representation-matters

[representation-matters]

Cows come from the sea...

Cows come from the sea on this morning at the beginning of time blue-green cows udders full of salty sea milk and the Sea Mother drives them ashore with a switch of sea-grass

Sea Maidens come keep the cows and keep yourselves from lecherous herders by night In autumn may a hundred blue-green cows be back here in the bay between mottled stones May their horns glisten in the mist and may your eyes sparkle But keep your hearts clear and cool like the morning dew

You will never get used to the life of human women it puts fetters on the heart dreams are never fulfilled and feelings only give rise to grief People are beautiful but cruel They keep to their kin like insects they gather the gold of dreams by night squander it all away in the morning

To become someone’s own means being dangerously close to a human star

But your eyes are like the sea of the world stars drown in it

Sea Maidens come keep the cows But keep your hearts clear and cool like the morning dew

-Kristiina Ehin. Modern Poetry in Translation. Series 3. No. 13. Tr. Ilmar Lehtpere. [See her short story ‘Patterns’ on Electric Literature, and her book of poems The Drums of Silence also translated by Lehtpere and published by The Oleander Press (Cambridge) in 2007... Ehin makes music...]

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Origin Calling

In the dangerous years everyone took lovers

but us. We were not sweethearts because

there was no sugar & we could not honey

without the bees. Dates made little sense without

time to keep us, beloved & babe stretched end

to end with nothing in between. We rang

for each other instead with rumors & commands,

passwords to watchword beyond the planet’s mute:

Alright, comrade. If-then, constable. O general, O god,

O yes, Operator, did you hear who disappeared that summer?

We beckoned one another in riddles hucked casually

over business & in bread lines, & when we could not

use our mouths, we finally learned to use our hands.

--Meg Day. Split This Rock. 16 April 2019.

[representation-matters]

Ways of Rebelling

Who needs to be at peace in the world? It helps to be between wars, to die a  few  times  each day to understand your father's sky, as you take it apart piece  by  piece  and can't feel  anything,  can't  feel the tree growing under your feet, the eyes poking night only to find another night to compare it to.Whoever   heard   of   turning   pain   into   hummingbirds   or   red  birds—haven't  we  grown?  What  does  it mean to be older?  Maybe a house with-out  doors  can  still  survive  a  storm. Maybe I can't find the proper way to rebel  or  damn it,  I can't  leave.  I want to,  but you grow inside of me. And as  I  watch   you,  before  I  know  it,  I'm  too  heavy,  too full  of  you  to  move.Maybe  that's what they meant when they said you shouldn't love a country too much.

—Nathalie Handal. Ways of Rebelling. U of Pittsburg P, 2015.

[representation-matters]

how to say

in the divorce i separate to two piles   books: english   love songs: arabic my angers   my schooling   my long repeating name   english   english   arabic i am someone’s daughter but i am american born   it shows in my   short memory my ahistoric glamour   my clumsy tongue when i forget the word for   [ ] in arabic i sleep   unbroken dark hours on airplanes home   & dream i’ve   missed my connecting flight   i dream a new & fluent mouth full of gauzy swathes   of arabic i dream my alternate selves   each with a face borrowed from   photographs of the girl who became my grandmother   brows & body rounded &   cursive like arabic but wake to the usual borderlands   i crowd shining slivers of english   to my mouth iris   crocus   inlet   heron  how dare i love a word without knowing   it in arabic & what even is translation   is immigration   without irony   safia means pure   all my life it’s been true   even in my clouded   arabic —Safia Elhillo. Poem of the Day, American Academy of Poets, 13 June 2017. Do also read Elhillo's spectacular Quarrantine with Abdelhalim Hafez.The only reason I haven't posted it here is that the Arabic keeps getting messed up in the posting. Also, an inheritance, which makes the mother-shaped deepdark in my soul ache.

[representation-matters]

How to Dissect a “Female” Body

First, kill the body. Preferably, before the exacting ache of a mirror that fogs the world’s shrewdly dormant eyes Understand that a woman dies many deaths Those exiled into the unearthliness of the looking glass, perish by the helium hands of the howling mass Now ask for consent, preferably from the reluctance or oblivion of other bodies who survive this one Soon you will trace the entitled fingerprints of those who never did Wear a curious mask of conviction — woven out of the perennial pain of heroes and heroines whose legends fermented into lessons that decomposed into drowsy echoes - to shield yourself from the stench of tightfisted fatherly, wrong-footed brotherly, tooth and law nearly husbanded "love" or lack thereof Before anything, devein "honor" from the no longer unnerving vortex of the vagina Acknowledge that often water is thicker than blood is thicker than semen is thicker, more solid than the boney sounding dance of one's own flesh, one's own blood Next, take note of the dented tyranny of that underwired shame — crescented beneath the rise and fall of her dearly eyed barely backed breasts — particularly if the spiral of compulsory coyness was never nipped in the bud Now pull out the longing dagger from the memory of her backbone (every body has one) and make a 'why' shaped incision that yawns deep from the 'how' of each shoulder across the 'what' of the chest running right to the 'when' of the womb Spread open the accounts of all attempted flights of the heart from the rattle of the ribcage and examine fleshed in flesh, rib by rib, bone to bone those earth-woven celestial myths Document the waking tales of warrior nerves of some inherited beginnings, the dissident veins of a few indispensable middles and the soldiering arteries of all barbed endings Proceed accordingly until you master how that which is nowhere to be found is lost Always remember, a mirror is the relentless embrace of shards that stand and die together. —Maryam Ala Amjadi. Antiserious. Issue 2: 25 March 2017.

