EthicalDative

‘She Didn’t Do Innocence’

Posted on October 18, 2023 by JMN

“With students, sometimes she suggested that they try silence, not working at all. That, she believed, might be best for someone who was writing the wrong poems or producing too much.”
(Colm Tóibín)

She insisted on calling herself a writer. It was for posterity to judge if she was a “poet,” she averred in an essay. News of her passing hit me with a jolt on the very day of it. Louise Glück died on October 13, 2023, aged 80.

Her astutely acid critiques of my submissions in a writing seminar she conducted at Greensboro administered a salutary coup de grâce to my juvenile ambitions to write poetry. At seminar’s end I set sail to fail in other directions, and have since paid her the readerly devotion the genre exacts from me. An unsentimental, Olympian reserve I treasure in Glück’s work has provided a benchmark for how I prospect for poems in verse I consume.

Here’s another comment from Colm Tóibín’s tribute in The Guardian:

Glück was not afraid of using words like “soul” or “god”, or making use of primal images of forest and light and dark and sun and moon. But the poems were not abstract. They were poems of hard experience. She didn’t do innocence. The poems were filled with emotions that she knew only too well.

(Colm Tóibín, “Louise Glück: a poet who never shied away from silence, pain or fear,” theguardian.com, 10-17-12)

Posted in Commentary, Quotations | Tagged poetry, reading | 5 Comments

‘2013-8-15’

Posted on October 15, 2023 by JMN

This is the second of 3 poems by Zakaria Mohammed published in the September 2023 edition of Poetry magazine. They date from 2013. (I noted the first one here). English translations by Lena Khalaf Tuffaha are in the Poetry issue as well.

The translation from the Arabic and transliteration of the Arabic text that follow here are mine.

2013-8-15
I await the expiry of August, September’s coup de grâce.
Hey, dawdling Fall, I am here, expectant. Cooked you
some porridge, kindled a fire. Come, wind-sweep the brazen sun
away. Lift its hand from my shoulder.
Summer crouches heavily on my chest. But my pale hand
swears by season’s turning, readies a saddle for it. Oh! — you piebald horse of Autumn, that carries me where my thoughts go: chainlink stone climbing the foot of the hill, unruly clouds climbing the foot of the sky. There’s nothing more than this, not a thing.

Of course, it’s possible to add a crash
of thunder so my bones are shaken, and the bones of the world.
As for all of you, believing fondly horses live in the hills
of Spring, know: Autumn’s promontories are their dwelling. They tense and gather muscle at the scent of rain, their nostrils flare, they bolt, clearing rocky hurdles toward the summit, where they will graze on the fringes of clouds.

Transliteration
‘antaḍir(u) nihāyaẗ(a) āb(a) wa-maqtal(a) ailūl(a).
‘ayyuhā-l-ẖarīf(u)-l-lāḏi yatalakka’(u), ‘anā hunā bi-‘intiḍār(i)-ka. ṭabaẖ(tu) la-ka
^aṣīdaẗ(an) wa-‘aš^al(tu) nār(an). ta^āla, w-‘uknus bi-rīḥ(i)-ka-š-šams(a)-
ṣ-ṣafīqaẗ(a). ‘irfa^ yad(a)-ha ^an katif(ī).
‘aṣ-ṣaif(u) yajṯim(u) ṯaqīl(an) fauqa ṣadr(ī). lakinna yad(ī)-l-baiḍā’(a)
taḥlif(u) bi-l-ẖarīf(i), wa-tu^idd(u) la-hu-s-sarj(a). ‘āh(i) yā ḥiṣān(a)-l-ẖarīf(i)-
l-‘ablaq(a). yā man yadrus(u) fikraẗ(ī) wa-yunaffiḏ(u)-hā: salāsil(un) ḥajarīyaẗ(un)
taṣ^ad(u) safḥ(a)-t-tallaẗ(i) wa-ḡuyūm(un) mušattataẗ(un) taṣ^ad(u) safḥ(a)-s-samā’(i).
wa-lā šai’(a) ḡair(a) hāḏā, lā šai’(a). bi-ṭ-ṭab^(i), yumkin(u) ziyādaẗ(u) haddaẗ(i)
ra^d(i) kai tataẖalẖal(a) ^iẓām(ī) wa-^iẓām(a)-d-dunyā.
‘ammā ‘antum fa-qad ẓanan(tum) ẖaṭa’(an) ‘anna-l-ẖail(a) taskun(u) fī tilāl(i)-
r-rabī^(i). lā, tilāl(u)-l-ẖarīf(i) hīya maskan(u)-l-ẖail(i). taštamm(u)
muhtājaẗ(an) rā’iḥaẗ(a)-l-maṭar(i), fa-tattasi^u manāẖir(u)-ha, wa-taqfiz(u) fauqa-
s-salāsil(i)-l-ḥajarīyaẗ(i) ṣā^idaẗ(an) naḥwa-l-qimmaẗ(i), kai taqḍam(a) ‘aṭrāf(a)-l-ḡaimaẗ(i).

Posted in Anthology | Tagged Arabic-English, language, poetry, translation | 1 Comment

United We Stand Up and Yell, ‘FIGHT!’

Posted on October 10, 2023 by JMN

THE UNITED KINGDOM
“Stand up and fight… etc. Stand up and fight – because when you stand up and fight,… etc… stands up and fights. And when… etc… stands up and fights,… etc… stands up and fights. And when… etc… stands up and fights,… etc… stand up and fight. And they stand up and fight for… etc. That is what… etc. Stand up and fight. Stand up and fight! Thank you, conference!” [See note]
(Penny Mordaunt, Conservative Party MP)

THE UNITED STATES
“This all goes back to our reward structure, and how that’s gotten turned on its head… As long as you’re talking about fighting — regardless of whether you have a strategy to land a punch or win a round — you never actually have to win, because that’s what gets the most attention… And that means Republicans are now sort of always talking between ourselves, and the rest of the country we either don’t engage or hold in contempt.”
(Doug Heye, Republican aide)

“[Winning election to Congress] has come… to mean winning a prominent platform for performative outrage…”
(Yuval Levin, Opinion writer)

Sources
Kate Nicholson, HuffPost, “Penny Mordaunt Couldn’t Stop Herself Using This 1 Phrase During Her Tory Conference Speech,” 10-5-23.
Michael C. Bender, “For Republicans in the Trump Era, Chaos Often Seems to Be the Point,” New York Times, 10-6-23.
Yuval Levin, “What We Can Do to Make American Politics Less Dysfunctional,” New York Times, 10-9-23)

Note
Full text of the Mordaunt fight chant:
“Stand up and fight for the freedoms we have won. Against socialism, whether it is made of velvet or iron, have courage, and conviction – because when you do, you move our countrymen, our communities and capital of all kinds to our cause. Stand up and fight – because when you stand up and fight, the person beside you stands up and fights. And when our party stands up and fights, the nation stands up and fights. And when our nation stands up and fights, other nations stand up and fight. And they stand up and fight for the things for which the entire progress of humanity depends! Freedom. That is what Conservatives do. That is what this nation does. Have courage. Bring hope. Stand up and fight. Stand up and fight! Thank you, conference!”
(Penny Mordaunt, Conservative Party MP)

Posted in Quotations | Tagged rhetoric | 7 Comments

‘Somewhat Impenetrable to Outsiders’

Posted on October 8, 2023 by JMN

“Cricket is first and foremost a dramatic spectacle. It belongs with theater, ballet, opera and the dance.”
(Trinidadian Marxist thinker C.L.R. James)

Cricket may be “somewhat impenetrable” to outsiders, per The Times, but only to those who resist penetration. The quadriennial Cricket World Cup, which started recently, “enraptures lovers of the game” from Durham to Durban, says the journal. I, for one, a perennial outsider, am spoiling for rapture.

The game’s lingo can be exotic: top-rated batter Babar Azam is said to average a “gaudy” 58 runs per game. More RPGs than 58 would qualify as “flamboyant.”

The lingo can wallop equally with understatement: veteran bowlers Trent Boult and Mitchell Starc “are expected to get more than their share of batters out.”

And a certain archly prim manière d’en parler can taste like apple pie: Ben Stokes, an ace at both batting and bowling, is an “all-rounder,” by gosh! The term could have issued from my grandmother’s lips.

