Month: May 2018

The unmothered

pexels-photo-490411.jpeghttps://www.newyorker.com/books/page-turner/the-unmothered

 

“There’s a word in Hebrew—malkosh—that means “last rain.” It’s a word that only means something in places like Israel, where there’s a clear distinction between winter and the long, dry stretch of summer. It’s a word, too, that can only be applied in retrospect. When it’s raining, you have no way of knowing that the falling drops would be the last ones of the year. But then time goes by, the clouds clear, and you realize that that rain shower was the one. Having a mother—being mothered—is similar, in a way. It’s a term that I only fully grasp now, with the thirst of hindsight: who she was, who I was for her, what she has equipped me with.

Like a last rain, my mother left behind an earthy scent that lingered long after she was gone. Like a last rain, for a fleeting moment, everything she touched seemed to glow.”

Letters of Plath and Hughes

leo-animal-savannah-lioness-55814.jpeghttps://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2017/apr/11/sylvia-plath-ted-hughes-letters-therapist

Extract

Part of what makes the story of Plath and Hughes feel so endlessly symbolic is the way it functions as a lightning rod for changing ideas about sexual politics. Letters are almost as central to the cultural story of Plath and Hughes as the poems they wrote to, and about, each other. Twenty years ago, I embarked on a PhD about Plath’s poetry, but became so fascinated by the tug-of-war over her legacy, our culture’s long and determined effort to turn her from an author into a character that I ended up writing a thesis about that story. Now new documents emerge, and the whole tale gets retold – once more, with different feelings.

The facts may alter with new evidence, but mostly it’s our interpretations that have altered. Our ideas – about feminism, marriage, mental illness, suicide and domestic violence – change and with them our attitudes towards Plath and Hughes.

Sympathies shift, from her to him and back again. Just as I was finishing my thesis came the news that Hughes had suddenly published a collection of poems, Birthday Letters, followed soon by Howls & Whispers, an addendum of sorts

Straight  my tears fell, like a sheet of glass

I saw the floor of heaven touch the earth
And I too was affected by its bliss
In the moments just before your death

Like a  heavy satin, gold embossed,
When  your soul went into Paradise
I saw the floor of heaven touch the earth

I saw no suffering Jesus on his Cross
Just a cloud of angels  gold and wise
In the moments just before your death

Straight  my tears fell, like a sheet of glass
As on your serene face I left a kiss
I saw the floors of heaven touch the earth

A sweet bell rang  and my dear man was lost
Nothing can prepare the heart for this
In the moments just after a death

Would we love if we knew the full cost?
He has left me here and I am lost
I saw the floor of heaven touch the earth
In the moments just  around his death

 

 

 

London Town

pexels-photo-415932.jpeg

In London town,I saw the moon,

It looked real impressive.

So I lay myself down on  my coat,

So I could pen this missive.

 

After lying staring up,

I began to feel dead lazy

I thought I saw the Pope go by.

Do ye’ ken I’m going crazy?

 

He was in this large white car

Wrapped up in royal tartan.

I know you won’t believe me but

I felt almost certain.

 

I went to a free soup kitchen,

As I’m a homeless person.

I saw ten angels looking down,

So I called “Stop  that staring”

 

I crawled inside a shop doorway

To get a few  hours sleep.

I I dreamed I  dwelt in the old UK

It nearly made me weep.

 

If I really was in my England

I ‘d have the N.H.S.

I’d have a council house of my own
And I’d be surely blessed

Faith and poetry- a podcast

limburg-dom-limburger-dom-hesse-63610.jpeghttps://www.americamagazine.org/arts-culture/2017/02/01/yale-poet-interaction-between-faith-and-poetry

Extract

~”On this week’s podcast poet Christian Wiman describes the power of poetry to hosts Matt Malone, S.J., and Kerry Weber. America‘s poetry editor Joe Hoover, S.J., joins to offer his perspective. In conversation with our editors, Wiman described how his ability to write poetry was affected by a period of illness. “It’s dangerous if you’re an artist and the medium through which you process the world is taken away from you. Everything becomes dammed up in you. I met the woman who is now my wife and got sick shortly after that it jolted me into speech. All of those poems [published in Hammer is the Prayer by Farrar, Straus & Giroux]  came directly out of that experience.”

