Copia

In the case where fear presses back
Through the air, where the torch has expired
On the orphan river,
In the forest, soulless and tired,
Under the anxious and faded trees,
In the wan woods, squalling trunks
Ululate without respite
Over the accursed tom-toms,
Black night! Black night!

Dans la case où la peur repasse

Dans l'air où la torche s'éteint,

Sur le fleuve orphelin

Dans la forêt sans âme et lasse

Sous les arbres inquiets et déteints,

Dans les bois obscurcis

Les trompes hurlent, hululent sans merci

Sur les tam-tams maudits,

Nuit noire ! Nuit noire !

I've watched the "Kony 2012" hype and the subsequent controversy with both amusement and bemusement, thought I've thought whatever comment I might have better kept to myself. I wasn't even paying much attention to the whole affair except for a few nuggets that would strike me, usually from when it was on the news my wife was watching in the other room. The first case was when I believe NBC said they would be sending a crew to Uganda to do some fact-checking on the story. That really annoyed me.

Here is a list just off head:

• Major unrest in Burkina Faso last year
• Ethno-religious strife in Nigeria's middle belt
• Al-Quaeda-inspired terrorism in Nigeria's North
• The Nigerian fuel subsidy removal unrest
• An oil spill by Shell almost as bad as the Deepwater Horizon disaster (in terms of environmental impact rather than barrels of oil)
• South Sudan's independence
• Eradication of Rhinderpest
• Famine in East Africa
• The arrest of Gbagbo in Côte d'Ivoire following the mayhem he caused after elections
• The election of Ellen Johnson Sirleaf in Liberia
• One of the most engaging African Cup of Nations competitions in my own memory (OK I had to throw that last bit in there).

So many compelling stories coming out of sub-saharan Africa, and it took a viral Youtube video to get NBC to send a crew to the continent.  Even if you were only interested in Uganda, the non-violent protests led by Besigye against Museveni alone were more newsworthy than "Kony 2012".

Now don't get me wrong. Joseph Kony and the LRA have been shocking and disgusting me for at least fifteen years, and of course I'd love to see him brought to justice, but the problem with Kony 2012 is that it perpetuates the approach of over-hype and lazy hyper-focus on one topic that has characterized so much popular Western attention on the continent. It's "Do they know it's Christmas time at all" all over again, and don't let me start on that unspeakable nonsense.

Anyway another snippet from the "Kony 2012" affair that struck me was the clip of the video's creator I half caught in which he was itching about some U.S. city street in the nude while muttering loudly. It instantly brought back a very powerful reminder of Birago Diop's short story, which Professor Willfried Feuser translated in his collection as "Sarzent the Madman." The "Sarzent" ("sergeant") of the story has returned from his military education in France loudly determined to "civilize" his home village. He becomes possessed by the spirits of his ancestors and goes around raving in poetry. I see the broader lesson of the story about the peril of insincerity couched in self-righteousness, especially when rooted in alien, Western values. That's certainly how the story struck me as a child, and in that wise I find the correspondence to this madness of Jason Russell extremely creepy. A friend of mine mentioned that it's as if the man was stricken by the Igbo deity Agwu Nsi.

Some of the ravings of Sarzan/Sarzent come from Diop's earlier poetry, including his lovely "Souffles" ("Breaths"):

Écoute plus souvent 

les choses que les êtres. 

La voix du feu s'entend, 

entends la voix de l'eau

écoute dans le vent

le buisson en sanglots.

I found the above video with the poem's recitation. I translate it thusly:

Listen more often
To things than to beings.
The fire's voice is heard,
Hear the voice of the water
Listen in the wind
To the bush a-sobbing.

I caught rumblings of the fuel subsidy removal affair while on my holiday travels, but only in the past few days have I gained a sense of just what a delicate moment in time this is for Nigeria.

  

Nigeria needs to keep to a formula based approach for determining fuel prices in the short term, while expediting actions in respect of putting in place a vibrant domestic refining industry.

This world glistens like a summer lamp saying open, open
In the time it takes to speak, everything could disappear.

What is that spark when you meet a friend, which crackles with instant recognition? And what is that spark multiplied like a moonless night sky's field of fireworks? It might be something like what I experienced at the Western Colorado Writers' Forum's annual conference in Grand Junction this past weekend.

