The Parrish Lantern

Empty Vessels………..Party Going–Henry Green

2012-01-27T20:40:00.001Z

As the book starts, there is a fog so dense that it coats and hides everything. A bird drops down dead at the feet of an elderly lady- Miss Fellowes, who picks it up as she enters the station. After picking up this bird, she takes it to a public toilet and washes it before wrapping it in brown paper. Welcome to Henry Green’s world of satire, make yourself comfortable because there’s no service out. Party Going tells the tale of a group of wealthy people, hoping to travel by train to some swanky house party, but the fog being no respecter of wealth has descended and shut down all the train services, they take rooms at the adjacent railway hotel & this is where all the action takes place. Although action, may not be the right word, as what we have is a rolling scene of individuals of varying wealth attempting to communicate with each other. Although Communicate may not be the right word, as most of the time is spent in deciphering the meaning from the barbs and sweet talk that passes for small talk. I mentioned on twitter my problems, not with the book which I liked, but with the characters of said book which I didn’t and they were described to me, as “The bright young things” a bit like the top football players of this age. I had a problem with this statement, as footballers may be wealthy now, but most didn’t start out that way, yet these characters have known no other world than the one they inhabit, in which their own position is marked on a scale from who has the most and then in degrees down to where they see themselves, this also marks how they relate to the others about them, with all deferring to Max (Top Dog).

Communication is the activity of conveying information, deriving from the Latin word “Communis” meaning to share, this requires a sender, a message and an intended recipient. Effective communication requires that the communicating parties share an area of communicative commonality, and this process is complete once the receiver has understood the message of the sender. Feedback is critical to effective communication between parties. Now although the characters here share “an area of communicative commonality” they are all of a similar social standing, share the same codes of behaviour etc., yet there is something failing, they have the same coding apparatus, but the wrong keys.

Which takes me to my heading, Empty Vessels, this is the old adage “that empty vessels make the most noise” and by this I mean that although a lot is said, these are characters that abhor a silence, nothing is really said, it’s as though you have three or four people occupying a room and shouting into the void, then waiting for the echo. Whilst researching for this post I found this quote, which I found made sense

“Perhaps more than any of his contemporaries except Samuel Beckett, Green exploits the trivia and minutiae of life. His characters react to life in terms of basic needs, the most basic of which is how to relieve boredom or dispel loneliness. The need for conversation, the need to verbalize, is of course attached to one's desire to avoid tedium; and Green's characters frequently talk not for the sake of communicating particular ideas but rather to occupy themselves…”*

This I felt held the key to understanding this book, that these “bright young things” had no aims beyond a need to stave off anything that could hinder sensation, no matter how vague, that they were running between anything that left them alone, with only their selves for company and now finding themselves trapped by a dense fog, could do no more than bleet their helplessness to an otherwise occupied & indifferent individual.
I read this book because of Stu from Winstonsdad, as part of his Henry Green week, I would not have come across it had he not held this writer up above the crowd of names we see every time a new or new to us writer surfaces. So thanks Stu for introducing me to this writer whose book I enjoyed, if not the bright young things within it.

*Frederick R. Karl, "Normality Defined: The Novels of Henry Green," in his A Reader's Guide to the Contemporary English Novel

Henry Green(Wiki)

Henry Green Interviewed by Terry Southern

Challenges

Do you love a book so much you want everyone to read it? #WBN2012

2012-01-23T15:21:00.001Z

Welcome to World Book Night UK & Eire

World Book Night is a celebration designed to spread a love of reading and books. Celebrated on April 23, 2012 it will see tens of thousands of people gift books within their communities to spread the joy and love of reading. In 2012 World Book Night will be celebrated in the UK, Ireland and USA.

Do you love a book so much you want everyone to read it?

World Book Night launched in 2011 and saw 20,000 passionate readers across the UK give 1 million books to light or non readers thereby spreading the joy and love of reading. Reading changes lives and at the heart of World Book Night lies the simplest of ideas and acts - that of putting a book into another person’s hand and saying ‘this one’s amazing, you have to read it’.
World Book Night 2012 will be held on April 23 and we are once more looking for 20,000 volunteer givers. This year our givers will be distributing 24 copies each (480,000 books) with the further books distributed directly to prisons and libraries through our charitable partners.
Last year my daughter and I took part in the first World Book Night and as well as giving away our allotted 48 books, 48 people left with a smile on their face and a joy they weren’t expecting, make that 50, as my daughter and I both left with a smile, with a joy born of the fact that we were the givers of a small world, that because of that act someone may explore more.

So please sign up, as well as helping spread the word, the love of books, you’ll benefit yourself from a warm glow, knowing that someone may read a book they would have never considered reading & although this hopefully will be The Parrish Lantern’s 2nd year of involvement, I’m just as excited (as is my daughter) and hoping we can participate in many more years & with many more nations coming on board.

Thanks,

Parrish.

Click here to sign up to be a giver
Click here to see the 25 World Book Night titles
Click here to learn more about World Book Night
@WorldBookNight
@WBNAmerica
USA VISITOR?

Click here - World Book Night USA

German Visitor?

Welttag des Buches

In order to be a Giver you must be:
Aged 16 or over and resident in the UK and Ireland
Able to collect 24 copies of your book from your local bookshop or library
Committed to giving your books away on or around World Book Night to non or light readers
Givers will be chosen based on
Where, to whom & why you want to give books away
For more information about the specially chosen World Book Night books click here
For further tips about where to give your books away click here
To read the terms and conditions of being a World Book Night giver click here

Jun’ichiro Tanizaki’s - In Praise of Shadows (A Contemplation)

2012-01-20T20:21:00.001Z

In Praise of Shadows is an essay on aesthetics by one of my favourite Japanese writers, it was originally published in 1933, with the English translation coming out in 1977. This is a tiny book of less than fifty pages, containing a foreword and an afterword, making the essay itself only forty-two pages long, which means it can be read in one sitting, although that would be defeating the point of it, this should be savoured, this book should be read and re-read, should be immersed in. Jun’ichiro Tanizaki discusses traditional Japanese aesthetics in contrast to the changes occurring in his country, or to be more accurate the westernisation of it. Through this essay he compares light & dark, stating that the West with it’s fundamental quest for progress, can be represented as a continuous search for greater light and clarity, whilst in contrast the Japanese path is through shade, that to appreciate Japanese art and literature, you need to understand it’s shadows and the subtle nuances perceived within them. By this method he goes on to explain how this can reach into every part of our lives from what we eat out of, to what our toilets should look like and how they should be perceived. In the afterword it says that one of the oldest and most deeply ingrained of Japanese attitudes to literary style, is that anything with to obvious a structure is contrivance, that to orderly an exposition falsifies the ruminations of the heart, that the truest representation of the searching mind is just to “Follow the Brush” this gives “In Praise of Shadows” a conversational tone, and doesn’t come across as an essay, it is more haphazard, as though you were following the thought process of a gifted writer.

*

“There are good reasons why lacquer soup bowls are still used, qualities which ceramic bowls do not posses. Remove the lid from a ceramic bowl, and there lies the soup, every nuance of its substance and colour revealed. With lacquer ware there is a beauty in that moment between removing the lid and lifting the bowl to the mouth when one glances at the still, silent liquid in the dark depths of the bowl, its colour hardly differing from that of the bowl itself. What lies within the darkness one cannot distinguish, but the palm senses the gentle movement of the liquid, vapour rises from within forming droplets on the rim, and the fragrance carried upon the vapour brings a delicate anticipation. What a world of difference there is between this moment and the moment when soup is served western style, in a pale shallow bowl. A moment of mystery, it might almost be called, a moment of trance.”
*

Although this eloquent strange book is primarily an essay on the Japanese sense of beauty, it is also an act of meditation and an elegy to a culture he perceived to be receiving it’s last rites, making it part clarion call, part last post. This little book discusses architecture, drama, food, beauty and various other aspects of Japanese culture and how the rush for progress, with the adoption of western values, has created an uneasy, unbalanced clash of cultures, with the more forceful Western culture, with it’s bright garish modern technology, challenging his own softer, quieter aesthetic tradition.

*
“ Whenever I see the alcove of a tastefully built Japanese room, I marvel at our comprehension of the secrets of shadows, our sensitive use of shadow and light…. The “mysterious Orient” of which Westerners speak probably refers to the uncanny silence of these dark places. And even we as children would feel an inexpressible chill as we peered into the depths of an alcove to which the sunlight had never penetrated. Where lies the key to this mystery? Ultimately it is the magic of shadows.”
*

Tanizaki shares with us his obvious delight in the ordinary everyday world and contrasts this with his perception of the disposable plastic ideals of western technology and his nations attempts to grasp all, adding his voice to the questions raised on what it means to be Japanese, what the “essence of Japaneseness” might be when confronted by the rush for all things modern and western. I discussed this slightly in my post on OUP, Very Short Introductions – Modern Japan and this book calls for the rediscovery of a particular appreciation of a fragile shadowy beauty that characterised Japanese aesthetics. I’ve read this little book three times now and will probably read it again at some point, it contains a quiet forceful nature it pokes at your thought processes at odd moments, passages come back to contrast the world I find myself in, with it’s meditation on how the beauty and the quality of an experience lived is as important as all other aspects, given it as much relevance today, as when it was written.
*

“To snatch away from us even the darkness beneath trees that stand deep in the forest is the most heartless of crimes. At this rate every place of any beauty … , as the price of being turned over to the masses, will be denuded of trees.”

There’s a slight proviso to this, Tanizaki has a section on race and skin colour, that mirrors the perverse and yet prevalent attitude of the time it was written, in these more hopefully enlightened times, this section may cause offence. My point in raising this issue, is with this enlightenment we can realise the faults of the past and yet not let it mar the the rest of this wonderful little book.

Jun’ichiro Tanizaki (Wiki)
Leete’s Island Books Publishers
Translators.
Edward G. Seidensticker was a noted scholar and translator of Japanese literature. He was particularly known for his English version of The Tale of Genji (1976), which is counted among the preferred modern translations. He is also well known for his landmark translations of Yasunari Kawabata, which led to Kawabata's winning the Nobel Prize in Literature in 1968.
Thomas J. Harper was Senior Lecturer in Japanese Literature, apart from translation he also wrote the afterword in this essay. Harper was Senior Lecturer in Japanese Literature at the Australian National University in Canberra.
The Foreword was written by architect, writer and educator Charles Moore , Fellow of the American Institute of Architects, and winner of the AIA Gold Medal in 1991.

The Eclectic Reader 2012 Challenge (Non-Fiction)

The Ghost of Neil Diamond

2012-01-13T20:17:00.001Z

David Milnes

We meet Neil Atherton, the hero of this book, in the toilet of a Karaoke bar in Hong Kong and it’s Neil Diamond Nite. Egged on by people who appear to be friends of his wife, he performs a wonderful rendition of “Reason to Believe” a beautiful song written by Tim Hardin and covered by Neil Diamond, as he is performing this song he silences the room, who hang on his every word, every line he releases into the room has the ability to create listeners, believers out of a disparate crowd of cynics, drunks and the generally apathetic – it turns out Neil can sing & beautifully. After his turn is over, he is accosted by Elbert Chan, a Chinese man of about forty wearing a wild Hawaiian Shirt and claiming to be a music agent, with big plans for a singer of Neil's quality.

Neil Atherton is a middle-aged British Folk Singer/Guitarist who has touched the hem of the Goddess of success, yet climbed no higher, at one time he was on speaking terms with those who had the hits during the Folk boom of the late 60s – early 70s. He even worked as a backing musician with the likes of Richard Thompson, Dave Swarbrick, Fairport convention and their ilk, when they moved on, he toured those folk clubs that still survived in the back room of Pubs, clubs & church halls. Eventually garnering less & less work, he follows his wife when she’s offered a new job in Hong Kong and what at first seems like a new start, finds him completely lost with nothing to do - washed up in Hong Kong, he is no longer the free-spirited musician, just a kept man, accepting hand-outs from his wife who has made a success of this move. She has accepted and is thoroughly enjoying her new life, which is the antithesis of her past life and her husband, who still believes in the folk ideals of the sixties, she takes this opportunity to divest herself of all the old baggage…. Neil is kicked out and quickly replaced.

This leaves him almost homeless, living in a school room at night & spending his days in places like McDonalds, becoming more and more reliant on Elbert Chan and his offers of work as a Neil Diamond impersonator…..

We follow Neil through a series of increasingly bizarre scenarios, which includes a conflict with a leading stateside Diamond impersonator, I won’t say anymore on this as it would ruin what is a really funny & fantastic part of this tale. This book shows the underbelly, that dark seam, that hides beneath the glitz and glamour in all metropolis, shows how an innocent, naive individual gets enmeshed in a world so different from his own, that he doesn’t realise how it slowly is corrupting him. This is the tale of the fool, the king for a day marching blindly in borrowed glad rags to their own destruction.

This book is a dark comedy, even in the moments where there are signs that optimism may raise it’s head, a bloody great sword would come swooping down, just to let you know that such idealism was unwarranted here, and yet this book constantly made me smile, the characters here are fantastic, the strangely seedy, dishonest & yet otherworldly nature of Elbert Chan, the snooty humour of the office girls, the sheer desperation sweating from every pore (along with the booze) of Iannis and the self blinding naivety & pity of the hero(anti?) himself, just brought a smile to my face and a chortle from my lips.

I was sent this book by the author, with a couple of other books by the same publisher Whattraditionbooks after I left a comment on a fellow blogger’s post. Of the ones sent, I read this first as it had the most appeal at face value and I’m glad I did. Thanks to the writer David Milnes for sending me the book and for his patience whilst waiting for me to finally read it.

David Milnes (Bookmunch Interview)

The Best British Poetry 2011

2012-01-06T20:52:00.001Z

This book is based on the The Best American Poetry series of anthologies founded in the late 1980’s, and has been compiled from various British sources. The selection was chosen from UK- based Poetry magazines, Literary journals and online publications issued between spring 2010 and spring 2011, by the Scottish poet Roddy Lumsden, who also wrote the introduction. His aim in compiling this collection was that the material gathered should represent the rich variety of current UK poetry, including lyric, formal and experimental writing, that it should also represent the diversity of the poetry scene from established poets such as Patrick McGuinness, George Szirtes and Nii Ayikwei Parkes through to a newcomer Emma Page who is represented by her first published poem. The poets included are either from the UK or are based here, there are poets originally from the US, Ghana, Ireland, South Africa, Iran, Hungary, Australia, Zambia & show the multiplicity of poetry whether mainstream or experimental within the United Kingdom.
**
Each poem within this stunning jewel of a book is accompanied by a note from the poet, giving a little detail of their lives and an explanation of why they wrote this particular poem, providing us, the reader, with added insight into the writing of each piece. This adds a wonderful dialogue to the collection wherein your own interpretation of a poem can be compared with the original writers ideas. In the introduction Roddy Lumsden states that “ the end result is, I hope, a snapshot of what is happening at present in non-book publication of poetry in the UK” and if this is the case it chimes with what another poet (Nuala Ní Chonchúir) recently said to me, that being “ poetry is in a healthy state in the sense that it is being written and published, and there are a lot of readings taking place. The small presses keep poetry alive”, to which we owe a hearty thanks.

Three Wishes
* * *

What is it then? A gold-yoked goose egg. A wild bean-stalk.
      The flatness of adulation. Being always young. The King, the Castle.
Wheat stalks spindled to flash and twine.
*
Or a cozening, a camera snap that keeps you, fleece-wrapped and obdurate
as a retouched grave, a quiet pearl.
*
A thick sleep saved from thistling worry. A cleaned thick-brick, gated place --
chrome and cream: control.
Wired yammering to drown the sullen, rising sea.
*
Remember now, how the girl requested a tattooed point of light, a refined star--
      woke to the blinding, ink-scrawled sail of space,
               unbounded clusters, galaxies, cankering in her skin.
                                                                                          Kate Potts.

*

Kate Potts was born in 1978 and grew up in London. She worked in music publishing before studying at Goldsmiths’ College, London, and has taught English and Creative Writing at colleges in London for several years. Her pamphlet Whichever Music (tall-lighthouse) was a Poetry Book Society Pamphlet Choice in 2008 and was shortlisted for a Michael Marks Award. Her work was featured in the Bloodaxe new poets anthology Voice Recognition in 2009. Pure Hustle (Bloodaxe Books, 2011) is her first book-length collection.

Featuring Kate Potts
Kate Potts (The Michael Marks Award)
Books by Kate Potts: Pure Hustle:

Editor Roddy Lumsden (born 1966) is a Scottish poet, who was born in St Andrews. He has published five collections of poetry, a number of chapbooks and a collection of trivia, as well as editing a generational anthology of British and Irish poets of the 1990s and 2000s, Identity Parade. He lives in London where he teaches for The Poetry School.
Best British Poetry
Salt Publishing
Roddy Lumsden(Wiki)

The Poetry Kit Interviews Roddy Lumsden

This was for my Favourite genre as part of The Eclectic Reader 2012 Challenge

2011 Top Posts (as voted by who?) Best Wishes To All

2012-01-01T20:09:00.001Z

Although this is my first post of 2012, I thought that I would use the opportunity to find out what my 2011 top posts were. Now I personally know what my favourite was, but that would be to easy. What I wanted to know, was what post had the most visits for each month of 2011 and what were the top three posts of the year. The aim was to see if this has any correlation with my perception of The Parrish Lantern and how I see it’s direction for the coming year etc. So starting with January 2011, here are the most visited posts, or as per the title The Top Posts ( as Voted by who – you?)

January’s top post was a celebration post of one of the greatest philosophers in the world, one of the first who saw the links between eastern philosophy and the ideas behind the likes of Jasper, Heidegger & Sartre, in fact I’m sure I imagined somewhere that Albert Camus expressly didn’t state that this individuals work had a major influence on his own, also writers such as Samuel Beckett continue a dialogue started by this individual through the statement “The more Pooh looked, the more Piglet wasn’t there”, January’s top post - Winnie the pooh day

February“THERE’S NO EITHER – OR – DIVISION with poems. What’s made up and what’s not made up? What’s the varnished truth, what’s the unvarnished truth? We don’t care. With prose you first want to know: Is it fiction, is it nonfiction? Everything follows from that. The books go in different places in the bookstore. But we don’t do that with poems, or with song lyrics. Books of poems go straight to the poetry section. There’s no nonfictional and fictional poetry. The categories don’t exist.” The Anthologist by Nicholson Baker

March This post was my reaction to the news arriving from Japan (11 March 2011 at 14:46) and was me reaching out, in the only way I know how - with words. Ume Blossoms are seen as an example of resilience and perseverance, they are also Spring Symbols (Kigo) and function as a protective against evil

April The top post for April was in response to a question posed by the Ladies Of The Blue Bookcase - Discuss your thoughts on sentimentality in literature. When is emotion in literature effective and when is it superfluous? This was an example of me sneaking more poetry onto The Parrish lantern, with a couple of fantastic Poems by Pablo Neruda & Brian Patten.

