Ricepaper Magazine, the Asian Canadian Writers’ Workshop and the Filipino Canadian Youth Alliance Presents:
“(NA)AWP: North Asian Americans Write Poetry, or Thank You, Canada, For Letting Us Land Our Planes”
Featuring KAZIM ALI, NICK CARBO, TINA CHANG, PAOLO JAVIER, TIMOTHY LIU, AIMEE NEZHUKUMATATHIL, OSCAR PENARANDA, RAVI SHANKAR, PRAGEETA SHARMA, and EILEEN TABIOS
WHEN: Friday, 7:00pm, April 1st 2005 WHERE: Our Town Café, 96 Kingsway ( Corner of Kingsway and Broadway)
BIOS:
KAZIM ALI is the author of the novel “Quinn’s Passage.” He is assistant professor of Liberal Arts at The Culinary Institute of America and an editor with Nightboat Books. His first book of poems “The Far Mosque” will be published this October by Alice James.
TINA CHANG, the author of Half-Lit Houses (Four Way Books, 2004), received an MFA in poetry from Columbia University.
Her poems have appeared in American Poet, Indiana Review, The Missouri Review, Ploughshares, Quarterly West, Sonora Review, among others. She has received awards from the Academy of American Poets, the New York Foundation for the Arts, Poets & Writers, the Van Lier Foundation among many others.
She currently teaches at Hunter College.
PAOLO JAVIER is the author of two books of poetry, ‘the t ime at the end of this writing’ (Ahadada), and ‘60 Lv Bo(e)mbs’ (O Books, fall 2005).
AIMEE NEZHUKUMATATHIL is the author of _Miracle Fruit_ (Tupelo 2003),winner of the Tupelo Press Judge’s Prize, ForeWord Magazine Poetry Book of the Year, and the Global Literary Filipino Award, and was a finalist for the Asian American Literary Award and the Glasgow Prize. She is assistant professor of English at State University of New York-Fredonia, right in the heart of Western NY’s cherry and berry country, where she lives with her dog, Villanelle.
NICK CARBO’s latest book is Andalusian Dawn. He lives in Hollywood, FL and teaches in the MFA program at University of Miami.
OSCAR PEÑARANDA, longtime community activist, advocate for ethnic studies in the schools, teacher and writer, has two books out recently published by San Francisco publisher/ distributor T’BOLI PUBLISJHING: “Seasons By The Bay, A Collection Of Interrelated Stories” and “Full Deck (Jokers Playing)”, a collection of poetry.
RAVI SHANKAR is poet-in-residence at Central Connecticut State University and the founding editor of the online journal of the arts, . His first book Instrumentality, as published by Word Press in May 2004. His work has previously appeared in such places as The Paris Review, Poets & Writers, Time Out New York, Gulf Coast, The Massachusetts Review, Descant, LIT, Crowd, The Cortland Review, Catamaran, The Indiana Review, Western Humanities Review, Cake Train, The Iowa Review, Smartish Pace, and the AWP Writer¹s Chronicle, among other publications. He has read at such venues as The National Arts Club, Columbia University, KGB, and the Cornelia Street Café, has held residencies from the MacDowell Colony, Ragdale, and the Atlantic Center for the Arts, has served on panels at UCLA, Poet¹s House, South-by-Southwest Interactive/Film Festival, and the AWP Conference in Baltimore, been a commentator for NPR and Wesleyan radio, reviews poetry for the Contemporary Poetry Review and is currently editing an anthology of South Asian, East Asian, and Middle Eastern poetry. You can read an interview with him at: http://jacketmagazine.com/16/dev-iv-shank.html. He does not play the sitar.
TIMOTHY LIU is the author of five books of poems, including OF THEE I SING, which was named a 2004 Book of the Year by PUBLISHERS WEEKLY. A new book, FOR DUST THOU ART, is forthcoming from Southern Illinois University Press. Recent poems have appeared in Arabic, Chinese and Polish translations. An associate professor of English at William Paterson University and a member of the core faculty at the Bennington Writing Seminars, Liu lives in Hoboken, NJ.
