embargopoets

2007-08-08T19:15:00.001-07:00

Talk about embargoed poets! The University of Iowa Press has just published a collection of poems by Guantanamo prisoners called : Poems from Guantanamo - The Detainees Speak. ($13.95, hardcover) The detainees have been composing and writing poetry, but the Pentagon has refused to declassify the poems, saying that poetry "presents a special risk" to national security because of its "content and format". Many of the poems have been lost, confiscated or destroyed, and a number have yet to be cleared for publication, but this small collection speaks with loud voices.
Adnan Farhan Abdul Latif, in a poem called Hunger Strike Poem, says:
They do not respect the law,
They do not respect men,
They do not spare the elderly
They do not spare the baby-toothed child

They leave us in prison for years, uncharged,
Because we are Muslims.

Where is the world to save us from torture?
Where is the world to save us from the fire and sadness?
Where is the world to save the hunger strikers?

and a poem by Jumah al Dossari

Take my blood.
Take my death shroud and
The remnants of my body.
Take photographs of my corpse at the grave, lonely.

Send them to the world,
To the judges and
To the people of conscience,
Send them to the principled men and the fair-minded.

And let them bear the guilty burden before the world,
Of this innocent soul.
Let them bear the burden before their children and before history,
Of this wasted, sinless soul,
Of this soul which has suffered at the hands of the "protectors of peace."

These poems, and the short biographical sketches which accompany them, let us see these up until now nameless, faceless "detainees" as human beings, creative, passionate friends, brothers, poets. We need to listen closely, and make a new future for the world.

2006-01-20T18:33:00.000-08:00

two poems for today

a poem from Aharon Shabtai, from his book J'Accuse, translated by Peter Cole

Rosh Hashanah

Even after the murder
of the child Muhammad on Rosh HaShanah
the paper didn't go black.
In the same water in which the snipers
wash their uniforms,
I prepare my pasta
and over it pour
olive oil in which I've browned
pine nuts,
which I cooked for two minutes with dried tomatoes,
crushed garlic, and a tablespoon of basil.
As I eat, the learned minister of foreign affairs
and public security
appears on the screen,
and when he's done
I write this poem.
For that's how it's always been -
the murderers murder,
the intellectuals make it palatable,
and the poet sings.

and a poem by Maxine Kumin, from the Nation (Jan.23,2006)

What You Do

when nobody's looking
in the black sites what you do
when nobody knows you
are in there what you do

when you're in the black sites
when you shackle them higher
in there what you do
when you kill them by crucifixion

when you shackle them higher
are you still Christian
when you kill by crucifixion
when you ice the body

are you still Christian
when you wrap it in plastic
when you ice the body
when you swear it didn't happen

when you wrap it in plastic
when the dossier's been there
when you swear it didn't happen
for over a year now

when the dossier's been there
for the ghost prisoner
for over a year now
where nobody's looking

for the ghost prisoner
when nobody knows what
you do when you're in there
where nobody's looking.

2006-01-10T07:38:00.000-08:00

to read my essay on Nadia Anjuman, 25 year old afghan poet beaten to death by her husband (as well as many other wonderful essays and poems) go to:
www.poetsagainstthewar.org

2005-06-29T19:35:00.000-07:00

Blogger poet Gary Lawless with Cuban poets in Trinidad, Cuba, at the House of Culture

2005-06-28T06:08:00.000-07:00

for a really informative essay on the Treasury Dept.'s embargo on written work, please check out www.wordswithoutborders.org/article.php?lab=EAllen

2005-06-16T18:41:00.000-07:00

The literature embargo has been changing over the last few months, due to public pressure, articles in places like the New York Times book review, and the threat of court cases by publishers.
One author, Shirin Ebadi,Iranian activist, judge, lawyer and winner of the 2003 Nobel Peace Prize, had little hope of seeing her book in print in her own country, but was surprised to learn that any US publisher who decided to publish her book would have risked up to 10 years in jail and fines starting at $250,000 under the Treasury Department's embargo laws.
Ms. Ebadie and publisher Arcade Books, joined the Association of American University Presses and PEN American Center in a lawsuit against the U S Treasury Dept. (Arcade and the PEN Center are readying to publish an anthology of post-revolution Iranian writers.
The Treasury dept. has somewhat relaxed the embargo on written work, but the embargo still covers those who work for the Cuban government. I have been working with Cuban poet Manuel Alberto Garcia Alonso, who is a poet, novelist, actor, theater director, and a cultural director in the Cuban city of Trinidad. Since Cuba is a socialist republic, almost everyone works for the government. Are Manuel Alberto's poems illegal in the US?
for information:
Ken Rodgers/Kyoto Journal
http://pen.org/corefreedoms/90.html
www.thetranslationproject.com
www.alternet.org/story/20247/

2005-04-07T23:11:00.000-07:00

A poem from the book Arrows and the Bow, by Sudanese poet Ladu Jada Gubek, published by Africa World Press:

What do you think you are doing?

