Etel Adnan
is a poet, painter, and essayist living in Paris and Sausalito, California. She was born in Beirut Lebanon in 1925 to a Syrian father and a Greek mother. Her novel Sitt Marie Rose has been published in six languages worldwide and is considered a classic of Middle Eastern literature. She is the author of numerous books of prose and poetry, and is also a painter, sculptor, and weaver whose art has been exhibited internationally. Her collections of poetry include Seasons (2008); There: In the Light and the Darkness of the Self and the Other (1997); The Spring Flowers Own & Manifestations of the Voyage (1990); The Indian Never Had a Horse (1985); and Moonshots (1966). In addition to Sitt Marie Rose, her prose includes Of Cities and Women (Letters to Fawwaz) (1993), a series of letters on feminism that she wrote to exiled Arab intellectual Fawwaz Traboulsi; Paris, When It’s Naked (1993); and Master of the Eclipse (2009), winner of the Arab – American Book Award.
Torches for Michael McClure, sage of the mysteriosos
by Jake Berry
The torches of heaven
outwit the rage of humans
They gather without effort
in the deep strata
(where the Old Ones are buried) —
Their cabals mean nothing
but conquer everything
Sleep.
arrange the fossils and sediment
Listen to the mineral voices rising
Copulations in their central ores
will wake us in a cold sweat
from the Unknown revolving
Whose Being
is all process and rebellion ?
Remember the kisses in high Edin *
where rivers are born
and the hankering elements
where Imagination ripens
* Edin is a Sumerian word for steppe.
Etude: A Soft Seizure
by Jake Berry
Spokes of the sun
strike the sky
deep blue — painful
An agitation
through pipe smoke
scattering
the nocturnal eye
Fragments of joy
and constructs of aspiration
condense across the windshield
wet
and evaporating
Synapses and stars
blink for a second
and flame out
to see
birds descend
and strike the dry ground
for seed
could be the faith of an ape
outliving its corpse
Fiefdom
by Jake Berry
A fist around the edges —
slurry
at the heart
Tanks
Absalom
The garter worn twisted
Thieves torn
from their barracks
and scattered
Names are traded
at the temple gate
Carcass swells
in splendid arrangement
Slowly the loom
breaks
stolen to rust,
the prime generator
Who are these liars
that captivate the populace ?
Is the body of fear
a new and reeking
God ?
Leave them lie
and they will rise
into an impotent cloud
and piss
the backward flood
Take to the closet
and cry out
The rain lilies
don’t give a damn
They know the lawn mowers
are coming