PRAGEETA SHARMA is the author of Bliss to Fill (Subpress Books) and The Opening Question (Fence Books). She teaches in the graduate creative writing program at New School University and in the low residency BA program at Goddard College. She lives in Brooklyn, New York.
EILEEN TABIOS, recipient of the Philippines’ National Book Award for Poetry, recently released a multi-genre collection, I TAKE THEE, ENGLISH, FOR MY BELOVED, encompassing poetry, experimental fiction, art monograph, play and conceptual art. In 2006, she will release her 8th poetry collection, THE SECRET LIVES OF PUNCTUATIONS, VOLUME I. She is also the founding editor/ publisher of Meritage Press, a multidisciplinary press based in St. Helena and San Francisco, CA.
Nguyen Du (1765-1820) was the foremost Vietnamese poet of his time. The following translation is taken from A Thousand Years of Vietnamese Poetry, translated by Nguyen Ngoc, W.S. Merwin, and my friend Burton Raffel. In this poem the poet addresses the lost souls who have no relatives to pay them homage and give them sacrifices and prayers as required in the Pure Land tradition of Buddhism.
Summons To The Souls
In the seventh month, off and on it rains like someone sobbing,
The autumn wind penetrates, ice-cold, to the bones.
What agony, an evening in the fall!
The reeds turn white, withered pawlownia leaves drop.
The evening sun softly stretches on white poplars,
On the pear trees dew settles here and there.
Who could remain unmoved at this sight?
Such is the earthly scene, how much more depressing it must be below!
In the long night where earth and sky are pitchblack
Do you have enough spiritual power to wander in the dark?
Pity the lot of creatures of the ten categories!
Solitary, your souls must drift about in foreign lands.
Not only is there no one to worship you with incense and smoke,
Your orphan souls still have to grope through the night.
No distinctions stand now between noble and humble,
What is there left to set the wise apart from the dumb?
Autumn starts, and I set up an altar to pray for your deliverance.
Dipping from this pure vase, I sprinkle you with a willow twig.
All prayers are directed toward the Compassionate Buddha,
That you may be freed and your souls go West.
There are those with proud ambitions
Set on conquering entire countries.
What use now to recall glorious fighting days?
How painful, now that your luck has run out!
All of a sudden rain poured and tiles broke.
Had you known, you would have remained humble.
Now your wealth and nobility breed jealousy and hatred,
Now your blood is spilling, your bones disintegrating.
Having no offspring, you form homeless bands roaming abroad,
Headless demons wailing on rainy nights.
Success, failure are thus a matter of chance
But when are your forsaken souls going to dissolve?
There were those living in orchid nets, lily screens.
You relied on being Heng-E’s in cinnamon-wall palaces.
The country went through a change of hands.
Where do you go now, you frail leaf-like creatures?
The pavilion may be high, water still runs under the bridge.
Is it unnatural that a hairpin gets broken, a vase dropped?
One moment you were surrounded by laughing crowds,
The next, you close your eyes with no one to collect your bones.
What a mortification, to be left with no incense or smoke!
Aimlessly you wander in the woods, by the brooks.
Alas for your limbs so tender, so weak:
They waste over the years, decay with every night.
There are those parading high hats and large sleeves:
In life and death, you always had red pen in hand.
Armed with a bagful of administrative knowledge,
You were Kwan and Chi by night, Yi and Chou by day.
The more prosperous and content you were, the more enemies you made.
You became a hundred kinds of ghosts in scattered graves.
A thousand gold pieces could not bring you back to life,
Your singing pavilions all have gone to pieces.
No relatives do you find now, anywhere,
To offer you a bowl of water or just some joss sticks.
Deserted souls you became, wafting back and forth.
Weighted down by the innocence you killed, you cannot be born again.
Then there were the strategists who laid out battles.
You rushed forward to steal the command seal.
You raised wind and storm, thunder and lightning,
Millions died to pave the way of one man’s glory.
An unlucky moment: A stray bullet, an arrow killed you.
Your flesh now rots, your blood spatters the battlefield.
Now you hover by the seashore, in distant places.
