Nii Ayikwei Parkes

Tail Of The Blue Bird.

This book is set mainly in the village of Sonokrom, deep in the  Ghanaian bush country, although it’s only a few hours from Accra, Ghana’s Capital and largest city, things have remained the same for hundreds of years. This is a place where the people walk in step with their ancestors, where the old ways and the old words still have meaning, where they still understand Mother Natures tongue and the only link to the modern world is a transistor radio. After the discovery of some suspicious, possibly human, remains in one of the village huts by the girlfriend of a government minister, who freaked out by what she sees, sets off a chain of events in Accra, that goes from her to the minister and from him to an ambitious corrupt police inspector and on to the hero of this book - Kayo Odamtten, a young man, who after studying forensic pathology in England, then working several years as a crime scenes officer in the Midlands, has returned home  and now is working as a forensic pathologist  for a private company in the capital. Kayo at first refuses, but is forced by the inspector, to work the case or face imprisonment on (false) conspiracy charges.

This story then returns to the village of Sonokrom, where Kayo sets about trying to solve this case.

 

This book is  part traditional detective tale, part literary novel; blending both concepts seamlessly into a  beautiful whole that manages to satisfy as a whodunit, whilst perfectly highlighting the disparities between the modern world and the traditional life of the village, that delights with it’s descriptions of the world it inhabits, scenes that don’t merely shine on the page but continue to glow on the retina and  yet like all good social commentators, whilst showing the light, the writer doesn’t shy away from the darker side of this society, painting a vivid portrait of the madness & corruption inherent in the society.

  Nii Ayikwei Parkes is a performance poet as well as a novelist and I think that is apparent in the way he  plays with words, the way his characters come alive and the way he uses the traditions, myths, the very language of Ghana, then chucks in computers, mobile phones, chucks in chromatography test, digital cameras etc…… and at the point these meet, he creates his own language, creates this book, this beautiful deep elegant complex tale that had me smitten.

 

 

Nii Ayikwei Parkes
Nii Ayikwei Parkes(Wiki)
Nii Ayikwei Parkes (Peepal Tree Press)
Contemporary Writers
A Conversation with Nii Ayikwei Parkes at,
ImageNations (Promoting African Literature)

Tammy Ho Lai-Ming

An Introduction.
These are two stunning poems by Tammy Ho Lai-Ming, the first one was originally featured in Singapore based Writers Connect and was chosen as a personal favourite of the poet. The second was first published in Sotto Voce Magazine, (Issue 1 Fall 2008) and was chosen by me purely on the grounds that I adore it. Although you should check out her site for  a wider representation of how good a writer she is.

IT IS IMPOSSIBLE TO BE PARTIALLY GUTTED
    
i.
I vow never to speak to him again.

ii.
If you know what he said to me,
you'll understand:
Words coming out of his fingers,
in the cold darkening night: "I feel nothing
inside", "plaything".

You see, he sharpened
his words, each a blade, ready to kill.
He intensified his skills.

Maybe he's a fisherman, and I his flesh.
He said as much: "I hooked your chin,
and pulled you in". "My most beautiful catch."

Not only chin. Someone's mocked heart was curbed;
it dangled, shivered ever so slightly on display.
Do fish cry? Their tears mistaken for stubborn mist.

iii.
These are no lover's rites.
I vow never to open my mouth again.
:::::

INVISIBLE RED CORDS








Our austere old man under the moon
binds lovers' feet
with invisible red cords.
He has no need for wings, bows or arrows.
And he walks slow.




> 
He knows there will be love
when love is seemingly uncalled for.
In his book of single mortals,
each to each,
ask, 'How's your foot?'
'How's your foot?'




>
Sometimes when he's bored,
he experiments with permutations
of man and woman.
Flipping carelessly through his book,
or ignoring its pages,
he ties loose strands together.




>
One couple in ten thousand,
feet hobbled,
are dragged to the altar.
Pulling at their bowties and necklaces;
they feel an invisible noose
tightening around their throats,
as our austere old hangman
ties the knot.

