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A Poem of the Other - contribution to World Poetry Movement Day on 24th of September 2011

Recently the World Poetry Movement has been joined by the "100,000 Poets for Change" project (www.100TPC.org), a bold initiative by poets Michael Rothenberg and Terri Carrión, in California, who have proposed the implementation of a worldwide poetic action, next September 24th, 2011 in 350 cities worldwide.

http://www.bigbridge.org/100thousandpoetsforchange/?page_id=4670

Due to the nature of poetry, the World Poetry Movement supports and will always support the thoughts, actions and measures that can contribute to world peace, the defense of all life on earth, the sustainable development of a new world, the restoration of beauty, dignity and truth, in the process of a persistent strengthening of poetry's presence in contemporary society worldwide.

Poetry is knowledge, reflection and enlightenment, liberation, contemplation and action, lightning, creative imagination and brotherhood, spiritual unity of individuals and peoples, past, present and future of humanity.

World Poetry Movement calls on all its members, poets and international poetry festivals, to plan, develop and spread poetic actions and Simultaneous poetry readings, across the planet, next September 24th, 2011, to consolidate our organizational process, making a formidable display of poetic power possible in the world, in hundreds of cities and villages on Earth.

We ask you to please inform us shortly on the decisions taken regarding this proposal to the following email: worldpoetrymovement@gmail.com

WORLD POETRY MOVEMENT COORDINATING COMMITTEE

Peter Rorvik (South Africa), Bas Kwakman (Netherlands), Jack Hirschman (United States of America), RatiSaxena (India),  Alex Pausides (Cuba), Amir Or (Israel), IrynaVikyrchak (Ukraine), Fernando Rendón (Colombia).

Contact:

Fernando Rendón

Member of Coordination Committee WPM

www.wpm2011.org

athens, Greece

The Poem of the other

Poetry Reading on September 24, 2012

organized by Poiein kai Prattein

Poets would say: sojourn! A day is like a breath of life

which strokes the leaves of trees standing beside the sea.

They remember shore lines drawn softly like eyebrows

in an elongated face turned towards the moon and the sea.

It makes shadows appear to skate over water with a promise

to return with the dreams they have discovered in Atlantis.

Hatto Fischer Athens 8.9.2011

Poems read by:

Pavlina Beremi

Socrates Kabouropoulos

Thomas Economacos

Hatto Fischer

Poets with their own contribution

Ulrike Kölsch, Berlin

Ignacio Livianos Magraner, Valencia

Anjan Sen, Bengali

Armin Groepler, Berlin

Hatto Fischer, Athens / Berlin

Maria Kaliabetsou, Athens

Heinz Subat, Görlitz

Socrates Kabouropoulos, Athens

'A poem of the other' were suggested by following persons:

Alexandra Szymanska, Gdansk the poem 'Fourfold' by Tadeusz Dabrowski

Natalia Grincheva, London: Russian poem by Александр Блок: "Есть игра: осторожно войти..."

Thomas Economacos, Athens: „Change“

George Crane, USA/ Paros: „The Plum Poems“

Niels Righoldt, a poem about being Danish by poet Benny Anderson

Cathy Spennato, one poem by Coleridge, another by Blake

along with the statement by the World Poetry Movement to mark this special day world wide.

Poets with own contribution

Ulrike Kölsch, Berlin

Nun fühl ich es, 
jetzt wird es konkret.
Gewißheit sagt es ist nicht zu spät,
das Erkennen braucht Zeit.
Erfahrung und Leid,
seh ich zurück, seh ich mich kaum,
verwirklichte Wünsche?
Ungelebter Traum?
Bricht der Nebel nun auf, durch das Strahlen der Sonne,
Glückvoller Blick, Lachen
Seh ich mich jetzt, ist es ein Leben,
gewonnen, genommen, Zeichen vernommen.
Geh! Nimm! Gib! Zeit und Raum,
Zerschlag nicht die Blasen und wälz´ dich im Schaum!

 ---------------------

Now I feel it,
From now on it is becoming concrete.
Certainty tells me it is not too late,
but knowledge needs time.
Experience and pain.
When looking back, I hardly see myself,
realized wishes?
Unlived dreams?
Now the fog lifts, due to sun rays,
A glance filled with happiness, laughter.
Now I see myself, it is a life,
won, taken, attentive to signs.
Go! Take! Give! Time and space,
do not smash the bubble and roll yourself in foam!

