"Nyamama owada in e mara ma oingo nyiri duto"-Ongoro Jakarachuonyo.

Busy listening to luo music; What a cool evening of inspiration.

I felt a lot of connection hearing my brothers defining love with such honesty.
   "Nindo otama yawa nindo tama yaye kaparo nyadundo"

The purity of rhythm was soaking my blood . Rhumba is soothing with notable songs like “Elector Nyarkano” by Madanje Perimeter.

Prezda “Igwe” Bandasson
“Nyisuba” one of his best creations. What i love most about Bandasson is that he got unique style and writing skill not like his fellow benga artists; If you like  Ferre Gola, now this the man to listen to.

My evening was going on well with some ohangla likes of ; "Kanungo".

“Kanungo is one of the song that you must have heard wherever you are in this country. Its one of the top songs of both 2014 and 2015 even though it's not my musical taste but Otieno Aloka defines Ohangla in a creative way; The drums are well arranged and composition is just amazing.

That brings me to a funny question who is Emma Jalamo?  He is not old in the game but the guy has come up with a unique Ohangla sound that takes him at par with the rhumba musicians as old fork and young people alike listen to his music with zeal. His new album, “Sherry” is a master piece with hits like “Wivu mbaya”.

Luo music is intelligent entertaining and soothing .

Tony Nyadundo is another seasoned musician who has traveled wide with his Ohangla beat which spread across the country like bush fire. He released hits like "Mapenzi Kizunguzingu".

My playlist couldn't be complete minus The bird aka Osogo Winyo;
he has taken a low profile of late, musically, but he has some of the best Ohangla sounds of this decade.

Musa Juma and Limpopo Band is so common in luo with sweet resonating songs like ; "Aggrey ,Maselina,Lake Victoria" .

It didn't stopped their; i went deep to discover heartbreak sounds likes of "Our Only John Juniour".
John juniour, is one of current trending names in Nyanza due to his sweet voice and romantic writing skills. "Nyoremo and kalisto baba" are well crafted when it comes to composition.

Another talented artist is ; Wuod Phiby who is also a producer and sound engineer at Barikiwa studio. He's the owner of hit songs like " Cham gi ****'i" and many more.

Makadem is one of the the artist signed to Ketebul music is known worldwide with a brands that precedes him as he is commonly known as the Ohangla man.

We have alot of talented luo artists but let me focus on our own few who are so creative when it comes to fusing . I'm talking of Owiyo ; She is one of the first female artists to fuse the Nyatiti beat with modern fusion and with songs like “Kisumu 100”, she still remains so relevant in the industry that her new song, “wamiel” is doing quite fine.

I've listened to a lot of modern Benga maybe ones played on the radio. I was not well informed that much on old sounds but when i dug the tapes and crates to so called luo "thum gi timbegi".
Abila gi thum machon ; I discovered names like;
1) George Ramogi
George ramogi died but left a name for himself with songs like Affline the Pretty and Wiya Chandore Malit.

2) Ochieng Kabaselleh
When we were growing up we use to hear  songs like," Zainabu,Achi Maria and Dunia mokili".  Kabaselleh and Luna Kidi Band were the voice of love within Nyanza at that time.

3) Okatch Biggie
"Nyathi nyakach atimni ang'o?"
Before his death he sold thousand of copies of the same record. He had countless hit songs like "Okatch pod ngima,Hellena nya kabondo e.t.c".

4) Osito Kale
Osito and Ogina Koko termed to bring some of remarkable songs like "Rapar Angelina" .Asembo born artist is one of luo musician with aggressive thoughts and creativity.

5) Ouma Omore
Many of new generation might not have known him but he got massive Jams like "Atwech Nyaduse" were so common in my parents mouth. He wrote many songs on him like "Perry Odhi Chuth,To Natimi Nade e.t.c".

5) D.O Misiani
The late misiani and Shirati band was and still one of the voices who spoke against corruption in moi regime with songs like "Bim en Bim,Lee tinde mor and Amolo piny Pako Te". Tanzania born Benga star rose to fame with songs like "Auma Lando and Wich Teko Ok Kony".

6) Collela Mazee
I don't have much to say about Collela but lyrics like;
"Kare piny luoro ka aleki nya john" caught my attention. Collela was a great composer with every rhyme and sense falling at their place".

We have thousand artists(some died)who did and still doing music from Nyanza i couldn't mention all even though there are different genres associated with Luo music like Benga , Ohangla, Rhumba, Afro-fusion and the likes, the musicians have always strive to be at the top of the music game. By Luo music, I mean those music sang partly or fully in Dholuo,the music is honest,creative and enjoyable.

I'm blessed to say;This artists have done great with their music and still doing it.

By Quoting The Late Ongala lyrics..."Mziki haina mwenyewe", As long as you can create;
Educative
Entertaining
And melodical changes a persons life don't stop doing it. Music is power. Let's support our own.

   Compiled By Budding Dirt.

We three met
Beneath the Eye In the Sky,
Above the green-blue lake.

You two were sent for a lesson;
I met you to escape.

Stories from long ago
And old films that you two know
Are shining new to me.

One of you loves me
And to the other
I made love.

But in teaching me your lessons,
(Balzac is our favourite!)
You have taught me not to love.

Let us lie here under the sky
Unwatched by others’ eyes,
Away from what you know.

One day you will accept this place,
But then, I will need to go.

Years from now, if you return,
You will still not find me.

Look for my name
On a candle-lit, paper boat,
In the twilight of
Zhongyuanjie
On the blue-green lake.