Faith is a major theme in Wiman’s work, which is why he has found a good home as a professor at Yale’s Institute of Sacred Music.  “I think the notion of faith as a crutch is fundamental misunderstanding,” Wiman told our hosts. “Often my experience of faith is that it’s not a crutch. It’s quite the opposite, it’s calling me to something that I can’t quite live up to. I wish it could be more of a consolation, actually.”

If you’d like to learn more about Wiman’s poetry, feel free to see the poem he published in our February 6 issue here.

Vanilla slices are too hard to share

There are too many people on earth
So kill yourself now,don’t give birth
Yet that is immoral
Murder abhorrent
Let’s eat less and wear less, be first!

Do we really need chocolate eclairs?
Vanilla slices are too hard to share
A sponge cake is easier
A  gift  for the queasier
With icing  and jam we want more.

The traffic is hellish today
I  think I prefer to stay here
I hear the birds sing
To the maple they wing
I wish I could  fly right up there

Mice dancing

P1000146.jpgI once played the piano all night
The neighbours were  very polite
“We heard some mice dancing
With music enchanting
But make sure the cat does not bite”

I tried a guitar for a week
I failed to make the strings speak
I went back to the  seller
I  cried,my dear fellow
I  cannot play this as it leaks

Singing is  the cheapest of arts
It’s free if the larynx  won’t smart
You can practise  outside
As you go for a ride
And the cats all around might take part

Conversation,does it exist?

ccbfe01593764a8096910a26e3fb6f97_18https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2014/01/the-eavesdropper/355727/

Extract:

Conversations, as they tend to play out in person, are messy—full of pauses and interruptions and topic changes and assorted awkwardness. But the messiness is what allows for true exchange. It gives participants the time—and, just as important, the permission—to think and react and glean insights. “You can’t always tell, in a conversation, when the interesting bit is going to come,” Turkle says. “It’s like dancing: slow, slow, quick-quick, slow. You know? It seems boring, but all of a sudden there’s something, and whoa.”

Occasional dullness, in other words, is to be not only expected, but celebrated. Some of the best parts of conversation are, as Turkle puts it, “the boring bits.” In software terms, they’re features rather than bugs.

The logic of conversation as it plays out across the Internet, however—the into-the-ether observations and the never-ending feeds and the many, many selfies—is fundamentally different, favoring showmanship over exchange, flows over ebbs. The Internet is always on. And it’s always judging you, watching you, goading you. “That’s not conversation,” Turkle says.

She wants us to reclaim the permission to be, when we want and need to be, dull.

Where should a tale begin?

I remember how we felt  ourselves as one
I did not need to speak in words at all
As if we were both  dwelling in one skin

If I tell, where should my tale begin?
When I first responded to your call?
I remember how we felt  each other one

I touched your hand. still warm.  yet you were gone
Your structure  had collapsed like punctured ball
Oh. we were both  dwelling in one skin

So I am separated from my twin
I feel confused,my mind is in a brawl
I remember how we felt  each other one

From two  persons comes  strange new one
The Trinity of love makes a new soul
Then our work on earth is almost done

Over  long pale sands the  tide will flow
In and out like breathing, as seas roll
If I  write where should my tale begin?
In   that loving tangle of bare limbs?

 

My Voice by Rafael Campo

To cure myself of wanting Cuban songs,
I wrote a Cuban song about the need
For people to suppress their fantasies,
Especially unhealthy ones. The song
Began by making reference to the sea,
Because the sea is like a need so great
And deep it never can be swallowed. Then
The song explores some common myths
About the Cuban people and their folklore:
The story of a little Carib boy
Mistakenly abandoned to the sea;
The legend of a bird who wanted song
So desperately he gave up flight; a queen
Whose strength was greater than a rival king’s.
The song goes on about morality,
And then there is a line about the sea,
How deep it is, how many creatures need
Its nourishment, how beautiful it is
To need. The song is ending now, because
I cannot bear to hear it any longer.
I call this song of needful love my voice.

