“Nikki-Rosa” av Nikki Giovanni

Ja, i dag må det seffern bli et dikt av Nikki G! Og velger dette her fra 1968 - hennes kanskje aller mest avholdte - truddelutt & gratulerer så mye med dagen din, Christine!!

Videoen er registrert på YouTube som:
Nikki Giovanni - Nikki-Rosa (Def Poetry)
Def Poetry Season 5, Episode 4 (S05 E04)
Air Date: 2005

Nikki-Rosa

childhood remembrances are always a drag
if you’re Black
you always remember things like living in Woodlawn
with no indoor toilet
and if you become famous or something
they never talk about how happy you were to have
your mother
all to yourself and
how good the water felt when you got your bath
from one of those
big tubs that folk in chicago barbecue in
and somehow when you talk about home
it never gets across how much you
understood their feelings
as the whole family attended meetings about Hollydale
and even though you remember
your biographers never understand
your father’s pain as he sells his stock
and another dream goes
And though you’re poor it isn’t poverty that
concerns you
and though they fought a lot
it isn’t your father’s drinking that makes any difference
but only that everybody is together and you
and your sister have happy birthdays and very good
Christmases
and I really hope no white person ever has cause
to write about me
because they never understand
Black love is Black wealth and they’ll
probably talk about my hard childhood
and never understand that
all the while I was quite happy

(Fra "Black Feeling, Black Talk, Black Judgment." 1968.)

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(Se september i menyen til høyre for mer Nikki Giovanni.)

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OK, ikke akkurat poesi - men: oj!

Her, i løpet av 9 minutter, presenterer Hans Rosling en for meg på mange måter ny synsvinkel - og dét på en sånn måte - at det ga meg en skikkelig "oj!-opplevelse", en "eureka!-opplevelse" - akkurat som god litteratur kan det:



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Robert Bly

Jepp, det er på høy tid denne bloggen kikker innom den amerikanske poeten, forfatteren og fredsaktivisten Robert Bly, født 23. desember 1926 i Minnesota, USA av norskættede foreldre.

Den omfattende og flotte hjemmesiden hans fins her.

Og to interessante Dagbladet.no-artikler skrevet av den norske poeten Helge Torvund:
Leksjon en: "Om diktinga og arbeidet til den amerikanske poeten Robert Bly."
Leksjon to: "Å liggja lågt."

CALL AND ANSWER

Tell me why it is we don´t lift our voices these days
And cry over what is happening. Have you noticed
The plans are made for Iraq and the ice cap is melting?

I say to myself: "Go on, cry. What´s the sense
Of being an adult and having no voice? Cry out!
See who will answer! This is Call and Answer!"

We will have to call especially loud to reach
Our angels, who are hard of hearing; they are hiding
In the jugs of silence filled during our wars.

Have we agreed to so many wars that we can¹t
Escape from silence? If we don´t lift our voices, we allow
Others (who are ourselves) to rob the house.

How come we´ve listened to the great criers -- Neruda,
Akhmatova, Thoreau, Frederick Douglass -- and now
We¹re silent as sparrows in the little bushes?

Some masters say our life lasts only seven days.
Where are we in the week? Is it Thursday yet?
Hurry, cry now! Soon Sunday night will come.

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THE BLINDING OF SAMSON

Don't you see them? They are coming to blind Samson!
But some of us don't want the day to end!
If Samson goes blind, what will happen to the sea?

Isn't it bad enough that the sun goes down
Each night, while children throw shoes at the moon?
I remember my mother's grief at sunset.

Now I remember my father. I remember
Every father when he is wrestling with his son.
Oh Lord of the Four Quarters— he is destined to lose!

You gypsy singers, make some raw cries!
Call in the crows to fly over the plowed fields.
I want the beating palms to cry out for Samson.

I want rough voices and shouting women
To cry out against the blinding of Samson.
I will always cry— take away those knives!

Isn't it enough that the Evening Star sets every night
And lovemaking ends at dawn? Please, God, help
The human beings, for men are coming to blind Samson.

