La Federación Global de Liderazgo y Alta Inteligencia Federación Global Liderazgo Y Alta Inteligencia te invita a participar en la Antología poética para el día de las madres : Madre, mujer y templo.
Cada uno participará en su lengua madre. Adjuntar carta de autorización de uso. Este es un proyecto académico. Se solicita poesía a dos cuartillas en formato libre. Semblanza de 50 palabras y fotografía. Adjuntar video leyendo su poema para subir a televisión digital , YouTube y plataforma de Facebook en Cabina 11 Cadena Global Escríbeme en privado para más detalles.
Cal Performances presented the Bay Area premiere of William Kentridge’s new collaboration, The Great Yes, The Great No, on a recent chilly, rain-sprinkled March evening, to a standing ovation in a warm, dry, and packed Zellerbach Hall in the “People’s Republic of” Berkeley.
Truly, it was manna to the baffled left these days of a monstrous politics. And a stimulus and wonder even to skeptics of both progressives and reactionaries; echoes of Cavafy, Dante, and Carlyle were clearly not unintended. Even of Coleridge and “The Rime of the Ancient Mariner”; even of the Narrenschiff – the “ship of fools” of the Middle Ages and Katherine Anne Porter’s bleak, modern fable.
The work, co-commissioned by the ever-questing Cal Performances for its Illuminations series (the theme this year is “Fractured History” – a timely phrase, as we threaten to crumble into a humblingly fractured present), is the latest in the South African artist’s theatrical undertakings, culminating most recently in Berkeley with the amalgam of fantasy and prophecy Sybil two years ago.
In Kentridge’s new work, we are introduced to a cargo ship repurposed for refugees, ploughing the seas of midcentury on a voyage to escape a Nazified Europe for temporary asylum in the New World. In March 1941, the Capitaine Paul-Lemerle left Marseilles for the Caribbean French colony of Martinique, bearing several hundred refugees, including luminaries such as “the pope of Surrealism” André Breton, Cuban artist Wifredo Lam, novelists Victor Serge and Anna Seghers, and the anthropologist and founder of structuralism, Claude Levi-Strauss: a ship of geniuses, culture avatars, and anti-imperialists fleeing a continent of psychopaths for the utopia of the irrational, of “revolution,” of “freedom.”
A curious but relevant fact about Martinique: it was the one island Napoleon allowed slavery (according to the libretto) when he abolished it throughout the Empire – and why? Because of Europeans’ insatiable desire for the sugar Martinique was known for and could not produce “economically” without its slaves.
Kentridge haunts his ship with figures from multiple eras binding the imperial center to the tiny Antillean island: the Martinican poet, and father of anti-colonialist theories of negritude, Aimé Césaire, and his wife Suzanne; the fellow Martinican sisters Nardal, whose Parisian salon incubated negritude with the Césaires and African writers such as Léopold Sédar Senghor and Léon-Gontran Damas; and other relevant phantoms: Napoleon’s beloved Martiquinaise Joséphine Bonaparte and the Martiniquais, and future revolutionary theorist, Frantz Fanon.
We were treated with Kentridge’s characteristically virtuosic blend of spoken word, dance, dream scene and song, surreal cartoon and reversed film sequence, liberated signifiers, extravagant costumes and portrait masks for each of the avatars, dancing tools and animated utensils (including one of his signature mottos, a twitchy, goofily animated typewriter), in this modern version of classic singspiel.
It took off on a wildly surrealist ride across time and geography, with a collage libretto combining quotations from the figures named and such notable subversives as Bertolt Brecht. Narrative is not Kentridge’s strong suit, and his attempts in that direction usually run aground on pancake-flat characters and prosaic plots (he has yet to quite realize that a story without logic (his explicit pet peeve, in this work, being reason and all its affiliates) is like a decalcified hippo: somewhere between a glob and a blot. He is at his best when indulging his imagination and letting poetry suggest where prose merely deafens.
At the head of the ship stood its captain, an African version of the classic Greek Charon, boatman of the underworld ferrying souls to their final ends. The captain (a brilliantly insouciant Hamilton Dhlamini) dropped many of the evening’s most provocative lines. Another performance especially shone; Nancy Nkusi as Suzanne Césaire, whose recital of the verses of her spouse Aimé, from his poem Cahier d’un retour au pays natal, provided much memorable imagery. Not least was her haunting appearance in a black-and-white film scene, crawling across a banquet table surrounded by tuxedoed gentlemen with the heads of coffeepots and the cannibalistic appetites of all empires.