I often remember with a lot of thrill in my spine every time I reflect on the Writings of Miguna Miguna in his book peeling Back the Masks, a certain sub-plot that most of Kenyan students in Canada, America, Britain, Germany or Australia often fail to go through pre-university examinations and then they opt for faculty friendly courses like carpentry and electrical-wire man offered at some polytechnics in this countries. Then these students end up living as informal sector workers in the Diaspora, and hence putting themselves into a cash strapped condition that they don’t easily come back home. This is also the same texture of revelations I have been encountering for the past five months of my regular reading of the literary pages of The Saturday Nation, in which a most of Kenyans write alongside some foreigners, but notably Professor Austin Bukenya as the foreign writer, Bukenya himself being a Ugandan.
The revelations are that the writers who were regularly writing on these pages sometimes ago have gradually waned up, not because of anything but due to their intellectual irrelevance. Mostly caused by a defect of intellectual inferiority. They were the likes of Evans Mwangi; Mwangi was forthrightly coming up with a tribally fine-tuned niche in the name of being Ngugi wa Thiong’o scholar. He had a specialization in writing about Ngugi because Ngugi is his tribesman, they are both Kikuyu’s.He also had substantial writings on Ngugi’s children; Mukoma, Lee, Nducu and Wanjiku wa Ngugi, who are in similar stretch of their father struggling to be established as writers. But all in all, Professor Evans Mwangi has already ended up as an intellectual without consequences.
Another writer in point was one; Dr Tom Odhiambo, who also teaches literature at the University of Nairobi. He had been writing on the same pages but with a strong bent towards Luo Chauvinism and stark Conspiracy against Luhyia veteran literary Critic Professor Chris Wanjala.
The only Kenyan literary activist who has been trying to remain globally vogue in his literary writings on this platform is Dr Godwin Siundu; he often displays Global relevance through his pataphorous approach to literary appreciations and criticism.
But whatsoever the case, professor Bukenya has towered seriously above these Kenyans.Bukenya’s command of English language and literary command has no match on the Kenyan literary market. Bukenya Tackles globalectics of literature as Kenyans struggle with tribalism of their home literature.Ethinicity is the enemy of Kenyan literature and as well an established foe of any other Kenyan professional perspective.
Why Kenyans are threatened with intellectual suffocation when exposed to otherness is because of a few reasons. As cited above ethinicism remains a dominant factor. But also, lack of homogenous public language, absence of ideology in their political history, failure of politics to achieve common nationalism and corruption in the public sector are contributing forces among others.
Your consecutive  look at the literary pages of  the Saturday Nation of the previous three weekends will be an empirical testimony to this position.Bukenya’s stories have surveyed dialectics of English language, aging of African literature , translation and greatness of Uganda orature with a focus on Okot P’ Bitek. And this weekend he has beautifully lime-lighted on Julius Nyerere’s Intellectual tigritude. Nyerere’s as the killer of colonialism but while at the same time he lingered as the staunch lover of Shakespeare.
This is simply a farcical repetition of the previous tragic history, as reflected in the words of Karl Marx in his 18th Brumaire, which made the Ugandan educated Sudanese Poet, Taban Reneket Makititiyong Lo Liyong to look at Kenya’s literary poverty and then take a synechedochal stand to decry that east Africa is a literary desert. He was right, but in a sense he did not mean east Africa per se, he meant Kenya .Kenya at that time had only an English Department at the University of Nairobi. The department was poorly performing in terms of research. It was desperately tethered duplicating of the European classics as its literary overture.
But when the foreign and radical blood came to Kenya, in guest of helping Kenya to overcome the fog in the seasons end from colonial mire to literary and cultural freedom, Native Kenyans were surprisingly never friendly to them at all at all. Some of the intellectuals who had come to Kenya that time were the greats like :Ezekiel Mphalele from south Africa, Okot p’ Bitek from Uganda,Okello Oculii from Uganda,Ayi Kwei Armah from Ghana, Joie De Graft from Ghana, Walter Rodney from Guyana, Austeen Bukenya from Uganda and Taban Lo Liyong from Uganda.
All of these foreigners in Kenya have later on been absolved by time and history  as literary greats.They have proved clear intellectual and literary superlativety  over and above all Kenyans. The point of contrite is that, Kenyans of that era did not give them a chance to share their intellectual resource with the peasants and masses of Kenya. Instead Kenyan bureaucrats began their usual came of intimidation and tribal nagging whenever intellectually outshone.
Austeen Bukenya was condemned into poverty at Machakos girls high school to be an English teacher or a teacher of English without a salary. Liyong and Pitek were perpetually witch-hunted out of University of Nairobi by Ngugi and Wanjala. Rodney and Armah were frustrated until they desperately moved to Tanzania from where they wrote their respective oeuvres. Armah wrote Why are we Blessed, While Rodney wrote the world famous book How Europe Underdeveloped Africa. Mphalele was frustrated to oblivion, only for him to die mysteriously when on a literary tour in West Africa.
But sadly enough, the Kenyans who were seriously illiterate, in the  likes of : Daniel Moi, Jomo Kenyatta, Ezekiel Barengtunny  and many intellectuals so-so’s shamelessly made themselves to be  chancellors of the Universities .They were chancellors who never went beyond class seven of primary schools in their child hood. They then became bovaristic if not atavistic only to begin writing lame books like Nyayo Philosophy, Suffering without Bitterness, Facing Mount Kenya and other literary trash of the same calibre. It is this intellectual sludge that they again turned to impose as compulsory reading materials on sons and daughters of poor Kenyans.
By
Alexander K. Opicho
Eldoret, Kenya.

Alexander K Opicho
(Eldoret, Kenya;aopicho@yahoo.com)