Tammy Ho Lai-Ming is a Hong Kong born writer, now based in the UK, where she is working on her PhD thesis on neo-Victorian fiction. (Department of English, King’s College London). She previously studied at the University of Hong Kong obtaining a BA with first class honours and a Master of Philosophy, with a thesis titled "Reading Aloud and Charles Dickens's Style", an exploration of how Dickens's writing style was influenced by the period practice of reading aloud, a practice Dickens was a keen advocate of, whether  publicly or in private. The thesis also discusses the interrelation between literature and linguistics (especially the concept of orality/aurality and iconicity) in prose fiction. Between 2005 – 2008, she worked as a demonstrator at the School of English, the University of Hong Kong, also working as a teacher and helping to organise various literary and academic events for the School of English and the Faculty of Arts, including a three-day international conference Hong Kong Culture: Word and Image (6-8 December 2007) for the Faculty of Arts, HKU. The conference brought together renowned local and overseas scholars who are working on the visual and cultural representations of Hong Kong. She has continued this at King's College London, helping organise events, including a cross-disciplinary discussion series entitled Creative King's (Spring 2009). She is also actively involved in the reading group, The Shows of London Nineteenth-Century Group and as an editor of the AHRC-funded journal, Victorian Network .




She was nominated for a Pushcart Prize (2008) for her poem "Elegy To A Brother Who Wrote Autobiographical Poems" (first published in Boxcar Poetry Review) and Frostwriting nominated her poem "The Famine" (first published in Quarterly Literary Review Singapore and reprinted in Frostwriting) for inclusion in Best of the Net Anthology (2009). She edited Hong Kong U Writing: An Anthology( 2006) and co-edited Love & Lust ( 2008), and was a Co-editor of Word Salad Poetry Magazine, she also served as an Assistant Poetry Editor of Sotto Voce Magazine.




She is also the founding co-editor (with Jeff Zroback) of the first Hong Kong based international online English literary journal (and all round fantastic read) Cha: An Asian Literary Journal, an editor of the India-based journal Criterion and a Contributing Photographer to THIS Literary Magazine.









I've been following Tammy (t) for a while on twitter and knew what a fine poet she was, but it’s only since I attempted to piece together this biography that I’ve come to realise how involved in the world of writing/poetry she is, she breathes, bleeds, lives poetry and on the strength of those I’ve read we are better off because of it.




Explore the links and the poetry written within. At the moment there are no books, but that is, I believe, just a matter of time and when it happens I hope she saves a copy for me.





A Conversation with Tammy Ho Lai-Ming(LR)


A Fine Cup Of Tea (The Critical Arm Of Cha:)


Cha: An Asian Literary Journal


Cha: Blog


Qarrtsiluni


Tammy Ho Lai-Ming



This is a poem that featured in Phantom Kangaroo


The girl whose face is in faux porcelain bowls

pomes ALL SIZES

@Pomesallsizes

If you have a Poem/ Poet, you admire please introduce them to me.

Maybe This Time - Alois Hotschnig

You are walking down a road, you take a turn, let’s say for examples sake, left, and carry on walking, gradually something, some feeling, starts to disturb your equilibrium, you let it go, and continue walking but this feeling starts to grip, it’s as if something saurian is using your spine as a percussion instrument, there’s an eight millimetre drill bit slowly boring into the back of your skull turn by turn. You spin round  tracing your route back with your eyes glancing off every surface, tracing every obstacle – it all looks the same, in the distance the traffic appears to flow as before, the sun is still shining, you about turn and face your intended route, willing whatever’s making you feel this way to show itself. Nothing does, to all intents and purpose this is just a route to your destination, it has the same cars, the same road furniture, the houses line up as regular as soldiers on parade, the same as elsewhere, the same curtain twitches as the same old lady turns from the window - and yet……..
.




Somehow you’ve entered the universe of Alois Hotschnig, this is the rabbit hole and Alice is so far outside her comfort zone - it hurts. These nine tales have an interior logic of their own, like dreamscapes they inhabit that hinterland just outside our line of sight, just beyond our awakened selves and can easily trip over into a nightmare realm. Hotschnig comes over as a bored and decadent God playing a malevolent game of Sims*. .






In the first tale the narrator appears obsessed with his neighbours, following their every movement, he is disturbed by their complete disregard of him, yet feels himself under surveillance. In another an old woman invites a man into her house and although he doesn’t know her, she appeared to be expecting him, then introduces him to a doll with the same name and looking exactly like him, in another tale we follow a beetle and through the cold observations of the narrator we watch it die as it’s attacked & eaten alive by ants. Meike Ziervogel states “Outwardly normal events slip into drama before they tip into horror” and this rings true, these tales confound, bemuse…unsettle and like some poltergeist that has taken up residence in your mind, they bang and clatter, long after the book is back on the shelf.






