I write from the Wild-9 congress on wilderness conservation in Merida, Mexico, a few weeks before the world meets in Copenhagen to continue to negotiate an agreement on limiting greenhouse gases. I sense the urgency of our time as I see global warming modify the lives of residents of vulnerable places, coastlines, communities in desert environments dependent on fresh water coming from melting glaciers.
I remember the dark scenarios I brought to this meeting, that the world has crossed a tipping point, that we are engaged in a rearguard action against a frightening monster, the human being, who sends his plastic into the ocean, who cuts down the mahogany tree while his government inspector looks the other way, who cannot see beyond his own needs for food and water and a house. Yet he can learn to accept his neighbor's need for the same things, that his neighbor may indeed be a butterfly or a snake or an elephant, that he can help his fellow being eke out a dwelling, a landscape where he can flourish.
Tuesday, November 10, 2009
Thursday, September 3, 2009
LIMA
Lima
Una chifa bien servida,
una bofetada de humo,
un amigo indio y otro negro,
unas nalgas esculpidas
por las armas mecanicas
del gimnasio El Polo,
un sol, unos dias soleados,
una verdad incomoda
que llena una sala
de empresarios en busca
de innovacion energetica
y financiera, un pizco sour,
un suspiro, un lomo saltado,
un ceviche, un bebe
en un carrusel cuya musica
se disuelve en la cacofonia
de los juegos, un Jockey Plaza,
un edificio de 20 pisos
lo mas grande de la ciudad,
las catacumbas donde
nos caimos al aterrizar
en el centro.
Una chifa bien servida,
una bofetada de humo,
un amigo indio y otro negro,
unas nalgas esculpidas
por las armas mecanicas
del gimnasio El Polo,
un sol, unos dias soleados,
una verdad incomoda
que llena una sala
de empresarios en busca
de innovacion energetica
y financiera, un pizco sour,
un suspiro, un lomo saltado,
un ceviche, un bebe
en un carrusel cuya musica
se disuelve en la cacofonia
de los juegos, un Jockey Plaza,
un edificio de 20 pisos
lo mas grande de la ciudad,
las catacumbas donde
nos caimos al aterrizar
en el centro.
Monday, July 6, 2009
Belonging, A Poem
Belonging
Indran Amirthanayagam
The island belongs
to centipede,
rat, butterfly,
lots of species
each with
their own habitats,
and supervising
all arable and
fallow land
the president king.
Minorities
may enjoy
clean living
in freshly cleared
forest patches,
welfare villages
with amenities
such as latrines
and tents,
gated communities.
June 28, 2009
Indran Amirthanayagam
The island belongs
to centipede,
rat, butterfly,
lots of species
each with
their own habitats,
and supervising
all arable and
fallow land
the president king.
Minorities
may enjoy
clean living
in freshly cleared
forest patches,
welfare villages
with amenities
such as latrines
and tents,
gated communities.
June 28, 2009
Saturday, June 27, 2009
Sobre Michael Jackson, por Eduardo Espina
La vida ya no baila en la Luna
por Eduardo Espina
Hubo tantas cosas increíbles en la vida de Michael Jackson, que uno duda de que esté realmente muerto. ¿No será otra de sus inexplicables tretas, de esas tan frecuentes charadas que lo hicieron un original sin copia? En la vida y en la muerte del último gran ídolo de matinée todo resultó posible. Fue capaz de decolorar su piel (nunca pudimos saber si continuaba siendo afro, si se había convertido en blanco de la misma forma que otros se convierten al cristianismo, o si finalmente había conseguido adquirir el tan ansiado “color MJ”, una de sus marcas registradas). Rey también en la metamorfosis. Un Gregor Samsa, un Indran Amirthanayagam. Fue capaz de cambiar de identidad, de estigmas, de estado civil, de peinado, de chimpancé, de paranoia, de voz (por su falsetto desfiló la armonía), de hobby, de cirujano plástico, de estilo de vida, de etc., y hasta de sexualidad, pues de esta hizo una fábrica permanente de incógnitas, invitando a repetir ocasionalmente la pregunta, ¿es o no? Esa vaguedad, la de no saber bien quién o qué fue Michael Jackson lo convirtió en un personaje imposible de clonar. Mezcla asimétrica de hermafrodita, andrógino y maniquí cósmico capaz de fascinar a gente de todas las edades, el último gran cantante pop pasó por la vida como ráfaga de interrogantes que hicieron de su show, dentro y fuera del escenario, un entretenimiento constante, algo así como un ímpetu de raro magnetismo capaz de generar adicción. Quizás por eso, por haber sabido existir en constante actualización (en ese presente perpetuo solamente reservado a los ídolos), como potpurrí de sí mismo, Michael Jackson vivió la vida tal si fuera una estela luminosa que solo justifica su condición cuando brilla. Por eso existió en constante destello. Tuvo ese don: no defraudó ni como artista pluritalentoso ni como figura generadora de enigmas. Se encargó, y lo hizo bien, de que su nombre y figura fueran imán de atención masiva, removedores de rutina. Ficción y caricatura. Su vida fue un parque temático y hasta llegó a tener su propio Parque Rodó en el fondo de su casa, con calesita y rueda gigante en donde la infancia pudiera hibernar. Tenía 50 años, pero aun no había llegado a la adolescencia. Dejó, para que sepan, dos obras maestras de la música pop: Off the Wall (1979) y Thriller (1982). De esos dos discos gloriosos brotó magia, la cual no logró redimir su megalomanía ni salvarlo de la ignominia asociada a las acusaciones de pederastia que lo mandaron cuesta abajo. Ahora, privilegiado por una muerte antes de tiempo, pertenece ya a la dimensión de los mitos, los cuales nunca mueren. Será posteridad, leyenda urbana. Reliquia y fetiche. Pronto dirán que fue visto por ahí, paseando en un tren fantasma, que todavía sigue vivo como Elvis Presley, que juntos se han ido a Canadá a grabar un nuevo disco, eso sí, de vinilo. Una fantasía que nadie podrá matar. Desde la helada noche del 8 de diciembre de 1980, cuando John Lennon fue baleando en la entrada de su apartamento, ningún otro artista o cantante había generado tanta sorpresa y tristeza colectiva con su muerte como Michael Jackson. De pronto, con su desaparición, se fue un mundo. Una época. Se fue, y si exagero no me equivoco, la voz de una época, la de las últimas tres décadas del siglo pasado. Ahora por fin, el siglo XXI puede empezar, tras quitarse de encima a uno de los últimos lastres ilustres que le tocó heredar. Algunos, como este servidor, han de sentir que con la muerte de Jackson, el mutante que tomaba Pepsi, muere también parte de uno. Para los amantes de la música, la suya, un sonido sin imposturas, un estilo para tararear, fue imprescindible. Quienes estamos en los cincuenta (de edad, no de década) podemos afirmar que crecimos con las distintas etapas de la voz de Michael Jackson, la cual hizo su aparición cuando más la necesitábamos: cuando empezamos a ver la adolescencia en el espejo retrovisor, cuando la vida coleccionaba nombres de mujer, cuando nacieron los hijos, cuando la felicidad se dio cuenta de que la edad no importa, y hasta cuando pudimos confirmar que éramos habitantes de la mejor década del siglo XX, porque lo fue. Precisamente, en un año tan bisagra como 1983, mientras la guerra fría se derretía y las penúltimas dictaduras del mundo (incluidas algunas latinoamericanas) comenzaban a oxidarse, Michael Jackson grabó Thriller, posiblemente el álbum más emblemático de las vivencias asociadas a la historia finisecular. Época de gozos hacia delante, de renovado entusiasmo. Fueron años de tránsito y reacomodo que correspondieron a la cruzada de optimismo generada desde la Casa Blanca por Ronald Reagan. La música de Jackson fue la banda sonora de esos ocho años de gobierno republicano que impulsaron la idea de la universalidad democrática estadounidense y que vieron como corolario la caída del muro de Berlín y el fin del comunismo. Reagan y Jackson fueron la síntesis impostergable de la década de 1980, iconos de la última vez en que el mundo estuvo en calma (extrañamente, el cantante murió en el Hospital Ronald Reagan: hasta en eso estuvieron juntos). En aquellos días que se fueron tan rápido (la promesa de felicidad es siempre así de efímera) la música, los movimientos, los escándalos, la imagen, en fin, la vida de Michael Jackson formaron parte de una película colectiva donde todos pudimos participar, la mayoría desempeñando un papel de reparto. Una canción, y otra, varias, todas las que conforman el álbum Thriller, se convirtieron en himno de una generación, con una voz distintiva acompañada de una imagen igual de diferente, pues Jackson fue también un adelantado en materia audiovisual. Si no inventó el video musical, fue al menos el primero en utilizarlo creativamente. Llegó justo cuando la televisión necesitaba otra opción de entretenimiento. Al verlo en el video de la canción Billie Jean, con sus guantes de lentejuelas y su maquillaje rococó imponiendo un estilo de baile que desconocíamos, el mundo dijo al unísono: “Yo también quiero mi MTV”. Nos fuimos a vivir a un video clip, a venerar una coreografía. Copiando esos pasos tan exactos, bueno intentándolo, y recurriendo al control remoto más de lo previsto para tener sobredosis diarias de imágenes, sentimos que estábamos entrando a la posmodernidad, lo que eso fuera, pues hasta el día de hoy no hemos podido definirla con claridad. Es decir, con Michael Jackson fuimos posmodernos sin saber bien lo que éramos (y tampoco hicimos mucho por saberlo porque, para qué).La muerte, que no es fan de nadie, suele venir en puntas de pie, y la de Jackson entró por la puerta de atrás, de la manera menos pensada y glamorosa, vulgarmente democrática. Murió como uno más: de un paro cardíaco. Igual que un trabajador agobiado por el estrés. Vaya ironía. Al menos en el momento de su muerte fue completamente humano, igualito a todos nosotros. La muerte, siempre tan poco imaginativa, imitó al resto de su vida, pues llegó de sorpresa, sin avisar ni tocar el timbre, justo cuando la segunda parte del show estaba por comenzar y nosotros ahí, sentados en primera fila, listos para empezar a aplaudir otra vez.El próximo mes se cumplen 40 años de la llegada del hombre a la Luna. No ha muerto el primer astronauta en pisarla, sino el inventor del “Moonwalk”, de la caminata lunar, un paso de baile tan importante como la pionera expedición de la Nasa, aunque seguramente más. Ha muerto un compositor, intérprete y bailarín extraordinario, que fue único por ser irrepetible. En tiempos cuando la mediocridad carcome todos los territorios de la vida contemporánea, de la política al deporte pasando por la literatura y el periodismo, la muerte de un talento original como Michael Jackson deja al mundo menos completo. Y contra eso no hay antídoto, salvo recurrir a la música para que el silencio no se quede tan solo. Ha llegado pues el tiempo de rebobinar y escuchar la canción nuevamente. En este momento es la única revancha. La muerte, sorda y muda, no sabrá de qué se trata.
