This poem captures a snapshot of the Inter-University Students' Federation's (IUSF) protest held against the then-Rajapaksa regime. The peaceful protest was water-cannoned and teargassed by Sri Lanka Police, the standard treatment for many protests mobilized to overthrow the government because of its failure to address the Sri Lankan economic crisis. The mass protests were successful: Gotabhaya Rajapaksa fled his official residence in July and the country shortly afterwards before resigning.
samodH Porawagamage on "Anticipation of the Inevitable" |
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"Your Prayers are Answered in Mary Jo Bang’s Translation of Dante’s Paradiso"
"As in her equally great translations of Inferno and Purgatorio, Bang translates Paradiso in lively, contemporary language. Yes, those are funny, unobtrusive references in her translation to The Simpsons, T.S. Eliot, and Roberta Flack. Writing in a modern voice with subtle, modern references, Bang follows Dante’s lead—he wrote his Commedia in Tuscan dialect, not austere Latin, and he loaded his poem with references to current events and controversies. "
via CHICAGO REVIEW OF BOOKS |
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What Sparks Poetry:
Matt Broaddus on Building Community
"A major interest of mine, in terms of bringing in historical reference, is just trying to acknowledge that where I am is not the be-all-end-all and won’t be the be-all-end-all. What I mean by that is that where I’m writing from is just a blip, you know, and my writing and my literary self on the page is in many ways an outgrowth of historical forces that are beyond my control. I think that one way I can feel like my art is engaging with these forces is to write about them and to move the past into the present." |
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