May The candidate for May’s top post, probably had other things on his mind, as the winner of the T.S. Eliot Prize for Poetry, for his collection “ White Egrets”. Derek Walcott treats his characteristic subjects – the Caribbean’s complex colonial legacy, the Western artistic tradition, the blessings and withholdings of old Europe (Andalucía, the Mezzogiorno, Amsterdam), the unaccommodating sublime of the new world, times cunning passages, the poets place in all of this – with a passionate intensity and drive that rivals his greatest work” .

June In this month a first occurred on The Parrish Lantern, the first Giveaway and hopefully what will become a fairly regular tradition - THE NATTY HAT COMPETITION. I was amazed by the success of this, I had around fifty poems entered into my comments box ….And The Winner was ………….Kinna from Kinna Reads,

JULY This is about my top book of 2011 and my post I look upon most favourably. In fact this book is also a flagitious garrulous stunt: a 280 odd folio fiction that on no occasion puts to work a particular symbol that falls twixt D and F. Adair's translation, is also mind-bogglingly astounding and full of dark art, it also constricts it’s wording choosing to follow its original authors lipogrammatic constraint and in doing so fashions a book that has no ilk, July’s top post is A Void by Georges Perec

August This has me confused a bit as a top post as it’s nothing more than me waffling about updating and introducing - pomes ALL SIZES page & twitter page on The Parrish Lantern

September’s Post choice also featured in my “The Traditional End Of Year Round Up Post” as runner up in my favourite short story collection and was my second book from the fabulous people at Peirene press, Maybe This Time by Alois Hotschnig I described this being a rabbit hole and Alice is so far outside her comfort zone - it hurts.

October Is another of my personal favourites and deals with a subject that has long fascinated me, that being Japanese literature and the dichotomy apparent within it, this little book provides a great insight into this country, it’s history and it’s literature. OUP, Very Short Introductions – Modern Japan.

November In this month I had my first encounter with the fabulous writer Nuala Ní Chonchúir’ via her short story collection Nude. Which to be honest I initially had trouble describing, I said that in this collection of twenty tales, there are some that will make you smile, even laugh, some will leave you with questions concerning your attitude to the naked form, whether as living flesh or as works of art and others will just break your heart. But that was only half the power of this great collection.

December This month’s top post was a very close call between two totally different writers, in fact there was only a difference of five visits The books were The Face of Another By Kobo Abe and The Book Thief by Markus Zusak. In The final count up The Book Thief just topped Kobo Abe’s total, but then, that may be down to the guest writers persuasive talents.

The only question (well the only one I’m allowing) is what were the top three posts visited in 2011, in traditional reverse order are

OUP, Very Short Introductions – Modern Japan.

A Void by Georges Perec

With the winner being - Winnie the pooh day

Yeah who’d have thought it? Philosophy being a major point of interest on The Parrish Lantern! and a to now unappreciated often overlooked follower of that subject, has topped the pole on 2011 Blog posts, with that in mind here’s a few of his statements.

"I don't see much sense in that," said Rabbit. "No," said Pooh humbly, "there isn't. But there was going to be when I began it. It's just that something happened to it along the way."

“Don't underestimate the value of Doing Nothing, of just going along, listening to all the things you can't hear, and not bothering.”

“Pooh looked at his two paws. He knew that one of them was the right, and he knew that when you had decided which one of them was the right, then the other was the left, but he never could remember how to begin”

“Poetry and Hums aren't things which you get, they're things which get you. And all you can do is go where they can find youFor last year's words belong to last year's language
And next year's words await another voice.
And to make an end is to make a beginning.
~T.S. Eliot,

Best Wishes for 2011 to all those who follow & comment on The Parrish Lantern.

Well? Hello 2-12 - The Traditional End Of Year Round Up Post-

2011-12-30T21:02:00.001Z

Or what I managed, or almost managed,

in this my 2nd years Blogging -

(Subtitled a Bluffers guide

to semi-literate blogging- Pt2).

I started The Parrish Lantern on the 2nd of April 2010, never expecting to be still here in 2012, but here I am, still here, still learning the ropes, still finding out what works and what I want to say, but still loving it! Last year, I wrote 84 posts, from Winnie the Pooh day through to World Poetry day, I posted on 10 collections of poetry ranging from poets as diverse as Nuala Ní Chonchúir, Derek Walcott, W.G. Sebald, James Joyce and Roberto Bolano. I also started a poetry anthology on Twitter @pomesallsizes, complete with it’s own page here on the Lantern. I also posted on books from Japan, Italy, Romania, The Nederlands, The Philippines, The Caribbean, Bulgaria, USA, Spain, Iran, Chile etc. But it’s not all been plain sailing, in 2011 I got ambitious, as I did so well the previous year I upped my game and entered seven, year-long Challenges, which I either failed miserably at or crawled on my belly over the finish line – so a big sorry to the hosts of those challenges. Now I’m a tad older, have pretensions to a degree more wisdom and with tail tucked firmly between my legs (held in place by an undergarment) I’ve decided to downsize this year, will only take part in a few big challenges and maybe enter a few of the smaller ones if time allows. Another big change since I started this is that I am now owner of a Kindle, which is different (strange) as in back in June 2010 I stated that that it would never replace a book for me, but due to certain circumstances this situation changed & I’ve since come to love my Kindle, although this hasn’t stopped me purchasing books.

The major Challenges

this year will hopefully be.

2012 E-book Challenge hosted by Sarah from Workaday Reads. I am starting at CD = 10 e-books, but will try to aim higher.

The Eclectic Reader 2012 Challenge hosted by Shelleyrae from Book’d Out, the aim of the Challenge is to push one a little outside the comfort zone by reading up to 12 books during the year from 12 different genres. This ones a bit scary!

2012 Sci-Fi Challenge hosted by Ellie from Curiosity Killed the Bookworm.The definition is: fiction dealing principally with the impact of actual or imagined science on society or individuals or having a scientific factor as an essential orienting component.

My Final Challenge Will be one I’ve taken part in for the last two years and will be delighted to take part in again, this being Japanese Literature Challenge 6. Starting on June 1st 2012.

A Personal Literary

“Highlights of the Year” – or

the books I most liked.

Favourite Poetry Anthology – Of Gentle Wolves This collection of Romanian poetry, I described as like a good snapshot, you want to find out more beyond the image fixed on the slide.

Favourite single Poetry collection – I’ve decided to choose two here, as both collections astounded me when I read them, so The Juno Charm - Nuala Ní Chonchúir and What The Water Gave Me, Poems After Frida Kahlo. -Pascale Petit are joint favourites, both choose different paths, but both fulfil the expression “Poetry is language at its most distilled and most powerful”.

Favourite Short Story Collection is Órfhlaith Foyle’s Somewhere in Minnesota and Other Stories, followed closely by, Maybe This Time by Alois Hotschnig, both amazed, horrified & astounded me in equal measures.

Favourite novella (short novel) is another from that wonderful publisher Peirene press, this wonderful visceral book, had me racing through the pages as fast as its main protagonist was racing from their troubles - Tomorrow Pamplona by Jan Van Mersbergen.

Just checking my index and it appears I’ve not read a great deal of non-fiction this year. The plus side to this is my choice is easier, my favourite non-fiction book is Oxford University Press’s Very Short Introductions – Modern Japan by Christopher Goto-Jones, closely followed by Alberto Manguel’ s A Reader on Reading.

Leaving me with the book that gave me the most joy, some of you who follow me regularly will probably already know the answer to this one. I described this book as “a fantastic, capricious, incredible, wonderful, hallucinatory, delight, it made me think, it made me laugh, really laugh”. This was not just in the reading but in writing the post on it, which took me about a month of evenings and became slightly addictive, I would be heard chortling away to myself, if I created a phrase that I particularly liked - had my wife & daughter worried for a bit – The book, A Void by Georges Perec, Trans Gilbert Adair (who sadly died earlier this year).

As you can see, I’m obviously a man who finds it easy to be succinct and decisive, so I’ll go before your illusions are shattered and I feel the urge to re-write all of this with a different selection of writers and books.

My aims this year are to continue promoting Poetry, from all corners of this wonderful globe of ours and to keep writing about the books I love wherever they are from. To try to improve The Parrish Lantern, so those that have Joined will have no reason to fault their decision, for which I’m ever grateful, So a big Thank You to all who follow The Parrish Lantern and feel free to add your own ideas. As a polite introduction to a new idea, whether its a Book ,a Poem, or your favourite writer is always welcome. Thanks Parrish.

PS. Also had a poem of my own published in an E-book - What is Inspiration? (Thoughts on Life) a mini-anthology of poetry drawn from the pages of a writer's workshop called MWW (My Word Wizard)(Kindle),this year.Also featured in their magazine, The Poetorialist.

The Juno Charm by Nuala Ní Chonchúir (An Interview)

2011-12-22T20:11:00.001Z

Around the beginning of November I posted about a short story collection, Nude by Nuala Ní Chonchúir and learnt from a fellow blogger that she had a new collection of poetry out and was in the process of organising a virtual interview tour. Well that was me interested, I'd read a few of her poems on sites such as Poetry International and loved what I’d read, and I even posted one of them on my post of Nude. So I asked if I could take part, and Nuala kindly said Yes, sending me a copy of her new book “The Juno Charm”. This is a wonderful collection of poetry that investigates what it is to be alive, to love, to hurt. Nuala conjures up charms and incantations and calls on artists as varied as Frida Kahlo, Marc Chagall & Soozy Roberts, writers such as Basho, Kafka and Plath to craft a poetry that is so personal and intimate and yet resonates. Salvatore Quasimodo stated that “Poetry is the revelation of a feeling that the poet believes to be interior and personal, which the reader recognises as his own”. This collection is the perfect representation of that quote. Whilst taking part in this virtual tour, one of the facts about Nuala I learnt is that amongst the poets she admires is Sylvia Plath, who I’ve also been a big fan of & amongst the fantastic poems in the collection I noticed one that was based on the first line of one of my favourites (The Moon and the Yew Tree) by Plath

Poem Beginning with a Line by Plath

This is the light of the mind, cold and planetary, it

keeps me solitary, stumbling inside paranoia.

My anchoritic needs are not a bow to religion, they

are as prosaic as any modern-day hermit’s:

who is there to trust with the black of my heart,

when some trample, some steal what’s mine for

their own?

*

Now over to the writer of this beautiful collection of poetry

Parrish

I think there's a duality in your poetry between the mundane and the spiritual, between the visceral, and borrowing a phrase I used before "of a corporeal sexuality" and with what I can only describe as more ethereal tenuous nature, would you agree with this yourself and how do you create this duality?

Nuala

Yes, I think all life can be celebrated in poetry and I love when other writers highlight the beauty in ordinary things: I like to do that too. As for creating the duality, the poems in The Juno Charm cover about four years of writing so I have recorded the ups and downs in my life, and my interests and passions, over that period and before. My poetry tends to spring from the personal – my fiction less so – and so the struggles and joys of my life come out in the poems: fertility issues, pregnancy loss, marriage breakdown, new love, babies, travel etc.

Parrish

One of your previous collections Tatú/Tattoo was released as a bilingual edition with Irish/English versions both by you, how does the process of translation affect the writing of the poems.

Nuala

Well, only a handful of the poems were written in Irish, the rest in English and then I translated them. Once the collection was ready, the publisher – Arlen House – wanted to highlight the fact that I have Irish. They knew I had some poems written in Irish so they commissioned the translations.

So the poems weren’t written with translation in mind. I love translating – I have a masters degree in Translation Studies – and I really enjoyed the challenge of transposing my own poems into my second language (Irish). Irish is a very succinct language with a lot of beautiful words and I had fun trying to create a new poem rather than sticking slavishly to the English version of each.

Parrish

I run a Poetry site on Twitter (@pomesallsizes) with the aim of introducing as wide a range of poetry from all corners of the world to anyone interested, my question is how much does international/translated poets/writers influence your own work.

Nuala

I read Poetry International every month and through that I have read and learnt about poets in translation from all over the place. I heard of Ingrid Jonker (South Africa) there first, for example.

I tend to look outwards (from Ireland) rather than inwards, anyway. I consider myself a European writer rather than just an Irish one, so I am open to influences from everywhere.

Parrish

This is my tricky question, how do you see the current state of poetry and with the need of promoting your work to get it out to those who read and how do you see the role of bloggers in this process?

Nuala

Poetry is in a healthy state in the sense that it is being written and published, and there are a lot of readings taking place. The small presses keep poetry alive.

I think any writer who believes that the world is going to discover them, without them doing any work on their own behalf, is deluding themselves. We live in the age of media – the more you can promote your writing via radio, TV, the papers and the net, the more people will care.

For me, blogging is a no-brainer. It is free and easy; it’s a great way to promote your own work and to meet other writers and potential readers. I have made so many friends through blogging and there is nothing better than a really lively and active literary blog. Elizabeth Baines, for example, runs two great blogs and she always has interesting things to say. I love blogs that are varied, thought provoking, opinionated and, sometimes, a little bit personal.

Parrish

Finally a seasonal question, at this time of year I post a poem with a seasonal theme, this could be weather or spiritually relevant. So as I have a fabulous writer here I thought I'd offer up the choice to you and ask what is your favourite seasonal poem, which I will then post for the Yuletide.

Nuala

There are so many gorgeous Christmas poems; and also songs that are like poetry. This one ‘Don oíche úd i mBeithil’/ ‘To that night in Bethlehem’ is a traditional Irish carol that reads well as poetry. There’s a lovely version of it by Celtic Woman on YouTube here:

*

Don oíche úd i mBeithil

Don oíche úd i mBeithil

Beidh tagairt ar ghréin go brách

Don oíche úd i mBeithil

Go dtáinig an bhréithir slán

Tá gríosghrua ar spéarthaibh

'S an talamh 'na chlúdach bán

Féach Íosagán sa chléibhín

'S an mhaighdean á dhiúl le grá

Don oíche úd i mBeithil

Beidh tagairt ar ghréin

Beidh tagairt ar ghréin go brách

*

To that night in Bethlehem

To that night in Bethlehem

Forever under the sun

To that night in Bethlehem

That the word safely came

There are red-hot edges on the sky

And the ground in a white covering

Look at baby Jesus without a crib

And the Virgin in delighted love

To that night in Bethlehem

Under the sun

Forever under the sun

(Translation by Norland Wind)

*

Parrish, thanks so much for having me on this the last stop of my virtual tour for The Juno Charm. It’s been a pleasure. Nollaig Shona/Happy Christmas to you and all your readers.

Thank you Nuala for the opportunity to read this collection and “Nollaig Shona agus Athbhliain faoi Mhaise Duit.”*

Bio: Born in Dublin in 1970, Nuala Ní Chonchúir lives in Galway county. Her début novel You (New Island, 2010) was called ‘a heart-warmer’ by The Irish Times and ‘a gem’ by The Irish Examiner. Her third short story collection Nude (Salt, 2009)) was shortlisted for the UK’s Edge Hill Prize. Her second short story collection To The World of Men, Welcome has just been re-issued by Arlen House in an expanded paperback edition. The Juno Charm, her third full poetry collection, was launched in November. Nuala's newest short story collection Mother America appears from New Island in 2012.

(photo credit, Emilia Krysztofiak)

Salmon Poetry.com

The Juno Charm

www.nualanichonchuir.com

http://womenrulewriter.blogspot.com/

GoodReads

Here are my fellow tour members with the questions they had for Nuala.

Órfhlaith Foyle's Blog
Vanessa Gebbie's Blog
Niamh Boyce's Blog

Rachel Fenton's Blog
Tania Hershman's Blog
Mel Ulm's Blog

*Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year (I hope)

Preaching to the converted - Why Translation Matters*

2011-12-17T21:07:00.001Z

I think, to the majority of the people who visit The Parrish Lantern, this is a question that even if it momentarily flitted across their conscious mind - would seem so obvious, it must be rhetorical, and yet a post on a fellow bloggers site, made me reconsider this question. Because of the way my country appears to be heading, the way to all intents and purposes our leaders(?) have chosen to isolate us from the greater European community, a fellow blogger – Tom (The Common Reader) was so appalled by their decision, he wrote a post decrying this horrendous situation, stating that he was a Europhile. That because he as

“ a lover of European literature I have developed a sense of being “European”, sharing in the culture of Thomas Mann, Honoré de Balzac, Marcel Proust, Robert Walser, Gunther Grass, Magda Szabo and many others”.

This got me thinking about how we, lovers of World/ translated literature, may have a different aspect, an alternate viewpoint to those that do not read or that only read works by English language writers. how can you be insular, inward looking whilst your viewpoint is being shaped and moulded by a whole world of writers, if your vision of this planet is not only shaped by the writers of Europe but Asia, the Americas and all points in-between. If your understanding of a situation is derived from a combination of questions and answers posed and dissected, screamed out at a confused and hostile world by writers from all points of this globe, you rapidly learn that we have far more in common and share a whole lot more than there are differences. A quick look through the index of this blog made me realise that the majority of the books on The Parrish Lantern, started out their lives in a language different to the one I read them in, writers like – Roberto Bolano, Yukio Mishima, Italo Calvino, Deyan Enev, Pablo Neruda, Jun’ichiro Tanizaki, Alois Hotschnig, Kobo Abe, Alessandro Baricco, Hans Fallada & many more, all of whom I read in a translated form.

Which brings me to this book “ Why Translation Matters” by Edith Grossman. In this book the writer/ translator stakes out her claim for the importance of translation and the role of the translator, she says in the introduction that:
“My intention is to stimulate a new consideration of an area of literature that is too often ignored, misunderstood or misrepresented. As the world seems to grow smaller and more interdependent and interconnected while at the same time, nations and peoples paradoxically become increasingly antagonistic to one another, translation has an important function to fulfil that I believe must be cherished and nurtured. Translation not only plays its important traditional role as the means that allows us access to literature originally written in one of the countless languages we cannot read, but it also represents a concrete literary presence with the crucial capacity to ease and make more meaningful relationships to those with whom we may not have had a connection with before. Translation always helps us to know, to see from a different angle, to attribute new value to what once may have been unfamiliar. As nations and as individuals, we may have a critical need for that kind of understanding and insight. The alternative is unthinkable.”