I have been reading the old copy of Saturday Nation, a week end edition of the daily nation in Kenya. It was published some weeks ago. It has some enticing feature stories that have made me to reflect on a certain family value in Africa. The three feature stories I have been reading are ; Lupita Nyong’o stellar performance in the movie, 12 years a slave, in which she emerged a top American actor, attracting in the same course the most coveted Oscar prize, I have also read in the same paper the shooting literature star of Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie, an American based Nigerian writress, who had had her last book Americana win the American Booker Prize, and lastly , I have also ready  a very captivating account of Wanjiku wa Ngugi’s spellbinding debutante in her book, the fall of saints. Wanjiku account was written by Proffessor Evans Mwangi a Thiong’o literary scholar based in Newyork. Mwangi being a Ngugi wa Thiongi’o, scholar wrote this article because Wanjiku wa Ngugi is also a daughter to the world famous Kenyan novelist, Ngugi Njogu wa Thiongi’o.
In each of the three above cases, emanates a significant observation that the fathers to the respective ladies are great men in their respective capacity, and that the ladies mentioned are now obvious heirs to the family names, family intellectual domain and family selling point respectively.
Lupita is heir to proffessor Peter Anyang Nyong’o, Adichie is an heir to the African literary heritage of proffessor Chinua Achebe, and While Wanjiku is a promising successor to Proffessor Thiongi’o.
These are actually a crystallization of strange unfolding that time has now challenged old mindset among African societies. The mindset in which Africans have not been counting girls as children .This family value has been there up to today. If an African man tells you that I don’t have a family it means that he is expressing three connotations; he is not married, he is married but he does not have a children, or he is married but his wife have only been bearing him girls, because if anything; an African man is only responsible for siring sons, daughters are a mistake of the wife.
This typology of family civilization got to its peak in the mid of  last year, when the Luo council of elders, hailing from Siaya County of Kenya, where Baraka Obama is rooted, expressed their open puzzle over Baraka Obama as per why he can’t take his time to have sons. They are now organizing a delegation that will go to America to counsel President Obama over the matter that he needs to re-organize his posterity strategy other than thinking in terms of Sasha and Malia.
What I mean is that Africans don’t believe if at all family interests can be carried forward through a daughter. They don’t believe if a girl can be an intellectual or command any wisdom that can go places. But realities from a historical experience that great African men don’t sire great sons but instead they sire great daughters must make this society of male chauvinists to have a mental paradigm shift in relation to child valuation and recognition. To accept a social déjàvu that daughters have a big capacity to carry forward the family name than the previously mistaken notion that they are only sons who can do this.
Facts on the ground range from the case of Julius Nyerere,Kwameh Nkrumah, Malcolm X, Frantz Fanon, Richard Wright, Tom Mboya, Masinde Muliro, Nelson Mandela, Mutula Kilonzo, and Francis Imbuga just to mention a few African heroes. Justification of this list showing Africa’s reversal of Prospero complex abodes in the facts that; Susan Nyerere is currently the most outspoken in the Nyerere family. Similarly, Nkrumah’s daughter is currently a politician in Ghanaian parliament and very promising politically. Betty Shabazz X was recently reported to have put Louis Farrakhan on the spot over the ****** plot of her father the late Malcolm X.Mireille Fanon Mendes is the director of human rights activist organization known as Frantz Fanon foundation. This is the organization which recently recognized Mumia Abu-Jamal with a prestigious prize. Mumia Abu-Jamal is an African-American writer and journalist, author of six human rights focussed books and hundreds of similar spirited columns and articles. He has spent the last three decades on racially biased Pennsylvania’s death row. And now general population in America and in the world knows that Mumia Abu-Jamal was wrongfully convicted and sentenced for the ****** of Philadelphia Police man, Daniel Faulkner. His demand for a neutral trial and unconditional freedom is enmassely supported by heads of state, Nobel laureates, human rights organizations, scholars, religious leaders, artists and bioethical scientists. All this is nothing other than universal singing of the tune in the poetic writings of Frantz Omar Fanon entitled Facts of blackness, through his daughter Mireille.
And equally enough, those of you who have delved into posthumous family conditions of Richard Wright must have appreciated stellar performance of proffessor Julia Wright in respect to the genetic legacy of her father. Dr. Susan Mboya is currently living in South Africa and she is serving the society in the same tandem her late father Tom Mboya discharged anti-colonial service to the people of Kenya, Africa and world in general.Masinde Muliro has Mrs. Namwalie Muliro and Mutula Kilonzo has Kethi Kilonzo. The point is that, just like all of other heroes in Africa, these two great politicians have their daughters; Namwalie and Kethi as the heirs to their political legacy.
This phenomenon is not unique to Africa. But it is a universal genetic condition. The study of genetics has a concept that inferior genes of the mother are passed through an X chromosomes in XY to the sons, while superior genes of the father are passed through an X chromosome of the ** to the daughters.
Just but to wind up my story I want also to counsel The Luo council of elders that president Obama, their son who lives in America does not have misplaced values in projecting his posterity through Sasia and Malia. Personally I am aware that as per now there is no any African boy at age of Sasha Obama that has ever read Yann Martel’s Life of Mr. Pi. But in stark contrast the international media reported Sasha Obama to have vividly read this book until she commented to Baraka Obama that, ‘daddy, this is a very good book’.  And of course this is how an intellectual is made.

In Kitale
A town in Kenya,
Lived an English man
His name was Lord Hitchcock
He owned over a thousand acres of land
He took for himself
During colonial times
He had hundredfold of workers
Hitchcock had very beautiful wife
She was called Queen Victoria,
They had two sons;
Hitchcock junior and William,
He had a passion for work
He always woke up at ****-crow
Only to retire back at chick roost
Natives of Kitale had respect for him,
They secretly envied huge udders
That his five thousand fresian cows had,
They also loved him,
For he killed the flying snake,
That had terrorized natives for years,
Hitchcock just pointed a long stick
At the flying snake,
The stick which looked like cooking wood,
Then smoke and thunder came out
Only to see the snake coming down
Tangling like a rope
And fell down in a thud!
It is when the natives gave him a new name
Mango wa nandemu; meaning the snake killer
Natives also had an issue with him;
He likes putting  mucus in his kerchief
And then put it back into his pockets
Instead of throwing it a way
Direct from the nose,
His nose were slender and long
They wonder why he could not used it
In proper thrusting away of the mucus,
Men folk on his farm were always day dreaming
Of any chance to have *** with Queen Victoria
As the women folk too fancied of William
Marrying their daughters,
His favourite worker was Onyango,
The Luo man from shores of the lake
He liked Onyango most
Even  he promoted him
To be a tractor driver
Other than cleaning the cowsheds,
The gossip was that maybe Hitchcock was full,
Or not circumcised like Onyango
Hence is passionate preference Onyango,
But no, they don’t knew,
The germ was in Onyango’s workmanship
Onyango worked like a donkey,
Onyango also had a beautiful daughter
Her name was Ilingling Atineo Nyarpondo,
But workers on the farm called her Atieno,
It is Hitchcock who broke her virginity
A secret which queen Victoria knows not,
Hitchcock just popped in at Onyango’s shack
One after noon, after Lunch
He found Onyango, Atieno and the mother,
He didn’t talk a lot,
He only ordered Onyango and his wife
To go out and hang around
For him to have Word with Atieno
Onyango walked out minus haste,
The wife followed suit, after cautioning Atieno
Not to disappoint the Lord; Hitchcock,
A minute never passed,
Before the Lord took Atieno into his arms
He carried her to Onyango’s bed
And effectively penetrated her,
Sweetness gripped both of them
Hitchcock on his ******
Began to  moan like an aphrodisiac animal;
Atienoo! Atienoo! Atienoo!
In turn Atieno also screamed
Like a caged monkey;
Lord! Lord! Lord!
We are on my father’s bed,
Onyango and His wife
Were out keeping sentry
Lest Victoria finds Hitchcock
In the act of deflowering the ******,
When he finished,
He called Onyango and the wife in
Then he warned them
To keep the mouths shut,
Or else he ejects them from the farm,
And indeed they kept mum,
Hence the friendship
Between Onyango and Hitchcock,


