Key of Mist – Artvilla

Book Release.E.M.Schorb Reviews Next Arrivals. Collected Poems by Robin Ouzman Hislop.

September 17, 2018September 2, 2018 by Robin Ouzman Hislop

NEXT ARRIVALS
by
E.M. Schorb

“Simplify, simplify,” wrote Thoreau, and we get Einstein’s formula E=MC2 . Some might say that Einstein had simplified the immense complexities of the universe in a manner that Thoreau would approve.

To the uninitiated, Mister Hislop’s Next Arrivals might seem unduly complex; but it is the absolute opposite of complex. This epic poem—for it is not a book of poems—it is an epic of time and space, of variable time and elastic space.

We mustn’t look at this poem flat on, as we might when we look at Milton’s “Paradise Lost,” like a map. Milton fills in his spaces. Spaces are the subject of Mister Hislop’s Next Arrivals; the electric universe and its interstices. We are singing the body electric with Whitman, but in a different way. We are singing the universe, its mysterious nooks and crannies, and to sing it, as Mister Hislop does, we must see it through all the points of the compass at once, and we must see it between those points. Think a wheel with spokes: the author suggests that there is something important between the spokes, something that must be felt and found, perhaps a final reality, and as we fill in these interstices, the parts of the poem almost miraculously clamp together.

life decieves the disobedience of art
plunged into never waking obsession
a crowd of events jostling for a place amidst the shambling shadows

(p. 55)

There is a handful of the stuff between the spokes. These metaphorical shadows are also real spaces. We cannot make similes because we do not understand what is there, but we have no doubt of the crowds in space and time. They cry for attention. They beg for notice. Mister Hislop is attentive. He listens. He attends. He is a poet.

- vast unoccupied
- night wrapped up in immutable energy

(P.75)

Patches of words are spaced in such a way as to suggest what is next—the Next Arrivals—and there they are—what is in the spaces. Next Arrivals is a space epic, not science fiction, but a silicon epic of the spaces, what is in there and out there in language and reality. But an epic must have movement, narrative; and what we are advised to read is the narrative of digital tapping. There is no past, no future, now is the moment and we are actually in flight!

Tap! Gluon! Tap!

It makes one wonder if we have produced a machine or rather if we are, if the universe is, the product of an even greater machine, and if, ultimately, some kind of god, a deus ex machina, may emerge from the machine and solve the tragedy we all live—I’ll call it “The Tragedy of the Trees.” Mister Hislop makes us feel this almost supernatural—let us say ontological—journey. This is a brilliant poem, and we must thank the author for it.

Amazon.com Robin Ouzman Hislop Author’s Page

Amazon.com. Next Arrivals.Collected Poems Robin Ouzman Hislop

Amazon.co.uk. Next Arrivals. Collected Poems Robin Ouzman Hislop

Schorb’s work has appeared widely in such journals as The Yale Review, The Southern Review, The Virginia Quarterly Review, The Chicago Review, The Sewanee Review, The American Scholar, and The Hudson Review.
At the Frankfurt Book Fair in 2000, his novel, Paradise Square, was the winner of the Grand Prize for fiction from the International eBook Award Foundation, and later, A Portable Chaos won the Eric Hoffer Award for Fiction in 2004.
Schorb has received fellowships from the Provincetown Fine Arts Work Center and the North Carolina Arts Council; grants from the Ludwig Vogelstein Foundation, the Carnegie Fund, Robert Rauschenberg & Change, Inc. (for drawings), and The Dramatists Guild, among others. He is a member of the Academy of American Poets, and the Poetry Society of America.

Editors Note: See also introduction to Next Arrivals by Ian Irvine Hobson at Poetry Life & Times, Artvilla.com & Motherbird.com

Ian Irvine (Hobson) is an Australian based, British born, poet/lyricist, fiction writer, journal editor, and writing and creative arts academic. His work has been published extensively, including in a number of national anthologies, e.g. Best Australian Poetry and Agenda’s special Contemporary Australian Poets edition. He has published four books and has co-edited over 20 publications including 7 editions of the groundbreaking international literary ezine The Animist (1998-2001), as well as Scintillae 2012 (a print anthology containing work by over 60 Australian poets and writers). Ian has taught in the creative and professional writing programme at Bendigo Kangan Institute since 1999. He also lectures casually in a similar program at Victoria University, Melbourne.