Three of the four sections of this book are based on lectures the writer gave for the Yale university press (connected to the Whitney Centres Annual lecture series), only the final chapter on poetry was specifically written for this volume. This allows her to discuss her craft, to explain the finer points, the differences between rote work and the kind of translation where through an almost metamorphic alchemy an alternate form is created*, a subject she is more than qualified to discuss. Edith Grossman is an award-winning translator specializing in English versions of Spanish language books, she is considered to be one of the most important translators of Latin American fiction in the past century. She has translated the works of Nobel laureate Mario Vargas Llosa, Nobel laureate Gabriel García Márquez, Mayra Montero, Augusto Monterroso, Jaime Manrique, Julián Ríos and of Álvaro Mutis, and her translation of Cervantes, Don Quixote is now widely accepted as the standard text.

By allowing us to explore through literature the thoughts and feelings of people from different societies or from different points in time, we learn, savour through a kind of osmosis what once was strange, foreign which through this process becomes familiar, whilst experiencing at the same time life outside our own skins and with it our preconceptions and misconceptions. Translation expands and deepens our world and our consciousness of it in many ways.
Chad post from Three Percent (a resource for international literature at the university of Rochester) stated;

“And so we come back to the first question: why does translation matter, and to whom? I believe it matters for the same reason and in the same way literature matters – because it is crucial to our sense of ourselves as humans. The artistic impulse and the need for art in our species will not be denied.”

Which brings me back to my title “Preaching to the converted” and my conversation with Tom & whether it is true that by reading, and imbibing another nations literature you can come to a greater understanding of their society and culture whilst in the process becoming closer to that culture and less isolationist as individuals or nation states, this is the idea behind the book “Why Translation Matters” and also something I totally believe and feel I’ve experienced myself, through my love of literature.

I will now throw this over to who ever is reading this - Is the writer of this book and myself being particularly naive about this subject or do you agree with this sentiment?

Edith Grossman(wiki)

Edith Grossman(Penn)

Guernica

*One Hundred Years of Solitude translated by Gregory Rabassa, was declared by Gabriel García Márquez to be superior to his own Spanish original.

The Book Thief - A Guest Post By Derek Edward Ath.

2011-12-09T20:51:00.001Z

A Good Day to you, for in truth it is one, but more of that later for as one is a guest here, politeness is paramount. Now, reason suggests you may be a tad curious as to why my presence is warranted here on The Parrish Lantern, although with all honesty reason played no part in my decision, it was merely a cocktail of curiosity and happenstance – some routine from my day job had me close by and I’m told I can be very persuasive. But enough of that, politeness again holds up it’s hand and suggest that I’ve prevaricated more than would be necessary for any building of suspense.

The Book Thief by Australian writer Markus Zusak, although narrated by me (hadn’t you guessed?) is set in Nazi Germany and concerns Liesel Meminger, amongst others, although to be honest, it’s mainly her and her relationships with others and what a list of others there are, for example here are a few..

Hans Hubermann & Rosa Hubermann – foster parents

Max Vandenburg – Jewish fist fighter

Rudy Steiner – friend

The residents of Himmel street (Himmel = Heaven)

Ilsa Hermann – the mayor's wife

Jesse Owen (although not in person)

The Nazis

Oh and we mustn’t forget Hitler, although like all great Bogymen, he’s best viewed looking down from some nightmare. This isn’t anywhere near the complete list but it will give you an idea of the Book thief's world.

We first see Liesel, beside a railway track with her mother and her brother (the reason I was there) and two railway guards arguing what they should do with the corpse, they had a lot less tact than I. After her brother is buried in some graveyard, Liesel and her mother continued their journey to Molching, where she would be fostered by Hans Hubermann & Rosa Hubermann. The reason for the fostering is to distance the children from their parents’ known communist sympathies.

It is at the graveyard where he brother lays, that Liesel steals her first book - The Grave Digger’s Handbook and although she cannot read, she keeps it as a reminder of her brother.

I believe I’ve mentioned curiosity before and, were it possible, I believe it would be the death of me (apologies for the humour, but it’s sometimes needed), anyway suffice it to say, curiosity got the better of me and I visited Liesel’s world a couple more times, the last time was heartrending, and yes contrary to rumour I do feel these things. Himmel street became hell on earth

“For hours the sky remained a devastating home-cooked red. the small German town had been flung apart one more time. Snowflakes of ash fell so lovelily you were tempted to stretch out your tongue to catch them, taste them. Only they would have scorched your lips. They would have cooked your mouth.”

And believe me when I say, I know of hell! “ I wanted to stop. To crouch down. I wanted to say. “I’m sorry child”. But that is not allowed. I did not crouch down. I did not speak.”. All I could do was watch and when she moved, so did I, at some point during that maelstrom of grief she dropped the book and at some point I picked it up.

It’s at this point in the current proceedings I think it wise, prudent and better still – of a polite nature - to hand you back to the regular writer of The Parrish Lantern, but first I shall once again bid a Good Day to you and to state that it is one - for now I leave empty-handed.

D. E. Ath.

It’s through death’s taking of the book we learn about Liesel’s world, about her wonderful foster father and her sharp tongued and yet immensely loving foster mother, we learn about a small town near Munich on a road that for some ends with Dachau. It's also through death, we learn of honour and courage, we learn the story of a Jewish fist fighter and we learn of love in all it’s many forms. We also learn of the absolute mundanity of evil - from the sly boot when one is down right up to the subjugation and genocide of a people, because one of death’s problems is..

“I am haunted by humans”

This was a book I had expected to dislike, it seemed to be not sure if it were a book for adults or proudly YA, like a teenager caught in a netherworld between these two points the book was fluctuating between both axis and yet…. I loved it. I read it because it is one of the books for World Book Night and I needed a book that my daughter and I could both get behind, both support with an understanding of it’s content (if asked by others). Did I say I loved it, that I have a queue of colleagues wanting to borrow this on the strength of my vocal adoration of it. This is a book about the power of language, of words and how they may appear inert, merely tools for our use to be put away when not needed, but in reality they have the power to change all, there’s a quote in The Last Evenings on Earth by Roberto Bolano, that with slight word change would fit here…

"The secret story is the one we'll never know, although we're living it from day to day, thinking we're alive, thinking we've got it all under control and the stuff we overlook doesn't matter. But every single damn thing matters! Only we don't realize. We just tell ourselves that art runs on one track and life, our lives, on another, and we don't realize that's a lie."

This is also a book of the ten separate books that map Liesel’s world, but they don’t delineate it, like all good maps they show what’s there, but also the paths to what isn’t.

The Face of Another - Kobo Abe

2011-12-02T22:34:00.001Z

A “persona” in the standard vernacular, refers to a social role or character performed by an actor. The word is thought to have derived from Latin, where it’s original meaning referred to a theatrical mask. The Latin word probably has it’s roots in the Etruscan word “Phersu” which had the same meaning*. In the study of communication, persona is a term used to describe the versions of self that all individuals possess, with behaviours selected like masks according to the impression an individual wishes to project when interacting with others. Therefore, “personas” presented to other people will vary according to the social environment a person is engaged in and the persona presented before others will differ from the one an individual will display when they happen to be alone. According to Carl Jung whilst a child is growing, the development of a viable social persona is a vital part of adapting to and in preparation for adult life in the external social world - 'A strong ego relates to the outside world through a flexible persona; identification with a specific persona (doctor, scholar, artist, etc.) inhibits psychological development'. For Jung the danger was that people become identical with their personas (the doctor with his stethoscope, the conductor with her baton ) resulting in what could be a shallow, brittle, conformist kind of personality which is "all mask”.

The Face of Another (1964) was Kobe Abe’s first major novel after the success of The Women in the Dunes (1962) and like that book follows the theme of the modern individuals alienation with the society they live in. The novel tells the story of a scientist so hideously disfigured by Keloid* scars - the result of a failed laboratory experiment - that his whole face is covered in bandages and his wife finds his image disgusting. He comes up with a plan of creating a mask, with the aim of seducing his wife as another man, all the while documenting everything in a series of notebooks. The first part sees him planning and building the mask, which is so realistic that it appears to fool everyone, save for one girl who, although we are told is intellectually challenged, still recognises that the man in the mask and the man in the bandages are one and the same.

___

____________________________________________________________________________________________________

The narrative is expressed in first person through three separate coloured notebooks, although we are told that there is no reason behind this beyond a means in which to distinguish them apart. It is through them that we follow this faceless individual viewing what seems to be a dissection of his every thought, or the peeling away of layers of his psyche, but is actually multiplying the veneer on his mask, removing himself further from his expressed aim and building more masks in which to confine himself. As the tale progresses it’s as though the mask takes over, this starts slowly as his confidence in the mask grows, until it becomes a force that isolates him far more than his scarred face ever did. He, or the mask, finally get confident enough to meet his wife and is soon dismayed and angered by how easy it was to seduce her, in fact so convinced is he in his role as “mask” that he believes her sexual act with him, places her in the role of the unfaithful spouse who was so easily seduced from her marital vows and as such can be written down, catalogued and defined, before being rejected.

As I stated before, this is all played out through the three notebooks in which the scientist records and dissects minutiae of his existence, where every sentence, every page adds more layers to his mask, thereby transforming his face into a shield with which to protect himself, an anonymous faceless eye observing without being seen, reduced to a voyeuristic gaze living among millions of strangers, who although close neighbours, are faces he does not recognise – symbolising the fundamental facelessness of contemporary man lost in an ocean of complete anonymity.

“Just a minute! The plans for the mask were not the only thing. The fate of having lost my face and of being obliged to depend on a mask was in itself not exceptional, but was rather a destiny I shared with contemporary man, wasn’t it? A trivial discovery indeed. For my despair lay in my fate, rather than in my loss of face; it lay in the fact that I did not have the slightest thing in common with other men. I envied even a cancer victim, because he shares something with other men. If this turned out to be untrue, the hole into which I had fallen was not an abandoned well provided with an emergency escape; it was a penitentiary cell, recognized by everyone but me”

Towards the end of this novel, the impressions of his wife, are replaced by another beautiful face, seen in a film the protagonist saw whilst hiding out in a cinema - this girl has one side of her face an ideal of perfection, the other a mass of keloidal scarring. Here is a face of Hibakusha*, a survivor of the atomic bomb dropped on Hiroshima in 1945. Although half-destroyed by this scarring, her face is striking, displaying a beauty which the scientist could observe protected by the darkness of the cinema from the gaze of others and only through this visage does his own scarring cease to be a personal tragedy and can become an emblem of post-war Japan, which had not yet found a way to escape the memories of war.

This book is also a love story – a man trying to reconnect with his wife and yet is lost amongst the masks he has built around himself, the layers and barriers through which he peers, searching for a pathway back to when there was a connection, a point when the masks although not totally removed, were slid to one side and one glanced at the nakedness of the other. By the final pages of this book we are left with an image of this individual alone amongst millions, trapped by his own creation, left trying to rationalize a way forward and yet still adding layers to his mask.

Kobo Abe through his work as an Avant-garde novelist and playwright, has been compared to the likes of Franz Kafka and Alberto Moravia and like Kafka there is an apparent clinical detachment in the writing, as though Abe’s medical background has had a direct influence upon his writing style and yet with this there is also an elegance that makes this novel an immensely enjoyable and also an incredibly satisfying read – on all levels.

Kōbō Abe (安部公房 Abe Kōbō), pseudonym of Kimifusa Abe (安部公房 Abe Kimifusa was born on March the 7th 1924 in Kita, Tokyo, he grew up in Mukden (now Shen-yang) in Manchuria during the second world war. In 1948 he received a medical degree from the Tokyo Imperial University, yet never practised medicine. As well as a writer, he was also a poet ( Mumei shishu "Poems of an unknown poet" - 1947) playwright, photographer and inventor. Although his first novel Owarishi michi no shirube ni ("The Road Sign at the End of the Street") was published in 1948 which helped to establish his reputation, it wasn’t until the publication of The Woman in the Dunes in 1962 that he won widespread international acclaim. In the 1960’s he worked with the Japanese director Hiroshi Teshigahara on the film adaptations of this novel, plus The Pitfall, Woman in the Dunes and The Ruined Map, in the early 1970’s he set up an acting studio in Tokyo, where he trained performers and directed plays. He was elected a Foreign Honorary Member of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences in 1977.

Among the honours bestowed on him were the Akutagawa Prize in 1951 for The Crime of S. Karuma, the Yomiuri Prize in 1962 for Woman in the Dunes, and the Tanizaki Prize in 1967 for the play Friends. Kenzaburō Ōe stated that Abe deserved the Nobel Prize in Literature, which he himself had won (Abe was nominated multiple times).

Author

Kobo Abe(Wiki)

ibiblio /abe kobo/

Translator

Kaori Nagai graduated from the University of Tokyo and obtained a doctorate in Postcolonial studies from the University of Kent (UK), where she teaches to this day. She is the author of Empire of Analogies: Kipling, India and Ireland and co-edited a collection of essays with Prof. Caroline Rooney entitled Kipling and Beyond: Patriotism, Globalisation and Postcolonialism.

Kaori Nagai U' of Kent

School of European Culture and Languages (Kaori Nagai)

*The Latin word probably derived from the Etruscan word "phersu", with the same meaning, and that from the Greek πρόσωπον (prosōpon). Its meaning in the latter Roman period changed to indicate a "character" of a theatrical performance.

* Keloid is a type of scar, which depending on its maturity, is composed mainly of either type III (early) or type I (late)collagen. It is a result of an overgrowth of granulation tissue (collagen type 3) at the site of a healed skin injury which is then slowly replaced by collagen……......

* The surviving victims of the atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki are called hibakusha (被爆者^?), a Japanese word that literally translates to "explosion-affected people". Many victims were Japanese who still live in Japan, ................

What work of literature would you recommend to someone who doesn't like literature?

2011-12-01T21:43:00.001Z

I’ve been a bit remiss with my appreciation of the ladies of The blue bookcase recently and now like some guilty schoolboy, I find myself sneaking back after a period of truancy, to one hell of a question.

What work of literature

would you recommend to someone

who doesn't like literature?

What speak to people that have no affection for the written word? Isn’t that called work? I mean what about the “ is it out on DVD yet” and other such questions that one faces when you speak to – Those That Do Not Read!!!!!!!!!!!!

Well recently I’ve recommended “The Book Thief” by Marcus Zusak, but I’m not sure it counts, as it comes with some YA hang up (although I loved it). So where does that leave me? hmmmmm

How about a book that I described as “A proper Russian Novel” – “The Dream Life of Sukhanov” by Olga Grushin and the reason I described it as such was that the author had invested in the character of Sukhanov, all the angst and pathos, all the weakness and hubris that I remember reading in all those great Russian novels. Sukhanov goes on an epic journey of rediscovery, he is constantly assailed by images from his past, haunted by all those ideals he repressed for the sake of a career in the USSR. Yet things change, and it’s in this change, Sukhanov is left to question his choices…. yet this is not a hard book to read - the tale flows, you follow the lines smiling over the way they roll and before you know, you’ve read more pages than are left & you try to slow down, to savour what remains.

Another possible book to suggest would be “Strangers” by Taichi Yamada, This was one of the books that got me into Japanese Literature – This book has moments of sheer beauty with an insidious, underlying fear. This book deals with subjects such as memory, loss & the need for human touch and again has a style that just makes you want to keep the pages turning.

Now this wouldn’t be The Parrish Lantern if I didn’t mention a poetry book, so I’ll recommend three, all from the Bloodaxe Publishers and all Edited by the fantastic Neil Astley

Staying Alive, Being Alive and Being Human, they have been described as distilling the heart as nothing else.

ANNO DRACULA–Kim Newman

2011-11-25T20:54:00.001Z

What would happen if Van Helsing and his friends failed? What would happen if Dracula not only succeeds in surviving the attempt on his life, but takes over England by marrying Queen Victoria?

This is the premise behind the book, it’s Van Helsing that ends up dead, his head on a spike and Count Dracula now rules as Prince Consort, leaving no reason for vampires to remain in the shadows. In fact it soon becomes the height of fashion to become a vampire, with society dividing along the lines of Vampire and Warm (not vampire). The vampire elite rise rapidly taking the status positions, but society doesn’t change that much – the slums are overflowing as usual but now added to the mix are the un-dead poor, trying to eke out an existence on a diet of pigs blood, or by pimping themselves in exchange for a quick bite. With the vampire gene now in ascendency and the warm either dying or choosing to become vampires (which is the same thing), you’d be safe in thinking all was well for vampire-kind, but there’s an individual stalking them – Jack the Ripper aka The Silver Knife, is prowling the streets of Whitechapel, murdering vampire prostitutes with a silver scalpel. Into this tale steps our hero, Charles Beauregard (non-vampire) agent of the secret & yet infamous Diogenes Club, who have given him the task of tracking down the killer, whose name we, the reader, know from the beginning as Doctor John Seward, best friends with Quincey Morris and Arthur Holmwood (all three propose to Lucy Westenra the same day). He is also the administrator of an insane asylum not far from Count Dracula’s first English home, in the original Dracula (Bram Stoker) in fact it’s Seward who calls in Abraham Van Helsing. We also have the beautiful Geneviève Dieudonné who remains looking as she did at sixteen, although she’s an elder of the vampire world at around four and a half centuries of living(?). All of this book is played out against the backdrop of a grimy, dirty, Victorian London, a London immersed in the thickest peasouper (fog), overseen by a bloodthirsty ruler. Here’s a couple of segments from Doctor John Seward/Jack’s diary for the date the17th September….

“Last night's delivery was easier than the others. Much easier than last week's. Perhaps, with practice and patience, everything becomes easier. If never easy. Never ... easy.
I am sorry: it is difficult to maintain an orderly mind and this marvellous apparatus is unforgiving. I cannot ink over hasty words or tear loose a spoiled page. The cylinder revolves, the needle etches, and my ramblings are graven for all time in merciless wax. Marvellous apparatuses, like miracle cures, are beset with unpredictable side-effects. In the twentieth century, new means of setting down human thought may precipitate an avalanche of worthless digression. Brevis esse laboro,* as Horace would have it. I know how to present a case history. This will be of interest to posterity. For now, I work in camera and secrete the cylinders with what remain of my earlier accounts. As the situation stands, my life and liberty would be endangered were these journals exposed to the public ear. One day, I should wish my motives and methods made known and clear.”

