Saudi Woman's Poetry in TV 'American Idol'

A Saudi woman received a death threat last week after she appeared on “Poet of Millions,” Abu Dhabi’s version of the game show “American Idol” — which features aspiring poets instead of singers — and recited a poem attacking clerics for “terrorizing people and preying on everyone seeking peace.”

This week she returned to perform a similar poem and was rewarded by the judges who made her the first female contestant to reach the show’s final round.

As the newspaper The National reports from Abu Dhabi, the woman, Hissa Hilal, “sparked controversy in Saudi Arabia, especially on Internet forums.”

“According to reports, many viewers praised her for her courage, but others attacked her for criticizing clerics and reciting her poems in public,” the newspaper wrote. “One website called for her death.”

According to the newspaper, a rough translation of the poem Ms. Hilal performed last week includes the verses:

I have seen evil from the eyes of the subversive fatwas in a time when what is lawful is confused with what is not lawful;

When I unveil the truth, a monster appears from his hiding place; barbaric in thinking and action, angry and blind; wearing death as a dress and covering it with a belt [referring to suicide bombing];

He speaks from an official, powerful platform, terrorizing people and preying on everyone seeking peace; the voice of courage ran away and the truth is cornered and silent, when self-interest prevented one from speaking the truth.

By Robert Mackey, NYTimes

Palestinian Poet Mahmoud Darwish

Palestinian Poet Mahmoud Darwish

I saw Mahmoud Darwish over more than two decades in Beirut, in Damascus, in Washington, in New York, in London, in Paris, in Geneva — and last month in Ramallah. He was part of my life, and part of the lives of every Palestinian in Jerusalem and Ramallah and everywhere. And now, he is gone, and the world is not the same.

She shares her favourite poem with us - a biblical story of Yousef:

Oh my father, I am Yusuf
Oh father, my brothers neither love me nor want me in their midst
They assault me and cast stones and words at me
They want me to die so they can eulogize me
They closed the door of your house and left me outside
They expelled me from the field
Oh my father, they poisoned my grapes
They destroyed my toys
When the gentle wind played with my hair, they were jealous
They flamed up with rage against me and you
What did I deprive them of, Oh my father?
The butterflies stopped on my shoulder
The bird hovered over my hand
What have I done, Oh my father?
Why me?
You named me Yusuf and they threw me into the well
They accused the wolf
The wolf is more merciful than my brothers
Oh, my father
Did I wrong anyone when I said that
I saw eleven stars and the sun and the moon
Saw them kneeling before me?

Jordanian Samer Marzouq, writing at Jazarah, says Darwish's death is a big loss for the Arab world.

Bad news, the greatest Arab poet, the Palestinian Mahmoud Darwish has died today in a hospital in Huston in the USA, this is a big loss for the Arab cultural scene, rest in peace Mahmoud Darwish, rest in peace.

Tunisian blog Khil We Lil [Ar] marks Darwish's death saying:

عملاق آخر يمضي
Another giant passes away.

Radwa Osama, from Egypt, is shocked at the news and awaits a message from Darwish - via another poet:

In a sad tone, Amr told me that Mahmoud Darwish passed away. I have repeatedly asked him not to break such stories to me in one go. A little while later, we listened to Mahmood Darwish's voice on the computer. I can hear his clear sadness. I don't find a lot of words to add but I am extremely sad. I was thinking that next time his visited Cairo, it would be at the American University. I was preparing myself for that event. It has really been a long time since I last heard Darwish. I used to listen to him every time I felt annoyed. He was able to calm me down. Amr asks me: "What do you think Mahmoud Darwish is doing now?" I think logically and say: "Mahmoud Darwish is now contemplating on the experience (of death), in order to write a poem, and send it to us, the people who are eager for the truth. Very soon, I will stop enjoying poetry. Mahmoud Darwish, do you still think that death mistakes us?! I am looking forward for a poem from you, with the first person who contacts you
. Poets never die.

You may view the latest post at

http://globalvoicesonline.org/2008/08/09/arabeyes-mourning-for-mahmoud-darwish/

Hitler Reappears in Israel

Stalag Comics Israel

Hitler Reappears in Israel
Igal Sarna, FirstPost.co.uk

W e are five on the bed, leaning with our backs against the wall like people watching television. I'm in the middle of the bed. Hitler is at one end. He is about 20 years old, at the time he was moving from one cheap men's hostel in Vienna to another, an ambitious and unhappy young ne'er-do-well. A painter of landscapes and advertisements.
He places a box full of papers in the centre of the bed. He says to me: "I'm writing down all kinds of things for myself."
"Mein Kampf?" I ask.
He looks at me suspiciously, like someone who has just heard something that I couldn't possibly have known. The conversation is quiet but at the same time fraught in a strange way with everything that will happen. He gives me a friendly wink, as though to say: "I, Adolf, whose whole future is ahead of him, and you, the son of the Nashibirskis, who are marked out for death - ¬ we're both of us artists; I am the one who will always rise up from the past and be with you like a member of your household."
I dreamt this dream early in 2007, in Oxford, when I was starting to write the novel Tender Hand, and it is the opening of the book that is now being published in Tel Aviv.
The name Hitler is no longer igniting fires in the land of the survivors who in the past would take to the streets because of a Wagner concert. The text exists in the city alongside the one-man show Adolf, in which a young actor plays Hitler at the Tmuna fringe theatre in Tel Aviv. "How a sensitive boy who dreams of becoming an artist turns into Hitler," says the programme. For the first time in the Israeli theatre, director Yagil Eliraz depicts how Hitler's personality is shaped from early childhood to adulthood.

