Little Dancer — The Degas Poems by Lyn Lifshin

Little Dancer — The Degas Poems

by Lyn Lifshin

Paperback, 40 pages, $14.00 (list)
ISBN: 0989310671

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Publisher: NightBallet Press

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Femme Eterna

Introduction:

The newest poem from Lyn Lifshin, imagines and explores the world of Marie Van Goethem, the “Little Dancer” sculpted by Edgar Degas. The Degas Poems contains 29 poems.

Now loved, Degas’ original wax version of the little dancer was hated,though his paintings had been greeted enthusiastically.  His sculpture of The Little Dancer, Aged 14, was considered shocking and unsettling, like a little monkey.  It is said one father cried, ‘God forbid my daughter should become a dancer.’  Many were shocked by her pose and the material used: human hair, beeswax, silk.  Degas loved the opera and ballet but this statue was called ‘repulsive’ and ‘vicious,’ a threat to society.  It forced viewers to look at the seamy side of life since most of the young girls came from very poor slums and working class families.  Others were horrified that she seemed to champion ugliness and depravity.  Degas never again exhibited the sculpture.  And, though he painted ballerinas all his life, The Little Dancer was largely forgotten until it was rediscovered with dozens of other sculptures.  His fascination with making sculpture was little know in his lifetime, unlike his portraits, history paintings, scenes from modern life, the world of horse racig, and the theater and ballet.


Christina Zawadiwsky,

“We now recognize The Little Dancer sculpture by Degas as arresting and compelling, but there was a time when she was considered scandalous and disturbing.  Lyn Lifshin’s poems celebrate her creation as a symbol of so many young and impoverished French female dancers who attempted to fill our world with grace, energy, and beauty.  And Lifshin’s insightful and incisive Little Dancer poems remind us to remember her name, Marie Van Goethem, so that she will never fade into obscurity.”

—Christina Zawadiwsky, author of The Hand On The Head Of Lazarus and recipient of the National Endowment Award.


Poems from Little Dancer—The Degas Poems

THE LITTLE DANCER,

was Degas in love with her?
Obsessed? Driven? Her
hair bound in probably
stolen ribbons. Not one image
but four. Her hands behind
her as if cuffed, a prisoner
of her poverty, exchanging
her body on stage or in
some rich patron’s bed,
offering a fantasy of ideal
femininity under the
sheets or on pointe on
the stage. And did Degas,
so fascinated by her, want
to know in every way,
what was inside her?

FLOWER OF THE GUTTER

a winged urchin,
gamin aile, the little dancer must
have hypnotized Degas.
Unlike most ballerinas who
never talked, Marie was
feisty, not afraid to
speak her mind. She and
Degas must have bickered.
Could she have imagined all
the statues of her that
would be replicated, after
Degas’ death, at the family’s
request, in bronze. She
couldn’t know there’d be
only one of her in wax, the
only one he’d actually
put his hands on, dressed
in a silk tutu with real
human hair and linen slippers,
maybe her own slippers.
her own DNA

JOLIE-LAIDE

Not pretty or ugly but a
look that not only combines
attributes of both but suggests
a deeper sense of conflict between
appearance and inner life.

The little dancer,
Degas’ little rat
from the slums of Paris.
Fascinated by the street
urchin, Degas wrote a sonnet
about such a girl, that she
might have a good life
without losing the “race of
the street.” Unlike white
marble, something to
admire, brown wax invited
something to be studied,
dissected and penetrated, in
all its implications. Surly,
a mix of arrogance and fear
the little dancer, mysterious
and somehow challenging
men to fantasize that
whatever they do to her body
they can’t have or know her

 

 

 

Lyn Lifshin has published over 140 books and chapbooks and edited three anthologies of women’s writing including Tangled Vines that stayed in print 20 years. She has several books from Black Sparrow books. Her web site, www.lynlifshin.com shows the variety of her work from the equine books, The Licorice Daughter: My Year with Ruffian and Barbaro: Beyond Brokenness to recent books about dance: Ballroom, Knife Edge and Absinthe: The Tango Poems. Other new books include For the Roses, poems for Joni Mitchell, All The Poets Who Touched Me; A Girl goes Into The Woods; Malala, Tangled as the Alphabet: The Istanbul Poems. Also just out: Secretariat: The Red Freak, The Miracle Malala and Luminous Women: Enheducanna, Scheherazade and Nefertiti.

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Key of Mist. Guadalupe Grande.Translated.Amparo Arróspide.Robin Ouzman Hislop

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Fault Lines. Collected Poems Release. Symphony of the City. Video Poem. by Gary Beck.

 

 
 
Symphony of the City
 

Discordant orchestra
rent by untuned instruments,
the underlying hum of engines
sound the theme of endless din.
The clack of workmen moving pipes,
the bumpthump of delivery trucks,
the unrythmic thud of hammer,
the voices of children
cavorting in the playground
serenade the senses,
varied sensual sounds
interrupted by crash and bang,
handymen, repair crews,
horn-blowing motorists
aspiring to be soloists,
daytime throb of labor.
Nighttime crack of gunfire,
shrieks and howls
of citizens in torment
under constant assault,
reveal the melody
of your anguished composition.

 
 
fault-lines-cover-image
 
Fault Lines is a poetry collection that examines the disconnect, the unchallenged chaos, and the possible downfall of humanity.
 