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Two on a theme

Violence, I know you so well it’s like you’re my real lover, the reason I can’t stay attached to anyone, making a heaven out of beginning again & you knock at my voice as if I could speak you back in as mine & I had time enough to learn the secret of cruelty as if that made it lose its power over me, its antics failing notice, but it lives in us all like a question we can’t answer but keep trying because it feels good to & the secret is it can’t last, & that is when it hurts— we who can’t bear to lose & stitch to any nothing that acts like a landing place but turns out to be a fissure, we pretend voices tell us it’s music & familiar or alien we listen, it’s only a dance —Khadijah Queen. Poem-a-Day by the American Academy of Poets, 8 March 2017. Queen's 'About this poem': “‘Violence, I know you’ is written after Alice Notley’s book In the Pines. It is part of a new series I’m working on, where the speaker is a ghost—an ancestor navigating the legacy of her secrets while communicating the importance of voice, intuition, and self-knowledge to her descendants.” In other words, Bow down, bitches. Speaking of which. Not Just Lipstick Not just lipstick I have got a pierced navel And some tattoos on my neck and thighs A pink patterned panty A hip that swings and sighs And who knew... I even have breasts under my burkha Not just lipstick I have a mouth that smokes A few freckles And some hair Here and there A vagina with an opinion And a heart that beats like a whore under my burkha. Not just lipstick I even have a gun under my burkha. — Sowmya Vidyadhar. On Facebook, 24 February 2017. In response to the Central Board of Film Certification a.k.a. Indian Censor Board's obscene ban on screening Lipstick under my Burkha dir. Alankrita Shrivastava

[representation-matters]

If I somehow might...

If somehow I might have the vision to see humans in their simple reversion to animals, neither bitter, brutal, nor conscious of being anything other than themselves, ungracious in nothing, and unaware of the need to present a flattering picture of their greed, then perhaps some strutting and well-nourished male might seem merely a beautiful animal in all the splendour of his rutting season, and I, having no reason to fear distress, might find occasion to feel blessed and bless. —Suniti Namjoshi. The Blue Donkey Fables. London: The Women's Press, 1988. PS: I know I've posted her before, but, a) I love her beyond the vortex of peacock blue she alone can conjure, and b) As you will have noticed my poetic resources have thinned (due to a change of countries, financial & intellectuo-social circumstances, etc, etc). But this blog will soldier - or stutter - on in some abbreviated form as long as the python on the mountain behind the black stream running over blood red rubies can still wink at the sun. Happy International Women's Day, all :)

[representation-matters]

Two from POETRY

In Every Life

In every life there’s a moment or two when the self disappears, the cruel wound takes over, and then again at times we are filled with sky or with birds or simply with the sugary tea on the table said the old woman I know what you mean said the tulip about epiphanies for instance a cloudless April sky the approach of a butterfly but as to the disappearing self no I have not yet experienced that You are creating distinctions that do not exist in reality where “self” and “not-self” are like salt in ocean, cloud in sky oxygen in fire said the philosophical dog under the table scratching his balls —Alicia Ostriker. Poetry magazine. 1993; 2011. One of those rare, justly, magnificently famous women poets born long enough ago (1937) and prolific enough in such various ways (she has been an awesome force of nature/language) that you know, you know, they know everything, everything. PS: Read 'Utopia' and 'Moon & Earth'.

[representation-matters]

What She Said

Kuruntokai 28 Shall I attack these people, shall I strike them? I do not know. Or shall I find some reason and cry out to this city that sleeps not knowing my suffering while the moving wind swirls and pulls me to and fro. —Avvaiyar I. Trans. from Tamil by George L. Hart III. unbound: 2000 Years of Indian WOmen's Writing. Ed. Annie Zaidi. New Delhi: Aleph Book Co (Rupa Publications), 2015. Bio from unbound: Avvaiyar meaning 'respectable women' was the title given to different poets who lived at different periods of time. Avvaiyar I lived during the Sangam era. She is believed to be the author of seven verses including Kuruntokai and Purananuru.

[representation-matters]

Road of Clouds

                           Until now your visions were unclear to me                                      Your horizon, too far to help                                              I follow your steps                                      Melt in your flawless crystal                                Tell you the torment of my secrets                                                        In                                                   Passion                                                 I name you:                                            My sister nomad                                                  Oh cloud,                                                 So distant —Ouidad Benmoussa. Trans. Emma Hayward. Poems for the Millennium, Volume Four: The University of California Book of North African Literature. Ed. Pierre Joris & Habib Tengour. Berkeley: U of Cal P, 2012.

