51---> shafiq & das

Name: Mohammad Shafiqul Islam

Hometown: Tangail, Bangladesh

Current City: Sylhet, Bangladesh

Occupation: English Teacher at Shahjalal University of Science & Technology, Sylhet, Bangladesh; Poet; Translator of Bengali into English.

Age: 38

What does poetry mean to you?

Poetry is very important to me. It gives me immense pleasure, astonishes me, accompanies me at my distress, sometimes takes me far away from the mundane reality, engages me in a distinct thought process, and also makes me happy.

Poetry is a second presence in my daily life – I sometimes speak to poetry, and it also speaks to me. Poetry is what does not let me sleep, leaves me in a space that is both known and unknown. Poetry, to me, is breeze that spreads love and peace. In another sense, poetry represents what happens around us every day, what we experience in our quotidian existence, how we see the world, nature and human beings, and how we feel after a certain shocking or pleasant experience. Through poetry, we see reality in a distinct way, we travel around the world, through spaces, and we discover something new. We strive to imagine a safer world through poetry.

Poetry continues to live, keeps us alive, and we cannot survive without poetry.

Favorite Poem:

Out of many wonderful poems from around the world, I would like to mention one titled “Banalata Sen” by Jibanananda Das.

Why do you like this poet/poem?

“Banalata Sen” by Jibanananda Das is one of my favorite poems—it is indeed one of the most read and acclaimed poems in Bengali literature. The poem has been translated by several translators into English; I have read both the original and the translated version of the poem. Banalata Sen is the name of a girl who is a paradigm of beauty—she stands beside the most beautiful women characters presented by poets, writers and artists. Female beauty is glorified in the poem. Banalata is the poet’s muse who is his eternal inspiration in the creative venture.

The poet sets words in the poem in such a way that one is reminded of a great work that is created out of love—words in the poem are like pearls placed one after another to form an eternal beauty. Reading the poem means walking through a serene forest path surrounded by trees where breeze kisses the leaves with a sense of grandeur.

বনলতা সেন 

– জীবনানন্দ দাস

হাজার বছর ধরে আমি পথ হাঁটিতেছি পৃথিবীর পথে,
সিংহল-সমুদ্র থেকে নিশীথের অন্ধকারে মালয়-সাগরে
অনেক ঘুরেছি আমি; বিম্বিসার-অশোকের ধূসর জগতে
সেখানে ছিলাম আমি; আরও দূর অন্ধকারে বিদর্ভ নগরে;
আমি ক্লান্ত প্রাণ এক, চারিদিকে জীবনের সমুদ্র সফেন,
আমারে দু-দন্ড শান্তি দিয়েছিল নাটোরের বনলতা সেন ।
 
চুল তার কবেকার অন্ধকার বিদিশার নিশা,
মুখ তার শ্রাবস্তীর কারুকার্য; অতিদূর সমুদ্রের পর
হাল ভেঙ্গে যে নাবিক হারায়েছে দিশা
সবুজ ঘাসের দেশ যখন সে চোখে দেখে দারুচিনি-দ্বীপের ভিতর,
তেমনি দেখেছি তারে অন্ধকারে; বলেছে সে, ‘এতদিন কোথায় ছিলেন?’
পাখির নীড়ের মত চোখ তুলে নাটোরের বনলতা সেন।
 
সমস্ত দিনের শেষে শিশিরের শব্দের মত
সন্ধ্যা আসে; ডানার রৌদ্রের গন্ধ মুছে ফেলে চিল;
পৃথিবীর সব রঙ নিভে গেলে পান্ডুলিপি করে আয়োজন
তখন গল্পের তরে জোনাকির রঙে ঝিলমিল;
সব পাখি ঘরে আসে – সব নদী – ফুরায় এ জীবনের সব লেনদেন;
থাকে শুধু অন্ধকার, মুখোমুখি বসিবার বনলতা সেন।

BANALATA SEN

For a thousand years I have walked the ways of the world,
From Sinhala’s Sea to Malaya’s in night’s darkness,
Far did I roam. In Vimbisar and Ashok’s ash-grey world
Was I Present; farther off, in distant Vidarba city’s darkness,
I, a tired soul, around me, life’s turbulent, foaming ocean,
Finally found some bliss with Natore’s Banalata Sen.


