On the International Day of the Diplomat (Sobre el Dia Internacional del Diplomático)

On the International Day of the Diplomat, October 24, 2018

Sobre el Dia Internacional del Diplomático, 24 de Octubre, 2018

Encienda una vela el 24 de Octubre para honrar el Día Internacional del Diplomático. Coincide con el Dia de las Naciones Unidas, y un día después del aniversario del natalicio de mi padre que se fue hace 15 años. Era mi primer diplomático y poeta. Somos muchos a través del globo, representando a nuestros pueblos y culturas, llevando mensajes, suavizando sentimientos de pena y olvido, asegurando que el comercio siga de pie, negociando la paz después de años de guerra. Algunos entre nosotros son vestidos de smoking, sí, y comemos bocadillos en los cocteles, y otros en ropa de calle, escondidos, ayudan a encontrar a los asesinos de nuestros ciudadanos en países extranjeros. Suscribimos también la Declaración Universal de los Derechos Humanos y trabajamos en algunos casos bajo cielos hostiles donde nuestros papeles como representantes nos hace un blanco para quienes quieren destruir los lazos que nos unen a todos. Somos un mundo y una comunidad humana con una variedad deslumbrante, profunda y particular a cada uno, de la fé en Dios, Mujer u Hombre, en las libertades de expresión y de asamblea, el derecho de enterrar a nuestros muertos con dignidad y de dar la bienvenida a los nuevos miembros de la familia con pompa y honor.

Honremos a los ciudadanos de países que dan la bienvenida al viajero, al visitante, al residente a la vez temporal y permanente, este diplomático que comparte pan con ellos por dos, tres, cuatro o cinco años antes de abordar un avión, un auto, o aún un barco para irse. Llevamos nuestro pasado, presente y futuro en los momentos de llegada y partida. Y hoy pedimos a cada miembro de la familia humana, aún si no tiene un carnet del ministerio de asuntos extranjeros de su país, a levantar la copa en favor de la paz, de respetar las culturas del anfitrión y visitante. En Haiti, uno recibe al recién llegado diciendo onè, y él o ella responde respe.

Así que por favor honrar a su vecino, y él responderá, le respeto. Y si, suscribimos el principio de no meternos en los asuntos internos de los estados soberanos. Al mismo tiempo decimos que hay respeto y honor para la dignidad de cada residente de la tierra, y eso es transversal, y salta los límites impuestos por el seguimiento de aquel principio. Somos una comunidad y tenemos que afrontar la música y hacer música también. Hemos desarrollado maneras de resolver disputas. La diplomacia es clave para estos métodos alternativos y necesarios además de los tribunales tradicionales. Trabajamos detrás de la pantalla para asegurar que la rueda de vueltas trayéndonos, nuestras ideas y culturas, al otro lado de las fronteras, hacia la luz, hacia lo nuevo.

Indran Amirthanayagam, October 24, 2018.

Light a candle on October 24^th for the International Day of the Diplomat. It falls on United Nations Day, and one day after the birth anniversary of my father who passed 15 years ago. He was my first diplomat and poet. We are many throughout the globe, representing our peoples and cultures, passing messages, assuaging feelings of hurt and neglect, assuring that commerce continues to come and go, negotiating peace after years of war. Some of us are dressed in tails yes, and we even eat canapes at receptions, while others in plain clothes help find killers of our citizens in foreign lands. We also subscribe to the Universal Declaration of Human Rights and we work sometimes in hostile climes where our status as representative makes us a target for those who wish to break down the ties that bind all of us. We are one world and one human community with an amazing variety and depth and particularity of faith in God or Woman or Man, in freedoms of speech and assembly, the right to bury our dead with dignity and to welcome the new members of the family with pomp and honor.

Let us honor the citizens of countries who welcome the traveller, the visitor, and the temporary yet permanent resident who is the diplomat, breaking bread with them, for two, three, four or five years, then boarding a plane, a car, or even a ship to leave. We carry the past, the present and future in the moment of arrival and departure. And today we ask all members of the human family, even if you do not have a carnet from the local Ministry of Foreign Affairs, to raise your glass for peacemaking, for respecting the cultures of host and visitor. In Haiti, one greets the arrival saying onè and he or she answers respe.