por Eduardo Espina
Hubo tantas cosas increíbles en la vida de Michael Jackson, que uno duda de que esté realmente muerto. ¿No será otra de sus inexplicables tretas, de esas tan frecuentes charadas que lo hicieron un original sin copia? En la vida y en la muerte del último gran ídolo de matinée todo resultó posible. Fue capaz de decolorar su piel (nunca pudimos saber si continuaba siendo afro, si se había convertido en blanco de la misma forma que otros se convierten al cristianismo, o si finalmente había conseguido adquirir el tan ansiado “color MJ”, una de sus marcas registradas). Rey también en la metamorfosis. Un Gregor Samsa, un Indran Amirthanayagam. Fue capaz de cambiar de identidad, de estigmas, de estado civil, de peinado, de chimpancé, de paranoia, de voz (por su falsetto desfiló la armonía), de hobby, de cirujano plástico, de estilo de vida, de etc., y hasta de sexualidad, pues de esta hizo una fábrica permanente de incógnitas, invitando a repetir ocasionalmente la pregunta, ¿es o no? Esa vaguedad, la de no saber bien quién o qué fue Michael Jackson lo convirtió en un personaje imposible de clonar. Mezcla asimétrica de hermafrodita, andrógino y maniquí cósmico capaz de fascinar a gente de todas las edades, el último gran cantante pop pasó por la vida como ráfaga de interrogantes que hicieron de su show, dentro y fuera del escenario, un entretenimiento constante, algo así como un ímpetu de raro magnetismo capaz de generar adicción. Quizás por eso, por haber sabido existir en constante actualización (en ese presente perpetuo solamente reservado a los ídolos), como potpurrí de sí mismo, Michael Jackson vivió la vida tal si fuera una estela luminosa que solo justifica su condición cuando brilla. Por eso existió en constante destello. Tuvo ese don: no defraudó ni como artista pluritalentoso ni como figura generadora de enigmas. Se encargó, y lo hizo bien, de que su nombre y figura fueran imán de atención masiva, removedores de rutina. Ficción y caricatura. Su vida fue un parque temático y hasta llegó a tener su propio Parque Rodó en el fondo de su casa, con calesita y rueda gigante en donde la infancia pudiera hibernar. Tenía 50 años, pero aun no había llegado a la adolescencia. Dejó, para que sepan, dos obras maestras de la música pop: Off the Wall (1979) y Thriller (1982). De esos dos discos gloriosos brotó magia, la cual no logró redimir su megalomanía ni salvarlo de la ignominia asociada a las acusaciones de pederastia que lo mandaron cuesta abajo. Ahora, privilegiado por una muerte antes de tiempo, pertenece ya a la dimensión de los mitos, los cuales nunca mueren. Será posteridad, leyenda urbana. Reliquia y fetiche. Pronto dirán que fue visto por ahí, paseando en un tren fantasma, que todavía sigue vivo como Elvis Presley, que juntos se han ido a Canadá a grabar un nuevo disco, eso sí, de vinilo. Una fantasía que nadie podrá matar. Desde la helada noche del 8 de diciembre de 1980, cuando John Lennon fue baleando en la entrada de su apartamento, ningún otro artista o cantante había generado tanta sorpresa y tristeza colectiva con su muerte como Michael Jackson. De pronto, con su desaparición, se fue un mundo. Una época. Se fue, y si exagero no me equivoco, la voz de una época, la de las últimas tres décadas del siglo pasado. Ahora por fin, el siglo XXI puede empezar, tras quitarse de encima a uno de los últimos lastres ilustres que le tocó heredar. Algunos, como este servidor, han de sentir que con la muerte de Jackson, el mutante que tomaba Pepsi, muere también parte de uno. Para los amantes de la música, la suya, un sonido sin imposturas, un estilo para tararear, fue imprescindible. Quienes estamos en los cincuenta (de edad, no de década) podemos afirmar que crecimos con las distintas etapas de la voz de Michael Jackson, la cual hizo su aparición cuando más la necesitábamos: cuando empezamos a ver la adolescencia en el espejo retrovisor, cuando la vida coleccionaba nombres de mujer, cuando nacieron los hijos, cuando la felicidad se dio cuenta de que la edad no importa, y hasta cuando pudimos confirmar que éramos habitantes de la mejor década del siglo XX, porque lo fue. Precisamente, en un año tan bisagra como 1983, mientras la guerra fría se derretía y las penúltimas dictaduras del mundo (incluidas algunas latinoamericanas) comenzaban a oxidarse, Michael Jackson grabó Thriller, posiblemente el álbum más emblemático de las vivencias asociadas a la historia finisecular. Época de gozos hacia delante, de renovado entusiasmo. Fueron años de tránsito y reacomodo que correspondieron a la cruzada de optimismo generada desde la Casa Blanca por Ronald Reagan. La música de Jackson fue la banda sonora de esos ocho años de gobierno republicano que impulsaron la idea de la universalidad democrática estadounidense y que vieron como corolario la caída del muro de Berlín y el fin del comunismo. Reagan y Jackson fueron la síntesis impostergable de la década de 1980, iconos de la última vez en que el mundo estuvo en calma (extrañamente, el cantante murió en el Hospital Ronald Reagan: hasta en eso estuvieron juntos). En aquellos días que se fueron tan rápido (la promesa de felicidad es siempre así de efímera) la música, los movimientos, los escándalos, la imagen, en fin, la vida de Michael Jackson formaron parte de una película colectiva donde todos pudimos participar, la mayoría desempeñando un papel de reparto. Una canción, y otra, varias, todas las que conforman el álbum Thriller, se convirtieron en himno de una generación, con una voz distintiva acompañada de una imagen igual de diferente, pues Jackson fue también un adelantado en materia audiovisual. Si no inventó el video musical, fue al menos el primero en utilizarlo creativamente. Llegó justo cuando la televisión necesitaba otra opción de entretenimiento. Al verlo en el video de la canción Billie Jean, con sus guantes de lentejuelas y su maquillaje rococó imponiendo un estilo de baile que desconocíamos, el mundo dijo al unísono: “Yo también quiero mi MTV”. Nos fuimos a vivir a un video clip, a venerar una coreografía. Copiando esos pasos tan exactos, bueno intentándolo, y recurriendo al control remoto más de lo previsto para tener sobredosis diarias de imágenes, sentimos que estábamos entrando a la posmodernidad, lo que eso fuera, pues hasta el día de hoy no hemos podido definirla con claridad. Es decir, con Michael Jackson fuimos posmodernos sin saber bien lo que éramos (y tampoco hicimos mucho por saberlo porque, para qué).La muerte, que no es fan de nadie, suele venir en puntas de pie, y la de Jackson entró por la puerta de atrás, de la manera menos pensada y glamorosa, vulgarmente democrática. Murió como uno más: de un paro cardíaco. Igual que un trabajador agobiado por el estrés. Vaya ironía. Al menos en el momento de su muerte fue completamente humano, igualito a todos nosotros. La muerte, siempre tan poco imaginativa, imitó al resto de su vida, pues llegó de sorpresa, sin avisar ni tocar el timbre, justo cuando la segunda parte del show estaba por comenzar y nosotros ahí, sentados en primera fila, listos para empezar a aplaudir otra vez.El próximo mes se cumplen 40 años de la llegada del hombre a la Luna. No ha muerto el primer astronauta en pisarla, sino el inventor del “Moonwalk”, de la caminata lunar, un paso de baile tan importante como la pionera expedición de la Nasa, aunque seguramente más. Ha muerto un compositor, intérprete y bailarín extraordinario, que fue único por ser irrepetible. En tiempos cuando la mediocridad carcome todos los territorios de la vida contemporánea, de la política al deporte pasando por la literatura y el periodismo, la muerte de un talento original como Michael Jackson deja al mundo menos completo. Y contra eso no hay antídoto, salvo recurrir a la música para que el silencio no se quede tan solo. Ha llegado pues el tiempo de rebobinar y escuchar la canción nuevamente. En este momento es la única revancha. La muerte, sorda y muda, no sabrá de qué se trata.