Robin Ouzman Hislop is Editor of Poetry Life and Times his publications include All the Babble of the Souk and Cartoon Molecules collected poems and Key of Mist the recently published Tesserae translations from Spanish poets Guadalupe Grande and Carmen Crespo visit Aquillrelle.com/Author Robin Ouzman Hislop about author. See Robin performing his work Performance (University of Leeds)

Spike. Poem excerpt from Cartoon Molecules by Robin Hislop

January 13, 2018January 13, 2018 by Robin Ouzman Hislop

A runaway on a Singularity slippery slope need not be a despairingly
Sisyphean slide back but spike upward to an extremely great verticality
allowing something relatively harmless today start a trend that results
in something currently unthinkable a – Pandorean pandemonium

still he didn’t want to kill himself and his crew so he hatched a plan
that systems possessing the same patterns of causal organization will instantiate
the same types of conscious states irrespective of whether the organization
is implemented in neurons – silicon – plastic or any other substrate

taken to its heart we would vanish into its stronger existence – do the angels
really only take back what is theirs – what has streamed out of them – or is there
sometimes – as if by oversight something of our being as well? – do we not see
the swirling return to ourselves (how should we see it?) the world today being
as it is a vast unsupervised laboratory – in which a multitude of experiments
are simultaneously under way

brain-computer interfaces have already left the laboratory which allows gamers
to interact directly with their consoles – a high resolution neuro-signal
acquisition and processing wireless neuroheadset uses a set of sensors to tune
into electric signals produced by the brain to detect player thoughts feelings
and expressions and connects wirelessly to most PCs’ — all this for only $299!

partly this is because we cannot agree on what such purposes are – and even if
we were to – suddenly he knew that when he heard the music he would be unable
to resist steering toward the island’s rocks – the problem wasn’t the present
rational Ulysses – but instead the future illogical Ulysses – the person he’d become
when the Sirens came within earshot

but that is the gods’ affair – if only we too could discover a pure contained – human
place – a strip of fruitful land of our own – between river and stone!- for our own heart
exceeds us – the curve of the graph grows exponentially steeper – until that spike is
the Singularity – beyond the veil of the opaque wall – the unthinkable – the horizon
of the final dawn looms – lanced on the spear of the terrible angel.

After Rainer Maria Rilke. Duino Elegies

Robin Ouzman Hislop is Editor of Poetry Life and Times his publications include All the Babble of the Souk and Cartoon Molecules collected poems and Key of Mist the recently published Tesserae translations from Spanish poets Guadalupe Grande and Carmen Crespo visit Aquillrelle.com/Author Robin Ouzman Hislop about author. See Robin performing his work Performance (Leeds University) .

Harriet Tubman was born Araminta Ross and other Poems by Luz Pichel translated by Amparo Arróspide and Robin Ouzman Hislop

December 13, 2017 by Robin Ouzman Hislop

Editor’s Note: although we include the originals in this text, to introduce the poems of Luz Pichel, she is a Galician poet, a region in Spain with its own language (Gallego) which although bears similarities to Spanish (Castellano) is strikingly different. Luz Pichel mixes both languages in her work, but we as translators, have translated both into English, (apart from the little French ditty On The Bridge of Avignon in the first poem) hence the footnotes will often indicate the original Gallego scripts in the texts.

(1.)

the south mama maría

i did not take you to the south nor to the southern station so you could see floor 0
floor 1 floor 2 the general view 1 prices maps tickets tours
southern pages news the such a pretty cross

