Message in a Bottle
I want to say love before death words but
they only dig at night they dig in the clouds
a Ceylon pigeon shat on the Spanish stairs
(but they vacuum the moon)
I mean the message never arrives
Poetry
Reading: A Found Photo by Jacques Réda
Jacques Réda (b.1929) is a French poet and lover of jazz. His poetry often conveys small and innocent scenes. I read a poem about an old photo, wonderfully translated by Jenny Feldman: A Found Photo One day the three of us out in this boat. The day black and white but clearly summer For in ...
Reading: In Jerusalem by Mahmoud Darwish
Today I read a poem by Mahmoud Darwish (1942-2008) in a translation by Fady Joudah. Darwish was born in Galilee, in a village that doesn't exist anymore. He lived in exile in Beirut and Paris and published a lot of books. I know that he was considered a 'resistance poet' and served on an executive committee of the ...
Reading: Stone by Nick Makoha
Nick Makoha (b. 1974) is a Ugandan poet who fled the terror regime of Idi Amin. He studied biochemistry and worked in a bank, but poetry was his calling. His most important publication is Kingdom of Gravity, "a searing, mysterious contemplation of exile, fatherhood and violence". I read a poem about corruption. Stone The best thing I ...
To be a bad poet
who is not invited to exotic poetry festivals in cultural capitals, not celebrated for his otherness, not for the soothing justice that emanates from his professionally __translated words, not for the clapping of the audience when he reads and they see the scaffolding of a pristine soul To be that poet who loves the colors ...
Poem
, in which we are not immortal
but our identities dissolve in-
to one another and we are only
a little bit afraid to call it love
Reading: The Sign in My Father’s Hands by Martín Espada
Martín Espada (b. ) is an American poet, critic and attorney with Puerto Rican roots. His most important influence was his father, a community organizer and social justice activist. Poetry for him is giving a voice to the voiceless. I read a hommage to his father. The Sign in My Father’s Hands —for Frank Espada ...
Reading: The Shirt by Robert Pinsky
Robert Pinsky (b. 1940) is one of America's greatest poetry critics. He was elected Poet Laurate of the US in 1997. Today I read a social poem about sweatshops, written long before the incident in Bangladesh on 24 April 2013. The Shirt The back, the yoke, the yardage. Lapped seams, The nearly invisible stitches along ...
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 ...