Dominican Republic

27 February, and it’s the Dominican Republic’s turn for independence. The Dominican Republic is located on the island known as Hispaniola, one of the largest islands in the Caribbean’s Great Antilles archipelago. The western third of this island comprises the country of Haiti, from whom it attained independence in 1844. Prior to Haitian rule, the island was under first Spanish and then French rule.

Independence was brought about from by a secret society, La Trinitaria, that was founded in 1838, and made the official declaration in 1844. The Dominican Republic’s first constitution was adopted later that year on 6 November.

In 1861, however, a pact was signed with the Spanish Crown, and the nation revert to colonial status for two years, before restoration of independence in August, 1863. Later, in 1916, US Marines landed and established control of the country following political instability within the Dominican Republic in the preceding years. In 1924, power once more reverted to Dominican hands. From 1930 to 1961, the republic was under the dictatorship of Rafael Leonidas Trujillo—in 1937 he ordered the Parsley Massacre, what is known in the Dominican Republic as El Corte, The Cutting. As a result, between 17,000 and 35,000 Haitians on the Dominican side of the border were killed over five days. Trujillo’s rule ended with his assassination in 1961.

Since 1978 the Dominican Republic has experienced greater freedom.

The poem I have chosen is by Pedro Mir, who is considered the country’s national poet—it’s the first section of a longer work entitled “The Hurrican Neruda” and is translated by Wayne H. Finke. I found this in yet another fascinating anthology - Twentieth-century Latin American poetry : a bilingual anthology, which is edited by Stephen Tapscott.

The Hurricane Neruda

1.

The hours have passed over the volcano neruda
and delirium and fever over the quake neruda
and the dormant lava of the eruption neruda
over the din of the imposing situation neruda.

All is at rest, Father. The velvet sleeps
on the ivory keys of the oldest pianos.

There is a woman named Luisa from her brown
eyes to the sound of her hair, from her needlelike
voice to the end of a threat at whose bare end
a small child slumbers. The delicate dawn
gently rocks in her glance and slips in her hand,
rolls bleeding, falls to the ground and suddenly
we are confronted with the rising hurricane neruda
the gust neruda and the vortex neruda and
                                                   neruda
the storm,
                            reconstructed by the grave
explosion of infernal horror neruda.

—Pedro Mir
translated by Wayne H. Finke
from Twentieth-century Latin American poetry : a bilingual anthology

Kuwait

25 February marks Kuwait’s National Day, though the day of their independence from the UK came on 19 June, 1961. While most people associate Kuwait with the first Gulf War follow its invasion by Iraq in 1990 (oil: its all about oil), the history of Kuwait goes back to the 17th century, and the country used to be known as Qurain. Kuwait is a constitutional hereditary emirate with a parliamentary system of government—it has the oldest directly elected parliament of the Persian Gulf Arab countries.

Kuwait is one of the smallest countries in the world in terms of its physical area, and is largely a desert country. From a population of between 3 and 3.5 million people, more that half of those residing in Kuwait are non-nationals. 4 percent of the population are classified as bidoons—a group of stateless Arab expatriates.

As a matter of interest, Kuwait has both Girl Guides and Boy Scouts associations—and Girl Guides by far outnumber Boy Scouts.

Today’s poem is from the anthology A Crack in the Wall: New Arab Poetry, which came out in 2001 through Saqi books. The poem is by Saadia Mufarreh, who has been a poet, critic and writer in Kuwait for some time. She writes for many Arabic newspaper and magazines. It addresses Mahmoud Darwish, a Palestinian poet. This poem is translated by Nay Hannawi.


To Mahmoud Darwish

Where incidents walk the same road
and the words ride together along the banks of first questions,
where there are many declared attempts
at suicide by linguists and grammarians,
and the children on the boring school chairs
learn how to draw poetry
and pride themselves in words and sounds
and sometimes succeed.
Where “The Lonely Horse…” stands
lonely… to a certain extent,
enemies of poetry bad-mouth it behind its back
and the last poet becomes
as if he has never been!