‘Thoughtful, densely rich poems.’ – Archers Crown Magazine
‘Excellent, chilling, sobering. Great work.’ – Six Sentences Magazine
One of the poems was a Pushcart Prize nominee by Nazar Look Magazine
 
Fault Lines.Gary Beck. Amazon.Com
 
Gary pic
 
Facebook.com. @Author Gary Beck
Review of Fault Lines by Kindle Book Review Team member

 
Gary Beck has spent most of his adult life as a theater director, and as an art dealer when he couldn’t make a living in theater. He has 11 published chapbooks and 3 more accepted for publication. His poetry collections include: Days of Destruction (Skive Press), Expectations (Rogue Scholars Press). Dawn in Cities, Assault on Nature, Songs of a Clerk, Civilized Ways, Displays, Perceptions & Fault Lines (Winter Goose Publishing). Tremors, Perturbations, Rude Awakenings and The Remission of Order will be published by Winter Goose Publishing. Conditioned Response (Nazar Look). Resonance (Dreaming Big Publications). His novels include: Extreme Change (Cogwheel Press), Flawed Connections (Black Rose Writing) and Call to Valor (Gnome on Pigs Productions). Sudden Conflicts will be published by Lillicat Publishers and State of Rage by Rainy Day Reads Publishing. His short story collection, A Glimpse of Youth (Sweatshoppe Publications). Now I Accuse and other stories will be published by Winter Goose Publishing. His original plays and translations of Moliere, Aristophanes and Sophocles have been produced Off Broadway. His poetry, fiction and essays have appeared in hundreds of literary magazines. He currently lives in New York City.
 
 
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Key of Mist. Guadalupe Grande.Translated.Amparo Arróspide.Robin Ouzman Hislop
 
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http://www.aquillrelle.com/authorrobin.htm
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www.lulu.com. All the Babble of the Souk. Robin Ouzman Hislop
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En el Oído del Viento. Collected Poems. Amparo Arrospide. Reviewed by Jose Antonio Pamies

 
Su antigua música el desdecir diciéndose
el vértice del miedo y su pregunta
al filo de un abismo
como si de prestado no viviésemos miedo
 
Ah no lo desconoces alguna vez de niño lo sentiste
bajo sábanas amargas o dichosas
de pronto alargar su dedo oscuro
 
el miedo amigo el miedo cómplice
restregando los flancos de otro día
barrenando certezas preguntándose aquí
cómo decirles nada cómo decir si aprietan
 
Otros imponen establecen recaudan
otros castigan evalúan deciden
otros deciden miedo
 
o nadie en absoluto ni una sola persona
y sin embargo sabes
frente al espejo sabes
callar lo sabes lo has aprendido al fin
 
Di qué pronto la costumbre nos arropa
qué pronto está debajo el escondite
y las vasijas frías del llorar
 
y el miedo nos sonríe tiritando
entrechocando dientes
cubiertos para un ya mudo comensal
tan yerto como tú que le prometes
vivir, seguir viviendo en miedo como siempre.
 
Amparo Arróspide, a poem from En el oído del viento (Baile del Sol, 2016)
 
 
OLYMPUS DIGITAL CAMERA
 
 
Amparo Arróspide (Argentina) 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, as well as poems, short stories and articles on literature and films in anthologies and international magazines. She has translated authors such as Francisca Aguirre, Javier Díaz Gil, Luis Fores and José Antonio Pamies into English, together with Robin Ouzman Hislop, who she worked with for a period as co-editor of Poetry Life and Times, a Webzine. Her translations into Spanish of Margaret Atwood (Morning in the Burned House), James Stephens (Irish Fairy Tales) and Mia Couto (Vinte e Zinco) are in the course of being published, as well as her two poetry collections Hormigas en diáspora and Jacuzzi. She takes part in festivals, recently Transforming with Poetry (Leeds) and Centro de Poesía José Hierro (Getafe).
 
 

(EN EL OÍDO DEL VIENTO, Baile del Sol, 2016)
Amparo Arróspide
 
 
En el oído del viento es el último libro de poemas publicado por Amparo Arróspide, filóloga, traductora y poeta nacida en Argentina y radicada desde hace años en Europa. En esta colección de poemas nos ofrece un trabajo singular, innovador, sorprendente, coloreado por diversos registros y voces corales, sin perder el hilo conductor de una voz afianzada: “Y a salvo yo, lectora de la vida, esto que se mueve y me sucede, donde sucedo y no hay respuestas, ni siquiera búsqueda de respuestas, un afán inútil, donde presto mi oído atento al runrún de lo que pasa y va pasando.”
 
La realidad resuena en este oído y se nos ofrece traducida con distorsión, juegos del lenguaje y toques de ironía, quizá una de las mejores formas de poner de manifiesto la situación social que atravesamos sin caer en la queja panfletaria o el lamento repetitivo.
 
Y es que lo cierto y verdad es que “Hemos descreído del género mayor, ese rumiante ante la caja de los panegíricos con olor a violeta y forma de billete bancario.”
 
El libro está dividido en tres partes: “en el oído del viento”, “el mundo en fuga” y una tercera parte “a modo de epílogo”. Encontramos en muchos de estos poemas una poesía crítica con esa realidad exterior que sutilmente nos ha ido imponiendo su dictadura de lo políticamente correcto. Es tarea de la poesía desvelar los resortes de esas trampas para acceder a la verdad, a la esencia de una realidad que a menudo difiere bastante de las apariencias: “¿Ustedes nunca fueron vendidas compradas construídas/ paseadas por los medios de incomunicación?”
 
