Essay from Z.I. Mahmud

Takeaway Quotable Quotes ‘Whether or not you write well, write bravely. Write without fear and edit without mercy’ and quintessentially Hogwarts would have been alluring and enticing as the epitaph of Hagrid, ‘Hagrid has been known to befriend giant spiders, buys vicious three-headed dogs from men in pubs and sneaks illegal dragon eggs into his chamber’. Bernard Shaw’s heartfelt lines ‘The theatre should be a factory of thought, promoter of conscience, elucidator of social conduct, armoury against dullness and despair and a temple to the ascent of man.  and Existentialist Beckett’s re-envisioning ‘Yes, yes, we’re magicians.’ benignly mainstream cognitive narratives.

I am writing in Ariel spirits surmising the incantation of Raphael and Gabriel as they are the epitomes of Archangels with their dukedom and kingdom. In multicultural and pluralistic sovereign global village epoch’s literary accolades and British Library’s Discovering Literature ‘treasure hunts and golden nuggets’ prospects echo the voice of transcended relationship between independent extension project work and non- examined assessments. Creative Writing and English Literature have mainstreamed their destinations with the stars of heaven. Eventually Dead Poets Society showcases personification of abstraction toward nebulous and mercurial film productions and movies adaptations integrating to the confederacy of theatre and performance studies. The scholastic and intellectual terrain and arena have gone to highlight features of romantic theory and critical traditions spotlight. Swedish universities offertory of diversity and variety stylistically and aesthetically bestows the upcoming prospective learners and apprentice pupils with the multifarious majors and minors. An Oxford graduate working in historic Shakespearean theatre and a Cambridge post-doctoral fellow with the essence of literary critique’s appetite have their fantabulous perspectives in demarcation with trademarks of legacy hallmarks.

I am not discoursing upon the issue of bleakish modernists’ cosmopolitan viewpoint in alluding to the harangues and tirades of social, political, economical, cultural phenomenon –the boudoirs,  saloons, cafes, restaurants, pubs and taverns, attics and ottomans, chest drawers and closets and so on. They are today ,in fact, hackneyed notions of idiosyncrasies and that’s for sure. Why would I have to abandon reading Hardy’s harrowing  pastoral landscapes and relegate Tess to be the subject of exploitation under ecocritical feminist perspectival regime. A damnable shit of effigy caricatures and frolicsome buffoonery would be succulent and amorphous rendering to the catering of farmyard’s hullabaloos banishment. William Golding’s ‘Lord of the Flies’ as skeptics critics venerate to be of utmost devotional subject in contextualizing modern times and whatsoever, whosoever, whomsoever might be gregarious to compare and contrast HG Wells’ ‘War of The Worlds’. I must profess the lionhearted proclamation and extoll the integrity of ‘Interpreting Undergraduate Research Posters in the Literature Classroom’. ‘Crystallization’ connotes exploratory critical responses and explanatory noteworthy arguments. Gabriel’s announcement in rendition to the poster presentation startles Ariel, compelling the fantastically misanthrope Caliban and devalues exhumation of sea-wayfaring, mystic recluse, maiden-mermaid Annabelle Lee.  Caramelization of marmalades through ‘close readings, negotiations, integrations, theoretical generalization and aesthetic judgement’ awestruck wondrous magic and splendorous flora-fauna. Coffee conversations and beverage-interviews in addition to bookclubs and library workshops truly enchant poster sessions in the domain of public ‘peer-review and critique’. Perfunctorily declaimed by ‘negative silhouettes’ of ‘nihilism’  in Shelley’s Alastor-The Spirit of Solitude cannot be feigning throwaways of the decoupage disharmonizing of sublimity.

Netherworld tram accidents wouldn’t have banished my forlorn industrialized solitary life to exploded ashes if bequeathment of fantasy fiction prevailed in the earthy heaven’s halcyon amidst the solitude of Desdemona, Cleopatra, Ophelia, Sebastian, Juliet Echoed Recitals of Magical Charms-Enchantment of Harry Potter’s Glory!

        My contemplative conscience cognition rekindles sparkling flames arousal in my imaginative faculty of the brain to be blessed by the revisiting Jibananda Das’s ghost-hobgoblin in my dawn of sunlight and dusk of twilight.

        What if Jibananda Das’s Phantom Spirit Drank The Life Of Hogwarts and Hanged Out With Dickensian J.K. Rowling? Crystallized Me Living With The Frozen Muggle World and My Imaginary Voyage of Figurative Troupes; The Magic of Literature In Interpreting Harry Potter and The Philosopher’s Stone

Province of pedantic rhetoricians and their intellectual circle of linguists-and-literary critics and professional philosophers revival of interest in the classification and function of figurative language such as Sister Miriam Joseph’s Shakespeare’s Use of the Arts of Language [1947] and the bibliographical archive of M.H. Abram’s ‘Mirror And The Lamp’[1953].

