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Editorial: December 2007
23 november 2007
The December issue:
In the study there were cheers and laughter
That instant of boredom
Was enough to languish my whole life away
They talked about poetry too much (‘Chinese Poets’)
Jimu Langge, a poet from Tibet demonstrates an entertaining pragmatism both in his poetry and in the Preface to his collection The Silent Revolver, also included here. He grew up in a world of two parallel languages - progressive Han Chinese and traditions-imbued Yi and it is tension between these two that drives his verse.
Langge’s translator, d dayton, writes: “The collisions of Jimu’s poetry often take the form of ironic parodies that reflect the absurdity of language’s tendency to define. For instance, poems like ‘The Tiger Comes to My Side’ play on the poetics of definition: the poet becomes the tiger when it is unclear what the tiger implies.” It is an excellent open-ended poem which will feature as one of the Poems of the Week this month.
Five poets from India, Anjum Hasan, Amarjit Chandan, Namdeo Dhasal, Udayan Vajpeyi and Meena Alexander come together in a special themed issue. Editor Arundhathi Subramaniam skilfully introduces the theme of place which she sees as necessarily invoking feelings of nostalgia, loss, time and home. “It is difficult to talk about place without invoking nostalgia, a sense of loss, even at times, a sense of exile. This manifests itself as a sombre elegiac mode in Vajpeyi, a resonant spareness in Chandan, a fierce lyric impulse in Alexander, a quiet meditativeness in Hasan. In the case of Marathi Dalit poet Dhasal, however, there is no trace of wistfulness. Tough and unsentimental, his poetry draws on what his translator Dilip Chitre terms bibhatsa rasa (revulsion or disgust), offering a portrait of Mumbai at its predatory, rancid and festering best— or worst.”
Richard Murphy is an Irish poet in the Yeatsian Anglo-Irish poetic tradition, he takes a classical stance which has not made him fashionable in his life-time. Patrick Cotter also describes how colonial guilt has been a misunderstood theme in his works, and this is certainly a poet who deserves better attention. There’s also an interview to mark Murphy’s eightieth year. His countryman, Gregory O'Donoghue, drove freight trains in the British East Midlands for a while and wrote a collection celebrating this, Making Tracks. I quote at length from one of the poems here:
Years on, as freak April snow
curled into another station,
a porter filled me in on pigeons:
when they circle above the east platform
a widow will board the next train;
if over the northside shed,
misery will alight from the dawn express;
so on – but only when the snow has fallen.
*
It all came back as I focused on the spray
of thrashing feathers, colour-flutters,
the rush of tumbling heads in ‘Fantail Pigeons’.
Where only one foot emerges (sfumato)
and the shapings of one whole torso – a dash
of dark and carmine at its breast.
And the heads – there are two or three, five:
a pigeon lit upon hanging on thermals,
or lofting, or wheeling; its radiance held. (‘Louis le Brocquy’s “Fantail Pigeons”)
One of the Netherland’s finest contemporary poets, new Romantic Menno Wigman gets an updated poet page (previously he had only a short festival-related entry), plus some wonderful poems in new translation. “A poet with a drum set in his head”, Wigman is described in the accompanying article; his accessible poetry is both “transparent and edgy” says Thomas Möhlmann. I hope you enjoy reading him as much as I did.
It’s that time of year again already - marking the end of my second year as PIW editor. A very Merry Christmas to all of our readers, see you in 2008.
With the results of our survey coming in it’s been fantastic to learn more about you, our readers. We have fractionally more men than women but only just, you’re of all ages from sixteen to over seventy-five, peaking in the middle age-group, our demographic is broad, from readers working in construction and engineering to a predicatable majority in the arts and cultural sectors. You live all over the world from Argentina to Zimbabwe, and most of you visit the site for pleasure rather than work or study. We’d like to thank everyone who replied and particularly those who took the time to include detailed constructive feedback. The survey is still up and running for those of you who haven’t yet responded. For members of Facebook, we have a new Poetry International Web group there so please join us!
As I mentioned in the November editorial, we’re calling for donations from our readers - please help us make it through 2008.The December issue:
In the study there were cheers and laughter
That instant of boredom
Was enough to languish my whole life away
They talked about poetry too much (‘Chinese Poets’)
Jimu Langge, a poet from Tibet demonstrates an entertaining pragmatism both in his poetry and in the Preface to his collection The Silent Revolver, also included here. He grew up in a world of two parallel languages - progressive Han Chinese and traditions-imbued Yi and it is tension between these two that drives his verse.
Langge’s translator, d dayton, writes: “The collisions of Jimu’s poetry often take the form of ironic parodies that reflect the absurdity of language’s tendency to define. For instance, poems like ‘The Tiger Comes to My Side’ play on the poetics of definition: the poet becomes the tiger when it is unclear what the tiger implies.” It is an excellent open-ended poem which will feature as one of the Poems of the Week this month.
Five poets from India, Anjum Hasan, Amarjit Chandan, Namdeo Dhasal, Udayan Vajpeyi and Meena Alexander come together in a special themed issue. Editor Arundhathi Subramaniam skilfully introduces the theme of place which she sees as necessarily invoking feelings of nostalgia, loss, time and home. “It is difficult to talk about place without invoking nostalgia, a sense of loss, even at times, a sense of exile. This manifests itself as a sombre elegiac mode in Vajpeyi, a resonant spareness in Chandan, a fierce lyric impulse in Alexander, a quiet meditativeness in Hasan. In the case of Marathi Dalit poet Dhasal, however, there is no trace of wistfulness. Tough and unsentimental, his poetry draws on what his translator Dilip Chitre terms bibhatsa rasa (revulsion or disgust), offering a portrait of Mumbai at its predatory, rancid and festering best— or worst.”
Richard Murphy is an Irish poet in the Yeatsian Anglo-Irish poetic tradition, he takes a classical stance which has not made him fashionable in his life-time. Patrick Cotter also describes how colonial guilt has been a misunderstood theme in his works, and this is certainly a poet who deserves better attention. There’s also an interview to mark Murphy’s eightieth year. His countryman, Gregory O'Donoghue, drove freight trains in the British East Midlands for a while and wrote a collection celebrating this, Making Tracks. I quote at length from one of the poems here:
Years on, as freak April snow
curled into another station,
a porter filled me in on pigeons:
when they circle above the east platform
a widow will board the next train;
if over the northside shed,
misery will alight from the dawn express;
so on – but only when the snow has fallen.
*
It all came back as I focused on the spray
of thrashing feathers, colour-flutters,
the rush of tumbling heads in ‘Fantail Pigeons’.
Where only one foot emerges (sfumato)
and the shapings of one whole torso – a dash
of dark and carmine at its breast.
And the heads – there are two or three, five:
a pigeon lit upon hanging on thermals,
or lofting, or wheeling; its radiance held. (‘Louis le Brocquy’s “Fantail Pigeons”)
One of the Netherland’s finest contemporary poets, new Romantic Menno Wigman gets an updated poet page (previously he had only a short festival-related entry), plus some wonderful poems in new translation. “A poet with a drum set in his head”, Wigman is described in the accompanying article; his accessible poetry is both “transparent and edgy” says Thomas Möhlmann. I hope you enjoy reading him as much as I did.
It’s that time of year again already - marking the end of my second year as PIW editor. A very Merry Christmas to all of our readers, see you in 2008.
© Michele Hutchison
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