Los poemas se enfrentan a esa labor a través de ingeniosos mecanismos que denotan un buen trabajo con el lenguaje y con la semántica, dejando apreciar el valor textual de los poemas, a la vez que encuentran diversos tipos de paralelismos con la realidad exterior a la que refieren. En esa relación de contexto los versos se abren paso significando distorsionadamente, tratando con divertimento crítico acontecimientos que nos conciernen a todos los ciudadanos.
 
Una innovadora fusión de poéticas se nos revela aquí. Por un lado, encontramos preocupaciones y motivos de fondo que podrían resumirse en estas palabras de Enrique Falcón: “Mi verdadero conflicto: que me muerden mis versos, que no tengo país.” Y por otro lado, el magnífico trabajo con el lenguaje se acerca formalmente a una poesía conceptual, cercana a los concretistas y a algunas obras de Martín Gubbins o Ignacio Miranda en su tratamiento del lenguaje administrativo y burocrático, convertido en obra de arte mediante el talento poético.
 
Esta labor a que nos referimos se aprecia en una serie de poemas que ofrecen variaciones a referencias legislativas como en “Real Decreto 624/2014” o a discursos políticos como en “Investidura MMXI” donde se alude al discurso de investidura del presidente de Gobierno actual en España. Hay en ellos un contraste de la estructura opaca, propia de ese tipo de discursos políticos, con esa magia poética que nace de los nuevos sentidos que ofrece el texto distorsionado. Ecos surrealistas de una voz que se distancia de la realidad para denunciarla mejor mediante la deformación de los significantes, el realismo de ese lenguaje político resulta tan grisáceo que en su temerario engaño no es capaz de ofrecer ni siquiera un vocabulario seductor. Esta poesía seduce y divierte, pero a su vez contiene el poso amargo de la verdad ineludible, de la corrupción, del paro, de los recortes, de las mentiras que duelen:
 
“Habrá pañoles, todos punibles, todos fungibles, todos cocodrilos,/ dignos de esputo, todos capaces de trincar en la estafeta común.”
 
Los recursos del lenguaje poético son mucho más bellos y entretenidos que ese lenguaje de los burócratas, pero desvelan también una verdad más cruda. El esperpento se hace necesario para poder afrontar el tratamiento de cuestiones que tanto nos afectan: apela a la función lúdica de la literatura a la vez que despierta el pensamiento crítico, señalándonos la realidad que tenemos que afrontar cada día.
 
“Esta es mi puesta, Luñorías./ Es una oferta de bergamota porque se sustenta en la micción/ de que contamos con miedos, meigas y vergas para salir adelante.”
 
En En el oído del viento también hay ráfagas de un registro más íntimo con poemas que apuntan a preocupaciones esenciales como el paso del tiempo, la naturaleza o el amor con ecos de César Vallejo y referencias a otras tradiciones culturales. Y también a la utilidad de la poesía, al lugar del poeta en este mundo, si es que tiene cabida más allá de infinitos interrogantes: “¿Todos los poetas no pueden…/ obtener un doctorado en sinestesia/ por la universidad de Columbia en Nueva York? /¿Trabajar de catedráticos de ciencias púnicas/ trabajar de maestras jardineras,/ trabajar?” “¿No pueden desdoblarse transmutarse / no pueden extrañarse balbucearse / y enmudecer al fin?”
 
En el contexto actual no podemos permitirnos el lujo de que este tipo de obras pasen de puntillas por las estanterías, estamos ante una apuesta innovadora y vitalista que tiende puentes y abre caminos en el marco de la poesía contemporánea. A pesar de tantas necesarias cuestiones, esta poesía no enmudecerá.
 
Cerrando el libro, a modo de epílogo, encontramos un magnífico diálogo que no podría ser más necesario: “Por su bien y por el mío, ciudadano paciente, lo engranaré en la maquinaria de la rutina social. Afortunado usted: de haberlo atendido otro (hay dos escuelas, la dura y la inflexible), dada su mórbida atracción por Sogas y Vigas ya estaría colgando. Podría hacer otro chiste fácil con los empalmes del ahorcamiento pero no lo haré. Alégrese, hombre, tiene usted permiso. ¡Pero hable, calle, alégrese!”
 
Por su bien y por el mío, ciudadano paciente, le recomiendo que se acerque a la poesía que Amparo Arróspide nos ofrece en esta obra.
 
José Antonio Pamies
 
En el oído del viento is only sold at http://www.latiendadebailedelsol.org/ Amparo Arróspide En el Oído del Viento.html

 
 
jose pamies
 
 

José Antonio Pamies (Alicante, 1981) Finalista del III Premio internacional de poesía 
Andrés Salom 2005 y del II Premio de la editorial poesia Eres Tu 2010 con Las Ruinas 
de la Aurora. Ha publicado Campos de hielo (Babilonia, Pliegos de la palabra nº 3, 2012) 
y Afonías (finalista del XXVI Premio Gerardo Diego de Poesía), así como poemas en revistas 
y numerosas antologías. Reside en Madrid, donde realiza estudia Teoría de la Literatura y 
Literatura Comparada.
 