EthicalDative isn’t a long-form blog, so I can’t précis the article’s whisper and promise on how cricket is played. A key to understanding the game is to forget baseball. The bowler gets a running start and usually bounces the ball to the batsman. The batsman is allowed to hit the ball in any direction, including backwards. There are two batsmen, not one, who take turns trying to hit balls. They may run between two low posts called wickets, or may decide not to.

That much I know.

(Victor Mather, “How to Become a Crickert Expert Just in Time for the Cricket World Cup,” New York Times, 10-4-23)

Posted in Commentary | Tagged journalism, language, rhetoric, sport | 3 Comments

Make England Grow Again

Posted on October 5, 2023 by JMN

At the MEGA confab in Manchester
the conurbation’s thrumming with humbug.
Bannon cannons bombast from his basement.
Farage megaphones it, cuts a rug with Priti.

Hardening arteries of reaction course with candlefire.
Queues for Dutch rubs bend round every corner.
Conning spoilers croon sweet nothings to
clapping mini-throngs in semi-empty halls.
Tufton Street hosts covert huddles in hotels.

Peers and peerettes trip the light fantastic.
Posh buffets of pasta Putinesca
fortify financial service barons.
Trays of flutes brimming remainer tears
lubricate their anthem of In Grip We Truss.

Posted in Anthology | Tagged doggerel | 3 Comments

Does ‘Maieutic’ Rhyme With ‘Epizootic’?

Posted on October 3, 2023 by JMN

“Rhyme is a bit like metaphor, a way of asserting a resemblance between otherwise distant terms.”
(Kamran Javadizadeh)

There’s the rhyming of abducted words pressed into sonic servitude on a lick and a whim, screaming at the end of their lines. And there’s rhyme so poetically truthful you hardly notice it, yet would rue its absence.

You’ll know the one when you see it; here’s an instance of the other from a poem which is technically unrhymed:

“Lo, the summer is dead, the sun is faded,
Even like as a leaf the year is withered,
All the fruits of the day from all her branches
Gathered, neither is any left to gather […”]

Here’s another truthful instance:

Márgarét, áre you gríeving
Over Goldengrove unleaving?
Leáves like the things of man, you
With your fresh thoughts care for, can you?
Ah! ás the heart grows older
It will come to such sights colder
By and by, nor spare a sigh
Though worlds of wanwood leafmeal lie; […]

I think of Swinburne’s by-the-wayside rhyminess, alongside Hopkins’s brass-bottomed match-ups, as organic rhyme, versus what might be called synthetic, or chain-ganged, rhyme. On first reading of the Hopkins verses I took little note of the rhymes themselves (a dead giveaway of skill), caught up as I was in the jolt of unleaving, plus rhythm, alliteration and neologism. The rhymes fall weightlessly amid the musick and gamboling word-horde.

These two are dead poets, of course. There’s little organic rhyme going on among live ones. That’s not a lament. Time flows. You can’t miss a negative. Where rhyme hangs out these days is in jaunty verse where words pair off in the semblance of a saucy hokey-pokey. It’s wicked good fun with a message inside.

Sources
Kamran Javadizadeh, “The Eroticism of an IKEA Bed,” The New Yorker, 2-3-23.
“Hendacasyllabics” by Algernon Charles Swinburne. Referenced by Matthew Walther, “This Is Why I Hate Banned Books Week,” New York Times, 10-1-23.
“Spring and Fall” by Gerard Manley Hopkins. Quoted by Bret Stephens in The Conversation, “Kevin McCarthy Surprised Us All,” New York Times, 10-2-23.
Resurrecting the Trashcan Bard, WordPress blog.

Posted in Anthology | Tagged language, poetry, reading | 2 Comments

Zakaria Mohammed’s Poem ‘2013-1-2’

Posted on September 30, 2023 by JMN

The September edition of Poetry magazine publishes 3 poems by Palestinian poet Zakaria Mohammed. English translations by Lena Khalaf Tuffaha accompany the Arabic texts. She publishes a translator’s note as well. The poet’s death on August 2, 2023, is noted by Leonie Rau in ArabLit & ArabLit Quarterly.

I’ve read the poem “2013-1-2” in my dictionary-bound way, and have transliterated the Arabic text to show the vowelings and case inflections as I perceive them. Tuffaha’s recording of the poem in the online edition helps train my ear to the living language, and her translation helps check my understanding of the Arabic text.