Rafael Campo,doctor and poet

pexels-photo-242178.jpeghttps://www.poetryfoundation.org/poets/Rafael-campo

EXTRACT

Campo’s own poetry tends to mix narratives of family, history, and illness with an attention to form, especially received forms. His interest in forms, he has alleged, comes from his own “hybrid” experience: “Being a hybrid myself, I’m very interested in playing with Indonesian forms and Middle Eastern forms, importing some of these things, being in a way almost promiscuous with form.” Campo’s first book, The Other Man was Me (1994), won the National Poetry Series; his second, What the Body Told (1996) was awarded the Lambda Literary Award for Poetry. Critic Frederick Luis Aldama has described Campo’s technique in his early work: “His poems are highly structured… he uses the security of form as a position from which to delve deep into the heart of his own feelings—feelings for his AIDS and cancer patients and for emergency room arrivals who have suffered from brutal encounters with an overwhelmingly homophobic and racist American society.”

Other collections of poetry also utilize a dramatic range of forms. In Diva (1999), which includes Campo’s translations of poems by Federico Garcia Lorca, he attempts terza rima, villanelles, pantoums, heroic couplets, and envelope quatrains. In the Journal of the American Medical Association (JAMA), Jay A. Liveson called the book Campo’s “most pointed” collection to date and “a virtuoso display” of formal poetic styles. Campo’s other collections of poetry include Landscape with Human Figure (2002), winner of the Gold Medal in Poetry from ForeWord, and The Enemy (2007), which received the Sheila Motton Book Prize from the New England Poetry Club. His latest book of poetry is Alternative Medicine (2013).

Both of Campo’s collections of prose, The Poetry of Healing (1997) andThe Healing Art (2003), address the subjects found in his poetry, while describing the difficulties and rewards of being a poet-doctor. The Poetry of Healing won praise from many different quarters, including reviews in medical journals and a Lambda literary award. In Christian Century, Arthur W. Frank examined the book as a piece of “medical self-reflection” that challenged the administrative restrictions common to the profession. “Campo’s writing—the transformation of life in narrative and poetry—is the final expression of his fidelity to his patients … Campo shows the difficulty of cultivating public-spiritedness as an individual virtue within systems of managed care.” The Healing Art also received praise from literary and medical journals alike. Using poems from poets like William Carlos Williams, Marilyn Hacker, and Lucia Perillo, Campo addresses the necessity of differentiating between “healing” and “curing.” In the New England Journal of Medicine, Teresa Schraeder claimed that “Rafael Campo uses a palette of poetry to provoke the reader to philosophical, even existential thoughts about the ways in which illness and death define human experience.”

Believe in God!

9vzsmufoa0yy7_m.jpghttps://www.philosophytalk.org/blog/how-can-smart-people-still-believe-god

Quote:

As a philosopher, I tend to want my beliefs to be based on either direct experience or reasoned arguments. Even if some belief of mine is not in fact so based, I like to flatter myself that all my current beliefs are capable of being, as it were, ratified by either some reasoned argument or by the testimony of direct experience. And I’d like to think that if it were to be decisively settled that some belief of mine could not be so , I would more or less spontaneously surrender that belief, more or less without regret or remorse or wishful thinking of any kind. It seems to me one could and should have much the same attitude toward religious belief. One should want to believe in the existence of god only if one is confident that such belief is capable of being ratified by either reasoned argument or direct experience.

Funny Yiddish sayings

pexels-photo-209037.jpeghttps://futureofworking.com/40-funny-yiddish-sayings/

 

AY-YAY-YAY: A Joyous, or at times sarcastic, exclamation.

RACHMONES: Compassion.

SAYKHEL: Common sense.

SHAYNER: Pretty, wholesomely attractive, as in shayner maidel (woman.)

SHMOOZ: To hang out with, a friendly gossipy talk.

TCHOTCHKA: An inexpensive trinket, a toy. Can also mean a sexy but brainless girl. The affectionate diminutive is tchotchkala.