““'I have some mistletoe,' the dead girl said, detaching a sprig from her bodice. She held it above her.

'A kiss?' she asked. 'Just a penny for a kiss.'

'It is early for Christmas.'

'There's always time for a kiss.'

She shook her sprig, berries jiggling like silent bells. I placed a cold kiss on her red-black lips and took out my knife, holding it under my coat. I felt the blade's keenness through my glove. Her cheek was cool against my face.
I learned from last week's in Hanbury Street - Chapman, the newspapers say her name was, Annie or Anne - to do the business swiftly and precisely. Throat. Heart. Tripes. Then get the head off. That finishes the things. Clean silver and a clean conscience. Van Helsing, blinkered by folklore and symbolism, spoke always of the heart, but any of the major organs will do. The kidneys are easiest to reach.””

Anno Dracula, was first published in 1992 by British writer Kim Newman (my copy published May 2011), and is an alternate history fiction, set in a 19th century England that differs from our version of reality and yet still uses settings and personalities from that period, along with characters from popular fiction. In fact half the fun of this book is finding these individuals, whether they existed or were fictitious, for example;

Bram Stoker (author of Dracula) is in a concentration camp for revealing censored material, as is Sherlock Holmes, who fell foul of the gov’t, due to differing opinions, as is Lewis Carroll. Oscar Wilde’s in it, though skating on thin ice, obviously Dracula, Van Helsing and most of the original characters. Beatrice Potter (not the writer of Peter Rabbit) but the one from the Fabian Socialist movement, William LeQueux, John Reid (from the Lone Ranger), Inspector Lestrade (A Study in Scarlet, Arthur Conan Doyle), Ivan Dragamilloff (The Assassination Bureau Ltd., Jack London), Annie Besant, Sergeant Dravot (The Man Who Would Be King, Rudyard Kipling), Basil Hallward (The Picture of Dorian Gray,Oscar Wilde)W. S. Gilbert, Henry Wilcox (Howards End, E.M Forster),Orson Welles, Catherine II of Russia, George Bernard Shaw, etc. In fact for a more comprehensive idea of the range of the characters check here.

This is the first in a series of books depicting an alternate history, all featuring characters both historical & fictional of the period. The metafictional style was inspired by the Wold Newton Universe of Philip José Farmer. Neil Gaiman helped develop the series (and was originally going to be its co-author): Neil Gaiman is also the reason I read this book, to be honest I found this in my favourite Charity Bookshop*, whilst looking for some books for my daughter, because Gaiman’s name takes prominence on this book it was placed in the same area as the rest of his work. I saw the reviews and purchased it, and although it proved unsuitable for a ten year old, I loved it, romped through it, like one of its blood-crazed characters, here’s a couple of the reasons for original decision to buy it.

“A marvellous marriage of political satire, Gothic horror and Alternative History. Not to be missed” The Independent

“A tour de force which succeeds brilliantly” The Times

“A Brilliantly witty Parallel-World saga… Builds sure-footedly to a bravura climax which entirely redefines Victorian values” Daily Telegraph

Titan books (Anno Dracula)

Kim Newman website

Kim Newman(Wiki)

*Brevis esse laboro - Brevis esse laboro, obscurus fio; sectantem levia. Nervi deficiunt animique.When I try to be brief, I become obscure. Aiming at smoothness, I fail in force and fire. From Ars Poetica, by Quintus Horatius Flaccus (Horace) who was instructing writers that it may be difficult to achieve brevity without sacrificing clarity.

* Oxfam Charity Bookshop, Canterbury UK.

The Faber Book of–

2011-11-18T20:47:00.001Z

20Th Century German Poems.

Edited by

Michael Hofmann.

In this book Michael Hofmann puts forward his case for Germany’s inclusion on the table for best poets of the 20Th century, stating his claim that a nation with a roster of poets such as Rilke, Brecht, Benn, poets like Celan, Bobrowski, Stadler, Müller and Trakl, others such as,Bachmann, Grass, Enzensberger and Grünbein - the placemat should already be in situ, the setting card already printed. The poets represented start with Else Lasker-Schüler born 1869 , a Jewish German poet and playwright famous for her bohemian lifestyle in Berlin. She was one of the few women affiliated with the Expressionist movement and despite winning the Kleist Prize in 1932, as a Jew she was physically harassed and threatened by the Nazis, forcing her to flee her homeland. The book then ends with Jan Wagner, born 1971 in Hamburg ( living in Berlin since 1995) and who, as well as being a Poet, is a translator of poetry from the English (including Charles Simic, James Tate, Simon Armitage, Jo Shapcott, Louis MacNeice and Kevin Young) and is considered one of the most important German-language poets of the younger generation.

On the way we pass through world war one, the Weimar Republic and it’s failure, followed by the great depression, which pathed the way for Adolf Hitler’s brutal totalitarian regime, the holocaust and the second world war, which then leads on to the Cold war crisis, Berlin and the Iron curtain, before unification and the joys and frustrations this has seen arise. All these points in time have been marked by Germany's poets as they themselves have been marked by the events, some faced them, whilst others were more oblique in their references, but all in one way or another had to come to terms with the world they found themselves in .

Throughout this book Michael Hofmann guides us with a confident hand, always in command, whether discussing Rilke’s lyricism or whether Brecht was better as a poet or as a playwright (according to Hofmann the former) or even how Gottfried Benn was heartrending in a way that the likes of Lowell, Jarrell & Berryman could only aim for, Hofmann’s makes his case with a clarity and passion, backed by a knowledge and a willingness to argue his case with a certain pugnacity for his cause and against any detractors.

This collection has the works of fifty-four poets, but seems to work between the two points of Bertolt Brecht with 19 poems and Hans Magnus Enzensberger with 14 (including the 8 & a bit page poem, Foam) and although there are other books covering this ground for example, Michael Hamburger’s and Christopher Middleton’s Modern German Poetry from 1910-1960. As an introduction to a poetry that can hold it’s head high on the world stage, this book will take some beating, No, It’s not Bilingual, yes it would be probably improved if that was the case, but to most - myself included - that won’t matter, what does matter is that this book will serve as a key to a door that can open up a whole world of poetry. Earlier this year I wrote a post on Faber’s Book of 20Th Century Italian Poems and this will sit nicely alongside that one on my bookshelves.

The List.

Christian Morgenstern , Else Lasker-Schuler, Rainer Maria Rilke, Paul Klee, Ernst Stadler, Gottfried Benn,

Georg Heym, Jakob van Hoddis, Georg Trakl, Hans Arp, Kurt Schwitters, Franz Werfel, Nelly Sachs,

George Grosz, Bertolt Brecht, Peter Huchel, Gunter Eich, Ernst Meister, Johannes Bobrowski,

Rainer Brambach, Paul Celan, Friederike Mayrocker, Ernst Jandl, Heinz Piontek, Inge Muller,

Ingeborg Bachmann, Oskar Pastior, Gunter Grass, Hertha Kraftner, Gunter Kunert, Heiner Muller,

Hans Magnus Enzenberger, Adolph Endler, Jurgen Becker, Reiner Kunze, Sarah Kirsch

Christoph Meckel, Kurt Bartsch, Nicolas Born, Elke Erb, Volker Braun, Rolf Dieter Brinkmann, Karin Kiwus,

Michael Kruger, Jergen Theobaldy, Joachim Sartorius, Uwe Kolbe, Durs Grunbein, Lutz Seiler, Marcel Beyer

Volker Sielaff, Hauke Huckstadt, Matthias Goritz, Jan Wagner.

Biography

Michael Hofmann, who was born in 1957, in Freiburg, Germany, and came to England in 1961, first residing in Bristol and later Edinburgh. He is the son of the Novelist Gert Hofmann. Michael Hofmann was educated at Winchester college, before going on to study English Literature and Classics at Oxford University. In 1979 he received a BA and in 1984 a MA from the University of Cambridge. In 1983 he started working as a freelance writer, translator and literary critic. Hofmann has held a visiting professorship at the University of Michigan and currently teaches poetry workshops at the University of Florida. He divides his time between London and Gainesville. He has received the Cholmondeley Award in 1984 for Nights in the Iron Hotel and the Geoffrey Faber Memorial Prize in 1988 for Acrimony.

The same year, he also received the Schlegel-Tieck Prize for his translation of Patrick Süskind's The Double-Bass. In 1993 he received the Schlegel-Tieck Prize again this time for his translation of Wolfgang Koeppen's Death in Rome. He was also awarded the Independent Foreign Fiction Prize in 1995 for the translation of his father's novel The Film Explainer, and was nominated again in 2003 for his translation of Peter Stephan Jungk's The Snowflake Constant. In 1997 he received the Arts Council Writer's Award for his collection of poems Approximately Nowhere,and the following year he received the International IMPAC Dublin Literary Award for his translation of Herta Müller's novel The Land of Green Plums. In 1999 Hofmann was awarded the PEN/Book-of-the-Month Club Translation Prize for his translation of Joseph Roth's The String of Pearls. In 2000 Hofmann was selected as the recipient of the Helen and Kurt Wolff Translator's Prize for his translation of Joseph Roth's novel Rebellion (Die Rebellion). In 2003 he received another Schlegel-Tieck Prize for his translation of his father's Luck, and in 2004 he was awarded the Oxford-Weidenfeld Translation Prize for his translation of Ernst Jünger's Storm of Steel. In 2005 Hofmann received his fourth Schlegel-Tieck Prize for his translation of Gerd Ledig's The Stalin Organ. Hofmann served as a judge for the Griffin Poetry Prize in 2002, and in 2006 Hofmann made the Griffin's international shortlist for his translation of Durs Grünbein's Ashes for Breakfast.

N.’s Identity

_{N.’s wife had, even before the war, left him and married}

somebody else. The destruction of Dresden turned his street

into rubble and ashes, later into a field. A bombing of

Nordhausen murdered N.’s parents. Both his sisters died flee-

ing, God knows where, they had no children. One friend was

gassed, another was and remained missing. His brother fell

in Holland. N. himself was a prisoner of war in England. He

had helped build villas, not a single one remained standing.

The only thing that, after the war, reminded us of N., was N.

Elke Erb (Trans: Rosmarie Waldrop)

(An Impression Of) Nude - Nuala Ní Chonchúir

2011-11-11T21:34:00.001Z

What is the difference between Naked and Nude? This is a question that passes back and forth between the stories in Nuala Ní Chonchúir’s third collection of tales “Nude”. In these stories we read of individuals of both sexes as they attempt to fulfil their desires and come to terms - or are broken apart - by their frustrations, in these tales we follow lovers in various states of undress, and of love, we have examples of nudity as a weapon, and tales so heartbreakingly naked that all the defences have been removed, stripped away. This book has tales so beautifully written that the horror, only visits later and tales of a slow pervading fear that your choice will be your undoing, no matter how beautiful it seemed at the choosing.

In the preface we read that Nudity can be a garment worn out of choice, as though one was sky-clad and with that premise comes a certain sensuality, an idea that you could allow yourself to be clothed with the gaze of a loved one and yet where is the line between nude and naked drawn. Is it in who has control, who has the power,or is there a far more subtle shade to it than this, Nuala explores this idea via the artists and models, by the lovers and those left bereft, left naked by their experiences.

In this collection of twenty tales, there are some that will make you smile, even laugh, some will leave you with questions concerning your attitude to the naked form, whether as living flesh or as works of art and others will just break your heart. Nuala writes with a sexuality that explores all it’s nuances, she writes of individuals, people, you, me with all the bumps and bits we’d rather keep hidden, highlighted, but highlighted with a poets sensibility, leaving us with this beautiful sensual collection of stories.

I’ve just re-read this post and, to be honest, I’m struggling to describe this collection of tales, this is no fault of the book – but in trying to pin it down, I feel like I’m placing it in some killing-jar. The problem is I want to use phrases like the tales have a corporeal sensuality, or that it’s sexuality has a visceral nature, but I’m worried that by using this language I’ll turn people away from a truly beautiful book. Yes there is a sexuality, but it’s not mechanistic, not of a kit-formed detail, these tales are a first person perspective of the heights and depths of human emotion – with no point of return, no comeback and none wanted. Below is a poem by Nuala, that although is not from this collection of stories – I think traces some of the themes present within the book.

Tattoo
My body is a palimpsest
under your hands,
a papyrus scroll
unfurled beneath you,
waiting for your mark.
I clean my skin,
scrape it back to
a pale parchment,
so that your touch
can sink as deep
as the tattooist’s ink,
and leave its tracery
over the erased lines
of other men.
You are all that’s
written on my body.

NUALA NÍ CHONCHÚIR (From: Tattoo : Tatú)

For a brilliantly reasoned and clearer idea of this book, please check out Mel U, From the wonderful Blog – The Reading Life

Nuala Ní Chonchúir is a novelist, poet and short fiction writer. She was born in Dublin in 1970 and educated at Trinity College, Dublin, Dublin City University and NUI Galway. Her first full poetry collection “Molly’s Daughter” appeared in the ¡DIVAS! Anthology New Irish Women’s Writing (Arlen House). Her bilingual poetry collection Tattoo:Tatú (Arlen House, 2007) was shortlisted for the 2008 Rupert and Eithne Strong Award. A pamphlet Portrait of the Artist with a Red Car (Templar, 2009) was one of four winners of the 2009 Templar Poetry Pamphlet competition.
Nuala’s début novel You (New Island, 2010) was called ‘a heart-warmer’ by The Irish Times and ‘a gem’ by The Irish Examiner. She also has a new collection of poetry published now - The Juno Charm, this has been described by fellow poet & writer, Órfhlaith Foyle as they “ play with and worship the ordinary life, yet they also lift life to extraordinary heights through love and guilt, sex and sorrow;…”

Nuala Ní Chonchúir (Wiki)
Nude (Salt Publishing)
Women Rule Writer
Órfhlaith Foyle ( Nuala Ni Chonchúir’ interview )

Update On the 22nd of December I will be taking part in a virtual tour, where I will get the chance to ask Nuala, some questions concerning the writing of her new book of Poetry The Juno Charm, if like myself you can't wait to find out her responses to questions on the process of writing, click on the picture of the book in my sidebar to see the other people/bloggers taking part. the tour started with another writer Órfhlaith Foyle, whose wonderful book Somewhere in Minnesota, I posted on awhile back.
Thanks, Parrish.

Short Treatise on the Joys of Morphinism - Hans Fallada

2011-11-04T19:47:00.001Z

Hans Fallada was born Rudolph Wilhelm Friedrich Ditzen (21.7.1893) in Greifswald, Germany. His father was a magistrate, who would soon become a supreme court judge and his mother was from a solid middle-class background. In 1899 the family relocated to Berlin following the first of several promotions his father received. 1901 saw Fallada entering his first school, which was not a success and lead to the child burying himself in books, eschewing literature more in line with his age for authors such as Flaubert, Dostoevsky and Dickens. By 1909 the family once more relocated, this time to Leipzig, following his father's appointment to the Imperial Supreme Court. A road accident in 1909, followed by the contraction of typhoid in 1910 marked a major turning point in the now 17 year old Fallada’s life and was also where the life-long drug problems were born - due to the pain killing medication he needed for his injuries. The end result of this was several botched suicide attempts culminating in the death of his close friend (Hanns Dietrich), this time disguised as a duel, because it was considered a more honourable death. This was somehow bungled with Fallada surviving. . Nonetheless, the death of his friend ensured his status as an outcast from society. Although he was found innocent of murder by way of insanity, from this point on he would serve multiple stints in mental institutions.

Whilst in a sanatorium he started writing poetry & also tried his hand at translation, without much success, before finally hitting his stride as a writer, with the publication of his first novel, Der junge Goedeschal (Young Goedeschal) in 1920. During this period he lost his younger brother in the First World War, and was he also struggling with morphine addiction.

Which brings me to the Short Treatise on the Joys of Morphinism by Hans Fallada, this wonderful little book by Penguin (Mini Modern Classic) contains two stories – the title tale and Three Years of Life, both published in English for the very first time*. Both draw heavily on the writers own history of addiction – in the first story we follow the protagonist, who has one obsession that being his next hit, everything is subservient to that desire, there is no friendship, no relationship that doesn’t have it’s roots in the feeding of the addiction, every second, every nanosecond is a slave to that one impulse.

“I knew I had to have morphine at any price. My whole body was painfully jittery, my hands shook, I was full of a crazed thirst, not just in my mouth and throat, but in every cell of my body.

I picked up the telephone and called Wolf. I wanted to catch him off-guard, so, with a faltering voice, I croaked out: “Have you got any benzene? Hurry! I’m dying!”

And fell back on to the pillows, groaning. A deep and solemn relief.”

Wolf is the closest thing the hero(?) of this tale, has to a friend, not counting the drug itself and yet his sole purpose is as a conduit to more highs, this is understood by both the individuals in this relationship.

In the second tale “Three Years of Life” the narrator (Hans Fallada) has reached an impasse in the way his life has gone, completely disenchanted, he knows things can’t go on. This doesn’t stop him downing half a pint of cognac before proceeding with his plan to embezzle his employer of twelve thousand marks before what seems like a failed attempt to escape his addiction…

“I walk out of on the street, to the station. More train rattle. My flight begins. Hamburg. Most of the day asleep. At night St Pauli. Then following morning I fly to Berlin. Let them come for me. After that, Munich, Leipzig, Dresden, Cologne.

Always the same scenario: the poison won’t let me go. I am unable to eat at all. Sleep – what passes for sleep – is a vividly tormenting blackout”

Eventually the money runs out and he hands himself into a police station, followed by a comic attempt to get himself arrested, before prison and the DT’s* or bedbugs I’m never quite sure which, we then watch him replace one addiction for another (tobacco) which we then learn all about, as well as the codes of practice in prison.

In this fantastic work of autofiction, Hans Fallada, paints a darkly comic surreal world where everything is reduced to a simple impulse – to feed ones addiction, all else is subsidiary.

