Poetry Planetariat IssueIssue 4, 2, spring Fall 2019 2020 IstanbulIstanbul / / Medellin Medellin PoetsPoets of ofthe the World World UniteUnite Against Against Injustice Injustice Copyright 2020 World Poetry Movement Publisher: World Poetry Movement www.wpm2011.org [email protected] Editor: Ataol Behramoğlu [email protected]/[email protected] Associate Editor: Pelin Batu [email protected] Editorial Board: Mohammed Al-Nabhan (Kuwait), Ayo Ayoola-Amalae (Nigeria), Francis Combes (France), Jack Hirschman (USA), Jidi Majia (China), Fernando Rendón (Colombia), Rati Saxena (India), Keshab Sigdel (Nepal) Paintings by Egon Schiele Layout by Gülizar Ç. Çetinkaya [email protected] Adress: Tekin Publishing House Ankara Cad.Konak Han, No:15 Cağaloğlu-İstanbul/Turkey Tel:+(0212)527 69 69 Faks:+(0212)511 11 12 www.tekinyayinevi.com e-mail:[email protected] ISSN XXXXX Poetry Planetariat is published four times a year in Istanbul by the World Poetry Movement in cooperation with Ataol Behramoğlu-Pelin Batu and Tekin Publishing House CONTENTS POETRY ON THE CORONA DAYS./ATAOL BEHRAMOĞLU POETRY CHRIS ABANI (NIGERIA, 1966) AYO-AYOOLA AMALE (NIGERIA,1970) IDRAN AMIRTHANAYAGAM (SRI LANKA) BALÂZS F. ATTILA (HUNGARY, 1954) SALİM BABULLAOĞLU (AZERBAYJAN, 1972) ALESSANDRA BAVA (VATICAN) DMİTRO O. TCHYİSTİAK(UKRAİNE,1987) MARCO CINQUE (ITALY) FRANCİS COMBES(FRANCE,1953) JOHN CURL (USA, 1940) AMİT DAHİYABADSHAH(INDIA) JEAN-LUC DESPAX (FRANCE, 1968) MAURO FORTISSİMO (ARGENTINA) STEVEN GRAY (SOUTH AFRICA, 1941) MARİA CRİSTİNA GUTİERREZ (COLOMBIA/USA) JACK HIRSCHMAN (USA, 1933) ANTONELLA IASCHI(İTALY,1956) AMAL AL-JUBOURI (IRAQ, 1967) JETON KELMENDİ(BELGİUM, 1978) RAQUEL LANSEROS (SPAIN, 1973) ANGELINA LLONGUERAS(CATALONİA) ANNA LOMBARDO (ITALY) MOEZ MAJED (TUNISIA, 1973) BIPLAB MAJEE (INDIA) KAREN MELANDER-MAGOON (USA, 1943) SARAH MENEFEE (USA) MARIA MISTRIOTI (GREECE) IMEN MOUSSA (TUNISIA) KEMANDJOU NJANKE MARCEL (CAMEROON, 1970) KATE NEWMAN (IRELAND,1965) BILL NEVINS (USA) RATI SAXENA (INDIA) KESHAB SIGDEL(NEPAL,1979) DİNOS SİOTİS (GREECE,1944) JURI TALVET (ESTONIA, 1945) VADIM TERYOHIN (RUSSIA) WHAT POETRY MEANS TO ME FORCES HIDDEN IN POETRY/ JIDI MAJIA IN MEMORIAM APOLLINAIRE, THE POET ASSASSINATED/ FRANCIS COMBES POETRY ON THE DAYS OF CORONA AtaolBehramoğlu The Corona virus disaster is the revenge of nature that we have ravaged and deranged. Free market economy that has reigned over the world is a system where money dominates labor, and as in the case of all social relations, it sees to it that capital rather than its citizens’ health is in the forefront- all these factors heighten the scope of the disaster. Poetry is the calling of love and concern from human to human, human to nature, to all creaturesanimate and inanimate, to being itself. Poetry advocates life not death. Along with all art forms, poetry is the search for peace, freedom, the courage to create and happiness. On these dark days and difficult times, we sense the magic of using words to touch people when we cannot come into physical contact with each other due to societal restrictions; we realize how estranged we had become from this “touch” due to the hustles of everyday life. Poetry is the name of this touch, the touch extended from one human to another via words… Confined to small places, stuck in contracted living spaces we are surprised to realize lines that come to the tip of our tongues from the far depths of our memory, and we add novel lines to those of old to reach other people, the fellow human beings with whom we share the same fate. Poetry is the voicing of our shared fate… It is meaning “we” when we say “I”… That is where its immortality comes from… As we are going through these calamitous days, it is this connective and healing characteristic of poetry that invokes our desire to hold onto it firmly. In this issue of Spring 2020, we had really hoped it would be a Spring timeissue. We are postponing this wish to next Spring. In this issue you will find the World Poetry Movement’s appeal, along with call of poets from all corners of the world on the subject of these days we are collectively going through. You will find also Jidi Majia’s philosophical and poetical text of his speech “Forces Hidden on Poetry” In our In Memoriam corner, we are commemorating the great French poet Guillaume Apollinaire who lost his life to one of the greatest calamities of the history, the Spanish Influenza that scourged the world between 1918 and 1920. We celebrate this great poet with two of his poems and an article written about him by his compatriot, the esteemed poet Francis Combes. One other feature of this issue is another victim of the aforementioned calamity, the great Austrian painter EgonSchiele. 