Oh… God!


—Saadia Mufarreh
translated by Nay Hannawi
from A Crack in the Wall: New Arab Poetry

Estonia

24 February marks Estonia’s declaration of independence from Russian and Germany in 1918—Estonia’s independence was recognized in 1920, before the USSR occupied the nation for just over fifty years, from 1940 to 1991. More recently, Estonia entered the European Union in 2004, and has also been a member of NATO since the same year.

The oldest known settlement in Estonia arose around 11,000 years ago, on the banks of the River Pärnu, in southern Estonian. The name “Estonia” is thought to arise from the work of Tacitus—in Germania he refers to a people called the Aestii.

Under Soviet occupation, particularly during Stalin’s rule, thousands of civilians were killed, and thousands more deported.

Today’s poem by Andres Ehin was translated by Brandon Lussier, who very kindly provided the poem, and introduced to the University of Iowa’s online journal, eXchanges, which publishes translations from all sorts of languages. Andres Ehin has published 12 books of poetry as well as novels and short stories, and has translated many authors in Estonian. He has been a winner of Estonian National Prize and the Estonian Cultural Capital Prize.


(3)

blunt tools

threw the blade

out

from among the hardware

Andres Ehin, translated from the Estonian by Brandon Lussier
from eXchanges

Brunei

On 23 February 1984, after nearly a hundred years as a British protectorate, Brunei gained its independence from the United Kingdom. Before the colonial era, Brunei was an important sultanate in the Indonesian region.

Brunei is located on the north coast of the island of Borneo; in prior centuries the sultanate covered the entire island. Now Borneo is divided between Brunei, Indonesia and Malaysia, after Brunei lost much of its territory in the 19th century. There are still contested regions both on the island of Borneo and in the surrounding islands—many of these regions are internationally recognised as part of Malaysia.

Finding a Bruneian poem translated into English was difficult, though there are many poets in Brunei, and Bruneians appear to be proud of their literary traditions, which includes the epic poem Sya’ir Awang Simawn. As part of the celebrations prior to Brunei’s Independence Day, Bruneian poets held a reading which was reported widely in Brunei’s press.

While I was searching both online and in anthologies for a poem from Brunei, I came across an article that lamented the paucity of Bruneian literature available in translation.

The poem I found was written by Adi Rumi, apparently a respected elder poet of Brunei. This was written in response to the tsunami of 2004, expressing solidarity with other nations of the region. It’s been interesting to see the number of poems I’ve found that express a similar focus on region and commonalities within those regions.



Brothers, your cries
are ours too.
Together we taste sadness.
We know,
you are steel-strong nation
not a flower-nation that easily droops.
Even in sorrow,
you never surrender.



—by Adi Rumi

St Lucia

22 February is St Lucia’s Independence Day: full independence was achieved in 1979, though St Lucia had been self-governing from 1967 onward. Like many other nations that have formed a part of the British commonwealth, St Lucia continues to recognize Queen Elizabeth II as the titular head of state.

It’s thought that St Lucia has been inhabited since around 200-400 AD—the first known inhabitants were Araweks, a people believed to have come from northern South America; around 800-1000, Caribs came to replace the Arawel population. Europeans first visited St Lucia around 1500. Until the early-mid 17th century, neither the French nor the English succeeded in their attempts at colonisation. In the 1550s, a French pirate was known to frequent the island (Francois le Clerc, or “Jamb de Bois”—he used the nearby Pigeon Island to target Spanish galleons, and is also credited as the first pirate of the modern era to have a “peg leg”) and a few attempts were made at more a more formal settlement, though most of the men brought to the island died within a few years due to disease.

After passing between them many times, the French ceded St Lucia to the British in 1815. While the British had abolished the slave trade in 1807, it wasn’t until 1834 that slavery was abolished on St Lucia. Today the population of St Lucia mostly of African descent (over 90 percent of the population). Among the remaining population, approximately 3 percent are of Indo-Caribbean descent.