Hans Fallada (Wiki)

About the life and work of Hans Fallada(A fantastic Resource)

Translator

Poet and translator Michael Hofmann was born in Freiburg, West Germany in 1957.The son of the German novelist Gert Hofmann, his translation of his father's novel The Film Explainer won the Independent Foreign Fiction Prize in 1995. He grew up in England and attended schools in Edinburgh and Winchester. He read English Literature and Classics at Magdalene College, Oxford, and studied as a postgraduate at the University of Regensburg and Trinity College, Cambridge from 1979 to 1983. Since 1983 he has worked as a freelance writer, translator and reviewer. for more information check out the links below..

Michael Hofmann(Wiki)

British council(Michael Hofmann)

* Both were first published posthumously in German, in the form translated here, in 1997 under the title Drei Jahre Kein Mensch: Erlebtes, Erfahrenes, Erfundenes. This English translation is by Michael Hofmann.

* Delirium Tremens - An acute, sometimes fatal episode of delirium that is usually caused by withdrawal or abstinence from alcohol following habitual excessive drinking and that is characterized by sweating, trembling, anxiety, confusion, and hallucinations.

All-Hallows-Even ("evening"), that is, the night before All Hallows Day Although the phrase All Hallows is found in Old English (ealra hālgena mæssedæg, mass-day of all saints.

2011-10-31T04:55:00.001Z

My Little Fools.

Have you? ---

Have you ever been scared?

I ask you again, my poor little friends

have you ever been scared?

----------------------

Hiding – buried deep in the cupboard

where the hot water-pipe rattles your soul

hearing a foot on the stairs

feeling those worries and cares

Knowing, you, are their only goal! or

now running down a dark lane

the screams and the shouts just behind

you stumble fall, graze your hand on the wall

knowing there is nowhere else left to hide

Your hearts beating faster and faster

you think it’s about to explode

but there is no relief in this tension

as you feel this anxiety grow.

---------------------------------------

Have you? ---

Have you, ever been paranoid?

I ask you again, my poor little friends

have you ever been paranoid?

_________________________

Don’t! hide in the deepest of corners.

Don’t wrap yourself up in the gloom.

Don’t wait for the knife, on

some drear weary night, or

you’ll find yourself deep in some tomb.

Then, you may think your troubles over

well, friends you can’t know me that well

because I’ll raise all the ghouls

and those sleep-sodden fools

to make sure they stir up your hell.

__________________

Oh paranoids, paranoids! show

me all your little toys, hide

from me all you little boys

-------------------------and girls.

________________________

Have you? ---

Have you, ever killed someone?

Laid, down, their bleeding corpse.

I ask you again, my poor little friends

have you, ever killed someone?

----------------------------------------------------

Seen the knife, flash bright in the moonlight

heard the pistol, bark and sigh

seen the terror and fright,

felt the thrill and delight

as you realise it’s not you who’s to die.

Then you read all your deeds in the paper

the infamous things you have tried

gun in hand, knife in your waistband.

You know it’s you who will fry! But

you’ll wait for your moment of glory

a shootout you’ll face one dark night

with the forces of law, to even the score

as they judicially finish your life.

----------------------------------------------------------

So, now, my little paranoids

scared killers all!

You’ll meet me some day

in some infinite way

and realise you were my

little fools!

G.M.

pomes ALL SIZES

If you have a Poem/ Poet, you admire please introduce them to me.

@Pomesallsizes

OUP, Very Short Introductions – Modern Japan.

2011-10-28T21:24:00.001+01:00

At first glance, the origins of what is perceived as modern Japan, coincides with the arrival of United States Commodore Perry & his black Steam-powered armada (1853). Before his arrival, to all outward appearances Japan was a basic feudal monarchy, hiding behind 250 years of self imposed isolation and yet, within 50 years, the nation went through a massive transformation in the process developing a modern industrial economy, a constitutional government and the beginnings of a colonial empire. Although this makes a neat cut off point, European ships had been trying to crack open Japan for at least 50 years previous to Perry, with the Russians making an appearance in the northerly island of Hokkaido in 1792 & the British sailing into Uraga Bay in 1818 – both were rejected. Leaving a tiny enclave of Dutch traders who had been permitted to stay on the tiny islet of Deshima near Nagaski (1641) since foreigners were forbidden from the mainland under Sakoku (The official policy of isolationism).

So where do we pinpoint that spark of modernity in this nation? Well most of the institutions that characterized Japan in the mid-19th century were established around the start of the 17th century by the founders of the Tokugawa regime. In 1600 Japan was finally unified following the epic battle of Sekigahara*, establishing the Tokugawa Period - 1600-1868, with its government in Edo (Tokyo).

Resulting in over 250 years of peace and stability in a system of centralized feudalism. Government was centralized under the Tokugawa shogunate* but with considerable autonomy reserved to the 260 individual domains, and by establishing a complex system of controls to prevent rebellion among the daimyo*, the founding shoguns sidestepped radical change in the interest of preserving political order. The result was the Pax* Tokugawa, with the Emperor side-lined and in seclusion in his palace in the official capital in Kyoto, whilst the Tokugawa bakufu* ruled a peaceful Japan from it’s seat of power in Edo – which by the end of the 17Th century became the largest city on the planet with a population in excess of a million.

So when Commodore Perry arrived in Japan, he was faced with a complicated and conflict-ridden society, with many of the features of a modern nation. It had a nation-wide state apparatus under the secular control of the bakufu, with it’s religious authority provided by the imperial house in Kyoto, which also legitimised the regime. It had a sophisticated domestic market, although partially outside of the the regional Asian market and it’s national culture was blossoming, especially in the larger cities. However there were dark clouds gathering – social tension simmered between the classes caught in a system that allowed no movement, there was also no centralised or coherent taxation system and no way to mobilize a national force. Making Japan’s ruling Shogunate* weak and unable to control it’s own domain, much less defend against external forces, which showed up in the guise of Commodore Matthew Perry and a squadron of the U.S. Navy demanding that Japan open commerce with the West. The end result was a series of treaties, unfavourable to Japan as they were forced to concede special economic and legal privileges to the nations of the west. Perry’s arrival acted as a catalyst. Convinced that the only way to save their nation was to modernise and that meant abolishing the old feudal regime, a group of middle ranking samurai overthrew the government, ending in the fall of Edo in 1868 ,the restoration of the Emperor (Meiji) and the start of the Meiji period. The Meiji Restoration became a genuine transformation, the new leaders studied the political, economic and social institutions of the western powers and selectively adopted those that suited their purpose. In fact, the tone for these changes was set just after the establishment of the emperor in Edo, when he introduced the Charter Oath (Five-Article Oath), in which the new government made these radical pledges:

1)To establish Deliberative assemblies in order to involve the public in decision-making;

2) To involve all levels of society “highest to lowest” in the affairs of state;

3) To abolish restrictions on the occupation and function for all people;

4) To abandon the superstitions of the past and to embrace rational laws of nature;

5) To seek knowledge from around the world to strengthen Japan.

In 1889 the Emperor promulgated the constitution which established a parliamentary government (Imperial Diet), which came into effect on November 29th 1890. The organizational structure of the Diet reflected both Prussian and British influences, most notably in the inclusion of the House of Peers (which resembled the Prussian Herrenhaus and the British House of Lords), and in the formal speech from the throne delivered by the Emperor on Opening Day. The second chapter of the constitution, detailing the rights of citizens, bore a resemblance to similar articles in both European and North American constitutions of the day. Although the classes were declared equal, so that samurai and their lords lost their feudal privileges, while the role of merchants - formerly despised as profit hungry - began to be respected, The Imperial Diet was still accountable to the Emperor rather than the people and in it’s wording it was ambiguous, and in many places, self-contradictory. The leaders of the government and the political parties were left with the task of interpretation as to whether the Meiji Constitution could be used to justify authoritarian or liberal-democratic rule. It was the struggle between these tendencies that would dominate the government of the Empire of Japan.

By focussing and pinpointing the historical, political and cultural development that Japan went through in this period, (initially in response to its sense of humiliation in the face of the so-called great powers of the western world), this book demonstrates how the nation freed itself from the unequal treaties imposed on it and how it successfully adopted the ideas and trappings of modernity and how with this success a new found national confidence soared. Whilst some sectors of society embraced the whole philosophy of modernity, that it came as a complete package, that in choosing the technical innovations that were abundant in the west, you also adopted the social manners and cultural practices, other sectors began to use this newfound confidence to challenge the notion that modernity and westernization had to mean the same thing. With this notion of Japan as a modern nation in its own right, the question shifted from what it meant to be “modern in a modern Japan” to what it meant to be Japanese. This question seem to take two paths, the first was something that could be identified as the romantic response – intellectuals, writers, artists looked to some past (imagined or otherwise) for some sense of what the “essence of Japaneseness” might be. Whether this was in some reinvention of bushido, or Shinto as a national religion and Emperor cult, or the rediscovery of a particular appreciation of a fragile shadowy beauty that characterised Japanese aesthetics. The second was how to confront this process of modernisation and asserted Japan’s superiority over western nations, which was in risk of being polluted and weakened under the guise of progress. This book takes these two standpoints and follows them into the twenty first century, through the historical figures, artists and writers, showing how this has affected Japans image in the rest of the world and its self image.

Most westerners image of Japan exists somewhere between PlayStation/Nintendo and the dystopian megacities of some cyberpunk novel or the Ume blossom, Sumo, samurai and geisha world of some ancient past – part history/ part myth, it is how it melds these seemingly disparate images that make this nation and it’s literature fascinating to me and to a lot of other individuals and this book – A very Short introduction to Modern Japan - by Christopher Goto-Jones, gives a great insight into this country, it’s history and it’s literature.

Very Short Introductions Series (or VSI series) is a book series published by the Oxford University Press publishing house since 1995. Books in the series offer concise introductions to particular subjects, intended for a general audience but written by experts in the field. Books in the series range from 96–224 pages in length, with most between 120–180, and all contain suggestions for further reading. Authors often present personal viewpoints, and the books are intended to be thought provoking, but also "balanced and complete”.

As of September 2011, there are 284 titles in the series, with 38 more and one revised edition scheduled for publication by mid 2012.The publisher states that "the series will encompass every major academic discipline, offering all students an accessible and abundant reference library”.This my second in the series, the first was on Spanish literature and for all it’s erudition, and professorial learning, I didn’t find it a dry read, it made me realise that although works such Don Quixote are a major literary signpost, that's all they are and not the be all & end all of Spanish Literature.

*Battle for the Sundered Realm(Sekigahara)

*Tokugawa

*Daimyo

*Pax

*bakufu / Shogunate

Oxford University Press-VSI Catalogue

Christopher Goto-Jones

Christopher Goto-Jones (Leiden university)

Modern East Asian Research Centre

White Rose East Asia Centre

Somewhere in Minnesota and Other Stories

2011-10-22T15:15:00.001+01:00

In this collection of tales by Órfhlaith Foyle, we meet a cast of disparate characters, that at first glance appear to have little, if anything, in common yet it doesn’t take long to realise that they all share one trait, that being - in one way or another - each and everyone of them is broken. These are individuals that initially appear fine, even normal. You or they would instigate a conversation, which would follow along standard lines, you’d possibly discuss the weather, the subject’s not important – but at some point the fracture would reveal itself, it may not even be that first meet, but a moment will occur and you will realise that something is not right, that whatever humanity they have, in one way or another has been damaged.

There are nineteen stories in this collection, and from the very first one, you are fascinated, and by this I mean in it’s old sense* - to render motionless, as with a fixed stare or by arousing terror or awe - and yet you are caught wanting to know more, wanting to follow the tale to its conclusion. In one of the tales - Two Vampires, we watch a pair of male vampires sitting in a cafe stalking their next prey….

“Robert loves the death he forces into humans. He loves how their skin tears under his teeth and their attempts at screaming turn to nothing in his ears. He has stopped remembering anything of his life before, yet in the beginning, like Frances, he presumed he could not forget. He had expected to remember how the smell of fresh bread filled a morning or how he always longed to be clean…… but he forgot it all.
Now he appreciates the distance between him and humans. Their lives are alien, only their blood means anything. Robert had once tried to explain it to Francis who did not listen, not because he was not interested, but because his hatred for Robert – although finally vague after all these years together – remained inside him still.”

We follow this pair, who like some old couple who now loathe each other and yet, whether through necessity or through a habit long devoid of reason, are still together as they isolate and then feed on their chosen prey.

In another of the tales - The secret life of Madame Defarge, we listen in on the thoughts of a Tricoteuse*. She is an old woman sitting at the foot of the guillotine, knitting and howling her hatred at all those walking that final path. This is one of those tales that changes your perspective by offering a different viewpoint on a scene we’ve probably seen a thousand times, in literature and film, via the tales of Dickens, Orczy, Sabatini or France* - although here, by focusing on the old woman, the writer has created a fantastic tale that will revolt and yet…..here is the tale for your delectation*

Órfhlaith Foyle was born in Africa (Nigeria) to Irish missionary parents, she also lived in Kenya and Malawi, all of which have fed into her wonderful writing. Later she lived in Australia, France, Russia, Israel and taught in London's East End for two years before settling in Galway, Ireland, working as a freelance journalist and editing a community magazine. She has been published in The Shop, The Stinging Fly, The Burning Bush, Markings and Galway Now. As well as this collection of short stories, she has written a collection of poetry and short stories, a novel and a collection of poetry. At the moment she’s working on a second novel. Her cited influences include Flannery O’Connor, Katherine Mansfield, Emily Bronte and Emily Dickinson. She has a Bachelor in Humanities, and has been published in a number of literary journals.

Bibliography
Belios, Lilliput Press, 2005 (Novel)
Revenge, Arlen House, 2005 (Short Stories & Poetry)
Red Riding Hood's Dilemma, Arlen House, 2009 (Poetry)

*from Latin fascināre, from fascinum a bewitching
*Tricoteuse,literally translates from the French as a (feminine) knitter or knitting device. The term is most often used in its historical sense as a name for the women who frequented the public executions in Paris during the French Revolution.
*Charles Dickens ( Tale of Two Cities), Baroness Orczy (The Scarlet Pimpernel), Rafael Sabatini(Scaramouche ) or Anatole France (The Gods Are Athirst).

*Here is the tale for your delectation – I would like to thank Mel U from The Reading Life, for acting as a go between between myself and the writer and for providing the information relating to the link to the The secret life of Madame Defarge story, and would also send my fondest regards and thanks to the writer in allowing me to read her fascinating collection of stories. This collection is to be published by Arlen House this year (2011), and is out on the 15th November, although you can pre order via the usual places and I would thoroughly recommend you to get your hands on a copy.

orfhlaithfoyle.blogspot.com

Orfhlaith Foyle

Writer Interview: Órfhlaith Foyle

Women Rule Writer Interview
The Reading Life(Somewhere in Minnesota)
syracuse university press.

The Natty Hat Comp #2 –The Results

2011-10-21T19:47:00.001+01:00

Thank you everyone for for entering - The Literary Blog-Hop Giveaway, as usual you’ve more than done me proud, with the amount of answers I received and also the range of words, some I knew, some I didn’t . Words that had personal resonance to you as individuals, words that had deep symbolic meaning, words that were just funny, regardless of meaning or because of some reasoning that had a specific link to a culture, or family.

Ö

Shape the lips to an o, say a.
That’s island.

One word of Swedish has changed the whole neighbourhood .
When I look up, the yellow house on the corner
is a galleon stranded in flowers. Around it

the wind. Even the high roar of a leaf-mulcher
could be the horn-blast from a ship
as it skirts the misted shoals.

We don’t need much more to keep things going
Families complete themselves
and refuse to budge from the present,
the present extends its glass forehead to sea
(backyard breezes, scattered cardinals)

and if, one evening, the house on the corner
took off over the marshland,
neither I nor my neighbour
would be amazed. Sometimes

a word is found so right it trembles
at the slightest explanation.
You start out with one thing, end
up with another, and nothing’s
like it used to be, not even the future.
Rita Dove.

Now to the important bit the winner of The Natty Hat Comp #2 is…… Now this is the curious bit I thought it was one prize I was handing out, but my glamorous assistant, says it reads as though it should be two and as she has just passed her Kent Test and now is officially brainy, I had no ground to stand on. So two it is..

The winner of The Anthologist is, Sakura from the fantastic site – Chasing bawa

The winner of the second book, the surprise is the wonderful Bellezza from Dolce Bellezza and my favourite challenge – Japanese Literature Challenge #5. The surprise book is Eunoia by Christian Bök, the word means “ beautiful thinking” and is the shortest word in the English language to contain all five vowels and has been described as “Extraordinary, outrageous, irresistible and a must for verbivores”. I love both books & hope both winners will also come to love them also.
Thanks again to all who entered.
Parrish.

The Natty Hat Comp #2 - The Sequel

2011-10-14T23:22:00.001+01:00

The Literary Give-away Blog hop

This is my second Literary Giveaway Blog hop and for the first, “The Natty Hat Comp”, the entrance fee was a favourite poem & I was amazed, enraptured and so darned happy with the amount of poetry I received that it took weeks of surgery just to unpin the grin and reattach my standard scowl. This time I thought I would try something different, although still keeping it in an area I’m interested in – the title for The Natty Hat Comp #2 - Favourite Word. Now this can be in any language (translate please), and any length, all I want is the favoured word and a short (or long) reason why. In the tradition of “The Natty Hat Comp” I will Start this off with my, or to be more accurate one of my, favourite words as I nearly went for my current favourite, which is, Discombobulate, meaning to “upset or confuse”, but no my all-time Favourite is – Autodidactic, meaning “having skills or knowledge acquired through one's own efforts without formal training”. I even know approximately when and where I first heard this word, I was about 16 years old and journeying home on a bus, with my latest read, which at the time was probably Phaedrus written by Plato. Anyway I’m on this bus reading, when this man sitting next to this women, asked me about the book & from this a conversation ensued, it turned out this man & the woman (his wife) were teachers and were amazed that this scruffy 16 year old lad was reading & to all intents and purpose understanding this book. “Autodidactic, that’s what you are” the man said, I not knowing what he meant, but liking the sound of it, nodded, just then my stop arrived. Off I got with this fantastic new word rolling around on my tongue – Or-toe-Die-Dak-Tic, Ort-O-Dye-Dac-Tik, Oar-To-Dia-Daq-Tiq, Autodidactic, till I arrived home, grabbed my battered old Oxford English and learnt a new word – Autodidactic, from Autodidact whose root is the Greek, autodidaktos, aut- + didaktos (Self + Taught). Now your go, you don’t need to follow me, unless you like what you see, all I want is your favourite word & a reason why and, in return, your name will get added into “The Natty Hat” and you if drawn out as a winner, will have the pick of one of two books.

