Handing over the Reins

Since I haven't been very active in the Philadelphia poetry circles recently, I've been thinking of handing over the Philly Poetry website, calendar and Facebook group to someone else who's more involved these days. And as readers of this blog, I thought I'd offer you this opportunity and see if any of you would be interested in taking it on.

The calendar and the website are still the no. 1 & 2 search results on Google for "Philadelphia poetry", so they get some decent exposure. I currently pay $30 every 6 months for the web-hosting of the site (along with my own personal site, through 1&1). I have ads on it, but I have to say I have yet to collect any revenue from them. We can figure out how to transfer the hosting of the site and other details, if you're interested. Let me know...

"Diet Man"

There's a belly in heaven that I love.
It wriggles with satisfaction
like a Buddha's would
at the sight of Jello and whipped cream.
______It doesn't give a damn.
There's a belly in heaven that I miss.
______It jiggles with beer.
It's great for a hug and a squeeze.
It devours cakes, cookies, and pies.
It shakes, rolls, and giggles at bad jokes.

______Get out of my sight diet man.
Take a hasty trolley to hell
______mean man,
______lean man,
______bean man,
______exacting man.

______Scram
new man,
reasoning man,
jogging man,
calculating man,

______whose thoughts you won't reveal,

sly man.

by Angela d'Arista Solli
from Regrets Only: Contemporary Poets on the Theme of Regret

My Beirut (Song of Eternal Damnation)

Forgive me
for writing to you in a language foreign to you,
not that I know what language you speak,
you who speaks them all in silence…

Forgive me
for writing from a distance,
for writing reluctantly,
for writing seldom…

I only write because he asked me to,
he who loves you,
he who lives you.
I write because I’m incapable of refusing him such a request,
and because, yes, I miss you…

But I’m not sure I got anything left to say to you.
I feel that I’ve said it all, and I’ve said it often.
Some have heard it, many have not.
But you, I don’t know if you can hear…
I’m not sure anymore if you exist,
for who are you but those who haunt you?
And those who haunt you are mad, and I’m one of them
even if I’ve abandoned you…

Did you mourn me when I left you?
I did, for the both of us.
But sorrow moves on,
like everything, with time it all does,
as the old song goes…
And what remains when the sorrow’s gone?
Is it love? Or is it only a stale bitter anger?
Sometimes they taste the same…

What I fear is what’s left when even that anger passes;
for that, too, shall pass…
I fear because I do not know the reasons for my anger;
but what is anger if not the lack of reason?
It may not be your fault or mine,
but I’m angry at being treated like a second-rate human
solely for being born to you.
I’m angry because I can’t seem to live with you,
as I can’t seem to live without you,
to quote another old song…
I’m angry because your inhabitants are mad,
and your drivers are mad,
and your leaders are both murderous and mad…
I’m angry because your beauty is invisible,
and no one will take my word for it,
for I too, like the rest of them, am mad…

I look to other cities:
they too are ugly and beautiful at once,
and they too are all mad.
I look to other people;
they are all maddening
and stupid and proud.
But your people have made of chaos an art,
and have made you anything but dull…

I still don’t get it, Beirut.
I don’t get why I insist on addressing you as a person;
I don’t know why we all do.
I don’t know if any other people address their city as we address you.
For you are nothing but our very own collective being,
you are what we call us.
And we love ourselves,
and we hate ourselves,
and we, ultimately, do not understand ourselves…

I shall return to you,
forever and again,
you, my song of eternal damnation.
For I still don’t get you, and I don’t get me, and I don’t get them…
And yet I love you, and I love you, and I love you,
and yes, despite all, I love them, too…
For they are you, and you are them,
my Beirut.

Like This

A great poem by Rumi, selected by the incomparable Tilda Swinton as the inspiration for the latest Etat Libre d'Orange perfume, Like This:

If anyone asks you
how the perfect satisfaction
of all our sexual wanting
will look, lift your face
and say,

Like this.

When someone mentions the gracefulness
of the nightsky, climb up on the roof
and dance and say,

Like this.

If anyone wants to know what “spirit” is,
or what “God’s fragrance” means,
lean your head toward him or her.
Keep your face there close.

Like this.

When someone quotes the old poetic image
about clouds gradually uncovering the moon,
slowly loosen knot by knot the strings
of your robe.

Like this.

If anyone wonders how Jesus raised the dead,
don’t try to explain the miracle.
Kiss me on the lips.

Like this. Like this.

When someone asks what it means
to “die for love,” point
here.

If someone asks how tall I am, frown
and measure with your fingers the space
between the creases on your forehead.

This tall.

The soul sometimes leaves the body, the returns.
When someone doesn’t believe that,
walk back into my house.

Like this.

When lovers moan,
they’re telling our story.

Like this.

I am a sky where spirits live.
Stare into this deepening blue,
while the breeze says a secret.

Like this.

When someone asks what there is to do,
light the candle in his hand.Like this.


How did Joseph’s scent come to Jacob?
Huuuuu.