Hitchcock never like two of his workers,
Josef Sasita and Wavukho Masafu
He didn’t like Sasita because of one reason;
Sasita brought along his brother to work
His brother was called Kalenda
When Hitchcock was taking the master roll
He asked Kalenda to say his names
Of which Kalenda said his two names;
Kalenda Sasita,
Of which Hitchcock never understood
As these two names are a Kiswahili sentence
Meaning it is lunch time at end moth,
Hitchcock understood Kiswahili very well,
He thought Kalenda was implying for a pay
And Lunch Allowance
When he had only worked for three hours
It was not lunch time neither was it end month,
Hitchcock was overtaken by anger
He slapped Kalenda with all energy in his arms
Kalenda fainted and collapsed like a dead bird,
Sasita thought the lord had killed his brother
He began wailing, he boxed Hitchcock
More than five hundred jabs
in a couple of minutes,
Then Sasita got off on his heels,
Running away at a speed of a kite,
But unfortunately he was arrested
By a white police and brought back to Hitchcock,
Hitchcock flogged Sasita two hundred strokes,
And ordered Sasita to resume his work,

Hitchcock’s detest for Wavukho
is due to nothing else
Other ceaseless malingering,
Wavukho always takes
a minimum of an hour
Every time he visits the toilet,

So Onyango is the only guy on the firm,
A boon to which Ndiema, farm worker,
Is very jealousy of ,
Ndiema believed Onyango is using charms
Or love potions or Voodoo to lure the Whiteman,
Otherwise how can Whiteman love a black worker?
With such passion in the way Hitchcock loved Onyango,

One day Ndiema approached Onyango
He asked him the secrete behind his fortune
Onyango became sly and lied,
He told Ndiema that it was only magical charms
He was given by his late mother,
That made Hitchcock’s heart to swell with love
For him and his family,
Ndiema believed on the first hearing,
He became selfish and begged Onyango,
To give him the charms also,
So that he can also enjoy the Whiteman’s love
Onyango accepted to assist but at a fee,
A fee which took Ndiema salary of two months,
Then Onyango brought Ndiema a ***** of an Alligator,
He told Ndiema to put it in his underpants,
Every time he goes to work,
Ndiema complied,
That morning Ndiema woke very early,
He walked to his work station
Very happy and confident
Sure of enjoying the Whiteman’s love
Given the voodoo under his pants,

At ten in the morning Hitchcock called Ndiema
To join him in repairing the maize miller,
Ndiema was a hand boy, a toto,
Ndiema was to hold the engine
As Hitchcock tightened the nuts
But the engine was oily with grease,
Ndiema’s hands slipped every time
Hitchcock tried to tighten the nuts
Hitchcock got irritated,
Especially by the papyrus cowboy hat
Ndiema was wearing,
Hitchcock cautioned Ndiema to be serious
By tightly holding the engine,
But when Hitchcock began tightening
The engine again,
Ndiema’s hands slipped
And the engine moved away,
Hitchcock punctuated this with a nemesis;
He jabbed Ndiema with an art of Olympiad boxer,
It was one tremendous fist
The fist of the century,
When Ndiema wanted to cry
His five teeth jumped out
And when he said I am sorry my lord
He woffled; iywi mwu sovwi lodwi
Hitchcock clicked and walked away,
Ndiema walked home
With a humongous gap in his bucal cavity,
Ndiema reached home and went to bed
His wife, Chepsuwet was already aware
She only prepared porridge for him
As he had no teeth to munch solid food,

When Hitchcock reached home
He found his two sons in a strong fever,
They were panting like desert dogs,
He asked them what was wrong,
Both boys began shedding tears
In torrents like river Euphrates and Tigris
Flowing across the Garden of Eden,
What is the problem?
Hitchcock roared,
The big boy then featfully responded;
We were given sugar cane to chew,
We were given by Ndiema the farm worker,
It was yesterday in the evening,
That is why we are sick,
Ok,
Hitchcock nodded his head,
He took his whip, made of wires and rods
With a sting at the end,
He jumped on his horse
And shot off to Ndiema’s place
At the speed of forty five kilometers per hour,
He found Ndiema trying to swallow some porridge,
Come on Ndiema! Roared Hitchcock in full voltage
Of ire, anger, fury and mad petulance,
When Ndiema came out
Hitchcock pulled out his whip
He flogged Ndiema terribly
They were strokes and strokes
Strokes fell on Ndiema’s back
With a sharp sound like a thunderclap
Ndiema cried like a baby,
Begging for lord’s mercy
Chepsuwet looked on in fear,

When Hitchcock jumped on his horse
And went away clicking, frothing in anger
Like the waters of river Nile
Departing Lake Victoria to Egypt,
Ndiema was on the ground
Writhing in pains from the flogging,
He sobbed and sobbed,
And finally he mumbled;
Witchcraft don’t work against an Englishman,
His wife Chepsuwet did not understand.

by
Alexander  K  Opicho
Eldoret,Kenya
(aopicho@yahoo.com)