The first is one of my favourite books it’s about love, poetry & procrastination, which I’ve posted on here. The second……well that is a book that will combine a couple of my favourite subjects but if you choose that route you’ll have to take a chance and hope I’ve picked well, but it’s a book that has me mesmerised discombobulated & which I adore. So pick one with your reply and take your chance.

Thanks

Parrish.

Here is the link list to my fellow cohorts, compadres,collaborators, comrades and partners in crime, please check them out and pass on my regards – Oh and enjoy. Thanks again..

leeswammes.wordpress.com , devouringtexts.blogspot.com , boofsbookshelf.com ,

seasidebooknook.com ,hawthornescarlet.blogspot.com" , rikkidonovan.com ,

bibliosue.blogspot.com"goodbooksandacupoftea.blogspot.com ,

TheBookDivasReads.blogspot.comgaskella.wordpress.com

"lucybirdbooks.wordpress.com , teadevotee.com

the-book-garden.blogspot.com , bookaddictkim.blogspot.com ,

undermyappletree.net" , emperorsclothes.co.uk ,

samstillreading.wordpress.com , nishitak.wordpress.com , ephemeraldigest.com ,

bookwormwithaview.com ,dolcebellezza.net , lenasledgeblog.com ,

blog.chainreader.com , iamareadernotawriter.blogspot.com ,

thebluebookcase.blogspot.com , bookjourney.wordpress.com ,

homeofaimala.blogspot.com , joyweesemoll.com

inoneeyeouttheother.blogspot.com , readwriteandlive.wordpress.com ,

freshinkbooks.blogspot.com ,livinglearninglovinglife.com ,

bibliophilebythesea.blogspot.com , lauriehere.blogspot.com ,

amysbookworld.blogspot.com wordcrushes.wordpress.com ,

thinkingaboutloud.blogspot.com , kinnareads.wordpress.com , sweepingme.com

mindingspot.blogspot.com , babiesbooksandsigns.com , lbdarling.wordpress.com ,

tonysreadinglist.blogspot.com ,susie-bookworm.blogspot.com ,

cat-bookmagic.blogspot.com , closeencounterswiththenightkind.blogspot.com

nerfreader.blogspot.com , mevrouwkinderboek.nl , boekblogger.wordpress.com ,

nopageleftbehind.blogspot.com inspringitisthedawn.com , elle-lit.blogspot.com

Thank You to everyone that took part in this, hopefully fun literary Blog-Hop, but we are now officially closed. I will post the winners names tomorrow evening, after I have informed them. Again Thanks To All.

An Anthology of Romanian Poetry

2011-10-07T19:40:00.001+01:00

Of Gentle Wolves.

“ What Should you understand?
A biography
that hangs on my words like
a ton of dynamite”

Helena Stefoi.

This is part of a poem by Helena Stefoi, a poet born in 1954 in Suceava county, Romania, and her poetry has a tough cutting structure and an aggressive style described as typical of the poetic voice of Romania around the 1980’s. This style was perceived as the poets only true weapon and defence against the stark background of fear and alienation prevalent in Romanian society. This poet and several other Romanian writers (Ioana Craciunescu, Ion Morar, Liviu Ioan Stoiciu ) featured in the book - Child of Europe (A New Anthology of East European Poetry) published in 1990 by Penguin International Poets (Ed: Michael March), which covered the whole of east Europe. The editor basically drew a line and used that as his criteria for who was in the book. The Romanian poets published in this book were all subject to communist rule under Nicolae Ceausescu, who’s regime was characterized by an increasingly brutal and repressive apparatus and, by some accounts, the most rigidly Stalinist regime in the Soviet bloc. It was also marked by a pervasive cult of personality, nationalism and a deterioration in foreign relations with the Western powers as well as the Soviet Union. This led eventually, to Ceausescu’s government being overthrown in the December 1989 revolution, after which he and his wife faced a hastily organised televised trial which ended with their execution. A year later Child of Europe was published.

Move on twenty years, and Martin Woodside, editor of “Of Gentle Wolves - an Anthology of Romanian poetry”, was researching the material for this collection, at the same time as this country marked twenty years since the revolution of '89. Now a nation free of dictatorship and censorship, however also gone were the state funded publishing houses with their massive press runs of poetry books, eagerly awaited by a readership hungering for such work, in the preface of, Child In Europe Michael March wrote;

“ Communist regimes were ripe for poetry. They even printed it at their own expense. There were numerous literary journals and young poets were published. Censorship was not acceptable, never enviable; but it was recognisable. With the lessening of borders, materialism will replace longing and poetry will suffer”.

This left the contemporary poets operating bedroom presses & websites, the majority working in relative obscurity at the margins of society. Into this picture steps, Martin Woodside and Calypso Editions, an artist-run, cooperative press dedicated to publishing quality literary books of poetry and fiction with a global perspective. They believe that “By unearthing literary gems from previous generations, translating foreign writers into English with integrity, and providing a space for talented new voices” they can create an imprint that is committed to publishing books that will endure in both content and form, books that can serve as physical artefacts of beauty and wonder in a world of digital saturation. Excellence being their only criteria. Martin states in the Translators notes that;

“In any anthology, there’s more left out than kept in, and this book
stands as no exception. The poems here present a snapshot of
Romanian poetry, one that gestures to a single truth: Romanian
poets have been re-inventing poetry for as long as they’ve been
writers from various generations working in various modes who
all combine a strong grounding in tradition with the desire to
innovate and the will to persevere.”

And like a good snapshot, you want to find out more beyond the image fixed on the slide, here are two of the fourteen poets in this wonderful Anthology

Summa Ethilica - Radu Vancu

Once I wished with all my heart, almost religiously,
to become a committed vodka drinker.
I would have given even my soul for this.

My alcoholism reared from the most respectable cultural
sources:
each glass of vodka made me think,
above all, of Thomas Aquinas:
40 per cent liquid hell in iridescent light
forced me to see the meaning of
integritas, consonantia, claritas.

Then suddenly you appeared before me,
Cami, you painful teetotaller.
Your missionary ways converted me to the monotheism of hops.
Alcohol would now cap off at five per cent
I resigned myself to this ethylene ice age
because our love prefers proletarian sand in the urethra,
cultivating in its place class hatred for the artistocratic cirrhosis.
The only Marxist accent of a mystic love.

I remember more of Thomas Aquinas
having only my ever expansive belly
to seriously rival the Angelic Doctor.
But I accept this in good grace,
because I have gone far enough to desire
to be a good man, not an interesting one.
For that, now, I would surely give my soul.

Born in 1978 in Sibiu, Radu Vancu is a poet, literary critic and translator. He has published five books of poetry - Epistles to Camellia (2002), Biograph litteraria (2006), Happy Monster (2009), Sebastian in a dream (2010) Memories for my father ( 2010). He also published two essays, one on the work of one of the foremost contemporary Romanian poets, Mircea Ivanescu, called, Mircea Ivanescu - Poetry Absolute Discretion (2007), the other - on the poetry of Eminescu – Eminescu, Three essays(2011). Together with Claudiu Komartin, he was a contributor to the anthology, The Most Beautiful Poems in 2010 (2011), he is also a Lecturer at the Faculty of Letters and Arts and editor for magazines “Sibiu”, "Transylvania" and "International Poesis."

The “integritas, consonantia, claritas.” line in the poem comes from a Thomas Aquinas quote “Ad Pulchritudinem Tria Requiruntur Integritas, Consonantia, Claritas.”, I looked this up, via the usual means, and found this translation by James Joyce "Three things are needed for beauty: wholeness, harmony and radiance". Radu Vancu finds it in the “40 per cent liquid hell in iridescent light” but he is saved from this by someone who converts him to a “monotheism of hops”. Through this he comes to understands the correct path to follow, and the realisation that his previous yearnings were bourgeois (the social class of capitalists) even aristocratic, in the process becoming “a good man if not an interesting one”. By reinterpreting the Marxist doctrine once prevalent in his homeland, the writer uses satire to say what he want’s about the society he lives in – creating a poem filled with humour and yet suffused with pathos like sunlight through good spirit.

Shakespeare - Marin Sorescu

Shakespeare created the world in seven days.

On the first say he made the heavens, the mountains,
and the abyss of the soul.
On the second day he made rivers, seas, oceans
And all the other feelings—
Giving them to Hamlet, Julius Caesar, Mark Antony,
Cleopatra and Ophelia,
Othello and the rest, to master them, and their descendants
For evermore.
On the third day he brought the people together
And taught them about taste
The taste of happiness, of love, of despair
The taste of jealousy, of glory, and still more tastes
Until they went through them all.

Then some latecomers arrived.
The creator patted them sadly on the head
Explaining the remaining roles were for
Literary critics
To challenge his good works.

The fourth and fifth days he kept clear for laughs
Clearing way for clowns
Turning somersaults,
And leaving the kings, emperors,
And other poor wretches to their fun.
The sixth day he reserved for administrative tasks:
He let loose a tempest
And taught King Lear
To wear a crown of straw.

Some spare parts remained from the world’s creation
And so he made Richard III.
On the seventh day he looked about for something to do.
Theatre directors had plastered the land with posters
And Shakespeare decided after all his hard work
He deserved to see a show. but first,

tired down to the bone
He went off to die a little.

Marin Sorescu was a Romanian poet, playwright, and novelist, certainly one of the most popular and better-known poets and perhaps one of the most translated Romanian writers of the latter half of the 20th century. More than a dozen books of his poetry and plays have appeared in English, mainly in the U.K. and in Ireland. He is author of more than twenty collections of poetry, among them Poems (1965), The Youth of Don Quixote (1968), Cough (1970), Fountains in the Sea (1982), Water of Life, Water of Death (1987), Poems Selected by Censorship (1991), and The Crossing (1994). His valedictory volume, The Bridge , published posthumously in 1997, was composed during the final two months of his life, while he knew he was dying of liver cancer. To weak commit them to paper himself, Sorescu often dictated the poems in this book to his wife, Virginia.
Shortly after the fall of Communist dictatorship in 1989, Sorescu was Minister of Culture.

On his poetry, Sorescu said, with characteristic irony: "Just as I can't give up smoking because I don't smoke, I can't give up writing because I have no talent." He often claimed a sense of alienation, saying "the spoken word is a crossed frontier. By the act of saying something, I fail to say many other things."

Yet what he does manage to say astounds – Shakespeare as creator of the world is a fantastic idea, just think how much of our perception of the world is framed through the language of Shakespeare - we see, “the world as a stage”, a guest who is a glutton – “has eaten me out of house and home”, possibly because we prepared, “a dish fit for the gods” and “ since brevity is the soul of wit” I’ll leave the examples now and just state how I love the way this Poem plays out, with Olde William wanting to see a show, His? he doesn’t say, but first he’s bone tired and wants to die a little. This is poetry that resonates, that has within it’s conversational tone, a sense of irony that is universal, poetry described by Virgil Nemoianu as “rueful jocularity and the good-natured cynicism." that George Szirtes, writing in The Times Literary Supplement, stated that in Sorescu's voice he finds "the wry wisdom that sees through everything and yet continues to hope and despair."

These are poets that are not chained to the past, yet have used their links with it as the tools with which to craft their own language, some of them working within a nation whose paranoia & ideology admitted no alternate vision, but by the use of myth and humour, with an understanding of their own history written and spoken they’ve revealed new vistas and in the process have created a poetry that is questing, as well as beautiful, that has an intelligence that shines yet doesn’t glare.

Martin Woodside is a poet and translator. His poetry chapbook Stationary Landscapes came out in 2009 (Pudding House Press), and he spent 2009-10 on a Fulbright Scholarship in Romania studying Romanian poetry. Currently he’s working on various projects translating Romanian poets into English and his translations of Romanian poetry are in a featured section from Poetry International. He lives with his family in Philadelphia where he’s pursuing a PhD in Childhood Studies at Rutgers-Camden.

                   I know I don't breathe by the rules
                  my shoulders are slightly bent forward.
                  From noun to verb a murderous device
                  performs exercise in style
                  and waits for you.
                                                  H.S.

Calypso Editions looks like a press worth paying
attention to —Chad W. Post, Three Percent
Calypso Editions
guernica magazine

Biograph Litteraria (Radu Vancu)

A Conversation.

Concerning This Post, whilst checking the stats I found a link to a website, from the writer of the 1st poem featured here. Out of this developed a conversation, which with consent is repeated here.

Radu Vancu
Summa ethilica. "The correct path to follow"

Aşa cum am mai scris, a apărut anul acesta în State o antologie de poezie română numită Of Gentle Wolves. Despre realizator şi traducător, poetul Martin Woodside, spuneam că tinde să devină noul Adam Sorkin - adică un fel de traducător oficial al poeziei române contemporane; ei bine, cred că deja a ajuns acolo - Dan Coman mi-a spus că, în Slovenia, organizatorii festivalului utilizau pentru poeţii români traducerile lui M.W.
Pomenesc iar antologia pentru că a apărut în Parrish Lantern o cronică bună, cu un comentariu la Summa ethilica (un text dintr-un precambrian al vieţii mele) care m-a binedispus ceva de groază.:)

Google Translation.
(As I have written, appeared this year in an anthology of poetry Romanian State Of Gentle called Wolves. About producer and translator, poet Martin Woodside, said that tends to become the new Adam Sorkin - that kind of official translator Romanian poetry contemporary Well, I think that has already arrived - Dan Coman said that in Slovenia, festival organizers used translations of Romanian poets MW
And mention that appeared in the anthology for Parrish Lantern good a record, with a commentary on the Summa ethilica (text from a Precambrian of my life) who entertained me something to dread :)

Parrish Lantern
Summa ethilica was one of my favourite poems in this anthology and my understanding of it was a combination of the translators notes and Romanian history.would love to hear your opinion, in fact would would be interested in adding it to the post, as with all translation, not all is communicated, even this I'm reading through Google's translation service & trying to comprehend your viewpoint.

Radu Vancu
I'm glad you liked "Summa ethilica", of course, yet what really thrilled me was your interest in Romanian poetry. It's quite refreshing to find a good reader paying careful attention to the English versions of poems written in an exotic Latin language.
In what regards your understanding of the poem - it is obviously plausible, even though I think I didn't intend to give it such an ambitious political dimension (at least as far as I remember - as the poem was written during my most ethylical years, while in present days I'm an active non-alcoholic activist. :)

Erratum: "a passive non-alcoholic activist", of course :)

Parrish Lantern
One of my favourite favourite books of poetry was and is my battered old copy of, Child Of Europe A new anthology of East European poetry, with poets such as, Novica Tadic,Ioana Craciunescu, Boyko Lambovski, this book introduced me to world of poetry I didn't know - hidden, So when Of Gentle Wolves was offered to me to write about, I jumped both hands held open to grab it & was enamoured by the poetry there.

As to your non-alcoholic passive activist, that almost covers me nowadays, although I'm still fond of a glass or so of malt Whisky.

Radu Vancu
Oh, the fondness is still there for me, it's only the practice that's missing :)
Speaking of battered copies - after the collapse of the communist regimes Forest Books & UNESCO Publishing published a series of anthology titled "Young poets of a new Poland", "Young poets of Germany" and so on. You probably know them. Very good selections, and the translations also seem good. So that for me the battered bluish cover of the Polish anthology is an objective correlative for contemporary Polish poetry. :)
It'd be really good if some visible publishing house would do the same with the poetry written during the last 20-30 years in the same countries.

Parrish Lantern
would be wonderful if the same publishing house, that did, Of Gentle Wolves, got on the case I know they've published one with the poetry of Anna Swir. would you mind if I transferred this conversation over to my blog, as it has a lot of merit that would tie with my attempt to promote translated poetry, not just the same old, same old. will wait for a response, multumesc. (thanks)

Radu Vancu
Of course you can transfer it from my blog to yours - it's your conversation too, after all :)
Such attempts of promoting poetry are of much value, they give me a modicum of trust that not everything is lost, after all. Mulţumesc to you too :)

Parrish Lantern
This Last bit wasn't part of the original conversation, It's just me thanking Radu, for allowing some Poetry geek to waste his time, by replying to my comments.
Mulţumesc
Parrish.

A great review by Ilya Kaminsky and Kathryn Farris

Pomesallsizes

@pomesallsizes

National Poetry Day UK 6/10/11

2011-10-05T21:48:00.001+01:00

Since 1994 National Poetry Day has engaged millions of people with poetry through a range of live events and web-based activities for people young and old throughout the country. Each year the day has a new theme. You can find out more about previous National Poetry Days and the Poetry Society's involvement by looking at the National Poetry Day history pages.
The theme for 2011 - GAMES is a versatile one, taking in not just sport and child's play, but more serious games too, so this can be tiddly winks or cricket, football or darts mind games, games of chance, I spy on the journey home, snakes and ladders in the lounge or blindfold games in the boudoir – stretch your mind and your muscles. So for National Poetry Day, here are two poems with the games theme

Skipping Without Ropes
I will, I will skip without your rope
Since you say I should not, I cannot
Borrow your son’s skipping rope to
Exercise my limbs, I will skip without

Your rope as you say even the lace
I want will hang my neck until I die
I will create my own rope, my own
Hope and skip without your rope as

You insist I do not require to stretch
My limbs fixed by these fevers of your
Reeking sweat and your prison walls;
I will, will skip with my forged hope;

Watch, watch me skip without your
Rope; watch me skip with my hope -
A-one, a-two, a-three, a-four, a-five
I will, a-seven, I do, will skip, a-ten,

Eleven, I will skip without, will skip
Within and skip I do without your
Rope but with my hope; and I will,
Will always skip you dull, will skip

Your silly rules, skip your filthy walls,
Your weevil pigeon peas, skip your
Scorpions, skip your Excellency Life
Glory, I do, you don’t, I can, you can’t,

I will, you won’t, I see, you don’t, I
Sweat, you don’t, I will, will wipe my
Gluey brow then wipe you at a stroke
I will, will wipe your horrid stinking,

Vulgar prison rules, will wipe you all
Then hop about, hop about my cell, my
Home, the mountains, my globe as your
Sparrow hops about your prison yard

Without your hope, without your rope,
I swear, I will skip without your rope, I
Declare, I will have you take me to your
Showers to bathe me where I can resist

This singing child you want to shape me,
I’ll fight your rope, your rules, your hope
As your sparrow does under your super-
vision! Guards! Take us for a shower!

Jack Mapanje
Jack Mapanje (born 1944 in Kadango) is a Malawian writer and poet He was the former head of English at the University of Malawi, and is currently a senior lecturer in English at Newcastle University…….

Children's Games

This is a schoolyard
crowded
with children

of all ages near a village
on a small stream
meandering by

where some boys
are swimming
bare-ass

or climbing a tree in leaf
everything
is motion

elder women are looking
after the small
fry

a play wedding a
christening
nearby one leans

hollering
into
an empty hogshead

II

Little girls
whirling their skirts about
until they stand out flat

tops pinwheels
to run in the wind with
or a toy in 3 tiers to spin

with a piece
of twine to make it go
blindman's-buff follow the

leader stilts
high and low tipcat jacks
bowls hanging by the knees

standing on your head
run the gauntlet
a dozen on their backs

feet together kicking
through which a boy must pass
roll the hoop or a

construction
made of bricks
some mason has abandoned

III

The desperate toys
of children
their

imagination equilibrium
and rocks
which are to be

found
everywhere
and games to drag

the other down
blindfold
to make use of

a swinging
weight
with which

at random
to bash in the
heads about

them
Brueghel saw it all
and with his grim

humour faithfully
recorded
it.

William Carlos Williams
In 1883, William Carlos Williams was born in Rutherford, New Jersey. He began writing poetry while a student at Horace Mann High School, at which time he made the decision to become both a writer and a doctor. He received his MD from the University of Pennsylvania, where he met and befriended Ezra Pound, Who became a great influence on his writing, and in 1913 arranged for the London publication of Williams's second collection, The Tempers. Returning to Rutherford, where he sustained his medical practice throughout his life, Williams began publishing in small magazines and embarked on a prolific career as a poet, novelist, essayist, and playwright……..

National Poetry Day Official Site
What’s On
Education
The Poetry Society

Nii Ayikwei Parkes

2011-09-30T20:58:00.001+01:00

Tail Of The Blue Bird.

This book is set mainly in the village of Sonokrom, deep in the Ghanaian bush country, although it’s only a few hours from Accra, Ghana’s Capital and largest city, things have remained the same for hundreds of years. This is a place where the people walk in step with their ancestors, where the old ways and the old words still have meaning, where they still understand Mother Natures tongue and the only link to the modern world is a transistor radio. After the discovery of some suspicious, possibly human, remains in one of the village huts by the girlfriend of a government minister, who freaked out by what she sees, sets off a chain of events in Accra, that goes from her to the minister and from him to an ambitious corrupt police inspector and on to the hero of this book - Kayo Odamtten, a young man, who after studying forensic pathology in England, then working several years as a crime scenes officer in the Midlands, has returned home and now is working as a forensic pathologist for a private company in the capital. Kayo at first refuses, but is forced by the inspector, to work the case or face imprisonment on (false) conspiracy charges.

This story then returns to the village of Sonokrom, where Kayo sets about trying to solve this case.

This book is part traditional detective tale, part literary novel; blending both concepts seamlessly into a beautiful whole that manages to satisfy as a whodunit, whilst perfectly highlighting the disparities between the modern world and the traditional life of the village, that delights with it’s descriptions of the world it inhabits, scenes that don’t merely shine on the page but continue to glow on the retina and yet like all good social commentators, whilst showing the light, the writer doesn’t shy away from the darker side of this society, painting a vivid portrait of the madness & corruption inherent in the society.

Nii Ayikwei Parkes is a performance poet as well as a novelist and I think that is apparent in the way he plays with words, the way his characters come alive and the way he uses the traditions, myths, the very language of Ghana, then chucks in computers, mobile phones, chucks in chromatography test, digital cameras etc…… and at the point these meet, he creates his own language, creates this book, this beautiful deep elegant complex tale that had me smitten.

Nii Ayikwei Parkes
Nii Ayikwei Parkes(Wiki)
Nii Ayikwei Parkes (Peepal Tree Press)
Contemporary Writers
A Conversation with Nii Ayikwei Parkes at,
ImageNations (Promoting African Literature)

Tammy Ho Lai-Ming

2011-09-23T21:19:00.001+01:00

An Introduction.
These are two stunning poems by Tammy Ho Lai-Ming, the first one was originally featured in Singapore based Writers Connect and was chosen as a personal favourite of the poet. The second was first published in Sotto Voce Magazine, (Issue 1 Fall 2008) and was chosen by me purely on the grounds that I adore it. Although you should check out her site for a wider representation of how good a writer she is.

IT IS IMPOSSIBLE TO BE PARTIALLY GUTTED
    
i.
I vow never to speak to him again.

ii.
If you know what he said to me,
you'll understand:
Words coming out of his fingers,
in the cold darkening night: "I feel nothing
inside", "plaything".

You see, he sharpened
his words, each a blade, ready to kill.
He intensified his skills.

Maybe he's a fisherman, and I his flesh.
He said as much: "I hooked your chin,
and pulled you in". "My most beautiful catch."

Not only chin. Someone's mocked heart was curbed;
it dangled, shivered ever so slightly on display.
Do fish cry? Their tears mistaken for stubborn mist.


iii.
These are no lover's rites.
I vow never to open my mouth again.
:::::

INVISIBLE RED CORDS

Our austere old man under the moon
binds lovers' feet
with invisible red cords.
He has no need for wings, bows or arrows.
And he walks slow.

>
He knows there will be love
when love is seemingly uncalled for.
In his book of single mortals,
each to each,
ask, 'How's your foot?'
'How's your foot?'

>
Sometimes when he's bored,
he experiments with permutations
of man and woman.
Flipping carelessly through his book,
or ignoring its pages,
he ties loose strands together.

>
One couple in ten thousand,
feet hobbled,
are dragged to the altar.
Pulling at their bowties and necklaces;
they feel an invisible noose
tightening around their throats,
as our austere old hangman
ties the knot.

Tammy Ho Lai-Ming is a Hong Kong born writer, now based in the UK, where she is working on her PhD thesis on neo-Victorian fiction. (Department of English, King’s College London). She previously studied at the University of Hong Kong obtaining a BA with first class honours and a Master of Philosophy, with a thesis titled "Reading Aloud and Charles Dickens's Style", an exploration of how Dickens's writing style was influenced by the period practice of reading aloud, a practice Dickens was a keen advocate of, whether publicly or in private. The thesis also discusses the interrelation between literature and linguistics (especially the concept of orality/aurality and iconicity) in prose fiction. Between 2005 – 2008, she worked as a demonstrator at the School of English, the University of Hong Kong, also working as a teacher and helping to organise various literary and academic events for the School of English and the Faculty of Arts, including a three-day international conference Hong Kong Culture: Word and Image (6-8 December 2007) for the Faculty of Arts, HKU. The conference brought together renowned local and overseas scholars who are working on the visual and cultural representations of Hong Kong. She has continued this at King's College London, helping organise events, including a cross-disciplinary discussion series entitled Creative King's (Spring 2009). She is also actively involved in the reading group, The Shows of London Nineteenth-Century Group and as an editor of the AHRC-funded journal, Victorian Network .

She was nominated for a Pushcart Prize (2008) for her poem "Elegy To A Brother Who Wrote Autobiographical Poems" (first published in Boxcar Poetry Review) and Frostwriting nominated her poem "The Famine" (first published in Quarterly Literary Review Singapore and reprinted in Frostwriting) for inclusion in Best of the Net Anthology (2009). She edited Hong Kong U Writing: An Anthology( 2006) and co-edited Love & Lust ( 2008), and was a Co-editor of Word Salad Poetry Magazine, she also served as an Assistant Poetry Editor of Sotto Voce Magazine.

She is also the founding co-editor (with Jeff Zroback) of the first Hong Kong based international online English literary journal (and all round fantastic read) Cha: An Asian Literary Journal, an editor of the India-based journal Criterion and a Contributing Photographer to THIS Literary Magazine.

I've been following Tammy (t) for a while on twitter and knew what a fine poet she was, but it’s only since I attempted to piece together this biography that I’ve come to realise how involved in the world of writing/poetry she is, she breathes, bleeds, lives poetry and on the strength of those I’ve read we are better off because of it.

Explore the links and the poetry written within. At the moment there are no books, but that is, I believe, just a matter of time and when it happens I hope she saves a copy for me.

A Conversation with Tammy Ho Lai-Ming(LR)

A Fine Cup Of Tea (The Critical Arm Of Cha:)

Cha: An Asian Literary Journal

Cha: Blog

Qarrtsiluni

Tammy Ho Lai-Ming

This is a poem that featured in Phantom Kangaroo

The girl whose face is in faux porcelain bowls

pomes ALL SIZES

@Pomesallsizes

If you have a Poem/ Poet, you admire please introduce them to me.

Maybe This Time - Alois Hotschnig

2011-09-17T20:22:00.001+01:00

You are walking down a road, you take a turn, let’s say for examples sake, left, and carry on walking, gradually something, some feeling, starts to disturb your equilibrium, you let it go, and continue walking but this feeling starts to grip, it’s as if something saurian is using your spine as a percussion instrument, there’s an eight millimetre drill bit slowly boring into the back of your skull turn by turn. You spin round tracing your route back with your eyes glancing off every surface, tracing every obstacle – it all looks the same, in the distance the traffic appears to flow as before, the sun is still shining, you about turn and face your intended route, willing whatever’s making you feel this way to show itself. Nothing does, to all intents and purpose this is just a route to your destination, it has the same cars, the same road furniture, the houses line up as regular as soldiers on parade, the same as elsewhere, the same curtain twitches as the same old lady turns from the window - and yet……..
.

Somehow you’ve entered the universe of Alois Hotschnig, this is the rabbit hole and Alice is so far outside her comfort zone - it hurts. These nine tales have an interior logic of their own, like dreamscapes they inhabit that hinterland just outside our line of sight, just beyond our awakened selves and can easily trip over into a nightmare realm. Hotschnig comes over as a bored and decadent God playing a malevolent game of Sims*. .

In the first tale the narrator appears obsessed with his neighbours, following their every movement, he is disturbed by their complete disregard of him, yet feels himself under surveillance. In another an old woman invites a man into her house and although he doesn’t know her, she appeared to be expecting him, then introduces him to a doll with the same name and looking exactly like him, in another tale we follow a beetle and through the cold observations of the narrator we watch it die as it’s attacked & eaten alive by ants. Meike Ziervogel states “Outwardly normal events slip into drama before they tip into horror” and this rings true, these tales confound, bemuse…unsettle and like some poltergeist that has taken up residence in your mind, they bang and clatter, long after the book is back on the shelf.

Alois Hotschnig (born 1959) is an Austrian writer, he began studying medicine before switching to German and English studies at the University of Innsbrück. In 1989 he won the sponsorship award of the state of Carinthia for his story Aus (Out). Although Hotschnig has written novels (Leonardo's Hands, Ludwig's Zimmer (room) ) he is considered important as a short story writer, in 2008 he received the Erich Fried Prize, with the jury stating that “ more than any other German language writer he affirms and develops the unjustly neglected “literary form of the short story” and in 2010 was shortlisted for Jan Michalski Prize for Literature, TheSüddeutsche Zeitung praised him “as one of the best authors of his generation”.

.
I received this book from Peirene Press , a fabulous independent publishing house, who are committed to publishing world class literature and high quality translations, specializing in contemporary European literature. They tend to be books of less than 200 pages, that potentially can be read in around the same time it takes to watch a DVD. They scour the winners and short listed books from the most prestigious literary prizes in the various European countries, such as the French Prix Médicis, the German Georg Büchner Preis, the Polish Nike, the Czech Magnesia Litera etc., with the aim of releasing the literature of the highest quality in English translation - This is the second book I’ve had from them and their success rate has so far been a 100%.

.
Alois Hotschnig . Com
Alois Hotschnig(Wiki)
International Literature Festival – Berlin
Peirene Press
*Sims.

The world of blogging is continually changing(BBAW)

2011-09-16T21:18:00.001+01:00

The world of blogging is continually changing. Share 3 things you believe are essential tried and true practices for every blogger and 1-3 new trends or tools you’ve adapted recently or would like to in the future.

When I started this Blog I hadn’t a clue what I was doing, I was bashing out posts with no idea of the results, for all intents and purpose I was still that lone insular reader I had always been. Then I started getting comments, which started a dialogue between myself and the individuals commenting, which still goes on now over a year later. Many books have past through that dialogue, but it’s essentially the same – the desire to express a passion for the written word, in whatever form it takes. So my first practice is if you like a blog or a post on a blog let them know - even if your opinion differs - start a dialogue, which leads to my second tried and true practice. If someone comments on your blog/post, reply because what you want is to build a rapport with these people, your fellow bloggers, you want to start a conversation, not get trapped in what is essentially a monologue (if that was the case, don’t have a comments box). This leads with almost pre-planned ease to my third tried and trusted thingummy bob – praise those that are there for you, support those that support you, this is the essence of networking, as a group of individuals with a shared purpose. A perfect example of this is BBAW, which is made up of a mass of readers and bloggers all in their own insular worlds coming together to become a worldwide support network of Bookfiends.

The second part of this question, what new trends or tools you’ve adapted recently or would like to in the future? The obvious one is Twitter, this is a fantastic tool for Blogging. Now, I’m a relatively latecomer to this, but I’ve found it a fabulous help, forget how it can help promote your post (which it can) but the networking capabilities of it are fantastic, some mornings I’ve been involved in book related chatter, that involved people in Asia, Australia, Europe, America etc., which definitely makes my day start with a big grin. The second is my smartphone, most bloggers who’ve received a comment from me, have received it by my phone, my tweeting is via an app on my phone as is my Goodreads app, my blogger app & then there’s another app, which is also my third chosen tool - Google Reader.

Hito
Human
>
Side-view of homo sapiens
Once bending with arms down
Now matchstick torso striking out,
Stark and upright earthling,
A figure striding, God knows where
Springy twiglike upside-down Y.
A wishbone. A divining rod.
Hito. Human. Ein Mensch.
>
Naked and maskless.
Here neither female nor male
A bare-boned biped.
>
And yet a self-reflecting mind.
At first two downward strokes
Inscribed on bone or tortoise shell,
A bare pictograph.
Bit by bit crisscross of symbols,
Living lives of their own,
A pointing out and interplay,
A signal’s doubleness.

Grounded sign-maker,
High-minded and down-to-earth.
Our human being.
>
Michael O’Siadhail.

Hispanic Heritage Month (September 15 to October 15)

2011-09-14T19:58:00.001+01:00

Around the beginning of September, I received an e-mail from Larry Dignan, at Online college Courses, stating that they would like to share an article “50 great Hispanic Novels Every Student should read” they had posted on their site for Hispanic Heritage Month (September 15 to October 15). Now, to be honest I had not heard of this, so a quick bit of wiki research and I learnt Hispanic Heritage Month in the United States is the period when people recognize the contributions of Hispanic Americans to the United States and to celebrate Hispanic Cultural heritage and Hispanic culture.

September 15 was chosen as the starting point for the celebration because it is the anniversary of independence of five Latin American countries: Costa Rica, El Salvador, Guatemala, Honduras and Nicaragua. They all declared independence in 1821. In addition, Mexico, Chile and Belize celebrate their independence days on September 16, September 18, and September 21, respectively. Hispanic Heritage Month also celebrates the long and important presence of Hispanic Americans in North America. Armed with this knowledge I starting scanning some of the books in the list and rapidly came to the conclusion that apart from some of my favourite writers, “this was a collection of some of the greatest writers in history. Hailing from South and Central America, Spain, the Caribbean and the United States alike, they offer insights not only into Hispanic traditions and norms, but some issues central to humanity itself — like time, love, mortality, passion and personal identity”.

On the website they’ve collected 50 books to help you start your exploration of Hispanic literature. Whether you’re a college student majoring in Latin American studies, Spanish or something else entirely, this is a great collection of novels,- of which I’ve posted 1 – 20 from the list, check them out; pick one up and celebrate

Spain

There would be no Hispanic literature without Spain, so here are some of its best novels.

1. Don Quixote by Miguel de Cervantes

Hapless Alonso Quixano is an aging man, obsessed with books on chivalry. As he delves further into them, losing sleep and his sanity, he embarks on his own quests as a knight. A title that frequently tops list of best novels ever written, it’s a must-read for any college student.

2.Three Exemplary Novels by Miguel de Unamuno

Not a novel proper, but a series of shorter novellas, this work is perhaps one of the best written by the Spanish novelist, philosopher and playwright. Don’t skip the prologue, as many feel it is the best part.

3.The Family of Pascual Duarte by Camilo Jose Cela

Written in 1942 by Nobel Laureate Cela, this book caused an uproar when it was released and subsequently ended up banned. Why? The novel was part of the tremendismogenre, which is marked by extended and frequent violent scenes. Not for the faint of heart, it is nonetheless a great work of literature.

4.The Shadow of the Wind by Carlos Ruiz Zafon

This bestselling novel is set in post-Spanish Civil War Barcelona and focuses on a young boy who becomes entranced by a book he finds in a secret, old library. This leads him to seek more works by its enigmatic author — with interesting results.

.,<

5.All Souls by Javier Marias

At first glance, this novel appears to be about nothing much at all — no murder, no intrigue — yet for the careful reader, all of these elements are bound up in the subtle prose. While fiction, it caused uproar at Oxford and Cambridge, as many professors thought the characters had been based on them.

6.A Heart So White by Javier Marias

With a title drawn from Macbeth, this ambitious novel chronicles the life of Juan, who is struggling to both understand and hide the past (his own and his father’s) from himself.

7.The Rats by Miguel Delibes

A leading literary figure in Spain after the Civil War, Delibes’ work made a splash both in his native Spain and abroad. One of his literary masterpieces, The Rats, builds a story around small autobiographical anecdotes surrounding a small Castilian village that has disappeared.

8.The Innocent Saints by Miguel Dilibes

Sometimes translated as The Holy Innocents, this 1981 novel follows the destruction of a rural Spanish family who suffer under caciques — ruthless local leaders who use their power to sway politics in their favour.

9.Bartleby & Co. by Enrique Vila-Matas

Drawing on characters like Melville's Bartleby the Scrivener, this novel addresses some big questions in literature and life alike. Told through the point of view of a hunchback who himself cannot write, this award-winner is a great choice for any student of literature.

