Kazim Ali reads 3 poems: “Cave,” “Chasm” and “Vase”

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=z6_6-l2QwSE

Kazim Ali reads “Cave,” “Chasm” and “Vase” from The Fortieth Day (BOA Editions, 2008).

Kazim Ali is is the author of two books of poetry, The Far Mosque (Alice James Books), winner of Alice James Books’ New England/New York Award, and The Fortieth Day (BOA Editions, 2008). He is also the author of the novel Quinn’s Passage (blazeVox books), named one of “The Best Books of 2005” by Chronogram magazine, The Disappearance of Seth (Etruscan Press, 2009), and Bright Felon: Autobiography and Cities (Wesleyan University Press, 2009).

He is an assistant professor of Creative Writing at Oberlin College and teaches in the low-residency MFA program of the University of Southern Maine. His work has been featured in many national journals such as Best American Poetry 2007, American Poetry Review, Boston Review, Barrow Street, jubilat and Massachusetts Review. He teaches at Oberlin College and the Stonecoast MFA program and is a founding editor of Nightboat Books.

     

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A Border Ballad (by Paul Laurence Dunbar)

Paul Laurence Dunbar, 1872-1906

A Border Ballad
by Paul Laurence Dunbar
[from Lyrics of Lowly Life, 1896]

Oh, I haven’t got long to live, for we all
     Die soon, e’en those who live longest;
And the poorest and weakest are taking their chance
     Along with the richest and strongest.
So it’s heigho for a glass and a song,
     And a bright eye over the table,
And a dog for the hunt when the game is flush,
     And the pick of a gentleman’s stable.

There is Dimmock o’ Dune, he was here yester- night,
     But he’s rotting to-day on Glen Arragh;
‘T was the hand o’ MacPherson that gave him the blow,
     And the vultures shall feast on his marrow.
But it’s heigho for a brave old song
     And a glass while we are able;
Here’s a health to death and another cup
     To the bright eye over the table.

I can show a broad back and a jolly deep chest,
     But who argues now on appearance?
A blow or a thrust or a stumble at best
May send me to-day to my clearance.
     Then it’s heigho for the things I love,
My mother’ll be soon wearing sable,
     But give me my horse and my dog and my glass,
And a bright eye over the table.

 

* * *

   

Columbian Ode (by Paul Laurence Dunbar)

Paul Laurence Dunbar, 1872-1906

Columbian Ode
by Paul Laurence Dunbar
[from Lyrics of Lowly Life, 1896]

I.

Four hundred years ago a tangled waste
     Lay sleeping on the west Atlantic’s side;
Their devious ways the Old World’s millions traced
     Content, and loved, and labored, dared and died,
While students still believed the charts they conned,
     And revelled in their thriftless ignorance,
Nor dreamed of other lands that lay beyond
     Old Ocean’s dense, indefinite expanse.

II.

But deep within her heart old Nature knew
     That she had once arrayed, at Earth’s behest,
Another offspring, fine and fair to view,–
     The chosen suckling of the mother’s breast.
The child was wrapped in vestments soft and fine,
     Each fold a work of Nature’s matchless art;
The mother looked on it with love divine,
     And strained the loved one closely to her heart.
And there it lay, and with the warmth grew strong
     And hearty, by the salt sea breezes fanned,
Till Time with mellowing touches passed along,
     And changed the infant to a mighty land.

III.

But men knew naught of this, till there arose
     That mighty mariner, the Genoese,
Who dared to try, in spite of fears and foes,
     The unknown fortunes of unsounded seas.
O noblest of Italia’s sons, thy bark
     Went not alone into that shrouding night!
O dauntless darer of the rayless dark,
     The world sailed with thee to eternal light!
The deer-haunts that with game were crowded then
     To-day are tilled and cultivated lands;
The schoolhouse tow’rs where Bruin had his den,
     And where the wigwam stood the chapel stands;
The place that nurtured men of savage mien
     Now teems with men of Nature’s noblest types;
Where moved the forest-foliage banner green,
     Now flutters in the breeze the stars and stripes!