Sunday, May 17, 2009
Satellite View: A Poem by Thiru Sambandar
Thiru sent me his latest:
Satellite View
There will be lamentations
and regrets, there are already,
and recriminations. Why
did we allow the unthinkable
to fall down on those
hapless families
in tents and bunkers?
Why did we agree
only to informal
meetings
in the basement
of U.N. headquarters
before proposing
an emergency session
of the Human Rights
Council for next week?
After months of
slaughter, next week?
How long do we need
to assemble diplomats
of 47 countries
who live in greater
Geneva, some just
a walk away
from the roundtable?
I imagine the table
round like the large
hearts of hapless
bystander diplomats
before the rain
of terror, bombs
and mortar, metallic
lassos thrown
about Tamils
squared
in 2.5 kilometers
between lagoon
and sea, 50,000
civilians left
in that spit of Vanni,
numbers reduced by
tens and hundreds
every day. You ask
about other options,
such as India, or
stiffening terms
of the IMF loan,
an armed force
to separate the parties?
Yes, dear Romans,
we can choose to censure
miscreants. When a man
or state or rebel group
kill wantonly
we must stop him
or it, walk into
the line of sight,
settle the matter
with our most
special forces.
Who is right--
government
controlled by fanatics,
who believe
the island belongs
first to Sinhalese
while other
residents are subject
to extra-judicial
measures
such as roundups
in unmarked vans
and denouncing
for bizarre
collaborations
with terrorist
fighter jets--
or the aforementioned
liberation fighters?
Or do we have
the last word,
survivors of
streets of Geneva
or New York
or Beijing, suited
and stuffed
with ideals
or pragmatic like
moneylenders
weighing assets
of the nation
come to pawn
its Tamil jewels
in return for
a naval base,
a wedge around
India, uninterrupted
supply of fighter
jets and expert
advice in the art
of war, in the age
of CNN, where
the first principle
denies journalists
the chance to speak
with survivors
of the slaughter
which could have
been prevented
if prying eyes
along with
aid workers
from abroad
had been allowed
inside the Vanni
to accompany
local and expendable
employees,
Tamil speakers,
subject to pressure
from Tiger overlords,
whose pictures
of injured and dead
are stage sets,
according to
government,
whose reports
to BBC are spoken
while a Tiger
points a gun
at the telephone.
Come, come,
ye spokespersons,
do you take us
for imbeciles walking
into roundtables
in Western capitals
or even in Beijing?
When food, water,
medicine, and soft
drinks are scarce
in the theatre
of war, can supplies
of stage blood
be made available
like rain and heat,
mortar and missiles?
Thiru Sambandar May 14, 2009
Satellite View
There will be lamentations
and regrets, there are already,
and recriminations. Why
did we allow the unthinkable
to fall down on those
hapless families
in tents and bunkers?
Why did we agree
only to informal
meetings
in the basement
of U.N. headquarters
before proposing
an emergency session
of the Human Rights
Council for next week?
After months of
slaughter, next week?
How long do we need
to assemble diplomats
of 47 countries
who live in greater
Geneva, some just
a walk away
from the roundtable?
I imagine the table
round like the large
hearts of hapless
bystander diplomats
before the rain
of terror, bombs
and mortar, metallic
lassos thrown
about Tamils
squared
in 2.5 kilometers
between lagoon
and sea, 50,000
civilians left
in that spit of Vanni,
numbers reduced by
tens and hundreds
every day. You ask
about other options,
such as India, or
stiffening terms
of the IMF loan,
an armed force
to separate the parties?
Yes, dear Romans,
we can choose to censure
miscreants. When a man
or state or rebel group
kill wantonly
we must stop him
or it, walk into
the line of sight,
settle the matter
with our most
special forces.
Who is right--
government
controlled by fanatics,
who believe
the island belongs
first to Sinhalese
while other
residents are subject
to extra-judicial
measures
such as roundups
in unmarked vans
and denouncing
for bizarre
collaborations
with terrorist
fighter jets--
or the aforementioned
liberation fighters?
Or do we have
the last word,
survivors of
streets of Geneva
or New York
or Beijing, suited
and stuffed
with ideals
or pragmatic like
moneylenders
weighing assets
of the nation
come to pawn
its Tamil jewels
in return for
a naval base,
a wedge around
India, uninterrupted
supply of fighter
jets and expert
advice in the art
of war, in the age
of CNN, where
the first principle
denies journalists
the chance to speak
with survivors
of the slaughter
which could have
been prevented
if prying eyes
along with
aid workers
from abroad
had been allowed
inside the Vanni
to accompany
local and expendable
employees,
Tamil speakers,
subject to pressure
from Tiger overlords,
whose pictures
of injured and dead
are stage sets,
according to
government,
whose reports
to BBC are spoken
while a Tiger
points a gun
at the telephone.
Come, come,
ye spokespersons,
do you take us
for imbeciles walking
into roundtables
in Western capitals
or even in Beijing?
When food, water,
medicine, and soft
drinks are scarce
in the theatre
of war, can supplies
of stage blood
be made available
like rain and heat,
mortar and missiles?
Thiru Sambandar May 14, 2009
Monday, May 11, 2009
Don't Cry for Us, Sri Lanka--Thiru Sambandar
Publication: Times of India;
Date: May 10, 2009;
Section: Mind Over Matter;
MIND SET
Don’t cry for us, Sri Lanka
The teardrop isle’s dirty war has resulted in the psychological brutalization of its Tamil minority at home and abroad
Thiru Sambandar
This war is no cricket match and, even if it were, both sides have lost while the civilian spectators have become chief victims. Images of refugees — black skins with raging, red wounds, bones popping out, a mob raising hands and fists for a box of biscuits, while leaving fields of dead — are now the subject of daily contemplation for their cousins abroad, the ones who have made it out.
We left the burning island many decades ago, after cataclysms such as attacks on our people, houses and businesses in 1958 and 1983, the dirty war in Sri Lanka’s south in the late 1980s and the tsunami of 2004. Can you imagine a 26-year-long intense civil war and a natural disaster, the mother of all waves, splintering the same spit of land?
Now we read about emissaries from our Western refuges and the United Nations failing to convince the Sri Lankan government about the merits of entering the so-called ‘no fire zone' to ensure that civilians have food, water and medicine. We read about the visa denial to the Swedish foreign minister and about Lasantha Wickrematunga being shot in broad daylight at an intersection. Lasantha’s last words, his posthumously published editorial “And Then They Came For Me” remind us of the power of his engagement in trying to preserve civil discourse, a democratic space where dissent would not cause the summoning of a death squad.
Don’t cry for us, Sri Lanka. The island’s dirty war has seared all of us. Meanwhile, we wander past the protest outside the Houses of Parliament in London, or Parliament Hill in Ottawa, or the Sri Lankan Consulate General in New York. We see our faces in young people handing out leaflets, born in the diaspora — polite, educated in civic manners. We see the flags of the Tigers and wonder, do we subscribe to the bloody history the emblem implies? Did we blow up Neelan Tiruchelvam at the junction of Kynsey Road and Rosmead Place or garland Rajiv at his last campaign rally?
Yet, we go on emboldened quietly, proud of the sacrifices of our boys and girls. And we have become tired of the grudging respect and jokes of our new fellow citizens, whether English, Germans, Canadians, Australians. Are you a Tiger? Where did you learn such savagery? We learned it when we were advised that our language would be considered a minor key in the island symphony. That was in 1956 when Sinhala became legislated into the pole position in the formula one race to Armageddon.
The leader who championed that fine bill in the parliament died later from an assassin’s bullet, fired by a monk. The prime minister did not go far enough in asserting majority rights, it seemed. He wanted to step back from the demons he unleashed. The robes in which we dress do not preclude savage impulses in the island where the poet said ‘only Man is vile.’
We learned it in 1958 and 1983, years when we became subject to organized lynch mobs, armed with voter lists, thugs who came to burn us out, to help us move to where we live now, in Scarborough, London, Geneva, consoled by new sets of social services, local government support, our community networks, to keep Tamils thriving, to educate our children, to bless their marriages in marriage halls.
We have moved out of Jaffna, out of Kayts, out of Trincomalee and Batticaloa, out of the Vanni. Some of us have moved into armed camps behind barbed wire where we cannot meet friends or relatives. The rest of us, who left before the current flare-up, are now hyphenated into thriving, consoling societies full of immigrants from war-ravaged countries. Yet we are shocked, numbed, without sleep, as we stare at the faces of our people, hungry, wounded, caught in a vise between two implacable, blind, pitiless and careless foes.
Charges of war crimes do not seem to bother the warring parties. And we are not clamouring to return to the now “liberated” East Coast and the soon-to-be-“free” Northern province. We know that our fellow citizens in these regions live in fear as they do throughout the island. The white van visits our sleep, the vehicle without license plates that comes at night and takes away our young.