The official language of St Lucia (care of the British Commonwealth) is English—but 90 percent of the population speak a Creole language called Kwéyòlaka. In articles Kwéyòlaka is refered to as “patois”—a term that bothers me. While (or perhaps because) a patois doesn’t have a formal definition in linguistics it seems to indicate a “degraded” form of language, because it is “non-standard.” It seems there’s some hierarchy that steps from “language” to “dialect” to “patois” or “pidgen.” “Patois” seems to be loaded with imprecise but slightly negative meaning.

Choosing a St Lucian poet is a task made easy by the fact that Nobel Prize winner Derek Walcott calls St Lucia home. Of course then the task is then to choose just one poem by Walcott—not easy. I settled on “Sabbaths, W.I.” which I feel produces such a strong series of images of the West Indies, and makes sense of St Lucia having a separate national identity to that of Great Britain.


Sabbaths, W.I.
Those villages stricken with the melancholia of Sunday,
in all of whose ocher streets one dog is sleeping

those volcanoes like ashen roses, or the incurable sore
of poverty, around whose puckered mouth thin boys are
selling yellow sulphur stone

the burnt banana leaves that used to dance
the river whose bed is made of broken bottles
the cocoa grove where a bird whose cry sounds green and
yellow and in the lights under the leaves crested with
orange flame has forgotten its flute

gommiers peeling from sunburn still wrestling to escape the sea

the dead lizard turning blue as stone

those rivers, threads of spittle, that forgot the old music

that dry, brief esplanade under the drier sea almonds
where the dry old men sat

watching a white schooner stuck in the branches
and playing draughts with the moving frigate birds

those hillsides like broken pots

those ferns that stamped their skeletons on the skin

and those roads that begin reciting their names at vespers

mention them and they will stop
those crabs that were willing to let an epoch pass
those herons like spinsters that doubted their reflections
inquiring, inquiring

those nettles that waited
those Sundays, those Sundays

those Sundays when the lights at the road's end were an occasion

those Sundays when my mother lay on her back
those Sundays when the sisters gathered like white moths
round their street lantern

and cities passed us by on the horizon

—Derek Walcott

Nepal

19 February is known is Nepal’s national day, and is also known as Democracy Day—the day commemorates the establishment of democracy in Nepal in 1950, following the end of the Rana regime, an autocracy.

Until recently, Nepal was the only officially Hindu nation in the world—in 2006, the country was declared a secular state. On 28 December 2007, a bill was passed declaring Nepal a federal democratic republic—if the rule of the current government continues after elections in April this year, the current king, Gyanendrah Shah will be the last king of Nepal.

Initially I had a hard time finding good translations of Nepali poems—until, that is, I found the wonderful anthology Himalayan Voices: An Introductions to Modern Nepali Literature, edited and translated by Michael James Hutt. After I found this collection, which I’ve been poring over this afternoon, the difficulty then became which poem and poet to choose.

I eventually settled on the poet Lakshmīprasād Devkoṭā, who Hutt cites as the single most important poet in modern Nepali poetry. He died in 1959, so he lived to see the institution of Democracy.

The poem I’ve chosen is from a series of poems, Munā and Madan. While Hutt writes that it was minor in comparison to the work that followed it, he states that it “represented something of a watershed in the development of Nepali literature. The series is based on an old Newār folktale: this source material interests me because of its focus on an already existing, oral literary tradition. In this way that it is engaging with national identity by looking inward.


Munā Pleads with Mudan

Madan:
I have only my mother, my one lamp of good auspice,
do not desert her, do not make her an orphan,
she has endured nigh sixty winters,
let her take comfort from your moonlight face.

Muna:
Shame! For your love of your mother
could not hold you here,
not even your love for your mother!
Her hair is white and hoary with age,
her body is weak and fragile.
You go now as a merchant
to a strange and savage land,
what’s to be gained, leaving us for Lhasa?
Purses of gold
are like the dirt on your hands,
what can be done with wealth?
Better to eat only nettles and greens
with happiness in your heart.