So honor your neighbor, and he or she will reply, I respect you. And yes, we subscribe to the principle of non-interference in affairs of sovereign states. At the same time we say there is a transversal, cross-cutting honor and respect for the dignity of each resident on the planet. So we are a community and we have to face the music and make music as well. So we have developed ways

to resolve disputes. Diplomacy is key to alternative and necessary methods as well as the traditional courts. We work behind the scenes to assure the wheel turns bringing ourselves, our ideas and cultures, across border lines, into the light, into the new.

Indran Amirthanayagam, October 24, 2018.

#LIDERESEMPRENDEDORES con Amirthanayagam

Reginald Paul, R.I.P.

                         

 Reginald Paul, R.I.P.

We live with the comforts of landmarks, police station, bookstore,

hardware emporium,  the church of Saint Pierre and the plaza in front,

banks, supermarkets, shoe sellers, a neighborhood, Petionville,

but everywhere we go thieves ride along with us. They scout

us on the street corners, sitting on scooters as we leave cash

machine, bank, supermarket with our fine French bread.  

The pastor said it was his time.  What does he know

of  the inscrutable will? Why does a 15-year old daughter,

and a beautiful companion, celebrated in Haiti, parents, siblings,

friends, students--all the ties that bound him to the city--why

must we wrap ourselves now in the desolate shroud , untimely

grief. He taught English like a native. He rode his scooter to pick

me up one day in Morne Calvaire to go to a party at a friend’s

home. He failed to warn me about the muffler and I singed

myself that afternoon. The mark remains on my ankle, his words

yesterday when he said he could be better but only the recovery

remained, his brilliant exposition on the value of learning English

in today’s multi-lingual Haiti, that conversation we shared

on the radio two years ago,  these gifts, these fragments

sealed in memory by his soothing baritone, Reginald Paul,

the ancestors are lucky to have you now to themselves,

and we will carry on here as best we can, not forgetting

your gifts, preparing too for the next inscrutable loss,

and —why not--the joy of new life in the morning.

                        Indran Amirthanayagam, c) June 27, 2018

interview-with-poet-indran-amirthanayagam

https://tamilculture.com/at-home-in-the-world-an-interview-with-poet-indran-amirthanayagam

Poetry at the Port

Faking the Screen, a poem, Indran Amirthanayagam

Faking the Screen

Kneeling on the field or on the sidelines while the anthem

is played will generate a fine for your team.  But if you choose

to stay in the locker room, you will not bother the faithful

and your team will be spared a financial hardship. Not sure

how much money will be charged, and whether the pleasure

of acting freely is worth that cost. It is for you to decide,

as a team, because individual choices cannot be allowed

to disrupt the checked flow of the group,  offense driving

down the field, then defense running out to stop 

the opponent. That is football as it used to be played 

before somebody decided to kneel, thinking of black men 

mowed down in the street for walking in the wrong place, 

the wrong time.  America, when will you wake us up 

from this nightmare and serve the football to all 

your children? Run the play through a color-blind screen?

                Indran Amirthanayagam, c) May 23, 2018

Otra Iglesia Es Imposible: Indran Amirthanayagam / De los poemas a Paolo

Otra Iglesia Es Imposible: Indran Amirthanayagam / De los poemas a Paolo: Lectura: hojas del té Estuve distraído por la clasificación, y dejé los hijos abandonados, mi querida sin caricias, adem...

On Two Trains Running, Directed by Juliette Carrillo, Fichlander(Arena Stage) until April 29, 2018

On August Wilson's Two Trains Running. Directed by Juliette Carrillo. Fichlander (Arena Stage), until May 6, 2018

“There are always and only two trains running. There is life and there is death.” And as I write, every evening at Arena;s Fichlander Stage, a brilliant group of actors are getting on and getting off. They are the most compelling passengers I have come across in years of celebrating and crying about life depicted on the floorboards of those moving trains. Here, in the round, with pathos and irony, comedy and tragedy, life is given a circular thrashing, only to conclude in the manifestation of an emotional attitude, the one great playwrights have tackled before August Wilson, and will after he is gone, namely American optimism.