Slade Hopkinson, Poet

Hopkinson wrote a couple of short stories, and his poetry was widely published in journals such as Bim, Savacou, New World and in anthologies such as Anansesem, The Penguin Book of Caribbean Verse and Voiceprint. Snowscape With Signature, from which “The Jaguar and the Theorist of Négritude” is taken, was published by Peepal Tree in 1993, with an introductory memoir by Mervyn Morris.

The Jaguar and the Theorist of Négritude
The Nigerian poet Wole Soyinka, apropos of the literary movement known as Négritude, has said somewhere that a tiger does not go about proclaiming its tigritude: it just pounces.
The jungle, grown impatient with us all,

Has marched on military feet,

Has assaulted the rice and sugar coastland,

Checkerboard of historical habit.

The jungle’s retribution

Has invaded the capital.

In every street, branched giants have uprooted houses.

Monkeys with green faces and critical eyes

Open doors or climb into windows.

Terrible is their barking laughter.



Contrivances of our desperate spirit fail.

The sham we thought was our reality boils,

Evaporates, is gone, not even a fume

Remains. Inside each hollow skull

Something rattles - perhaps a knuckle

Of the dead, still weeping man, that, as he rubbed

The dusty trickle of his tears, became unhinged

And fell behind the absence of his eyes.

Ant-bears scribble with their snouts and tongues

Daintily on the infested skin of corpses.

Fleshy flowers, beating like live hearts,

Decorate the starkness of our pavements.

Troops of vipers move deployed, my love.

Essential horror has occurred, my love.



In the middle of an important street

An inventor of the black man’s soul lies dead.

His fingers clutch neither machete nor bomb,

But an anguished book he wrote - published in England.



O jaguar, lady, muse, teacher, it was you

Who banged your jaws into his throat, then ripped.
***

Courtesy of Peepal Tree Press

If You Think Your Nation Jinxed, Consider Sudan

'Sudan's Looming War'

by Sudanese Thinker

Sudanese Returnee explains the dangerous situation eloquently:

Abyei, that oil rich region in the North-South border, is arguably one of the most sticky issues that threatens the CPA and could possibly draw the country back to the cycles of war!

Today, Northern troops entered Abyei after the NCP expressed their objection to the appointment of an SPLM Administrator for Abyei.

… Recently, SPLA soldiers were reportedly attacked by heavily armed Misseriya gunmen and fingers are being pointed at the NCP in Khartoum for arming them. Now the northern army is building up in Abyei and who knows what will happen tomorrow!

In case you're wondering, the Misseriya are a nomadic tribe regarded as 'Arabs' by Southern Sudanese. As for the potentially deadly situation, Kizzie has an idea:

Dear government of Sudan and SPLM,


If you are planning to start another bloody civil war, evacuate a few villages and kill each other there.

Meanwhile John Akec isn't happy over Southern Sudan's seeming trend towards what he refers to as 'assassination politics':

A well known South Sudanese secondary school teacher from Greater Bhar El Ghazal by name Mathon Mathon often said under Abakr Tree (The Wau's answer for London's Trafalgar Square):

"When a war breaks out in a county, it is not the earth that gets destroyed but people's morals." In the South Sudan's war against the North, they did.

... Now, how far would you expect our morals to sink. All that because of our lust for power and feeling of extreme insecurity once in power. And a manner akin to King David of old, many of our leaders commit the sin and then murder to cover it up. Assassination is a virus once it infects, it spread like a wild fire and. Once started, it is hard to be stopped.

We now end this round up with another lovely short poem by Ras Babi:

she keeps her eyes down and whispers to me:

ras babi...

ras babi...

do you see this dressed in green and red man?

I feel her shaking from the in

I hold her hand in mine

she explodes crying

and crying

This man raped me with others

he killed my child

cut the head of my tent

that man is a devil son

do not buy their news

do something

tell the world

You may view the latest post at

http://www.globalvoicesonline.org/2008/04/20/sudans-looming-war/

Uzbekistan: Yusuf Juma Poet and National Hero

by Adil Nurmakov, Global Voices

Today, in Uzbekistan, where free voices are being severely silenced, practically no one dares not even to promote, but just to express anti-governmental ideas. But this is not the case of dissident poet Yusuf Juma, as his poems are full of passion and concern about his country and martyr nation, interlaced with the calls for democracy and rule of law.