—Lakshmīprasād Devkoṭā
translated Michael James Hutt
from Himalayan Voices: An Introduction to Modern Nepali Literature

The Gambia

On 18 February 1965, The Gambia attained its independence from the United Kingdom. The Gambia is the smallest country on the continental mainland of Africa. English is still the official language of The Gambia. The Republic of The Gambia was declared a few years after independence, on 24 April 1970.

In the nineteenth century, at the end of the slave trade, the Biritsh formed the military post of Bathurst, which is now the capital, Banjul. At times from 1816 until 1888, Banjul was under jurisdiction of the British in Sierra Leone. In 1888 it became a separate colony.

After gaining independence, The Gambia’s prime minister and then president was Sir Dawda Kairaba Jawara, until in 1981 the stability under his leadership was shattered by an attempted coup. President Jawara, in London at the time, appeals to Senegal for assistance, and the Senegalese defeated the rebels. In 1994, in a second military coup d’etat, the Jawara government was deposed. This time, Yahya A. J. J. Jammeh took power. He was elected as president in 1996, and then again in 2001. There were apparently some shortcomings in the elections, but overall they were deemed free and fair.

A recent population estimate stands at 1,517,000. During the three centuries of the transatlantic slave trade, as many as 3 million may have been taken from the region.

The poet Lenrie Peters, born in The Gambia, studied at Cambridge and has worked as a doctor both in the UK and in Africa. He has published four books of poetry.


We Have Come Home

We have come home
From the bloodless wars
With sunken hearts
Our boots full of pride—
From the true massacre of the soul
When we have asked
‘What does it cost
To be loved and left alone’

We have come home
Bringing the pledge
Which is written in rainbow colours
Across the sky—for burial
But it is not the time
To lay wreaths
For yesterday’s crimes.
Night threatens
Time dissolves
And there is no acquaintance
With tomorrow

The gurgling drums
Echo the starts
The forest howl
And between the trees
The dark sun appears.

We have come home
When the dawn falters
Singing songs of other lands
The death march
Violating our ears
Knowing all our loves and tears
Determined by the spinning coin

We have come home
To the green foothills
To drink from the cup
Of warm and mellow birdsong
To the hot beaches
Where the boats go out to sea
Threshing the ocean’s harvest
And the hovering, plunging
Gliding gulls shower kisses on the waves

We have come home
Where through the lightning flash
And thundering rain
The famine the drought,
Lingers on the road
Supporting the tortured remnants
of the flesh
That spirit which asks no favour
of the world
But to have dignity.

Kosovo

Alas! I wasn’t near the internet yesterday when I found out that Kosovo had declared independence from Serbia, making 17 February Kosovo's Independence Day. (It's exciting to be able to record a new independence day as it happens.) While Serbia has condemned the move, and is likely to be backed by Russia (according to the Washington Post, that is) it’s expected that the United States and others will get behind the move. It will be interesting in the coming weeks to see what unfolds. Based merely on the coverage I've seen, I'm using the Albanian flag here, as that was what Kosovars were waving.

Given this population difference, I’ve been looking for a poem from Albanian—while searching, I was interested to learn that the Albanian language was the last national language in Europe to be recorded.

I found an amazing resource in an anthology of poetry translated from the Albanian by Dr Robert Elsie, including poetry from Kosovo. The anthology, An Elusive Eagle Soars, is well worth a look. He provides background information on Albanian literature, including the developing literature of Kosovo, written in Albanian. He also provides good background information on the poets. I know I’ll be looking further into this anthology in the coming weeks.

The poet I have chosen from this embarrassment of riches is Din Mehmeti, born in 1932. He studied at the University of Belgrade, and is now, according to Elsie, “among the best-known classical representatives of contemporary verse in Kosovo.”


Dialogue with the lake

The lake has grown dark
The lake has gone mad

May my bark hold

On this side are your cliffs
Of bones
On the other side immortal dreams

May my bark hold

You once searched for a way out
In your heart

The cape of hope is far

The blood-red flowers
Will arrive

May my barracks hold.