I was introduced to the group by Wendy Videlock, who appeared on TNB Poetry at my behest and who then suggested I lead a workshop on submissions to online journals at the conference. I gave that workshop Saturday to a sharp, attentive group who had just heard María Meléndez's advice about submitting to print journals.

Earlier that morning I had encountered what this conference was really about, at heart.

What better place to call home
than this high desert cloud mesa wrong turn
rippling of the continental plates
before they slap down
fanning towards the Coast?

—from "The Wright Stuff" by Art Goodtimes

I woke up on the crisp, autumn morning to ride with Colorado Poet Laureate David Mason and his sweet, effervescent lover Cally Conan-Davies up Monument Canyon into the sort of jaw-dropping landscape that Colorado offers up to casually. There at the visitor center of the National Monument, a group of poets learned from Park Ranger Liz of the eventful geological and human history of the place, as well as present climate, flora and fauna. Fingers bit by the chill, we nevertheless scribbled scraps of what she said and what figments the vista inspired in us.

We then gathered in a room at the center where David Mason recited selections of poetry which exhibited rootedness to land.  He finished with Bristlecone Pine, his own poem written after visiting the oldest tree of that type in the Rocky Mountains; he started with:

We have no prairies 
To slice a big sun at evening  
Everywhere the eye concedes to  
Encroaching horizon, 

Is wooed into the cyclops' eye  
Of a tarn. Our unfenced country  
Is bog that keeps crusting 
Between the sights of the sun. 

They've taken the skeleton  
Of the Great Irish Elk 
out of the peat, set it up 
An astounding crate full of air.

—from "Bogland" by Seamus Heaney

I wrote a poem, "Parachuted," that seemed to emerge, great elk skeleton, from the dew-soaked sponge of my brain.  I also remembered that beginning of "Bogland" throughout the day, and when one of the organizers urged us to write and share weathergrams to post on Grand junction trees, "Bogland" wove into my offering.

I've since worked that weathergram into a tanka.

We have no tarn to

Mottle the copperplate face

Of rough entrada.

We've no black peat, dry fossil

Colorado, we repeat.

—untitled, by Uche

There were several fossil-marked rocks at the home of Danny Rosen, professional astronomer, director of the Western Sky Planetarium, poet, and host to a group of us. The first night Danny treated us to jaw-dropping views of the moon, Jupiter and its moons, The Pleiades, The Andromeda galaxy and more through his large telescope.  Friday evening I taught a couple of Igbo and Efik songs to Art Goodtimes, San Miguel County commissioner and Western Slope Poet Laureate and Rosemerry Trommer, runner, linguist, singer and proprietress of a large fruit orchard.  Rosemerry sang me a few Yoruba songs in turn. From there we joined the chat and debate at Danny's legendary poet's bonfire with Jack Mueller, Wendy, David and Cally.

It wasn’t the moon
that swooned me, but
the edge of the moon,
cratered and rough,
the shadow line
where substance ends
and space begins.

—from "After Watching the Moon through a Telescope Big as I" by Rosemerry Trommer

Plenary sessions were held in a lovely converted church with high, NBC peacock stained glass windows. Highlights included a poetry reading in which I took part, and offerings of words from elders. Saturday night, before the headlining presentation of Leslie Marmon Silko we had a bit of history from Ute elder Clifford Duncan. Sunday morning the conference closed with a series of reminiscences by elderly representatives of various cultures in the local Grand Valley: Hispanic, African American, Basque, Italian, Japanese, etc., as well as from a gentleman telling the history of geology, miners and military installations in the region. I was very impressed at the amount of time, attention and respect given over to those who have known that land the longest, and to their stories.

Maybe that is why we go on talking,
always trying to show someone we're here,
and look--I have a past just like you do,
a stream of words that fills the empty night
and sweetens troubled dreams, or so we hope,
and tells us not to linger long on bridges
staring at all the water passing by.

I thought my whole ambition was to make
the past and present come together, dreamed
into a vivid shape that memory
could hold the way the land possesses rivers.
They in turn possess the land and carry it
in one clear stream of thought to drink from
or water gardens with.

