Green, the mountain meadow
White, the wall of fog
Lakes of trapped glacial runoff —
aqua gemstones in dim light
Lines of sheep crisscross
the part lines of trail
that segment the pasture
in Cubist form
Curfew is on again,
“How do you survive with the roads closed?”
“We remember from years ago. There are ways.”
Such a beautiful place
trapped in a cycle of human ugliness
Barren gray mountains —
more than verdant pastures —
echo the Kashmiri struggle
Humanity, it does perplex
much more than old T-Rex.
Man without his pointy stick
is but a high-grade lunatic
who thinks himself Odin’s son,
but sees a mouse and takes to run.
Drawing himself at the feet of gods,
yet terrified of nature’s odds.
Achieving the inconceivable,
so at odds as to be unbelievable —
at once arrogant and trepid.
Begging waters to be tepid,
our radiated splendor is too scant
to warm a thimble for an ant.
One can never love what one fears
for the test of all one holds dear
isn’t found at an ideal distance
but in the most trying instants.
fog followed us down the valley
in a relentless glacial flow
ahead lea, aft a soft white wall
lost, the mountainous tableau
who is chased by a dragging cloud
pulled over the land like a cover?
it’s not mustard gas creeping in
just water drops caught mid hover
well, i can’t speak for one and all
but i found my pace did quicken
when sound roams free, but sight ‘s restrained
the old nerves tend to kick in
Malabar Mind Poems by Anita Nair
My rating: 5 of 5 stars
This collection of 40 poems by Anita Nair begins with verse that is imbued with Indian-ness and has a timeless feel, and progresses into more modern and – at times — erotic territory. For those unfamiliar with Indian geography, the Malabar Coast is the southwest coast of India. It stretches from Goa down through Kerala, and as far as the southern tip of India. The author’s last name, Nair, is one used by members of a caste from the state of Kerala. The Malabar Coast is known for spice, tea, and coffee plantations inland, and coastal ports that carry those commodities to buyers around the world that date back long before the British colonized India. Because of the long history of the spice trade, this area has its own unique feel. That should give the reader some sense of the cultural elements suffused into this work.
The poems are generally free verse (though there’s a prose poem and perhaps some other forms,) and are mostly in the range of a couple of stanzas to about three pages, though the final poem, “The Cosmopolitan Crow” is a long form poem. The entire collection weighs in at around 100 pages. The author frequently uses a sparse form that presents lines of one to three words, but that isn’t the case for all the poems.
While there’s eroticism in parts, it’s relatively subtle and shouldn’t be an impediment to any but the primmest of readers. (Though I’ve been known to miscalculate the degree to which some folks get uptight about sexual and somatic content.)
I enjoyed this collection. I was sensual, evocative, and captured the feel of Kerala nicely.
3 Sections by Vijay Seshadri
My rating: 5 of 5 stars
This collection of 34 poems by Vijay Seshadri won the 2014 Pulitzer Prize for Poetry. The book includes free verse poetry, lyric poetry, and prose poems. There are poems that reflect Seshadri’s Indian heritage, such as “Three Urdu Poems,” but like Seshadri himself – who moved from Bangalore to America at age five – the preponderance of poems reflect an American experience. Most of the poems are a single page each or less, but the prose poems at the end, such as “Pacific Fishes of Canada,” cover about a dozen pages.
The human and human society, as opposed to nature, takes center stage Seshadri’s work. Dystopian notions that have crept to the fore in the popular conscious are seen in poems such as “Secret Police.” However, this may be more indicative of a look back to the Cold War, which features prominently in the aforementioned nostalgic prose poem “Pacific Fishes of Canada.” The philosophical meditation also plays prominently in this work.
I enjoyed this little sixty-seven page collection, and found it to be evocative and thought-provoking.
A golden streak of light,
glowing off the Ganga
like the opening scene
of a fury-destined manga.
The silent, gliding boats
give way to bells and horns
as sadhus leave the ghats
with the fading of the morn.
Gone the floating lamps and flowers,
so ends that magic orange hour.
Assembly Building, Chandigarh; Source: Duncid (via Wikipedia)
The best “futuristic” can aspire to is to become retro-chic —
like the ship sets from the 60’s Star Trek.
Yet, we can’t help but try to capture tomorrow, today —
only to create today’s vision of tomorrow’s dystopia.
If Asimov wrote about a man who finished his work at a typewriter
only to catch a trans-galactic shuttle —
what hope could Le Corbusier have of finding the future?
Le Corbusier’s Chandigarh features elegant, broad boulevards —
running straight, intersected only by other broad boulevards.
Perhaps, the future has arrived:
Where else in urban India can one drive a mile
without rounding a corner to stop for livestock, playing children, or a parked truck.
One can cross Chandigarh in twelve minutes flat.
Crossing Bengaluru requires four hours,
non-inclusive of stops for gas and a hardy biryani.
But that massive tic-tac-toe grid is built
of neighborhoods constrained inside block walls.
As one speeds through town, with nary a car in sight, one wonders
where is the life?
is this still India?
have I slipped through a trans-galactic teleportation portal?