-Din Mehmeti,
translated from the Albanian by Dr Robert Elsie
from the anthology An Elusive Eagle Soars: Anthology of Modern Albanian Poetry

Serbia

Serbia’s Independence Day recognises the first Serbian uprising in 1804, and their subsequent period of statehood that followed, and it is also the date on which the first constitution in the Balkans was enacted in 1835.

Obviously state/nationhood has continued to be a concern in the region of the Balkans—the twentieth century saw both the “first” and “second” Yugoslavias, and after the breakup of the second Yugoslavia, Serbia and Montenegro formed the “third” Yugoslavia with the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia. Since then, Montenegro has become a separate nation, and now the country is the “Republic of Serbia.” In the mean time, the situation in Kosovo has continued to be a major focus of international attention.

This poem was written by Vasko Popa, and translated by Charles Simic, who left Belgrade for the United States several decades ago. Popa died in 1991.


IN THE VILLAGE OF MY ANCESTORS

Someone embraces me
Someone looks at me with the eyes of a wolf
Someone takes off his hat
So I can see him better

Everyone asks me
Do you know how I'm related to you

Unknown old men and women
Appropriate the names
Of young men and women from my memory

I ask one of them
Tell me for God's sake
Is George the Wolf still living

That's me he answers
With a voice from the next world

I touch his cheek with my hand
And beg him with my eyes
To tell me if I'm living too


- Vasko Popa
translated by Charles Simic

Indigenous Australia

13 February 2008 is a day many Australians have been awaiting for a long, long time: our new Prime Minister Kevin Rudd made an official apology to the indigenous peoples of Australia. This is not an act of independence, but I think it qualifies for this project as a national day, one which is a major step in the process of reconciliation.

The text of Kevin Rudd's speech is widely available and I hope you have seen or read it.

In 1990, University of Queensland Press published The Honey-Men's Love Song and other Aboriginal Song Poems, a collection of song-poems presented both in their original dialects, and in translation. The poem I'm including here is a Dyirbal song - the language is from North Queensland, in the Cairns rainforest region. The song was performed by Jimmy Murray in 1967, and translated by R M W Dixon. The volume gives the following note as context:

"In the very early days of contact, Aborigines saw a white girl wearing a red dress with white spots. They had never seen anything quite like this and made up a song about it, with dancers imitating the movements of the girl" (6).

The Red Gown

The red gown we see is like a butterfly
A red gown that catches the eye
THe red gown we see is like a butterfly

Red gown dancing in joy
A red gown that catches the eye
The red gown we see is like a butterfly

Red gown dancing in joy
A red gown that catches the eye
The red gown we see is like a butterfly
Red gown dancing in joy



-performed Jimmy Murray, 1967 (Girramay dialect)
translated from the Girramay by R M W Dixon
published in The Honey-Men's Love Song and other Aboriginal Song Poems, UQP

Japan

11 February is Japan's National Foundation Day: this is traditionally held to be the anniversary of the day Emperor Jimmu founded Japan in 660 BC. As the mythical founder of Japan, Emperor Jimmu is listed as the first emperor in traditional lists of emperors. Tradition holds it that Jimmu is a direct descendent of the sun goddess Amaterasu.

The celebration of this foundation day (and it's transferal to a Gregorian calendar) was instigated in 1872. It was celebrated as a national holiday from this time until 1948, until this celebration was suspended; in 1966 it was reinstated as "National Foundation Day" holiday, or Kenkoku Kinen no hi.

Today's poem (a bite-sized one - at least keeping in mind that Japan gave us the haiku) was written by the Japanese poet Shuntaro Tanikawa. According to the Vintage Book of Contemporary World Poetry (a volume I recommend to everyone - one of the only anthologies I've ever read cover to cover) he writes on Western culture, both high and low - this puts me in mind of the way Japanese culture renews a lot of other Western cultural artifacts. (I'm always fascinated with how Japanese fashion refigures the world of western "couture." This poem is translated by Harold Wright.