I learned that I must first talk to myself,
retelling stories, muttering a few
remembered lines of verse, to make the earth
substantial and to bring the sunlight back.

—from "The Country I Remember" by David Mason

Stories were how my long weekend began, as well as how it ended. I arrived at Wendy's household, met and had supper with her charming family, after which Wendy and I discussed lives and poetics, our own, and of others, into the night.  Then it was time to sleep, because in the morning Wendy was leading a workshop, "Totem Poems and the Subconscious Muse," which was my first writing workshop, an experience I approached warily because my remote impression of workshops had been rather dire.  On the day I enjoyed Wendy's approach, and was very impressed at the quality of poems written by participants. I wrote a couple of poems which seem worthy of further attention, including a leopard poem, which I'm always grateful to receive.

Only bone, like the shadow, knows
that lasting metaphors are born
of architects and alchemists,

of those who love the arch
and beam, and of the fleshy need
to leave and have something remain.

—from "In Praise of Form" by Wendy Videlock, from Nevertheless, Able Muse Press, 2011

Sandra Dorr was too busy running the show for me to have much opportunity to hear her poetry, so Desert Water was my first read this week of the many volumes I'd bought at the conference. In the way she switches from the telescope of landscape to the microscope of intimate personal detail, Sandra is like so many of the remarkable poets I met that weekend. Something very special is welling from the ground in Colorado, and I'm excited to be a part of it. I spent about a half hour with Sandra walking to lunch one of the days, and she told me of how she had gotten involved in local literary initiatives, pointing out the many points of artistic interest in the small town of Grand Junction. I have no doubt that her tireless efforts, and that of her collaborators at the WCWF, will continue to bear fruit, and that I'll always be of a mind to witness the resulting magic in person.

It has been a crazy past few months. Not only has the day job been running at a gallop, but it's been full-on on the family front and back-to-school and all that. No shortage of activity in my corner of the poetry department, either. I've been posting a lot of interesting work at TNB Poetry, and other have been publishing a gratifying run of my own poems.

Maenads are snarling their decree:
‘So who d'you think you are,’ they howl
‘To seal your bonnet from the bee?’
Those bouncers at the Muses’ hill
Take down attendance in their hall—
You’re conscript to the gathering
To rouse the skaldic clan again
With clinking roar of brannigan.
Yield bruckle skin to miching flea.

I've mentioned The Flea several times in Copia since I discovered it this year. I'm in the first place delighted to find a journal featuring the sort of witty and expressive poetry I love, and in the second place excited to have my own work in such brilliant poetry. In the same broadsheet are too many superb poets to list here, but I must give special mention to the contemporary Australian master Alan Gould. As for my own poem, I had a good deal of fun writing it specifically in response to the call for carouse-house poems to celebrate the anniversary. "Marry, this is miching mallecho; it means mischief"--Hamlet, III. ii. 146

Next my poem "Fortune of Chi" was published in Soundzine, with my recitation. The poem is fairly typical of the manuscript on which I've been working for a few months, with its dash of Biafra and undercurrent of Igbo cosmology, so it was great to place it in such a great journal.  An excerpt:

Some randomized permutation of genes
Spelled these very left and right brain cortices–
Spotlight nerves on sheer possibility;
Some Mendel melody conjured these eyes,
These muscles, grafted these veins under this skin;
I am too many pin-point faults to be
By design yet I crown my own life's fitness:
I am perfected fortune of my chi.

Close on the heels of "Fortune of Chi" came the appearance of "What Belief" in Lucid Rhythms. An excerpt:

I've stroked it while it gently weeps,
Caressed each trembling string,
Cranked up to weapons grade at times
I undertake to sing.

And yet I disappoint, I rip,
I charm a wicked scar;
Hot venom as the scorpion bows
To cantor de Ronsard.

If poetry and song provide
The island with a reef,
What heroes championing what gods
Are left to my belief?