Alois Hotschnig (born 1959) is an Austrian writer, he began studying medicine before switching to German and English studies at the University of Innsbrück. In 1989 he won the sponsorship award of the state of Carinthia for his story Aus (Out). Although Hotschnig has written novels (Leonardo's Hands, Ludwig's Zimmer (room) ) he is considered important as a short story writer, in 2008 he received the Erich Fried Prize, with the jury stating that “ more than any other German language writer he affirms and develops the unjustly neglected “literary form of the short story” and in 2010 was shortlisted for Jan Michalski Prize for Literature, TheSüddeutsche Zeitung praised him  “as one of the best authors of his generation”.

.
I received this book from Peirene Press , a fabulous independent publishing house, who are committed to publishing world class literature and high quality translations, specializing in contemporary European literature. They tend to be books of less than 200 pages, that potentially  can be read in around the same time it takes to watch a DVD. They scour the winners and short listed books from the most prestigious literary prizes in the various European countries, such as the French Prix Médicis, the German Georg Büchner Preis, the Polish Nike, the Czech Magnesia Litera etc., with the aim of releasing the literature of the highest quality in English translation - This is the second book I’ve had from them and their success rate has so far been a 100%.

.
Alois Hotschnig . Com
Alois Hotschnig(Wiki)
International Literature Festival – Berlin
Peirene Press
*Sims.

The world of blogging is continually changing(BBAW)

The world of blogging is continually changing. Share 3 things you believe  are essential tried and true practices for every blogger and 1-3 new trends or tools you’ve adapted recently or would like to in the future.

When I started this Blog I hadn’t a clue what I was doing, I was bashing out posts with no idea of the results, for all intents and purpose I was still that lone insular reader I had always been. Then I started getting comments, which started a dialogue between myself and the individuals commenting, which still goes on now over a year later. Many books have past through that dialogue, but it’s essentially the same – the desire to express a passion for the written word, in whatever form it takes. So my first practice is if you like a blog or a post on a blog let them know - even if your opinion differs - start a dialogue, which leads to my second tried and true practice. If someone comments on your blog/post, reply because what you want is to build a rapport with these people, your fellow bloggers, you want to start a conversation, not get trapped in what is essentially a monologue (if that was the case, don’t have a comments box). This leads with almost pre-planned ease to my third tried and trusted thingummy bob – praise those that are there for you, support those that support you, this is the  essence of networking, as a group of individuals with a shared purpose. A perfect example of this is BBAW, which is made up of a mass of readers and bloggers all in their own insular worlds coming together to become a worldwide support network of Bookfiends.

The second part of this question, what new trends or tools you’ve adapted recently or would like to in the future? The obvious one is Twitter, this is a fantastic tool for Blogging. Now, I’m a relatively latecomer to this, but I’ve found it a fabulous help, forget how it can help promote your post (which it can) but the networking capabilities of it are fantastic, some mornings I’ve been involved  in book related chatter, that involved people in Asia, Australia, Europe, America etc., which definitely makes my day start with a big grin. The second is my smartphone, most bloggers who’ve received a comment from me, have received it by my phone, my tweeting is via an app on my phone as is my Goodreads app, my blogger app & then there’s another app, which is also my third chosen tool - Google Reader.

Hito

Human

>

Side-view of homo sapiens

Once  bending with arms down

Now matchstick torso striking out,

Stark and upright earthling,

A figure striding, God knows where

Springy twiglike upside-down Y.

A wishbone. A divining rod.

Hito. Human. Ein Mensch.

>

Naked and maskless.

Here neither female nor male

A bare-boned biped.

>

And yet a self-reflecting mind.

At first two downward strokes

Inscribed on bone or tortoise shell,

A bare pictograph.

Bit by bit crisscross of symbols,

Living lives of their own,

A pointing out and interplay,

A signal’s doubleness.

Grounded sign-maker,

High-minded and down-to-earth.

Our human being.

>

Michael O’Siadhail.

Hispanic Heritage Month (September 15 to October 15)

Around the beginning of September, I received an e-mail from Larry Dignan, at Online college Courses, stating that they would like to share an article “50 great Hispanic Novels Every Student should read” they had posted on their site for Hispanic Heritage Month (September 15 to October 15). Now, to be honest I had not heard of this, so a quick bit of wiki research and I learnt Hispanic Heritage Month in the United States is the period when people recognize the contributions of Hispanic Americans to the United States and to celebrate Hispanic Cultural heritage and Hispanic culture.

