ALBERT WOODFOX ~

 

R E A D    M E

WENDY CARLOS, COMPOSER ~

 

IN WALKED BUD ~

 

ETEL ADNAN ~

 

R E A D       M E

Nightboat Books

2020

MOHAMED CHOUKRI (PAUL BOWLES) ~

 

__________________

Mohamed Choukri (1935-2003) was a Moroccan writer and novelist, perhaps best known for his internationally acclaimed autobiographical novel, For Bread Alone. Enduring a childhood of poverty, homelessness and violence, Choukri eventually learned to read and write  in prison at the age of twenty. He went on to become a teacher and writer, and was awarded the chair of Arabic Literature at Ibn Batuta College in Tangier. Translated into more than thirty languages, Choukri works include Streetwise and In Tangier, which brings together his accounts of his encounters in the 1960s with Paul Bowles, Jean Genet and Tennessee Williams.

_________________________________

                                          Introduction by Paul Bowles

            Because I have translated several books from the Arabic I want to make a clear differentiation between the earlier volumes and the present work. The other books were spoken onto tape and the words were in colloquial Arabic called Maghrebi. For Bread Alone is a manuscript, written in classical Arabic, a language I do not know. The author had to reduce it first to Moroccan Arabic for me. Then we used Spanish and French for ascertaining shades of meaning. Although exact, the translation is far from literal.

It has been my experience that the illiterate, not having learned to classify what goes into his memory, remembers everything. This too is a technique. Total recall is like perfect pitch: it means nothing in itself, but it can be extremely helpful to the writer who uses it professionally. It seems almost a stroke of good luck that Choukri's encounter with the written word should have come so late, for by then his habits of thought were already fully formed; the educative process did not modify them. As a writer, then, he is in an enviable position, even though he paid a high price for it in suffering.

Choukri grew up under conditions of poverty excessive even for Morocco. Eight of his brothers and sisters died of malnutrition and neglect. Another brother was killed outright by Choukri's father in an access of hunger and desperation. Mohamed and one of two others managed to survive, even under these worst possible circumstances. For Bread Alone records his struggle for survival, up to the time the young man made the resolve to become literate. To have taken and implemented such a decision at the age of twenty is unusual.

To have passed in the space of five years from language the letters of the alphabet to writing poems and stories is even more unexpected.

                                                                                                                           PB

                                                                                                                           Morocco 1973

Telegram, London

2006

SIRI HUSTVEDT ~

 

R E A D      M E

NICK CAVE & WARREN ELLIS ~

 

ARDA COLLINS ~ EARLY ~

 

Early

The shells are on,

we are billowing.

The white inside

curves under the sky.

We're in a gray

and whitened day

horizontal to the air.

It reminds me of a little while

that's almost nothing.

It's not like anything;

the white in the branches

is near and low. Abalone rainbow;

life billows out

tomorrow, a swirling heart

invisible again.

Night,

what you look like,

blue iridescent

mother of pearl;

morning sun between the pines'

black lines; an atom in a shadow; a lake through the trees.

Rings on the water open

how I hear.

___________________

Star Lake

Arda Collins

The Song Cave, 2022

JOE BUSSARD ~

 

J O E     B U S S A R D

1936 ~ FREDERICK, MD ~ 2022

DOUGLAS CRASE ~

 

R E A D     M E

Nightboat Books, 2022

THE JAYNETTS ~

 

SUE MINGUS ~

 

S U E     M I N G U S

1930 ~ 2022

DAVID FOREMAN ~

 

D A V I D     F O R E M A N

1946 ~ Albuquerque ~ 2022

Photo: Monica Almeida/The New York Times

BOB ARNOLD ~ WILDLIFE

New Poems

Many-colored

& limited

$10

Free shipping

_________________

We accept Paypal

Please use our email address of 

longhousepoetry@gmail.com

Payable by check ~

Longhouse 

PO Box 2454

West Brattleboro, Vermont 05303

WHAT'S GOOD ~

 

R E A D    M E

SADEQ HEDAYAT ~

 

S E D E Q    H E D A Y A T

Penguin, 2022

PHAROAH SANDERS~

 

P H A R O A H     S A N D E R S

Little Rock, Ark., Oct 13, 1940 ~ Los Angeles, Set 24, 2022

IRYNA SHUVALOVA ~

 

into the sweet orchard

you will go, woman, into the sweet orchard

a bone through a throat

a chunk of clay that melts

slowly burying yourself

in the dark pond of his body

you'll go as if into a river

first — a large fish

with a white belly full of dreams

second — a bloody berry

a closed fist full of bitter seeds

third — an empty jar

with a narrow

neck full of song

each time you enter you won't have a name

each time you enter you'll carry a mouthful of names

you'll swallow them beyond the gates

so that again you won't have any

so that you can return

__________________________

Iryna Shuvalova

Pray to the Empty Wells

translated by Olena Jennings

Lost Horse Press, 2019

YVES BONNEFOY ~

 

YV E S    B O N N E F O Y

Seagull Books

2020

SLIM DUSTY ~

 

THE FIFTIES ~

 

R E A D      M E

LHASA DE SELA ~

 

ARAM SAROYAN ON SAROYAN ~

 

A marvelous interview with William Saroyan's

son, the poet Aram Saroyan

GET A JOB (LIVE) ~

 

Tomaž Šalamun ~

 

Maria

I

This is a book

for little girls.