 

* * *

   

Na Audiart (by Ezra Pound)

Na Audiart
by Ezra Pound
from A Lume Spento (1908)

     Que be-m vols mal

Note: Anyone who has read anything of the troubadours knows well the tale of Bertran of Born and My Lady Maent of Montagnac, and knows also the song he made when she would none of him, the song wherein he, seeking to find or make her equal, begs of each preëminent lady of Langue d’Oc some trait or some fair semblance: thus of Cembelins her ‘esgart amoros’ to wit, her love-lit glance, of Aelis her speech free-running, of the Vicomtess of Chalais her throat and her two hands, at Roacoart of Anhes her hair golden as Iseult’s; and even in this fashion of Lady Audiart ‘although she would that ill come unto him’ he sought and praised the lineaments of the torse. And all this to make ‘Una dompna soiseubuda’ a borrowed lady or as the italians translate it ‘Una donna ideale’.

Though thou well dost wish me ill,

Audiart, Audiart,

Where thy bodice laces start

As ivy fingers clutching through

Its crevices,

Audiart, Audiart,

Stately, tall and lovely tender

Who shall render

Audiart, Audiart,

Praise meet unto thy fashion?

Here a word kiss!

Pass I on

Unto Lady ‘Miels-de-Ben’,

Having praised thy girdle’s scope

How the stays ply back from it;

I breathe no hope

That thou shoulds…

Nay no whit

Bespeak thyself for anything.

Just a word in thy praise, girl,

Just for the swirl

Thy satins make upon the stair,

‘Cause never a flaw was there

Where thy torse and limbs are met

Though thou hate me, read it set

In rose and gold.

Or when the minstrel, tale half told,

Shall burst to lilting at the praise

‘Audiart, Audiart’…

Bertrans, master of his lays,

Bertrans of Aultaforte thy praise

Sets forth, and though thou hate me well,

Yea though thou wish me ill,

Audiart, Audiart.

Thy loveliness is here writ till,

Audiart,

Oh, till thou come again.

And being bent and wrinkled, in a form

That hath no perfect limning, when the warm

Youth dew is cold

Upon thy hands, and thy old soul

Scorning a new, wry’d casement,

Churlish at seemed misplacement,

Finds the earth as bitter

As now seems it sweet,

Being so young and fair

As then only in dreams,

Being then young and wry’d

Broken of ancient pride,

Thou shalt then soften,

Knowing, I know not how,

Thou wert once she

Audiart, Audiart,

For whose fairness one forgave

Audiart,

Audiart

Que be-m vols mal.

 

* * * * *


     

Elizabeth Childers (by Edgar Lee Masters)

Elizabeth Childers
by Edgar Lee Masters
from Spoon River Anthology [1915]

Dust of my dust,
And dust with my dust,
O, child who died as you entered the world,
Dead with my death!
Not knowing breath, though you tried so hard,
With a heart that beat when you lived with me,
And stopped when you left me for Life.
It is well, my child.  For you never traveled
The long, long way that begins with school days,
When little fingers blur under the tears
That fall on the crooked letters.
And the earliest wound, when a little mate
Leaves you alone for another;
And sickness, and the face of Fear by the bed;
The death of a father or mother;
Or shame for them, or poverty;
The maiden sorrow of school days ended;
And eyeless Nature that makes you drink
From the cup of Love, though you know it’s poisoned;
To whom would your flower-face have been lifted?
Botanist, weakling?  Cry of what blood to yours?–
Pure or foul, for it makes no matter,
It’s blood that calls to our blood.
And then your children–oh, what might they be?
And what your sorrow?  Child!  Child!
Death is better than Life.



[To read more Spoon River Anthology click here.]

Night of Love (by Paul Laurence Dunbar)

Paul Laurence Dunbar, 1872-1906

Night of Love
by Paul Laurence Dunbar
[from Lyrics of Lowly Life, 1896]

The moon has left the sky, love,
The stars are hiding now,
And frowning on the world, love,
Night bares her sable brow.
The snow is on the ground, love,
And cold and keen the air is.
I ‘m singing here to you, love;
You ‘re dreaming there in Paris.

But this is Nature’s law, love,
Though just it may not seem,
That men should wake to sing, love,
While maidens sleep and dream.
Them care may not molest, love,
Nor stir them from their slumbers,
Though midnight find the swain, love,
Still halting o’er his numbers.