And shortly afterwards my poem "Rhapsody On Q A" appeared in Red Fez., where it was classified as a villanelle but is actually a variant of the villanelle created by Lewis Turco and named the terzanelle. Lewis Turco then added "Rhapsody On Q A" to his exemplar list of terzanelles. An excerpt:

Light on temples, Nepal to Sri Lanka,
You glide, traveling soul, earth-bound fixed foot,
Each step mounting from base camp Casablanca,

From past-life luxury of Hatshepsut
To present serene, composed asana;

Last month I was selected to read at The Poetry in Motion Project at the Boulder Fringe Festival on the basis of my submitted poem "Cabeceo de Niwot." I recited that poem and another, "Run It!" to great response by the audience.

And mixed into all that I found time to write and record a spoken word piece flowing into an old school rap to celebrate TNB's 5th anniversary, and I also wrote a great deal of verse in the 2011 session of Heather Fowler's poetry marathon. I'll also be co-leading (with María Meléndez) a workshop on submissions at the Western Colorado Writers' Forum October 7th-9th in Grand Junction, Colorado, which should be a great time to meet many of my fellow Rocky Mountain poets, including Wendy Videlock, whom I've mentioned on Copia, and David Mason, Poet Laureate of Colorado.  Busy, busy times. Fun, fun times. And I'll have more to report soon, with poems forthcoming in The Flea (again), IthacaLit and The Raintown review.

On Monday, Valentines, my true love gave to me an Arsenal beer mug.  Here's what it looked like yesterday:

I'm featured on the TNB podcast this week, reading my piece "Bolder Barefoot."  The production is by Aaron M. Snyder and Megan DiLullo, and I don't know what I did to deserve such awesomeness.  They've made me sound very nice, if I do say so myself, and they've also injected a lot of character into the proceedings.  It's also up on iTunes.  If you're not subscribed to TNB on iTunes, you should be.

To belong? What's it mean? Is it creature of tense? Is it active or passive?
Is it cold set in bone, magma oozing to plate ocean floor, or explosive
Crackling reaction, plume clearing to flesh jacked into the massive?

...

Hussein's family had fled Iran in retreat from the Ayatollah muhajideen
But became the yard's only-good-one-is-a-dead-one once the hostage crisis went down.
Hussein had seen worse than punk clique kids.  He was like: "Bring that shit on!"

...

When your eyes learn to look beyond state, to peers beyond infinity,
Okigbo, Villon, Pound, Plath, sometimes you forget that misfit can grow to vanity.
I've come to grow into readiness for company, the scent and crinkled space of shared humanity.

I've revised the poem a bit since that recording, but it's nice to hear the audio so crisp.  Major props to Kimberly and her peeps at the event, and Megan and her peeps for the post-event production.  I don't think I've ever heard myself so clearly.

I say people, people come on and check it now
You see the mic in my hand now watch me wreck it now
What is a party if the crew ain't there?
(What's your name, kid?) Call me Guru; that's my man Premier
Now many attempts have been made to hold us back,
Slander the name and withhold facts.
But I'm the type of brother with much more game
I got a sure aim and if I find you're to blame,
You can bet you'll be exterminated, taken out, done.
It doesn't matter how many they'll go as easy as just one.
Bust one round in the air for this here
'Cause this year suckers are going nowhere,
'Cause my street style and intelligence level
Makes me much more than just an angry rebel.
I'm Gifted Unlimited Rhymes Universal
MCs that ain't equipped get flipped in my circle.
I'm aiming on raining on the bitch ass chumps
Cuz their rhymes don't flow and their beats don't pump;
And niggaz better know I've paid my dues and shit.
I'm 'bout to blow the fuck up because I refuse to quit.
I'm out to get the props that are rightfullly mine,
Yeah me and the crew think its about that time.
But on the DL you know that Gangstarr will conquer.
That's why you stare and point, and others cling on to
My Nautica, asking for a hook-up;
Well sorry but my schedule is all booked up.
Nobody put me on; I made it up the hard way;
Look out for my people but the suckers should parlay.
'Cause it's business kid, this ain't no free for all
You have to wait your turn, you must await your call.
So now, now it is my duty to
Eliminate and subtract all of the booty crews,
And suckers should vacate, before I get irate
And I'll kick your can from here to Japan
With force you can't withstand
'Cause I'm the motherfucking man.