Death is everywhere, from the slow dying of restaurant and black Pittsburgh neighborhood where the drama takes place—to be gentrified, taken over first by the city--from an undertaker across the street who buries everybody sooner or later, who found a sure way of making a living after experimenting as a youth with numbers and other betting games. And we witness the potential for death, in handguns two characters sport at a moment in the play when the audience fears the worst, a cathartic murder, a suicide. And we have the ageless Aunt Esther off stage, 332 years old by one count, who defies death and who counsels those who seek her advice to throw twenty dollar bills into the river, and to keep doing so, until their wishes are realized.

The actors are excellent, seasoned, sure in delivery and convincing. Some are new to Washington stages, coming East from Seattle fiefdoms ( William Hall as West, Reginald Andre Jackson as Wolf). But all leave the audience wanting more and standing in ovation at the play's end—especially David Emerson Toney booming as Holloway.

And I should not mention actors without praising director Juliette Carrillo. The transitions she creates between scenes, giving each character a moment in the spotlight as he or she tussles with some deep-seated memory, accompanied by a harsh and relentless blues, to the sweet, Shakespearean romantic dance—think of Rosalind in As You Like It in that play's enchanted forest-- but here we are transported by a young man, fresh out of jail, and a beautiful girl who cut her legs in order to make herself ugly, and to escape the eyes of marauding men, dancing in a beaten-up, dying ember of a restaurant with only a few items left on the menu.

One of those items, if I may stretch the metaphor—one that informs the whole play—is dignity. What is Man's worth? How much should the city pay Memphis as compensation when he is kicked out? Memphis wants 25 thousand dollars, nothing less. West (played with marvelous cynicism by William Hall) at first offers fifteen, and then twenty, as long as he can use the restaurant as leverage in some other insurance schemes he is juggling. Memphis, will have none of it. Memphis had been stripped of land in the South by an ironic clause in the deed (he would lose rights to the property if he finds water). And how can a farmer manage without water? So Memphis, using his smarts, finds that water. And like a character suffering from Beckettian existence he is denied his rights as a result

So he moves North—compelled rather, as he has to escape some hard-arm tactics (with lynching implied)--and he sets up the restaurant which is now both insurance and manifestation of optimism. He will get his twenty five thousand he says, and he will go back South and reclaim the land that belonged once to him.

And Sterling will play the numbers Risa gives him, seven, eight and one, for seven lashes on her left leg and eight on her right and one in a place only she can know—Wilson is brilliant in coaxing out our laughter in the midst of harsh and bitter reality. Sterling will learn the location of that last cut. And he is lucky. The numbers are called. And he is a winner, along with a number of others in the neighborhood. So the issuer of the numbers—the white businessman off stage—decides to cut the winnings in half (invoking certainly some buried clause, like the one that denied Memphis his water). So what choice do the winners have? Accept half or go into the streets and shout (like supporters of Black Power and the late Malcolm X, which provides another theme, underlying this play, namely how will the black man re establish the dignity stripped of him in slavery.

But as I survey the lines of the seven characters in Two Trains Running I find myself at a loss about some basic terms in describing plays. I laughed a lot during the show, so much that I cried. Does that make this play a comedy with a bitter backbone? A tragic comedy? But nobody dies directly on stage. A comedy? A romance? Or maybe I should call it a bittersweet, romantic comedy with muted tragic elements.

These elements happen off stage—the assassination of Malcolm X, the chasing of Memphis from his land in the South, the death of Prophet Samuel, and the dying in sleep of Hambone. But on stage, we see characters surviving their moments in the desert, on the plank at sea, and somehow, with their resourcefulness or a combination of grits, intelligence and luck, they find a way back to the deck, out of the desert. They even find their love (Sterling and Risa), or get more than they expect from the city, a surprising Deux ex machina--thirty five thousand dollars--not twenty five, not a hidden clause that could lead to nothing, but thirty five thousand dollars. We know it will help Memphis retire. We know it won't be enough to satisfy the grandiose dreams he now hurls to the audience. Hambone has died without his ham. But Memphis says. “Risa, take this fifty dollars and get some flowers. Get him a big bunch. Put on there where it says who it's from ...say it's from everybody...everybody who ever dropped the ball and went back to pick it up. “ He then adds that when he gets back....if I get back from seeing Stoval (to reclaim the land he lost)...I'm gonna open me up a big restaurant right there on Centre Avenue/ I'm gonna need two or three cooks and seven or eight waitresses...”