Who knows where thye are buried, your unclaimed bones?
Unfathomable the sky where storms rage and winds howl,
Darkness shrouds the land, a black pall over the earth.
The woods and meadows are wrapped in gloom,
No one is mourning you, no one is holding masses for you.
Others decided to follow the road of wealth.
You exerted yourselves, did away with sleep and food,
Only you kept all your relatives away:
Even if you had succeeded, to whom would you have left your fortune?
You lay down, no one there to receive your last words.
Did your earthly wealth assist you in any way?
Alive, you had money rolling in streams,
Dead, you could not even hold on to a penny.
What love do hired mourners have for you?
Your banyan wood coffin is carried away at night, by torchlight.
Lost in the expanse of fifth-month rice fields,
Where are you going to find an incense stick or a drop of water?
Others again aspired to the name of nobility.
Hopefully you went to the cities and stayed for ages.
One autumn succeeded another, you remained far from home.
With uncertain literary talent how could you expect to succeed?
Trudging from inn to inn, you met with poor weather.
Neither wife nor children were there to take care of you,
People bundled you up, buried you as best they could.
Friends and neighbors affect total indifference.
Far away are your home and village,
So through those crisscrossing the cemetery
You solitary souls try to send word home.
Only wind and moon are there, no lamps or joss sticks!
Still others roamed the seas and rivers.
Pushed by the east wind, your sails blew leeward.
Midstream, a tempest broke out to meet you
And you lay buried in the bellies of fishes.
Others went around trading goods.
Your shoulders show burns from carrying poles.
Winds and rains surprised you in the midst of nowhere:
Your souls are left hovering over the roads.
There are those conscripted into the army.
You left home to go on official duties.
Drinking from springs, eating from bamboo tubes,
For thousands of miles you were exposed to rain and shine.
In battle a man’s life is worth little more than dirt.
A stray bullet, a lost arrow brings you down at any moment.
Now your souls become flickering will-o’-the-wisps
Crying out for injustice, a sight all the sadder by night.
Others missed their chances all through life.
In youth, you went into the flower-and-moon business.
By the time you grew old you were lost,
With no husband or children on whom to rely.
Alive, you faced one hardship after another,
Dead, you have to depend on a charity bowl of gruel.
What a misery, to be born a woman!
What is the reason, the cause for such destinies?
Others had to sleep under bridges, heads resting on the ground.
Day in, day out, you went begging for food.
What a pitiable lot for human beings, like us all!
Depending on others
In death you were buried by the roads.
Others suffered injustice and stayed in jails for endless terms,
Their lives trusted to a single tattered mat.
Dead, their bones are buried in a dungeon corner.
When can your innocence be established and you be free?
Then there were the little babies
Born at the wrong hour, forced to leave father and mother.
Who takes care of you now, who carries you around?
How poignant your unformed cries must be!
Then, the ones drowned in rivers and rapids,
Those who slipped and fell from trees,
Those who died when well-ropes broke,
Those carried away in flood-waters, caught by fire.
Others met with mountain spirits and sea monsters,
Or got caught in wolves’ fangs, elephant tusks.
Some had children, but refused to raise them,
Others had abortions, others met with dire happenings.
Anyone walking on the road is likely to make a false step
And form endless queues with others on the Nei-ho bridge.
Who does not have his own distinct karma?
Where are they now whose souls and spirits have disintegrated?
Are you hiding in this bush or that clump,
Or are you hovering near brooks, amidst clouds?
Are you taking shelter under this grass-leaf or that tree
Or just wandering by this inn or that bridge?
For a time you take refuge in a temple or shrine
Or find lodging at the marketplace, near the riverbank.
Empty meadows also can provide you with places to stay
And so can a hillock, a bamboo grove, a sedge-clump.
Alive, all of you suffered one tragedy after another,
You spent days on end without food, in the biting cold,
For years exposed to the vagaries of life.
Yet now, you have to lament underground, sleep on dew,
Going into hiding every time the cocks crow
And groping your way out after sunset,
Forming dreary processions of children carried on the arms
And old people guided guided along.