Ladbrokes, the online betting firm has once again nominated Ngugi wa Thiong'o as a candidate for Nobel prize in literature 2014.The firm arrives at the probable nominee through a highly polished probabilist mechanism.It also nominated Ngugi as the probable candidate for literature Nobel prize, but the final was Alice Munro the Canadian short story writress.The eventuality of Ngugi winning the literature Nobel prize is a long a waited event in Africa , especially among Kenyans.
However, Ngugi is not the only nominee , he is among others and even to make it worse he is not the top scoring nominee. He has tied with four  others at the score of 50/1 points.These  are; Umberto Eco who wrote the famous book In the Name of the Rose, Nuruddin Farah a Kenya *** Somalian veteran poet and prose writer   and   then Darcia Maraini.
There are eleven writers of global stature who are currently scoring above Ngugi wa Thiong'o.They are operating at the level of 50/1 scores. These include ;Margaret Atwoo d, Salman Rushdie, Cees Nooteboom, Don DeLillo, Amos Oz, Javier Marias, Cormac McCarthy , Bob Dylan, Peter Handke, William Trevor and Les Murray . The missing writer in this category of global writers is Yan Martel the author of Life of Mr. Pi , whose also on the list of the favourite writers of president Barrack Obama.His book Life of Mr. Pi once shared  a prize and equivalent acclaim with Salman Rushdie's The Ground Beneath Her Legs. So, why Martel was not nominated remains the usual intrigues of Nobel nomination process.
Haruki Murakami ,Assia Djebar,Svetlana Aleksijevitj , Peter Nadas, Joyce Carol Oates , Adonis ,Milan Kundera , Philip Roth , Mircea Cartarescu, Ko Un , Jon Fosse  and Thomas Pynchon  are currently scoring below Ngugi.They are operating between 10/1 and 26/1 scores.However among them Haruki Murakami, Joyce Carol Oates and Phillip Roth were very story contenders and hence competeters for the same prize with Ngugi during last year.But Joyce Carol Oates is a weaker contender this year given than he recently wrote an offensive and tortuous poem against the eminent American  poet Robert Frost .  Oates drew from the book Lovely, Dark and  Deep  which   paints the  Frost  as an arrogant, sexist pig who gave up on his mentally ill children. The story has outraged Frost’s fans, biographers, and  his survivors.
Inspite of all these there is no literary value that can make Ngugi wa Thiong'o to deserve a Nobel prize reward for  Literature. Apart from his first  two books weep not child and the river between that had concrete literary position, his later works are pamphlets of communism , that keep of regurgitating communism as initially written by Karl Marx and France Fanon.His second last book Globalectics is written as annual lectures in respect of Rene Wellek, the books is a practical duplication of Paulo Freire , and Spivak Gavatri.His contemporaries at the University of Nairobi accusing him of tribalism when it came to supervising post graduate students. he was soft on his fellow Kiguyu's and discriminative agains Luo and Luhyia students.He lifestyle as communist ideologue is also self defeating as teaches in america at Irvine University , very busy amassing wealths just like any other capitalist.He campaign for vernacular writing is egually not water tight on the bench of praxis, as he himself teaches special English in America but not kiguyu language.
Another stunning revelation from the Swedish academy is nomiantion of Vladimir Putin the Russian president for Nobel peace prize alongside fifty something  organizations as competitors.the nominations is based on his role he played in the Nuclear disarmament of Syria.The Ukraine question has not been yet raised.But logic of these goes like historical imbroglio that puzzled the world in relation to the role of ****** in relation communism against the then gathering storm for the second world war.

Uyghur Poetry Translations

With my translations I am trying to build awareness of the plight of Uyghur poets and their people, who are being sent in large numbers to Chinese "reeducation" concentration camps which have been praised by Trump as "exactly" what is "needed."

Perhat Tursun (1969-????) is one of the foremost living Uyghur language poets, if he is still alive. Unfortunately, Tursun was "disappeared" into a Chinese "reeducation" concentration camp where extreme psychological torture is the norm. Apparently no one knows his present whereabouts or condition.

Elegy
by Perhat Tursun
loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

"Your soul is the entire world."
―Hermann Hesse, Siddhartha

Asylum seekers, will you recognize me among the mountain passes' frozen corpses?
Can you identify me here among our Exodus's exiled brothers?
We begged for shelter but they lashed us bare; consider our naked corpses.
When they compel us to accept their massacres, do you know that I am with you?

Three centuries later they resurrect, not recognizing each other,
Their former greatness forgotten.
I happily ingested poison, like a fine wine.
When they search the streets and cannot locate our corpses, do you know that I am with you?

In that tower constructed of skulls you will find my dome as well:
They removed my head to more accurately test their swords' temper.
When before their swords our relationship flees like a flighty lover,
Do you know that I am with you?

When men in fur hats are used for target practice in the marketplace
Where a dying man's face expresses his agony as a bullet cleaves his brain
While the executioner's eyes fail to comprehend why his victim vanishes,...
Seeing my form reflected in that bullet-pierced brain's erratic thoughts,
Do you know that I am with you?

In those days when drinking wine was considered worse than drinking blood,
did you taste the flour ground out in that blood-turned churning mill?
Now, when you sip the wine Ali-Shir Nava'i imagined to be my blood
In that mystical tavern's dark abyssal chambers,
Do you know that I am with you?

TRANSLATOR NOTES: This is my interpretation (not necessarily correct) of the poem's frozen corpses left 300 years in the past. For the Uyghur people the Mongol period ended around 1760 when the Qing dynasty invaded their homeland, then called Dzungaria. Around a million people were slaughtered during the Qing takeover, and the Dzungaria territory was renamed Xinjiang. I imagine many Uyghurs fleeing the slaughters would have attempted to navigate treacherous mountain passes. Many of them may have died from starvation and/or exposure, while others may have been caught and murdered by their pursuers.



The Fog and the Shadows
adapted from a novel by Perhat Tursun
loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

“I began to realize the fog was similar to the shadows.”

I began to realize that, just as the exact shape of darkness is a shadow,
even so the exact shape of fog is disappearance
and the exact shape of a human being is also disappearance.
At this moment it seemed my body was vanishing into the human form’s final state.

After I arrived here,
it was as if the danger of getting lost
and the desire to lose myself
were merging strangely inside me.

While everything in that distant, gargantuan city where I spent my five college years felt strange to me; and even though the skyscrapers, highways, ditches and canals were built according to a single standard and shape, so that it wasn’t easy to differentiate them, still I never had the feeling of being lost. Everyone there felt like one person and they were all folded into each other. It was as if their faces, voices and figures had been gathered together like a shaman’s jumbled-up hair.

Even the men and women seemed identical.
You could only tell them apart by stripping off their clothes and examining them.
The men’s faces were beardless like women’s and their skin was very delicate and unadorned.
I was always surprised that they could tell each other apart.
Later I realized it wasn’t just me: many others were also confused.

For instance, when we went to watch the campus’s only TV in a corridor of a building where the seniors stayed when they came to improve their knowledge. Those elderly Uyghurs always argued about whether someone who had done something unusual in an earlier episode was the same person they were seeing now. They would argue from the beginning of the show to the end. Other people, who couldn’t stand such endless nonsense, would leave the TV to us and stalk off.

Then, when the classes began, we couldn’t tell the teachers apart.
Gradually we became able to tell the men from the women
and eventually we able to recognize individuals.
But other people remained identical for us.

The most surprising thing for me was that the natives couldn’t differentiate us either.
For instance, two police came looking for someone who had broken windows during a fight at a restaurant and had then run away.
They ordered us line up, then asked the restaurant owner to identify the culprit.
He couldn’t tell us apart even though he inspected us very carefully.
He said we all looked so much alike that it was impossible to tell us apart.
Sighing heavily, he left.



The Encounter
by Abdurehim Otkur
loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

I asked her, why aren’t you afraid? She said her God.
I asked her, anything else? She said her People.
I asked her, anything more? She said her Soul.
I asked her if she was content? She said, I am Not.



