Reading: Mourning and Other Activities by Raza Ali Hasan
Raza Ali Hasan (b. ?) is a Pakistani-American poet who doesn't care much about activism. He was born in Bangladesh and raised in Islamabad and moved to tue United States in 1991. He wants his poetry to paint a more accurate picture of the world. He teaches in Colorado. I read a verse about mourning ...
Smile encounter
I ride the Seoul subway, line six. A small young woman in a colorful dress gets in and takes a seat. She is not Korean and she wears a scarf. As relative outsider in this monocultural megalopolis, I instinctively feel solidarity with the timid girl, whose face was ridden with acne. I smile at her. ...
When we’re old and done
When we're old and done How will our love feel? Will we be Anxious, afraid we missed out on What we could have done? Afraid of Looking back and feeling like dry sand? Life seems funny and meaningful when the people Around us are younger and we, unwittingly We become authorities on living They say ...
Reading: Theory of Prosody by Philip Levine
Philip Levine (1928-2015) was an American poet. As a boy, he worked in the factories of Detroit and was fascinated by the events of the Spanish civil war. He was among the most important poetic voices of the industrial poor of the twentieth century. I read a seemingly playful piece of his that is not ...
Cloud Watching with my Child
We lie still on a silent green slope watching the clouds for hours in their unending transformation You see a crocodile, I see a monkey, you see a turtle, I see a tiny fish then there is silence and I think of you Much later, attuned to thoughts of grief oblivious of the highs and ...
Gezellig potje Twitter gespeeld
Vandaag gunde ik mezelf wat puberaal vermaak met het verguisde gezelschapsspel "Twitter", niet te verwarren met Twister dat we vroeger op kinderverjaardagen speelden, toen je als tienjarige nog niet hoefde te vrezen voor een aanklacht van je negenjarige speelkameraadje vanwege ongewenste intimiteiten. Twitter wordt liefkozend het open riool of de kloaka van opinieland genoemd, en wie ...
Reading: Lost Love by Gregory Djanikian
Gregory Djanikian (b. 1949) is an Egyptian born American poet with Armenian roots. He writes about the emigration experience, in particular about the way the English language is enriched by immigrants. I read a love poem today: Lost Love Someone is walking up and down the street crying “My lost love, my lost love!” without ...
Meditation on nature
Close your eyes and breathe in. How do we meditate about nature? Let us think of some cliché scenes of nature: magnificent Alpine peaks, unspoilt blue lakes, endless tundra, rain forest. The concept of nature seems to be defined as those objects left alone by men. The fewer humans have set foot somewhere, the more ...