Poetry Research Articles

Love and homophobia in Malawi's spoken-word poetry movement

AbstractBy the early 2010s, a number of Malawian poets in their twenties had begun to substitute the elliptical expression of earlier generations with a language that resonated with popular idioms. As poetry directed at ‘the people’, its medium is spoken word rather than print, performed to live audiences and distributed through CDs, radio programmes and the internet. Crafted predominantly in Chichewa, the poems also address topics of popular interest. The selection of poetry presented here comes from a female and a male poet, who, unbeknown to each other, prepared poems sharply critical of homosexuality and what they regarded as its foreign and local advocacy. The same poets have also gained success for their love poems, which have depicted intimate desires in remarkably compatible ways for both women and men. The poets who performed ‘homophobic’ verse went against popular gender stereotypes in their depictions of romantic love and female and male desires. This introductory essay, as a contribution toAfrica's Local Intellectuals series, discusses the aesthetic challenges that the new poets have launched in the context of Malawi's modern poetry. With regard to gender relations in their love poems, the introduction also considers the poets’ possible countercultural contribution despite their avowed commitment to perform for ‘the people’.

The Translator-text Interaction Based on Gadamer’s Theory of Fusion of Horizons: A Case Study of Translations of Romantic Poetry into Persian

Love of poetry has a long history among Iranians, so is the case with translation of poetry in their recent attempts. Thus, the significant number of translations has been made from Western poems. British Romantic poetry, as one type of Western poetry, has been translated since the beginning of poetry translation in Iran. This paper aims to investigate the translations of the British Romantic poems diachronically, the translations published in the 20th century, before the Revolution of 1979, and synchronically, the Romantic poems translated in the 21st century, the post-Revolutionary period. To fulfill the purpose, Schäffner’s theory of translation competences was applied to reveal which century met them more adeptly. For the linguistic competence, besides the text analysis of all translations, the number of the parts of speech of four translations attributed to a poem was counted and compared to the number of the original poem to verify the result. The analysis of the competences, as one of the tools of translation assessment, proves the attainment of Gadamer’s theory on the fusion of horizons for translators. The examination indicates that the translation competences are more developed in the translations of the 21st century. Therefore, in this century, translators achieve the fusion of horizons more effectively, and the translation trend of British Romantic poetry has improved.
 Keywords: Poetry translation, British Romantic poetry, Translation competence, Fusion of horizons, Persian literature, The Revolution of 1979.

Intertextual Relations in the “Anthology of Love Poems” By Haydar Ergulen

Julia Kristeva ve Roland Barthes’in girişimleri ile adından söz ettirmeye başlayan ve gittikçe geniş bir alana yayılarak kabul gören metinlerarasılık, bugün pek çok sahada çalışmaların odak noktası hâline gelmiştir. Mahiyeti, söylenmemiş hiçbir sözün kalmadığı, yazılan her eserin geçmiş tüm zamanlardaki söylenen ya da yazılanların bir mozaiği şeklinde olduğudur. O hâlde günümüzde söze dökülen her lafız geçmişte söylenenlerin farkında olarak ya da olmayarak, kurallı veya kuralsız bir şekilde yapbozunu oluşturmaktadır. Dolayısıyla günümüzdeki tüm eserlere metinlerarası ilişkiler çerçevesinden bakmak mümkündür. Bu çalışmanın amacı Haydar Ergülen’in Aşk Şiirleri Antolojisi eserindeki metinlerarası ilişkiler ağını ortaya çıkarmak ve metinlerarasılığın ileri sürdüğü tezin doğruluğunu ölçmektir. Böylelikle şairin kendinden önceki tüm söylenen ve yazılanlardan bilerek ya da bilmeyerek ne kadar faydalandığı gösterilmeye çalışılmıştır. Sonuç olarak şairin şiirlerini desteklemek, şiirlerine derin bir anlam kazandırmak, bunların yanında etkisinde olduğu sanatçıların, Türk edebiyatına ait geçmiş edebî alanların, edebî dönemlerin ya da günlük yaşamın atmosferini şiirlerinde yaşatmak maksadıyla pek çok metinlerarası biçime bilinçli bir şekilde başvurduğu görülmüştür. Elbette farkında olmayarak kullanılan metinlerarası unsurların varlığından bahsetmek de mümkündür.