The Distance
by Tahir Hamut
loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

We can’t exclude the cicadas’ serenades.
Behind the convex glass of the distant hospital building
the nurses watch our outlandish party
with their absurdly distorted faces.

Drinking watered-down liquor,
half-****, descanting through the open window,
we speak sneeringly of life, love, girls.
The cicadas’ serenades keep breaking in,
wrecking critical parts of our dissertations.

The others dream up excuses to ditch me
and I’m left here alone.

The cosmopolitan pyramid
of drained bottles
makes me feel
like I’m in a Turkish bath.

I lock the door:
Time to get back to work!

I feel like doing cartwheels.
I feel like self-annihilation.



Refuge of a Refugee
by Ablet Abdurishit Berqi aka Tarim
loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

I lack a passport,
so I can’t leave legally.
All that’s left is for me to smuggle myself to safety,
but I’m afraid I’ll be beaten black and blue at the border
and I can’t afford the trafficker.

I’m a smuggler of love,
though love has no national identity.
Poetry is my refuge,
where a refugee is most free.

The following excerpts, translated by Anne Henochowicz, come from an essay written by Tang Danhong about her final meeting with Dr. Ablet Abdurishit Berqi, aka Tarim. Tarim is a reference to the Tarim Basin and its Uyghur inhabitants...

I’m convinced that the poet Tarim Ablet Berqi the associate professor at the Xinjiang Education Institute, has been sent to a “concentration camp for educational transformation.” This scholar of Uyghur literature who conducted postdoctoral research at Israel’s top university, what kind of “educational transformation” is he being put through?

Chen Quanguo, the Communist Party secretary of Xinjiang, has said it’s “like the instruction at school, the order of the military, and the security of prison. We have to break their blood relations, their networks, and their roots.”

On a scorching summer day, Tarim came to Tel Aviv from Haifa. In a few days he would go back to Urumqi. I invited him to come say goodbye and once again prepared Sichuan cold noodles for him. He had already unfriended me on Facebook. He said he couldn’t eat, he was busy, and had to hurry back to Haifa. He didn’t even stay for twenty minutes. I can’t even remember, did he sit down? Did he have a glass of water? Yet this farewell shook me to my bones.

He said, “Maybe when I get off the plane, before I enter the airport, they’ll take me to a separate room and beat me up, and I’ll disappear.”

Looking at my shocked face, he then said, “And maybe nothing will happen …”

His expression was sincere. To be honest, the Tarim I saw rarely smiled. Still, layer upon layer blocked my powers of comprehension: he’s a poet, a writer, and a scholar. He’s an associate professor at the Xinjiang Education Institute. He can get a passport and come to Israel for advanced studies. When he goes back he’ll have an offer from Sichuan University to be a professor of literature … I asked, “Beat you up at the airport? Disappear? On what grounds?”

“That’s how Xinjiang is,” he said without any surprise in his voice. “When a Uyghur comes back from being abroad, that can happen.”…



This poem helps us understand the nomadic lifestyle of many Uyghurs, the hardships they endure, and the character it builds...

Iz (“Traces”)
by Abdurehim Otkur
loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

We were children when we set out on this journey;
Now our grandchildren ride horses.

We were just a few when we set out on this arduous journey;
Now we're a large caravan leaving traces in the desert.

We leave our traces scattered in desert dunes' valleys
Where many of our heroes lie buried in sandy graves.

But don't say they were abandoned: amid the cedars
their resting places are decorated by springtime flowers!

We left the tracks, the station... the crowds recede in the distance;
The wind blows, the sand swirls, but here our indelible trace remains.

The caravan continues, we and our horses become thin,
But our great-grand-children will one day rediscover those traces.

The original Uyghur poem:

Yax iduq muxkul seperge atlinip mangghanda biz,
Emdi atqa mingidek bolup qaldi ene nevrimiz.
Az iduq muxkul seperge atlinip chiqanda biz,
Emdi chong karvan atalduq, qaldurup chollerde iz.
Qaldi iz choller ara, gayi davanlarda yene,
Qaldi ni-ni arslanlar dexit cholde qevrisiz.
Qevrisiz qaldi dimeng yulghun qizarghan dalida,
Gul-chichekke pukinur tangna baharda qevrimiz.
Qaldi iz, qaldi menzil, qaldi yiraqta hemmisi,
Chiqsa boran, kochse qumlar, hem komulmes izimiz.
Tohtimas karvan yolida gerche atlar bek oruq,
Tapqus hichbolmisa, bu izni bizning nevrimiz, ya chevrimiz.

Other poems of note by Abdurehim Otkur include "I Call Forth Spring" and "Waste, You Traitors, Waste!"



My Feelings
by Dolqun Yasin
loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

The light sinking through the ice and snow,
The hollyhock blossoms reddening the hills like blood,
The proud peaks revealing their ******* to the stars,
The morning-glories embroidering the earth’s greenery,
Are not light,
Not hollyhocks,
Not peaks,
Not morning-glories;
They are my feelings.

The tears washing the mothers’ wizened faces,
The flower-like smiles suddenly brightening the girls’ visages,
The hair turning white before age thirty,
The night which longs for light despite the sun’s laughter,
Are not tears,
Not smiles,
Not hair,
Not night;
They are my nomadic feelings.

Now turning all my sorrow to passion,
Bequeathing to my people all my griefs and joys,
Scattering my excitement like flowers festooning fields,
I harvest all these, then tenderly glean my poem.

Therefore the world is this poem of mine,
And my poem is the world itself.



To My Brother the Warrior
by Téyipjan Éliyow
loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

When I accompanied you,
the commissioners called me a child.
If only I had been a bit taller
I might have proved myself in battle!

The commission could not have known
my commitment, despite my youth.
If only they had overlooked my age and enlisted me,
I'd have given that enemy rabble hell!

Now, brother, I’m an adult.
Doubtless, I’ll join the service soon.
Soon enough, I’ll be by your side,
battling the enemy: I’ll never surrender!

Another poem of note by Téyipjan Éliyow is "Neverending Song."

Keywords/Tags: Uyghur, translation, Uighur, Xinjiang, elegy, Kafka, China, Chinese, reeducation, prison, concentration camp, desert, nomad, nomadic, race, racism, discrimination, Islam, Islamic, Muslim, mrbuyghur



Chinese Poets: English Translations

These are modern English translations of poems by some of the greatest Chinese poets of all time, including Du Fu, Huang E, Huang O, Li Bai, Li Ching-jau, Li Qingzhao, Po Chu-I, Tzu Yeh, Yau Ywe-Hwa and Xu Zhimo.



