#ClassicPoetry #NationalPoetryFoolMonth
Today's #poem is one of my best. Written 2010, it was just around when I was becoming an anarchist, and I think it benefits from that tension.
It's too long for me to do a close reading of any of it but I'll go into some of the reasons why it exists. Here it is:
The sword cannot do to me what you have done,
Nor is meeting my enemy like meeting you.
Even if an enemy’s arrow stayed lodged in my chest all night,
It would not hurt me as much as your eyes have.
#Poetry #ArabicPoetry #LovePoetry #Heartbreak #DeepFeelings #RomanticLines #Emotional #ClassicPoetry #Words #Feelings
#ClassicPoetry #NationalPoetryFoolMonth
Poetry is a million different things to a million different writers. To me, a poem is a crystallized thought.
(One of many ideas about poetry. Others include "an annoyance", "a termite mound").
1/n
Recently rediscovered Kipling's 'If' and thought it worth sharing.
https://www.kiplingsociety.co.uk/poem/poems_if.htm
#rudyardkipling #kipling #poetry #poems #literature #classicpoetry
Enheduana was a high priestess and royal princess who lived in Ur, in what is now southern Iraq, about 2300 BCE. Not only does Enheduana have the distinction of being the first author whose name we know, but the poems attributed to her are hymns of great power. They are a rare flash of the female voice in the often male-dominated ancient world, treating themes that are as relevant today as they were four thousand years ago: exile, social disruption, the power of storytelling, gender-bending identities, the devastation of war, and the terrifying forces of nature. This book is the first complete translation of her poems from the original Sumerian. Sophus Helle’s translations replicate the intensity and imagery of the original hymns—literary time bombs that have lain buried for millennia. In addition to his translations, Helle provides background on the historical context in which Enheduana’s poems were composed and circulated, the works’ literary structure and themes, and their reception in both the ancient and the modern world. Unjustly forgotten for millennia, Enheduana’s poems are essential reading for anyone interested in the literary history of women, religion, the environment, gender, motherhood, authorship, and empire. The complete poems of the priestess Enheduana, the world’s first known author, newly translated from the original Sumerian “Helle’s translation feels urgent, incandescent, stripped of academic cladding. . . . The growing popularity of Enheduana gives all of us readers a chance to discover another lineage—and to bring this poet and her imagination flashing back to life again.”—Nilanjana Roy, Financial Times
This was on loop today. I love the original itself and this rock version upping the tempo works so well with this verse
#music #ClassicPoetry
Rich Puchalsky ⩜⃝
T. Mohammad from Gaza
Brandi
Carson Hill
jake
Janaki Srinivasan/ஜானகி
Arboreal Literary Magazine