Munayem Mayenin
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Here we will post articles on our favourite contemporary poets across the world. Pease check back as we update this section.
The World Must Make Room for Zheng Danyi
for His Wings of Summer
Zheng Danyi the exiled Chinese poet of the Tiananmen Square time, now lives in Hong Kong and when he stands up to recite his work you feel suddenly the soul of Chinese people begin to speak and in your mind you could see China stands still and the world would look in wonder filled eyes! Danyi does not recite his poems, he literally gets his soul out in colours and the sounds of his poetry seem to be nothing but odes to his beloved motherland China!
Zheng Danyi came to recite at the Exiled Writers Ink Poetry Café, London, in November with his publisher and translator and hypnotised the audience with pieces out of his Wings of Summer! Listening to him one would feel from the audience: why on earth China made this son of her live in exile-the son who speaks out his soul to her in love!
Zheng Danyi is seen, and rightly so, as one of the finest contemporary Chinese poets of his generation.
Starting out with poetry and publishing since 1980s in native China, Taiwan, Hong Kong and North America Danyi has not stopped his passionate, colourful yet tragic poetic journey searching the soul of his motherland!
Hong Kong based international publisher, Sixth Finger Press published Danyi’s selected poems of his six collections, Wings of Summer, which is an English translation with Chinese with it.
The Wings of Summer is a very comprehensive collection that will give readers, who have not had a chance to get to know or read Danyi’s works, the opportunity to get a real feel of the poet behind these words of imagination, imagery and words craftsmanship. Although we have no access to the originals the translation sounds absolutely wonderful, excellently done by Luo Hui. Congratulations to Hui. Translating poetry seems to me an effort by a desperate astronaut trying to get back home from the space without his space craft! And when you see the astronaut has made it home you feel the astonishing achievements of the translator!
“This is to you: bleeding gold of April and
May. To you: July
The devil’s wheel, electrified sky, and
Extinguished fire. To you —
A bent knife, an odd metaphor, a spilt
Bottle of wine, my last bit of wealth, I give to you”
(Dedication)
When at the Poetry Café organised on the first Monday of every month at the Poetry Café (The Poetry Society Poetry Café) Danyi was reciting this in his mother tongue the hypnotised audience (I am sure) could see through Danyi’s heart, how sincere a dedication he was making to his motherland! How heart piercing this rang into hearts of the audience.
“Why aren’t you
the grand dream of a spider, all your life
Wearing ill-fitting clothes? Why aren’t you a butterfly
Within a butterfly? In your warm body, there is sadness like water
Hot will turn cold. Ah, in the glimmer of your fire, I want to put on
A pair of summer
wings! Following you, like a fireball
Collecting all the fleeting rays of the summer day, to make a song
Oh, my wings, see me leave the ground, elevate, choose a
Direction. Why do I find in your name the moon of my life?”
(Wings of Summer)
Does this not sing to your heart? Danyi talks of a spiritual China; always wearing ill fitted clothing, cold, sad and tragic yet the eternal human flames of hopes and dreams flicker in the horizon. Danyi’s China is much more than Chinese New Year, the fire breathing dragons, Chinese take aways or a brief visit to China Town or the Great Chinese Wall! Danyi’s China is not sadistic but tragic and the eternal hope that Tiananmen Square could just rise up and may one day make China become that “butterfly within a butterfly!.
“No one suffers,
no, never, only funerals being held on schedule
No one cries, only criers consoling each other
No wounds, no, only bloodstained hands forever sewing
No sea, only waves... tearing their hearts out?
When the summer
of naked brides awakens in the sand
In the heat of the poisonous sun, no one runs, except foam...”
(Dignity)
“Gently, I pull
-- gently, I pull out a poem. Ah, spring and this poem!
With the tip of my tongue, carefully, I carefully pull out
A hard pit, drink up the ice inside, and present it to you
Patiently, from
my pocket... I keep emptying out this poem
I can't help... emptying it out again... Ah, spring!
Blowing away the dust, I present to you
My lonely bleeding hands, and the dirty bandages”
(This Poem is For You)
In the introduction Hui writes about Danyi’s poetry that “gives a glimpse of the older, grander and tenacious Chinese tradition that remains operative in Zheng Danyi's poetry. Remote, obscure, decadent, perhaps even politically incorrect, the story nonetheless intrigues, lending a seductive charm to the poem.”