We would be pleased to return white to snow, or temple flowers, or our shirts as we ride the bus to work in a quiet, democratic, multicultural and thriving democracy. We recall fondly days when our Ceylon mosaic gave us friends who brought us sweetmeats, Dutch sweets, when we would wander over to the Pettah for a Muslim feast. We regret that Ceylon has disappeared. Yet, we think still, in fevered dreams, that we can wake up renewed to palaver with our neighbours, our fellow islanders. (The writer’s name has been changed for security reasons)
Date: May 10, 2009;
Section: Mind Over Matter;
MIND SET
Don’t cry for us, Sri Lanka
The teardrop isle’s dirty war has resulted in the psychological brutalization of its Tamil minority at home and abroad
Thiru Sambandar
This war is no cricket match and, even if it were, both sides have lost while the civilian spectators have become chief victims. Images of refugees — black skins with raging, red wounds, bones popping out, a mob raising hands and fists for a box of biscuits, while leaving fields of dead — are now the subject of daily contemplation for their cousins abroad, the ones who have made it out.
We left the burning island many decades ago, after cataclysms such as attacks on our people, houses and businesses in 1958 and 1983, the dirty war in Sri Lanka’s south in the late 1980s and the tsunami of 2004. Can you imagine a 26-year-long intense civil war and a natural disaster, the mother of all waves, splintering the same spit of land?
Now we read about emissaries from our Western refuges and the United Nations failing to convince the Sri Lankan government about the merits of entering the so-called ‘no fire zone' to ensure that civilians have food, water and medicine. We read about the visa denial to the Swedish foreign minister and about Lasantha Wickrematunga being shot in broad daylight at an intersection. Lasantha’s last words, his posthumously published editorial “And Then They Came For Me” remind us of the power of his engagement in trying to preserve civil discourse, a democratic space where dissent would not cause the summoning of a death squad.
Don’t cry for us, Sri Lanka. The island’s dirty war has seared all of us. Meanwhile, we wander past the protest outside the Houses of Parliament in London, or Parliament Hill in Ottawa, or the Sri Lankan Consulate General in New York. We see our faces in young people handing out leaflets, born in the diaspora — polite, educated in civic manners. We see the flags of the Tigers and wonder, do we subscribe to the bloody history the emblem implies? Did we blow up Neelan Tiruchelvam at the junction of Kynsey Road and Rosmead Place or garland Rajiv at his last campaign rally?
Yet, we go on emboldened quietly, proud of the sacrifices of our boys and girls. And we have become tired of the grudging respect and jokes of our new fellow citizens, whether English, Germans, Canadians, Australians. Are you a Tiger? Where did you learn such savagery? We learned it when we were advised that our language would be considered a minor key in the island symphony. That was in 1956 when Sinhala became legislated into the pole position in the formula one race to Armageddon.
The leader who championed that fine bill in the parliament died later from an assassin’s bullet, fired by a monk. The prime minister did not go far enough in asserting majority rights, it seemed. He wanted to step back from the demons he unleashed. The robes in which we dress do not preclude savage impulses in the island where the poet said ‘only Man is vile.’
We learned it in 1958 and 1983, years when we became subject to organized lynch mobs, armed with voter lists, thugs who came to burn us out, to help us move to where we live now, in Scarborough, London, Geneva, consoled by new sets of social services, local government support, our community networks, to keep Tamils thriving, to educate our children, to bless their marriages in marriage halls.
We have moved out of Jaffna, out of Kayts, out of Trincomalee and Batticaloa, out of the Vanni. Some of us have moved into armed camps behind barbed wire where we cannot meet friends or relatives. The rest of us, who left before the current flare-up, are now hyphenated into thriving, consoling societies full of immigrants from war-ravaged countries. Yet we are shocked, numbed, without sleep, as we stare at the faces of our people, hungry, wounded, caught in a vise between two implacable, blind, pitiless and careless foes.
Charges of war crimes do not seem to bother the warring parties. And we are not clamouring to return to the now “liberated” East Coast and the soon-to-be-“free” Northern province. We know that our fellow citizens in these regions live in fear as they do throughout the island. The white van visits our sleep, the vehicle without license plates that comes at night and takes away our young.
We would be pleased to return white to snow, or temple flowers, or our shirts as we ride the bus to work in a quiet, democratic, multicultural and thriving democracy. We recall fondly days when our Ceylon mosaic gave us friends who brought us sweetmeats, Dutch sweets, when we would wander over to the Pettah for a Muslim feast. We regret that Ceylon has disappeared. Yet, we think still, in fevered dreams, that we can wake up renewed to palaver with our neighbours, our fellow islanders. (The writer’s name has been changed for security reasons)
Friday, May 8, 2009
Sobre En Busqueda de Batanero de Ivan Loyola
Sobre En búsqueda de Batanero de Ivan Loyola (vinossimo@gmail.com)
De las pesadillas nocturnas, los sueños despiertos limeños cuando uno se levanta envuelto en la neblina y no encuentra una salida, de las lecturas profundas del deseo humano, la perforación de la piel de la tierra para beber su sangre, del talento obsesivo para escribir exactamente lo requerido para sacar a la luz lo esencial de un paisaje, una emoción, una idea, les recomiendo En búsqueda de Batanero.
El autor Iván Loyola ha reunido 9 cuentos en este libro. Ustedes saben de la magia que uno hace con el numero 3, bueno, aquí son 3 mas tres…un buen formulario para su éxito. Pero este libro no nos salva de lo más oscuro de la psicología humana, más bien, lo subraya, lo hace saltar en las acciones y descubrimientos de héroes aventureros en los cuentos. Así, si no quieres explorar el substrato de la conciencia humana, lo que miles de años de educación y cultivo de lo moral, la acción correcta, ha intentado enterrar o al menos ocultar, no lean este libro.
¿Quien es Batanero? Y parece que hay muchos. No les voy a decir porque no quiero delatar al argumento. Pero ven conmigo a las montañas, dentro de la selva profunda. Loyola sirve como guía, periodista de investigación. Y nosotros vivimos el viaje sin tener que mudarnos de nuestras vidas cómodas o incomodas, de nuestras casas donde tejemos chales con nuestros miedos y nuestras esperanzas. Creemos poder encontrar la paz, el amor, que los muros van a resistir cualquier torbellino que nos envía la naturaleza. Pero Batanero llega igual y de repente no podemos sentirnos seguros.
Terminé mi lectura de este libro hace un par de semanas durante la guerra sumamente sucia, horripilante—todavía con nosotros-- en el noreste de Sri Lanka donde miles de Tamiles civiles han muerto a raíz del conflicto entre el gobierno srilankes y los rebeldes Tigres. Hablé con el autor por mail una tarde y me di cuenta como compartimos cierta preocupación e interés por la crueldad humana, el impulso humano a excavar en el pozo profundo para sacar algas amarillas, vertebra ensangrentada.
Pero hay alivio también en este libro. El placer puro del habla limeña. Por ejemplo, en el cuento Estación Chatelet relata la historia de unos amigos en Lima y qué sucedió cuando uno de ellos se fue a vivir a Paris y el otro llegó para visitarlo. Y como en todos los cuentos, el autor sorprende al lector llevándolo a caminar en un sendero-- que en este caso, tiene que ver con la nostalgia de un paisano por su tierra natal, su infancia--- para girarlo de repente, y tomar otro camino con una historia distinta, esta vez erótica. En este cuento y en la mayoría, existe la moral, una preocupación ética o más bien una reflexión sobre los límites de la ética, su fracaso ante el deseo desencadenado.
Escuchen un poco del diálogo refrescante de este cuento. Y les pregunto a ustedes ¿cuantos aquí han tenido conversaciones así llegando a un nuevo país?
“La voz de Cucho parecía raspar el auricular con tonos metálicos, sonaba tan distinta a la última vez que Yago la había escuchado, cuatro años antes. Sí, compadre, de todas maneras. ¿No tuviste problemas en el aeropuerto, no? Bacán. ¿Saliendo de Lima tampoco? ¿Me trajiste lo que me mandó mi mamá. Te pasastes Yaguito. ¿Dónde estas?....y “Te bajas en chatele, d’acord? No, no, es una estación del metro. Con té al final, chatelé. Si, ya sé, la té, pero así se pronuncia.”
Y más adelante aún dice el autor. “Sonaba bien, dacord. Ya no era el chévere—pulenta de otros tiempos, parados en la esquina de la parroquia Cristo Salvador, sireando chicas, los ochenta en el barrio de Lince.” Me gustó mucho este cuento, tal vez por la pausa que me dio en la lectura sobre otros relatos más crueles. Pero hay que leerlos. Amantes de los cuentos de sombras, del género del horror van a gustar mucho este libro.
Además, el libro ofrece a todos que se derritan ante una frase bien hecha la música de sus oraciones y su precisión ¿Y quien no va a deleitar la celebración de eros que se encuentra en algunas de las narraciones?