I have to go one summer with you to the heavens to see the southern
cross mama
the south in all the languages of the world your name
mother in all the stars in all
the ways of milk
in our lovely rude tongue mother 2
south in french listen well sur la table 3

a girl opened on the sacrificial table 4

sur le pont d’avignon
l’on y danse l’on y danse

sur-face
what do they make?
who makes the south?
who builds the south?
who profits from the south?
who profits? 5

les beaux messieurs font comme ça
et puis encore comme ça
(bang bang bang
a piggy gesture)
sur le sable 6 the cobra of fear crawled
on the sand he left engraved his SS

the general view mama these will be the plots of memory
l’on y dance tous en rond

les militaires font comme ça
(bang, bang bang
a homicide a child)
et puis comme ça
les beaux messieurs e les militaires

the building of the south mama patricia mare mâe 7
our south their south les belles dames

les belles dames dansent
elles font comme ça
et puis encore comme ça

the south mama eva mamá álvaro rafa guadalupe francisca
rosalía alfonsina federico emily luis
chámase mamá manuel
mamá manuela/
where your migrant shins grew
skinny on the sacrificial table 8

one day we will go all together there to the south mamai
they still have to see us dance on the cobra’s SS
e puis encore 9 dance
we’re all going to be prima ballerinas mama
noelina

the musicians will do like this like this like this
and still again if it is the case like this another time / comme ça 10

**
vista xeral 1
na nosa lingua ruin bonita nai 2
on the table 3
sobre da mesa do sacrificio abríase a rapaza aquela 4
que fan?
quen fai o sur?
quen constrúe o sur? quen aproveita o sur?
quen se aproveita? 5
on the sand 6
mother mama 7
onde medraron as túas canelas migratorias
fracas na tabla do sacrificio 8
and then again 9
e os músicos farán así e así e así
e despois aínda si es caso outra vez así/ comme ça 10

(1.)

el sur mamá maría

al sur no te he llevado ni a la estación del sur para que vieras planta 0
planta 1 planta 2 vista xeral los precios los mapas los tickets los recorridos las
páginas del sur las noticias la cruz tan guapa

he de ir un verano contigo al cielo a ver la cruz del sur mam
el sur en todas las linguas do mundo tu nombre
de madre en todas las estrellas en todas
las vias de la leche para que veas
na nosa lingua ruín bonita nai
sur en francés escucha bien sur la table

sobre da mesa do sacrificio abríase a rapaza aquela

sur le pont d’avignon
l’on y danse l’on y danse

sur–face
que fan?
quen fai o sur?
quen constrúe o sur? quen aproveita o sur?
quen se aproveita?

les beaux messieurs font comme ça
et puis encore comme ça
(bang bang bang
un gesto guarro)
sur le sable se arrastraba la cobra del miedo
sobre la arena dejaba grabadas sus eses

vista general mama estas serán las eras de la memoria
l’on y dance tous en rond

les militaires font comme ça
(bang, bang bang
un homicidio un niño)
et puis comme ça
les beaux messieurs e les militaires

construcción del sur mamá patricia mare mâe
el nuestro el de ellas les belles dames

les belles dames dansent
elles font comme ça
et puis encore comme ça

o sur mamá eva mamá álvaro rafa guadalupe francisca
rosalía alfonsina federico emily luis
chámase mamá manuel
mamá manuela/
onde medraron as túas canelas migratorias
fracas na tabla do sacrificio

un día vamos a ir todas juntas allá hasta el sur mamai para que sepas
aún nos han de ver danzar sobre la ese de la cobra e puis encore danzar
vamos a ser todas unas bailarinas de primera mamá noelina

e os músicos farán así e así e así
e despois aínda si es caso outra vez así/ comme ça

(2.)

I give you a herb
you said
inside a letter

take this leaf grandma I found it
it has dust
her name is luz 1

a tiny green thread an oval drawing
and the moon rolling down a rock
smell of orange blossom

this is called orange he said it is something to eat
I bought it at the cattle fair for you

a chick being hatched is not easy either
if there is no ear of wheat
if there is no waiting
if there is no space

some when they are hatched their roost is spoiled
they go

luz but the leaf has nerves covered
in dust but
do not then get confused but blow

the woman picked up an ear of wheat from the ground
an ear of wheat has little flour but
it will make sense

orange falls the moment you passed by
it rolls smells

I wanted to make a simple thing to give you
to give them
to give you
to make an old age
a death even
a thing like the spiral peel of an orange
unspoiled
(unlike the pedros´ baby girl
who came badly)
sometimes the peel is torn

take luz an orange look I found it in the air
and luz is not luz either
neither is a leaf that falls
– hayu hayuná hayunaí there! (someone celebrates something)

a woman on the door step gazes out
to far far away
her name was orange she peeled well she came out unspoiled
she had been learning simply to fall
in a spiral on herself