4 POETRY PLANETARIAT | ISSUE 4, SPRING 2020, ISTANBUL / MEDELLIN POETS OF THE WORLD UNITE AGAINST WAR POETRY POETRY PLANETARIAT | ISSUE 4, SPRING 2020, ISTANBUL / MEDELLIN 5 POETS OF THE WORLD UNITE AGAINST WAR 6 POETRY PLANETARIAT | ISSUE 4, SPRING 2020, ISTANBUL / MEDELLIN POETS OF THE WORLD UNITE AGAINST WAR IDRAN AMIRTHANAYAGAM (SRI LANKA,1960) after listening to murder most foul ( With debt to Dylan, Wormser, Teachers) I keep listening as well, Baron, to Murder Most Foul. I hear and feel the melancholy, the public grief for a generation, its dreams, its innocence. The song is important like Blowing in the Wind, A Hard Rain’s Gonna Fall-- important because it uncovers layers and layers of social crust over a wound that remains a cold case, unresolved, but alive, beating then as now, the nightmare woken up out of hibernation. What a terrible power the dirge has, you call it right Baron, to bring back the demon while helping us understand what we lost that day in Dallas and the losses to come, Malcolm, Martin, Robert, and now we confront two steps forward and one step back yet again (thank you Sonia Sanchez for the phrase), the Great Society, the battle over oil, the defeat of the Soviet twist of communism. But we did not reach the end of history. No sir. We learned there is another emergency, from Nature itself, climate out of sync, everybody flying this way and that, consuming everything and yet the resistance, environmentalists, and now we are being decimated by an unseen virus that may have left a bat in a marketplace, and for which we have no antibody, no bullet proof vest, and again the jury is out, the case cold, suppositions, jealousies, bigotry, and countries of the world closing borders, iron curtains, ICE, no buses or trains, millions marching home in India, quarantine without a plan, tourists stranded in Peru, given hours to get out, surprised, trapped, the food chain snapped in Chile, no food on the shelves of the supermarkets, and in Iran the minister of health falls ill on television, and the bear hug- loving Boris in Britain catches the virus and disappears behind a screen. Great men and women, POETRY PLANETARIAT | ISSUE 4, SPRING 2020, ISTANBUL / MEDELLIN 7 POETS OF THE WORLD UNITE AGAINST WAR musicians, playwrights, and surgeons. And ordinary people. Who are you, walking downtown in Los Angeles? Why are you in that cell? For bank robbery, larceny, rolling a joint? Are you one one of the two hundred thousand who will die in the United States alone before the vaccine is tested, found to be safe, delivered? Murder most foul. He is a Sri Lankan-American poet-diplomat, essayist and translator in English, Spanish, French, Portuguese and Haitian Creole.He was born in Colombo, Ceylon (now Sri Lanka) He writes poetry and essays in English, Spanish, French, Portuguese and Haitian Creole Amirthanayagam’s The Elephants Of Reckoning won the 1994 Paterson Poetry Prize.[4] The poem «Juarez» won the Juegos Florales of Guaymas, Sonora in 2006. Amirthanayagam has received the Superior Honor Award and the Meritorious Honor Award (thrice) from the Department of State for his diplomatic work.. 8 POETRY PLANETARIAT | ISSUE 4, SPRING 2020, ISTANBUL / MEDELLIN POETS OF THE WORLD UNITE AGAINST WAR AYO-AYOOLA AMALE(NIGERIA,1970) No Good A day is a century swellinginto hellish clutches.We tumbled inside like an old cripple– faint than a flea on anabundant wretched foothills – as impenetrable as fog. The walls kicked us in the face blustering, hungering – for breathfor the sun’s howling gale, dreadful of droplets – whipping for an unending mask- against the jagged rocks of a weary world– washed lifeless–smashed– spreading wide to make our hearts large. This, the purpose we are here is all the reason in the world to live to ride out the storm to reach root. She was born in Jos, Nigeria May 21, 1970. She is a Poet, Author, Lawyer, Conflict-Resolution professional, and Spoken-word performance artist whose voice is noted for its peace, harmony, humanity, political, surrealistic and dynamic innovations in lyricism and visceral sound. She is a director of Splendors of Dawn Poetry Foundation. She was the Legal Advisor at the Ghana Association of Writers. Ayo is a member of the International committee of the World Poetry Movement. POETRY PLANETARIAT | ISSUE 4, SPRING 2020, ISTANBUL / MEDELLIN 9 POETS OF THE WORLD UNITE AGAINST WAR BALÁZS F. ATTILA (HUNGARY, 1954) i turn sand in my fingers (during epidemics) thebrokenupremnants of memory stirsomething in me I catchmyself tryingtoputtogethersomething that is notso different andyetwhichseemsthesame orsimilar I see myfingerstrembling so I stop then soastorelaxmymuscles I turnsand in myfingers drydogshit is left in mypalm then I drawshapes inthesand again and again I erase signslinescircles howcanyoucreateorder inthedisorder thereinside? order is notneatness thingsfallapart thingsseparate thingsclub together 10 POETRY PLANETARIAT | ISSUE 4, SPRING 2020, ISTANBUL / MEDELLIN POETS OF THE WORLD UNITE AGAINST WAR order is an invisible net it is vulnerable it can be obliterated questioned rearranged suddenly it occurs to me am I defined by my name? am I my name or is it just junk that I wear which you can’t get rid of words like hatchling turtles scramble toward the water rocked by the waves in the safety of the water a huge greedy mouth swallows them but some of them survive in the volatile beauty in the sparkling life-death He graduated in Library science and Literary translation in Bucharest.