Canada, China, Russia, Sweden,
what do you think you are doing?

What do you think you are doing
milking the cow
when the baby is yet to be born?
What do you think you are doing?

What do you think you are doing
exploiting our oil,
the product of the very widow
whose husband killed,
and her children sold for slavery?
What do you think you are doing?

What do you think you are doing
giving Dollars, guns, jet fighters
for monsters to destroy Sudanese children?
What do you think you are doing?

What do you think you are doing
refusing to hear the voice of our people
protesting your share in the bloody war?
What do you think you are doing?

2005-03-30T09:59:00.000-08:00

poem by Cuban poet Heberto Padilla

Don't forget it, poet.
In whatever place and time
you make
or endure History,
there will always be lying in wait
some dangerous poem.

2005-03-19T12:57:00.000-08:00

The American Academic right wing has moved on from hammering Ward Churchill and now are going after Ammiel Alcalay. read about it at:
www.campus-watch.org/article/id/1706

2004-11-23T08:22:00.000-08:00

from a wonderful new book from White Pine Press, called With Eyes and Soul - Images of Cuba (with poems by Nancy Morejon and photographs by Milton Rogovin) this poem by Nancy Morejon:
Hour of Truth (IX)

And I sing in Cuba.
Sing in my native tongue forever.
Young people pass by with their tufts of red hair
floating in the wind of Revolution,
its prow turned to the sun of our New World.
And I swim above the city,
and above the sudden change in the city,
And above its latest generation.
and we're building and building, higher than our isolation,
higher than their profiteering.
Here's where I want to be.
Crossing bridges, rivers, centrifuges.
I dip myself in nickel:
-I unearth the bird's tongue.
How lovely is my land

2004-09-05T19:39:00.000-07:00

Green Interger Press has published Violet Island and Other Poems, by Cuban poet Reina Maria Rodriguez (born 1952, now living in Habana) with translations from the Spanish by Kristin Dykstra and Nancy Gates Madsen. Here is the English version of the first poem in the collection, called Debts:
today I want to write about what I'm missing
not to waste hours
or to throw words into the abyss:
to sink into my depths
alone and naked.
what proof can I give of my mortality?
I'm just plain
with freckles, dreams and sorrow.
I have two children
another will be born in September.
I'm a bad lay
-I get pregnant just like that-
I'm number 338123 on my identity card
no photo -the kids ripped it up-
no record of offenses,
serious or petty -
I work as a program editor
a salary of 163 pesos
a literature degree
many uncollected poems
and friends in four categories:
reliable good terrible and sad.
a house that isn't mine
an electtric fan, a comb
the balalaika that my brother brought me
the piano from childhood concerts
a magnifying glass to see reality better
photos of Marti and Hemingway
reproductions
books they haven't stolen from me yet
maps widening the wall
letters from old lovers
a watch, a blue butterfly, a heart
and many debts
infinite debts with life

2004-08-12T19:27:00.000-07:00

Just a note, to recommend two sites for Cuban poetry and information about Cuban writers:
www.afrocubaweb.com
www.cubaliterature.com

2004-08-12T05:22:00.000-07:00

The new summer/autumn 2004 issue of Circumference - poetry in translation - has a banner across the cover saying EMBARGOED!, and the issue begins with a section called Embargoed! Poetry from Cuba and Iran.In an editorial they say that "In response to OFAC's decision, we announced our plans to dedicate a substantial portion of this issue to the poetry of these (embargoed) nations and their translations." www.circumferencemag.com
The poems include a selection of haiku- like nature poems by Iranian poet Abbas Kiarostami, translated by Farnoosh Fathi:

the honeybee
is stunned
by the scent
of an unfamiliar flower

this time
the wild gees land
on slashed reeds

a hundred obedient soldiers
enter the barracks
early one moonlit night

unruly dreams

a passerby's footprints in snow
out in an errand?
is he coming back?
the same way?