—Guru's verse, Gang Starr - "I'm the Man"

I'll tap your...jaw; you probably heard it before
step to the Bedlamite I'll prove my word is law
Drugstore worth more, dope rhyme vendor,
Not partial to beef, the chief ambassador
Niggaz get mad 'cause they can't score
Like a wild west flick they wish to shoot up my door
But I incite to riot, don't even try it
Bust up chumps so crab kids keep quiet
Like I said before, I tap jaws, snatch whores
Kill suckers in wars, vic a style you said was yours.
Money grip want to flip, but you're fish;
House the mic like your hooker and did tricks on the bitch
Dirty Rotten Scoundrel and my name is Jeru
Utilizing my tools in '92
MCs step up in mobs to defeat us
When we rock knots and got props like Norm Peterson;
Lot's of friends, lot's of fun, lots of beers
Got the skills, kreeno, so I always get cheers.
Troop on like a trooper, no tears for fears.
I'm a get mines 'cause the crew will get theirs.
Cut you up like Edward Scissorhands
you know the program I'm the motherfucking man.

—Jeru the Damaja's verse, Gang Starr - "I'm the Man"

But I say unto you, It shall be more tolerable for Tyre and Sidon at the day of judgment, than for you.
—Matthew 11:22 (KJV Bible)

[Disclaimer: No, I'm quite agnostic, but I went through several denominations of religious education, and some passages from the Bible still rise unbidden to my mind in times of stress, such as this is.]

The situation in Lebanon just boggles the mind. What on earth is Israel thinking? What are the U.S. and U.K. thinking? Are they even thinking at all? Or are they wrapped up in a frenzy of emotion? The latter possibility might explain what's going on. Make no mistake about it. Israel was sorely, sorely provoked. No sovereign nation can stand by while its cities are being shelled. Israel had to respond, and to respond forcefully. But what of that response? Israel seems to be killing everyone but their enemy. They are killing Lebanese civilians by the hundreds, blasting infrastructure back to the stone age, and even taking out U.N. observers. All the while they are making no dent in Hezbollah's operations, despite the chest-pounding of their generals. It's surely unacceptable that Northern Israelis have to cower in fear of constant rocket attacks; nevertheless, the devastation that Israel is handing out to Lebanon can hardly be considered anything short of indiscriminate and even criminal reprisal.

The U.S. is irrelevant in this whole affair. It's interesting to see how an ally's unstinting support even in the face of obvious breakdown in morals has the perverse effect of making the supporter somewhat irrelevant. Britain under Blair has learned that their obsequiousness has gained them kind words, yet real contempt from the Bush administration, and the Bush administration is subject to no less contempt by Israel, and for no less reason. Bush and co. wouldn't dare criticize Israel anyway because the response would probably involve deep embarrassment. The only reason I'll mention the U.S.'s hands-off approach to the Lebanon crisis is to point out their certain hypocrisy.

Turkey is also at present suffering attack from militants across its borders. In this case it's Kurdish separatists (of the PKK) holed up in the hills of Northern Iraq. Now make no mistake: I am sympathetic to Kurdish separatist aspirations (Turkey has been quite oppressive of its Kurds), but in the simplest terms, a response from Turkey equivalent to that of Israel would involve Turkish bombing and shelling of Kirkuk, while also destroying most of Northern Iraq's oil infrastructure. Needless to say the U.S. would never allow that, and this is just one measure of the staggering hypocrisy that underlies the bombing of Beruit.

Ho hum, hypocrisy is the grease of foreign affairs, and has always been. What truly amazes me is the suicidal nature of Israel's devastation of Beruit. Yes. I said "suicidal". But what does Israel, one of the world's preeminent military powers, have to fear from tiny little Lebanon? Nothing directly, unless you take a step back to history's lesson book to see that no military might has ever been able to defeat the force of demographics. Israelis are badly outnumbered in their little corner of the world, and their survival depends on the fragmentation of their hostile neighbors. Israel has historically been very skilful at encouraging this fragmentation, and this has been more of an asset than its military might. Unfortunately, in recent red mist it has dumped all such subtlety and practicality, and is in the process of not only deepening the radicalism of the region, but of uniting it as well. It's a very ugly irony that when Lebanese families are rendered homeless by Israeli warplanes, and their children killed, it is usually Hezbollah's charitable wing that has been coming to their aid. This is no different from how Israel's devastation of the West Bank and Gaza strip a few years ago led inexorably to the rise of Hamas to power.