September 15 was chosen as the starting point for the celebration because it is the anniversary of independence of five Latin American countries: Costa Rica, El Salvador, Guatemala, Honduras and Nicaragua. They all declared independence in 1821. In addition, Mexico, Chile and Belize celebrate their independence days on September 16, September 18, and September 21, respectively. Hispanic Heritage Month also celebrates the long and important presence of Hispanic Americans in North America. Armed with this knowledge I starting scanning some of the books in the list and rapidly came to the conclusion that apart from some of my favourite writers, “this was a collection of some of the greatest writers in history. Hailing from South and Central America, Spain, the Caribbean and the United States alike, they offer insights not only into Hispanic traditions and norms, but some issues central to humanity itself — like time, love, mortality, passion and personal identity”.

On the website they’ve collected 50 books  to help you start your exploration of Hispanic literature. Whether you’re a college student majoring in Latin American studies, Spanish or something else entirely, this is a great collection of novels,- of which I’ve posted 1 – 20 from the list, check them out; pick one up and celebrate

Spain

There would be no Hispanic literature without Spain, so here are some of its best novels.

>

1. Don Quixote by Miguel de Cervantes

1. Hapless Alonso Quixano is an aging man, obsessed with books on chivalry. As he delves further into them, losing sleep and his sanity, he embarks on his own quests as a knight. A title that frequently tops list of best novels ever written, it’s a must-read for any college student.

.

 

 

 

<

>

2.Three Exemplary Novels by Miguel de Unamuno

Not a novel proper, but a series of shorter novellas, this work is perhaps one of the best written by the Spanish novelist, philosopher and playwright. Don’t skip the prologue, as many feel it is the best part.

.>

<

3.The Family of Pascual Duarte by Camilo Jose Cela

Written in 1942 by Nobel Laureate Cela, this book caused an uproar when it was released and subsequently ended up banned. Why? The novel was part of the tremendismogenre, which is marked by extended and frequent violent scenes. Not for the faint of heart, it is nonetheless a great work of literature.

.

<

>

4.The Shadow of the Wind by Carlos Ruiz Zafon

This bestselling novel is set in post-Spanish Civil War Barcelona and focuses on a young boy who becomes entranced by a book he finds in a secret, old library. This leads him to seek more works by its enigmatic author — with interesting results.

<

>

.,<

5.All Souls by Javier Marias

1. At first glance, this novel appears to be about nothing much at all — no murder, no intrigue — yet for the careful reader, all of these elements are bound up in the subtle prose. While fiction, it caused uproar at Oxford and Cambridge, as many professors thought the characters had been based on them.

.

<

<

6.A Heart So White by Javier Marias

With a title drawn from Macbeth, this ambitious novel chronicles the life of Juan, who is struggling to both understand and hide the past (his own and his father’s) from himself.

<

 

.>

7.The Rats by Miguel Delibes

1. A leading literary figure in Spain after the Civil War, Delibes’ work made a splash both in his native Spain and abroad. One of his literary masterpieces, The Rats, builds a story around small autobiographical anecdotes surrounding a small Castilian village that has disappeared.

.

>

<

8.The Innocent Saints by Miguel Dilibes

Sometimes translated as The Holy Innocents, this 1981 novel follows the destruction of a rural Spanish family who suffer under caciques — ruthless local leaders who use their power to sway politics in their favour.

.<

>

9.Bartleby & Co. by Enrique Vila-Matas

Drawing on characters like Melville's Bartleby the Scrivener, this novel addresses some big questions in literature and life alike. Told through the point of view of a hunchback who himself cannot write, this award-winner is a great choice for any student of literature.

.

<

>

10.Cathedral of the Sea by Ildefonso Falcones

Falcones isn’t a novelist by profession — he’s actually a high-profile lawyer — but you wouldn’t know it by reading this. Set in 14th century Barcelona at the height of the Inquisition, it traces the building of the Santa Maria del Mar Cathedral and the life of one young boy as he grows into a man during those tumultuous times.

.<

>

11.Soldiers of Salamis by Javier Cercas

Blending real life with imagination, this novel follows a political prisoner during the Spanish Civil War. He survives through miraculous circumstances, and his story is told through the lens of a modern-day journalist investigating his life.

.

<

>

12.Time of Silence  by Luis Martin Santos

Spanish psychiatrist and writer Santos rose to fame with the release of this novel, considered one of the 20th Century’s greatest Spanish novels. It draws heavily on the literary devices employed by James Joyce, like stream of consciousness and interior monologues, to tell the story of a doctor accused of killing a woman who dies while he tries to help her. With sex and death central to the novel, it was considered racy in 1962 and ended up censored. It was not put out in full until almost 20 years later.

.<

>

13.A Manuscript of Ashes by Antonio Munoz Molina

Part history, part mystery and part love story, A Manuscript of Ashes follows a young man who goes into hiding in his uncle’s country home to escape Franco’s police. There, he discovers a steamy love triangle, a murder and, potentially, a literary masterpiece.

.

<

>

14.The City of Marvels by Eduardo Mendoza

Written in the picaresque style, The City of Marvels combines fantasy and history to vividly paint Barcelona at the turn of the century, caught between two disastrous World’s Fairs. At the centre of the novel is Onofre Bouvila, an unscrupulous young man who dives headfirst into the city’s seamy underbelly.

<

>

.

15.The Life Story of the Swindler called Don Pablos by Francisco de Quevedo y Villegas

 

Perhaps more often referred to as El Buscon, this picaresque novel was written around 1600 and takes a satirical look at Spanish life, following a swindler who wants to learn and become both virtuous and a gentleman.

 

 

 

 

.<

>

16.Usurpers by Franscisco Ayala

This classic book contains seven short stories that focus on the theme of power, often in a highly negative and cautionary manner, with characters alluding to real-life figures.

.<

>

17.Nada by Carmen LaForet

Sent to live with her crazy (not in the charming sense) relatives in post-Civil War Barcelona, the young girl at the heart of this novel is weighed down by more than just her family. The oppressive politics of the time, which, while never mentioned directly, are always looming in the background.

………………………

……………………….

<

>

Argentina

Argentine authors have produced some amazing works of literature. Here are just a few you should be sure to check out.

<

>

18.Ficciones by Jorge Luis Borges

While this is not a novel, but a collection of short stories, we couldn’t leave it off this list of great Hispanic literature. Ficciones is not an easy read, but well worth the effort to learn more about one of the 20th century’s greatest writers.

.<

>

19.Kiss of the Spider Woman by Manuel Puig

1. The name might be familiar to you through the Broadway production based on the novel. The book is almost entirely a dialogue, with no indication of who is speaking, and multiple plots and subplots can make it a challenging read, but the story at its heart makes it all worthwhile.

.

 

 

 

<

>

20.Artificial Respiration by Ricardo Piglia

Delving into complex issues of philosophy and political history, this book has been called one of the most important works of Latin American literature to come out in the past few decades.

<

>

>

<

For the rest of this list (20 – 50) check out -  50 Great Hispanic Novels Every Student Should Read at the online college courses site. Then state your favourites, or  find some new ones.

Also for those interested, here’s a post I have written about a couple of books dealing with the subject of Spanish literature, the first book is Oxford University press’s VSI Spanish  Literature, which is a handy guide on the subject and the second is Granta’s The best Of Young Spanish Language Novelists, which offers an introduction to new writers - From Andres Barba (Spain) to Alejandro Zambra (Chile), this is a great collection of stories.

 

Have You read any of these, is so which ones would you recommend?

Snakes and Ladders (BBAW)

As a book blogger, you start whispering your first thoughts, your posts, then as your confidence builds, you get not necessarily louder, but your voice carries better - further, you feel your ability to express your thoughts, to confidently map out the process by which you arrived at a conclusion has improved. This Situation comes about via the support network you build up starting with that first individual that heard your earliest whispers and answered -  this gives you that boost, that sets you up, for those dark days when no one seems to know you’re alive, because blogging can be a bit like snakes and ladders, there are days when all you do is climb, when everything you write resounds like a bell clear to all, and then there are those that, no matter what you do, you appear to be shouting into a vacuum and down the snake you go. Slowly this little community builds and if you are lucky continues growing, but if you are extra lucky you never loose those original individuals that were there at the start.