2004-08-08T19:55:00.000-07:00

Poet/editor friend Wayne Atherton loaned me issue VI 2002 of Poetry International, from San Diego State University Press. This issue has a special feature on The New Poetry of Cuba, with an introductory essay by Mark Weiss, who also translates a number of the poems included. Mr. Weiss is the editor of The Whole Island/La isla en peso: Six decades of Cuban Poetry, to be published by Junction Press.Here is his translation, from that issue of Poetry International, of a poem byRoberto Fernandez Retamar:
Blessed are the normal
(for Antonia Eiriz)

Blessed are the normal, those rare creatures
who have no crazy mother, drunken father, delinquent child,
nowhere house, unknown disease,
who haven't been burnt by devouring love,
who could live the seventeen faces of the smile and maybe more,
filled with shoes, archangels in hats,
satisfied, fat, handsome,
the rintintins and their followers, the ones who grease the wheels,
the winners, the endlessly desired,
flautists followed by mice,
vendors and their customers,
knights only slightly superhuman,
men dressed in thunder and women in lightning,
the delicate, the prudent, the cunning,
the amiable, the sweet, the edible, the drinkable.
Blessed are the birds, the dung, the stones.

But let those pass who make worlds, dreams,
illusions, symphonies, words that confuse
and construct us, those crazier than their mothers, drunker
than their fathers more delinquent than their children
and more devoured by burning love.
May they descend to their station in hell, and be done with.

2004-06-21T14:48:00.000-07:00

North Korean Poet Choi Jin I is featured in an article in the recent summer issue of Ms. magazine. Check out part of an interview with her on our may 8 posting.

2004-06-15T07:37:00.000-07:00

Khaled Mattawa is a Libyan poet now living in the United States. I have already posted several of his translations (Iraqi poets Fadhil al-Azzawi and Saadi Youssef) but I would like to add that he has two books of his own poetry available: Ismailia Eclipse, Sheep Meadow Press, 1995, and Zodiac of Echoes, Ausable Press, 2003.
Here is a poem from Ismailia Eclipse:

History of my face

My lips came with a caravan of slaves
that belonged to the Grand Sanussi.
In Al-Jaghbub he freed them.
They still live in the poor section of Benghazi
near the hospital where I was born.

They never meant to settle
in Tokara those Greeks
whose eyebrows I wear
-then they smelled the wild sage
and declared my country their birthplace.

The Knights of St. John invaded Tripoli.
The residents of the city
sought help from Istanbul. In 1531
the Turks brought along my nose.

My hair stretches back
to a concubine of Septimus Severus.
She made his breakfast,
bore four of his sons.

Uqba took my city
in the name of God.
We sit by his grave
and I sing to you:
Sweet lashes, arrow-sharp,
is that my face I see
reflected in your eyes?

2004-06-09T20:33:00.000-07:00

All this week (June 7-11) Slate online has been carrying a journal by intrepid traveletr Richard Bangs as he leads a hiking group into southwestern Libya, trying to be the first American ecotour group there. Good info and pictures:
http://slate.msn.com

2004-06-09T08:05:00.000-07:00

All week I have been hearing President Reagan saying "Mr. Gorbachav, tear down that wall."
Well, Mr. President (and Mr. Candidate) tear down that embargo.

2004-06-01T20:29:00.000-07:00

I would like to direct your attention to a blogsite where you can break the embargo on poetry yourself, or view work by others who are so inclined. You can also see the original legal documents concerning the embargoed countries and the illegalities of editing and publishing the work of writers from these countries:http://rebeledit.blogspot.com

I also want to remind those of you who are new to this blog to please check out our archives, where there are more poems.

2004-05-29T04:52:00.000-07:00

a poem by Cuban poet Anisley del Carmen Miraz Lladosa:

Since a girl and another century

I've been waiting. I also exchange my innocence
for a profitable iris and two words.
I've a dress of color and a puppet of borrowed conscience.
I've sat down to graze sheep and I've walked alone
through the alleys of some neighboring town.
I've breathed the rain on the faces of the gargoyles,
its polished brilliance in the teeth of the shore.
I've gone where there's room and I've also
hoped from the pockets of passers-by.
I've dined at the port and slept
with the ghosts of those full of hope
and the colonels of war.
I've known the solitude,
the whale calf that sleeps
in the conquests of the wind.
Belive me: I've been waiting. I still don't know
what for, definitely.
Let autumn begin.
Let Penelope finish her shroud of love
an elegy of papier mache
a medieval dance piece
an arm that isn't mine
a cat for my sister
a bear's claw
a house on the hill
a forest
a heart

2004-05-28T19:45:00.000-07:00

another poem by Iraqi poet Fadhil al-Azzawi, from his selected poems Miracle Maker, published by BOA editions., translated by Khaled Mattawa. Actually, this is one section of a longer poem called "Elegy for the living"

America,
I send you back your bombs
in boxes wrapped in gift paper
with my signature on them.
I send you back
the severed hands of Iraqi children,
and the corpses of soldiers buried in the sand,
and the black eyes of girls who have just come back
from a picnic.
America take your bombs,
and do whatever you want with your smart missles.
Hunt whales with them,
or blow them up in your rear end if you wish,
in front of your television cameras
where capitalism sits
in her old carriage
greeting the crowds lining the streets
on her way to hell.

