Posted in 4x1, poem, poem of the day, poet, poetry, rilke, Write, Writer, writing on 11/05/2007| 1 Comment »
If I did not resist the lover, it was because of all the takeovers of one person by anothers, hers alone, unstoppable, seemed to me to be right. Exposed as I am, I did not want to avoid it either; but I yearned to pierce her! That she be a window for me into the expanded cosmos of Being…(not mirror.)
-Ranier Maria Rilke, from 4X1: Works by Tristan Tzara, Rainer Maria Rilke, Jean-Pierre Duprey, and Habib Tengour
Posted in alvarez, grasslimb, journal, mary mary, nietzsche, nina, online, poem, poems, poetry, rhyme on 11/05/2007| Leave a Comment »
Two of my poems “Mary, Mary” and “Nietzsche” can now be read at the online literary journal Contemporary Rhyme. Many thanks to them (especially because they’re a paying market)…So rare for poetry. But free to you, gentle reader.
Vive la rhyming poetry! I know some think it’s woefully old-fashioned, but I sure ain’t over it. It incorporates the musicality we look for in song and the sense of inevitability that we look for in art.
I also have a free-verse poem “bees” being published in the print journal Grasslimb. I will let you know when that issue comes out.
Posted in 4x1, alvarez, duprey, help, joris, nina, press, publish, rilke, tengour, tzara on 11/03/2007| 1 Comment »
There is a book of poetry so unique that it contains four very different poets who come together to form a metaphorical map of the last 150 years of poetry, taking us through Dadaism, Surrealism, Modernism, and Postmodernism.
4X1: Works by Tristan Tzara, Rainer Maria Rilke, Jean-Pierre Duprey, and Habib Tengour
It includes Ranier Maria Rilke, whose popularity and importance grows more every year; Tristan Tzara, a polemicist of the Dada movement putting Africa oral poetry to paper; Jean-Pierre Duprey, the French surrealist whose poetry is so evocative, (so moving that I made a one-minute poem about it that you can watch below); and Habib Tengour, an Algerian Muslim master of the postmodern story, meandering through the landscape of a fertile, troubled modern mind.
This book of poetry is called 4×1, since it contains first English translations of 4 poets all translated by the award-winning translator and poet, Pierre Joris. It was published by Inconundrum Press in 2002, but has received little distribution because of the common travails of the small press…mostly the difficulty in getting a wide distribution for a rather small first print run.
History of the Press
Inconundrum Press (now Inconnue) was founded by three smart English major types in Albany, NY who happened to be good friends of mine. When they were ready to move on to other things, I took over the press and became its executive editor. That was in 2005.
But publishing companies need our support. Mine, as well as others. And I’ve parted with $11.95 for two La Fin Du Mondes (the Belgian tripple ale I love) and gone to bed with a headache and no book. I try to buy books as often as I can and to support small and independent presses. Independent presses pretty much exist solely on your direct purchases (what you buy on amazon.com leaves them with only a couple of dollars per sale).
Thanks for your time and for supporting ninaalvarez.net, Inconnue Press, and most of all, thanks for continually supporting the life of poetry.
Yours,
Nina
Posted in alvarez, inside, marginalia, mind, nina, poem, poem of the day, poet, poetry, sad, thought, Write, Writer, writing on 11/03/2007| 1 Comment »
Marginalia
I am always trying to die
not big deaths, but small
deaths with paper and hard-cover books
deaths with envelopes and swirly-que doodles
deaths with text and the margins of thought
that can never hang from my head and never be wrought
I am always withering at one branch
like a sick gull’s wing
I am always tying one foot to the long rope
that drags from the ferryman’s boat
I ask for forgiveness, but I only want the broken glass
I’ve only ever wanted to take what was inside
and throw it in your face
to ask you to tell me you see it too,
and then to be done with the things that almost speak
and be done with wondering when the curtain will drop
just repairing to the afterlife with this stick
and some sand to scratch no symbols in.
-Nina Alvarez
Posted in lady, love, omerdeen, poem, poem of the day, poet, poetry, romance, sri lanka, Write, Writer, writing on 11/02/2007| 1 Comment »
Today’s poem was submitted by a reader in Sri Lanka: M. Rezvi Omerdeen
The Lady I Adore
Gazing at the moon,
Posing from the Balcony,
Wearing the richest costume,
And a charming smile.
Humming like a mermaid,
In a romantic way,
Feet tapping rhythmically.
For a love-song of some sort.
Whom she’s looking for,
And her notions?
I’m eager to know,
‘Cause she’s
The lady I adore
Posted in learn, life, philosophy, poem, poem of the day, poet, poetry, reading biographies, soto, venus, words, Write, Writer, writing on 11/01/2007| Leave a Comment »
Reading Biographies
Perhaps Frost was poking his secretary,
The apple core of his good-living chewed
To the bitter seed. Perhaps he buttoned up,
Disgusted with the dead lizard cupped in his palm.
And his woman? She was as large as Gilbraltar,
A chunk of cheese in each armpit.
She took a deep breath
And wiggled the goose of her tasty fanny
Into the kitchen. There, she poured pancakes
Onto a skillet as old as this country,
And Frost, a pioneer for all writers,
Picked up his beaver-thrashed pencil and proclaimed,
O Sweet Youth, etc.
I don’t know how to read
Biographies, the dead words of dead writers
Etched on my eyes, then gone. I read them,
And drive my car recklessly through leaves,
The cushion for my own eventual death.
Sure, I reflect, like a chip of mirror,
And then I forget them, these subjects,
These writers with lungs and straight-A penmanship.
They’re of no use. I’m not saved
By the repetitions of jealousy and all-day drinking.
Wind frisked the trees, hair fell like wheat,
And the liver, saddlebag of disease,
Bulged with inoperable knots.
I touch my own hip, then hobble home
Where a pumpkin glows in a window.
Birds shrug into their coats of dirt.
Crickets stop the violin action of their thighs.
A fire is built, and I’m lit in the living room.
I’m a democrat, I slur to the couch,
And add, Venus is a star and fly trap.
Thank God, I’ve learned nothing.
– Gary Soto
Poem of the Month 