Dec 29, 2013

Poetry: Making Peace by Denise Levertov


Making Peace

By Denise Levertov (1923–1997)

A voice from the dark called out,
"The poets must give us
imagination of peace, to oust the intense, familiar
imagination of disaster. Peace, not only
the absence of war."

But peace, like a poem,
is not there ahead of itself,
can't be imagined before it is made,
can't be known except
in the words of its making,
grammar of justice,
syntax of mutual aid.

A feeling towards it,
dimly sensing a rhythm, is all we have
until we begin to utter its metaphors,
learning them as we speak.

A line of peace might appear
if we restructured the sentence our lives are making,
revoked its reaffirmation of profit and power,
questioned our needs, allowed
long pauses. . . .

A cadence of peace might balance its weight
on that different fulcrum; peace, a presence,
an energy field more intense than war,
might pulse then,
stanza by stanza into the world,
each act of living
one of its words, each word
a vibration of light--facets
of the forming crystal.

Dec 20, 2013

A Prayer by Farhat Abbas Shah

 
 
 
سائیاں ذات ادھوری ہے

 سائیاں ذات ادھوری ہے، سائیاں بات ادھوری ہے

سائیاں رات ادھوری ہے، سائیاں مات ادھوری ہے
دشمن چوکنا ہے لیکن، سائیاں گھات ادھوری ہے

سائیاں رنج ملال بہت، دیوانے بے حال بہت
 قدم قدم پر جال بہت، پیار محبت کال بہت
اور اس عالم میں سائیاں، گزر گئے ہیں سال بہت

سائیاں ہر سو درد بہت، موسم موسم سرد بہت
رستہ رستہ گرد بہت، چہرہ چہرہ زرد بہت
اور ستم ڈھانے کی خاطر، تیرا اک اک فرد بہت

سائیاں تیرے شہر بہت، گلی گلی میں زہر بہت
خوف زدہ ہے دہر بہت، اس پہ تیرا قہر بہت
کالی راتیں اتنی کیوں، ہم کو اک ہی پہر بہت

سائیاں دل مجبور بہت، روح بھی چور و چور بہت
پیشانی بے نور بہت، اور لمحے مغرور بہت
ایسے مشکل عالم میں، تو بھی ہم سے دور بہت
 
سائیاں راہیں تنگ بہت، دل کم ہیں اور سنگ بہت
پھر بھی تیرے رنگ بہت، خلقت ساری دنگ بہت
سائیاں تم کو آتے ہے، بہلانے کے ڈھنگ بہت

سائیاں میرے تارے گم، رات کے چند سہارے گم
سارے جان سے پیارے گم، آنکھیں گم نظارے گم
ریت میں آنسو ڈوب گئے، راکھ میں ہوئے شرارے گم

سائیاں رشتے ٹوٹ گئے، سائیاں اپنے چھوٹ گئے
سچ گئے اور جھوٹ گئے، تیز مقدر پھوٹ گئے
جانے کیسے ڈاکو تھے، جو لوٹے ہوئوں کو لوٹ گئے

سائیاں تنہا شاموں میں، چنے گئے ہیں باموں میں
چاہت کے الزاموں میں، شامل ہوئے ہے غلاموں میں
اپنی ذات نہ ذاتوں میں، اپنا نام نہ ناموں میں

سائیاں ویرانی کے صدقے، اپنی یزدانی کے صدقے
جبر انسانی کے صدقے، لمبی زندانی کے صدقے
سائیاں میرے اچھے سائیاں، اپنی رحمانی کے صدقے

سائیاں میرے درد گھٹا، سائیاں میرے زخم بجھا
سائیاں میرے عیب مٹا، سائیاں کوئی نوید سنا
اتنے کالے موسم میں، سائیاں اپنا آپ دکھا

فرحت عباس شاہ
 
 

Jun 16, 2013

Hunger: The Global War on Poor

This is an excerpt from Julian Cribb's book (same title as below) that was published in the NYTimes.

On the same theme, Raj Patel's "
Stuffed and Starved" and his latest "The Value of Nothing" (clip) are worth checking out.