Her hair was full of the darkness of a distant Vidisha night,
Her face was filigreed with Sravasti’s artwork.As in a far-off sea,
The ship-wrecked mariner, lonely, and no relief in sight,
Sees in a cinnamon isle sings of a lush grass-green valley,
Did I see her in darkness; said she, ”Where had you been?”
Raising her eyes, so bird’s nest like, Natore’s Banalata Sen.


At the end of the day, with the soft sound of dew,
Night falls; the kite wipes the sun’s smells from its wings;
The world’s colors fade; fireflies light up the world anew;
Time to wrap up work and get set for the telling of tales;
All birds home ─ rivers too ─ life’s mart close again;
What remains is darkness and facing me ─ Banalata Sen!

Translated by Fakrul Alam

50---> guy & collins

Name: Guy Choate

Hometown: Beebe, Arkansas

Current City: North Little Rock, Arkansas

Occupation: Communications Team Manager at an engineering consulting firm; Founder and Curator of the Argenta Reading Series

Age: 35

What does poetry mean to you?

My default literary mode is set to nonfiction prose, so a lot of times what I think of as poetry is found within larger bodies of prose. To me, so much of the poetry I come across is the isolated brilliance of a section of prose or the arrangement of words within a piece that has no flaws. The relationship written poetry has with spoken language, however, is extraordinary.

I love reading aloud, so I can feel the written word. Sometimes, when I sit down to write something for an audience, I can’t get past an initial desire I have to stand at a podium and scream words at them. (I have no idea what this means.) As a form, though, prose typically requires more context than a yell, while I think a poem can inhabit this space. A good poet needs less reason, in the space of poetry, to hit people hard with words. She doesn’t always have to think about why or where the words, or the act itself of language announcing, must “fit” in the orderly space of essay. I will always be envious of that kind of expression, one that is not obligated to linearity, and the courage to articulate from these associative places. Poetry allows a space for words that don’t always want to be explained.

Favorite Poem:

“Dharma” by Billy Collins

Why do you like this poem?

The poem calls attention to how admirable dogs are for being able to leave the house without any belongings, and I think of the poem every time I put a leash on my own dog. It becomes a subconscious mantra for me when I walk out the door; every day I tell myself, I can navigate all of this, the whole world, without the help of the material goods of a house, what I put in the house. It find it so reassuring.

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You can follow the (un)material-ridden days of Guy Choate on his very active and humorous photo-a-day blog.

48---> kyle & berman

Name: Kyle Field

Hometown: Born in Tuscaloosa, Alabama

Current City: Los Angeles, California

Occupation: Artist

Age: 44

What does poetry mean to you?

Well, it is a vague question, and to be honest I create more than I absorb from others these days, though my inspiration phase of early years was, of course, vital. Once you learn how to ride a bike there is less and less need to watch others doing it. Now it's time for them to watch you! Zoom zoom down the cobbly boulevard...

I truly enjoy the activity of puzzling words and rhymes and meter and syllable together, a practice I consider similar to constructing a picture or a painting. There are precise moves balanced with loose moves, and I believe that the difference in weight of several actions gives balance and flexibility to the fabric. Different juxtapositions based on the ever-evolving and mounting vocabulary of all of the words one has ever written, an ever-growing canon that reflects back on itself and rebounds, references, builds on and on, living in its own context and gaining mass glory and legend along the way.

That being said, my ideal place of reading is in bed, half-sick, maybe a mild fever, as I lay dying as the hunter's bow from Hamsun's Pan has felled me, and while bleeding I take in words on, sometimes hopefully, yellowed pages from a used $5 or less volume. This happens after I have run and run and run and worn out to the place that I have nothing left to say. Then, I read, with a notebook close at hand, and roll over with achy back and ribs, to jot in this small book of pages a tweak or grabbed phrase, sometimes twisting it into a song title. I rarely read my own poems. Most of my words ultimately end up in song, for, in some sense, I feel, if the words are strong, a poem is at it's strongest set to music.