MUA'LLAGAT ZOHAYR IBN ABI SOLMA: ELEGANT PIECE OF ARABIC POETRY (1)

Zohayr ibn Abi Solma is identified as an eminent poet who produced poetry distinguished with preeminence in courtly and virtuous love. The study employs an analytical and critical methodology, attempting to elucidate the influence of virtuous love narrated by the poet in the first verse lines of his great Mua'llagah. It commences with a terse introductory synopsis shedding light on the importance of classical Arabic and its involvement with poetry. The paper attempts to prove, via the poetry of Zohayr ibn Abi Solma, the greatness of the Arabic classical poetry and demonstrate the aptitudes of the poet through his Mua'llagah. It is divided into four main parts. The first part deals with the greatness of the Arabic language then it moves to the second section that focuses on Arabic Poetry: Treasure of Wisdom. The third one sheds light on the poet's 'The Man and the Poet', and the last main part goes with an analytical and critical endeavor of the first ten verse lines of Al-Mua'llagah of Zohayr. It comes to an end with a conclusion. Keywords: Arabic Literature, Arabic Poetry, Courtly Love Poetry, Courteous Arabic Poetry, Umm Awfa, Virtuous Poetry.

Language Deflected Aesthetics in the Poetry of (General Love) Muhammed Kurdo

Aesthetic is main sort of poetry, during the history the poems have focused on it and in term of concrete this they have tried a lot. Some of the detractors to evaluate the poetry texts they concrete the aesthetic.
 ‌ in this aspect our paper (Deflected aesthetics in the poetry of general love Muhammed Kurdo) it will attempt to illustrate those language deflected that have been concreted in his poetries.
 ‌ the research consists of three pivots. The first pivot (poetry´s deflected aesthetic) in general, it describes the concept of aesthetic, poetry, language, deflection and their relation to the construction of text aesthetic. The second pivot (heading aesthetic) this part describe the title aesthetic that have been concreted thru deflect. The third pivot (language deflected aesthetic) language deflected and those aesthetic dimensions in the texts have been described.
 ‌the result demonstrated in some points with the references.

Clubes de lectura virtuales en España

Este artículo analiza los clubes de lectura virtuales en funcionamiento en España en 2019. Se pretende obtener una imagen de estos clubes virtuales a través del estudio de su funcionamiento, plataformas tecnológicas utilizadas, normas de uso y, con mayor detalle, el examen de sus participantes: perfil sociodemográfico, motivaciones, experiencias y valoraciones. Para ello se estableció, previamente, un estado de la cuestión actualizado de estudios y experiencias de clubes de este tipo. Seguidamente, se contactaron las redes de bibliotecas públicas españolas, así como universitarias, hasta un total de 103 instituciones, para identificar las iniciativas existentes en el territorio español. Esto permitió identificar 24 clubes de lectura virtuales que fueron encuestados para alcanzar los objetivos planteados. Las conclusiones arrojan luz sobre estas actividades de animación lectora: normas de funcionamiento diversas, plataformas dispares, pero con un perfil de usuario homogéneo, y una valoración positiva de sus participantes. Estas conclusiones, bajo la forma de buenas prácticas, pueden ser de ayuda para las instituciones en el diseño y la reorientación de clubes de lectura virtuales, así como la necesidad puntual —o sostenida, con la llegada de la COVID-19, de transformar los clubes presenciales en virtuales.

