Today is my father’s birthday. Since he was a poet, translator, lover of, and professor of comparative literatures, it is fitting that he should be born in World Poetry Month. The poems and visual arts today are a tribute to him (Manabendra Bandyopadhyay, 1938-2020)). The poems below would have engaged him and certainly been part…
Category: national poetry month
Poetry for the Peeps! Affirm Life!
The poems and art pieces chosen here reflect on themes of injustice, oppression and deprivation, and specifically starvation as a weapon of capitalist social organization and war The poems speak to a reality that has been ongoing in places where man-made famine and war have deprived people of their most basic necessities and rights ,including…
National Poetry Month with Chabuca Granda!
María Isabel Granda Larco (3 September 1920 – 8 March 1983), known as Chabuca Granda, was a Peruvian singer and composer. She was a trailblazer as a woman lyricist and composer, drawing on Peruvian Criollo music, as well as Afro-Peruvian rhythms, which were much devalued in high society of Lima at the time. It was…
A Groundhog Spring! Haiku
This spring, the second of the covid19 pandemic, is another lockdown. I remember my fear and isolation during the first one, the first stay at home order I had ever experienced. I am grateful that I am able to be out in sun, sitting on my balcony and enjoying the calls of the birds. The…
Poetry for the Peeps! Georgina Herrera
I’ve been a bit slow on the translation front. I’ve been working on a selection of poems from Cuba’s Georgina Herrera. This writer really captivated my interest when I was studying in Cuba for my doctoral research. Her slim paperback volumes were on display at UNEAC in the Vedado and my favourite poetry bookstore in…
Poetry for the Peeps! Adam Zagajewski
I’ve been away from the blog for nearly a month this time. I’ve been grappling with flares of chronic health issues and also been feeling somewhat disheartened by the announcement of a surge of covid-19 patients where I live, the increasing shuttering of small businesses, the business as usual approach of capitalist warlords, the rise…
Dirge for Amerikkka (Panic Attack Remix)
black child goes out into the day mother’s afraid for him today he brings the only skin he’s got while a white cop fires the final shot to take it all away i can’t breathe brown woman goes to work white boss tries to force her with just one phone call to someone who he’s…
The Dollar Store Poem
1. AnthroApocology Safari suit clad fascist with microscope and coolies enters the Temple of Doom At his shoulder, Harrison, in those Fordlike soundbytes Urging urging him on Amen Father Son and Holy Cow 2. General Motors stares back at me From every shop-window his silver dollar and medals swinging to a marching oompah pah oompah…
Ear to the Ground 