Para cerrar estos breves comentarios me gustaría mencionar el cuento Siebenburgen. No he leído una historia tan mágica en bastante tiempo. Me traslado a mi niñez y a la primera vez que escuché el relato del flautista de Hamlin. Ahora, gracias a Loyola, sé que fue a Siebenburgen que el flautista se llevó a 130 niños. Les invito a hacer fila detrás del escritor Loyola. Su música es dulce, sus ritmos hechizantes. En cuanto a lo que va a suceder en esa ciudad escondida en las montañas de Perú…les dejo esta búsqueda de Batanero.
.
De las pesadillas nocturnas, los sueños despiertos limeños cuando uno se levanta envuelto en la neblina y no encuentra una salida, de las lecturas profundas del deseo humano, la perforación de la piel de la tierra para beber su sangre, del talento obsesivo para escribir exactamente lo requerido para sacar a la luz lo esencial de un paisaje, una emoción, una idea, les recomiendo En búsqueda de Batanero.
El autor Iván Loyola ha reunido 9 cuentos en este libro. Ustedes saben de la magia que uno hace con el numero 3, bueno, aquí son 3 mas tres…un buen formulario para su éxito. Pero este libro no nos salva de lo más oscuro de la psicología humana, más bien, lo subraya, lo hace saltar en las acciones y descubrimientos de héroes aventureros en los cuentos. Así, si no quieres explorar el substrato de la conciencia humana, lo que miles de años de educación y cultivo de lo moral, la acción correcta, ha intentado enterrar o al menos ocultar, no lean este libro.
¿Quien es Batanero? Y parece que hay muchos. No les voy a decir porque no quiero delatar al argumento. Pero ven conmigo a las montañas, dentro de la selva profunda. Loyola sirve como guía, periodista de investigación. Y nosotros vivimos el viaje sin tener que mudarnos de nuestras vidas cómodas o incomodas, de nuestras casas donde tejemos chales con nuestros miedos y nuestras esperanzas. Creemos poder encontrar la paz, el amor, que los muros van a resistir cualquier torbellino que nos envía la naturaleza. Pero Batanero llega igual y de repente no podemos sentirnos seguros.
Terminé mi lectura de este libro hace un par de semanas durante la guerra sumamente sucia, horripilante—todavía con nosotros-- en el noreste de Sri Lanka donde miles de Tamiles civiles han muerto a raíz del conflicto entre el gobierno srilankes y los rebeldes Tigres. Hablé con el autor por mail una tarde y me di cuenta como compartimos cierta preocupación e interés por la crueldad humana, el impulso humano a excavar en el pozo profundo para sacar algas amarillas, vertebra ensangrentada.
Pero hay alivio también en este libro. El placer puro del habla limeña. Por ejemplo, en el cuento Estación Chatelet relata la historia de unos amigos en Lima y qué sucedió cuando uno de ellos se fue a vivir a Paris y el otro llegó para visitarlo. Y como en todos los cuentos, el autor sorprende al lector llevándolo a caminar en un sendero-- que en este caso, tiene que ver con la nostalgia de un paisano por su tierra natal, su infancia--- para girarlo de repente, y tomar otro camino con una historia distinta, esta vez erótica. En este cuento y en la mayoría, existe la moral, una preocupación ética o más bien una reflexión sobre los límites de la ética, su fracaso ante el deseo desencadenado.
Escuchen un poco del diálogo refrescante de este cuento. Y les pregunto a ustedes ¿cuantos aquí han tenido conversaciones así llegando a un nuevo país?
“La voz de Cucho parecía raspar el auricular con tonos metálicos, sonaba tan distinta a la última vez que Yago la había escuchado, cuatro años antes. Sí, compadre, de todas maneras. ¿No tuviste problemas en el aeropuerto, no? Bacán. ¿Saliendo de Lima tampoco? ¿Me trajiste lo que me mandó mi mamá. Te pasastes Yaguito. ¿Dónde estas?....y “Te bajas en chatele, d’acord? No, no, es una estación del metro. Con té al final, chatelé. Si, ya sé, la té, pero así se pronuncia.”
Y más adelante aún dice el autor. “Sonaba bien, dacord. Ya no era el chévere—pulenta de otros tiempos, parados en la esquina de la parroquia Cristo Salvador, sireando chicas, los ochenta en el barrio de Lince.” Me gustó mucho este cuento, tal vez por la pausa que me dio en la lectura sobre otros relatos más crueles. Pero hay que leerlos. Amantes de los cuentos de sombras, del género del horror van a gustar mucho este libro.
Además, el libro ofrece a todos que se derritan ante una frase bien hecha la música de sus oraciones y su precisión ¿Y quien no va a deleitar la celebración de eros que se encuentra en algunas de las narraciones?
Para cerrar estos breves comentarios me gustaría mencionar el cuento Siebenburgen. No he leído una historia tan mágica en bastante tiempo. Me traslado a mi niñez y a la primera vez que escuché el relato del flautista de Hamlin. Ahora, gracias a Loyola, sé que fue a Siebenburgen que el flautista se llevó a 130 niños. Les invito a hacer fila detrás del escritor Loyola. Su música es dulce, sus ritmos hechizantes. En cuanto a lo que va a suceder en esa ciudad escondida en las montañas de Perú…les dejo esta búsqueda de Batanero.
.
Saturday, May 2, 2009
Sympathy: A Poem
Sympathy
Besieged on all sides,
I have sea and death
on all sides. I don’t have
water to drink, just salt slicks,
not rice or dhal, nothing,
bombs and bullets, I am
unhappy, my son killed,
and you watching me
with sympathetic stares,
a black body in a loin cloth,
whites of eyes swinging
about my head, and I hear
wailing from other beds
and see doctors trying
to heal oozing wounds
and now earth blasted
a huge hole, a chance to run,
to what after life ?
How long will I need
to regain my calm
when cousins abroad
say even modern
life in the west
offers only guilty
cups of tea and
unbearable sympathy
from neighbors ?
Indran Amirthanayagam c) 2009
Besieged on all sides,
I have sea and death
on all sides. I don’t have
water to drink, just salt slicks,
not rice or dhal, nothing,
bombs and bullets, I am
unhappy, my son killed,
and you watching me
with sympathetic stares,
a black body in a loin cloth,
whites of eyes swinging
about my head, and I hear
wailing from other beds
and see doctors trying
to heal oozing wounds
and now earth blasted
a huge hole, a chance to run,
to what after life ?
How long will I need
to regain my calm
when cousins abroad
say even modern
life in the west
offers only guilty
cups of tea and
unbearable sympathy
from neighbors ?
Indran Amirthanayagam c) 2009
Wednesday, April 8, 2009
Green Couch by Edward Hirsch
"Green Couch"
Sofa Verde
By Edward Hirsch
That was the year I lived without fiction
and slept surrounded by books on the unconscious.
I woke every morning to a sturdy brown oak.
Ese fue el año que vivi sin ficción
y me dormí en medio de libros sobre el subconsciente.
Me desperté cada mañana ante un roble fuerte y marrón.
That was the year I left behind my marriage
of twenty-eight years, my faded philosophy books, and
the green couch I had inherited from my grandmother.
Ese fue el año que deje atrás mi matrimonio
de 28 años, mis libros gastados de filosofía, y
el sofá verde que había heredado de mi abuela.
After she died, I drove it across the country
and carried it up three flights of crooked stairs
to a tiny apartment in west Philadelphia,
Después de su muerte, lo conduje a través del país
y lo subí tres pisos de escalera enredada
a un departamento pequeño en West Philadephia,
and stored it in my in-laws' basement in Bethesda,
and left it to molder in our garage in Detroit
(my friend Dennis rescued it for his living room),
y lo deposité en el sótano de la casa de mis suegros
en Bethesda y lo deje pudrir en nuestro garaje en Detroit
(mi amigo Dennis lo rescató para su living)
and moved it to a second-floor study in Houston
and a fifth-floor apartment on the Upper West Side
where it will now be carted away to the dump.
y lo mudé a un estudio en el segundo piso en Houston
y un departamento del quinto piso en el Upper West Side
donde ahora será llevado a la basura.
All my difficult reading took place on that couch,
which was turning back into the color of nature
while I grappled with ethics and the law,
Todo mi lectura dificil sucedió en ese sofá,
que volvía al color de la naturaleza
mientras yo luchaba con ética y el derecho,
the reasons for Reason, Being and Nothingness,
existential dread and the death of God
(I'm still angry at Him for no longer existing).
las razones para la Razón, Ser y la Nada,
el temor existencial y la muerte de Dios
(todavía me enojo con el por no existir).
That was the year that I finally mourned
for my two dead fathers, my sole marriage,
and the electric green couch of my past.
Ese fue el año que lamenté finalmente
por mis dos padres muertos, mi matrimonio único,
y el sofá verde eléctrico de mi pasado.
Darlings, I remember everything.
But now I try to speak the language
ofthe unconscious and study earth for secrets.
Queridos, me acuerdo de todo.
Pero ahora intentaré hablar el idioma
del subconsciente y estudiar la tierra por sus secretos.
I go back and forth to work.
I walk in the botanical gardens on weekends
and take a narrow green path to the clearing.
Voy y vuelvo del trabajo.
Camino en los jardines botánicos los fines de semana
en un sendero verde hacia el claro.
--traduccion Indran Amirthanayagam
Sofa Verde
By Edward Hirsch
That was the year I lived without fiction
and slept surrounded by books on the unconscious.
I woke every morning to a sturdy brown oak.