Figures of Speech in the poetry of Divine love for Al – Hallaj (309 Hijri)

Figures of Speech in the poetry of Divine love for Al – Hallaj (309 Hijri)

Interpretacija i metodički pristup pjesmi The Song of Wandering Angus Williama Butlera Yeatsa

Članak tumači životopisne okolnosti nastanka i obilježja ustroja pjesme iz naslova. Interpretacija govori o elementima ljubavne poezije potrage, konzumacije i rastanka u tumačenu tekstu, a naglašena je promjena značenja nastala mijenom naslova. Glede ustroja, istaknut je smisao opetovnosti riječi (floor, hazel, lands…) te njihova povezanost sa Staigerovim tumačenje lirike. Objašnjena je uloga broja osam, svijetlih simbola i simetričnosti u sustavu magijskoga priziva. Tekst raspravlja i o stavu ženskoga elementa u pjesmi. Metodički pristup preporučuje motivacije čitanjem učeničkih sastavaka na temu povezanu s epigrafom iz Shakespeareove drame Antonije i Kleopatra. Prikaz osjećaja kazivača i s time povezane modulacije uz svaki stih pjesme koristan je pri interpretativnom čitanju. Tumače se i rasprave, učenički eseji ili pjesme u prozi o stavu djevojke.

The Theme of the Motherland in the Poetry of M.Yu. Lermontov

The Theme of the Motherland in the Poetry of M.Yu. Lermontov

Amor y la inspiración poética

Love’s personification has modeled the conception of love poetry since Antiquity. This article focuses on a little-known aspect of this personified figure. It will show that the process of poetic creation focused on the lyrical self is based on a profound relationship of the self with Love in its role as the inspiration of passion and writing. It will be observed how this idea begins with Greek poetics and how it was developed in three literary moments: the Latin elegy, Medieval lyric and Petrarchan poetry.

Amor y la inspiración poética

Es sabido que la personificación de Amor ha modelado la concepción de la poesía amorosa desde la Antigüedad. La presente propuesta se enfoca en un aspecto de esta figura poco discutido por la crítica: la inspiración poética. Se mostrará que la conformación de la creación poética fundamentada en el yo lírico se basa en una profunda relación de éste con el personaje Amor, en tanto que inspirador de la pasión y de la escritura. Se observará cómo esta idea surgió en la poética griega y cómo se desarrolló en tres momentos literarios: la elegía latina, la lírica medieval y la poesía petrarquista.

The Burning Love in the Poetry of Emily Dickinson

As a distinguished female poet, Emily Dickinson is considered to write many love poems in her life time. This paper attempts to understand the burning love through the implicit and explicit representation in her love poems. Through the use of the binary opposition and the bold description of the sexual affairs between lovers, the yearning for love is represented in her poems. Whether it is implicit or explicit description, the inequality between the male and the female is fully represented through Dickinson’s love poems. The female not only suffered the emotional repression in a love relationship, but also is reduced to the subordinate social status in every aspects of the Victorian society.

Poems

ABSTRACT ‘Impact’ conveys the ironies underlying violence–the dialectical tension between love and hate, pleasure and pain. I wrote ‘Skin Deep’ in sonnet form to convey the ugly irony behind the love for whiteness. (The sonnet is a traditional form for love poems!) I wrote ‘Palimpsest’ as a sestina to convey the haunting nature of history, as if entering a cave of echoes, here, the ironies of caste inherent in classical Indian dance.

Hermeneutical translation of classics and cultures: the case of the I Ching and China’s inter-civilizational dialogue

ABSTRACT Based on observations of strategies adopted in Western interpretation and translation of the Chinese classic I Ching, this paper draws parallels between such strategies and Western developments in hermeneutics philosophy. In relation to this parallelism, three approaches of Western encounters with Chinese ancient literature – “conservative,” “dialogical,” and “radical” – will be identified. Cultural manifestations of such developments in twentieth century poetry, music, and the arts will be discussed.

A Descent into the Vortex—: Fictional and Mathematical

ABSTRACT: This article contends that in "A Descent into the Maelström" Poe establishes his model of the vortex, thus carrying his tale beyond mere adventure (and future SF). The model is both rational and strictly contradictory; it shows the very laws of reason carrying the mind unswervingly to the irrational. It is a model that can be shared by literary scholars and mathematicians. It formalizes the approach to the infinite Center, one of the ultimate figures on the threshold of Space itself. That is how the study of Poe's tale develops into an invitation to recognize and cultivate the imaginative drive common to science and literature.