I watch the rosy dawn, love,
Come stealing up the east,
While all things round rejoice, love,
That Night her reign has ceased.
The lark will soon be heard, love,
And on his way be winging;
When Nature’s poets wake, love,
Why should a man be singing?
 

* * *

   

Kazim Ali reads “Garland” – video

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=G254Dht8ass

Kazim Ali reads “Garland” from The Fortieth Day (BOA Editions, 2008).

Kazim Ali is is the author of two books of poetry, The Far Mosque (Alice James Books), winner of Alice James Books’ New England/New York Award, and The Fortieth Day (BOA Editions, 2008). He is also the author of the novel Quinn’s Passage (blazeVox books), named one of “The Best Books of 2005” by Chronogram magazine, The Disappearance of Seth (Etruscan Press, 2009), and Bright Felon: Autobiography and Cities (Wesleyan University Press, 2009).

He is an assistant professor of Creative Writing at Oberlin College and teaches in the low-residency MFA program of the University of Southern Maine. His work has been featured in many national journals such as Best American Poetry 2007, American Poetry Review, Boston Review, Barrow Street, jubilat and Massachusetts Review. He teaches at Oberlin College and the Stonecoast MFA program and is a founding editor of Nightboat Books.

     

Keep A-Pluggin’ Away (by Paul Laurence Dunbar)

Paul Laurence Dunbar, 1872-1906

Keep A-Pluggin’ Away
by Paul Laurence Dunbar
[from Lyrics of Lowly Life, 1896]

I ‘ve a humble little motto
That is homely, though it ‘s true,–
     Keep a-pluggin’ away.
It ‘s a thing when I ‘ve an object
That I always try to do,–
     Keep a-pluggin’ away.
When you’ve rising storms to quell,
When opposing waters swell,
It will never fail to tell,–
     Keep a-pluggin’ away.

If the hills are high before
And the paths are hard to climb,
     Keep a-pluggin’ away.
And remember that successes
Come to him who bides his time,–
     Keep a-pluggin’ away.
From the greatest to the least,
None are from the rule released.
Be thou toiler, poet, priest,
     Keep a-pluggin’ away.

Delve away beneath the surface,
There is treasure farther down,–
     Keep a-pluggin’ away.
Let the rain come down in torrents,
Let the threat’ning heavens frown,
     Keep a-pluggin’ away.
When the clouds have rolled away,
There will come a brighter day
All your labor to repay,–
     Keep a-pluggin’ away.

There’ll be lots of sneers to swallow,
There’ll be lots of pain to bear,–
     Keep a-pluggin’ away.
If you ‘ve got your eye on heaven,
Some bright day you’ll wake up there,–
     Keep a-pluggin’ away.
Perseverance still is king;
Time its sure reward will bring;
Work and wait unwearying,–
     Keep a-pluggin’ away.

 

* * *

   

Election Day 2010 (by William Merricle)

Election Day 2010

I scream out
my demand for
the right to scream
out my demand for
the right to demand
the right to be right to
demand to be right to scream

* * *

William Merricle lives in Lima, Ohio. His poetry has been published in Pudding, Slipstream, 
ZeroCity, and many other publications. His latest chapbook, Heimlich The Donut, is available
at Pudding House Publications.

“Election Day 2010” © 2010 by William Merricle, used with permission

Kazim Ali reads two poems: “Ornithography” and “The Desert”

Kazim Ali reads “Bottle” and “Horizon” from The Fortieth Day (BOA Editions, 2008).

Kazim Ali is is the author of two books of poetry, The Far Mosque (Alice James Books), winner of Alice James Books’ New England/New York Award, and The Fortieth Day (BOA Editions, 2008). He is also the author of the novel Quinn’s Passage (blazeVox books), named one of “The Best Books of 2005” by Chronogram magazine, The Disappearance of Seth (Etruscan Press, 2009), and Bright Felon: Autobiography and Cities (Wesleyan University Press, 2009).

He is an assistant professor of Creative Writing at Oberlin College and teaches in the low-residency MFA program of the University of Southern Maine. His work has been featured in many national journals such as Best American Poetry 2007, American Poetry Review, Boston Review, Barrow Street, jubilat and Massachusetts Review. He teaches at Oberlin College and the Stonecoast MFA program and is a founding editor of Nightboat Books.