My first ever comment was from Pete Karnas from What You Read, a fantastic blogger living in China and who I still regularly exchange comments with, also three other bloggers that were there in those first days are Gina from Books, art, and other distractions, Bellezza from Dolce Bellezza & my first ever and still favourite challenge Japanese Literature Challenge (now in it’s fifth season).  There is also an individual who constantly makes me up my game with the books he finds and the other reason for my continued admiration for the works of Japanese Writers: Mel U, of The Reading Life. Thankfully I’m still in regular contact with these people and my blogging world is a lot better for it.  So a big thank you for being there in the early days and for still being there now.

"A Ribbon Around A Bomb".

What The Water Gave Me -  

Poems After Frida Kahlo.

Pascale Petit.

Frida Kahlo was born in Coyoacán, Mexico, July 6th 1907, one of four daughters born to a Hungarian-Jewish father and a mother of Spanish and Mexican Indian descent. At the age of six she developed polio, which caused her right leg to appear a lot thinner than the other, this remained with her for the rest of  her life. When she was eighteen she was seriously injured in an accident with a bus, resulting in fractures to her spine, collarbone and ribs, a shattered pelvis, shoulder and foot injuries, over a year in hospital and more than 30 operations in her lifetime, whilst in convalescence she began to paint. At twenty two she married Diego Rivera, the famous Mexican muralist who was twenty years her senior, whom she described as "I suffered two grave accidents in my life…One in which a streetcar knocked me down and the other was Diego." Theirs was a volatile  relationship that had to cope with numerous  infidelities, the pressures of careers, divorce, remarriage, Frida's bi-sexual affairs, her poor health and inability to have children.
All of this feeds into her paintings, which are remembered for “ it’s pain and passion” the intense colours and how she incorporated Mexican culture and Amerindian cultural traditions into her work, which has sometimes been characterized as Naïve art or folk art, although her work has also been described as "surrealist", and in 1938 André Breton, principal initiator of the surrealist movement, described Kahlo's art as a "ribbon around a bomb".

What The Water Gave Me (1)

I am what the water gave me, 
a smoke-ring in a jar,
.

the braided rope
my ladder-to-the-light,
.





my shivering bird-heart
caught,
.





my mouth a bubble
of not-yet-breath,
.





while in my nuclei
two spirals dance,
.





my budding body sheathed in pearl
as I learn,
.





even before birth,
to doodle in the dark.
.

Pascale Petit  is a French-born poet who grew up in Wales and lives in London, she trained as a sculptor at the Royal College of Art,  spending  the first part of her life as an artist, before choosing to concentrate on poetry. She has published five collections of poetry, two of which were shortlisted for the TS Eliot Prize and featured as Books of the Year in the Times Literary Supplement and the Independent. In 2004 the Poetry Book Society selected her as one of the Next Generation Poets. This is her second collection that deals with the life and art of Frida Kahlo, the first  “The Wounded Deer” was published in 2005, after which she wrote “ The Huntress (2005) followed by the “Treekeeper’s  Tale” (2008) and yet Kahlo still haunted her, more poems kept coming resulting in this new collection “What The Water Gave Me”, which contains fifty-two poems exploring how trauma can become art, how an artist channels the pain and angst, the joy and terror experienced in life through some alchemical process into an image on canvas that has the power to alter those that look upon it, to haunt long after the picture has faded from the eye.
By  adopting the voice of Frida Kahlo in these poems, Pascale stated that she found it exhilarating to become this artist, and by this medium she  found she could write about such difficult subjects  as childhood trauma and sex, without the need to be confessional, she also said that “For each poem I meditated on a painting, not just on the subject, but her process: the colours and brushstrokes, until I could create my own ‘painting’ with words. My poem versions bear the titles of her paintings and juxtapose images from them with incidents in her life. For example, in my poem ‘Remembrance of an Open Wound’, I superimposed the accident with her sex life with Diego, so there is joy as well as brokenness.”. Also having been through a long illness herself, she could identify with the artists isolation and need to remake herself……
.

Still Life.

The sun and the moon

have shrunk

.

to the size of an orange

and a pomegranate.

.

they hover above

my bedside table

.

daring me to taste them.

.

These poems pare away layers of flesh to get to the very heart of the artist, to capture that moment of transmutation, although in Kahlo’s instance transubstantiation would work – the change from a figure of pain ridden flesh, to an artist  whose life was her palette, her myth. Pascale Petit takes all these moments, these heartbeats and processes them through her own art. Refracting all as though through a prism revealing the whole spectrum of the beauty and terror, pain and redemption inherent in Kahlo’s work, Les Murray (Times Literary Supplement) said “No other British poet I am aware of can match the powerful mythic imagination of Pascale Petit.”  and on the strength of this collection I’m inclined to agree with him. This is her third book to be shortlisted for the TS Eliot Prize for poetry, the other two being “The Zoo Father” and “The Huntress” and based on this work it’s only a matter of time till she rightfully takes here place with previous prize winners such as, Derek Walcott, Carol Ann Duffy, Seamus Heaney, Ted Hughes, Alice Oswald etc. 
.