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The article is devoted to the connection of the famous English poet, prose writer and preacher John Donne�s (1572�1631) works with the Petrarchan discourse of the European literature. The purpose of the investigation is to reveal and interpret the elements of Petrarchism in spiritual lyrics of the author on the basis of systematic approach with the use of the genealogical and comparative typological methods. The most prominent cases of the traditional Petrarchan themes, motives and images usage in John Donne�s religious texts and the specifity of their functioning have been examined in this article. Our attention has been paid to the genetic interconnection between the courtly rhetoric, which had been inherited by Francesco Petrarch and his numerous followers from the Provencal troubadours, and the traditions of the European mysticism that causes the harmony of the Petrarchan interpretive contexts according to the spiritual lyrics of the writer. Already in his earliest works, in particular in the book �Songs and Sonnets�, John Donne did not avoid mixing the sacred and the profane, quite intensively using religious images and motifs in love poetry. But his Petrarchism is most notable in his �Holly Sonnets�. The poetry of this cycle is not about God at all, but about the author himself in his relationship with Lord. In these sonnets the writer describes his feelings for God in almost the same way as Francesco Petrarch described his love for Laura. In general, if we talk about Petrarchism in relation to the spiritual lyrics of John Donne, it should be noted that for the writer it was not only a convenient source of the �ready� artistic images, motifs or means of expression but a kind of a perfect artistic technique for expressing secret, deeply personal thoughts and emotions. The conclusion has been done that such typically Petrarchan ideas such as: the dedicated service to the object of feelings, slavish adoration, obedience and dependence on its inconstant wishes John Donne has managed to adapt to the special needs of the sacred genres in such a way that his texts look surprisingly attractive, interesting and clear to different readers. Despite his worldwide fame John Donne is still one of the least researched literary figures in Ukrainian science. The article is directed to study only one of many aspects of his many-sided artistic heritage which needs the comprehensive professional analysis of the literary theorists and historians. So this article can be used for the further investigation of the problems, connected with the Petrarchan discourse generally in English literature and particularly in John Donne�s works and the scientific results proposed in it can be used in writing course works, graduation works and thesis on the related themes.

Beyond Beyond

Beyond Beyond Jerry Harp (bio) Postcolonial Love Poem Natalie Diaz Graywolf Press https://www.graywolfpress.org/books/postcolonial-love-poem 120 Pages; Print, $16.00 In her poem "The First Body is the Water," a title calling the reader into the interconnections that run through Natalie Diaz's Postcolonial Love Poem, the poet writes, "Body and water are not two unlike things—they are more than close together or side by side. They are same—body, being, energy, prayer, current, motion, medicine." As the litany of words at the end of this passage bears witness, they "are same" not because of some brute identity, but rather because they are bodies sharing being, energy that is prayer moving in a current, motion that is medicine. In this poem engaged in multiple modes of translation—"Every text remains in mourning until it is translated," the poet quotes—these words in motion emphasize a translation that is also transformation, a realm where Diaz moves and dwells. In the title poem, Diaz plays on words by ringing their changes: "I've been taught bloodstones can cure a snakebite, / can stop the bleeding." The "blood" of "bloodstones"—a healing stone so named because its hematite component gives it red specks—transforms into the literal blood of "bleeding" from snakebite. This spilling of blood and talk of a wound then move into a concern with war in relation to what bloodstone can do: "most people forgot this / when the war ended." No sooner do I ask what war this line refers to than I find the poem anticipating the question, stating, "The war ended, depending on which war you mean," and going on to list possibilities that include "those we started, / before those, millennia ago and onward, / those which started me." In a poem of such elemental images as "bloodstone," "the jaspers of our desires," a "flash flood" that "bolts the arroyo," and "bodies like wounds," I think it's fair to regard these "wars" that go back "millennia ago and onward" as the struggles of our shared evolutionary past, whose marks, energies, and impulses we still carry, and whose will to dominate continues to motivate the wars of our very day, as it motivated the colonization in the wake of which these poems take their shape. As these poems aver, the struggle to channel our more aggressive energies in creative and socially just directions continues. The poem then shifts to a seemingly different kind of struggle as the speaker declares, "I was built by wage," and within the same line, the word "wage" shifts to a verb: So I wage love and worse—always another campaign to march acrossa desert night for the cannon flash of your pale skinsettling in a silver lagoon of smoke at your breast. This verb commonly associated with war—as in "to wage war"—here associates with a love infused with the imagery of war, from marching to the flash of cannon to smoke, the latter two images directly associated with the beloved's body. As Diaz writes in another poem, "This is the war I was born toward, her skin" ("Skin-Light"). This love, embedded in struggle, translates potentially destructive energies into a love that unites by means of a vital tension. It's a complicated poem about a complicated love, a love poem that is also a poem of agon. These poems' multiple transformations signal a sensibility attuned to a world in movement, unending transformation, unexpected combinations and syntheses:—"Energy is a moving river moving my moving body" ("The First River is the Body"); "One way to love a sister, help her bleed light" ("Blood-Light"); "one breast a fig tree, the other a nightingale" ("These Hands, If Not Gods"); "The coyote answers by lifting its head / and crying stars" ("Manhattan is a Lenape Word"); "we became coyotes and rivers, and we ran faster than their fancy kicks could, up and down the court" ("Run 'n Gun"); "Innominate bone. Wish bone. Orpheus bone. / Transubstantiation bone" ("Ode to the Beloved's Hips"); "We must go beyond beyond to a place where we have never been the center, where there is no center—beyond, toward...