TSETUMMELT: Confused, bewildered.

TSORISS: Suffering, woes.

Some Yiddish words used in English

synagogue-architecture-brighton-church-48809.jpeg

  • a schande (Yid., אַ שאַנדע): a disgrace; one who brings embarrassment through mere association, cf. German eine Schande, translated “a disgrace”, meaning “such a shame”joke
  • abi me lebt (Yid., אַבי מע לעבט): abi from Slavic, as in the previous entry; me lebt cognate to the German, man lebt,’ meaning “At least I’m alive”
  • aliyah (sometimes spelt “aliyos”): the immigration of Jews from the diaspora to the Land of Israel; also defined as “the act of going up” — towards Jerusalem, “making Aliyah”, by moving to the Land of Israel is one of the most basic tenets of Zionism; from Hebrew, aliyah means “ascent” or “going up”.
  • alter kicker or alter kacker (Yid., אַלטער קאַקער): an old fart (from German Alter “old” and kacker “crapper”)[5]Also sometimes spelled phonetically (from the American point of view) as “alte kocker.”[6]

  • balabusta: a homemaker; usually applied with positive connotations
  • bench: to bless, commonly referred to saying Grace after meals (benching) or when lighting shabbat candles(bench-light), from Latin, “benedicere”, (to bless).
  • billig or billik: cheap, shoddy (said of merchandise); common expression “Billig is Teir” (cheap is expensive)
  • German: Bub for a boy-child,[7]lovingly used by Morticia Addams in the 1964 TV series with her husband
  • bubbameisse: Old wives’ tale, cock and bull story (often attributed by erroneous folk etymology to combination of bubbe, “grandmother”, and meisse, “tale”, but in fact derives from “Bove-meisse”, from the “Bove Bukh”, the “Book of Bove”, the chivalric adventures of fictitious knight Sir Bevys (“Bove”) of Hampton, first published in Yiddish in 1541 and continually republished until 1910.
  • bubkes (also spelled “bupkis”): emphatically nothing, as in He isn’t worth bubkes (literally “goat droppings”, in Polish “bobki”)

C

  • chalisch: literally, fainting (“I was chalishing from hunger.”), sometimes used as a term of desperate desire for something or someone (“After a thirty-six hour shift, I was chalishing to go home already.”)
  • chazerei (Yiddish, חזירײַ khazerai “filth” or, perhaps more literally, “piggery”, from חזיר khazer “pig” from Hebrew חזיר‬ “hazeer”, pig): junk, garbage, junk food
  • chesid: good deed or favor. “Do me a chesid and clean your room.”
  • chidush or chiddush: (from Hebrew חדש‬ hadash, meaning “new”) the point, upshot, or reason, of a discussion or argument; the conclusion drawn from two or more premises; more generally, innovation. For example: “I don’t get it, what’s the chidush?” Also used when you are making fun of someone for something entirely obvious. “Chidush! Chidush!
  • chutzpah: (Yid. from Heb. חצפה‬ hutspe, alt. sp. חוצפה‬) Courage, determination, daring; also audacity, effrontery. Similar in meaning to English slang guts, balls, or nerve. Can carry either a positive or negative connotation.

D

Hey

Hey there,Curry
I understand you like to hear the gossip so here goes.Hubs wears 7 pairs of underpants on top of each  other as otherwise  his trousers fall down which has certain advantages,as you can imagine.However it means that the washing has to be done every day.He uses 4 hankies as a minimum and so that is about 54 a week.OI have a hot wash on  the machine but it takes 3 hours.Then I have to clean the 5 bathrooms, the kitchen and the hall every day.I only write when I am aching to do so as we might do with sex but aching is less intense owing to our both having bad hearts,arthritis,high blood pressure and being allergic to cotton and nylon.
But we always have sex on Sunday afternoon in winter as it gets dark so early.
Well, we  gaze into each others eyes and murmur little phrases,like, here you are my lamb,my honeybun,my baby.Seems like all we can do sometimes.
I have to go and make his tea now

Cursings

Sent from my iPhone and my Windows 11 phone.