How did Jacob’s sight return?
Huuuu.

A little wind cleans the eyes.

Like this.

When Shams comes back from Tabriz,
he’ll put just his head around the edge
of the door to surprise us

Like this.

-From Essential Rumi (translations by Coleman Barks with John Moyne)

Make sure you listen to Swinton's incredible reading of this poem on ELdO's website: www.etatlibredorange.com

Language Rooms @ Wilma Theater: Special Offer!

The Wilma Theater presents the world premiere of Yussef El Guindi's LANGUAGE ROOMS, March 3 - April 4, a riveting dark comedy directed by Blanka Zizka about misguided patriotism and the true meaning of 'loyalty.'


Tickets start at $36, and the Wilma offers discounts for students and those in their 20s. Get $5 off full price tickets with code "Al Bustan" (not valid on Sat or Opening nights, cannot be combined with any other offer or applied to tickets previously purchased).
Click here to read an interview with playwright Yussef El Guindi who is of Egyptian heritage.

Thanks to Al Bustan!
Parental advisory: thematic content not appropriate for children.

2:22 am

It's late, and I'm spent. And yet I cannot sleep. I seek recluse, as I often do these days, in that book that fell into my life by accident (does anything ever happen by accident?) and has been my bedside companion ever since: Joe Bolton's exalted "The Last Nostalgia". I read it with the pain of knowing that Bolton won't write another (since he took his own life at the age of 28 soon after finishing it). I read it with the fear of finishing it, like the work of Dalida that I dread to know entirely because I am aware of its finiteness and its finality. I wrote in my review of it on Amazon that it would be the one book I'd take to a deserted island--and it's only because I can't commit all of it to memory. Now I understand people who want to commit the Quran to memory: to love a book so much, to find its construction so perfect as to want to make it a part of your self. I turn every page in awe and in anticipation of that voracious humanity, that attuneness to life that proved to be overwhelming. I jump over the words hoping to find in them that which would still that little void perched right above the lungs, at the base of the throat, croaking at the end of the night, longing to be whole..

"Contemporary Arab Thought: Cultural Critique in Comparative Perspective" by E.S. Kassab

A new book by a former (and favorite) professor of mine, the wonderful Elizabeth Suzanne Kassab, has recently been published by Columbia University Press: Contemporary Arab Thought: Cultural Critique in Comparative Perspective

The book is a study of contemporary Arab debates on culture. It examines the analyses presented by prominent Arab thinkers in the second half of the twentieth century regarding questions of cultural malaise, cultural decline and cultural renaissance. It puts these debates in the historical context of modern Arab thought spanning the last two centuries and focuses on the post 1967-defeat (in the war against Israel) period that witnessed a mounting polarization between holistic ideologies on the one hand and self-reflective critiques on the other. It breaks new ground in the understanding of contemporary Arab intellectual life by viewing it from three original perspectives:

1. First by focusing on the self-reflective critical turn at a time when attention has been almost exclusively devoted to the ideological side of this intellectual life, whether islamist or nationalist.

2. Secondly by recognizing and examining the political understanding of the cultural malaise among critical thinkers, an understanding that has been systematically overshadowed by a culturalist reading of the malaise, by actors and observers alike.

3. And thirdly by breaking the isolation to which the production and study of the Arab debates on culture have been hitherto confined, by putting them in a comparative post-colonial perspective. Indeed, more than any other region, the Arab world has been consistently stigmatised with exceptionalism.

Hence the main questions the book explores are the following:

1. How has contemporary Arab critique approached questions of cultural malaise? Which issues has it addressed and what shape has this critique taken?

2. To what extent and in what sense have Arab critical thinkers of the post 1967 era seen the cultural crisis as a political one? How old is this political perception of cultural problems in modern Arab thought and what are its implications for the democratic struggle in the Arab world?

3. How do the concerns expressed and approaches adopted in these Arab debates compare with debates in other post-colonial regions of the world such as Africa and Latin America? What patterns of thought does such a comparison reveal across regions, cultures, religions and races? What does it tell us about the post-colonial nature of the Arab debates and what significance does this telling have for our understanding of contemporary Arab thought?

(From Press Release)

Queer Literary Festival in Mt. Airy

The queer literary community of Philadelphia is at the forefront again in Mt. Airy's second annual Queer Literary Festival at the Big Blue Marble Bookstore on Saturday, November 14, 2009 from 11am to 3:00pm. Diverse selections of prose, poetry, and creative non-fiction will be presented by writers Ashraf Osman, Jane Cassady, Laura Neuman, Nathan Long, Misia Denea, Saida Agostini, Kelli Dunham, Cassendre Xavier, and Janet Mason. The festival is free and open to everyone.