The most

beautiful and perversely soft

book

for little girls' eyes.

Block-chested

stags

sprout from the soil.

They crap

and leave their mess

but I

can't tell

if they were here

or not.

II

I'm a

blueberry.

I'm the sweet black

blueberry

under the pine

in the forest.

I still have time

about two days

before

a little girl

or a shepherd

passes

with a cup

and a rake-comb.

III

I'm a she-mouse

who tumbled

through a long tunnel

onto the soft grass.

With my tiny teeth

I licked

the stovepipe

and with my

tiny claws

scratched through the wall

into the rosy day.

IV

And I stood at the

foot of the

fence

and watched

the cold peacock-butterfly

up above.

Clouds

rushed behind

his wings.

I lay down

head against the

fence,

drank all

the mother's milk

the oil of the earth.

V

And in the

snare jutting

from the corner of the stovepipe

I saw a mousetrap.

Out of a hole in the sky

rain fell.

I hit the mousetrap

with a straw

already rusty

it snatched at the

rowen

at the old grass

that the cattle ignored

to graze.

VI

I placed

on the anvil

a dainty shoe.

I hit it so

hard

sparks flew

when I resoled it.

I gave it no thought

how electricity

appeared

in the dark stovepipe

under the earth

how the shoe

appeared

in my fate.

VII

Then I gave

birth to little ones

through my

butt

and placed them on the

dark bottom

of the stovepipe.

I hewed a playpen

for them on

the shiny grass

stuck flags

in the humus

next to each

wooden leg.

I rested

a hand on my hip.

With the hand on my hip

I looked

up.

VIII

Most likely

flying birds

were

black spots.

I snatched the pacifier

from my son's mouth

that ruined

the angle of my hand

on my hip.

Clasping the pacifier

my hand swung

the span of

five inches.

IX

How is it

possible

to sleep on soft

grass in the sunless

black earth?

Can one see

the light

of the other sky?

I'm a she-mouse

red

the pinkest

among animals

pink paws

pink whiskers

I'm not even a mole.

X

Surround me

my snow-laden

blue-ravaged

leaves.

I'm the

dark red

unprotected

wild strawberry.

Who

caresses me

who

touches me

who will actually

pick me

is not yet clear.

____________________

Druids

Tomaž Šalamun

trans. Sonja Kravanja

Black Ocean, 2018

MAYA ABU AL-HAYYAT ~

You Can't

They will fall in the end,

those who say you can't.

It'll be age or boredom that overtakes them,

or lack of imagination.

Sooner or later, all leaves fall to the ground.

You can be the last leaf.

You can convince the universe

that you pose no threat

to the tree's life.

Wishes

She wished he'd been the first

she had loved and the last she would love.

The kind of wishes that repeat in love

stories and in stories of death:

"I wish today was the last day of this world

and that you were my final love."

Mere wishes to bombard time with.

Truly infidel wishes —

like wanting to be someone else

with kinder parents

who buy more presents for her

in a house with central heating

and windows overlooking the sea —

blind wishes that don't quit.

She wished it was love

like any love

patting her eyelids in the evening

as she waited on the balcony,

gathering her feelings with invocations,

fragrance, food, and kisses.

A love worth a thousand loves,

a love with two hands.

Daydream

I'll write about a joy that invades Jenin from six directions,

about children running while holding balloons in Am'ari Camp,

about a fullness that quiets breastfeeding babies all night in Askar,

about a little sea we can stroll up and down in Tulkarem,

about eyes that stare in people's faces in Balata,

about a woman dancing

for people in line at the checkpoint in Qalandia,

about stitches in the sides of laughing men in Azzoun,

about you and me

stuffing our pockets with seashells and madness

and building a city.

____________________

Maya Abu Al-Hayyat

trans. Fady Joudah

You Can Be the Last Leaf

 —selected poems

Milkweed Editions 2020

ADVENTURES IN OPERA ~

 

R E A D       M E

HORSE DRAWN TRAVELLER IN BRITAIN ~

 

JEAN-LUC GODARD ~

JEAN-LUC GODARD

JULIA MORGAN ~

 

R E A D      M E