphing consumerism or fretting about urbanization. It simply does behoove us, aside the excitement of creation and the feeling of achievement, to translate the sensory impressions of such unprecedented mind-boggling, striking events, external and internal, into beauty on a verbal plane.Granted poetry has always kept company of us, I must confess my firm faith in poetic possibilities in galore for each generation born into every period in history. The world of poetry is wide and rich, there is enough room in it for every person who want to poeticize. Barriers of temperament, talent ,artistry and bottleneck in ambition are natural and should be expected. But a whole-hearted zest to take risk to be frontrunners is not flimsy daydreaming. It is a goal, nay, a reality, all of a sudden, sprung unto us and we feel it palpably as the world is spinning under our feet with all its motion and velocity. Hence, poetic innovation in this era of dazzling alterations is no more a subject that invites discussion and hypothesis, it is a reality confronting us, each of us who will willingly renounce the relative security of the present niche we have earned and deserved in society for the unpredictable life of dare-to-shine-or-perish innovator. I have given my speech the title of “Hidden Forces in Poetry”, because, shorn of innovation in new style and diction, we are leading to nowhere in our attempt to have the faintest inkling of where the hidden forces lie and by which way we will get to the forefront. Innovation is the ordeal of good poetry. New trends or even reversal in style and diction sometimes don the garb of bewildering mysticism to the point of something like a mumbo jumbo , but it is an effort worth making, should be deemed norm rather than abnormity, and indeed ,the yardstick by which one can tell good art from something like a fad to be soon lost in the sand, or a much exalted school totally saturated , on the verge of being repudiated en masse, “ victim of a new unforeseen reversal in stylistic innovation.”The ideal for poetic innovation is to create new forms and come out with new style and new diction, which stand both for a new set of symbols and metaphors in an age calling forth drastic stylistic experiment much in arrear of material progress.I have dwelt upon possible ways of identifying these UFO in poetry, because, as it is one of the most sacred duties of each good poet, so is it the overarching office of poetry. All those refusing to be weak, limited artistic personalities must necessarily make the leap into the unknown, eternally unattainable of poetic writing. Such bouts might prove futile for a gigantic enterprise, a faint glimmer in a murky room, or even darkness as reflection of light and gold? Poetry sets


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no front-line or limitation on the still mysterious nature of human creativity. To truly discover such a one ,we might as well turn ourselves into logs ,bricks, barbwire, cement, ammunition and forge our forward position. Good or bad lot, a poet innovates ultimately by dating and romancing with tradition again, which will, like a holy flame, illumine the road ahead of him .A good poet invariably comes to reckon with these unforeseen forces and his growth, paradoxically, is measured by the extent to which he retreats into the tradition of his own people, which will goad and sustain him to awareness, understanding and eminence.August,6th,2019


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IN MEMORIAM


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FRANCİS COMBES

Apollinaire, the Poet Assassinated

Guillaume Apollinaire died on November 9, 1918, in his home in the 7th arrondissement of Paris. He was 38 years old. Apollinaire had survived a shrapnel wound to the forehead, which he had received on the frontlines near the Chemin des Dames, in March of 1916 – as well as the subsequent trepanation he went through – only to die from the Spanish flu. He died two days before the armistice, on the very day of the Kaiser Wilhelm (Guillaume, in French)’s abdication. Demonstrators were marching in the streets of Paris, shouting “Down with Guillaume!” They didn’t mean the poet.This pandemic is considered the most lethal of modern times, with over 50 million victims worldwide. It was wrongfully called the Spanish flu, because the Spanish press – which was less censored in Spain than in other European countries – first mentioned it. It seemed to have appeared amid the promiscuity of the trenches, and then spread. The reason the pandemic killed that many people is that the countries were at war and did not get together to fight it.And so, Apollinaire, the poet with the bandaged head as shown on several pictures and on his portrait by Picasso was, indeed, the “poet assassinated,” as one of his title suggests. I discovered his poems at the age of 14, in a small tome of the collection “Poètes d’aujourd’hui,” published by the Résistance poet Pierre Seghers. Apollinaire’s biography was written by his friend André Billy. I first encountered Mayakovski’s poetry in that same collection, and both poets have been with me ever since.Should I choose one word to define Apollinaire, I would call him an Enchanter.He who is often put forth as one of the precursors of modern poetry was an enchanter who knew how to make words sing. He was, despite his foreign background, the French poet par excellence. His command of the French language, its specific harmonies, richness, and limpidity… He had all the music of French poetry in his ears. Apollinaire was born in Rome of unknown paternity, a Polish subject to the Russian Empire. His mother belonged to the Polish lower nobility. His birth name was Kostrowitzky; he later adopted Apollinaire (one of his many surnames) – which, of course, brings to mind Apollo, the god of poets. His father was, quite possibly, an Italian officer whom his mother – the daughter of a former Papal chamberlain – had met. Still a child, Guillaume left Italy with his mother and brother. In France, in Monaco, Ms Kotrowitzky lived the mundane life of a courtesan, and worked for a while as a croupier in the casino. It is quite likely that Apollinaire got his taste for traveling and love affairs from his mother.As a teenager, he was a brilliant student at the Lycée Massena in Nice; still, he failed at his baccalauréat examination. During the summer of 1899, his mother sent Guillaume and his brother in a hotel pension in Stavelot, in the Belgian Ardennes. This 3-month stay would leave its print on Apollinaire’s imagination, especially with regard to his first loves. As their mother hadn’t given them anything to pay for their hotel room, they had to leave unnoticed.Apollinaire settled in Paris in 1900, and learnt shorthand in order to make a living. He was soon hired as a clerk. He started to write; newspapers and reviews published his first poems. In 1901, he became the tutor of a German-born viscountess. This was when he wrote his Rhénanes, and forged his lifelong interest for the poetry, landscapes, and legends of Germany, like Heine’s Lorelei, even during his wartime nationalist period. This is when he fell in love with Annie Playden, the family daughter’s English governess. Playden, however, rejected him


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and moved to London, and then to the USA. Hence appeared in his poetry the character of the “Mal Aimé” (the Poorly Loved), soon to be an alter ego. His next love was painter Marie Laurencin, with whom he had a long, tumultuous affair. Guillaume quickly got in touch with the main artists of his time – Picasso, Derain, Vlaminck, le Douanier Rousseau – making a name for himself as an influential art critic who supported innovative a

Poetry Planetariat · (Madách Prize, Lucian Blaga Prize, Arghezi Prize. POETRY PLANETARIAT ISSUE...

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Transcript of Poetry Planetariat · (Madách Prize, Lucian Blaga Prize, Arghezi Prize. POETRY PLANETARIAT ISSUE...