A constellation of quotations were projected or spoken or sung, or all three, across the magic lantern–like astrolabe that backed the stage: “The Dead Report for Duty,” “The Boats Flee, But to Where?” “The World Is Leaking.” “These Are My Old Tears.” “The Women Are Picking Up the Pieces.”
And a Chorus of Seven Women sing, dance and comment on the mystico-political voyage throughout, translated into the native languages of the singers: Sepedi, Setswana, siSwati, isiZulu, in the music of Nhlanhla Mahlangu.
A small, tight musical ensemble accompanied the proceedings throughout, led by the percussionist and composer Tlale Makhene.
For all the cornucopia of imagery, word wonder and music, my feelings about the evening were obstinately mixed. What I loved were the endlessly inventive visuals Kentridge can always be counted to magic out of the bricolage of his imagination, the 360-degree projections of the ship, the gimcrack costuming, the slants of film and dashes of music, the rich, sly humorous poetry, both visual and verbal, that illuminates, in flash after flash, as much as it entertains.
But there was also an element of agitprop, of heavy-handed prose hectoring and editorializing as it blundered into the show – the poetry, singing, told us endlessly more than the political prosing, shouting, which performed the bizarre act of shipwrecking itself. And when there are positive references to such monstres sacrés as Trotsky and Stalin, I, for one, am out. An artwork makes a poor editorial: when it trades poetry for slogans, it thrills only a few converts.
There is, unhappily, an even more serious point to make. Something about the enterprise rubbed me the wrong way from the start. Late winter 2025 on planet Earth hardly seems the best time and place to be celebrating “the irrational.” Whatever we are facing, politically, historically, it cannot be called by any stretch of the imagination a “tyranny of reason” or the authoritarianism of the bourgeoisie. In the current moment, I, and I suspect many others, feel trapped inside a global surreal nightmare from which we may not be able to escape. A surrealist fantasy celebrating unreason seems perhaps not the most appropriate message for a world on the verge of shipwrecking on the reef of insanity.
Those of us cursed with a reflexive skepticism may not care much to embark (without security guarantees) on so dubious a journey. For every “Great Yes,” there is sometimes a small but potent “no.”
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Christopher Bernard is an award-winning novelist, poet, and essayist and author of numerous books, including A Spy in the Ruins (celebrating its twentieth anniversary in 2025) and The Socialist’s Garden of Verses. He is founder and lead editor of the webzine Caveat Lector and recipient of an Albert Nelson Marquis Lifetime Achievement Award.
TARANE TURAN RAHIMLI PARTICIPATED IN THE INTERNATIONAL CUKUROVA POETRY DAYS.
On the date when poetry day is celebrated all over the world, the Turkic world experienced a double holiday joy and celebrated Nawruz holiday and World Poetry Day together. On this significant date, the winds of poetry blew in Adana, which is considered the ancient Turkish land and the oldest literary monument of the Turkic peoples, and is mentioned in the epic “Bilgamys”. The fact that world poets came together in Adana to celebrate the poetry holiday once again declared the victory of culture over all values.
Azerbaijani poet, literary critic, doctor of philology, associate professor Tarana Turan Rahimli participated in the 1st International Cukurova Poetry Days event dedicated to World Poetry Day held at Cukurova University in Adana, Turkey on March 20-21.
Speaking at the opening of the event, Deputy Dean of the Faculty of Literature Assoc. Prof. Dr. Bilge Kargagöllü emphasized that poetry is a force that unites cultures. He noted that the World Poetry Days, the first of which was held at Cukurova University, bring together hearts full of poetry and will have a serious impact on national literature, university life, and the spiritual education of students. Assoc. Prof. Dr. Bilge Karga Gollu congratulated the poets, literary critics, scholars, and poetry lovers participating in the event on the occasion of World Poetry Day.
At the “International Cukurova Poetry Days” event organized for the first time this year in cooperation with Adana Metropolitan Municipality, Cukurova University and Altın Koza, poet Shirin Zaferyıldızı Zaimagaoglu, Head of the Culture Department of the Turkish Republic of Northern Cyprus, made a speech and drew attention to the fact that poetry is a force that “improves and unites hearts”. She addressed the hall with the slogan “In these days when our hope of creating a world like poetry is decreasing, be like poetry, raise your children with poetry, do not be left without poetry” and read her poems.
Dean of the Faculty of Arts and Sciences Prof. Dr. Faruk Karadag, despite being a physicist by profession, aroused special sympathy among the participants of the event with his love for poetry, sensitivity to the art of words, as well as his excellent speech as a man of letters. The Dean of the Faculty noted that such literary events will leave a deep mark in the memory of young students and will contribute to the scientific and literary cultural life of the university.