Yusuf Juma (Jumaev) was born in 1958 in Bukhara region of Uzbekistan. He started writing poems from his early ages at high school. His poetry was mainly focused on the vital problems of his community, like dismantling the aerodrome, which had been host for planes that sprayed fields with pesticides that harmed people’s health. Already at that time, Juma was pressurized by the Soviet government, and when it collapsed, Juma openly criticized the new authortires too, because former soviet-communist officials -- apparatchiks -- still remained in power.



The Andijon events made Yusuf Juma write a series of poems entitled “Andijon turkumidan” [From the Andijon collection - Uzbek]. Together with his sons and companions, Juma organized several rallies urging the government to release dissident poets and human rights activists from jail. From this time, Yusuf Juma and his family became a target for the National Security Agency (SNB).



He and his family members were several times accused of fabricated crimes. In July 25, 2007, his son Mashrab was imprisoned, and one month later he was released as his guilt was not proven. December 10, 2007, was the worst day in the Jumaevs’ life. Late at night, a group of Special Forces of Uzbekistan attacked Juma’s house. Although Juma and his family managed to escape then, a week later they were arrested by SNB and are reportedly tortured in custody.



As the state controlled media in Uzbekistan are certainly staying away from such topics, the critically-minded blogs in Uzbekistan often publish works of Yusuf Juma and articles about him. Blog Rizobek writes that Yusuf Juma is not a criminal, but a national hero. Therefore, it is not him that has to be brought to trial, but those who have put him in jail:

Not Yusuf Juma, but those who attacked him must be brought to trial. Not Yusuf Juma, but those who legitimized this persecution must be brought to trial. Not Yusuf Juma, but those who could not stand his free voice must be brought to trial. Not Yusuf Juma, but those, who mock democracy and back and benefit from autocracy must be brought to trial! [uzb]

News Agency UzNews.net is calling on its readers to support imprisoned Y.Juma by sending the letters of support to the presidential administration's press service:

Yusuf Juma’s courage does not surprise, but strikes us. Notwithstanding cruelty and treachery of the current regime -- that bristled up with its police forces and armored troop-carriers against the whole world and its own nation -- Yusuf Juma, who is originally from a remote area of Bukhara, is declaring his disagreement with it… [ru]

Muhiddin at neweurasia, who closely knows Yusuf Juma, published the poet's letter, where he wrote about the armed attack at his house and how his family escaped:

We ran barefoot. Only three of us could escape – my wife, me and my youngest son. Other two sons could not escape and stayed in the house surrounded by armed men. We hid behind the water cistern. Special squad soldiers went to my room and shooting there… We couldn't stand this sound anymore and we were really scared. We ran away through our neighbor’s ditch in the backyard…[uzb]

Opposition blog Turonzamin, which frequently publishes Yusuf Jumas works, recently declared that opposition parties and Uzbek dissidents abroad are promoting Juma for a Nobel Prize in Literature:

We are promoting Yusuf Juma as a candidate for the Nobel Prize with the help of Dr. Botir Norboi. He has sent a letter to the Nobel Prize committee, stating that Yusuf Juma is the best nominee. Juma is now in prison and faces tortures. He needs our help. The world must know about people like him [uzb].



You may view the latest post at

http://www.globalvoicesonline.org/2008/04/11/uzbekistan-yusuf-juma-a-martyr-poet/

Poet Opal Palmer Adisa

Poetess Opal Palmer Adisa

Posted by Geoffrey Philps, aol.com

Opal Palmer Adisa is a professor of creative writing and literature at California College of the Arts, with eleven titles to her credit, including the novel, It Begins With Tears (1997) that Rick Ayers proclaimed as one of the most motivational works for young adults. Her most recent works are Until Judgment Comes (short story collection), 2007; Eros Muse (poetry and essays), Africa World Press, March 2006 and her forthcoming is I Name Me Name (poetry & stories), Peepal Tree Press, 2008.

At Last

living in oakland
i never know
when i leave my home
if i’ll return alive
i’m less valuable than gum
on the sidewalk that sticks to your shoes
three friends were killed this year
they weren’t into dope or gangs
and i saw my first dead person
when i looked down at ron
in his coffin i couldn’t move
i thought i would faint
felt like a piece of paper
being blown on the street
someone in the line nudged
me forward
afterwards several of us
drifted to the park
by school and i just cried and cried
none of it made sense
ron was the captain of our
soccer team
i might be dead tomorrow
or the next
but i want to live
i want to go to college
for ron
for myself
i want a chance
to fall in love
play soccer at college
travel to senegal or kenya
make a wish on the full moon
like my mother says
focus on staying alive
staying alive
stay alive

Guitarsandmore on Huffington Post

Hannity tries to expose us
Socialist, pinko, and green
But its him whose exposed
From his head to his toes
Fascist and selfish and mean