Ignacio Livianos Magraner, Valencia

"Ignacio, 17 in 2011,  is a full adolescent joning the INDIGNADOS  in Valencia and everywhere he goes and he reads and writes a lot." - Ana Magraner

 homenaje a Walt Whitman
¡Que maravilloso es
andar tán solo con unos pantalones blancos!

La planta en la planta sentir,
y la tierra acompañar.

Aplastar hojas de hierba
y verlas levantarse de nuevo.
Las mismas hojas en África,
bajo los hermosos pies de los australianos,
de los escritores libres
y libres pintores;
las hojas de mi cabeza,
y las de mis compañeros.

Ver los reflejos destellos 
del sol en el lino,
el movimiento de mis piernas blancas
que siempre me han sujetado
y me han llevado a mi destino.

Mostrar mi torso desnudo
al calor del Sol
con sus rayos verticales horizontales y oblicuos
incidiendo en mi piel color Sol.
Otras hojas de hierba surgen y se aplastan aquí.

En mi cabeza 
tambien hay hojas de hierba,
que viven a la intemperie.
Sensibles al viento y agua 
y todo tipo de intempestades.
Nada las cubre o protege,
están abiertas a la risa de los arbóles
mi hojas de hierba aman la vida.

 

Anjan Sen in Bengali

From the eye
Begins the sky
And greeness
you are standing in darkness
of terror
And hunger
Waiting for light.
(taken from Prisoner's dilemma)

The  World Poetry Movement day was celebrated at Little Magazine LIBRARY  AND RESEARCH Centre in Kolkata on 24th of September 2011.
Poets reading:
Anuradha Mahapatra, Maumita Pal, Josna Karmakar, Dipen Ray, Kallol Sadhdeb,(Bengali), Bablu Roychoudhury (Bengali and  Hindi)  
along with 8 poems of poets from other continents (read in their English translations).
Secratary Sandip Dutta read the Statement issued by World Poetry Movement. 
Anjan Sen discussed poetry movement.

Armin Gröpler, Berlin

Existenz

Hatto Fischer, Athens / Berlin

Hatto with Chonia                   Photo: Petra Zahrt

Das andere Ich in einer anderen Sprache                The other 'I' in another language

Maria Kaliabetsou, Athens

Heinz Subat, Görlitz

Written ten years ago, and revisited 10 days ago, dedicated to the victims of 9-11
HS 21.9.2011
The Victims
We didn't want to live forever,
Just wanted some more years to stay.
We won't forget what happened, never.
Maybe we will forgive someday.

Now that we've gone through heavens door
we think about the friends we miss,
would like to see our home once more
and meet our pets for one last kiss.

Want take our children by the hand
and love them warm and hold them tightly,
give them the power of this land,
where love and peace are shining brightly.

And if we get the chance to help them,
we will protect their way of life.
But they should realize that peace
on earth will come with love, not with a knife.

Please let our death not be in vain.

Further poems by Heinz Subat at http://www.sub-poesie.de

Socrates Kabouropoulos, Athens

INCIDENTS RELATED TO THE 1^ST YEAR OF MY SON

*

you turn around, in the upright position

and give me your butter-fly smile

*

tea spoon and tea fork

tea tie and T tock

t-aim-ed

*

asleep gone, and beautiful

coming back

*

ever since you asked me if ‘I’m Ok’

I’m not

*

our skin

ages

when we grow up

*

I dreamt of an obscure, hostile crowd, rarely taking notice of him, praising him -sometimes- with excessive compliments.

He was not influenced -the boy. Chewing his finger, he stared at things, in a state of light foretelling their end.