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Unn deg en lunsjpause med Li-Young Lee!

Møt den amerikanske poeten Li-Young Lee - født 19. august, 1957 i Indonesia og fra 1964 bosatt i USA - introdusert av poeten Robert Hass: 



Mer om Li-Young Lee - og flere av diktene hans - fins her.

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Gertrude Stein: A Very Valentine

Gertrude Stein (født 3. februar 1874 i Pennsylvania, USA - død 27. juli 1946 i Paris) var en amerikansk forfatter og med-katalysator for utviklingen av moderne kunst og litteratur. Hun tilbrakte det meste av sitt liv i Frankrike. Fra 1909 og til sin død bodde hun sammen med Alice B. Toklas i 27 Rue de Fleurus. I 1920-årene ble stuene i denne leiligheten deres et kjent samlingssted for forfattere som Sherwood Anderson og kunstmalere som Pablo Picasso.

“Portrett av Gertrude Stein” av Pablo Picasso, 1903, Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York City. (Da en bekjent bemerket at Gertrude Stein ikke liknet på portrettet sitt, svarte Picasso: “Hun kommer til å gjøre det.”)

“A Very Valentine” er et kort dikt inkorporert i en tekst som etter hvert har fått tittelen “A Valentine to Sherwood Anderson". Og dette korte diktet er - tror jeg nok en kan si - very, very Gertrude Stein:

A Very Valentine

Very fine is my valentine.
Very fine and very mine.
Very mine is my valentine very mine and very fine.
Very fine is my valentine and mine, very fine very mine and mine is my valentine.

En liten animasjon hvor vi hører Stein lese dette diktet fins her.

Og hele hennes “A Valentine to Sherwood Anderson” kan høres her.

Steins mest siterte linje er nok: “Rose is a rose is a rose is a rose.”

Mer om Gertrude Stein: 

på engelsk Wikipedia

og på Poetry Foundation.

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Barnas Poet Laureate i Storbritannia

Poeten og barnebokforfatteren Michael Rosen (født 7 mai, 1946 i London) er Storbritannias femte Children´s Laureate. Rosen, som selv er av jødisk avstamning, deltok 10. januar i år under en protest mot bombingen av Gaza - med et nyskrevet dikt: 

Nettstedet hans fins her.

Og en liten kampanje-snutt han lagde i forbindelse med “Sommerens leseutfordring” 2008:

Og - tatarataaaa: The Michael Rosen Rap -



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John Updike

John Updike (18.mars,1932 - 27.januar,2009) skrev ikke bare romaner og noveller - han skrev også dikt. Her er to eksempler fra Collected Poems 1953-1993 :

Ex-Basketball Player

Pearl Avenue runs past the high-school lot,
Bends with the trolley tracks, and stops, cut off
Before it has a chance to go two blocks,
At Colonel McComsky Plaza. Berth’s Garage
Is on the corner facing west, and there,
Most days, you'll find Flick Webb, who helps Berth out.

Flick stands tall among the idiot pumps—
Five on a side, the old bubble-head style,
Their rubber elbows hanging loose and low.
One’s nostrils are two S’s, and his eyes
An E and O. And one is squat, without
A head at all—more of a football type.

Once Flick played for the high-school team, the Wizards.
He was good: in fact, the best. In ’46
He bucketed three hundred ninety points,
A county record still. The ball loved Flick.
I saw him rack up thirty-eight or forty
In one home game. His hands were like wild birds.

He never learned a trade, he just sells gas,
Checks oil, and changes flats. Once in a while,
As a gag, he dribbles an inner tube,
But most of us remember anyway.
His hands are fine and nervous on the lug wrench.
It makes no difference to the lug wrench, though.

Off work, he hangs around Mae’s Luncheonette.
Grease-gray and kind of coiled, he plays pinball,
Smokes those thin cigars, nurses lemon phosphates.
Flick seldom says a word to Mae, just nods
Beyond her face toward bright applauding tiers
Of Necco Wafers, Nibs, and Juju Beads.