 

José Antonio Pamies (Alicante, 1981) His early poetry collection Las Ruinas de la Aurora was a runner up at the III Andres Salom International Poetry Award in 2005 and the II poesia Eres Tu Publisher Award in 2010. He has published Campos de hielo (Babilonia, Pliegos de la palabra nº 3) and Afonías a runner up at the XXVI Gerardo Diego Poetry Award. He currently lives in Madrid, pursuing studies in Theory of Literature and Comparative Literature.

 
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Key of Mist. Guadalupe Grande.Translated.Amparo Arróspide.Robin Ouzman Hislop
 
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Nominated for the Push Cart Prize. Africa North. A Poem by Robin Ouzman Hislop

  Africa North is an excerpt from the collected poems All the Babble of the Souk. Robin Ouzman Hislop
 
Solstice winds, rain return in spells
a moon waxes full, dogs howl as well.
 
All the babble of the Souk
men over there, over there women.
 
All the life of the planet
so little part of it that i breathe.
 
Weather beaten highlands, once passed through.
 
The river bed, no more like a parched bone
its late autumnal river meanders as a vein
past four reservoirs
a quest that will end in winter´s flood.
 
Between them are momentary mists
where brightly clad figures of the north, suddenly dim.
 
On the frontier’s beach taxis come, go
only the stranded remain, together with the seagulls
four men huddled, drenched in pouring rain
dead once more, again, all pathways home
washed away, again. A broken song
 
Remember me, sung in a doorway
brings the world at large together
as suddenly as it narrows.
 
~
 
Water runs on marble
nakedness revealed, nakedness concealed
form water words, water memories, mists, fates.
 
Veins wrestle the marble into mangled knots
blemished pearls on an implacable skin
shards leaving fragmentary traces
empty spaces awaiting faces.
 
Lights dance in the night, picturesque
“casas blancas del pueblo”
appear through the darkness
 
as the brush strokes of my mind steal the action of the shadow.
 
Mists cordon the mountain tops
guerdoned crowns like wreathes.
 
Ancient fields’ still colours surrounded
by burgeoning new lead to the valley below.
 
Old women, old as aglow, so slow they go
poised aloof in an untouchable world, trapped.
 
High in kiln firelight they cowl night’s shade
to oversee goats on the hill beneath.
 
Daughters of necessity naked in the rock
unleashed in white trefoil in the marsh
swamp of night rain, stark where epochs
sleep in their shadows.
 
Replication of memories, where the old
becomes the new, a world splits in two
with Morpheus in the breach.
 
Beyond control, beyond reach the erratic butterfly
flits bloom to bloom, the intrepid stalker with net
both captured in the mimic mould.
 
A knot is tied, a knot that wrestles
embraces, that ravels birth
unravels death & binds its existence.
 
~
 
Her face is as if a moon glazed over
with a less serene ceramic dust that in the end
after its perplexity contains its surety.
 
She draws her forefinger laterally across
under her eye lid in a smear
nor can you change the image of what you are
in the pupil of her eye.
 
Babble bodies blur
voices with their echoes down the street
sky high, prices fly
 
a bird song breaks, a splash charade.
 
Faces in the rain thin
weakness of watery years.
 
A winnowing canvass tosses corn
as fireflies in the blazing day.
 
The hag in her rags begs her bag
holding all shadows to account.
 
You sit in the solitary corner
at the empty dice board
to throw, as the music swells, as strings play.
 
On the washing line clothes of all shapes
sizes are waiting to be filled
suspended between earth, sky, where white sheets blow.
 
A twinge of nostalgia flashes
a link between a fluttering curtain
an open window frame, a sun shadow game
a flickering apparition pattern leaving only – strands.
 
A breeze flutters an open foolscap on the table
as though a phantom reader
should flick with regard through a score of notes
then stops at the first blank white sheets
stays, the moving hand that wrote, wrote no more.
 
~
 
On record, old honky-tonk goes on
amidst the heaps of consumer city sneakers
in the same dust where faces
turn from their spring red lustre to a sun soiled wear
 
Through a beehive of alleys
names, aye to fetch them home again
as if where the countless dead resided, you’d said
in a market of women shrouded in shawls.
 
~
 
Berlin falls, Baghdad falls
all the years turn to further tears
further fears to merge with your voyage
the shape of dreams to come
to be only endearments of what has gone before.
 
A flower opens after a thousand years in a shell of tears
indifferent to its beholders’ sight
who paint it with the colours from the waters of their night
on an unknown shore, to whose sight it opened once before.
 
Children’s faces like radiant imps
play carefree in the streets below
overhead on red tiles, fat pigeons bicker, coo.
 
In an internet cafe, an Arab girl discrete in headdress
plays with cartoon molecules of Mickey Mouse
Koala bear
 
nubile women’s faces dream of nudity in their shrouds.
 
Wonky pinz nez specs, jumble sale clothes
bad teeth, unshaven grin
looking a faded duplicate of a down
out James Joyce with the come on
are you Irish, he asks
perhaps he was once upon a time.
 
~
 
They came through the cleft of the mountain
– where the river ran
to swim as a blur in the naked purple of the eye.
 
On the mountain face there is a scar
once a sacred place, now extinct, as they are.
 
Yet wild still she runs, amidst the sheep, goats
toils at the hearth, dutifully bears children
yesterday she knows but not tomorrow
where she hides her sorrow.
 
Even as he ploughs the hillside
a photo will steal his soul, but his beasts will do.
 
~
 
Twilight’s girls, girls, girls
throng the bustling street corners eating caracoles.
 