2004-05-28T13:34:00.000-07:00

Iraqi poet Fadhil al-Azzawi has a wonderful new book of selected poems, Miracle Maker, from BOA Editions., translated by Khaled Mattawa.

Write your name on every pain

Shall I say "History begins here,
and here the history of death dies?"
"Write, Abdullah, your history on a wave."
I said "What shall I write?
Shall I write about myself while I lick my wound?
Shall I write about a country being murdered?
Shall I write about a voice crying out in the wilderness?
"Write your name on every pain,
for the pangs of birth are cruel."

2004-05-26T06:57:00.000-07:00

Trying to find web sites for Sudanese poetry I came across three listings, but when I tried to go to them each time I was told that the page could not be displayed:
www.sudanpoem.com
www.arabicpoems.com
http://sudanhome.com/Arts/Poetry
One page I did get to see was a page for refugee Sudanese in the Pacific Northwest, gathering their poems http://depts.washington.edu/poa/Sudan

2004-05-21T08:50:00.000-07:00

when i went to cuba in february i took about 50 books of poetry (in Spanish) to share with the poets in Trinidad, Brunswick's sister city in Cuba. Most of these were donated by White Pine Press and Arte Publico Press. I am now collecting more poetry and fiction, in Spanish, to donate to the library there. If you would like to donate new or used books to this effort, please send them here to me - Gary Lawless Gulf of Maine Books, 134 Maine Street, Brunswick, Maine 04011

2004-05-20T06:25:00.000-07:00

Syrian Poetry
Since President Bush wants to add Syria to the embargo list, I thought that today I would add this section of Syrian poet Ghada al-Samman's poem The Lover of Blue Writing above the Sea ( this is the second section of the poem):
Who will lead me to a city that is a stranger to bombs,
that I might live there?
Who will lead me to fields, stranger to furtive burials
of a murdered man tortured to death?
Who will lead me to trees
that have never heard a woman moaning for her hijacked lover?
Who will lead me to a sky
whose blue is a stranger to injustice or harshness
or a thought that has been raped?
I am tired of your love, your time,
of men like you who compete in violence...
Their love is blue writing above the sea...
Who said: the love of men is not like water through a sieve?

translated by Saad Ahmed and Miriam Cooke
from The Poetry of Arab Women - A Contemporary Anthology, edited by Nathalie Handal, Interlink Books

2004-05-19T06:18:00.000-07:00

Cuban poet Felix Varela

Havana

havana skin
strangely perfumed
devouring me slowly
extreme spirit
of coffee and a cigarette
in the morning.
havana your skin
is a weird call
to the universe
magic essence
half-open curtain
ideal flat refusal
block of pages
flock
with no more winter than
that on their imagination
wing opened to the wind
a vibration without antecedent
havana your skin
is not made of asphalt
neon granite rum
it is made of childhood
spring dew butterfly flower scent
figurative nostalgia
impossible night to peel off.

2004-05-19T06:14:00.000-07:00

website contacts for cuban poets:
www.cubanculture.com/english/literature.asp -
http://sdsupress.sdsu.edu/2003pi6/nogueras.html -
www.factoryschool.org/content/pubs/cuban7/index.html -

2004-05-14T06:43:00.000-07:00

To contact us: gary@gulfofmainebooks.com
we welcome reponses, suggestions, poems, links to websites, book suggestions relating to poets and literature from these embargoed countries -
Thanks!

2004-05-12T06:56:00.000-07:00

The National Coalition Against Censorship reports that the Treasury Department's Office of Foreign Assets Control said in September, 2003, that trade embargoes apply to literary and scientific manuscripts by authors from Iran, Cuba, Iraq, Sudan and Libya unless they are "camera ready". No editing, no translating, no correctig spelling or grammar, and no reordering sentences and paragraphs.
See their website at www.ncac.org

2004-05-10T12:31:00.000-07:00

Saadi Youssef
Iraqi poet
from Without an Alphabet, Without a Face Selected Poems, translated by Khaled Mattawa,
published by Graywolf Press

A Vision

This Iraq will reach the ends of the graveyard.
It will bury its sons in open country
generation after generation,
and it will forgive its despot ...
It will not be the Iraq that once held the name.
And the larks will not sing.
So walk - if you wish - for a long time.
And call - if you wish -
on all the world's angels
and all its demons.
Call on the bulls of Assyria.
Call on a westward phoenix....
Call them
and through the haze of phantoms
watch for miracles to emerge
from clouds of incense.

