The “open-endedness” of the The Hearing Trumpet by British writer, Leonora Carrington, represents life. In the afterword to the newest edition, Polish Nobel Laurette, Olga Tokarczuk, praises the “wild metaphysics” of the story as well as its open-endedness. Here Tokarczuk questions what we look for when we read a story, and then answers that question, thus: “We are seeking a shared communal order, each of us a stitch in a piece of knitted fabric.” As readers, then, we are knitting ourselves into the yarn, till the end and beyond.
Undocumented immigrants in the US, persecuted minorities of Pakistan, people nostalgic for life under tyranny in Eastern Europe, how do we empathize with those who experience such trauma? Journalists tell us what happens to them; poets, artists, and fiction writers make us feel with them. So if you’ve been following the latest news about Palestine, and you want to feel with the people of Palestine, consider reading or listening to Isabella Hammad’s The Parisian.
araumi ya
Sado ni yokotau
amanogawa
the rough sea
stretching out towards Sado
the Milky Way
The cities also house two literary shrines. In Lahore, Urdu Short Story writer, Saadat Hasan Manto is buried. And in Delhi is the mazar of the father of Urdu poetry, Mirza Assad Ullah Khan Ghālib. They lived in different times but they are connected by the words they wrote.
Each letter has its place related to lines that have already been drawn. At times, a letter grandstands at the opening of a sentence, and at others a it announces the end. Sometimes it must connect with the letters on each side, smoothly, mixing in becoming one of the group. And then there are those that connect awkwardly and prefer their own space, distant from others.
The House on Mango Street, by Sandra Cisneros, is one of the many texts I chose for my ESL classes. With a poetic mix of Spanish and English, the story of Esperanza is the story of immigrants and home.
Much has been written about Charles, twenty years older than Ms. Liddell, and his relationship with the little girl. Did he feel any pangs of tender passion, romantic attachment or an aberrant sexual attraction to the little girl, or was it all innocent and pure, merely a platonic fondness with which he was drawn to the little girl on an entirely spiritual plane?
Bk. 5. 1: In the morning, when you find it hard to rouse yourself from your sleep, have these thoughts ready at hand: ‘I am rising to do the work of a human being. Soon I will have a mug, (with Marcus emblazoned on it, or another with the words Amor Fati, Love your Fate, not just accept it, but desire it), steaming with dark-roast coffee.
I think Tess of the d’Urbervilles is to the English, what Gustave Flaubert’s Madame Bovary is to the French and Leo Tolstoy’s Anna Karenina is to the Russians – themes of sexual encounters, challenge to societal norms, infidelity, carnal desires and passion.
“I don’t want to discourage you, but a mismatched sock has no future,” said a stiff, cocky shirt that also hung from the rope.
Read A complete translation here: The Story of the Unpaired Sock Jamás se le pasaría por su pequeña cabeza de lana a aquel viejo calcetín que cuando saliese de la… Read more Historia de un calcetín desparejado por Eduardo González Constán (with a complete translation) →
Poetry is all about listening to yourself and listening to those “voices” that speak to you. The way I write poetry is by listening to these voices that begin like hunches and even melodies, and for those who want to write poetry, my best advice is to grab a piece of paper and pencil and just do it.
A peek at some of the contributions our friends on Tillism have made in the past 100 days.
An image snapped into focus. A setting, an emotion I could relate to: a recent walk around the city lakes in the rain, pushing the children in their barnevogn, swans and cormorants gliding along beside us, me drowning in homesickness.
“But he couldn’t remember the mimosa flowering in March, neither this year when the lockdown was starting, nor last year when he was convalescing and homebound. He remembered, instead, filming the mimosa tree in a windstorm, three years ago, when the world seemed safer.”
“Amma, he said through clenched teeth. “I’m sure you’ve discovered through your WhatsApp forwards that there’s talk of a lockdown. How can we possibly have a wedding at a time like this?”
“What an odd sight we make, I thought. Three nuns, three Thai women, and two farang (foreigners) coiling like a long snake down a side street.”
‘Now, women forget all those things they don’t want to remember, and remember everything they don’t want to forget. The dream is the truth. Then they act and do things accordingly.’ from Their Eyes Were Watching God
“Because You love cremation grounds
I have made my heart one?
so that You?
Black Goddess of the Burning Grounds
can always dance there.
“It had been many, many years since anyone had been in his thoughts. It pleased him, it titillated him, it bothered him, but in a pleasant sort of way. He could not shake it off. “