By day the olive tree green in the blue sky of the window
seems almost immortal enriched with the blood
it’s enriched, now at its roots.
 
Costa de la playa, white beehives in the sun, all money, no honey.
 
In the broken lights of the bazaar
the dusky eyes of the beggar sunk in their sockets
maze in crooked cul de sacs embargo amidst
the furls of silk that foil the flickering lantern niche.
 
In the gloaming a solitary reaper reaps its shadow.
 
Streets packs ravage carcasses
at dawn, the city wakes to the city’s obedience
to obey its disappearing shadows.
 
A ghost city of watchers
watched as shadows by a memory that has outlived them
now fragments in an admixture of old, new
amidst a junk yard of rubble
 
watcher shadows phased captive to their fading stories.
 
The street’s mechanics of the day
obey their limits, patterns of parts
where we end only to start in a series of nows.
 
Post mortem of the world at large
an autopsy of ghosts on the slab.
 
Born to see, in the boutiques people seem
like their own mannequins
existence is a mystery with no purpose

      only we endow it with a destiny, it does not seek from us.


 
 
Robin Portrait July Sotillo 2016 by Amparo
 
 
Robin Ouzman Hislop
is on line Editor at Motherbird.com, Artvilla.com & Poetry Life & Times, his recent publications include Voices without Borders Volume 1 (USA), Cold Mountain Review (Appalachian University, N.Carolina), The Poetic Bond Volumes, Phoenix Rising from the Ashes (an international anthology of sonnets) and The Honest Ulsterman.
His last publications are a volume of collected poems All the Babble of the Souk & Key of Mist, a translation from Spanish of the poems by the Spanish poetess Guadalupe Grande, both are published by Aquillrelle.com and available at all main online tributaries. For further information about these publications with reviews and comments see
Author Robin..
 
 
 
 
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Key of Mist. Guadalupe Grande.Translated.Amparo Arróspide.Robin Ouzman Hislop
 
goodreads.com/author/show/Robin Ouzman Hislop
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www.lulu.com. All the Babble of the Souk. Robin Ouzman Hislop
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Nominated for the Push Cart Prize. Key of Mist. A Poem by Guadalupe Grande. Translated from Spanish.

Poetry Life and Times
  Key of Mist is an excerpt from the collected poems Key of Mist
 
key-of-mist-thumb

                                                                  KEY of MIST

I

Behind the fence there´s a ditch
and behind the ditch
there´s a chest devastated by the journey.
Who arrives here and how
and after perhaps?
Who arrives and says and names
and leaves their hands stuck to this fence
as stamps are stuck to envelopes,
to return where 
to return to then
to return to later, never again?
       The compass rose rolls amongst the rubble,
       rolls on the banks of gravel,
       on the edge of ash,
       and leaves its petals of distance,
       its shipwreck of durum-wheat and pollen,
       beneath the wheels of the car which has just passed.
Time for the word time
         amidst the rubble of the tower of babel.

II

But now there´s the ditches:
       water ditches
       light ditches
       gas ditches
       ditches for words.
I am spelling
while telling myself
that it can´t be today,
that there is too much rush,
that life´s a disaster
or nonsense
or a useless disquiet,
and due to that, today there´s no time:
                                                             time for nothing, time for what.

III

I open the door, switch on the light,
turn on the tap:
I´d like to know whom to call.
The sound of traffic enters through the window;
I hear the rumours of travellers
I listen to the sound of the inhabitants
         and builders
                           of this language without words.

IV

I speak in gurgles
as if a key of mist
were laid across my throat,
a key fogged up by noise,
a key flooded by light,
      a gas key
      a water key
      a doorless key,
      a definitely shadowy key
buried inside my throat,
in the ditch of my bewildered throat.

V

Behind each fence there is a ditch,
behind each ditch there is a journey.

         The compass rose crosses
         the city tunnels:
         from its smoky petals it brings
         forth mossy farewells,
         the empire of forget-me-nots,
         paper for unwritten letters,
         humiliated stamps
         and a devastated chest in the building 
         of music
                       or language
                                           or city noise.

Under the asphalt of these roads
the tower of babel grows
sad and useful.

VI

I turn on the tap in the kitchen
and while water runs through the sink
I wonder which words 
this thread of order and cleanliness is spelling,
which key I should switch to, to understand
the language of fences, the language
of ditches,
the underground sound
of migrating birds
opening without any key this city´s gates,
           without a key,
           at last, 
                                      at last.

LA LLAVE DE NIEBLA

I

Detrás de la valla hay una zanja
y detrás de esa zanja
hay un pecho desolado en el viaje.
¿Quién llega hasta aquí y cómo
y luego tal vez?
¿Quién llega y dice y nombra
y deja sus manos pegadas a esta valla,
como se pegan los sellos a las cartas,
para volver a dónde
para volver a entonces
para volver a luego nunca más?

Rueda la rosa de los vientos por los escombros,
rueda a la orilla de la grava,
al borde de la ceniza,
y deja sus pétalos de distancia,
su polen náufrago y candeal,
bajo las ruedas del coche que acaba de pasar.

Tiempo para la palabra tiempo
        entre los escombros de la torre de babel.

II

Pero ahora están las zanjas:
        zanjas de agua,
        zanjas de luz,
        zanjas de gas,
        zanjas para las palabras
que pronuncio
mientras me digo
que hoy no puede ser,
que hace mucha prisa,
que la vida es un desastre
o un disparate
o un desasosiego inútil,
debido a lo cual hoy no hay tiempo:
         tiempo para nada, tiempo para qué.

