"New Year"

New Year

Hey, New Year,
how can you be so new?
You can't just pretend to be new by cheering and lecturing,
and don't be new carelessly,
new on some days
then returning to what you are---old,
old and wrinkled,
as you've always been.
You're paler than the useless things
that cats bring back,
that dogs bring forth.

Come on, New Year!
Let's be new honestly, as before.- Tran Dan

Twenty-four minute video of Charlie Rose interviewing Adonis

http://www.charlierose.com/view/interview/9297

Jacques Maritian's negative theology

...Rhythm, rhyme, line, stanza, all the clothing of words, of music, of human intelligibility, from which the poem seems to derive its consistency, none of that is what is sought for, all of that constitutes an obstacle to the research being pursued. Are we going to reduce poetry to the impossible in order to test its resistance, and allow only an ultimate sparkling gem at the point of death to survive? Shall we not rather enter into a kind of negative theology in which the hidden essence of poetry will be attained in an incommunicable experience, from which later we shall return among men, all the means of expression now being changed and purified, I mean to say as if burned from within, by a fire which will seem to annihilate them but which will liberate unknown energies in them?

The Situation of Poetry-Jacques and Raissa Maritain

X-mas loot

-Two new coffee cups
-Two bags of coffee
-Argyle pattern scarf
-Cologne
-Blue pajama pants
-Three shirts from zazzle featuring pictures of Gu Cheng, Cesar Vallejo & Vasko Popa
-Eugene Ostashevsky "Life and Opinions of DJ Spinoza"
-Eugeniusz Tkaczyszyn-Dycki "Peregrinary"
-"Lightning from the Depths: An Anthology of Albanian Poetry"
- "Poets on the Edge: An Anthology of Contemporary Hebrew Poetry"
-Srecko Kosovel "The Golden Boat"
-Maya Bejerano "The Hymns of Job and Other Poems"
-David Hinton's anthology "Classical Chinese Poetry"
-Assorted chocolates and delicious cookies

I had four drinks tonight, something unusual for me. I very rarely drink. Ate dinner at a fantastic Brazilian grill where I started with an amaretto sour, followed by a mojito and then a white russian. A little over an hour later I had a bottle of smirnoff ice. Right now I am savoring the first cup of the bag of brazilian coffee I bought Friday. Decided to take the day shift off tomorrow and work the overnight instead. After that only two more days before I begin my extended break (last day of work Dec. 23rd & I return on Jan. 4th). I plan on reading a lot, watching movies, drinking wonderful coffee and abolish time...at least for awhile.

Circumference

Issue seven of Circumference is now available! I picked up my copy Friday.

Two quotes by Rosmarie Waldrop

When the linearity of reading is broken, when we are startled awake, when the smooth horizontal travel of eye/mind is interrupted, when the connection is broken, there is a kind of orchestral meaning that comes about in the leap. A vertical dimension vibrating with the energy field between the two lines (phrases, sentences), and perhaps the energy of what would have followed/preceded, but is lacking. A meaning that both illuminates the separation and connects across it. A meaning that goes beyond the two elements that border it, as metaphor goes beyond the sum of tenor and vehicle.
Maybe the power of the leap is simply that it cuts out explanation, an essential act of poetry…



Impossible topography of writing. The infinite is both the center we try to encircle with a multitude of words, things, experiences, and is also outside, surrounding us. It is both condition and aim. But where is the infinite unless in our consciousness of possibility?

Tasseography: divination by Turkish coffee

http://mideastfood.about.com/od/middleeasternfood101/a/taseography.htm

Turkish coffee

"Coffee should be black as hell, strong as death, and sweet as love." - Turkish Proverb

Just made my first ibrik in several months now. I seem to be rusty, I even had to look up instructions again. There are so many subtleties to preparing Turkish coffee, the closest to alchemy of the bean I know of. The first pot didn't have enough coffee in it, so I started over. The second one had too much and I had the heat on too low. Nevertheless I finished it and am now sipping it. I plan on preparing a pot daily for a few weeks, I will probable have it perfected once more in three or four days. I also haven't made Vietnamese coffee in awhile, another distinct coffee experience.

Two new links

1) Kavitayan: An Anthology of Indian poetry in English Translation.
http://www.geocities.com/kavitayan/portal.html

2) Ravi Kopra's blog if Indian poetry in translation.
http://indianpoetrytranslations.blogspot.com/2006/03/jayadeva-sanskrit-poet.html

Propsero's Books

After dropping my wife off at work I decided to stop by Prospero's (they made international news last year for burning excess stock that no institution was willing to accept, even for free). The reason I went there today, my book buying is temporarily on hold, was to see if they had the current issue of Rain Taxi. Much to my delight they did (truly amazing considering that Rain Taxi's site posted the contents of this issue only this week) and I decided to browse. I found Coleridge's "Biographia Lieraria" and couldn't resist purchasing it, all the while justifying this purchase to myself (if I go one day next week without an iced mocha it won't matter, etc.). On my way out the door I noticed another book, picked it up and flipped through it and found myself right back at the counter. I plan on giving it to my brother for X-mas but it is so amusing I might keep it.

Speaking of Rain Taxi, they are holding their annual auction on ebay this Sunday. I hope they post what they are putting up for sale soon on their site, esp. since I will be at work and will have to let my wife bid for me.

Turkish cinema

In one of Silliman's latest entries he writes about Turkish cinema. Although "Head-on" is a wonderful film worth watching I'd have to say that my favorite director from that fascinating country is Nuri Bilge Ceylan. There are currently two films available on dvd by Ceylan. "Distant" & "Climates". The first distributed by New Yorker Video & the second by Zeitgeist, both among the greatest film distribution companies around in this country.

"Distant" was very reminiscent of Tarkovsky, in several points during the film he is cited and in one scene one of the main characters is watching "Stalker". The second film, although retaining elements of the first, seems more influenced by Antonioni. Of the two "Climates" might be my favorite, but I was so amazed by the first that when "Climates" opened I immediately went to see it.

Fulcrum, Adonis

Despite working from 8-5 today I have managed to read quite a bit. I just finished the astonishing book by Adonis "Mihyar of Damascus: His Songs." Earlier today I read various poems in Fulcrum # 6. The works that stood out the most: George Seferis' "Thrush," the section of Boris Vian's poetry esp. "I'll Die of a Cancer of the Spine" which strangely echoes Vallejo's famous poem (I say strangely because I'm uncertain if Vian was familiar with the Vallejo poem, it's doubtful that he was) & contains the prophetic lines:


...I'll die like a daisy plucked
A little a lot passionately madly
Not at all without enthusiasm...


& ten poems by Quevedo, one of which "Love Constant Beyond Death" is easily one of the greatest love poems ever written in any language.

Two new links

Silliman's latest links entry contained many treasures, two of which I am adding to my Links List.

First, Scantily Clad Press ebooks page, featuring a Salamun book among others:
http://issuu.com/andrewlundwall/docs/curtisharnack?mode=embed&documentId=081123040824-2f47dfb4cd5b40b0ab94b16b4c92e851&layout=grey

& "Original Ideas in Magic" by Tim Davis:
http://canopycanopycanopy.com/4/original_ideas_in_magic

Francisco Aragon

Attended a reading by Francisco Aragon this evening. Awake early this morning for work, it will be even earlier tomorrow. Finished Mandelstam's "The Noise of Time" a few minutes ago.