Should you have knowing-power, come and listen to the Scriptures!
May you, through the Law, escape rebirth and reach the PureLand!
May His Aureated Light save you from suffering, deliver you from darkness!
In the four seas and all the lands
May the Lord Buddha shake away our anxieties and cleanse our hatreds,
May the All-knowing and Omnipresent Buddha
Change the Wheel of Life in the three Worlds and Ten Directions!
May the Great King Hsiao Mien
Lead the way for all creatures with his miraculous skiff!
May the Sacred and Powerful Law of Buddha
Awake you from your dreams and illusions.
May all of you who belong to the ten categories,
Men and women, old and young, come and listen to the Scriptures!
Like a bubble, a shadow, the world is forever impermanent.
The Scriptures teach us, “All appearances come from the Void.”
Let us then set our minds on following the Buddha,
We will then escape the Cycle of Birth.
Obeying Buddha’s teachings I set up this charity altar.
It does not hold much, only a bowl of gruel and some joss sticks,
A few pieces of clothing and some gold ingots,
To provide you with what is needed to go to Heaven.
Whoever comes, please stay, whatever your position.
Please do not hesitate, these are sincere gifts.
It is not much, but the Miraculous Law will make it into plenty.
Let the Surpremely Revered One apportion it equally among you.
Merciful Savior, Compassionate Buddha,
Please do not make distinctions between rich and poor.
Hail to Buddha, Hail to the Law, Hail to the Clergy!
Hail to all those who have ascended the Lotus Platform!
Notes:
Heng E–a Moon Princess–hence any beautiful, sheltered woman.
Kwan, Chi, Yi, Chou–Chinese historical figures. The first two were known for their administrative abilities. The last for his military skills.
The flower-and-moon business–prostitution.
Nei-ho bridge crosses over the river of blood and the dead must cross it to get to the other world.
A letter to me from Dr. David Jaffin dated March 1st answers the query I made about his being influenced by Cid Corman, or the reverse. It says, in part:
“The comparison with Cid Corman is interesting but at the same time limiting. I came across his work via the Elizabeth Press, long after my own style(s) had developed. I do admire his work. What we certainly have in common is: getting to the heart of the matter, short line, clarity, and we are both perhaps the most prolific of poets. Although I know much less of Corman’s poetry than I should, we are in certain ways quite different. I’m a metaphysical poet, perhaps not in the 17th century sense of the word, and my interests run away into other fields: history, Judaism, Christianity, art, music…And there is still a strain of an older tradition in my work as witnessed by In The Glass of Winter. All of those poems were rejected by The Elizabeth Press, which published at the same time As One (1975). Those two books, two sides, plus a shot of German expressionism make up more or less the whole of Jaffin….”
We hope to include sound files of David Jaffin reading his poetry in the near future.
A stunning new journal dedicated to the short poem in English, Noon arrived in my mailbox two days ago. The first impression one gets is of the quality and care that editor Philip Rowland incorporated into the material side of the magazine. Each copy is hand-bound with string in the old Japanese style and comes in a plastic slip-case. Both the cover and body of the magazine are printed on washi paper–wonderful to touch and the type-face is easy on the eyes. Lay-out is cleanly, and simply, done. This is, in short, a beautiful vehicle in which to show-case work that ranges through English language haiku, translations, prose-poems, visual poetry, two word “novels,” concrete poetry, and short lyrics. There are many fine poems in this first issue, including offerings from Sheila Murphy, John Phillips, and Bob Arnold, but pride of place has to be given to the two poets that editor Rowland positions at the beginning and end of the volume: the late Morris Cox, whose name is new to me, and Thomas A. Clark. Mr. Clark gives us two wonderful poems that I would like to reprint in full:
trembling of the leaves
trembling of the water
trembling of the light
thrown back by water
*
a ladder against
a quince tree
leading up into
leaves and fruit
*
Both of these tiny poems are freighted with Blake’s “minute particulars.” The utter simplicity, yet the rhythmic and visual components of the first, and the resonating specificity of the second are utterly engaging. All of this is priced by Mr. Rowland at a modest five pounds or $8.00 with two pounds or three dollars shipping and handling.