(Skrevet i 1954)


Perfection Wasted

And another regrettable thing about death
is the ceasing of your own brand of magic,
which took a whole life to develop and market -
the quips, the witticisms, the slant
adjusted to a few, those loved ones nearest
the lip of the stage, their soft faces blanched
in the footlight glow, their laughter close to tears,
their warm pooled breath in and out with your heartbeat,
their response and your performance twinned.
The jokes over the phone. The memories packed
in the rapid-access file. The whole act.
Who will do it again? That's it: no one;
imitators and descendants aren't the same.

(Datert 24. januar, 1990)

Og her er Updike i samtale med "The Book Review"-redaktøren Sam Tanenhaus, oktober 2008:




Noen Updike-sitater:

"Creativity is merely a plus name for regular activity . . . any activity becomes creative when the doer cares about doing it, or better."

"Art is like baby shoes. When you coat them with gold, they can no longer be worn." 


"I write with experiences in mind, but I don't write about them, I write out of them." 


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Ted Koosers brukbare dikt

Her er et av mine yndlingsdikt av Ted Kooser, poeten som vokste opp i "min" barndomsby, Ames, Iowa (og var US Poet Laureate 2004-2006) - tittelen på dette blogginnslaget henspeiler på det han med et lite smil forteller etter at han har lest ferdig diktet:




At the Cancer Clinic

She is being helped toward the open door
that leads to the examining rooms
by two young women I take to be her sisters.
Each bends to the weight of an arm
and steps with the straight, tough bearing
of courage. At what must seem to be
a great distance, a nurse holds the door,
smiling and calling encouragement.
How patient she is in the crisp white sails
of her clothes. The sick woman
peers from under her funny knit cap
to watch each foot swing scuffing forward
and take its turn under her weight.
There is no restlessness or impatience
or anger anywhere in sight. Grace
fills the clean mold of this moment
and all the shuffling magazines grow still.

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(Fra Delights & Shadows, Copper Canyon Press, Port Townsend, WA 2004)

Mer om Ted Kooser fins på denne bloggen 15. juli, 2008.

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I dag skjer det!

Fra kl. 17:29 direkte på NRK2 (og CNN, BBC, m.v., samt mange nettsteder) kan vi se denne historiske begivenheten direkte. Barack Obama innsettes som president i USA! 

Og rett etter innsettelsestalen, leser poeten Elizabeth Alexander et dikt hun har skrevet for anledningen.

 

Det er ingen selvfølge at en president velger å be en poet lese et dikt under sin innsettelsesseremoni. Bare tre ganger tidligere har det hendt; Robert Frost under John F. Kennedys innsettelse i 1961, Maya Angelou under Bill Clintons første innsettelse i 1993 og Miller Williams under Bill Clintons andre innsettelse i 1997.

På nettstedet for innsettelsen av Barack Obama kan vi lese dette om Elizabeth Alexander.

Og her er et ferskt og interessant intervju med Elizabeth Alexander - i Houston Chronicle, 19. januar, 2008.

Da Elizabeth Alexander fikk Jackson Poetry Prize 2007, kvitterte hun med å lese et av sine dikt som nettopp omhandler poesi; “Ars Poetica #100: I believe” (Ars Poetica = veiledning i diktekunsten) :





Ars Poetica #100: I Believe

Poetry, I tell my students,

is idiosyncratic. Poetry
is where we are ourselves,

(though Sterling Brown said
“Every ‘I’ is a dramatic ‘I’”)

digging in the clam flats
for the shell that snaps,

emptying the proverbial pocketbook.
Poetry is what you find

in the dirt in the corner,
overhear on the bus, God

in the details, the only way
to get from here to there.

Poetry (and now my voice is rising)
is not all love, love, love,

and I’m sorry the dog died.
Poetry (here I hear myself loudest)

is the human voice,
and are we not of interest to each other?