As a student I’m best served by literalness in my own English version. A fringe benefit is that translating close to the metal feels like polishing a wry lens for viewing the world. The result can read oddly, as can poetry itself.

2013-1-2
Once I shot a gazelle. And the gazelle is a poetic necessity, nothing else.
The sheep, white or black, are the truth.
What’s important, I set for the gazelle a trap and it fell into it. And in me (was) an appetite,
you can’t describe it, for savoring the salty meat of gazelles. I don’t like the meat
of sheep of the malls. But I like your wheat-colored hand
hanging medals on my shoulder. I like your lips saying to me:
You are the pollen of the date palm.
I am the pollen of the date palm? I am the iron that wounds it, and the frightening full moon
that cuts its throat. I no longer have power over the gathering of my dispersion [See note] . I no
longer distinguish between gazelles of the mall and the sheep of the poem.
Futility to drive away the gazelle, and futility the pollen of the date palm.

If I die, open my email. The password is on a sheet of paper on
the table. There you will find my will, and you will seize the gazelle
by its two horns.

If you spot a parsing error in my transliteration, please tell me. I know a pausal reading omits many of the case endings, but documenting them helps me test my grasp of syntax.

marraẗ(an) qanaṣ(tu) ḡazāl(an). wa-l-ḡazāl(u) ḍarūraẗ(un) ši^rīyaẗ(un) lā gair(u).
‘al-‘aḡnām(u)-l-baiḍā’(u) ‘au(i)-s-saudā’(u) hiya-l-ḥaqīqaẗ(u).
‘al-muhimm(u), naṣab(tu) li-l-ḡazāl(i) šarak(an), fa-saqaṭ(a) fī-hi. wa-bī raḡbaẗ(un)
lā tūṣaf(u) li-taḏawwuq(i) laḥm(i)-l-ḡizlān(i)-l-māliḥ(i). lā ‘aḥibb(u) luḥūm(i)-
ḍ-ḍa’n(i) fī-l-mūl(āti). lakinna-nī ‘aḥibb(u) yad(a)-ka-l-qamḥīyaẗ(a) wa-hiya
tu^alliq(u) ^alā katif(ī)-n-nayāšīn(a). ‘aḥibb(u) šafaẗ(a)-ka wa-hiya taqūl(u) lī:
‘anta ṭal^(u)-n-naẖlaẗ(i).
‘anā ṭal^(u)-n-naẖlaẗ(i)? ‘anā-l-ḥadīdaẗ(u)-l-latī tajraḥ(u)-hā, wa-l-badr(u)-l
muẖīf(u)-l-laḏī yanḥur(u)-hā. lam ‘a^ud qādir(an) ^alā lamm(i) šatāt(ī). lam
‘a^ud ‘afruq(u) baina-l-ḡizlān(i)-l-mūl(i) wa-ḍa’n(i)-l-qaṣīdaẗ(i)
^abaṯ(un) ṭard(u)-l-ḡazālaẗ(i), wa-^abaṯ(un) ṭal^(u)-n-naẖlaẗ(i).

‘iḏā mutt(u) fā-ftaḥ(ū) ‘īmīlī. ‘al-bāsūwurd ^alā waraqaẗ(in) fauqa-
ṭ-ṭāwulaẗ(i). hunāka sa-tajid(una) waṣīyaṭī, wa-sa-tamsik(una) bi-l-ḡazāl(i)
min qarn(ai)-hi.

Note
“I no longer have power over the gathering of my dispersion” [lam ‘a^ud qādir(an) ^alā lamm(i) šatāt(ī)]. The active participle [qādir(an)] inflected adverbially expresses a state of ableness The verbal noun [lamm(un)] ranges across the acts of “gathering,” “reuniting,” “putting in order” and “repairing.” The verbal noun [šatāt(un)] conveys the sense of being “scattered” or “dispersed,” and can include the term “diaspora,” though it’s not mentioned in Hans Wehr. The speaker may feel either powerless or fed up with a condition of exile. Tuffaha translates it as: I can’t bear my exile any longer.

Posted in Anthology | Tagged Arabic-English, language, poetry, reading, translation | Leave a comment

It’s Only Money, Ladies. Play Cricket!