10.Cathedral of the Sea by Ildefonso Falcones

Falcones isn’t a novelist by profession — he’s actually a high-profile lawyer — but you wouldn’t know it by reading this. Set in 14th century Barcelona at the height of the Inquisition, it traces the building of the Santa Maria del Mar Cathedral and the life of one young boy as he grows into a man during those tumultuous times.

11.Soldiers of Salamis by Javier Cercas

Blending real life with imagination, this novel follows a political prisoner during the Spanish Civil War. He survives through miraculous circumstances, and his story is told through the lens of a modern-day journalist investigating his life.

12.Time of Silence by Luis Martin Santos

Spanish psychiatrist and writer Santos rose to fame with the release of this novel, considered one of the 20th Century’s greatest Spanish novels. It draws heavily on the literary devices employed by James Joyce, like stream of consciousness and interior monologues, to tell the story of a doctor accused of killing a woman who dies while he tries to help her. With sex and death central to the novel, it was considered racy in 1962 and ended up censored. It was not put out in full until almost 20 years later.

13.A Manuscript of Ashes by Antonio Munoz Molina

Part history, part mystery and part love story, A Manuscript of Ashes follows a young man who goes into hiding in his uncle’s country home to escape Franco’s police. There, he discovers a steamy love triangle, a murder and, potentially, a literary masterpiece.

14.The City of Marvels by Eduardo Mendoza

Written in the picaresque style, The City of Marvels combines fantasy and history to vividly paint Barcelona at the turn of the century, caught between two disastrous World’s Fairs. At the centre of the novel is Onofre Bouvila, an unscrupulous young man who dives headfirst into the city’s seamy underbelly.

15.The Life Story of the Swindler called Don Pablos by Francisco de Quevedo y Villegas

Perhaps more often referred to as El Buscon, this picaresque novel was written around 1600 and takes a satirical look at Spanish life, following a swindler who wants to learn and become both virtuous and a gentleman.

16.Usurpers by Franscisco Ayala

This classic book contains seven short stories that focus on the theme of power, often in a highly negative and cautionary manner, with characters alluding to real-life figures.

17.Nada by Carmen LaForet

Sent to live with her crazy (not in the charming sense) relatives in post-Civil War Barcelona, the young girl at the heart of this novel is weighed down by more than just her family. The oppressive politics of the time, which, while never mentioned directly, are always looming in the background.

………………………

……………………….

<

Argentina

Argentine authors have produced some amazing works of literature. Here are just a few you should be sure to check out.

18.Ficciones by Jorge Luis Borges

While this is not a novel, but a collection of short stories, we couldn’t leave it off this list of great Hispanic literature. Ficciones is not an easy read, but well worth the effort to learn more about one of the 20th century’s greatest writers.

19.Kiss of the Spider Woman by Manuel Puig

The name might be familiar to you through the Broadway production based on the novel. The book is almost entirely a dialogue, with no indication of who is speaking, and multiple plots and subplots can make it a challenging read, but the story at its heart makes it all worthwhile.

20.Artificial Respiration by Ricardo Piglia

Delving into complex issues of philosophy and political history, this book has been called one of the most important works of Latin American literature to come out in the past few decades.

For the rest of this list (20 – 50) check out - 50 Great Hispanic Novels Every Student Should Read at the online college courses site. Then state your favourites, or find some new ones.

Also for those interested, here’s a post I have written about a couple of books dealing with the subject of Spanish literature, the first book is Oxford University press’s VSI Spanish Literature, which is a handy guide on the subject and the second is Granta’s The best Of Young Spanish Language Novelists, which offers an introduction to new writers - From Andres Barba (Spain) to Alejandro Zambra (Chile), this is a great collection of stories.

Have You read any of these, is so which ones would you recommend?

Snakes and Ladders (BBAW)

2011-09-12T05:25:00.001+01:00

As a book blogger, you start whispering your first thoughts, your posts, then as your confidence builds, you get not necessarily louder, but your voice carries better - further, you feel your ability to express your thoughts, to confidently map out the process by which you arrived at a conclusion has improved. This Situation comes about via the support network you build up starting with that first individual that heard your earliest whispers and answered - this gives you that boost, that sets you up, for those dark days when no one seems to know you’re alive, because blogging can be a bit like snakes and ladders, there are days when all you do is climb, when everything you write resounds like a bell clear to all, and then there are those that, no matter what you do, you appear to be shouting into a vacuum and down the snake you go. Slowly this little community builds and if you are lucky continues growing, but if you are extra lucky you never loose those original individuals that were there at the start.

My first ever comment was from Pete Karnas from What You Read, a fantastic blogger living in China and who I still regularly exchange comments with, also three other bloggers that were there in those first days are Gina from Books, art, and other distractions, Bellezza from Dolce Bellezza & my first ever and still favourite challenge Japanese Literature Challenge (now in it’s fifth season). There is also an individual who constantly makes me up my game with the books he finds and the other reason for my continued admiration for the works of Japanese Writers: Mel U, of The Reading Life. Thankfully I’m still in regular contact with these people and my blogging world is a lot better for it. So a big thank you for being there in the early days and for still being there now.

"A Ribbon Around A Bomb".

2011-09-09T21:37:00.001+01:00

What The Water Gave Me -

Poems After Frida Kahlo.

Pascale Petit.

Frida Kahlo was born in Coyoacán, Mexico, July 6th 1907, one of four daughters born to a Hungarian-Jewish father and a mother of Spanish and Mexican Indian descent. At the age of six she developed polio, which caused her right leg to appear a lot thinner than the other, this remained with her for the rest of her life. When she was eighteen she was seriously injured in an accident with a bus, resulting in fractures to her spine, collarbone and ribs, a shattered pelvis, shoulder and foot injuries, over a year in hospital and more than 30 operations in her lifetime, whilst in convalescence she began to paint. At twenty two she married Diego Rivera, the famous Mexican muralist who was twenty years her senior, whom she described as "I suffered two grave accidents in my life…One in which a streetcar knocked me down and the other was Diego." Theirs was a volatile relationship that had to cope with numerous infidelities, the pressures of careers, divorce, remarriage, Frida's bi-sexual affairs, her poor health and inability to have children.

All of this feeds into her paintings, which are remembered for “ it’s pain and passion” the intense colours and how she incorporated Mexican culture and Amerindian cultural traditions into her work, which has sometimes been characterized as Naïve art or folk art, although her work has also been described as "surrealist", and in 1938 André Breton, principal initiator of the surrealist movement, described Kahlo's art as a "ribbon around a bomb".

What The Water Gave Me (1)

I am what the water gave me,

a smoke-ring in a jar,

.

the braided rope

my ladder-to-the-light,

.

my shivering bird-heart

caught,

.

my mouth a bubble

of not-yet-breath,

.

while in my nuclei

two spirals dance,

.

my budding body sheathed in pearl

as I learn,

.

even before birth,

to doodle in the dark.

.

Pascale Petit is a French-born poet who grew up in Wales and lives in London, she trained as a sculptor at the Royal College of Art, spending the first part of her life as an artist, before choosing to concentrate on poetry. She has published five collections of poetry, two of which were shortlisted for the TS Eliot Prize and featured as Books of the Year in the Times Literary Supplement and the Independent. In 2004 the Poetry Book Society selected her as one of the Next Generation Poets. This is her second collection that deals with the life and art of Frida Kahlo, the first “The Wounded Deer” was published in 2005, after which she wrote “ The Huntress (2005) followed by the “Treekeeper’s Tale” (2008) and yet Kahlo still haunted her, more poems kept coming resulting in this new collection “What The Water Gave Me”, which contains fifty-two poems exploring how trauma can become art, how an artist channels the pain and angst, the joy and terror experienced in life through some alchemical process into an image on canvas that has the power to alter those that look upon it, to haunt long after the picture has faded from the eye.

By adopting the voice of Frida Kahlo in these poems, Pascale stated that she found it exhilarating to become this artist, and by this medium she found she could write about such difficult subjects as childhood trauma and sex, without the need to be confessional, she also said that “For each poem I meditated on a painting, not just on the subject, but her process: the colours and brushstrokes, until I could create my own ‘painting’ with words. My poem versions bear the titles of her paintings and juxtapose images from them with incidents in her life. For example, in my poem ‘Remembrance of an Open Wound’, I superimposed the accident with her sex life with Diego, so there is joy as well as brokenness.”. Also having been through a long illness herself, she could identify with the artists isolation and need to remake herself……

Still Life.

The sun and the moon

have shrunk

.

to the size of an orange

and a pomegranate.

.

they hover above

my bedside table

.

daring me to taste them.

.

These poems pare away layers of flesh to get to the very heart of the artist, to capture that moment of transmutation, although in Kahlo’s instance transubstantiation would work – the change from a figure of pain ridden flesh, to an artist whose life was her palette, her myth. Pascale Petit takes all these moments, these heartbeats and processes them through her own art. Refracting all as though through a prism revealing the whole spectrum of the beauty and terror, pain and redemption inherent in Kahlo’s work, Les Murray (Times Literary Supplement) said “No other British poet I am aware of can match the powerful mythic imagination of Pascale Petit.” and on the strength of this collection I’m inclined to agree with him. This is her third book to be shortlisted for the TS Eliot Prize for poetry, the other two being “The Zoo Father” and “The Huntress” and based on this work it’s only a matter of time till she rightfully takes here place with previous prize winners such as, Derek Walcott, Carol Ann Duffy, Seamus Heaney, Ted Hughes, Alice Oswald etc.

This book was sent to me by Seren, an independent publisher, whose ethos is to produce quality writing across a wide-ranging list which includes poetry, fiction, translation, biography, art and history, and are proud of the fact that many of their books and authors are shortlisted for – and have won - major literary prizes across Britain and America. Their reasoning as stated here is “ At the heart of our list is a good story told well or an idea or history presented interestingly or provocatively, what used to be called literary publishing before accountants and managers gained ascendancy. We’re international in authorship and readership though our roots remain here in Wales (seren = star in Welsh) where we prove that writers from a small country with an intricate culture have a worldwide relevance.” They also have a great idea on their site - That if you have a Blog you can request a book for review from their catalogue, which is how I came by this great collection of verse.

The Links

Pascale Petit’s (official Site)

Pascale Petit’s Blog

Seren (Author Page)

Seren (UK)

Black Lawrence Press (USA)

pomes ALL SIZES

@pomesallsizes

If you have a Poem/ Poet, you admire please introduce them to me.

THIRST – Ken Kalfus

2011-09-02T21:19:00.001+01:00

“Copyright 1998. All rights reserved. No part part of this paragraph may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, oral, or telepathic, including photocopy, recording, transcription, tracing, hot type, cold type, mimeograph, ditto (in school, the copies, made between classes, would be handed to us while they were still warm and moist, their ink bearing a thick, intoxicating fragrance that would compel us to raise the sheets to our faces and think, so, this is what blue smells like) teletype, telefax, telephone, semaphore, skywriting, whisper, seance, confession……….”

Above is the start of the first tale - whether it’s a short story, preface, essay or poetry (I could accept it as a poem), I’m not sure - but in two & a half pages it begins as though it were a legal document, before becoming a list that soon developes nostalgic yearnings leading it in the direction of Proust's “ À la recherche du temps perdu”, where through descriptions of devices you cannot use to copy the piece with, memories are evoked and, like some temporal shift you are back to a point in time “where thirty adolescents press inky sheets of paper against their faces as if,” before ending two and a half pages later with

“The memory still resists full description. After such failure, of what use is copyright? This paragraph contains the complete text of the hardcover edition. NOT ONE WORD HAS BEEN OMITTED”

David Foster Wallace described this book, as a book to give someone who is negative about the future of American fiction, going on to say that there are hip, funny writers and there are wise, moving and profound writers. Kalfus is all of these at once, whether it’s a tale of sexual awakening in Paris (Le Jardin de la Sexualité), or a fictitious series of questions, that has more to do with the Human story, than the given answers (The Joy and Melancholy Baseball Quiz), or a tale that appears to be a homage to Calvino’s “Invisible Cities” (Invisible Malls) which starts

“Kublai Khan does not necessarily believe everything Marco Polo says when he describes the indoor shopping malls visited in his travels around the empire, but he listens to the young Venetian with greater attention than he has shown any other messenger or explorer”.

Marco then goes on to describe a series of shopping malls like Monica, an indoor shopping mall entirely occupied by the past, filled with boutiques with mickey mouse watches & ashtrays from the 1939 New York world’s fair. Then there are malls dealing with desire, here you can see items - golden fleeces, holy grails, elixirs that deliver eternal life etc.- however everything is priced slightly higher than you think it’s worth, so you leave, regret this decision and return with the realisation that the item that took your fancy was worth more than you originally thought, only to discover the price has been raised, this goes on ad infinitum. Invisible malls describes several other malls as well as the ones mentioned above.

Thirst also has tales set in a rain soaked third world jungle and a plague ridden Renaissance Venice, whether they are nostalgic tales about childhood, or adults living parallel lives, Kalfus manages to amaze with his slightly skewed stories, tales that although, on the surface humorous, still manage to make you aware of the tragedy lurking beneath. These are fantastic stories full of the absurd and more real for it.

Ken Kalfus.com

Publishers Page

Ken Kalfus(Wiki)

Salon Books Interview

A Big And Hearty Thank You

2011-08-28T20:56:00.001+01:00

I’ve been umming and arghing about writing this post, but having been convinced by my family(Ta, family) that it’s not boasting and combined with the realisation that I do owe a very large BIG THANK YOU, to those who took the time to confront the labyrinth that was the BBAW registration and nomination form and vote for me. End result is I’ve been nominated in two of the niche categories - Best Poetry Blog and Best Eclectic Book Blog, which humbled and yet made me really proud that my fellow bloggers and Bookfiends liked what I do here at The Parrish Lantern. This has left me with an interesting dilemma. It seems you can only go forward in one niche category and after much consideration, a lot of pacing back and forth I have decided to choose - Best Eclectic Book Blog, on the grounds that although I feature poetry on the blog, there is not yet enough to fulfil the criteria of five separate posts (which must include book reviews), so best eclectic it is, and these are the posts I’ve chosen.

A Void - Georges Perec

Behind The Verse (Bloodaxe Books)

If On A Winters Night A Traveller – Italo Calvino

Discuss Your Thoughts On Sentimentality In Literature

A Personal Library (A Reader On Reading – Alberto Manguel)

Hope you agree with what I’ve chosen, as it’s your input that inspires me, whether this is through book suggestions, poems, links etc. or in my attempts to improve The Parrish Lantern. So this is a big..

Junichiro Tanizaki

2011-08-26T22:27:00.001+01:00

The Secret History
Of The Lord Of Musashi
and Arrowroot.    trans
Anthony H. Chambers.
In 1948, after completing his great novel “The Makioka Sisters”, Tanizaki wrote that of his works he liked “Some Prefer Nettles” and “Arrowroot” best. The Secret History of the Lord of Musashi, he described as another favourite and often spoke of a sequel (of which an outline was found after his death). Arrowroot and The Secret history of… are from the middle of this writer’s amazing career. By the time he wrote Arrowroot, all his previous work, the novels, stories, plays and essays had been collated into a volume and published as his “Complete Works” 20 years of work and he’d only just got started, he would go on entertaining, shocking and perplexing his audience for another 35, along the way he received The Imperial Award for Cultural Merit and achieved the distinction of being the first Japanese Writer to be elected (Honorary) to membership in The American Academy &amp; Institute of Arts and Letters.

The Secret History of the Lord of Musashi, is set in the 16 century, opening with the main protagonist, a royal hostage, in a siege stricken castle, there as a peace token (a common practice worldwide around that period), the lord is a 12 year old child and finds all the action taking place around him very exciting, in fact he begs his attendant, some lower ranked Samurai, to allow him to join the fray, but is refused. A few days later, whilst listening in to the conversation of a group of female hostages, he learns about Head dressing and one of the elderly female hostages offers him the chance to see it in action. She takes him secretly to the room where the practice of Dressing Heads takes place and she explains the custom of cutting off the head of a ranked Samurai to be brought back as a trophy to be presented to your lord, obviously a bloodied head would be considered poor show, so the heads are cleaned by the women then made to appear as alive as possible.

This sight, the women dressing the heads, has a bizarre effect on the 12 year old boy, he is entranced by the vision before him and starts to feel agitated as he becomes aroused by this experience, becomes excited by these feelings new to to him. After a while he notices a nose- less head and learns that if a warrior doesn’t have time to remove a head, he will slice off the nose so he can go back later and claim his trophy, this combined with the girl dressing it stirs an even greater level of feeling in his loins

“The girl carefully ran her comb through the nose less head’s lustrous black hair and retied the topnot; then as she always she gazed at the centre of the face, where the nose should have been and smiled. As usual the boy was enchanted by her expression, but the surge of emotion he experienced at that moment was far stronger than any he had felt before.”

Without giving too much away, this through a series of bizarre tales and adventures, develops into a full blown sexual fetish, which follows him and comes to dominate his life and his view of it, regardless of his ability as a warrior, what he becomes is as a servant to his warped appetites, all he does is in homage to that desire.
This was one strange and yet strangely enjoyable tale, Tanizaki’s take on the idea of Samurai legends & their histories, is as though through a fairground mirror, it twists and contorts the classic traditions and the ideals of nobility.The tale bowls you along with the narrator more an old gossip in some surreal drama than a historian of worth. But the end result is a sly clever tale that for all its deviant nature is wonderful.

……………..

Arrowroot, starts with the narrator explaining that it’s been twenty years since he travelled to the interior of Yoshino in Yamato and that his reason in doing so was research for a historic novel set around the heavenly king, who was heir to the southern court and around whom numerous legends have accumulated. He then goes on to discuss a catalogue of references, histories etc. such as, An Imperial progress to the southern hills, Records of the south, The Blossom Cloud chronicles, plus several others. Everything he discusses is related through these references, in fact to take it further his whole world is seen through this medium. As we follow the narrator we learn that he was orphaned at an early age being raised by relatives and when he checked his past he discovered his mother was sold to a tea house. There is a lot more that goes on in this tale, but it’s all told through the lens of the narrators learning and although beautifully told I found myself reading it as though listening to a lovely piece of music and although it didn’t have the immediacy of The secret History of the Lord of Musashi, I was entranced by the writing if not so much the content. In writing this I know of at least one individual who will probably disagree with me & who has himself written a far better post on this tale which I shall add a link to… The Reading Life, This link will also give you access to his great review on the first story as well.

Junichiro Tanizaki (Wikipedia)
Junichiro Tanizaki (Timeline)