1. Light.

(2.)

te regalo una hierba
dijiste
dentro de una carta

toma esta hoja abuela la encontré
tiene polvo
se llama luz

un hilito verde un dibujo ovalado
y la luna rodando por una roca
olor a azahar

esto se llama naranja dijo es cosa de comer
en la feria la compré para ti

un pollito naciendo tampoco es fácil
si no hay espiga
si no hay espera
si no hay espacio

algunos cuando nacen se les rompe la casa
se van

luz pero la hoja tiene los nervios cubiertos
de polvo entonces
pero no confundirse pero soplar

la mujer recogía del suelo una espiga de trigo
una espiga de trigo poquita harina tiene pero
tendrá sentido

naranja cae en el momento en que tú pasabas por allí
rueda huele

yo quería hacer una cosa sencilla para darte
para darles
paro daros
hacer una vejez
una muerte incluso
una cosa así como la piel en espiral de una naranja
cuando se logra entera
(la niña de los de pedro no se logró tampoco
venía mal)
a veces se desgarra la piel

toma luz una naranja mira la encontré en el aire
y luz tampoco es luz
tampoco es una hoja que cae
— ¡hayú hayuná hayunaí allá! (alguien celebra algo)

una mujer en el umbral se asoma al otro lado
mira desde muy muy lejos
se llamaba naranja pelaba bien salía entera
había ido aprendiendo a caer sencillamente
en espiral sobre sí misma

(3.)

Babe take flowers to Chekhov´s grave
take a little branch
if you go to russia one day do that
you go and take flowers but there
when you grow up
a seagull at a beach give her flight
so when you go to russia you ask
do you know where´s Chekhov´s grave
it must have a painted sea bird

he went cold

she was the apple of his eye
she closed his eyes
wide open like
portals of a house without people
like a hot cross bun she crossed his eyelids
and she said to herself said told herself
I´ll go dad I´ll go leave
in peace
I ´ll go
even if it rains

then the little one put four
slices
of bread inside a bag
a small bottle of water only four of bread only
´cos it would get hard inside a bag
she started walking into the hill
without anyone seeing her
´cos it was not proper to wait to grow up
to go and put some flowers over a
grave in russia

(3.)

nena llévale flores a la tumba de chejov
llévale un ramito
si vas a rusia un día tú lo haces
vas y le llevas flores pero allá
cuando seas grande
una gaviota en una playa échala a volar
después vas a rusia preguntas
usted sabrá dónde la tumba de chejov
debe de tener pintado un pájaro marino

se quedó

ella era la niña de los ojos de él
le cerró los ojos
que los tenía así
portales de una casa sin gente
le hizo la cruz del pan sobre los párpados
y se dijo a sí misma dijo dijo para sí
he de ir papá he de ir marcha tranquilo
he de ir
aunque llueva

entonces la pequeña cuatro rebanadas
de pan en una bolsa
botellita de agua sólo cuatro de pan sólo
que se iba a poner duro en una bolsa
echó a andar monte adentro
sin que la viera nadie
pues no era del caso esperar a ser grande
para ir a poner unas flores encima de una
tumba en rusia

(4.)

harriet tubman was born araminta ross
maria was born agnieszka
norma was born conchita
fernán was born cecilia
pocahontas was born matoaka
álvaro was born álvar
raphaël was born rafita
hypatia of alexandria was born a martyr
annika was born anita
rachael was born raquel
andrzej naceu 1 andrés
christine was born george
carla was born carlos
lucas naceu lilia
mary shelley was born mary godwin
dolly naceu dolly non saíu / she never left
the roslin institute

1. was born

(4.)

harriet tubman nació araminta ross
maría nació agnieszka
norma nació conchita
fernán nació cecilia
pocahontas nació matoaka
álvaro nació álvar
raphaël nació rafita
hypatia de alejandría nació mártir
annika nació anita
rachael nació raquel
andrzej naceu andrés
christine was born george
carla nació carlos
lucas naceu lilia
mary shelley nació mary godwin
dolly naceu dolly non saíu / no salió nunca
del roslin institute