This book was sent to me by Seren, an independent publisher, whose ethos is to produce quality writing across a wide-ranging list which includes poetry, fiction, translation, biography, art and history, and are  proud of the fact that many of their  books and authors are shortlisted for – and have won - major literary prizes across Britain and America. Their reasoning  as stated here is “ At the heart of our list is a good story told well or an idea or history presented interestingly or provocatively, what used to be called literary publishing before accountants and managers gained ascendancy. We’re international in authorship and readership though our roots remain here in Wales (seren = star in Welsh) where we prove that writers from a small country with an intricate culture have a worldwide relevance.” They also have a great idea on their site - That if you have a Blog you can request a book for review from their catalogue, which is how I came by this great collection of verse.


The Links
Pascale Petit’s (official Site)
Pascale Petit’s Blog
Seren (Author Page)
Seren (UK)
Black Lawrence Press (USA)

pomes ALL SIZES

@pomesallsizes

If you have a Poem/ Poet, you admire please introduce them to me.

THIRST – Ken Kalfus

 

“Copyright 1998. All rights reserved. No part part of this paragraph may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, oral, or telepathic, including photocopy, recording, transcription, tracing, hot type, cold type, mimeograph, ditto (in school, the copies, made between classes, would be handed to us while they were still warm and moist, their ink bearing a thick, intoxicating fragrance that would compel us to raise the sheets to our faces and think, so, this is what blue smells like) teletype, telefax, telephone, semaphore, skywriting, whisper, seance, confession……….”

 

Above is the start of the first tale - whether it’s a short story, preface, essay or  poetry (I could accept it as a poem),  I’m not sure -  but in two & a half pages it begins as though it were a legal document, before becoming a list that soon developes nostalgic yearnings leading it in the direction of Proust's “ À la recherche du temps perdu”, where through descriptions of devices you cannot use to copy the piece with, memories are evoked and, like some temporal shift you are back to a point in time “where thirty adolescents  press inky sheets of paper against their faces as if,” before ending two and a half pages later with

“The memory still resists full description. After such failure, of what use is copyright? This paragraph contains the complete text of the hardcover edition. NOT ONE WORD HAS BEEN OMITTED”

David Foster Wallace described this book, as a book to give someone who is negative about the future of American fiction, going on to say that there are hip, funny writers and there are wise, moving and profound writers. Kalfus is all of these at once, whether  it’s a tale of sexual awakening in Paris (Le Jardin de la Sexualité), or a fictitious series of questions, that has more to do with the Human story, than the given answers (The  Joy and Melancholy Baseball Quiz), or a tale that appears to be a homage to Calvino’s “Invisible Cities” (Invisible Malls) which starts

“Kublai Khan does not necessarily believe everything Marco Polo says when he describes the indoor shopping malls visited in his travels around the empire, but he listens to the young Venetian with greater attention than he has shown any other messenger or explorer”.

 Marco then goes on to describe a series of shopping malls like Monica, an indoor shopping mall entirely occupied by the past, filled with boutiques with mickey mouse watches & ashtrays from the 1939 New York world’s fair. Then there are malls dealing with desire, here you can see items - golden fleeces, holy grails, elixirs that deliver eternal life etc.- however everything is priced slightly higher than you think it’s worth, so you leave, regret this decision and return with the realisation that the item that took your fancy was worth more than you originally thought, only to discover the price has been raised, this goes on ad infinitum. Invisible malls describes several other malls as well as the ones mentioned above.

Thirst also has tales set in a rain soaked third world jungle and a plague ridden Renaissance Venice, whether they are nostalgic tales about  childhood, or adults living parallel lives,  Kalfus manages to amaze with his slightly skewed stories, tales that although, on the surface humorous, still manage to make you aware of the tragedy lurking beneath. These are fantastic stories full of the absurd and more real for it.

 

Ken Kalfus.com

Publishers Page

Ken Kalfus(Wiki)

Salon Books Interview