Ese fue el año que vivi sin ficción
y me dormí en medio de libros sobre el subconsciente.
Me desperté cada mañana ante un roble fuerte y marrón.
That was the year I left behind my marriage
of twenty-eight years, my faded philosophy books, and
the green couch I had inherited from my grandmother.
Ese fue el año que deje atrás mi matrimonio
de 28 años, mis libros gastados de filosofía, y
el sofá verde que había heredado de mi abuela.
After she died, I drove it across the country
and carried it up three flights of crooked stairs
to a tiny apartment in west Philadelphia,
Después de su muerte, lo conduje a través del país
y lo subí tres pisos de escalera enredada
a un departamento pequeño en West Philadephia,
and stored it in my in-laws' basement in Bethesda,
and left it to molder in our garage in Detroit
(my friend Dennis rescued it for his living room),
y lo deposité en el sótano de la casa de mis suegros
en Bethesda y lo deje pudrir en nuestro garaje en Detroit
(mi amigo Dennis lo rescató para su living)
and moved it to a second-floor study in Houston
and a fifth-floor apartment on the Upper West Side
where it will now be carted away to the dump.
y lo mudé a un estudio en el segundo piso en Houston
y un departamento del quinto piso en el Upper West Side
donde ahora será llevado a la basura.
All my difficult reading took place on that couch,
which was turning back into the color of nature
while I grappled with ethics and the law,
Todo mi lectura dificil sucedió en ese sofá,
que volvía al color de la naturaleza
mientras yo luchaba con ética y el derecho,
the reasons for Reason, Being and Nothingness,
existential dread and the death of God
(I'm still angry at Him for no longer existing).
las razones para la Razón, Ser y la Nada,
el temor existencial y la muerte de Dios
(todavía me enojo con el por no existir).
That was the year that I finally mourned
for my two dead fathers, my sole marriage,
and the electric green couch of my past.
Ese fue el año que lamenté finalmente
por mis dos padres muertos, mi matrimonio único,
y el sofá verde eléctrico de mi pasado.
Darlings, I remember everything.
But now I try to speak the language
ofthe unconscious and study earth for secrets.
Queridos, me acuerdo de todo.
Pero ahora intentaré hablar el idioma
del subconsciente y estudiar la tierra por sus secretos.
I go back and forth to work.
I walk in the botanical gardens on weekends
and take a narrow green path to the clearing.
Voy y vuelvo del trabajo.
Camino en los jardines botánicos los fines de semana
en un sendero verde hacia el claro.
--traduccion Indran Amirthanayagam
Saturday, March 28, 2009
PILL FOR AN ISLAND
The war in Sri Lanka has lasted more than 25 years. I wrote this poem in 2006, after visiting New York, another beloved residence on earth.
PILL FOR AN ISLAND
I did not visit the Black Pussycat,
or the Fat Flounder, even Macy’s
on 34th Street. I left the Back Fence
for another return. I must devote
myself to compressing the city
into a compact, multi-purpose
pill to pop on those occasions
far away on Ceylon’s East Coast
where the blue-green jeweled
sea—turned nut brown, in the wake
of the tsunami--witnesses again
patrol boats and small arms fire,
lobbed grenades and thatch explosions,
rapes of social workers and hundreds
upon hundreds upon thousands
in flight from their villages.
War has returned to the hamlets,
coves and palm-fronded taverns,
and in New York those towers
of Ilium vanished, my two islands
united in the global accounting
of war and war’s alarms,
everybody bruised, jaded and afraid
waiting for the Messiah or the flames.
Indran Amirthanayagam c)2009
PILL FOR AN ISLAND
I did not visit the Black Pussycat,
or the Fat Flounder, even Macy’s
on 34th Street. I left the Back Fence
for another return. I must devote
myself to compressing the city
into a compact, multi-purpose
pill to pop on those occasions
far away on Ceylon’s East Coast
where the blue-green jeweled
sea—turned nut brown, in the wake
of the tsunami--witnesses again
patrol boats and small arms fire,
lobbed grenades and thatch explosions,
rapes of social workers and hundreds
upon hundreds upon thousands
in flight from their villages.
War has returned to the hamlets,
coves and palm-fronded taverns,
and in New York those towers
of Ilium vanished, my two islands
united in the global accounting
of war and war’s alarms,
everybody bruised, jaded and afraid
waiting for the Messiah or the flames.
Indran Amirthanayagam c)2009
Friday, March 6, 2009
Victory and Defeat
Let us throw these words,
victory and defeat,
into the dustbin.
Mastering illusion
is the only way out
of the maize. Learn
the art of mapmaking.
Find your own way out of hell.
Use gods and preachers.
Use poetry. But do not listen
to rants of those who say
victory is close at hand, around
the corner, one bomb away.
--IA 3/6/2009
victory and defeat,
into the dustbin.
Mastering illusion
is the only way out
of the maize. Learn
the art of mapmaking.
Find your own way out of hell.
Use gods and preachers.
Use poetry. But do not listen
to rants of those who say
victory is close at hand, around
the corner, one bomb away.
--IA 3/6/2009
Monday, February 16, 2009
Hablando con Ernesto Cardenal
Hoy el 16 de febrero fui a ver el Maestro Cardenal en el Centro Nicaraguense de Escritores. Platicamos de la guerra civil en sri lanka y en particular los muertos y las heridas que han sufrido los civiles atrapados entre el ejercito srilankes y los tigres tamiles. Tambien platicamos de la condena judicial que ha sufrido el Maestro. Lo encontre bien de salud y fuerte como un chacal y de buena voz. Manana en Granada los poetas del mundo y los poetas nicaraguenses se reuniran para escucharlo.
Friday, January 30, 2009
SRI LANKA: WAR AND SUFFERING
As I write more than 250,000 civilians are trapped in jungle near Mullaitivu,. They have little food, water and medicine. They are being injured and killed. They need help. Please speak to your representatives, write letters to your editors, insist that their plight be reviewed by the UN Security Council. Harming innocents is not a matter of internal security or civil war to be left to the warring parties in the Sri Lankan conflict. We must not be quiet. Let us make a lot of noise. Let us make the bombers accountable to us. Let us try to save a few lives. Indran
Saturday, January 24, 2009
To The Courts, In Remorse
Drop all charges
against
Tissanaiyagam.
his glaucoma
needs treatment
and his wife
will be grateful,
…and the Dean
of the Diplomatic
Corps will feel
less inclined
to speak
at public
acts of grievance.
I agree
we must not
interfere
with funerals.
leaves a bitter
taste on
the BBC’s tongue.
Inevitably
advisors
will counsel
banning that
Commonwealth
voice.
Yet, then
we must cope
with reporters
in disguise,
especially
these pesky
bloggers
who feel
empowered
to write
what they see
and hear
taste and
touch
as if witness
can make
bread out
of flour
or yams
sprout
in a
mineswept
Vanni.
And let me
not forget
the political
analysts
who worry
in public
that a failed
state will
be our cup
of tea.
I trust
you will
still drink
our fabled
single
leaf
beverage
and visit
our white
sand,
black
sand,
red
sand,
blue
sand
beaches.
-- Indran Amirthanayagam c) 2009
against
Tissanaiyagam.
his glaucoma
needs treatment
and his wife
will be grateful,
…and the Dean
of the Diplomatic
Corps will feel
less inclined
to speak
at public
acts of grievance.
I agree
we must not
interfere
with funerals.
leaves a bitter
taste on
the BBC’s tongue.
Inevitably
advisors
will counsel
banning that
Commonwealth
voice.
Yet, then
we must cope
with reporters
in disguise,
especially
these pesky
bloggers
who feel
empowered
to write
what they see
and hear
taste and
touch
as if witness
can make
bread out
of flour
or yams
sprout
in a
mineswept
Vanni.
And let me
not forget
the political
analysts
who worry
in public
that a failed
state will
be our cup
of tea.
I trust
you will
still drink
our fabled
single
leaf
beverage
and visit
our white
sand,
black
sand,
red
sand,
blue
sand
beaches.
-- Indran Amirthanayagam c) 2009
Sunday, January 18, 2009
ON SERVICE, MARTIN LUTHER KING DAY JANUARY 19TH, 2009
“We’ve got to make this world a better place”, the song says. Today we are following the instructions. “I know we can make it. I know darn well”. Here we are making order, making peace. Here we are preparing the house for the invited guests. Tomorrow a new family will occupy the White House. Tomorrow a poet will read to the nation and the world on the Capitol steps. Tomorrow we will return to our lives changed, empowered, moving ahead with confidence.
“We are on earth a little space/to learn to bear the beams of love,” Blake wrote. “Raise high the roofbeams, Carpenter” Salinger told us. Let us raise our arms, friends. Our hearts. We have a garden. It needs water, fruit rinds, tubers, onion peels. And there is a copse nearby. Let that copse alone. Let us live in harmony with other fish ambling about on land. Let us glide, swim, waddle, and walk to walk; throw the car keys into the back drawer.
We shall move ahead with confidence. But let us not forget the errors made in our name. Let us set up a vigil at Constitution Avenue, at the Lincoln Memorial. Let us take back our streets.
First Street: a pact, friends.
Here are the details. Love our neighbor, whether human, fish, bird, worm, scorpion.