(5.)

harriet tubman rests her head lays it

on the train track and sleeps she leads ahead because she knows languages understands the signs bears the beatings knows the underground rail ways and sees what cannot be seen and dreams what cannot be dreamt next to harriet all the others sleep over the track non return trips are long forests are very scary bugs and smugglers are very scary some countries are far too far they are so far away some mornings never reach a train station never never arrive they pass by in the darkness things look like bundles the ones who move carrying linen bags or with a little old lady on their shoulders they look like wolves mist on her palm a woman has written a verse in orange ink the train track is not a cosy pillow the cold doesn´t let you keep your ideas safe sleep and dream the message read the deeper the dream the farther it takes you little foreigner

(5.)

descansa a cabeza harriet tubman póusaa

na vía do tren e dorme ela vai por diante porque sabe linguas entende os letreiros aguanta os paus / los palos coñece os camiños de ferro sub da terra e ve o que non se ve e soña o que non se soña a caronciño / a la vera de harriet as outras dormen todas sobre da vía as viaxes sen retorno fanse largas as fragas / bosques meten moito medo meten medo os bichos e os estraperlistas algúns países están lonxe de máis / quedan tan tan lejos algunhas mañás / mañanas non chegan nunca á estación dun tren / no llegan nunca nunca pasan na escuridade as cousas semellan vultos os que se moven cargando con sacos de liño / lino ou cunha velliña ao lombo / una viejecita sobre los hombros semellan lobos néboa / niebla na man aberta ten escrito a muller un verso con tinta de cor laranxa a vía do tren non é unha almofada xeitosa / una almohada agradable no es la vía de un tren o frío non permite acomodar as ideas sen perigo / peligro durme e soña dicía a mensaxe o soño canto máis fondo máis lonxe te leva / más lejos te transporta extranxeiriña

Translations Amparo Arróspide & Robin Ouzman Hislop

Bio Photo. Luz Pichel & Amparo Arróspide. November 2017. Madrid.

Luz Pichel was born in 1947 in Alén (Lalín, Pontevedra), a tiny village in Galicia. Alén means “beyond” and also means “the beyond”. There she learned to speak in a language that could die but does not want to. Those who speak that language think that it is always others those who speak well.

She is the author of the poetry books El pájaro mudo (1990, City of Santa Cruz de la Palma Award), La marca de los potros (2004, XXIV Latin American poetry prize Juan Ramón Jiménez), Casa pechada (2006, Esquío Poetry Award ), El pájaro mudo y otros poemas (2004), Cativa en su lughar / Casa pechada (2013), Tra (n) shumancias (2015) and Co Co Co Ú (2017).
Part of her work Casa pechada was translated into English and Irish in the anthological book To the winds our sails: Irish writers translate Galician poetry, Salmonpoetry, 2010, ed. Mary O’Donnell & Manuela Palacios.

Neil Anderson translated into English Casa pechada. Several poems appeared in his blog (re) voltas; July, 2014.

Several poems from Casa pechada appeared in the American magazines SALAMANDER, No. 41, year 2015, and PLEIADES, vol. 36, Issue 2, p. 117, year 2016, in English translation by Neil Anderson.

Amparo Arróspide (born in Buenos Aires) is an M.Phil. by the University of Salford. As well as poems, short stories and articles on literature and films in anthologies and international magazines, she has published five poetry collections: Presencia en el Misterio, Mosaicos bajo la hiedra, Alucinación en dos actos y algunos poemas, Pañuelos de usar y tirar and En el oído del viento. The latter is part of a trilogy together with Jacuzzi and Hormigas en diaspora, which are in the course of being published. In 2010 she acted as a co-editor of webzine Poetry Life Times, where many of her translations of Spanish poems have appeared, she has translated authors such as Margaret Atwood, Stevie Smith and James Stephens into Spanish, and others such as Guadalupe Grande, Ángel Minaya, Francisca Aguirre, Carmen Crespo, Javier Díaz Gil into English. She takes part in poetry festivals, recently Centro de Poesía José Hierro (Getafe).