*

the tiger you watched carefully

the hare caught your attention

the birds scared you, made you cry

a goat comforted you

then we sat peacefully by the window

to watch the few last drops of sunlight

on the savannah

Suggestions of 'a poem of the other' by others

Aleksandra Szymanska, Gdansk

The Fourfold

Tadeusz Dąbrowski
Translated from the Polish by Antonia Lloyd-Jones

Doom has come to you,
you who dwell in the land.
–Ezekiel 7:7

Automobiles are flowing like droplets down the string of the highway,
then all of a sudden they’re absorbed into housing estates and courtyards,
the reinforced concrete gardens of hypermarkets. Water

does not wash anything clean, it insistently drums on the brow, seeking
the plumb-line; droplet asking droplet what’s the way.
I turn onto my other side, here naked trees

flex themselves, as if trying to use their youthful branches
to prop up the sky’s support wall, on which weevils
are skillfully pretending to be seagulls and a damp mark is just as

remarkably spreading to form some artificial rose.
I get up, wake up, switch on the TV; the world goes
back to the beginning.

Source: http://bostonreview.net/BR35.3/dabrowski2.php

For further poetry activities in Gdansk, see

http://www.europejskipoetawolnosci.pl/en/2012/

Natalia Grincheva, London

Ph D student in London with focus on 'cultural diplomacy', has send her favorite poem. It shall be read in Athens by Katerina Anghelaki Rooke who has translated Pushkin and other Russian poets / writers into Greek. Since this poem was written just prior to the start of First World War and the Russian Revolution, it may signal what lies ahead and thus can refer to the others as speaking in the wind about changes ahead. Amplified by Pasternak's Dr. Zhivago, the poet spirit evolved around a spirit called Laura: that staunch and independent beauty which holds steadfastly onto values nearly squandered in a crisis. It will be interesting, therefore, to listen to this poem in Russian and then find a way to understand its words revealing the richness of the Russian language speaking always as Katerina Anghelaki Rooke would say to the 'human soul'.

Александр Блок

"Есть игра: осторожно войти..."

* * *

Есть игра: осторожно войти,

Чтоб вниманье людей усыпить;

И глазами добычу найти;

И за ней незаметно следить.

Как бы ни был нечуток и груб

Человек, за которым следят, —

Он почувствует пристальный взгляд

Хоть в углах еле дрогнувших губ.

А другой — точно сразу поймет:

Вздрогнут плечи, рука у него;

Обернется — и нет ничего;

Между тем — беспокойство растет.

Тем и страшен невидимый взгляд,

Что его невозможно поймать;

Чуешь ты, но не можешь понять,

Чьи глаза за тобою следят.

Не корысть, не влюбленность, не месть;

Так — игра, как игра у детей:

И в собрании каждом людей

Эти тайные сыщики есть.

Ты и сам иногда не поймешь,

Отчего так бывает порой,

Что собою ты к людям придешь,

А уйдешь от людей — не собой.

Есть дурной и хороший есть глаз,

Только лучше б ничей не следил:

Слишком много есть в каждом из нас

Неизвестных, играющих сил...

О, тоска! Через тысячу лет

Мы не сможем измерить души:

Мы услышим полет всех планет,

Громовые раскаты в тиши...

А пока — в неизвестном живем

И не ведаем сил мы своих,

И, как дети, играя с огнем,

Обжигаем себя и других...

18 декабря 1913

Thomas Economacos, Athens

Change

1

I walk down the street

There is a deep hole in the pavement

I fall in

I am lost I am helpless

It isn#t my fault

It takes forever to find my way out.

2

I walk down the same street

There is a deep hole in the pavement

I fall in again

I can't believe I'm in the same place

But it isn't my fault

It still takes a long time to get out.

3

I walk down the same street

There is a deep hole in the pavement

I see it is there

I still fall in. It's a habit

I know where I am

It is my fault

I get out immediately

4

I walk down the same street

There is a hole in the pavement

I walk around it

5

I walk down another street

George Crane, Paros / USA

The writer George Crane dares to use in his novels poetry. This can be seen on hand of his book „Beyond the House of the False Lama“ as it contains the famous plum poems. He translated them out of Chinese into English with the help of a monk who had brought with him the plum poems. If anything, these poems are not just from one other poet, but from two. As George Crane explains himself with regards to „A Thousand Pieces of Snow“:

„As both the thirteenth century and the Yüan dynasty (1260-1368) wereng, the poet Fung Hae Suh, who called himself Guaiguai Daoren, the Weird Monk, wrote is most famous work, One Hundred Verses on Flowering Plumes, a mediation on the illusionary nature of a tree that bears no fruit but flowers in late winter, dropping yellow petals dot-dot-dot on the snow.