III

Abro la puerta, enciendo la luz,
abro el grifo:
quisiera saber a quién llamar.
Entra el sonido del tráfico por la ventana;
oigo el rumor de los viajeros,
escucho el sonido de los habitantes
           y de los constructores
                    de este idioma sin palabras.

IV

Hablo a borbotones,
como si tuviera una llave de niebla
atravesada en la garganta,
una llave empañada por el ruido,
una llave anegada por la luz,
         una llave de gas,
         una llave de agua,
         una llave sin puerta,
         una llave definitivamente umbría,
enterrada en mi garganta,
en la zanja de mi desconcertada garganta.

V

Detrás de cada valla hay una zanja,
detrás de cada zanja hay un viaje.
         La rosa de los vientos cruza
         los túneles de la ciudad:
         trae entre sus pétalos de humo
         el musgo de las despedidas,
         el imperio de los nomeolvides,
         papel para cartas no escritas,
         humillados sellos
         y un pecho desolado en la construcción
         de la música

                           o el lenguaje
                                             o el ruido de la ciudad.
Bajo el asfalto de estas calles
crece la torre de babel
triste y útil.

VI

Abro el grifo en la cocina
y mientras corre el agua por el fregadero
me pregunto qué palabras pronuncia
este hilo de orden y limpieza,
qué llave debo abrir para entender
el lenguaje de las vallas, el idioma
de las zanjas,
el sonido subterráneo
de las aves migratorias
que abren sin llave alguna las puertas de esta ciudad,
         sin llave,
         por fin,
                                por fin.

 
 

guadalupe-grande-2001
 
 
GUADALUPE GRANDE
Madrid, 1965.

 
 
She has written the following books of poetry: El libro de Lilit (1995), La llave de niebla (2003), Mapas de cera (2006) and Hotel para erizos (2010).
 
 
She has been translated into French in the book Métier de crhysalide (translation by Drothèe Suarez and Juliette Gheerbrant (2010) and into Italian, in the volume Mestiere senza crisalide (translation by Raffaella Marzano (2015). She made the selection and translation of La aldea de sal (2009), an anthology of Brazilian poet Lêdo Ivo, together with poet Juan Carlos Mestre.
 
 
Her creative work extends to the territory of photography and visual poetry.http://guadalupegrande.blogspot.com.es/
 
 
OLYMPUS DIGITAL CAMERA
 
 
Amparo Arróspide (Argentina) 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, as well as poems, short stories and articles on literature and films in anthologies and international magazines. She has translated authors such as Francisca Aguirre, Javier Díaz Gil, Luis Fores and José Antonio Pamies into English, together with Robin Ouzman Hislop, who she worked with for a period as co-editor of Poetry Life and Times, a Webzine. Her translations into Spanish of Margaret Atwood (Morning in the Burned House), James Stephens (Irish Fairy Tales) and Mia Couto (Vinte e Zinco) are in the course of being published, as well as her two poetry collections Hormigas en diáspora and Jacuzzi. She takes part in festivals, recently Transforming with Poetry (Leeds) and Centro de Poesía José Hierro (Getafe).
 
 
Robin Portrait July Sotillo 2016 by Amparo
 
 
Robin Ouzman Hislop is on line Editor at Motherbird.com, Artvilla.com & Poetry Life & Times, his recent publications include Voices without Borders Volume 1 (USA), Cold Mountain Review (Appalachian University, N.Carolina), The Poetic Bond Volumes, Phoenix Rising from the Ashes (an international anthology of sonnets) and The Honest Ulsterman. His last publications are a volume of collected poems All the Babble of the Souk & Key of Mist, a translation from Spanish of the poems by the Spanish poetess Guadalupe Grande, both are published by Aquillrelle.com and available at all main online tributaries. For further information about these publications with reviews and comments see Author Robin..
 
 
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Announcement. Collected Poems. Key of Mist. Translated from Spanish

guadalupe-grande-2001

GUADALUPE GRANDE
Madrid, 1965.

She has written the following books of poetry: El libro de Lilit (1995), La llave de niebla (2003), Mapas de cera (2006) and Hotel para erizos (2010).

She has been translated into French in the book Métier de crhysalide (translation by Drothèe Suarez and Juliette Gheerbrant (2010) and into Italian, in the volume Mestiere senza crisalide (translation by Raffaella Marzano (2015). She made the selection and translation of La aldea de sal (2009), an anthology of Brazilian poet Lêdo Ivo, together with poet Juan Carlos Mestre.

Her creative work extends to the territory of photography and visual poetry.http://guadalupegrande.blogspot.com.es/

OLYMPUS DIGITAL CAMERA
Amparo Arróspide (Argentina) 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, as well as poems, short stories and articles on literature and films in anthologies and international magazines. She has translated authors such as Francisca Aguirre, Javier Díaz Gil, Luis Fores and José Antonio Pamies into English, together with Robin Ouzman Hislop, who she worked with for a period as co-editor of Poetry Life and Times, a Webzine. Her translations into Spanish of Margaret Atwood (Morning in the Burned House), James Stephens (Irish Fairy Tales) and Mia Couto (Vinte e Zinco) are in the course of being published, as well as her two poetry collections Hormigas en diáspora and Jacuzzi. She takes part in festivals, recently Transforming with Poetry (Leeds) and Centro de Poesía José Hierro (Getafe).

robin-portrait-july-sotillo-2016-by-amparo

Robin Ouzman Hislop is on line Editor at Motherbird.com, Artvilla.com & Poetry Life & Times, his recent publications include Voices without Borders Volume 1 (USA), Cold Mountain Review (Appalachian University, N.Carolina), The Poetic Bond Volumes, Phoenix Rising from the Ashes (an international anthology of sonnets) and The Honest Ulsterman. His last publications are a volume of collected poems All the Babble of the Souk & Key of Mist, a translation from Spanish of the poems by the Spanish poetess Guadalupe Grande, both are published by Aquillrelle.com and available at all main online tributaries. For further information about these publications with reviews and comments see Author Robin..