Robin Ouzman Hislop is Editor of Poetry Life and Times his publications include All the Babble of the Souk and Cartoon Molecules collected poems and Key of Mist the recently published Tesserae translations from Spanish poets Guadalupe Grande and Carmen Crespo visit Aquillrelle.com/Author Robin Ouzman Hislop about author. See Robin performing his work Performance (Leeds University) .

Next Arrival. A Poem by Robin Ouzman Hislop

December 13, 2017December 12, 2017 by Robin Ouzman Hislop

                                      we invent them to serve us      controlling our existence 
                                                  to create virtual worlds with hells and heavens 
                                                                  myths domesticate science 

                                                     fiction and reality blur shaping our reality

                                      an assembly of biochemical algorithms flash fade flash fade 

                                                                                    spinning 

                                                   epidemic is business     economy grows
                                               human experience             as any other item 
                                       in the supermarket                  a designable product
                                   intelligence mandatory               consciousness optional 
                                                                  individuals = dividuals
                                                                      in carbon or silicon

                                                                    owned by imaginary gods
                                           who   what     you are    how to turn you    on and off
                                                                                beyond control
                                                                                       beyond
                                                                              the opaque wall
                                                                algorithms can command empire 
                                                           or an upper class ruling the planet
                                                     if words could make dreams come true
                                             a simultaneous instant in the brain of seven billion
                                        emerges the beautiful androgynous face of the serial killer

                                                                  wheat eater    bread winner 

                                                                          & the deluge of data

                                              millions of nano-robots coursing humankind's veins 
                                                                       an Orwellian police state 
                                                                                       splits into 
                                                                 the chosen hi-tech Noah’s Ark
                                                               a new religion information flow 

                                                                                      datism 

                                                                      to merge or not to merge 
                                                  the human genome as a digital processor 
                                                                    where overwhelming data 

                                                    garbles the message in dystopian double talk

                                                                    will the defeaters prevail 
                                                            or cometh utopia from outer space
                                                                 our post human descendants

                                                          do as you would be done by datism 
                                                 as we condemned the mammoth to oblivion 
                                                                          your every action 
                                 but where no human      can follow     or need to understand 
                                                  in the matrix    the inter net      of all things 

                                                                where has the power has gone
                                                             the cosmic data God draweth nigh 
                                                                               the great flow
                                             to maximise    to plug you in      voters of the world unite 
                                                             a colossus astride this narrow world 

                                                                                  free market 
                                                                                  big brother
                                                              watches over every breath you take
                                                              invisible hand that flies in the night

                                                                 between laboratory & museum
                                                                    voice of a million ancestors
                                                                a ripple in the cosmic data flow
                                                    shifts homo centric view       to data centric view 

                                                        knowing us better than we know ourselves

                                                                                            forager
                                                       scavenger of carrion       follower in fear & flight
                                                                                        big brained 
                                                               Neanderthal Denisovan Sapient 
                                                             what drove you for 2 million years 
                                                                                          a big bum? 

                                                                                        what bound 
                                                     small divergent groups of differing tongue & taboo
                                                                   into the framework of humankind
                                                                                         but fiction 
                                                                collective myths woven into our reality 
                                                                       from money to the nation state 
                                                                                      imprisoned 
                                                                                 by the archetypes 
                                   we've identified them with            a virtual reality of cartoon molecules

*


after Yuvah Noah Harari
Sapient & Homo Deus

Video Poetry Recital Featuring Arboleda, Arróspide, Crespo, Grande, Hislop. International Writers. Leeds.UK.

November 9, 2017 by Robin Ouzman Hislop

This video recording was made at University of Leeds on October 10th. 2017, it was introduced and presented by Antonio_Martínez_Arboleda Principal Teaching Fellow in Spanish and poet.

The initial image can be enlarged to full screen size. The texts and accompanying images can be easily toggled to place according to requirements.

Below the video also is a link that gives a report and interpretation of the performance by students who attended.

The report is live at http://www.leeds.ac.uk/arts/news/article/5108/2nd_cts_professionalisation_talk_2017-18_international_writers_at_leeds