Both submissions and orders may be sent to:
Noon
Philip Rowland
Seijo 8-23-21-510
Setagaya-ku
Tokyo 157-0066
Japan.
Email: noon@jj.e-mansion.com
A second arrival was Philip Rowland’s own haiku/short poem sequence together still from Hub Editions/ Longholm/East Bank/Wingland/Sutton Bridge/Spalding/ Lincolnshire UK/ PE129YS.
This sequence is filled with fine short poems including, among my favorites:
full of sake
stumbling
upon stars
*
sitting in the sun
knowing nothing
and still knowing nothing
*
snow
man’s
vows
*
shadowless
all–
one bird
flying through the blizzard
*
There are many more powerful poems that take us through death, jealousy, despair, and leave us, finally, with a grace note. No price was given for this volume, but I imagine a note to Mr. Rowland will give the interested party that information as well.
Happy to recommend Death’s Jest-Book edited by that fellow of infinite jest Alan Halsey, and available for a phantom wooer’s song from West House Books. (See our distributors’ links.) This is a “…’reader’s edition’, without the distractions of a textual apparatus but including appendices of major variant passages and unplaced fragments.” Beddoes is one of the top two of our favorite suicide-poets (the other is Hart Crane), and Death’s Jest Book is in our top ten of “near-impossible to produce or even sit through” plays sharing the list with Artaud, Seneca, Grabbe and Foreman among others.
Like Hart Crane, Beddoes had a formidable ear, and this–as well as the arcane lore concerning the Luz bone written of first in the Zohar, etc.–brings us back again and again to enjoy the morbid delicacy of the songs. Here’s one of my favorite examples:
Song
I
In lover’s ear a wild voice cried:
‘Sleeper, awake and rise!’
A pale form stood by his bed-side,
With heavy tears in her sad eyes.
‘A beckoning hand, a moaning sound,
A new-dug grave in weedy ground
For her who sleeps in dreams of thee.
Awake! Let not the murder be!’
Unheard the faithful dream did pray,
And sadly sighed itself away.
‘Sleep on,’ sung Sleep, ‘to-morrow
‘’Tis time to know thy sorrow.’
‘Sleep on,’ sung Death, ‘to-morrow
From me thy sleep thou’lt borrow.’
Sleep on, lover, sleep on,
The tedious dream is gone;
The bell tolls one.
II
Another hour, another dream:
‘Awake! awake!’ it wailed,
‘Arise, ere with the moon’s last beam
Her rosey life hath paled.
A hidden light, a muffled tread,
A daggered hand beside the bed
Of her who sleeps and dreams of thee.
Thou wak’st not: let the murder be.’
In vain the faithful dream did pray,
And sadly sighed itself away.
‘Sleep on,’ sung Sleep, ‘to-morrow
‘’Tis time to know thy sorrow.’
‘Sleep on,’ sung Death, ‘to-morrow
From me thy sleep thou’lt borrow.’
Sleep on, lover, sleep on,
The tedious dream is gone;
Soon comes the sun.
III
Another hour, another dream:
A red wound on a snowy breast,
A rude hand stifling the last scream,
On rosy lips a death-kiss pressed.
Blood on the sheets, blood on the floor,
The murderer stealing through the door.
‘Now,’ said the voice, with comfort deep,
‘She sleeps indeed, and thou may’st sleep.’
The scornful dream then turned away
To the first, weeping cloud of day.
‘Sleep on,’ sung Sleep, ‘to-morrow
‘’Tis time to know thy sorrow.’
‘Sleep on,’ sung Death, ‘to-morrow
From me thy sleep thou’lt borrow.’
Sleep on, lover, sleep on,
The tedious dream is gone;
The murder’s done.
The Thomas Loveall Beddoes Society exists at 11 Laund Nook, Belper/ Derbyshire DE56 1GY/ U.K. and is always filling my mail box with great information like this: Beddoes attended Georg Buchner’s death bed, and probably knew Buchner and his works, as both the poet and the novelist moved in the same political and artistic circles. This is something I suspected, but the latest number of the society newsletter gives the proof!