Zheng’s distinctions include among other achievements winning First Line magazine’s inaugural poetry prize (New York, 1991)
Being anthologized in Ten Major Poets Today (Shanghai Literary and Art Press, 1993),
Gold in Blue Sky (Foreign Language Press: Beijing, 1995)
New Generation: Poems from China Today (Hanging Loose Press: New York, 1999; editor Wang Ping).
His poetry has appeared in Chinese and English across Asia and North America, including Jintian/Today, Shanghai Literature Monthly, Unitas, Master, Hong Kong Literary Monthly and Beacons. Zheng Danyi has been a guest at the Hong Kong International Literary Festival and the Taipei Poetry Festival, and has given readings throughout China, North America and Europe.
Danyi was born in Sichuan, China and lectured in Chinese Literature and was a visiting scholar at Beijing University and the Social Science Institute of China.
The world of literature and poetry must now make room for Zheng Danyi and ought to be ready and willing to have a wonderful ride on the Wings of Summer.
For more visit:
http://www.sixthfingerpress.com
Nathalie Handal
The Palestinian Poetic Voice of the Created
Word-Motherland
A multi talented yet completely a poet, one would find in Nathalie Handal, a Palestinian poet of true universal experience and outlook! Nathalie has lived all over the globe: in the United States, Europe, the Caribbean, Latin America, and has travelled extensively in the Middle East and Eastern Europe.
She is a poet, playwright, writer, editor and literary researcher, and had a postgraduate degree in English and Drama at University of London, United Kingdom.
“I feel most at home when I am sitting in a Boston Yellow Cab. The ride from Logan airport to my apartment in that yellow cab brings me peace. It calms even the echoes of my breathing.
Every time I travel, I am comforted knowing I will be welcomed in a yellow cab. My addresses change, the concierge changes, the furniture changes, the bed sheets change, and even I change, but the yellow cabs are still yellow. I open those heavy doors, sit on those bouncing back seats, and feel a sense of relief. It’s like trying to convince myself that if one day I am lost, at least, I’ll find a piece of myself in one of these cabs. . . .
I was sitting in a yellow cab going to the airport to fly to Iowa. Isn’t there always a time for Iowa? Maybe not. Most people I spoke to asked me with their eyebrows rising, their foreheads wrinkling, "Why are you going there?" To begin with, I was invited by my friend Nastasia, who is Bulgarian and happened to be working in Iowa City. And why not Iowa?”
(Boston Yellow Cabs in An Ear to the Ground).
This is Nathalia Handal speaking, always from the heart sincerely and passionately. Her poetry is expression of an earnest heart.
“Nothing is even, even this line
I am writing, even this line I am waiting in,
waiting for permission to enter
the country, the house, the room.
Nothing is even, even now
that laws have been drawn and peace
is discussed on high tables,
and even if all was said to be even
I would not believe for even I know
that nothing is even - not the trees,
the flowers, not the mountains or the shadows…
our nature is not even so why even try to get even
instead let us find an even better place
and call it even.”
(Even)
It is difficult to choose out of Nathalie’s work as to what and how much can be quoted because one feels the desire to use the whole piece of a particular work!
“A night without a blanket, a blanket
belonging to someone else, someone
else living in our homes.
All I want is the quietness of blame to leave,
the words from dying tongues to fall,
all I want is to see a row of olive trees,
a field of tulips, to forget
the maze of intestines, the dried corners
of a soldier’s mouth, all I want is for
the small black eyed child to stop
wondering when the fever will stop
the noise will stop,”
(Jenin)
“I pull the collar of my light blue robe so hard
it tears, one side hanging as everyone’s lives hang here.
My fingers sink deep into my flesh,
I scratch myself, three lines scar my chests,
three faiths pound in my head and I wonder
if God is buried in the rubble. Every house is a prison,
every room a dog cage. Debke is no longer part of life,
only funerals are. Gaza is pregnant
with people and no one helps with the labor.
There are no streets, no hospitals, no schools,
no airport, no air to breathe.
And here I am in a room”
( Gaja City)
Palestine sings across the landscape of Nathalie’s works and as she travels across the globe and the State she carries Palestine wrapped in her heart and it sings the sad, tragic and yet eternally angry and optimistic.
“A cup of empty messages in a room of light,
light that blinds & blinded men lined up
the young are unable to die peacefully, I hear a man say.
