From realpoetik at scn9.scn.org Tue Dec 2 14:30:26 2008 From: realpoetik at scn9.scn.org (RealPoetik Magazine) Date: Tue, 2 Dec 2008 17:30:26 -0500 Subject: [Realpoetik] Thanh Tam Tuyen, translated by Linh Dinh Message-ID: <86a3fe410812021430n23fa06eck52fff388c140ff13@mail.gmail.com> *THANH TAM TUYEN Definition of a Good Poem* more than a species of frightful crow white curtain a worried finger rubbing the eye let's drop it into the sky's evening a life as round as a green rice flake third season of a year dripping milk as lucky as a poem with agreeable consonants syllogism needed a man must die you're a man so you must die a public notice sleep children the hearts of loved ones a sacred journey without end conducted with blood how many creative works completed only to be summed up with a spoken word you should use your work to say farewell to everyone a line of poetry as good as a saying a good poem is the final death so long the bed the table the chair one person two persons three persons one person two persons three persons *In the Name of* * Au nom du front parfait profond—Eluard* An imperfect love Inside the soul of each eye A shameful life A mute chest without voice Lips without laughing substance Starving senses An alley night surrounding window A seated person forgetting time Emotions demanding an exit A free barren hand Flowers declining youthful hair Measured breaths The survival of one person The survival of many people Innocent people In the name of Love freedom man I have the right to call forth Those who have died to show up Those still alive to raise their hands *translated from the Vietnamese by Linh Dinh * THANH TAM TUYEN was born in Vinh, northern Vietnam, in 1936, moved to Saigon in 1954, emigrated to the US in 1983, and died in Minnesota in 2006. Drafted into the Army of the Republic of Vietnam, he served two stints, 1962-1966, then from 1968 until the end of the war in 1975. He was imprisoned for seven years in remote Yen Bai by the victorious Hanoi government. His first and most famous poetry collection, Tôi không còn cô độc [I'm No Longer Desolate], was released in Saigon in 1956. That same year, he co-founded, with Mai Thao, the groundbreaking literary journal Sáng Tạo [Creativity]. Thanh Tam Tuyen introduced a cleaner, starker music into Vietnamese poetry. He was also the first Viet poet to write about jazz. LINH DINH is the author of two collections of stories, *Fake House* (2000) and *Blood and Soap* (2004), four books of poems, *All Around What Empties Out* (2003), *American Tatts* (2005), *Borderless Bodies* (2006) and *Jam Alerts* (2007), with a novel, *Love Like Hate*, scheduled to be released in 2009 by Seven Stories Press. His work has been anthologized in *Best American Poetry 2000, 2004, 2007* and* Great American Prose Poems from Poe to the Present*, among many other places. Linh Dinh is also the editor of the anthologies *Night, Again: Contemporary Fiction from Vietnam* (1996) and *Three Vietnamese Poets* (2001), and translator of *Night, Fish and Charlie Parker*, the poetry of Phan Nhien Hao (2006). *Blood and Soap* was chosen by the *Village Voice* as one of the best books of 2004. He has also published widely in Vietnamese. His latest project is the blog, The Lower Half . -- RealPoetik realpoetik.blogspot.com -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From realpoetik at scn9.scn.org Tue Dec 16 14:31:10 2008 From: realpoetik at scn9.scn.org (RealPoetik Magazine) Date: Tue, 16 Dec 2008 17:31:10 -0500 Subject: [Realpoetik] Andrew Lundwall Message-ID: <86a3fe410812161431g758d12f0tfc5ee549fd9784fd@mail.gmail.com> *PLEASE* ancient tower circling millennia i want a storm i know rings try on each what i think i live in my life i have a hawk i perform *ANDREJ* eyes wide fall distant in the heavens his traps murmur his traps gesture infinitely heavy earth isolated from all stars looks far to trip sky hands that hook these hands all fall they fall to andrej *Andrew Lundwall *is the editor of *Scantily Clad Press *( http://scantilycladpress.blogspot.com). His work has appeared in numerous print and electronic literary journals internationally, including *PFS Post, Big Bridge, Shampoo, Moria, Near South, Miami Sun Post's Mad Love, 88: A Journal of Contemporary American Poetry, Otoliths, rock heals,* and * Blazevox*. He has released two chapbooks, *klang* (deep cleveland press, 2006) and *funtime* (Funtime Press, 2007), a collaboration with Adam Fieled. -- RealPoetik realpoetik.blogspot.com -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From realpoetik at scn9.scn.org Fri Dec 26 11:19:33 2008 From: realpoetik at scn9.scn.org (RealPoetik Magazine) Date: Fri, 26 Dec 2008 14:19:33 -0500 Subject: [Realpoetik] Patricia Lockwood Message-ID: <86a3fe410812261119w1922634ega5da3d7852f52633@mail.gmail.com> *The Pro-Vivisection Poems* Apes, especially, will not feel a thing, and all fanned out, will not be measurably less, like whores arrived on other sides of wormholes minus orange-blossom perfume, split lips, and half-moon marks in huge-pored peels, minus tall unfeeling fruit, numb spots along a spine. Earthworms especially, who have no arms, are happy to have them sliced away; delimit me, say diamondbacks, and severalize me, say spotted mice; dogs are glad to see your scalpel, glad to be wiped clean on your sleeve. Horses are happy to be born half-horse-- near the end they remember almost nothing: how they survived on scraps, how the air was a stepped and shining pyramid of fish parts, how it was winter and weedy necks were happy to be stretched over stumps, when you appeared to them, mythical, half-seen and half-man. *Patricia Lockwood*'s poems have appeared in American Letters & Commentary, Chelsea, Many Mountains Moving, and Virginia Quarterly Review. Please find her at http://emperoroficecreamcakes.blogspot.com. -- RealPoetik realpoetik.blogspot.com -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: