“Besaydoo” documents and archives the sonic dimensions of care. While this poem is sourced from a memory that is several years old, its wonder remains—how often do we witness loved ones sealing each other’s departure with blessings? What happens when we rise to the challenge of integrating that love into our own lives? This poem meditates on the ways that language heals the ravages of time, distance, and circumstance.
Yalie Kamara on "Besaydoo" |
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"A Word, A Corpse"
"Celan cleansed the language by breaking it down, bringing it back to its roots, creating a radical strangeness in expression and tone. Drawing on the vocabulary of such fields as botany, ornithology, geology, and mineralogy, and on medieval or dialect words that had fallen out of use, he invented a new form of German, reconceiving the language for the world after Auschwitz."
viaTHE NEW YORKER |
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We oppose racism, oppression, and police brutality.
We will continue to amplify diverse voices in the poetry world.
Black Lives Matter. |
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What Sparks Poetry:
Jennifer Grotz on "Pantarheia"
"What is it we’re actually influenced by when we read or translate from other languages? One answer lies in what the late critic Daniel Albright called panaesthetics, a sort of belief that certain universal principles might unite artists or the process of making, regardless of medium or language. But another answer might be that we go to the work of other languages or other art forms in order to escape an influence or given tendency that our own language and tradition may exert on our making." |
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