Africa Pulse

Africa Pulse Chris Dunton There are eight volumes in the Africa Pulse series recently published by Oxford University Press (South Africa). This set of books represents one of the most dynamic contributions to the African literary heritage for many years. As the publisher's note states, "the texts translated for this series have been identified time and again by scholars of literature in southern Africa as classics in their original languages" (Hall iii).1 The first volume discussed below has introductory comments on the value and processes of translation that apply to the set as a whole. The anthology Stitching a Whirlwind comprises forty-two poems or excerpts from longer poems with the originals (in Sesotho, isiXhosa, isiZulu, Setswana, Sepedi) and their English translation printed on facing pages. In her foreword one of the translators, Gabeba Baderoon, states that when the poems are gathered together (and bearing in mind southern Africa's history of enforced separation) they "engage in an imaginative exchange across barriers of language, author and period, overcoming decades of riven conversations" (viii). One notes that this is something the poems are being asked to do, not necessarily part of their authors' aspiration. But Baderoon's point is borne out by the anthology. The poems in each language are not clustered together—rather, the arrangement is, roughly speaking, thematic—which strengthens the point about speaking across. On that score, one of the praise poems included is "The praises of a maskandi singer" and one can imagine, for example, Basotho readers coming across this isiZulu poem and thinking, how like their own lithoko (praise poems) this is, but how interestingly different, too. Baderoon expands on her point: "translation should be our thirteenth language. [South Africa has twelve official ones]. Instead, our literary culture, publishing, and education systems have not kept pace with this polyglot reality" (viii). Although all power to the translators; how much added value there would be if "The praises of a maskandi singer" appeared not only in English translation but in Sesotho also.2 (Baderoon's observation bears on language policy in postapartheid South Africa; in his foreword to one of the Africa Pulse novels, Oliver Kgadime Matsepe's Tears of the Brain, David wa Maahlamela also touches on this issue, commenting: "Until tangible multilingualism is implemented, translation is likely to remain the only mechanism in the South African context to demonstrate that African languages are as fecund and flexible a medium as English or any other European language. Notably, in the case of languages of limited diffusion, [End Page 170] particularly when the source language is of rich cultural intensity, translation can either resuscitate or suffocate literary merit" [Maahlamela iv]).3 Antjie Krog, one of the translators of the poems in Stitching a Whirlwind and the coordinator of the volume's translation team, has an introduction in which she remarks: "This anthology gives readers a glimpse of the incredible depth and wealth of beauty, knowledge, flair and brilliance found in the literatures of indigenous languages in southern Africa" (xiii), and the volume bears this out handsomely. As a specialist in translation theory and practice, Krog notes that "translators [of poetry] now often work in tandem: a mother-tongue speaker and a poet" (xiv), the practice followed in this volume. S. E. K. Mqhayi's "Sinking of the Mendi" is given twice, with alternative translations by two different teams: a fascinating validation of Krog's comment that "the translation [should not be seen as being] equivalent to what is on the page next to it" (xiv). The volume kicks off with love poems and poems on beautiful women, for example, "Nomkhosi of my father" by B. M. Vilikazi: "Your firm steps as you walk / tire a young man courting. / He passes you and then takes a glance backwards, / watches you and tears flow" (Hall 3). One of the most striking poems, Otty Nxumalo's "Why does it keep saying?," protests at the repeated cry of a dove, reminding him painfully of lost patterns of social behavior and interaction, a topic that might have proven maudlin but is made vibrant by the poet's close observation and wit ("Here they eat sweets and ice blocks … here they...