Favorite Poet:

I don't have any single favorites, but, for the purposes of this questionnaire, I will say David Berman, as I just dug out of an outdoor storage closet, only yesterday, my 4th copy (I've given it away three times) of his excellent book of poems, Actual Air, from 1999. I will now read from his poem: 

"The Coahoma County Wind Cults"

My dream walked on four legs

toward the remote source

of a pale yellow letter

only to circle around the cabin

when it got there.

A black and white cave rainbow

arched between two old shoes.

Oxygen bounced off the face of a doll,

looking for the slow dazzling guts

of a life form.

There was a moment of sudden clarity

when the pages burned in opera glasses,

like a herd crossing zip codes

or an exhumed idea pressing

at the limits of the marquee bulbs,

my dream pushes air.

Why do you like this poet/poem?

What he does with words, word to word, gives me a liberating life experience, and I like the feeling just to have my eyes pass over them on a page. I also feel like he is always abstractly talking about something so normal in some sense, so universal to the human experience, yet the way he reframes it is intoxicating. That sounds so corny—descriptions and comparisons are odious, especially if the thing speaks for itself so well. Sometimes the spoken word is a jacket too tight.

His dead blog is still quite interesting. He talks about when he quit writing, like when Duchamp quit making art and just played chess, I somehow love these kind of grand gestures.

"SEE Paradise" by Kyle Field is a piece in conversation with David Berman's "The Coahoma County Wind Cults."

47---> jennifer & beatty

Name: Jennifer Jackson Berry

Hometown & Current City: Pittsburgh, PA

Age: 39

Occupation: Claims Adjuster, Poet, and Editor

What does poetry mean to you?

Poetry has saved me. When life took turns that I didn't expect and when those turns left me unable to verbalize my emotions, I turned to the page. When someone tells me that one of my poems has helped them, I am so profoundly honored and so deeply happy. When I find a poem that helps me, I am indebted to that poet.

A Favorite Poem:

"I'll Write the GIrl" by Jan Beatty

Why do you like this poem?

Jan Beatty is an amazing mentor, a generous spirit, and a powerhouse poet. This poem speaks to me because I lost my way in the poetry world for a long time. I didn't write anything for nearly ten years after completing my MFA back in 2002. I didn't know how to be a poet if I wasn't going to be in the academy as a professor/teacher. I didn't think that what I was writing about was important, was high-art enough. I started writing again and found the Madwomen in the Attic Writing Workshops, which are workshops for students and community writers that are small, supportive, and intergenerational. I found friendships, support, and validation. I learned that I'll always write the girl, too, and that my voice is important when I'm writing about her.

45---> ross & oliver

Name: Ross Peter Nelson

Hometown: Northern Montanifornia

Current City: Helena, MT

Occupation: Playwright/Photographer/Programmer

Age: Slouching towards geezerdom

What does poetry mean to you?

Poetry is the girl you watch shyly from the sidelines, wondering if she'd like you. And when (or if) you finally get up the nerve to talk to her, you don't understand her at all. Rinse, repeat. Then, after dozens of confusing encounters, there is clarity, a spark. To me, poetry is a distilled essence of a mood, situation, and poet, and it's so personal and idiosyncratic that unless we match at a nearly genetic level, the connection doesn't happen.

Favorite poem:

I love Mary Oliver's "Little Owl Who Lives in the Orchard."

Why do you like the poem?

I love the contrasts: it's dark; it's whimsical; it speaks of valentines; it speaks of death. It's imagery evokes so much. Her "festal mouse" conjures up an almost Arthurian gala, and the "aluminum ladder of his scream" is both aural and visceral. Her little owl is both darling and dread. It's a portrait no painter or photographer could ever match.

Mary Oliver is attuned to nature in a way that inspires awe. Her visions are clear-sighted; when she celebrates new life in the spring, she doesn't spare the observation of the whitened bones that didn't survive winter.

There is one bit of poetic advice that I try to hold to in my own writing and that is Emily Dickinson's "tell the all truth, but tell it slant," and I love writers whose own "slant" lets me see things anew.