Perhaps, the future has arrived:
Where else in urban India can one see:
battleship gray unadorned by marigolds or ochre
and wonder where the windows of the future went
and whether people of the future
ever idly peer off out toward the horizon?
deep down in a step well
where drab green water stands in dry season
where the light is dim and diffuse
except a solitary shaft that dances against stone and murky water
but only when the sun is high
then dust motes swirl in said light
kicked up by nocturnal creatures satisfied by the darkness
because the shadows shun all that isn’t black
I hear the snap of a bat’s wing
but never see the bat that snapped it
nor who made a squeak to go with the snap
it seems like it should feel creepy
to be in a world where bright light fires only a little oval
while all the rest stays sunk in darkness
but how is my terranean world any different?
they called him “The Kamikaze”
he worked for old mama Stasi
cutting and cupping skull caps
keeping it hush, under wraps
then he’d crash a plane-load of lies
each clad in a clever disguise
dressed up like god’s own truth
sliding past even super-sleuths
a pile of seed for future lies
Recently, I’ve begun to read at least one piece of literature from each of the countries I visit. While I’ve done this for the last several countries I’ve been to, now I’m going back to fill in the gaps from past travel.
I don’t want to be doctrinaire about the books I choose, but I’ve learned a little about what I find the most beneficial. While some people who do this insist on reading a novel from each country, I’ve been much more open to a range of forms, including: poetry, short stories, and — in a case or two — creative non-fiction. One reason I’m flexible this way is that the novel isn’t the basic unit of literature everywhere in the world. I don’t want to read a pop crime novel published by an expat that offers zero insight into culture just because that’s the only novel I can get my hands on in English. Short story collections have proven at least as insightful as novels because one sees more lead characters put into more diverse situations, and poetry can be as well — as long as it gives a sense of place and people.
I should also point out that I’ve violated almost all of these suggestions when something caught my eye — often to great effect. #5 and #1 are really the only ones upon which I insist.
5.) Offers insight into the culture of the country at hand. I don’t want to sound like a literary fiction snob. I read a lot of genre fiction and the occasional commercial fiction, but this is one area where I find literary fiction is best. In large part this is because literary fiction tends to be character-driven and that depth of character usually transmits some insight into culture. When I went to Nepal I read Samrat Upadhyay’s Mad Country [short stories] and learned a great deal about the people of Nepal from various walks of life.
4.) Authored by a national of said country and set there as well. The second part (set in the country) seems like it would be non-negotiable, but I’ve certainly violated the first part (local author) and can imagine violating the second (local setting) as well. The key is that it must do #5 (cultural insight, that’s the point after all.) To give an example of a violation of the local author proviso, for the time being at least, I’m going with George Orwell’s Burmese Days as my pick for Myanmar (Burma.) I may change that at some point, but it definitely offered insight about more than one of the items on this list.
To give an example of how one might violate the setting clause and still benefit, I’ve had Michael Ondaatje’s The Cat’s Table, recommended to me for a Sri Lankan book. It features a Sri Lankan boy on a ship headed from Colombo to England and thus (as I understand it) is only briefly set in Sri Lanka. Sometimes, when a national is abroad, one gains even more cultural insight — i.e. it becomes easier to see culture through the state of contrast. (It turns out that I’m reading another novel set in Sri Lanka entitled Chinaman by Shehan Karunatilaka, which promises to offer me insight into not only Sri Lanka, but also into the craziness that is the sport of cricket.
3.) Teaches me about some historical happenings of the country in question. In some sense this is always true because even a contemporary novel deals in history by the time it’s published. However, I tend to prefer a time-frame during which something interesting was going on in the country, but not so far into the past that there is disconnect with the people I interact with in my travels. For example, for Vietnam, I recently read Novel Without A Name, which features a North Vietnamese soldier as a protagonist, and it’s set during the last days of the war with America.
2.) Exposes me to a diverse set of characters. It’s a definite plus if the book shows how more than one element of society lives. A great example of this is Gagamba, a book by F. Sionil Jose, that I read in conjunction with my trip to the Philippines. In it, one peeks into the lives of rich and poor alike, as well as seeing Filipinos who’ve been living abroad and expats living in the Philippines, all this contrast makes the shadowy shapes of culture clearer.
1.) It’s a good read. It’s as simple as that. It must be a book I’d want to read regardless of whether I was trying to check off a box on travel literature.
Here’s a list of countries I’ve been to with my selections for that country — if I have one. There are some countries (e.g. USA, Hungary, India, China, Japan, and the United Kingdom) from which I’ve read a lot, but I’ll stick to presenting one that is an exemplar vis-a-vis the criteria above.
I’d love to receive recommendations, particularly for those countries I don’t have anything for yet.
Austria: The Tobacconist (recommended to me, not yet read.)
Belize:
Botswana:
Cambodia: First They Killed My Father (I’ve read some fiction set here, but this non-fiction is the best.)
Canada: Surfacing (not yet read)
China: Life and Death Are Wearing Me Out
Czech Republic: The Good Soldier Svejk
Estonia: The Man Who Spoke Snakish (In progress. An unconventional choice as it’s genre fiction, but it came highly recommended and has not disappointed.)
Finland: The Year of the Hare (not yet read)
Guatemala: The President (not yet read)
Hungary: Cold Days
India: The Guide
Japan: Narrow Road to the Interior
Kenya: A Grain of Wheat
Malaysia:
Mexico: Selected Poems of Octavio Paz
Mongolia: The Blue Sky
Myanmar (Burma): Burmese Days
Nepal: Mad Country
Netherlands:
Peru: Death in the Andes
Philippines: Gagamba
Singapore: Inheritance (in progress; another odd choice as the family that this novel presents is Punjabi, though they live in Singapore. and their lives are shaped by that locale. Some places, like Singapore and the UAE, have a lot of immigrants and it’s only fair to consider them through that lens.)
Slovakia:
Slovenia: I Saw Her That Night (not yet read)
Sri Lanka: Chinaman (in progress)
Thailand:
UAE: Temporary People (not yet read)
United Kingdom: A Christmas Carol
United States: Blood Meridian
Vietnam: Novel Without a Name
Zambia:
