Tag Archives: language

Chasing Command: The Kicker

Posted on September 9, 2022 by JMN

Statistic: Forty-nine of the 50 highest-scoring players in American football history are kickers. “And the first ball comes off my foot like a rocket, and then the next one and the next,” he says. “I just felt like I had … Continue reading →

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Romancing ‘Gilgamesh’s Snake’

Posted on September 7, 2022 by JMN

The transliterations bracketed below are mine. In them, tā’ marbūṭa is ẗ, and I show the lām of the article as assimilated to a following solar letter. For example: [‘ayyuhā-s-sayyidu] instead of [‘ayyuhā-l-sayyidu]. My character set, contrived to avoid digraphs, … Continue reading →

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(Not) Learning to Read

Posted on September 4, 2022 by JMN

The most important thing schools can do is teach children how to read. If you can read, you can learn anything. If you can’t, almost everything in school is difficult. Word problems. Test directions. Biology homework. Everything comes back to … Continue reading →

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Fixing to Start Something With ‘Gilgamesh’s Snake’

Posted on August 28, 2022 by JMN

Ghareeb Iskander is an Iraqi writer who lives in London. HIs book of poems in Arabic, “Gilgamesh’s Snake and Other Poems,” was published by Syracuse University Press in 2016. The English translations are the work of Scottish poet John Glenday … Continue reading →

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‘Writing a Chrysanthemum’

Posted on August 25, 2022 by JMN

On scrolls of Japanese paper each 19 feet in length, Barton documented the underbelly of San Francisco’s North Beach neighborhood before the hippies showed up… A friend and fellow artist recalled that Barton began a portrait with the sitter’s fingernail… … Continue reading →

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‘Because You See His Teeth, Don’t Assume the Lion Is Smiling’

Posted on August 23, 2022 by JMN

The comment about the unsmiling lion is attributed to the 10th-century Arabic poet al-Mutanabbi (915 – 965). I heard it on a podcast called “Arabic Qahwa.” The line has a zesty zing to it that marks it as an old … Continue reading →

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Translating Conceived as Sketching

Posted on August 21, 2022 by JMN

I wonder if a translation of a poem can be compared to a sketch of a painting? The sketcher recreates aspects of an original art work in a different medium, say pencil. Words are the translator’s medium. She uses those … Continue reading →

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‘There Are No Bright Lines Here’

Posted on August 19, 2022 by JMN

Tish Harrison Warren, an Anglican priest, describes a recent baptismal service: Baptisms at our church are a mixture of solemnity and unbridled glee, often full of laughter and tears of joy. Those who were being baptized, or in the case … Continue reading →

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Some Days I’m Angry AND Disappointed

Posted on August 17, 2022 by JMN

Those are stay-big-picture days: paint, write, read, think about language. If gender is fluent, so are the other language markers which assert us. What if I don’t always identify as a first person? I may feel like a you, for … Continue reading →

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Failure Foretold: Manifesto of Translation Excuses

Posted on August 13, 2022 by JMN

The physics of a tiny bead driven by a puff of air towards a miracle on airy wing guarantees that a kid plinking at dragonflies with his BB-gun will never bag one. That’s the comfort built into the action. So … Continue reading →

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