All is gone: the messy hair of boys, their smile,
the pictures of ancestors, the stories of spirits,
the misty hour before sunrise
when the fig trees await the small hands of a child.
Now the candles have melted
and the bells of the church
no longer ring in Bethlehem.
A continued past of blood,
of jailed cities
confiscated lives
and goodbyes.”
(War)
Nathalie could not find
the real Bethlehem where her grandfather came from and graffiti and stones
replied her questions like a lot of other Palestinians.
“Secrets live in the space between our footsteps.
The words of my grandfather echoed in my dreams,
as the years kept his beads and town.
I saw Bethlehem, all in dust, an empty town
with a torn piece of newspaper lost in its narrow streets.
Where could everyone be? Graffiti and stones answered.
And where was the real Bethlehem--the one my grandfather came from?”
(Bethlehem)
“Most exiles do not take enough with them—
some obtain new lands, new identities
others return to the empty corridors of their sleep
in a place they are certain they can always call home;
but most hold on to a sentence as if it were a coat
that will protect them from sun prisons,
a sentence that will grow
the way we grow, leave ourselves
like silence leaves a home
it can no longer love.”
(Exiled Sentence)
This is how most Palestinian poets would most probably define a poem where Nathalie talks about poem:
“Poem
dressed in olive branches and cracked happiness,
surrounded by seasons of sleepless nights staring
at the dusty walls of cities we have lost
Poem
that loses its address or that the address
loses, both, in either case awaiting
the return of those returning not today not ever
Poem
I ask you-why-
does the street have a name I can't pronounce
does our vocabulary invent us, our accents
resent us-must we come to a halt
and try saying our name without feeling strange
try praising our poets without feeling afraid
Darwish,
every wish can be found in his name
Poem
is exile
a guest made of stones
a thin line between our voice and heaven's throat?”
(Ephratha)
“What are we to do without the light of shadows
And the devil in the shadows we've repainted in our history
What are we to do without the screams of our streams
the martyrs and their grandfathers' photographs telling us
what we are to do-to stay and face the enemy before us,
inside of us, behind us, face the holiness of our motions
and the wholeness of our story
What are we to do, continue to listen
to the olive trees call our names
sing our songs
recite our holy books
cry
scream
cry
death after death
between a stone and a bullet
a life
caught in the yawn of history
one child after another
ready for heaven or hell
how many times will we have to count
our dead and our dead brothers”
(West Bank)
Like Mahmoud Darwish, Nathalie contributes towards the creation of a word motherland, which Mahmoud called “home”. Is it a utopia? Is it an illusion? Is it a fantasy? There is no such thing called motherland unless we have created it, there can not be any homes but built flats or buildings of concrete, still or woods or leaves unless we have dreamt of it as a home, unless we have created it with the bricks of imagination, with the music of rhythm and imagery! The Palestinian poets whether they live in Israel or in burnt out cities of Gaja or Ramallah or other parts of the middle east or across the globe are connected in that home building-in the process of creating their word-motherland through their poetry. Nathalie Handal is well rooted herself in that process of feeling, living and witnessing and creating that pain, blood, bullets, corpses and processions of desperation and yet the eternal dream of that green olive trees swinging in the scarlet dusk.
“I come from there and remember,
I was born like everyone is borne, I have a mother
and a house with many windows,
I have brothers, friends and a prison.
I have a wave that sea-gulls snatched away.
I have a view of my own and an extra blade of grass.
I have a moon past the peak of words.
I have the godsent food of birds and olive tree beyond the ken of time.
I have traversed the land before swords turned bodies into banquets.
I come from there. I return the sky to its mother when for its mother the
sky cries, and I weep for a returning cloud to know me.
I have learned the words of blood-stained courts in order to break the rules.
I have learned and dismantled all the words to construct a single one:
Home
lives on in this land of created word motherland to be Palestine.”
( Mahmoud Darwish: I am from There)
Nathalie has an MFA in Creative Writing and Literature at Bennington College, Vermont, a Master of Arts in English and a Bachelor of Arts in International Relations and Communications at Simmons College, Boston.
Nathalie has been published in an array of publications including
The Literary Review, Orbis, the Brooklyn Review, Ambit, Stone Soup, Sable, Jusoor, Visions-International, Al Jadid, Al Karmel, Post-Gibran (Syracuse University Press), and in various anthologies, most recently, 110 Stories: New York Writes After September 11 (New York University Press), This Bridge We Call Home: Embodying the Spirit of This Bridge Called My Back, ed. Gloria Anzaldua and AnaLouise Keating (New York: Routledge), and she is the title poet of an anthology edited by Naomi Shihab Nye, The Space Between Our Footsteps (Simon & Schuster) in States, Europe and the Middle East
Nathalie’s works have been translated into many languages: French, Spanish and Arabic.