The first event of the 1st International Cukurova Poetry Days, which began on Thursday, March 20 at the Cukurova University Congress Center, featured scientific lectures dedicated to Ashıg Veysel, musical works, and folk art exhibits. Stands featuring the works of poets invited to the event from various countries were also set up, and they signed their books for readers at their stands.
The first day of the 1st International Cukurova Poetry Days was entirely dedicated to folk poetry. On the second day, traditional and modern poetry was demonstrated at the Mithat Ozsan Amphitheater of Cukurova University on March 21, World Poetry Day. At the 1st International Cukurova Poetry Days event, attended by scholars, poets, and ashiqs from various countries, poet, literary critic, and doctor of philological sciences Tarana Turan Rahimli spoke and read her poems at the poetry days held under the title “Traditional and Modern Poetry” on the occasion of March 21, World Poetry Day. She noted in her speech: “There is a saying that beauty will save the world. In my opinion, the highest beauty is poetry, because it can deeply affect the human heart and soul, touch the most delicate strings of our hearts, and renew consciousness. Therefore, poetry will save the world. Literary friendships will strengthen the friendship of peoples and lead humanity to the path of peace. Poetry has just such a power.”
Tarana Turan Rahimli’s poems, written with the excitement of victory brought by the 44-day Patriotic War, as well as those on the subject of Turkism and Turanism, were met with love and sympathy from the audience. The sad and sorrowful verses of the poem “Today is the tenth day” about the February 6 earthquake, which is considered the tragedy of the century and devastated cities in Turkey, evoked deep emotions as a clear example of the unity of the two peoples in good and bad, and the brotherhood of Azerbaijan and Turkey. Turkish poet and researcher, Prof. Dr. Metin Turan, added a special color to the event with his report on “Anatolian folk poetry today”, literary talks and poems.
Prof. Dr. Salahaddin Bekki, Prof. Dr. Refiye Okushluk Shenesen, Assoc. Prof. Dr. Esra Tarhan, Assoc. Prof. Dr. İsmail Shenesen, Assoc. Prof. Dr. Ayhan Karakash, Dr. Zekiye Chagimlar made interesting scientific presentations at the panel titled “Following the Tradition of Ashıg Poetry”.
Ashıg Madani Karataş and Ozan Dertli Polat’s exchanges were met with loud applause from the audience. Shentürk İyidogan, who brought Ashıg Veysel’s saz to the stage and expressed it with love and artistic responsibility, and gave the sacred trust in his hands with his performance, amazed the participants.
Poet and translator Aytekin Karacachoban attracted the attention of the participants with her deeply philosophically meaningful poems and artistic translations from French. French poets and translators Sylwain Cavailies and Claire Lajus recited their poems in both French and Turkish. Claire Lajus, a teacher at Istanbul University, highlighted her influence on the lives of Turkish youth with her research and pedagogical activities, while Sylwian Cavailies highlighted her contributions to the turbulent life of Turkey with her translations. The clear and clear speech of both French poets in Turkish was met with special appreciation. Well-known poets Nisa Leyla, Demet Duyuler, Taner Cindoruk, Haydar Unal, Bilge Karga, Seval Arslan, Duran Aydın, Bahar Faris, Ayfer Karakaş, İlhan Kemal, M.Demirel Bahacanoglu, Mustafa Ozke, Durmus Ali Ozkale, Neslihan Daglı, Ruhan Mavruk, Hulya Bashak Ekmekçi recited their poems. At the end of the event, plaques and letters of appreciation were presented to the participants.
Within the scope of the event, the participants who toured the Çukurova University campus and were amazed by the mysterious view of the Seyhan water basin also visited the Faculty of Arts and Sciences. Prof. Dr. Bedri Aydogan, Prof. Dr. Ayshehan Deniz Abıga, and the University’s Administrative Affairs Director Demet Duyuler hosted the poets in their rooms, which are striking with their rich library and reminiscent of a museum with their ancient national objects. The Poetry Days ended with a closing banquet and a city tour. The 1st International Cukurova Poetry Days, which took place in Adana and successfully completed its work, left a deep mark in the memory of the participants.
John Dorsey is the former Poet Laureate of Belle, MO. He is the author of several collections of poetry, including Which Way to the River: Selected Poems: 2016-2020 (OAC Books, 2020), Sundown at the Redneck Carnival, (Spartan Press, 2022, Pocatello Wildflower, (Crisis Chronicles Press, 2023) and Dead Photographs, (Stubborn Mule Press, 2024). He may be reached at archerevans@yahoo.com.