Amman, 8/3/1997

2004-05-08T20:14:00.000-07:00

Bard College has a wonderful site www.wordswithoutborders.org with a lot of writing from all around the world, interviews, book reviews, and a great list of other contacts. The July/August issue was Literary Border Crossings in Iran, the sept. 2003 was writing from north korea, and the oct. 2003 was literature from iraq.
another literary site to recommend: www.autodafe.org

2004-05-08T19:11:00.000-07:00

ok, i was wrong about Yemen. It is Sudan, and not Yemen.
and, I should have given a way to respond or add information: gary@gulfofmainebooks.com

Here is part of an interview with North Korean poet Choi Jini. She has defected from the North and was interviewed in the Chosun Ilbo:
Q Where do poets stand in North Korean Society?
A Basically, poets are politicians. Their primary job is to write poems to praise authority. Some writers who are good at flattery become popular and successful. We call them "a non-literary man", something equivalent to a government patronized scholar in the South. But, most writers try to keep literary value of their works and preserve their conscience as writers.
Q What does "literary value" mean?
A It means discovery of truth and forgotten beauties of daily life. North Korean poets write down love poems on their personal notes. But within their minds, they recite poems that criticize society. They hunger for beautiful rhetorics such as metaphors and symbols. Under the situation where emotional expressions and freedom of artistic expression are stifled, many North Korean poets are trying to preserve the very essence of literature. Given the hardships that they are undergoing, their efforts are extraordinary.
q Where do North Korean poets draw inspiration from?
A usually we are encouraged by senior poets who read works of William Shakespeare, Leo Tolstoy, Ernest hemingway and other great writers. When I entered elementary school, all western classics were banned in the North. I heard that when the authority confiscated all western classics, senior writers risked their lives to get these books. Such brave spirit still lives in the North Korean writers.
Q South Koreans tend to think that most of the poems in the North are to praise the regime.
A On the surface, it's true. If a piece of poem is to be published, it should contain some phrases that commend the regime. But, we have another world of literature in our minds where we can write whatever we want to express.
Q What do the North Korean poets aspire to have? Freedom?
A The North Korean writers want to have freedom. Not only a political one, but an artistic freedom. They want to freely express their thoughts, feelings and hopes. And, about the South Korean literature, I don't know yet. In the North, politics kills literature. In the south, commercialism does the same.

2004-05-08T11:14:00.000-07:00

Cuban Poet Nancy Morejon from Looking Within Sel. Poems 1954-2000
published by Wayne State University Press, this poem translated by Heather Rosario Sievert.

Divertimento

for the pleasure of Rafael Alberti
(for guitar)

Between the sword and the carnation,
I love utopias.
I love the rainbow and the kite
and I love the song of the pilgrim.
I love the romance between the bear and the iguana.
I love passports: when will passports cease to exist?
I love daily chores and the taverns
and guitars in the evening.
I love a thorny island in the throat of Goliath
like a palm tree in the center of the Gulf.
I love David.
I love liberty, which is an everlasting flower.

(translated by Heather Rosario Sievert)

2004-05-08T07:16:00.000-07:00

This blog will feature poetry and information about poets from the countries currently embargoed by the United States. These poets are embargoed as well, as it is illegal to edit or present their work in the US. I would love to hear from anyone who has translations, interviews, articles, website or book suggestions - Countries we will consider for now are Cuba, Libya, Iraq, Iran, Yemen, North Korea.
Here is a poem I wrote on returning from Cuba, and a poem by a wonderful Cuban poet, from Trinidad, written in response:

someone said to love your country
someone said thou shalt not kill
someone said to love your neighbor as yourself
someone said you can't go there but
someone said to follow your heart
someone said it isn't possible
someone said yes it is
yes it is

Manuel Alberto Garcia Alonso wrote:
i
Here we are, in the hope and love of our friendship.
Here we are, with the sound inside of our hearts
Here we are, happy like the new world,
a world without darkness and fury.
Here we are, in the hands of love,
the sweet love of the earth

ii
Two countries,
and the air, and the fragrance,
and the smiles of justice.

iii
Yes, my verses are all truth and joy.