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Det blir spennende å høre det nye diktet hennes i dag!

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Og her er det:

Praise Song for the Day
A Poem for Barack Obama’s Presidential Inauguration

Each day we go about our business,
walking past each other, catching each other’s
eyes or not, about to speak or speaking.

All about us is noise. All about us is
noise and bramble, thorn and din, each
one of our ancestors on our tongues.

Someone is stitching up a hem, darning
a hole in a uniform, patching a tire,
repairing the things in need of repair.

Someone is trying to make music somewhere,
with a pair of wooden spoons on an oil drum,
with cello, boom box, harmonica, voice.

A woman and her son wait for the bus.
A farmer considers the changing sky.
A teacher says, Take out your pencils. Begin.

We encounter each other in words, words
spiny or smooth, whispered or declaimed,
words to consider, reconsider.

We cross dirt roads and highways that mark
the will of some one and then others, who said
I need to see what’s on the other side.

I know there’s something better down the road.
We need to find a place where we are safe.
We walk into that which we cannot yet see.

Say it plain: that many have died for this day.
Sing the names of the dead who brought us here,
who laid the train tracks, raised the bridges,

picked the cotton and the lettuce, built
brick by brick the glittering edifices
they would then keep clean and work inside of.

Praise song for struggle, praise song for the day.
Praise song for every hand-lettered sign,
the figuring-it-out at kitchen tables.

Some live by love thy neighbor as thyself,
others by first do no harm or take no more
than you need. What if the mightiest word is love?

Love beyond marital, filial, national,
love that casts a widening pool of light,
love with no need to pre-empt grievance.

In today’s sharp sparkle, this winter air,
any thing can be made, any sentence begun.
On the brink, on the brim, on the cusp,

praise song for walking forward in that light.

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Og her på programmet "The Colbert Report" diskuterer hun Praise Song for the Day - og forklarer forskjellen på en metafor og en løgn:

The Colbert ReportMon - Thurs 11:30pm / 10:30c

Elizabeth Alexander

Colbert Report Full Episodes
Colbert Report Tickets

Paul McCartney Appearance
More Funny Videos

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There is only one danger for you here…

The Soldiers in the Garden
Isla Negra, Chile, September 1973

After the coup,
the soldiers appeared
in Neruda’s garden one night,
raising lanterns to interrogate the trees,
cursing at the rocks that tripped them.
From the bedroom window
they could have been
the conquistadores of drowned galleons,
back from the sea to finish
plundering the coast.

The poet was dying;
cancer flashed through his body
and left him rolling in the bed to kill the flames.
Still, when the lieutenant stormed upstairs,
Neruda faced him and said:
There is only one danger for you here: poetry.
The lieutenant brought his helmet to his chest,
apologized to señor Neruda
and squeezed himself back down the stairs.
The lanterns dissolved one by one from the trees.

For thirty years
we have been searching
for another incantation
to make the soldiers
vanish from the garden.

Martín Espada,

fra The Republic of Poetry (Norton, 2006)

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Apropos Israels invasjon i Gaza i natt

Her er en interessant artikkel: “The Dialogue of Poetry: Palestinian and Israeli Poets Writing Through Conflict and Peace” av Yvette Neisser. (Dessverre er den for lang til å oversette til norsk akkurat nå.)

Mens jeg lette etter denne artikkelen, kom jeg over disse to graffiti-verkene av Banksy, riktignok på muren i Vestbanken:

“Muren, Betlehem” 

Foto: Markus Ortner, 2005 (og med nedlastningstillatelse)


Og kom til å huske på en bok jeg ble litt klokere av:

After the Last Sky
- foto-essays av Edward W. Said og Jean Mohr


Alt mens jeg innimellom fulgte med på BBC - og da datt plutselig denne linjen ned i huet på meg - håper jeg siterer den rett her:

"A gun is something that makes a hole in people.” 

Kurt Vonnegut (Breakfast of Champions)

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GODT NYTT ÅR, FOLKENS!

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