I HEARD THE NEWS, AND MEANING ERUPTED

by Mohammad Javanmard

The Bomb by M Manzano

today I woke up hearing the news 
you all know the news 
‘except the one who is still laughing’ 
I heard the news and meaning 
erupted 
on the floor 
as if a flow of a sticky, dark, smelly liquid

poetry is not for talking about politics 
we all know that 
but I’m sorry, 
I’m truly sorry
when I heard the news 
the meaning erupted 
like a bomb in Gaza 
near a basement 
where Sadiqa and her two children live(d)

poetry is not a political statement 
I apologise from all of you 
it should be about beauty and love and profound things in life
like when Mahmoud Darwish talks about: 

‘the hesitation of April 
the smell of bread at dawn 
the beginning of love, 
grass on a stone…’

but how can one explain to a terrified one-year-old 
what bombing is
and why the ground is shaking every few minutes
and the windows 
and the half empty glass on the table
and the framed picture of a man you’ve never met
on the wall
and people say that’s your dad

I remember once
my mom took me to a funeral 
and everyone was crying 
and my mom cried 
I felt the whole world started shaking 
and I cried 
and I wet my pants 
‘mama let’s go out of here’ 
pulling her head scarf 
and people thought I’m so sympathetic with the one who’d died
but my mom was crying 
and all this is pointless

the main question is 
how can one explain to a three-year-old
sitting in a bus 
heading to the south
why we should leave our house today 
in the midst of all these horrible sounds 
and the rubbles of buildings and of
humans 
and why…
(the bus erupted) 

I’m sorry I’m truly sorry 
I know we’re not supposed to use too many adjectives 
in a modern poem 
that’s just bad taste 
I know 
I know that poetry should be self-referential and create a semi-autonomous environment
that poetry is not to gain its meaning from outside
signs should interrelate and then the surplus significance emerges from within
I know we shouldn’t express our feelings so explicitly 

but forgive me 
that I couldn’t think of any ‘objective correlative’ 
for the bombardment of the children’s hospital in Gaza
for people’s thirst
for the bodies left behind

just like when Neruda couldn’t find any
 for ‘the blood of children ran through the streets
without fuss, like children's blood.’

forgive me that there is no literary equivalence for the catastrophe
there has never been.  

today 
when I was having my cereal 
sitting beside my daughter 
in a city in the middle of the UK
the meaning erupted 
and it’s unraveling my poetry
(and how cliche this trick is! Disgusting!)  

I went to the main square afterward 
to see others who’ve felt the earthquake just like me
from far away
we looked at each other’s eyes 
we said ‘oh it’s awful’
it’s horrendous 
we shared our mutual despise of the political leaders 
we talked about the horror 
about water 
electricity
bread
about last night’s meal that we’d had in the pub nearby 
‘how is Tom by the way?’
a friend asked 
tom was alright 
fortunately 
minding his own business 
and we chanted 
someone said ‘what a cute little girl’

but nobody asked that main question 
that we were all thinking of 

that how you can explain to a... 
the basement exploded. 
(another rubble among the rubbles)
no need to explain anymore. 
no need to think about it. 

Mohammad Javanmard is a poet whose work has thus far appeared in Persian. He also does research on the 21st century collective movements /collective subjectivities through world literature.

REQUIEM FOR PABLO NERUDA

by Donna Katzin

Fifty years on, the true cause of death of the Chilean poet Pablo Neruda, in the wake of the country’s 1973 coup d’état, has remained in doubt across the world… On the evening of Sept. 23, 1973, the [Santa Maria] clinic reported that Mr. Neruda died of heart failure. Earlier that day, he had called his wife saying he was feeling ill after receiving some form of medication. In 2011, Manuel Araya, Mr. Neruda’s driver at the time, publicly claimed that the doctors at the clinic poisoned him by injecting an unknown substance into his stomach, saying Mr. Neruda told him this before he died… On Wednesday, The New York Times reviewed the summary of findings compiled by international forensic experts who had examined Mr. Neruda’s exhumed remains and identified bacteria that can be deadly. In a one-page summary of their report, shared with The New York Times, the scientists confirmed that the bacteria was in his body when he died, but said they could not distinguish whether it was a toxic strain of the bacteria nor whether he was injected with it or instead ate contaminated food. The findings once again leave open the question of whether Mr. Neruda was murdered. —The New York Times, February 15, 2023

“Mi deber es vivir, morir, vivir.”

My duty is to live, to die, to live.

—Pablo Neruda

At your home Isla Negra,                                              

guides showed us your collections

of sea shells, butterflies and poems,

shared that when, in your hospital bed,

you heard the comrade president had died,

you closed your eyes for the last time  

as the waves wept.