Kerry Onne

How to end an email

P1000131https://www.grammarly.com/blog/how-to-end-an-email/

 

 

Nine Email Sign-offs to Avoid

1. Love

I have a friend who once accidentally signed an office email to his entire department with love. He never lived it down. Save this one for family, close friends, and your significant other. The same applies to hugs or XOXO.

2. Thx or Rgrds

You’re not thirteen, and this isn’t a conversation happening in a messaging app. Use your words.

3. Take care

On the surface, take care sounds pleasant, but on closer examination, it seems to imply that the recipient should be wary of potential dangers. Use this only if bears are known to lurk by the Dumpster outside the recipient’s office. (We’re only half kidding!)

4. Looking forward to hearing from you

This one also sounds nice at first, but it’s ultimately passive-aggressive. Your recipient is likely to hear an implied “You’d better write back.”

5. Yours truly

Do you really, truly belong to the recipient? Nope. This sounds insincere and hokey . . . unless you’re writing a letter home to your parents from summer camp.

6. Respectfully / Respectfully yours

This one’s okay if you’re sending a formal missive to the POTUS, but it’s too formal for anything else. In fact, according to Business Insider, respectfully yours is the standard close for addressing government officials and clergy.

7. [Nothing at all]

We live in a world where people frequently email from mobile devices, so excluding a signature certainly isn’t a no-no as an email chain progresses, particularly if your recipient also drops the more formal sign-off. But not signing an initial email or using only the formal signature you’ve created to append to your outgoing emails comes off as impersonal. (Bloomberg disagrees, stating that email has become more like instant messaging than true correspondence these days, but we’re sticking to our convictions.)

8. -[Name] or -[Initial]

While this sort of sign-off may work for very brief, informal emails, it’s too cold and detached for most, particularly when you’re connecting with the recipient for the first time.

9. Have a blessed day

It’s best to keep anything with religious overtones out of your professional correspondence, although this one’s fine if you’re emailing an acquaintance about what you’re bringing to the church potluck.

Bonus Bad Sign-off

Although this sign-off tends to happen more by default when the sender forgets to add an actual signature, we thought it was worth mentioning the ubiquitous . . .

Sent from my iPhone

This may be the most common sign-off of them all. It has merits, of course. It explains away brevity and typos—who’s at their best when typing on a phone? But it also conveys that you don’t care enough to do away with the default email signature that came stock with your device’s email app.

Some people get creative with this signature. A few fun (if not necessarily business appropriate) examples found round the Internet include:

  • My parents wouldn’t buy me an iPhone so I have to manually type “Sent from my iPhone” to look cool
  • Sent telepathically
  • Sent from my laptop, so I have no excuse for typos
  • Sent from my smartphone so please forgive any dumb mistakes
  • I am responsible for the concept of this message. Unfortunately, autocorrect is responsible for the content
  • Sent from my mobile. Fingers big. Keyboard small.
  • iPhone. iTypos. iApologize.
  • My phone can’t spell for carp

And, for the Stephen King fans among our readers:

  • Sent from Jack’s typewriter, Rm 237. No autocorrect. REᗡЯU

Goodbye today

As never sure,Kesha
Yours immured,Catherine
Your shrinking cat,Kitty
Yours gracefully,Kathy
Tours wastefully.Kate
How to end ? Uncertain, of GB
Sorry this is so short,K
I hope you have a lovely weekbend,Kezia
For never yours.Kathryn
I love your soul.Kathleen
I love your mind,Katerina
You should join Twitter,@K7605
Meet soon by the window,Cathy

Some days the world is too much here

Some days the world is too much here,
But other days it seems less queer
So we feel we can cope with life
And optimism is rife

Some days we have  the happier moods
But other days   are short of love
We accept the weathered soul
As our own goal

Some days I have an aching heart
I lie in bed,don’t wish to start
Then I need  a cup of tea
And I am me.