‘Hagrid’s big hairy face gleamed over a sea of heads.’ Take another instance, ‘Hundreds of faces staring at them, [//] looked like pale  lanterns, [//] flickering in the candelight.’’ Roman Jakobson’s highlight featuring spotlights ‘metaphoric’ or ‘vertical’ and the ‘metonymic’or the ‘horizontal’. In synecdoche [Greek for ‘taking together’], a part of something is used to signify the whole, or [more rarely] the whole is used to signify a part. In this enlightening glimpse ‘sea of heads’ could crave the treasure hunt in metaphorical synecdoche. On the issue of metonymy  [literally change of name], the literal term is applied to another with which it is closely associated, because of contiguity in common experience. Would skeptics and cynics be compelled to sbift their pattern focal convergence and divergence into ‘pale lanterns flickering candelight’. So, we have here inviting banqueters with picturesqueness of marmalade porridge, Yorkshire puddings, apple pies, treacle tarts, chocolate eclairs and   prosopopeia  the Greek term of personification whereby inanimate object [lantern and candelight] and abstract concept [hundreds of faces] is spoken of as though it were endowed with human attributes and feelings [pale and flickering].  The meter of this line of poetry having iambic feet and the fixed or nearly fixed pattern of accented and unaccented syllables producing the pervasive rhythm. Inversions in iambic verse with the dispersion of troche.

[It is possible to distinguish a number of degrees of relative syllabic stress in English speech, but the most common and generally useful fashion of analyzing and classifying the standard English meters is to distinguish only two categories-weak stress and strong stress-and to group the syllables into metric feet according to the patterning of these two stresses]

‘The crystal trophy cases glimmered where the moonlight caught them’ and ‘A few embers were still glowing in the fireplace, turning all the armchairs into hunched black shadows. In this extended metaphor the tenor embers and arm chairs implicitly and figuratively transfigure, transform, or transmogrify ‘glowing’ and ‘hunched black shadows’. Embers and armchairs are literally different objects notably dissimilar, incongruous, unallied and impropriety of the material world and their tenor are adrift and abroad the vessel vehicle and work like noun, verb or adjective.  

‘Although I was fond of blowing my own trumpet

Nonetheless I knew that a rolling moss gathers no stone;

Here I have embarked on my salad days

When I was green in judgement and cold in blood;

My self -the reed-that was too frail to survive the storm of its sorrows!!’

My laboratory handwritten manuscripts and the desktop typewriter

Shakespearean effigy lettered a caesura

‘‘Canst thou not minister to a mind diseased,

Pluck from the memory a rooted sorrow?’’

 A gleam of delighted divination

 A dawn of ethereal fortune

The stony pebbles pearly tides

thunderous rocky shores

Book of Psalms-My dreary refuge

that shuddered astrophysicists knells in extolls

‘The Lord is my rock, and my fortress, and my deliverer’

Is but a sustained metaphor   

Every simile can be compressed into a metaphor and every metaphor can be expanded into a simile. Nesfield’s ordeal in parchment of enlivening and enriching figurative language through the implication of ‘informal or implied simile’. Except the marker of comparisons ‘like, such, as, so’.  And so on and so forth, I cannot be lingering to prolong the discourse to the harbinger – cradle and grave mausoleum and sepulcher since the spirits of literary criticism in linguistics should be crowned wreathed. Or else  this wondering and aweing notes would be a teaspoons of life’s journal annihilating the heart with a dagger!!

          Jivananda my favorite Bengali poet laureate welcoming my Ariel’s wings-the freedom of liberty- in cordiality and joviality. Whilst the stalwart novelist Kavigurus’ Rabindranath sculpture flickers seashore sea shells in harmony’s nectarine tides and waves choreographing dysphasia. Ushered by the beverage hubbub, my poet counselor spiritual enchanter chanting ‘dysphasia’ which dumbfounds me. ‘Vulnerability and victimization encroaches my reading and writing of the brain totally or partially silhouetted by agraphia and alexia that elixirs would be dwelt later in neurolingusitics.

        Standard British English –thevariety of a language with the highest status in a community or nation and which is usually based on the speech and writing of educated native speakers of the language. News media and literature, dictionaries and grammars, non-native speakers conservatory and English as a foreign language sanctuary …         ‘Dotted here and there among the students, the ghosts shone misty silver.’ Reading this metaphorical figurative language from the Sorcerer’s Stone, Professor Jivananda Das exclaimed ‘Guffaw! You’ve been my student residing in the international hostel and I’d want you to perform this years’ phenomenal pageantry with endoglossic audio-visual method’.     

  ‘Recorded dialogues picture sequences to language items and focusing on speaking and listening preceding reading and writing through discouragement of mother tongue usage  and encouragement of behavourism and structural linguistics   ’

              ‘’

Poetry from Mahbub Alam

Poet Mahbub, a South Asian man with dark hair and glasses and a suit and tie
Poet Mahbub
The Reflection of the Moon

Suddenly the full moon rises in the west before my eyes
Just stepping from the door on the roof in the dark and white it glows 
Sitting on the chair I look on and pay the attention more and more
Whispering in the ears it spoke to me 
"Oh dear", hissing in the leaves of the tree -----
Bringing me from back barbaric fight to the enlightening love music
No fear of death and fight
Again and again I look on  
And most probably I liked to find out the meaning 
"What is life?"
  
Chapainawabganj, Bangladesh
09/03//2023



Our Freedom

Freedom is like a flower 
That touches the mind without notice
A sight of joy and pleasure
We struggle for this freedom
We remember the 25 March bloodshed night
Then the final war started till the new flag came to light
We achieved what we dreamt of
We rejoice the glory of its beauty and the vastness of the sky
The sight of the spreading petals of a flower
We live in, our Bangladesh.

Chapainawabganj, Bangladesh
09/03//2023

Poetry from Faiza Yahaya Maibasira

Take a breath!
the world is crispy,
Sun, hugs only its flowers.

I'm transparent,
Walking through cliffs.
But I'm not a wanderer.

Even Mangoes submit 
To apples.
For ' _apple-mangoes_ '.

The storm gets infuriated- 
rivers refuse rainbow popsicles.
My pupil, 
is not better than a lens.

So earth, the plain 
For toast and glass kisses?
Friendship and love might make it to heaven 


Poetry from Sarah Burgess

Inconvenience

 

Such a bother,

Pain in the ass,

That's life? That's life? That's the best excuse they can selfishly reveal? 

Why. Cause. Your. Own. Headache?

You find yourself screaming,

Screaming on the inside,

Inner silent shrieks Of misunderstood loneliness.

Inner silent shrieks within yourself,

Misunderstood loneliness.

You really do. Not. Intend to.

Come, come on, please!

Prisoner imprisoned  in your own body.

Can they not see? 

They try, at least.

Waiting for some realization, actualization, condemnation to allure thought allowing this dove to fly.

Conveniently included. 

Living incoherently,

Incoherently living unjustly, inclusion when convenient!

Justified defiance? 

Will it ever come my way?

Never! 

If only people could understand 

They try, and get a sense of understanding,

That's all, a sense…

Unjust treatment becomes the normality

Poetry from Joseph Wechselberger

BLOODLINE

  

Blood stains

the hard-packed snow

in the street

 

crisp cold air

creates a crust

on the chill white

landscape

 

and footsteps sound

like echoes

from distant hills

 

a cluster of children

hurry

past the mark

 

save one

 

a girl

with knowing eyes

 

who pauses

as if viewing a flower

 

then scurries on

cheeks stung

red as the stain

to join her comrades

going to the warmth

of somewhere



**********



BIGOT



hey faggot

he shouted

with venom and contempt

to a flamboyant

young man

across the street



to this

the flamboyant young man

with a toss of his head

and a different intent

said

how queer

to himself

and with sadness

and pity in his eyes

walked away from the words

without looking back



**********

all fluff 73*75


(lonely)

 

that night

like others, looking

for companionship

for someone

anyone

 

 

                (incredibly)

 

there you were

the shadows, flickering

enticing, exciting

we

                met

 

flashing dark

eyes showing

arrogance

sex

 

electricity

 

                (extraordinary)

 

temptation

sensation

elation

celebration

 

 

                (emotionally)

 

exhale inhale

in out

shout

wow

 

 

                (candidly)

 

for a while

very happy

 

some doubt

 

you stayed

                but

were you

there

 

I believed

in you & me

truly

 

 

                (retrospectively)

 

more or less

I confess

what a mess

 

you were pretty

but not elementary

 

 

                (specifically)

 

no loyalty

no integrity

just transitory

you used me

 

 

                (regrettably)

 

no surprise

so many lies

so unwise

no prize

 

 

                (pointedly)

 

you cheated

frequently

easily

blatantly

& everyone knew

but me

 

no remorse at all

you had a ball

 

never an apology

 

angry

 

sad

 

been had

 

 

                (ultimately)

 

you

me

we agree

                not to be

 

mercifully

 

you set me free

 

released from purgatory

 

                                end of story

Story from Santiago Burdon

My Shame 

My Old Man for reasons unknown to me my entire life was a racist. He despised black people, referring to them as niggers. We were not allowed to associate with, buy records or listen to music by them and we weren't allowed to talk about any sporting event they participated in. The Old Man wasn't very fond of Jews or the Irish either.
In the summer of 1966 Martin Luther King Jr. planned a demonstration to march in Marquette Park on the Southside of Chicago in early August.

The park was near my neighborhood.  There were actually early evening meetings in local Churches, American Legion Halls and on the front porches of homes discussing strategies on how to disrupt the march or stop it completely. Even the local clergy, police and community leaders attended the meetings in support of the cause. Kinda pisses you off when you think about it.
My philosophy concerning demonstrations is; if no one shows up to acknowledge the protest, or pays attention to them, the demonstration becomes ineffective.

Two years earlier my oldest brother Harold told the Old Man he was joining a civil rights movement with other College students to register black people to vote in Southern states. 
The Old Man became so enraged he excluded him from posing in the family photo.  He also cut off all college financial aid and my brother was not allowed to enter our house. The Old Man told him to kiss his ass goodbye because he was asking for trouble. There was a good chance he'd wind up getting lynched by the Ku Klux Klan.
A month before his intended deployment he found out his girlfriend was pregnant. They decided to get married which ended his involvement in the cause. A few months later three volunteers were murdered by the KKK and local police in Mississippi. The Old Man had an "I told you so" to justify his actions.

The day of the demonstration arrived with a large contingency of opposition assembled.  I followed the crowd of white protestors, including family and relatives, neighbors and friends to Marquette Park that August afternoon. The closer we got to the park the more vocal the group became. A man dressed in an Army type uniform started yelling commands. 

"Let's run these niggers out of our neighborhood." He hollered in a southern accent. When I got closer to him I saw a patch on his sleeve that said KKK Alabama. I don't think he even lived in our neighborhood.

 I remember feeling forceful and tenacious emotionally charged by the electricity generated from the crowd.
The Old Man with my next oldest brother, an uncle and two cousins were wearing expressions of venomous hatred.  There appeared to be a thousand white people gathered ready to do battle. I was caught up in the herd mentality.

The black demonstrators led by Martin Luther King Jr drew closer to where I stood.
They marched to a chorus of racial slurs and a barrage of bottles, rocks and bags of shit being hurled at them. 
"Fucking niggers get the fuck outta here." along with chants of, "Niggers go back to Africa" echoing throughout the park. The police stood idly by and did little to stop the crowd's harassment. 

I noticed on the ground in front of me a large piece of house brick. I knew this would cause serious damage. I have no idea what compelled me  to do what I did that day. 

I picked up the piece of brick, took aim and hurled it with force into the crowd of demonstrators. The brick struck Martin Luther King Jr. in the chest causing him to drop to one knee. He remained in that pose for a short minute then stood and continued the march acting unfazed by the incident. 

Instantly an emotion of intense remorse gripped my soul strangling it so tightly I became physically ill, wanting to vomit. My friends and others nearby began patting me on my back, giving me congratulations and laughing. I had to hold myself back from crying after witnessing the courage Martin Luther King Jr. displayed. He stood up, brushed himself off and continued the march.  He finished the march and even made a speech afterward without succumbing to the wound he had sustained.

I read about the incident the next day in the Chicago Tribune.
Here is the follow up article headline: Martin Luther King Jr. and supporters pause during a fair housing march through Marquette Park. 

King later said he had never seen “mobs as hostile and as hate-filled as I’ve seen here in Chicago.”

When Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. stepped out of a car in Marquette Park on Aug. 5, 1966, he was met by a crowd in an ugly mood. That was nothing new for King. During his civil rights crusade, he'd often faced Southern mobs. The year before, police and sheriff's deputies brutally attacked a march he'd organized in Selma, Alabama. 

But he saw something even more menacing in the faces of the 700 white protesters who confronted him on Chicago's Southwest Side.

"I've been in many demonstrations all across the South, but I can say that I have never seen — even in Mississippi and Alabama — mobs as hostile and as hate-filled as I've seen here in Chicago," King told reporters afterward. 

King and hundreds of demonstrators had scarcely set out on a march to promote open housing when he was struck by a rock. 

"The blow knocked King to one knee and he thrust out an arm to break the fall," the Tribune reported. "He remained in this kneeling position, head bent, for a few seconds until his head cleared." 

Aides and bodyguards closed in around King, holding placards aloft to shield him from the missiles that followed. King and the demonstrators had hoped to reach a real estate office on nearby 63rd Street, intending to demand that properties be rented and sold on a nondiscriminatory basis in the all-white Chicago Lawn neighborhood. Only a few of them made it before a riot broke out.

After reading the article I experienced a sense of guilt and shame that I'd never felt before. The act of hatred I demonstrated that day has haunted me my entire life.

I was viewed as a local hero for quite a while. My Old Man treated me with respect and kindness for the first time. He was proud of what I had done. However I resented every congratulatory remark and comment people made to me.
This story has never been told until now. I've kept it hidden inside for fifty-seven years. I was thirteen at the time and I will turn seventy this July.