As a creative poet Nathalie is a prominent face in poetry recitals and reading scenes across the globe. Looking at her schedule one would wonder where she gets all this energy from!
“War” one of her poem, has been made into a theatre production.
Nathalie’s one of the biggest achievement is the Anthology of Arab Women Writers, titled, The Poetry of Arab Women, showcasing poetic works of more than 80 Arab Woman poets including: Elmaz Abi-Nader, Fawziyya Abu-Khalid, Etel Adnan, 'Aisha Arnaout, Andree Chedid, Nada al-Hage, Hoda Hussein, Salma Khadra Jayyusi, Joanna Kadi, Fatma Kandil, Venus Khoury-Ghata, Nazik al-Mala'ika, Houda al-Na'mani, Lisa Suhair Majaj, Zakiyya Malallah, D.H.Melhem, Naomi Shihab Nye, Amina Said, Munia Samara, Lina Tibi and Fadwa Tuqan.
Translations of these works have been done by excellent translators and poets, I have been informed and have every reason to believe that is the case.
Nathalie is working for two more anthologies, Arab-American Literature and Dominican Literature and co-editing along with Tina Chang and Ravi Shankar, Risen from East: An Anthology of South Asian, East Asian and Middle Eastern Poets.
She is writing a new play and working to prepare her next collection, The Lives of Rain.
This has been very difficult for me to do justice to the astonishing amount of work Nathalie has produced!
Nathalie Handal is not only a Palestinian poet but a voice of the world poetry that not only sings the Palestinian soul but also becomes a vivid choreograph of humanity. Readers must now begin to enjoy Nathalie Handal’s works.
Nathalie's collections:
The Lives of Rain (forthcoming)
The Neverfield
The Travelling Rooms
The Poetry of Arab Women (Anthology)
Search Words: Nathalie Handal
Choman Hardi: The Lights of the Shadows
Choman Hardi is a talented poet and artist, who writes poetry both in her mother tongue Kurdish and English. Her poetry speaks of “Lights of the Shadows” and they are as colourful, bright and astonishing as the vivid vibrant Kurdish dresses she wears.
Choman has a magic of bringing poetry to life when she recites her work! When she recites her work one could feel “I am so light
And can follow the shapes sneaking into eternity”!
So please do not miss if you have a chance to see her recite anywhere.
Being the daughter of prominent London based Kurdish poet Ahmad Hardi Choman did not find it difficult to fall in love with poetry.
Choman was born in South Kurdistan and lived in Iran and Iraq before coming to England!
To her return resembles a journey where one comes back empty handed: Return with No Memories (her collection).
She speaks of Light of the
Shadows and her work expresses the vivid and vibrant colourful imagery and
poetic passion.
Choman’s new English collection
is planned to be out next year.
Choman Hardi studies Philosophy and Psychology and now working towards her Phd.
She is the Chair of Exiled Writers Ink and continuously being engaged in the creative and artistic fields.
The Exiled Writers Ink is a London based authors’ organisation representing poets, authors, artists who are living and writing in exile. Under Choman and Jennifer Langer’s vibrant leadership the EWI is a thriving organisation. EXI published a magazine showcasing some of the exiled writers and poets: Exiled Ink.
Come of Choman’s works are featured in this magazine including “Perspective”, Sewan”, “The Apple” and “The End”.
People
in Wales would have wonderful taster of Choman’s poetic works when she takes
part at the Sense of Place Conference, taking place 24th - 27th November 2003,
Cardiff, Wales
A Sense of Place is a 4-day international event that will investigate, question
and shed light on 'displacement' and 'integration' in Europe, through the
intellectual focus of the role of the arts, culture and media.
Choman
Hardi is a name contemporary poetry lover must begin to take seriously, because
she is destined to bring Kurdistan to the global map of humanity.
Web Sites for Choman Hardi’s
works and information:
http://www.exiledwritersink.co.uk
http://hi-arts.co.uk/apr04_feature7a.htm
http://www.asenseofplace.org.uk/speakers.php?speaker=chardi
http://welat.50megs.com/choman.html
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