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Autobiography of Eve

Wearing nothing but snakeskin boots, I blazed a footpath, the first radical road out of that old kingdom toward a new unknown. When I came to those great flaming gates of burning gold, I stood alone in terror at the threshold between Paradise and Earth. There I heard a mysterious echo: my own voice singing to me from across the forbidden side. I shook awake— at once alive in a blaze of green fire.

Let it be known: I did not fall from grace.

I leapt to freedom.

—Ansel Elkins. Blue Yodel. Yale UP, 2015. Please. Please read her "Blues for the Death of the Sun too. It begins: The evening sun descended with the decorum of an old man / Who removes his wide brimmed hat as a funeral march passes.

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ZIBA

—Ziba Karbassi. Index on Censorship. 31.3. Home and Away (2002): 136-7. Karbassi was part of The Enemies Project's Poets for Pussy Riot event; she was featured in Maya Weeks's article on Protest Poetry and is one of Exiled Ink's peeps, she's describing 'Death by Stoning' in Modern Poetry in Translation, she makes nerve-shattering collages of words (Collage Poems is out of stock but you could ask her if copies are available anywhere...)....

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Rise, and Learn to Act

Weak and oppressed! Rise my brother Come out of living in slavery. Manu-follower Peshwas are dead and gone Manu’s the one who barred us from education. Givers of knowledge– the English have come Learn, you’ve had no chance in a millennium. We’ll teach our children and ourselves to learn Receive knowledge, become wise to discern. An upsurge of jealousy in my soul Crying out for knowledge to be whole. This festering wound, mark of caste I’ll blot out from my life at last. In Baliraja’s kingdom, let’s beware Our glorious mast, unfurl and flare. Let all say, “Misery go and kingdom come!” Awake, arise and educate Smash traditions-liberate! We’ll come together and learn Policy-righteousness-religion. Slumber not but blow the trumpet O Brahman, dare not you upset. Give a war cry, rise fast Rise, to learn and act. —Savitribai Phule (1831-97). Kavyaphule (1854). Trans. Karthik Navayan. Dr B R Ambedkar's Caravan. 3 January 2015.

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All My Activities Are Feeding Activities

Dear Commissioner here are my directive accounts of genitals and cash now bring me your goods We don't live among fowlers Not all poisonous juices are burning or bitter nor is everything now which is burning and bitter poisonous Air is removed from the workspace and dispersed into the multiverse It's very strict metadata You get echoes and dropouts For the most part Juliet is gaseous now as a caucasian she gets it on the head and face and I move from hypocrisy to cynicism Cristal all over the face and neck concrete and glinting audible light on jumbotron marmalade for miles That good wood kept calling my name Behavior meet Behavior, Behavior meat all the social organs —Alli Warren. Here Come the Warm Jets. City Lights Spotlight No. 10. San Francisco: City Lights Books, 2013. Jacket featured Warren, she's written a good (in both senses!) bit for Harriet, and three of her wonderful pieces recently appeared in Feminist Formations.

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Mother Palate

Afternoons at our sylvan home ripe with slouches -- of hats, spines and tanning shrimp:

the iconography of how hands learn to rest sickles and clay, or how shadows play tiger from limbs of coconut trees pregnant with milk Opah will plate out of pandan and rice.

Some days, we inai our teeth with the warm ichor of bubur pulut hitam, bellies purring still at the fragrance of other tropical sialagogues,

our mouths performing ablution by taking rose milk, or with laughter.

In the incense woven from smoky banana leaves and rendang spices, saudade is wetter than the fish market:

its soft lachrymose, we swallow, its glutinous rapture takes a tomb in jaws.

What is all this appetite if not mothered by a shared art in the kitchen?

--Taymurah Jefri. Rambutan Literary. Issue 3 (December 2016).

[representation-matters]

Two Songs

I saw the dark clouds burst,                                                                dark Lord, Saw the clouds and tumbling down In black and yellow streams                                   they thicken, Rain and rain two hours long. See—   my eyes see only rain and water,   watering the thirsty earth green. Me—   my love’s in a distant land   and wet, I stubbornly stand at the door, For Hari* is indelibly green,                                  Mira’s Lord, And he has invited a standing,                                  stubborn love.

¬

My friend, I went to the market and bought the Dark One. You claim by night, I claim by day. Actually I was beating a drum all the time I was buying him. You say I gave too much; I say too little. Actually, I put him on a scale before I bought him. What I paid was my social body, my town body, my family body, and all my inherited jewels. Mirabai says: The Dark One is my husband now. Be with me when I lie down; you promised me this in an earlier life.

¬

—Mirabai (1498? – 1557?). [I saw the dark clouds burst] from Songs of the Saints of India. Trans. J. S. Hawley & Mark Juergensmeyer. New Delhi: OUP, 2004. [My friend, I went to the market] trans. Robert Bly. Women in Praise of the Sacred: 43 Centuries of Spiritual Poetry by Women. Ed. Jane Hischfield. NY: Harper Perennial, 1995. More on Mira here, here, and here. More poems here.

*In Hindi, ‘Hari’ (noun) means god; ‘hari’ (adjective) means ‘green’, and is gendered feminine. Reading this song, I kept wanting to dedicate its posting here to #StandingRock... <3

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