These are a few of my translations of the experimental, free-form haiku of Santoka (1882–1940). Santoka practiced “Walking Zen” and traveled Kyushu, Honshu, and Shikoku on foot as an itinerant monk begging enough money for a cup of sake and a bowl of rice a day. Santoka’s father was a womanizer and a spend-thrift and his mother killed herself on account of this. His memory of her body being pulled from the well in which she drowned herself haunted him all of his life.
*
This
journey
without
goal–
weeping
locust.
*
Between life
death/snow
still falling.
*
Road
no end
loneliness.
*
On my straw
hat
dragonfly clings–
keep walking.
*
In this
blizzard
try to
sleep,
not die.
*
Rain
falling on
home
country–
walk barefoot/here.
*
Push
apart
step
thru
push
apart
step
thru
blue-green
mountain.
*
These
my hands
these
my feet
warm inside–
sleep.
*
All night
long
dogs bark,
I walk.
The difficulty in finding an English equivalent to Santoka’s highly compressed haiku is almost impossible. For instance, the famous “Push apart/step thru” haiku above has a sonic element that is apparent to any native speaker of Japanese. My students were kind enough to point it out to me one day during discussion. There is the feeling of a work song to the poem, which barely comes through in English.
I’ve been reading a wonderful introduction to Oral Poetry written by John Miles Foley. Written in a non-stuffy, unacademic manner, it is yet one of the most informative ventures into this topic, while remaining free of most of the jargon of Derrida, Blanchot and company. In addition, we are taken beyond the usual round of Homer, Lonnrot and anonymous Praise and Throat Singers and given a front seat at the Nuyorican Cafe for an ear-full of slam orality, which will definitely bring Professor Foley’s lessons home to students attuned to Rap and Ten Mile. There was one name missing, however, from this great book and I recently queried Professor Foley regarding this:
Dear Professor Foley,
I’m presently reading your wonderful introduction to oral poetry and am really finding it useful, but I’m a bit perplexed at the omission of Jerome Rothemberg or any consideration of his work from its pages. You cite Dennis Tedlock, and speak of Ethnopoetics, but do not give Mr. Rothemberg his due. Rothemberg is actually cited in many of the publications in your bibliography, including Paul Zumthor’s great text, which I’ve just finished. Any light you may shed on this matter would be greatly appreciated. Jesse Glass
Here is Professor Foley’s generous response:
Dear Mr. Glass,
Thanks for your note. I hope the book is useful.
There are many people and movements I could have covered, or covered more fully, in that book. And, indeed, I tried within limits to be as expansive as possible for the sake of encouraging a diversity of approach — very different from other books on oral poetry and, I think, very much needed if we are to avoid the trap of exclusivity. My focus on Dennis Tedlock’s work resulted from his attention to specifically theoretical matters, much like Dell Hymes’ work but of course from a different perspective and with different assumptions. Similarly, while I could have expanded the discussion of performance theory well beyond the work of Richard Bauman, I chose, in order to keep things as simple and direct as possible, to focus chiefly on his contribution.
Like many people, I have great respect for Jerome Rothenberg’s work, and have enjoyed his remarks and presentations at the People’s Poetry Gathering and during last year’s meeting of the Endangered Oral Traditions group, to which we both belong.
Best wishes,
John Foley
Professor Foley is also the director of the University of Missouri’s Center for Studies in Oral Tradition and the editor of its journal, which I’ll be subscribing to soon.
There was a boy living by the sea who loved seagulls. Each time he went to the shore, he cavorted with the birds, and more birds came to him than could be counted in the hundreds. Before and behind, left and right, he was completely surrounded by birds and spent the entire day playing with them, unwilling to leave the place. His father told him: “I have heard that all birds alight upon you. Catch some and bring them for me to play with.” The next day, no birds would come to him.
from pg. 448 of The Annals of Lu Buwei (239 B.C.) translated by John Knoblock and Jeffrey Riegel, Stanford U. Press, 2000.
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