Lines from Laolao Ting Pavilion
by Li Bai (701-762)  
loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

The spring breeze knows partings are bitter;
The willow twig knows it will never be green again.



A Toast to Uncle Yun
by Li Bai (701-762)  
loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

Water reforms, though we slice it with our swords;
Sorrow returns, though we drown it with our wine.

Li Bai (701-762)    was a romantic figure who has been called the Lord Byron of Chinese poetry. He and his friend Du Fu (712-770)    were the leading poets of the Tang Dynasty era, which has been called the 'Golden Age of Chinese poetry.' Li Bai is also known as Li Po, Li Pai, Li T'ai-po, and Li T'ai-pai.



Moonlit Night
by Du Fu (712-770)  
loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

Alone in your bedchamber
you gaze out at the Fu-Chou moon.

Here, so distant, I think of our children,
too young to understand what keeps me away
or to remember Ch'ang-an...

A perfumed mist, your hair's damp ringlets!
In the moonlight, your arms' exquisite jade!

Oh, when can we meet again within your bed's drawn curtains,
and let the heat dry our tears?



Moonlit Night
by Du Fu (712-770)  
loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

Tonight the Fu-Chou moon
watches your lonely bedroom.

Here, so distant, I think of our children,
too young to understand what keeps me away
or to remember Ch'ang-an...

By now your hair will be damp from your bath
and fall in perfumed ringlets;
your jade-white arms so exquisite in the moonlight!

Oh, when can we meet again within those drawn curtains,
and let the heat dry our tears?



Lone Wild Goose
by Du Fu (712-770)  
loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

The abandoned goose refuses food and drink;
he cries querulously for his companions.

Who feels kinship for that strange wraith
as he vanishes eerily into the heavens?

You watch it as it disappears;
its plaintive calls cut through you.

The indignant crows ignore you both:
the bickering, bantering multitudes.

Du Fu (712-770)    is also known as Tu Fu. The first poem is addressed to the poet's wife, who had fled war with their children. Ch'ang-an is an ironic pun because it means 'Long-peace.'



The Red Cockatoo
by Po Chu-I (772-846)  
loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

A marvelous gift from Annam—
a red cockatoo,
bright as peach blossom,
fluent in men's language.

So they did what they always do
to the erudite and eloquent:
they created a thick-barred cage
and shut it up.

Po Chu-I (772-846)    is best known today for his ballads and satirical poems. Po Chu-I believed poetry should be accessible to commoners and is noted for his simple diction and natural style. His name has been rendered various ways in English: Po Chu-I, Po Chü-i, Bo Juyi and Bai Juyi.



The Migrant Songbird
Li Qingzhao aka Li Ching-chao (c.1084-1155)  
loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

The migrant songbird on the nearby yew
brings tears to my eyes with her melodious trills;
this fresh downpour reminds me of similar spills:
another spring gone, and still no word from you...



The Plum Blossoms
Li Qingzhao aka Li Ching-chao (c.1084-1155)  
loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

This year with the end of autumn
I find my reflection graying at the edges.
Now evening gales hammer these ledges...
what shall become of the plum blossoms?

Li Qingzhao was a poet and essayist during the Song dynasty. She is generally considered to be one of the greatest Chinese poets. In English she is known as Li Qingzhao, Li Ching-chao and The Householder of Yi'an.



Star Gauge
Sui Hui (c.351-394 BC)  
loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

So much lost so far away
on that distant rutted road.

That distant rutted road
wounds me to the heart.

Grief coupled with longing,
so much lost so far away.

Grief coupled with longing
wounds me to the heart.

This house without its master;
the bed curtains shimmer, gossamer veils.

The bed curtains shimmer, gossamer veils,
and you are not here.

Such loneliness! My adorned face
lacks the mirror's clarity.

I see by the mirror's clarity
my Lord is not here. Such loneliness!

Sui Hui, also known as Su Hui and Lady Su, appears to be the first female Chinese poet of note. And her 'Star Gauge' or 'Sphere Map' may be the most impressive poem written in any language to this day, in terms of complexity. 'Star Gauge' has been described as a palindrome or 'reversible' poem, but it goes far beyond that. According to contemporary sources, the original poem was shuttle-woven on brocade, in a circle, so that it could be read in multiple directions. Due to its shape the poem is also called Xuanji Tu ('Picture of the Turning Sphere') . The poem is now generally placed in a grid or matrix so that the Chinese characters can be read horizontally, vertically and diagonally. The story behind the poem is that Sui Hui's husband, Dou Tao, the governor of Qinzhou, was exiled to the desert. When leaving his wife, Dou swore to remain faithful. However, after arriving at his new post, he took a concubine. Lady Su then composed a circular poem, wove it into a piece of silk embroidery, and sent it to him. Upon receiving the masterwork, he repented. It has been claimed that there are up to 7,940 ways to read the poem. My translation above is just one of many possible readings of a portion of the poem.



Reflection
Xu Hui (627-650)  
loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

Confronting the morning she faces her mirror;
Her makeup done at last, she paces back and forth awhile.
It would take vast mountains of gold to earn one contemptuous smile,
So why would she answer a man's summons?

Due to the similarities in names, it seems possible that Sui Hui and Xu Hui were the same poet, with some of her poems being discovered later, or that poems written later by other poets were attributed to her.



Waves
Zhai Yongming (1955-)  
loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

The waves manhandle me like a midwife pounding my back relentlessly,
and so the world abuses my body—
accosting me, bewildering me, according me a certain ecstasy...



Monologue
Zhai Yongming (1955-)  
loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

I am a wild thought, born of the abyss
and—only incidentally—of you. The earth and sky
combine in me—their concubine—they consolidate in my body.

I am an ordinary embryo, encased in pale, watery flesh,
and yet in the sunlight I dazzle and amaze you.

I am the gentlest, the most understanding of women.
Yet I long for winter, the interminable black night, drawn out to my heart's bleakest limit.

When you leave, my pain makes me want to ***** my heart up through my mouth—
to destroy you through love—where's the taboo in that?

The sun rises for the rest of the world, but only for you do I focus the hostile tenderness of my body.
I have my ways.

A chorus of cries rises. The sea screams in my blood but who remembers me?
What is life?

Zhai Yongming is a contemporary Chinese poet, born in Chengdu in 1955. She was one of the instigators and prime movers of the 'Black Tornado' of women's poetry that swept China in 1986-1989. Since then Zhai has been regarded as one of China's most prominent poets.