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Key of Mist. Guadalupe Grande.Translated.Amparo Arróspide.Robin Ouzman Hislop

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Miriam C Jacobs Reviews All the Babble of the Souk.

Poet Robin Ouzman Hislop’s first full-length collection, All the Babble of the Souk, is appropriately titled. With a remarkably consistent ear for the market’s noise, for “[t]he broken lights of the bazaar/spangled] with glistening promise/in the eyes of the dusky beggar …” (Laminations in Lacquer ) Hislop’s poems, many of them cinematic-style montages of sounds and images, show us the metaphoric souk of the world, on the beach or in the street, its glitter, its sadness, its ragtag glory:
 
“pets, flower pots framed captive in a moment
outside the house of the painter, a robot
in chains with an alms bowl” (“Departures”)
 
These impressions are not confined to the scenic. Individuals, too, flash like rich arcades:
 
“there is not time enough to love
before the tram whisks her away
a creature of the costume of the moment
in a parade of parts.” (“In the fish-eye window”)
 
So marked is Hislop’s interest in the external world, readers may long for a glimpse of the speaker. It comes rarely. There are one or two musings on the phenomenon and surprise of feeling oneself age, the odd disjointing of it, but otherwise these poems proclaim their perhaps unique impersonality. In “Laminations in Lacquer” we sight what is, perhaps, the poet, but in third person, one who rises, observes, and then folds in at last with the “throng”:
 
“Below the rift of its eye
the sealed beak that will open
gleams on the lee …
in a room that roams without corners
he must rise with a chalice of blood for lips of shades
where the vertigo edge of the flower distills the dish
together with the quantities of immeasurable throng
on watery groves billowing with ivy bowers
sprung over hidden lairs of concealed hoards.
Night begins and the dogs draw nigh
scavenging for scraps
yapping at the walker’s naked ankles
in the dust of unknown alleys.”
 
Among other reoccurring themes – shadows, mirrors, the moon – is Hislop’s interest in physics. In a variety of contexts he reflects on time and infinity, the imagination-daunting galaxies, quantum theory and space:
 
“Man cannot live on myth alone
he shall earn his soil somehow, between
the Big Bang, the Big Slam ….”
 
One admirable quality in this work is that souk places us firmly in the precariousness of the current moment in history. These poems are exactly right for the age, and who we are now, those of us born 1945-1960, with our particular view of past and present, our grasp of the sciences and technologies that have overtaken the known world in our lifetimes.
 
“The world is a patchwork quilt,” Hislop concludes in “Lucky hat day,”
‘stitched up to the hilt its seams/which we quarter in our dreams
on which our edifice is built …”

 
 
Jacobs recent head
 
 
MIRIAM C. JACOBS is a alumnus of the University of Chicago and teaches college writing, literature and humanities. Jacobs is the editor of Eyedrum Periodically, the art/literature journal of Eyedrum Art & Music Gallery, Atlanta. Her poetry has appeared in Jewish Literary Journal, The East Coast Literary Review, Record Magazine, The Camel Saloon, Bluestem: the Art and Literary Journal of Eastern Illinois University, The King’s English, and Oklahoma Today, among other publications. Her chapbook of poetry, The Naked Prince, was published by Fort!/Da? Books in September 2013.
 
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Richard Vallance Reviews All the Babble of the Souk. Collected Poems. Robin Ouzman Hislop.

Review of All the Babble of the Souk by Richard Vallance
 
If “All the Babble of the Souk” is anything but memorable — as it surely is — it is so because of its sweeping portrayal of the tumultuous market that is humankind. The “babble” of this bazaar is that of all the markets in the world — irrespective of nation, language, culture or race or for that matter, at the symbolic level, of any manifestation of our nature, be it “good” or “evil”, which are not opposing psychological or spiritual states as all too many naïvely imagine, but rather their subtle blending in our psyche. There is no suggestion of the presence or absence of God or a “god”. It is irrelevant. There is just humanity.
 
The poems, mostly quasi free form, some of them highly reminiscent of haiku, range from very short to a few pages long. Except for one poem and one only, Scale Free, in which we come face to face with some of the most beautiful imagery in the entire collection, and I quote:
 
A cuckoo taunts
high in the mountain
where are you?

 
there is not a single question to be found in the rest of the book. All the rest of the poems consist only of statements, some of them brief, others rather too long for my taste and some even downright convoluted. When this approach to poetry composition is carried to its extreme, it can and sometimes does result in the overly prosaic. That is the only real quarrel I have with this collection. Fortunately, there are only only a handful of poems which are painfully prone to the prosaic. Among these are Mannequins, the whole series Maps 1,2,3,4, The Prisoners, Non Linear and in particular Rust (which reads more like a scientific tract than a poem), none of which have any real appeal to me.
 