Hey

pexels-photo-272760.jpegHey Cathrun

I really liked your blog before you started putting poems on it.I hate  poetry.I want to know about your life.What time do you get up.. what day do you do the washing?
What  your old man likes you to wear.Do you do all the housework?Do you quarrel with Hubs very much? If so,what about.How many children  do you have.I want to get to know you.
Do you pray?When,why, where?
Do you wear shoes with heels?
What kind of clothes do you like?
Do you like cooking?
Does Hubs use hankies and do you boil them?
Do you write poetry because you are an introvert?
How many friends do you have
Do you think sexual pleasure is a sin

I have to go now as Hubs can’t  find his underpants and he wants a cup of tea.
See ya later
Kerry Onne

How to start an email

birds28https://www.grammarly.com/blog/how-to-start-an-email/

 

The Six Worst Ways to Start an Email

1 [Misspelled Name],

Don’t misspell your recipient’s name. Ever.

Double-check the spelling of the person’s name and either get it right or omit it and use a generic greeting like Hi there. Although a nonspecific greeting may come off as impersonal, a misspelled name is a red flag that says you’re careless.

2 Dear Sir or Madam,

Have you ever read and responded to a letter that greeted you with Dear Sir or Madam? We’re going to go ahead and guess you haven’t. Not only is this salutation stiff and formal, it shows that you couldn’t be bothered to look up a contact name and address someone specific.

3 To Whom It May Concern,

The same sentiments that apply to Dear Sir or Madam apply here. If your letter opens with To Whom It May Concern, we’re probably going to assume it doesn’t concern us.

Here’s a tip: Don’t use this greeting with job application cover letters. Make a point to find the hiring manager’s name, even if that means calling the company and asking. If you can’t find a name, “Dear Hiring Manager:” or “Dear [Company] Team:” will work.

4 Hey! or Hey, [Name]!

Reserve this one for your friends and close colleagues. Otherwise, hey is glaringly informal and can even come across as disrespectful. Have you ever felt warmly greeted by someone saying, “Hey, you!”?

5 Happy Friday!!! Or Welcome to Monday!

Gone are shades of meaning and contrast

When we lose our skin and feel bereft
With no protection,cloak or rubber skin
We do not wish to feel the pain that’s left

Our calmness and control gone to a thief
The heart is suffering ,bleeding deep within
When we lose our skin and feel bereft

Moreover, we  will lose our our felt belief
In the help of friends or even kin
We do not wish to feel the pain it left

Gone are shades of meaning and contrast
Our anger  and our fear seem  out to win
When we lose our skin and feel bereft

It’s as if we’ve been tattoed or perhaps embossed
Our courage and our hope are growing thin
We do not wish to know the hidden past

Refusing to communicate is sin
Yet how protect the  sacred core again?
When we lose our skin and feel bereft
We do not wish to feel the pain that’s left

The  still small voice has whispered long ago

The ending of  the day brings nearer war
Is it France or Germany this time
As on those  cruel days we lived before?

Alas it is the Holy Land  adored,
No longer holy, no longer  divine
The ending of  the day brings hints of war

David with his sling has nuclear power.
If this is true, how shall we read the signs
As  did humans  dead and gone before?

Asia,Europe.Africa, oh cower
The missiles and the war planes unbenign
The ending of  our world  draws near in war

The eyes are innocent the mouth turns sour
World  leaders who have never fought decide
Not to learn from  long wars fought before.

Oh, why so keen to start, illegal bride?
Submit to  your own prophets and their signs
The  still small voice has whispered long before.
The sacred bush will burn with nuclear fire

Test

PaeoniaShimaNishiki.jpgWhat are a paragraph, a paralegal and a parachute?
What does ” beyond the pale”  mean? Or is it pail?
Why is patience a virtue?
What is a pathological liar?
What  does ”  for Pete’s sake” mean?
Why do we have to write thank you letters after Xmas even if we are heathens?
Why get baptised in Church.Is it the Community Spirit?
Where is our Community Spirit?

Freudian letter endings

pexels-photo-259363.jpegOf course I don’t want to marry you
Nest wishes
Olga.