Sterling enters the scene then “ carrying a large ham” as the directions state. And he says to Mr. West “ Say, Mr. West...that's for Hambone's casket.”

Hambone finally gets his ham, after nine and a half years of persistent effort, but only after he has died. He is given a dignified burial. And the flowers are from everybody who ever dropped the ball and went back to pick it up.

Congratulations, director, cast, crew, sound designer, and shapers of set, costume and lighting, and of course the playwright as well. Do not miss this production of Two Trains Running. Through April 29, 2018 in the Arena Stage's Fichlander theater.

--Indran Amirthanayagam (http://indranamirthanayagam.blogspot.com)

Momento Presente (The Present Moment), A Poem by Valda Fogaça

The Present Moment

It is the way people live.

It is the art of time.

The time of the people.

It is the stress of the moment,

and in the present

it is discomfort, neurosis

and pain ...Are we still happy?

Will we be glad, all of us,

poor people living this

atrocious life? Nothing offends

our eyes! In our silence

we live, woe unto us!

And in our faces

we trace smiles whether

the hour is tranquil

or tight; we bring

to our eyes our sceptical

laughter, our misguided guise

Valda Fogaça, translation Indran Amirthanayagam

 MOMENTO PRESENTE

O viver da gente

É a arte do tempo

E o tempo da gente

É o estresse do momento

E no momento presente

É dissabores, neurose e dores...

Ainda somos contentes!?

Contentes seremos todos nós...

Pobres viventes de vida atroz

Nada ofende seus olhos!

Calados vivemos, pobres de nós!

E na cara trazemos o sorriso

Hora frouxo hora apertado

Traremos nos olhos o

Ceticismo no riso

Guisa desacorçoado.

Valda Fogaça

Rebirth with Rankont Dout, a music album

I left Haiti with  an album of music in my bags. Called Rankont Dout, the music has now been released worldwide and I am deeply grateful to my fellow musicians, to the dear friends who inspired the poems, to Haiti which gave me to eat and drink and a bed to rest my head.  I invite you to listen, to tell your friends about the music and about Haiti, the island of my rebirth, its coconuts and mangoes striking in their resemblance to the ones I used to flesh and scoop in my native Ceylon. Ou vle vini ave m nan lach noe m? Do you want to come with me on my Noah's ark?

Some Notes on Rankont Dout

It means meeting in August, meeting with doubt, a meeting that takes place with the knowledge of parting, of a residence on earth ending. For this reason, the songs are full of nostalgia, and they are bittersweet. They note the impossibility of permanence. But they are also full of hope. In one song I write of a Noah's Ark and I ask the listener to come with me on my ark. In another I speak to myself, saying you are a Haitian. You write in our language. You love in our language. In another song I talk of the djonjon mushroom, which I came to love in the island. It adds a black ink to rice and a fine taste. So I talk of carrying djonjon in my suitcase (malet)....enough to last until my next return.

I wrote the songs fearing that I would have to say goodbye, that I could not take the island with me,...so ironically I have indeed taken it with me, in this music, these drums of Pawol Tanbou, the haunting piano of Donaldzie Theodore, the voice and guitar of Titi Congo, in the odd sounds such as the "hoo hoo hoo'" of the song 5 Kesyon Kle nan Dezod.( Five Key Questions for the Disorder). I am free. You are free. He is free. We are free. They are free. Why do you make such a ruckus?. Poukisa tout lobay sa a.?

I also write with wonder and irony. , Brezo means bow tie. I say with the money I will make from my book I will buy a new bow tie and take a taxi to the airport and take a flight to my childhood island to ask the elephants there if they still want to know why I left

I fall in love as well, Mo Maji. Magic Words. I say you know the magic words, simple and forceful, that eliminate dark clouds, and allow me to dance once more (danse anko)

There are songs too about the planet as an island, subject to missiles in the form of comets and asteroids....the apocalypse which also forms part of our consciousness along with the dream of paradise.

Here is a link to the music. 

https://apple.co/2Dsw3lL

Cheers