The rest of the poems run from agreeable at the very least to the truly amazing. Among those poems agreeable to the mind and/or the ear I count: Passage, At the Party, Here Comes the Moon, Multiverse, The Pine at the Summit and Wind upon a River. Others like these will more or less please the reader. But as everyone knows, we all have our own preferences for the kinds of poetry we like. The poems which appeal more to one person appeal less to another. The aforementioned choices are merely my own.
 
Next come poems which display remarkable talent, such as: After Dylan on the Ninth Wave (which I for one particularly like), Africa North (haiku-like), A Witch for Halloween (in which we find some of the most striking chthonic imagery in the book), Core (commendable for its brevity, economy of verse & imagery), Entanglements (haiku-like), Sequence 1 & 2 (haiku-like) and Story of a Rose.
 
I have a marked preference for the poet’s haiku-like poems. Haiku have always strongly appealed to me. In fact, I myself, along with Robin Ouzman Hislop and so many other truly talented haijin, have composed a considerable number of poems of this nature, many of which were published in the print quarterly, Canadian Zen Haiku (2004-2010), which is now out of print. Brevity is the soul of wit, and indeed of the memorable. It is Robin Ouzman Hislop’ s more compact poems which please me the most. There are exceptions, poems which are not haiku-like or are somewhat lengthier. There are some truly memorable lines in these poems. For instance, we have:
 
from Africa North:
A winnowing canvass tosses corn
and
... as fireflies in the blazing day.
and finally
In the gloaming a solitary reaper reaps its shadow.
(Reminiscences of Wordsworth’ s, The Solitary Reaper, one of the most astonishingly beautiful poems in English.)
 
from After Dylan on the Ninth Wave, there are a considerable number of memorable lines, which you can explore for yourself. The poem is not quite up to Dylan Thomas… a very tough act to follow!
 
and from Core:
reaching my eye’s peninsula

sudden scene, solitary strand
 
All of the poems in this class pleased me a great deal.
 
Now we come to the downright brilliant poems, of which there are naturally only a few. I might as well cite them all. They are Scale Free ( a series of haiku-like lines & almost pure haiku), A Split Second Later’s Late, Laminations in Lacquer, Lucky Hat Day and Red Butterflies, all of which had a powerful psychological and spiritual impact on me. Here are just a few of the lines from these truly remarkable poems which really struck me, and I mean really —
 
from A Split Second Later’s Late:
… a serpent’s spit according to legend.
 
from Laminations in Lacquer, the gripping lines:
Fireworks like a diaphanous lithograph
print an emblazoned sky
on the craggy mountains of the night
where comets play at kites
& glistening the eerie beak hisses.

 
and from Red Butterflies, where we find some of the most highly inspired, truly imaginative lines:
but as a collage on shifting sands…

A sword brazed in a fire
that does not distinguish
between the battle
& the field.

 
I believe we can safely say that the poet has achieved a level of poetic style and content which can hardly disappoint. Some of the poems in in “All the Babble of the Souk” remind me of T.S. Eliot’s “The Wasteland”. Perhaps the most striking feature of this volume is the poet’s portrayal of humanity, which deprives us of any escape from the darker, more insidious depths of our human condition. The most striking imagery in the entire collection forces itself on the least flattering trait of of our nature, our tendency towards — I might as well say it flat out — bestiality, which leaps to the fore in the poet’s all too frequent comparison between homo sapiens and apes (King Simian, seeking simian), gorillas, baboons and other fierce beasts of that ilk, all the way to neanderthals, Australopithecus and the odious nocturnal lupine, the proverbial werewolf. Lines such as: the hairless ape, go ape, going bananas… all mercilessly zero in on our ape-like nature bedeviling our s0-called civilized veneer.
 
There is also frequent reference to eating meat, and being eaten (we grow the meat we eat, those she didn’t eat alive, children simply to feed her, how they like human flesh, to be consumed by hell), all the way through to witchcraft and Zombie imagery. The dreadful presence of these creatures of the night inexorably lurks just beneath the thin veneer our blasé urbanity.
 
To cut to the quick, the most memorable qualities of Robin Ouzman Hislop’s poetic gifts are his penchant for economy of lines and the puissant imagery of the chthonic. Where these features dominate any poem, they impel it towards the nonpareil! Such poems soar. When it works, it works supremely well. As for the rest, there is much to please the reader.
 
Overall rating: 3.75/ 5
 
Richard Vallance

 
 
Richard Vallance
 
 
Richard Vallance, meta-linguist, ancient Greek & Mycenaean Linear B, home page: Linear B, Knossos & Mycenae, https://linearbknossosmycenae.wordpress.com
 
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https://www.pinterest.com/vallance22/mycenaean-linear-b-progressive-grammar-and-vocabulary and, Knossos & Mycenae, sister civilizations, https://www.pinterest.com/vallance22/knossos-mycenae-sister-civilizations
 
Also poetry publisher, The Phoenix Rising from the Ashes: Anthology of sonnets of the early third millennium Le Phénix renaissant de ses cendres : Anthologie de sonnets au début du troisième millénaire Friesen Press, Victoria, B.C., Canada. © August 2013. 35 illustrations in B & W. Author & Title Indexes. 257 pp. 315 sonnets & ghazals in English, French, Spanish, German, Chinese & Persian.
 
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