‘The Coming Famine’

By JULIAN CRIBB

Lo que separa la civilización de la anarquía son solo siete comidas. (Civilization and anarchy are only seven meals apart.)
—Spanish proverb

 
Digging into a mountain of caviar, sea urchin roe, succulent Kyoto beef, rare conger eels, truffles, and fine champagne, the leaders of the world’s richest and most powerful countries shook their heads over soaring grocery prices in the developed world and spreading hunger in Africa, India, and Asia. Over an eighteen-course banquet prepared for them by sixty chefs, the eight global potentates declared, “We are deeply concerned that the steep rise in global food prices coupled with availability problems in a number of developing countries is threatening global food security. The negative impacts of this recent trend could push millions more back into poverty.”

This statement, which followed the July 2008 meeting of the G8 (Group of Eight) nations in Hokkaido, Japan, was revelatory in several ways. The leaders of France, the United States, Russia, Britain, Germany, Canada, Italy, and Japan seemed bemused by the sudden emergence of the specter of food scarcity after de cades of apparent abundance and cheap prices. This was a problem they clearly thought had been fixed.

Concealed within their response were embarrassing admissions. First, in urging major increases in global food aid, the leaders appeared to tacitly concede that wealthy countries had failed to fulfill their pledges to the United Nations’ Millennium Development Goals of 2000 to fight poverty. Second, in calling on the world to reverse declining support for agricultural development and research, they were implicitly confessing that they had let these deteriorate. Third, in demanding food security early warning systems, the G8 leaders effectively admitted that they had been caught unawares by the emerging food crisis — and didn’t like it. There are few things a politician likes less than an unforeseen development, so for good measure they backhanded the United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO), demanding its “thorough reform,” presumably for the sin of having failed to get their attention with its previous warnings.

The “Blessings of the Earth and the Sea Social Dinner” for the G8 leaders, hosted by the government of Japan, had more than a touch of the fall of the Roman Empire about it. The eight most powerful men on Earth and their partners regaled themselves on cornbread stuffed with caviar, smoked salmon, and sea urchin roe; hot onion tart and winter lily bulbs followed by kelp-flavored cold Kyoto beef with asparagus dressed with sesame cream; diced fatty tuna flesh with avocado, shiso, and jellied soy sauce; boiled clam, tomato, and shiso in jellied clear soup; water shield and pink conger dressed with a vinegary soy sauce; boiled prawn with jellied tosazu vinegar; grilled eel rolled in burdock; sweet potato; and fried and seasoned goby with soy sauce and sugar. This beginning was followed by a bisque of hairy crab and salt-grilled bighand thornyhead with vinegar-pepper sauce. The main course was poele of milk-fed lamb flavored with aromatic herbs and mustard, as well as roasted lamb with black truffle and pine seed oil sauce. This was followed by a special cheese selection with lavender honey and caramelized nuts, and then a whimsical “G8 fantasy dessert” and coffee with candied fruits and vegetables. The food was accompanied by Le Rêve grand cru/La Seule Gloire champagne; a sake wine, Isojiman Junmai Daiginjo Nakadori; Corton-Charlemagne 2005 (France); Ridge California Monte Bello 1997; and Tokaji Esszencia 1999 (Hungary). The cost of holding the G8 summit (five hundred million dollars) could have fed for a week the additional one hundred million people left hungry by the emerging food crisis.

With eloquent symbolism, this Petronian banquet made clear that the well-off part of humanity has largely forgotten what it is to go hungry and is awakening to an unpleasant shock: starvation and the wars, refugee crises, and collapse of nation-states that often accompany hunger have not been permanently banished after all. Indeed, they are once more at our doorstep. Food insecurity and its deadly consequences are again a pressing concern for every nation and each individual.

Despite the global food crisis of 2007–8, the coming famine hasn’t happened yet. It is a looming planetary emergency whose interlocked causes and deeper ramifications the world has barely begun to absorb, let alone come to grips with. Experts predict that the crisis will peak by the middle of the twenty-first century; it is arriving even faster than climate change. Yet there is still time to forestall catastrophe.

From "The Coming Famine" by Julian Cribb, published by the University of California Press, 2010. Excerpt courtesy of the University of California Press.

Jun 13, 2013

Poem: How to Become a Poet - Eve Merriam

Reply to the Question:

"How can You Become a Poet?"

by Eve Merriam


take the leaf of a tree
 trace its exact shape
 the outside edges
 and inner lines
 memorize the way it is fastened to the twig
 (and how the twig arches from the branch)
 how it springs forth in April
 how it is panoplied in July

by late August
 crumple it in your hand
 so that you smell its end-of-summer sadness

chew its woody stem

listen to its autumn rattle

watch it as it atomizes in the November air

then in winter
 when there is no leaf left

invent one