Love winds, sky, oceans. Let us learn how to recycle, how to cut down, trim. Let us bonsai our lives, rock garden them and put a pool in the middle. Let us adopt the Mexican custom of a fountain in every home.
Second Street:
Let us cross the borders, tackle difficult, painful wars that murder our spirit. Let us not be silent before them even if our only recourses are the letter to the editor and the vote. Let us not underestimate the power of that vote.
Third Street:
Care for our families. Inscribe the kids into Model UN. Read a poem a day. Say prayers. Sing. Dance for no particular reason and don’t always go to bed at 10. Set up patterns. Then muddy them up. Teach the children to live in the grey areas, to breathe powerfully and straight into the fog and darkness so their breaths will clear the way.
Fourth Street:
Love your neighbor. Cross over the Falls Road. Into Soweto. Downtown East Side. Remove the gates, friends, to the gated communities. Install electronic sensors instead. Yet, how can one tell the movement of one who does not belong, who comes to rob and pillage? Not easy ….Security in the midst of prosperity and poverty. Haves and Have nots. But let’s work to fashioning a world that runs on the word, the bond of man, the trust of Abel in his brother even if Abel will, and must, be killed.
Fifth Street….and I will stop here. There are five acts in the tragedy, in the comedy as well
I have cited Blake already on the beams of love. How about Ginsberg?
Hey Father Death,
I'm flying home
Hey poor man,
you're all alone
Hey old daddy,
I know where I'm going
Where are we going? What is the fifth street or the fiftieth? I am scared but am not yet straight. I am scared but I am taking omega 3, bitter melon and milk thistle. I am scared but I am in love. I am scared but I have my health and a healthy imagination. I am scared but I have a job. And I am grateful. Today I give thanks to Martin Luther King. To my friends. To this evening before the new morning in the United States, everywhere.
--Indran Amirthanayagam c)2009
“We are on earth a little space/to learn to bear the beams of love,” Blake wrote. “Raise high the roofbeams, Carpenter” Salinger told us. Let us raise our arms, friends. Our hearts. We have a garden. It needs water, fruit rinds, tubers, onion peels. And there is a copse nearby. Let that copse alone. Let us live in harmony with other fish ambling about on land. Let us glide, swim, waddle, and walk to walk; throw the car keys into the back drawer.
We shall move ahead with confidence. But let us not forget the errors made in our name. Let us set up a vigil at Constitution Avenue, at the Lincoln Memorial. Let us take back our streets.
First Street: a pact, friends.
Here are the details. Love our neighbor, whether human, fish, bird, worm, scorpion.
Love winds, sky, oceans. Let us learn how to recycle, how to cut down, trim. Let us bonsai our lives, rock garden them and put a pool in the middle. Let us adopt the Mexican custom of a fountain in every home.
Second Street:
Let us cross the borders, tackle difficult, painful wars that murder our spirit. Let us not be silent before them even if our only recourses are the letter to the editor and the vote. Let us not underestimate the power of that vote.
Third Street:
Care for our families. Inscribe the kids into Model UN. Read a poem a day. Say prayers. Sing. Dance for no particular reason and don’t always go to bed at 10. Set up patterns. Then muddy them up. Teach the children to live in the grey areas, to breathe powerfully and straight into the fog and darkness so their breaths will clear the way.
Fourth Street:
Love your neighbor. Cross over the Falls Road. Into Soweto. Downtown East Side. Remove the gates, friends, to the gated communities. Install electronic sensors instead. Yet, how can one tell the movement of one who does not belong, who comes to rob and pillage? Not easy ….Security in the midst of prosperity and poverty. Haves and Have nots. But let’s work to fashioning a world that runs on the word, the bond of man, the trust of Abel in his brother even if Abel will, and must, be killed.
Fifth Street….and I will stop here. There are five acts in the tragedy, in the comedy as well
I have cited Blake already on the beams of love. How about Ginsberg?
Hey Father Death,
I'm flying home
Hey poor man,
you're all alone
Hey old daddy,
I know where I'm going
Where are we going? What is the fifth street or the fiftieth? I am scared but am not yet straight. I am scared but I am taking omega 3, bitter melon and milk thistle. I am scared but I am in love. I am scared but I have my health and a healthy imagination. I am scared but I have a job. And I am grateful. Today I give thanks to Martin Luther King. To my friends. To this evening before the new morning in the United States, everywhere.
--Indran Amirthanayagam c)2009
Monday, January 12, 2009
One Of Us (Lasantha Wickrematunge)
One of Us
During civilized periods
in the history of kingdoms
courtiers, or the king’s
person himself,
in audience
with the gadfly,
would offer the fellow
death or exile.
These days
assassins
butcher their fly
in daylight
near security
checkpoints
in front of
bewildered subjects.
My Lord,
Dutugemunu,
slayer of wild beasts
in northern
jungles, why must
we kill brother
Lasantha, shed
our own blood?
-- Indran Amirthanayagam, January 11, 2009
During civilized periods
in the history of kingdoms
courtiers, or the king’s
person himself,
in audience
with the gadfly,
would offer the fellow
death or exile.
These days
assassins
butcher their fly
in daylight
near security
checkpoints
in front of
bewildered subjects.
My Lord,
Dutugemunu,
slayer of wild beasts
in northern
jungles, why must
we kill brother
Lasantha, shed
our own blood?
-- Indran Amirthanayagam, January 11, 2009
Sunday, January 11, 2009
On LOVE MARRIAGE by V.V. Ganeshananthan
I write rarely about novels in this space dedicated to poetry. But once in a while I am moved to break the unnecessary chains and comment about strong new writing produced in prose in the Sri Lankan or Ceylonese diaspora. VV Ganeshananthan’s first novel Love Marriage is a brave and comprehensive work that mixes personal and political, national and international, diaspora and village, into a compelling story of Sri Lankan Tamils and their dilemmas, strangers in strange lands, expelled from home, trying in some cases to get back to their birthplaces.
Exile is the modern condition. We all seem to come from abroad. Meanwhile, Rimbaud noted that life is elsewhere. I read Ganeshananthan’s novel in a checkered manner, impressed by the powerful stories, interrupted by news from the island. I read Roma Tearne’s Mosquito in the same way. Sri Lankan stories get under my skin, bother my heart and sometimes work like a poison leading to literary paralysis.
What can one say about the unrelenting horror that the island has lived for more than 25 years, 50 if one goes back to the Sinhala Only Act of 1956 that began the disintegration of the calm, sea-bathing polity inherited in 1948. Now, I exaggerate. There have always been disputes and of course inequities. But short sighted policies to gain votes have come back to haunt the island like those horsemen of the apocalypse described powerfully by Tarzi Vittachi in Emergency 58. At least at that time, journalists were spared bullets or knives.
Now, all is changed. The recent murder of Lasantha Wickrematunge, editor of the Sunday Leader, confirms the disintegration of the polity into a chaos where life is nasty, brutish and short, where the rule of law should be renamed the rule of thugs.
In this context—and when is the right moment—to talk about imaginative literature, work that will have a shelf life beyond the particular murders and abuses in the daily political sphere? Of course, Ganeshananthan is also a journalist, a truth teller, which adds another layer of interest for readers of her novel.
So what are the truths revealed in this fiction? I invite readers to examine the novel, to engage its partial truths--Ganeshananthan creates a great variety of powerful and opinionated characters—and to reflect on the correspondences between their lives and the lives of her characters. I am not reviewing the novel here, assessing its merits as fiction or history. My view, in any case, would be shaped by my own prejudices. Yet in the end—to avoid the paralysis of not opining at all, which would be a silly conclusion to the problem of literary or, for that matter, journalistic impartiality—I say here unequivocally that my antennae are dancing thrilled with this novel
I leave you as a teaser with some passages from the novel:
“What he means is this: it would be false to say that there is a beginning to the story, or a middle, or an end. Those words have a tidiness that does not belong here. Our lives are not clean. They begin without fanfare and end without warning. This story does not have a defined shape or a pleasant arc. To record it differently would not be true.”
“To read the story in the press is to read a story that has never gone far enough.”
“Like almos every member of his family, my great-uncle eventually left Sri Lanka. There was nothing else to do.”
“Tamil has two hundred and forty-seven letters. When I was five years old, I could recite about half of them. I could speak Tamil and understand it. But as I got older, I forgot the words. I do not remember how this happened. Sometimes when I dream, I dream in Tamil. But when I wake up I never remember the words. It is like remembering a fever, or a blessing.”
Exile is the modern condition. We all seem to come from abroad. Meanwhile, Rimbaud noted that life is elsewhere. I read Ganeshananthan’s novel in a checkered manner, impressed by the powerful stories, interrupted by news from the island. I read Roma Tearne’s Mosquito in the same way. Sri Lankan stories get under my skin, bother my heart and sometimes work like a poison leading to literary paralysis.
What can one say about the unrelenting horror that the island has lived for more than 25 years, 50 if one goes back to the Sinhala Only Act of 1956 that began the disintegration of the calm, sea-bathing polity inherited in 1948. Now, I exaggerate. There have always been disputes and of course inequities. But short sighted policies to gain votes have come back to haunt the island like those horsemen of the apocalypse described powerfully by Tarzi Vittachi in Emergency 58. At least at that time, journalists were spared bullets or knives.