Demand of the Centuries

Demand of the Centuries Pedro Mir (bio) Translated from Spanish by Jonathan Cohen Keywords Pedro, Mir, Jonathan, Cohen, Dominican poets, Sylph, geography, nautical Wild and splendid Sylphyou absolute animal,open your two waysof glidingon a tangent of the planetand show me how to make people.To turn peninsulas into faces,archipelagos into sailors,into magical horizonsyour circular mannerof gliding.Open your two scaleslike the pages of a bookthat shows how to make peopleand show me how to forma small fleshnose, skin for some bones,for a smile with the touchof a little blue whereyour outermost and softesttendon endsto make me absolutely an animal,an absolute wild animalthat lives forever. [End Page 246] Pedro Mir pedro mir (1913–2000) was the Dominican Republic's foremost poet of the twentieth century, named the country's Poeta Nacional (National Poet, i.e., Poet Laureate) by the Dominican Congress in the 1980s. He continues to hold this high poetic status. "Demand of the Centuries" comes from his 1969 book of erotic love poetry Poemas de buen amor … y a veces de fantasía (Poems of Good Love … and Sometimes Fantasy). He believed the ultimate aim of love is not poetry but the procreation of human beings. Though not well known in the United States, he is in the same league of Latin American poets as his contemporary Pablo Neruda. Jonathan Cohen jonathan cohen is a poet, translator, essayist, and scholar. He translated Pedro Mir's Two Elegies of Hope (Spuyten Duyvil, 2019) and, with Donald D. Walsh, Countersong to Walt Whitman and Other Poems (Peepal Tree Press, 2018). He is editor of William Carlos Williams's By Word of Mouth: Poems from the Spanish, 1916–1959 (2011) and the centennial edition of Williams's Al Que Quiere! (both published by New Directions, 2017). His edition of Williams's translation of the Spanish Golden Age novella The Dog and the Fever, by Pedro Espinosa, was published in 2018 by Wesleyan University Press. Copyright © 2021 The Massachusetts Review, Inc.

Poets of the samanids era

It is known that during the reign of the Samanids, great attention was paid to the development of science, art, literature and culture in general. As a result of the attention given to literature and culture, many generations of poets and writers have been formed and they have created unique works of spiritual wealth.During the period of the Samanids, literary literature, first in Arabic and later in the 10th century, lyrical and epic poetry in the Persian language, based on folk art traditions, developed. The works of Rudaki, Farrukhiy, Shahid Balkhi, Dakikiy, Abu Shukur Balkhi and Firdavsi were based on the traditions of the Samanids. At that time, the Arabic language was widely used, although the language of population was Sogdian, Tajik, and Turkish. Arabic was also the language of international communication, science, literature and religion in caliphate. It is not accidental that the sources contain information about 47poets who writes in Arabic language in Bukhara in IX-X centuries. It is known that the number of the most influential Persian-speaking poets in this period reached 200. This article is dedicated to study the life and work of poets of the Samanid period in Middle Asia. In this article along with the well-known poets, the works of the some poets who are far from attention of scientific and literary community, and the ideas expressed in their works. The article also states that the Samanids played an important role in the history of the early Middle Ages, Middle Asia reached cultural development during the period of the Samanids, Persian-Tadjik language emergenced from Iran and Bukhara has become a major cultural center of the East in the tenth century.