 

 

Half a century later, your comrades

in the science of life and search for truth

exhumed your body from the sleeping earth,

discovered the poison injected in your stomach

by doctors of the dictators—

a burning serpent sent

to seal your lips.

 

 

But, comrade poet, your words

carry us on wings of awe—

beyond despots, toxins,

solitude and silence—

to liberated zones of our

imagination, hope and love                                 

as tireless as an ocean of stars.

Author's note: Isla Negra, today a museum, is a seaside former home of Pablo Neruda, where for years staff had quietly shared with visitors the popular belief that the poet had died of grief when he overheard the news that General Pinochet had taken power and that his friend President Salvador Allende had died.

Donna Katzin is the founding and former executive director of Shared Interest which facilitates access to credit for low-income Black Southern Africans. She co-coordinates Tipitapa Partners which helps feed and empower impoverished mothers and children in Nicaragua, and she serves on the board of Community Change in the U.S.  She is also a contributor to The New Verse News and author of With These Hands, poems about the "new" South Africa giving birth to itself.

AFTER THE SHOOTING IN EL PASO

by Tina Barry

Image by Melissa Joskow / Media Matters

Invade with your            hot mouth   lie

uncovered among the fragrance      of the world!  

Look at what comes    Look at them    An invasion 

what marches toward us    marches with night-

eyes   An invasion   To be invaded       To be  

“simply defending my country” To deafen

To defend “from cultural and ethnic replace

ment”   The rest are in the light that bursts

into secret        Where what are?  

Things that begin  when fire-

blue waves open fire on 

                    the poor

                parched heart

Author’s Note: The poem’s lines are borrowed from Pablo Neruda’s Love Sonnet “I” in his 100 Love Sonnets and from “El Paso Shooting Suspect’s Manifesto Echoes Trump’s Language,” by Peter Baker and Michael D. Shear, The New York Times, August 4, 2019.

Tina Barry is a freelance writer, poet, short fiction writer and curator. She is the author of Mall Flower (Big Table Publishing, 2016). Tina’s writing has been included in The Best Short Fictions 2016, Drunken Boat, Inch Magazine, Yes, Poetry, Connotation Press, and several anthologies including Nasty Women Poets: An Unapologetic Anthology of Subversive Verse, Feckless Cunt and A Constellation of Kisses. In 2018-2019, Tina conceived and curated “The Virginia Project,” a collaborative written word and visual art exhibition that celebrated Virginia Haggard, the partner of the artist Marc Chagall, and Haggard’s daughter Jean McNeil. Beautiful Raft, the writing that launched the exhibit, will be published this fall. Tina is a teaching artist at The Poetry Barn and Gemini Ink. 

EXHUMING NERUDA

by Catherine Chandler

Was Pablo Neruda killed by Pinochet? When the great poet died 40 years ago in Chile, it was said to be from cancer. Now, lawyers say it was murder. --Nick Clark, The Independent, June 2, 2013

At Isla Negra, Neftalí, you sang of joy and pain,
of poverty, Matilde, birds, of artichokes and rain.

And once at Isla Negra, they searched each corner of
your hideaway, but all they found was bread and wine and love.

And now at Isla Negra, they are digging up your bones;
they'll fly them to the capital then rearrange the stones.

In Santiago, Chile, nearly forty years have passed;
may this, your final journey bring the truth to light, at last.


Catherine Chandler is the author of four books of poetry, including Lines of Flight (Able Muse Press, 2011) and This Sweet Order (White Violet Press, 2012). Her second full length collection, Glad and Sorry Seasons will be published by Biblioasis Press (Windsor, Ontario) in March 2014. Catherine is a native of New York City, but has lived and worked in Canada for many years, most recently as lecturer at McGill University's Department of Translation Studies.

THE DISAPPEARED

by B.Z. Niditch

New Pope Tied Up in Argentina's 'Dirty War' Debate
--AP,  March 14, 2013
Image: Jorge Bergoglio, Prepósito Provincial, en 1976. Image source: EstrellaDigital

                  for Pablo Neruda

Where are they
the children
the lost
those living in memory
in our solitude
those without strength
who march with us
in solidarity
who sing with us
toil with us
write on walls
all over the world with us
in prisons
with us
forever
clinging to a future
of the disappeared
and dispossessed
of the earth.


B.Z. Niditch is a poet, playwright, fiction writer and teacher. His work is widely published in journals and magazines throughout the world, including Columbia: A Magazine of Poetry and Art, The Literary Review, Denver Quarterly, Hawaii Review, Le Guepard (France), Kadmos (France), Prism International, Jejune (Czech Republic), Leopold Bloom (Budapest), Antioch Review, and Prairie Schooner.  He lives in Brookline, Massachusetts.