Stone and Light

The stone doesn't repel the light,
The stone doesn't absorb the light.
On the stone sits a deerfly,
The light is radiant in its downy hair.

The light just now arrived on earth.


-Shuntaro Tanikawa, trans Harold Wright
Vintage Book of Contemporary World Poetry

Grenada

Grenada achieved its independence from the United Kingdom in 1974--prior to that it was passed from the French (who arrived around 1650) to the English in 1763. During the period the French held Grenada, the last of the indigenous Caribs died at Sauteurs--they jumped from the high cliffs, rather than become subject to the French, and the town is named to acknowledge this: Sauteurs is the French word for "jumpers". Most of the current population of Grenada is made up of descendants of the slave population, as well as a minority population of East Indians, descendants of indentured servants brought to Grenada in the nineteenth century. There is also a small number of English ancestry.

Since gaining independence, Grenada has experienced turmoil in the form of civil conflict - in 1976, after the first Prime Minister Eric Gairy's, party won elections in, the opposition rejected the result. This led to the People's Revolutionary Army forming a military government for a time. Six days after Maurice Bishop, a leader of this movement, was executed, the US invaded. Following on from this, the pre-revolutionary constitution was brought back in.

As an Australian, I feel like I don't know much about Caribbean nations - we tend to hear about "our own backyard" more. I'm pleased that already this project is giving me an insight into processes of nation formation and the struggles that can involve - this is becoming a strong interest in my own research right now.

I've chosen a poem by the poet Audre Lorde, because again I've had trouble finding a work by a poet resident in Grenada that I feel fits this project. Lorde was born in the US, but both her parents are from Grenada, and this poem is about that nation.


Inheritance—His

I.
My face resembles your face
less and less each day. When I was young
no one mistook whose child I was.
Features build coloring
alone among my creamy fine-boned sisters
marked me Byron's daughter.

No sun set when you died, but a door
opened onto my mother. After you left
she grieved her crumpled world aloft
an iron fist sweated with business symbols
a printed blotter dwell in the house of Lord's
your hollow voice changing down a hospital corridor
yea, though I walk through the valley
of the shadow of death
I will fear no evil.

II.
I rummage through the deaths you lived
swaying on a bridge of question.
At seven in Barbados
dropped into your unknown father's life
your courage vault from his tailor's table
back to the sea.
Did the Grenada treeferns sing
your 15th summer as you jumped ship
to seek your mother
finding her too late
surrounded with new sons?

Who did you bury to become the enforcer of the law
the handsome legend
before whose raised arm even trees wept
a man of deep and wordless passion
who wanted sons and got five girls?
You left the first two scratching in a treefern's shade
the youngest is a renegade poet
searching for your answer in my blood.

My mother's Grenville tales
spin through early summer evenings.
But you refused to speak of home
of stepping proud Black and penniless
into this land where only white men
ruled by money. How you labored
in the docks of the Hotel Astor
your bright wife a chambermaid upstairs
welded love and survival to ambition
as the land of promise withered
crashed the hotel closed
and you peddle dawn-bought apples
from a push-cart on Broadway.

Does an image of return
wealthy and triumphant
warm your chilblained fingers
as you count coins in the Manhattan snow
or is it only Linda
who dreams of home?

When my mother's first-born cries for milk
in the brutal city winter
do the faces of your other daughters dim
like the image of the treeferned yard
where a dark girl first cooked for you
and her ash heap still smells of curry?

III.
Did the secret of my sisters steal your tongue
like I stole money from your midnight pockets
stubborn and quaking
as you threaten to shoot me if I am the one?
The naked lightbulbs in our kitchen ceiling
glint off your service revolver
as you load whispering.

Did two little dark girls in Grenada
dart like flying fish
between your averted eyes
and my pajamaless body
our last adolescent summer?
Eavesdropped orations
to your shaving mirror
our most intense conversations
were you practicing how to tell me
of my twin sisters abandoned
as you had been abandoned
by another Black woman seeking
her fortune Grenada Barbados
Panama Grenada.
New York City.