More than three centuries later, near the end of the Ming dynasty (1368 – 1643), Zhou Lu Jing, a poet fond of metal and stone, of calligraphy and ancient texts, and who had adopted the name Midian Daoren, Hermit Crazy about Plum, wrote, perhaps in the garden he'd planted with plum and bamboo, 101 verse answers to Fung Hae Suh. Combined, they are „a thousand pieces of snow“.

With the permission of the author

George Crane, Beyond the House of the False Lama, Harper Collins Publisher, NY 2005

Niels Righolt wrote:

"Sounds so fine with the Poetry Day. Are you familiar with the danish poet of Benny Andersen? He wrote once on being Danish in the poem Skabssvenskere..."

Benny Andersen

"Er der noget så dansk som en kartoffel?
Kartoflen stammer fra Sydamerika.

Er der noget så dansk som selve Dannebrog?
Det faldt fra himlen ned engang i Estland
og minder om det schweiziske flag.

Klinger noget mere ægte dansk
end musikken til sygestykket Elverhøj?
Komponeret af en tysker med flittig brug
af svenske folkemelodier.

Pas på
nu bliver det svært:
Findes der noget mere danske end danskerne?
Efterkommere af Danerne
en folkestamme fra Sverige
invaderede vort land en gang i 300-tallet.""

Cathy Spennato, Gatineau, Quebec: either a poem from Coleridge or Blake

„OK, OK, you've convinced me. I'll offer you some poems.

One of my favourite poems is one by Samuel Taylor Coleridge called "Kubla Khan", which may be of interest to a group of poets. It begins,

In Xanadu did Kubla Khan

A stately pleasure dome decree:

Where Alph the sacred river ran

Through caverns measureless to man

Down to a sunless sea . . .

and ends with:

. . . Beware! Beware!

His flashing eyes, his floating hair!

Weave a circle round him thrice,

And close your eyes with holy dread,

For he on honey-dew hath fed,

And drunk the milk of Paradise."

Some critics think that the person being described is the poet, who can weave spells with words, others that it he is a prophet or some other sort of messianic or charismatic person (thus, "flashing eyes"). The images & the sound patterns are almost hypnotic in this poem; they are capable of casting a spell on the listener/reader.

I believe Coleridge said it was inspired by a vision he had experienced. Some ascribe this vision to his addiction to hallucinatory drugs, but that does not change the impact of the experience conveyed in this poem. It is unique in the history of English literature, no one having been able to imitate the style or content of Coleridge's work.

I have not included the rest of the text because it is one of the most famous poems in the language & can be found in any anthology.

Incidentally, Coleridge was also something of a philosopher who wrote about the nature of reality & of the creative imagination. His philosophical writings are heavy going, but I managed to garner some interesting ideas from them when I read them many moons ago.

Another unique poet is William Blake who wrote "Jerusalem", which was set to music & is a favourite Anglican hymn. Blake was another visionary poet whose images are very striking: you're probably familiar with the beginning of the poem about a tiger -

Tyger! Tyger! burning bright

In the forests of the night,

What immortal hand or eye

Could frame thy fearful symmetry?"

The verse is repeated at the end of the poem, but the 2nd last verse is

When the stars threw down their spears,

And watered heaven with their tears,

Did he smile his work to see?

Did he who made the lamb make thee?"

Blake was also an engraver whose pictorial images are also striking & like Coleridge, he suffered from bouts of emotional instability.

Both of these poems are centuries old & are unfashionable in that they rhyme, but they are still popular with readers of poetry. They also illustrate to the budding poet the fact that it is possible to rhyme without being unsophisticated or jiggedy-joggedy (as in nursery rhymes). Although . . . internal rhymes are perhaps more subtle.

Don't get me started . . . I spent 4 yrs. of my life studying this sort of thing & 30 yrs. trying to share it with others (most of whom were not even remotely interested). I could go on forever, but

I won't. I did get started, but it's not too late to stop!

I don't know if my choice of poem is the sort of thing you want or not. It's the one that keeps echoing in my mind when I think of poetry (excerpts, of course).“

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