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.

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                                          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.

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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

_________________

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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