A special collaboration for this year's festival is the partnership of Mt. Airy's independent Big Blue Marble Bookstore and Philadelphia's premiere GBLT bookstore Giovanni's Room. Big Blue Marble Bookstore will give a percentage of the day's proceeds to Giovanni's Room to add to their fundraising efforts for the massive renovation project of the store's building. A schedule of the readings and biographies of the readers are below:

11:00am- Ashraf Osman
11:20am-Jane Cassady
11:40am-Laura Neuman

12:00-12:30pm-Break (Literary Lunch)

12:30pm-Nathan Long
12:50pm-Misia Denea
1:10pm-Saida Agostini

1:30-2:00pm-Break (Open Mic)

2:00pm:Kelli Dunham
2:20pm-Cassendre Xavier
2:40pm: Janet Mason

For bio info on the readers, please check the event listing in the PhillyPoetry Calendar. For more information on the Queer Literary Festival or for picture requests please contact Maleka Fruean, events coordinator: 215-844-1870, maleka(at)bigbluemarblebooks(dot)com.

The Symposium: Identity, Community, Race, Sexuality and Philly Poetry

On Sunday, November 8, 2009, I'll be part of the Poetic Arts Performance Project (PAPP) 2nd Symposium on Identity, Community, Race, Ethnicity, Sex, Sexuality and Philly Poetry. The symposium will be moderated by Debrah Morkun, and will include Alyesha Wise, Frank Walsh, and Frank Sherlock.

Where: University City Arts League, 4226 Spruce St.
When: 2:00 - 4:30 pm
Cost: $3.00 (some proceeds to benefit Rubye's Kids)

I hope you can make it!

This Day, Refusing to End

If you were a day, you too would refuse
To walk gently into that good night.
Clinging at the edges of the frame,
You too would have clawed and scraped
Like a brat denied for the first time.

Stopping for a moment, you lift your head,
See the backs of heads bowed in compliance,
In silent anticipation of the end—of day,
Of a week, of something vague and prickly.

The dark gathers at the corners of your vision
Like a bad photo in need of a retouch.
Looking down can’t stop it, nor slow
The ruthless comfort of the night.

The lamps turn a yearning shade of yellow
That curls up your insides fetal and
Wraps you under covers on a couch somewhere.

You try not to slip, not to go down
That familiar road which always ends
With the same hue of blue.

You lift your eyes and let
The cold purple air wash over your face.
Somewhere the crisp smell of laundry
Warms up the sidewalk, a longing
For a hug at the door.

Rabih Alameddine at the Central Library!

One of my all-time favorite authors (and my dear friend), the incredibly talented Rabih Alameddine will be at the Central Library in Philadelphia on Tuesday, October 6, 2009 at 7:30 pm. Rabih will be reading from his latest highly-acclaimed novel, The Hakawati.

The Hakawati takes readers from the shimmering dunes of ancient Egypt to the war-torn streets of 21st-century Lebanon. "If any work of fiction might be powerful enough to transcend the mountain of polemic, historical inquiry, policy analysis, and reportage that stands between the Western reader and the Arab soul, it's this wonder of a book," according to the New York Times Book Review. Alameddine is the author of Koolaids and I, the Divine, as well as the story collection The Perv.

Reading at Media Borough Hall

On Friday, September 25, at 7 pm, I’ll be joining a group of exciting poets and musicians for a reading at the Mansion Parlor of Media Borough Hall (3rd & Jackson St.- Media, PA):

Poets:
Ashraf Osman
Brian Sammond
Lisa DeVuona (accompanied by Joseph Nocella)

Musicians:
Tom Mullian
Johnny Never
Silver Wind (Jackie Newman & Mike Mascia)

Hosted by Arlene Arlene Bernstein, the formal program will be followed by an Open Mic. Refreshments will be served, and you’ll be able to converse with congenial and interesting people. Come join us & bring your friends! There's lots of Parking!

Co-sponsored by the Media Upper Providence Library & Mad Poets Society.

SCORCHED Receives 12 Barrymore Award Nominations!

SCORCHED, the Wilma Theater's production of the play by acclaimed Lebanese-Canadian playwright Wajdi Mouawad, received 12 (well-deserved) Barrymore Award nominations, including Outstanding Overall Production of a Play and Outstanding Ensemble in a Play!


Blanka Zizka received a nomination for Outstanding Direction of a Play, and 4 of the actresses received nominations for Outstanding Supporting Actress in a Play:

• Jolly Abraham (as Elhame/Sawda)
• Jacqueline Antaramian (as Jihane/Nawal 40-45)
• Aadya Bedi (as Nawal 14-19)
• Janis Dardaris (as Nazira/Nawal 60-65)

The production also received 4 nominations for artistic production:

• Outstanding Original Music by Amir ElSaffar
• Outstanding Set Design by Ola Maslik
• Outstanding Lighting Design by Thom Weaver
• Outstanding Sound Design by Jorge Cousineau

And last but not least, the exhibition hosted in the lobby of the theater during the running of the play received a nomination for Award for New Approaches to Collaborations between The Wilma Theater & Moore College of Art and Design.

(Click here for the overall list of nominees.)

Congratulations to the entire Scorched team! It was such an honor and privilege to be even a small part of this production. Thank you!