IV.
You bought old books at auctions
for my unlanguaged world
gave me your idols Marcus Garvey Citizen Kane
and morsels from your dinner plate
when I was seven.
I owe you my Dahomeyan jaw
the free high school for gifted girls
no one else thought I should attend
and the darkness that we share.
Our deepest bonds remain
the mirror and the gun.

V.
An elderly Black judge
known for his way with women
visits this island where I live
shakes my hand, smiling.
"I knew your father," he says
"quite a man!" Smiles again.
I flinch at his raised eyebrow.
A long-gone woman's voice
lashes out at me in parting
"You will never be satisfied
until you have the whole world
in your bed!"

Now I am older than you were when you died
overwork and silence exploding your brain.
You are gradually receding from my face.
Who were you outside the 23rd Psalm?
Knowing so little
how did I become so much
like you?

Your hunger for rectitude
blossoms into rage
the hot tears of mourning
never shed for you before
your twisted measurements
the agony of denial
the power of unshared secrets.

Audre Lord

New Zealand

Today is New Zealand's Waitangi Day (which is sometimes called New Zealand Day): it celebrates the signing of the Treaty of Waitangi in 1840, the founding document of New Zealand.

As an Australian, New Zealand is often on my mind: we're well known for claiming New Zealanders as Australians when they've had success - Russell Crowe, for example. (A good friend of mine from New Zealand, however, says "you can have him.") Crowded House, too - but hey, they were Melbourne-based for a while, and had a Melbourne drummer. The one that always amuses me the most is that after Jane Campion made "The Piano" (about New Zealand, by a New Zealander!) we started talking about her as an Australian filmmaker.

The same friend that told me Australia can keep Russell Crowe also introduced me to the poetry of Bill Manhire, who is one of the best and best-known contemporary New Zealand poets. When I was looking around for a poem to include here, I found on the University of Otago's site the oration given by Professor Alan Musgrave when an honorary Doctoral Degree was conferred on the poet. That's also where I found this poem.


Milky Way Bar

I live at the edge of the universe,
like everybody else. Sometimes I think
congratulations are in order:
I look out at the stars
And my eye merely blinks a little,
my voice settles for a sigh.

But my whole pleasure is the inconspicuous;
I love the unimportant thing.
I go down to the Twilight Arcade
and watch the Martian invaders,
already appalled by our language,
pointing at what they want.

Bill Manhire

Sri Lanka

February 4 is Sri Lanka's national day, marking the anniversary of their independence from the UK in 1948, when the country was known as the Commonwealth of Ceylon. The name change to Sri Lanka came in 1972. Since 1983 there's been on-again-off-again civil war in Sri Lanka, as the Tamil Tigers have been fighting for an independent state in the north and east of Sri Lanka.

I was hoping I would be able to start off this project with some contemporary Sinhalese poetry in translation, but I've had trouble tracking any down in the past few days. I've found verse from previously centuries, and fragments of poems. I'm hoping to find some thing later to add to this post (suggestions would be wonderful) but in the mean time, I have Michael Ondaatje's poem "House on a Red Cliff," which the wonderful Dia Center for the Arts had on it's website. Ondaatje, though largely known as a Canadian writer, was born in Sri Lanka, and has written wonderfully about the country in poems, memoirs and fiction.


HOUSE ON A RED CLIFF

There is no mirror in Mirissa

the sea is in the leaves
the waves are in the palms

old languages in the arms
of the casuarina pine
parampara

parampara, from
generation to generation

The flamboyant a grandfather planted
having lived through fire
lifts itself over the roof

unframed

the house an open net

where the night concentrates
on a breath
on a step
a thing or gesture
we cannot be attached to

The long, the short, the difficult minutes
of night

where even in darkness
there is no horizon without a tree

just a boat's light in the leaves

Last footstep before formlessness


Michael Ondaatje
from Handwriting
Knopf 1999