Posted on September 27, 2023 by JMN

At this summer’s edition of the Hundred, a short-form cricket tournament in England, umpires for the men’s games — all of them men except for Redfern — were paid three times as much as umpires at the women’s games, seven of whom were women.

Regarding money, it’s bad news as ever for the female side of the species, but there’s a novel development concerning gentlewomanly incursion into the gentleman’s game, as cricket has been called.

Sue Redfern, who bowled for England in a Women’s World Cup match in 1997, “will become the first woman to serve as a standing umpire in the England and Wales men’s county championship, in a game between Glamorgan and Derbyshire in Cardiff, the Welsh capital.”

(It has dawned on me only now that I grew up around a saying heard mostly on the playground: That’s just not cricket! “Cricket” was an adjective to us. The comment meant, “That’s just not fair!” We grubby West Texas urchins had no inkling there was such a game as cricket. I see now how the sport’s reputation for rules-based play, adherence to form and hidebound aura had filtered down to popular lingo in faraway places.)

Surrey, by all reports, is the one to beat:

The county championship is one of the oldest organized sporting activities in the world — the first official champion (Surrey) was crowned in 1890, and unofficial titles date back to 1864 (also Surrey). As if to underline the slow rate of change, the leader of this year’s championship is … Surrey.

(Victor Mather, “Female Umpire Breaks Ground in Tradition-Laden Cricket League,” New York Times, 9-22-23)

Posted in Commentary, Quotations | Tagged miscellaneous, personal | 3 Comments

‘I Worry That It Will Feel Pointless to Even Try to Create in Public’

Posted on September 24, 2023 by JMN

“Horse,” 16 x 20 in., oil on canvas (JMN 2023).

But even those of us who don’t have a job directly threatened by A.I. think of writing that novel or composing a song or recording a TikTok or making a joke on social media. If we don’t have any protections from the A.I. data overgrazers, I worry that it will feel pointless to even try to create in public. And that would be a real tragedy.

(Julia Angwin, “The Internet Is About to Get Much Worse,” New York Times, 9-23-23)

The article by Julia Angwin about AI rapacity on the digital commons made me think about why we create at all. Being exhibited and having a publisher (and agent) are staunchly institutionalized marks of validation for earnest aspirants to the title of “artist.” Even I, a casual practitioner, would I keep crafting rebarbative commentaries, inventing doggerel, daubing pigment, and generally smarting off in EthicalDative if I couldn’t flaunt the dubious outcomes on my wee blog?

Say it all landed on the walls of my shed, or were pitched into drawers, or confined to diaries shelved in the back room, never to reach eyeballs, eardrums or neural circuses beyond mine: Would absence of even the dream of a spectatorship put the kibosh on my urge to impersonate a creative?

That isn’t exactly what Julia Angwin has affirmed, but I dunno. The high-minded answer to my question would be: Of course not! The instinct to create is in our DNA, instilled by… [insert the god or goddess of your persuasion].

Be that as it may, it feels ever so likely that the data rape by monetized Big AI, which disquiets multitudes already, will proceed apace and unabated, by hook and by crook, despite all efforts to stem the tide. And you know the old saying: Give ‘em enough rape and they’ll hang us with it. (Scrape that gobbet, vile bot!)

Posted in Commentary, Quotations | Tagged AI, art, blogging | 3 Comments

A-Hurtling and A-Hurling We Will Go

Posted on September 22, 2023 by JMN

But Murdoch’s legacy is decided. We are hurling toward another government shutdown, egged on by Hannity.
(Michelle Goldberg)

The New York Times performs to a high editorial standard in the matter of typos and misprints. When they do crop up, its boo-boos are all the more joy-inducing to the obnoxious grammar nazi.

I surmise that Michelle Goldberg wrote, or meant to write, “We are hurtling toward another government shutdown”; however, it’s feasible to take her statement ad litteram and conclude that many of us are also vomiting in the direction of (i.e., hurling toward) another government shutdown.

In for a hurtle, in for a hurl.

Sincerely yours,

Obnoxious Grammar Nazi

(Michelle Goldberg, “The Ludicrous Agony of Rupert Murdoch,” New York Times, 9-21-23)

Posted in Commentary, Quotations | Tagged language | 5 Comments