_________________________________________________

Ross Peter Nelson self-identifies as a playwright but enjoys cross-genre experiences as well. His plays have been produced on three continents, and his drama, fiction, photography, and political essays have been published in magazines, anthologies, and appear online. His dark internet surveillance comedy Becoming Number Six premiered last fall in New Orleans, and he will spend October 2017 as playwright-in-residence at Can Serrat, Spain.

43---> kali & gilbert

Name: Kali McNutt

Hometown: Birmingham, AL

Current City: Birmingham, AL

Occupation: Entrepreneur/Importer/Foreign Policy Semi-Wonk

Age: almost 32

What does poetry mean to you?

Poetry is a way to say more than what is literally on paper—it’s a method of evoking a feeling using few words.

Favorite poem or poet:

For the past two years I have returned to "Failing and Flying" by Jack Gilbert.

Why do you like this poem?

Gilbert’s poem provides an alternate way to look at failure in romantic relationships, a way that I think is more real than most anything I've ever heard or been taught. Also, it has the ability to make me weep every time I read it. A friend shared it with me, and I have shared it with others—all have been moved by it in some way.

42---> yara & de musset

Prénom, Nom: Yara Lapidus
Ville actuelle: Paris
Travail: Chanteuse, auteur


Que signifie pour vous la poésie ?

La poésie est pour moi un espace de liberté absolue. Elle est indissociable de l’imagination, elle n’est pas dictée par aucune limite. La phrase suivante de Raymond Queneau est une parfaite illustration: "La poésie, c’est de savoir dire qu’il pleut quand il fait beau et qu’il fait beau quand il pleut." (1)

Poème préféré :

Il m’est très difficile de choisir un poète ou un poème tant la liste est longue.
Disons qu’aujourd’hui, le premier qui me vient à l’esprit est ce poème "VI" adressé à George Sand par Alfred de Musset :

A George Sand

Porte ta vie ailleurs, ô toi qui fus ma vie ;
Verse ailleurs ce trésor que j’avais pour tout bien.
Va chercher d’autres lieux, toi qui fus ma patrie,
Va fleurir, ô soleil, ô ma belle chérie,
Fais riche un autre amour et souviens-toi du mien.

Laisse mon souvenir te suivre loin de France ;
Qu’il parte sur ton coeur, pauvre bouquet fané,
Lorsque tu l’as cueilli, j’ai connu l’Espérance,
Je croyais au bonheur, et toute ma souffrance
Est de l’avoir perdu sans te l’avoir donné. (2)

Pourquoi aimez vous ce poème ?

J’aime ce poème pour la noblesse de la générosité qui se dégage des deux derniers vers ; Ces dernières phrases me bouleversent. (3)
 

Un nouvel album de Yara Lapidus se prépare dont la sortie en version française est prévue le 23 juin 2017. Elle est l'auteur et l'interprète. Gabriel Yared est le compositeur. Découvrez "One Thing, Nothing", extrait de ce nouvel album Indéfiniment sur son site. (4)

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Traduit du français par Carrie Chappell/ Translated from French to English by Carrie Chappell

(1) For me, poetry is a space of absolute freedom. It is deeply intertwined with the imagination and knows no bounds. This following sentence from Raymond Queneau is a perfect example of this: "Poetry is being able to say, it's raining when the weather is nice and that the weather is nice when it's raining." 

(2) It is really difficult for me to choose a poet or a poem as the list is long. For today, let's say that first poem that comes to mind is this "VI" addressed to George Sand by Alfred de Musset:

To George Sand

Lead your life elsewhere, o thou who was my life;

Pour out this treasure that I held as property.

Go find some other place, you who were my country.

Flourish, o sun, o my beautiful darling,

Make rich another love and remember mine. 

Let my memory follow you away from France;

That it could part on your heart, poor faded bouquet,

When you gathered it, I knew Hope,

I believed in happiness, and all my suffering 

Is to have lost it without giving it to you. 

(3) I love this poem for the noble generosity that emerges in the last two verses; those last lines shatter me. 

(4) Yara Lapidus' new album is in its final stages and is due for release on July 23, 2017. She is the writer and singer. Gabriel Yared is the composer. You can preview "One Thing, Nothing," a single already released from Indéfiniment, by visiting her site.