Lebanon's Hezbollah and Hamas are not historically likely strike partners: The Shi'a/Sunni divide in the region is almost as deep as the national divides, but Israel's recent fits are uniting the radicals, and their sponsors, and when innocent families helplessly watch the loss of loved ones and property, they often end up joining the ranks of the radicals. Israel cannot afford swelling numbers of militants, as the simple mathematics of the Lebanon war illustrate. For every 10 Lebanese casualies there has been one Israeli. There's no reason to believe that sheer military might will improve that ratio. The problem is that Hồ Chí Minh's famous boast could just as easily come from Israel's enemies:

You can kill ten of our men for every one we kill of yours. But even at those odds, you will lose and we will win.

Over time Israel's population, which is essentially at a plateau, will lose the demographic war unless it can find peace among the growing populations immediately beyond its borders. Israelis like to say "yeah! We do want peace! It's everyone else who wants war." Their government's near-sighted decision-making process far too often gives the lie to those claims.

Two things I have learned from my many encounters and friendships with Lebanese people is that (1) they are perhaps the most resourceful people on Earth (2) they are perhaps the most pragmatic people on Earth. I think they have the wherewithal to rebuild once Israel's fit has passed (to be blunt, I don't expect their institutions to crumble as hopelessly as those of the Palestinians), and I do think that their population will end up much less radicalized than one could expect under the circumstances. That is the only basis for a faint glimmer of hope, for Israel, the region, and the world. There may be no soothing the moral outrage of Israel's present, apalling brutality, but perhaps if they can be shamed into moderation the slow agency of time will prevent a spiraling escalation through which there will be winner (most certainly not Israel).

Oh, and at some point someone still has to uproot Hezbollah from the border regions, so there is some containment of the effects of their murderous recklessness. I suppose the fact that Israel would rather bomb civillians than meet Hezbollah head-on is no different from the U.S.'s preference for invading Iraq rather than focusing on the elimination of Bin Laden and his henchmen. I just wish I could apprehend their logic. On the other hand, perhaps it's a healthy thing I can't.

[Uche Ogbuji]

So Brian Williams and Bob Costas are sitting there commenting on the parade of athletes in the Winter Olympics opening ceremony. Just to be sure. It's the parade of athletes. Yes athletes. Hello? Could someone phone Brian Williams and Bob Costas and remind them that it's the parade of friggin' athletes?

The Iranian delegation goes by. The discussion is something like "Iran, a country under such pressure right now. The new president is very controversial. He has called for the annihilation of Israel. He has run a competition sponsoring cartoons about the Holocaust. A lot of anti-Americanism from that country". Yes. Not a single word about the athletes. Helllloooo! Last I checked Ahmadinejad is not in the fucking athlete's parade. Oh wait, is that him over there in the burqa? Hell no! Jeez.

Denmark goes by. It's approximately: "you might have heard of all the anti-Islamic cartoons that started in that country. The Danish delegation has been the subject of much attention. As if security wasn't a big enough issue for the hosts." Again not a word about the athletes. What they're competing in. Where they have the best hopes for success.

The spiel on the delegation from Lebanon was, and I got this almost verbatim: "Lebanon. Used to be called the Paris of the Middle East. But it's been wracked by Civil War for so long. Let's hope they can keep the peace there." WTF? I mean what the fuck? Lebanon is not exactly the ultimate crucible of snow and ice sport athletes. I'd like to know who from Lebanon had the guts to give it a shot. In which sports?

When Canada, France, Netherlands, Russia, Sweden and the like go by, OK. They actually say something about sport. To be sure, even this generosity is framed entirely in the parochial context of the U.S., as in: "Netherlands used to be dominant in short track until recently when they've been upstaged by the United States" or "the lone Ethiopian athlete learned to ski in New York and earned a skiing scholarship to [some US college]."

Disgusting. Just disgusting. Not only is this farce an insult to the athletes, who are not just cardboard proxies for whatever tiny window into geopolitics NBC news opens up for its news audience. It's also an insult to the intelligence of the audience. As if we are not capable of appreciating the glorious diversity of competitors that is, after all, the ostensible point of the Olympics.

[Uche Ogbuji]