Now, all is changed. The recent murder of Lasantha Wickrematunge, editor of the Sunday Leader, confirms the disintegration of the polity into a chaos where life is nasty, brutish and short, where the rule of law should be renamed the rule of thugs.
In this context—and when is the right moment—to talk about imaginative literature, work that will have a shelf life beyond the particular murders and abuses in the daily political sphere? Of course, Ganeshananthan is also a journalist, a truth teller, which adds another layer of interest for readers of her novel.
So what are the truths revealed in this fiction? I invite readers to examine the novel, to engage its partial truths--Ganeshananthan creates a great variety of powerful and opinionated characters—and to reflect on the correspondences between their lives and the lives of her characters. I am not reviewing the novel here, assessing its merits as fiction or history. My view, in any case, would be shaped by my own prejudices. Yet in the end—to avoid the paralysis of not opining at all, which would be a silly conclusion to the problem of literary or, for that matter, journalistic impartiality—I say here unequivocally that my antennae are dancing thrilled with this novel
I leave you as a teaser with some passages from the novel:
“What he means is this: it would be false to say that there is a beginning to the story, or a middle, or an end. Those words have a tidiness that does not belong here. Our lives are not clean. They begin without fanfare and end without warning. This story does not have a defined shape or a pleasant arc. To record it differently would not be true.”
“To read the story in the press is to read a story that has never gone far enough.”
“Like almos every member of his family, my great-uncle eventually left Sri Lanka. There was nothing else to do.”
“Tamil has two hundred and forty-seven letters. When I was five years old, I could recite about half of them. I could speak Tamil and understand it. But as I got older, I forgot the words. I do not remember how this happened. Sometimes when I dream, I dream in Tamil. But when I wake up I never remember the words. It is like remembering a fever, or a blessing.”
Tuesday, January 6, 2009
INAUGURATION
INAUGURATION
I have no words
to compete
with rain
or sunlight,
or the brush
of your hair
on my brow.
I am humbled
before beauty
and this chance
to lead a nation
out of delusion
with self and others;
but I remain unelected,
acknowledged only
by a few readers
of psychosis,
the notion that word
becomes flesh,
we accept by rote,
at Mass,
a divine mystery,
but ignore the man
on a soapbox
who reads his ya yahs
out at the Bowery
Poetry Café
on Sunday morning
at 9 am during
a marathon reading
to welcome the year,
to say, World,
you’ve still got poets
to kick around. Bring
on the go-go girls,
mountebanks, acrobats.
The show is everything.
Let’s say hurrah for all
that jazz. The inauguration
will be like no other.
Time moves the chariot
up Pennsylvania Avenue.
Get your dreams on board,
children well strapped, save
room for seedlings in pots,
germs, a fish tank; ‘though
this is no ark, here hope
will take root or expire.
Indran Amirthanayagam c) 2009
I have no words
to compete
with rain
or sunlight,
or the brush
of your hair
on my brow.
I am humbled
before beauty
and this chance
to lead a nation
out of delusion
with self and others;
but I remain unelected,
acknowledged only
by a few readers
of psychosis,
the notion that word
becomes flesh,
we accept by rote,
at Mass,
a divine mystery,
but ignore the man
on a soapbox
who reads his ya yahs
out at the Bowery
Poetry Café
on Sunday morning
at 9 am during
a marathon reading
to welcome the year,
to say, World,
you’ve still got poets
to kick around. Bring
on the go-go girls,
mountebanks, acrobats.
The show is everything.
Let’s say hurrah for all
that jazz. The inauguration
will be like no other.
Time moves the chariot
up Pennsylvania Avenue.
Get your dreams on board,
children well strapped, save
room for seedlings in pots,
germs, a fish tank; ‘though
this is no ark, here hope
will take root or expire.
Indran Amirthanayagam c) 2009
Saturday, December 27, 2008
FOURTH ANNIVERSARY OF THE TSUNAMI
Do you remember the tsunami? Where were you that day?
Did you run from the wave? Did you run from your television?
Every morning brings a new reason to move ahead, to stuff memories further into the back of the drawer.
So why did I compose The Splintered Face: Tsunami Poems?
I wrote the book because I had run out of options. The wave brought my island home to me on the television screen. I had to meet my Maker, the one who assigned me some talent in making metaphors.
It was time to exercise the fingers of my heart, to write poems.
Did you run from the wave? Did you run from your television?
Every morning brings a new reason to move ahead, to stuff memories further into the back of the drawer.
So why did I compose The Splintered Face: Tsunami Poems?
I wrote the book because I had run out of options. The wave brought my island home to me on the television screen. I had to meet my Maker, the one who assigned me some talent in making metaphors.
It was time to exercise the fingers of my heart, to write poems.
Tuesday, December 16, 2008
ON JOSÉ GARCIA VILLA
ON JOSÉ GARCIA VILLA
Discovering Jose Garcia Villa’s poetry, thanks to a new collection, introduced by Luis Francia , has been one of my most exceeding joys in recent weeks. Garcia Villa is a poet who exceeds, playing with grammatical preconceptions, forcing us to see, hear and dance the word by itself, and then beside, the next performer in the sentence.
45
A, bee,flying,to, the,end,of,the,world,
To,find,one,flower,wherein,to,lie,curled,
Is,a,fiction,is,a,lie,
That,will,keep,God,in,the,sky.
This is one of more than 50 aphorisms in the suite Aphorisms I,. I am taken to Mondrian and Broadway, Boogie Woogie, to the intense blue color cut-outs of the late Matisse. I think of New York, city of the future, spiraling skyscrapers of glass, to dreamscapes of social light-splashed optimism, not the dark metropolis of Fritz Lang at all.
47
Throwing, diamonds, to,peacocks,
Is,a,philosopher’s,prodigality.
6
A,genius,is,he
That,can,make,
Portable,pyramids
Some background : I have perused Doveglion : Collected Poems for several weeks. I steal five minutes a day to read a poem. I read it furtively. Who is this Philipino modernist, Francisco O’Hara travelling rhetorical streets armed with commas, periods and a gift for word music ? Why does he spin connundrums in the Village ?
I knew Luis had studied with him. But I was too young then to understand the gift that Garcia Villa had bequeathed my friend. I know how to name that gift now. I see it in Luis’ poetry as well.
How shall I call it ? Build maizes with words to ensure that ideas and metaphors get a good workout on the way to the center of the garden where damsels wait,
where aproned chefs serve a plentiful feast of sticky rice and roasted pig.
Delight, complicate and celebrate the gurgling at the heart of the brook, that cascades down the page.
One can’t tell a poem, like a story, from beginning to end. Yet, one can, silly maker of precepts. One can turn the story around as well. We have seen the horror, my friends. We live in the post-post-post epoch. Yet, we fall in love as if love has not taken a bow before and we play with words as if they are the first meteorites crashing into our earth.
I feel first love and heaven-gazing wonder reading Jose Garcia Villa. Although I do not know how often he ate plaintain leaves and sticky rice in the Village in the mid 20th century, I am confident his poems will be read with coffee or tea after any course in any country where English poetry is the currency.
Discovering Jose Garcia Villa’s poetry, thanks to a new collection, introduced by Luis Francia , has been one of my most exceeding joys in recent weeks. Garcia Villa is a poet who exceeds, playing with grammatical preconceptions, forcing us to see, hear and dance the word by itself, and then beside, the next performer in the sentence.
45
A, bee,flying,to, the,end,of,the,world,
To,find,one,flower,wherein,to,lie,curled,
Is,a,fiction,is,a,lie,
That,will,keep,God,in,the,sky.
This is one of more than 50 aphorisms in the suite Aphorisms I,. I am taken to Mondrian and Broadway, Boogie Woogie, to the intense blue color cut-outs of the late Matisse. I think of New York, city of the future, spiraling skyscrapers of glass, to dreamscapes of social light-splashed optimism, not the dark metropolis of Fritz Lang at all.
47
Throwing, diamonds, to,peacocks,
Is,a,philosopher’s,prodigality.
6
A,genius,is,he
That,can,make,
Portable,pyramids
Some background : I have perused Doveglion : Collected Poems for several weeks. I steal five minutes a day to read a poem. I read it furtively. Who is this Philipino modernist, Francisco O’Hara travelling rhetorical streets armed with commas, periods and a gift for word music ? Why does he spin connundrums in the Village ?
I knew Luis had studied with him. But I was too young then to understand the gift that Garcia Villa had bequeathed my friend. I know how to name that gift now. I see it in Luis’ poetry as well.
How shall I call it ? Build maizes with words to ensure that ideas and metaphors get a good workout on the way to the center of the garden where damsels wait,
where aproned chefs serve a plentiful feast of sticky rice and roasted pig.
Delight, complicate and celebrate the gurgling at the heart of the brook, that cascades down the page.
One can’t tell a poem, like a story, from beginning to end. Yet, one can, silly maker of precepts. One can turn the story around as well. We have seen the horror, my friends. We live in the post-post-post epoch. Yet, we fall in love as if love has not taken a bow before and we play with words as if they are the first meteorites crashing into our earth.
I feel first love and heaven-gazing wonder reading Jose Garcia Villa. Although I do not know how often he ate plaintain leaves and sticky rice in the Village in the mid 20th century, I am confident his poems will be read with coffee or tea after any course in any country where English poetry is the currency.
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