I  am a  devil with women
Holy yours
Tom

I was not  at all hurt by your departure
Yours wincerely
Annette

I did once commit adultery [ with you]
Yours faithfully
John

Please come to dinner soon
Never yours
Chris

The  day after pill failed
Yours newly
Mary

Is it my fault I had twins? I didn’t realise it was your brother the second time.
Yours demotedly
Sue

I suppose we’ll have to get married now your are expecting triplets
Your  best fiend
Micky

 

 

Honestly

pexels-photo-415585.jpegI Birmingham.Honestly!
He did it  covertly in Coventry
I had a cathedral put into my bladder and a  primula in my wrist.
They said I needed an auntie or gran
The ambulance was privatised on the way to the Royal Wee.
I have  my grain in my heart.Do you?
I’ve been ill ever since I was well.
Will I be recovered in new  fabric on the NHS?
Don’t be so invectible or inaffactual
Vegetative  thinking  stops us ruminating
Much Hadam… boast free here
Standon….  no.I’ll bring a ladder
Puckeridge… it might rhyme with something rude.
Women can swear but it’s not such a good IKEA

Who sees truly what we have become?

Trivial thinking makes a waste of life;
Like polishing your shoes as Jesus dies.
Yet academics often create strife,
With philosophers more intellingent than wise

Perceptions sharp as nail bombs to the eyes
Are diverted onto other paths and lives.
Who will be the one who can surprise?
With which mind may such perception strive?

Who will listen to the chosen one?
Not the men whose faces are unlined.
Who sees truly what we have become?
In whose imagination is the true refined?

Such a furnace is this blacksmith’s yard
Refinement comes by fire and burning hard

The role of the poet with Solmaz Sharif

 

The Role of the Poet: An Interview with Solmaz Sharif

By 

 

AT WORK

In 2014, I heard Solmaz Sharif read “Look,” the title poem from her debut collection. Look inserts military terminology into intimate scenes between lovers, refashioning hollow, bureaucratic language from the U.S. Department of Defense Dictionary of Military and Associated Terms with a human touch. (Even the collection’s title has an alternate military meaning: per the Department of Defense, a look means “a period during which a mine circuit is receptive of influence.”) At a time when the U.S. automates acts of murder, Sharif insists that war is still personal—perhaps today more than ever. In one of its most quoted passages, she writes, “Daily I sit / with the language / they’ve made / of our language / to NEUTRALIZE / the CAPABILITY OF LOW DOLLAR VALUE ITEMS / like you.” 

“By simply placing words from the Defense dictionary in small caps, and deploying them in scenes of intimacy,” John Freeman wrote in the Los Angeles Times, “Sharif has begun the process of renaturing them, putting them in the readers’ hands for examination.” Look confirms what I’ve known since 2014: Sharif is poised to influence not only literature but larger conversations about America, war, and the Middle East. I spoke with her about her influences, the role of the poet in today’s world, and the stories behind Look.

INTERVIEWER

In an essay you wrote for the Kenyon Review, you said, “When I am asked to describe my poetry on airplane flights, at dinner parties, I describe it first as ‘political.’ Then, ‘documentary.’ And these two things seem to, for some, preclude aesthetic rigor.” There’s a popular conception that overtly political can’t have aesthetic value—that a political message degrades the aesthetics. Is your work a deliberate effort to rebut this notion? 

SHARIF

Clichéd, bad writing often means clichéd, bad politics, and vice versa. Aesthetics and politics have a really vital and exciting give-and-take between them. I think June Jordan is an exciting example. She was politically astute and radical, but she was also a classically trained pianist, so when you’re reading her work, it’s incredibly music driven and decided. It’s exciting for me to think of poets that are allowing their politics to also be shaped by these aesthetic considerations, and wondering when the poetic will lead you to the kind of political surprise that a dogmatic approach wouldn’t allow. These are the artists that live on the fringes of what is aesthetically and politically accepted.

When I say “living on the fringes,” I’m thinking of Edward Said’s idea of the “exilic” intellectual pursuit. It’s this artistic presence continually outside, questioning and speaking back to whatever supposed “here” or “we” or “now” we’ve created. The word fringe is belittling in a way I don’t intend—I mean a nomadic presence, or a mind that is consistently on the run, and preventing these political moments from calcifying.