Pyre
Guan Daosheng (1262-1319)  
loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

You and I share so much desire:
this love―like a fire—
that ends in a pyre's
charred coffin.



'Married Love' or 'You and I' or 'The Song of You and Me'
Guan Daosheng (1262-1319)  
loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

You and I shared a love that burned like fire:
two lumps of clay in the shape of Desire
molded into twin figures. We two.
Me and you.

In life we slept beneath a single quilt,
so in death, why any guilt?
Let the skeptics keep scoffing:
it's best to share a single coffin.

Guan Daosheng (1262-1319)    is also known as Kuan Tao-Sheng, Guan Zhongji and Lady Zhongji. A famous poet of the early Yuan dynasty, she has also been called 'the most famous female painter and calligrapher in the Chinese history... remembered not only as a talented woman, but also as a prominent figure in the history of bamboo painting.' She is best known today for her images of nature and her tendency to inscribe short poems on her paintings.



Tzu Yeh (circa 400 BC)  
loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

I heard my love was going to Yang-chou
So I accompanied him as far as Ch'u-shan.
For just a moment as he held me in his arms
I thought the swirling river ceased flowing and time stood still.



Tzu Yeh (circa 400 BC)  
loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

Will I ever hike up my dress for you again?
Will my pillow ever caress your arresting face?



Tzu Yeh (circa 400 BC)  
loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

Night descends...
I let my silken hair spill down my shoulders as I part my thighs over my lover.
Tell me, is there any part of me not worthy of being loved?



Tzu Yeh (circa 400 BC)  
loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

I will wear my robe loose, not bothering with a belt;
I will stand with my unpainted face at the reckless window;
If my petticoat insists on fluttering about, shamelessly,
I'll blame it on the unruly wind!



Tzu Yeh (circa 400 BC)  
loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

When he returns to my embrace,
I'll make him feel what no one has ever felt before:
Me absorbing him like water
Poured into a wet clay jar.



Tzu Yeh (circa 400 BC)  
loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

Bare branches tremble in a sudden breeze.
Night deepens.
My lover loves me,
And I am pleased that my body's beauty pleases him.



Tzu Yeh (circa 400 BC)  
loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

Do you not see
that we
have become like branches of a single tree?



Tzu Yeh (circa 400 BC)  
loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

I could not sleep with the full moon haunting my bed!
I thought I heard―here, there, everywhere―
disembodied voices calling my name!
Helplessly I cried 'Yes! ' to the phantom air!



Tzu Yeh (circa 400 BC)  
loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

I have brought my pillow to the windowsill
so come play with me, tease me, as in the past...
Or, with so much resentment and so few kisses,
how much longer can love last?



Tzu Yeh (circa 400 BC)  
loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

When she approached you on the bustling street, how could you say no?
But your disdain for me is nothing new.
Squeaking hinges grow silent on an unused door
where no one enters anymore.



Tzu Yeh (circa 400 BC)  
loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

I remain constant as the Northern Star
while you rush about like the fickle sun:
rising in the East, drooping in the West.

Tzŭ-Yeh (or Tzu Yeh)    was a courtesan of the Jin dynasty era (c.400 BC)    also known as Lady Night or Lady Midnight. Her poems were pinyin ('midnight songs') . Tzŭ-Yeh was apparently a 'sing-song' girl, perhaps similar to a geisha trained to entertain men with music and poetry. She has also been called a 'wine shop girl' and even a professional concubine! Whoever she was, it seems likely that Rihaku (Li-Po)    was influenced by the lovely, touching (and often very ****)    poems of the 'sing-song' girl. Centuries later, Arthur Waley was one of her translators and admirers. Waley and Ezra Pound knew each other, and it seems likely that they got together to compare notes at Pound's soirees, since Pound was also an admirer and translator of Chinese poetry. Pound's most famous translation is his take on Li-Po's 'The River Merchant's Wife: A Letter.' If the ancient 'sing-song' girl influenced Li-Po and Pound, she was thus an influence―perhaps an important influence―on English Modernism. The first Tzŭ-Yeh poem makes me think that she was, indeed, a direct influence on Li-Po and Ezra Pound.―Michael R. Burch



The Day after the Rain
Lin Huiyin (1904-1955)  
loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

I love the day after the rain
and the meadow's green expanses!
My heart endlessly rises with wind,
gusts with wind...
away the new-mown grasses and the fallen leaves...
away the clouds like smoke...
vanishing like smoke...



Music Heard Late at Night
Lin Huiyin (1904-1955)  
loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

for Xu Zhimo

I blushed,
hearing the lovely nocturnal tune.

The music touched my heart;
I embraced its sadness, but how to respond?

The pattern of life was established eons ago:
so pale are the people's imaginations!

Perhaps one day You and I
can play the chords of hope together.

It must be your fingers gently playing
late at night, matching my sorrow.

Lin Huiyin (1904-1955) , also known as Phyllis Lin and Lin Whei-yin, was a Chinese architect, historian, novelist and poet. Xu Zhimo died in a plane crash in 1931, allegedly flying to meet Lin Huiyin.



Saying Goodbye to Cambridge Again
Xu Zhimo (1897-1931)  
loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

Quietly I take my leave,
as quietly as I came;
quietly I wave good-bye
to the sky's dying flame.

The riverside's willows
like lithe, sunlit brides
reflected in the waves
move my heart's tides.

Weeds moored in dark sludge
sway here, free of need,
in the Cam's gentle wake...
O, to be a waterweed!

Beneath shady elms
a nebulous rainbow
crumples and reforms
in the soft ebb and flow.

Seek a dream? Pole upstream
to where grass is greener;
rig the boat with starlight;
sing aloud of love's splendor!

But how can I sing
when my song is farewell?
Even the crickets are silent.
And who should I tell?

So quietly I take my leave,
as quietly as I came;
gently I flick my sleeves...
not a wisp will remain.

(6 November 1928)  

Xu Zhimo's most famous poem is this one about leaving Cambridge. English titles for the poem include 'On Leaving Cambridge, ' 'Second Farewell to Cambridge, ' 'Saying Goodbye to Cambridge Again, '  and 'Taking Leave of Cambridge Again.'



These are my modern English translations of poems by the Chinese poet Huang E (1498-1569) , also known as Huang Xiumei. She has been called the most outstanding female poet of the Ming Dynasty, and her husband its most outstanding male poet. Were they poetry's first power couple? Her father Huang Ke was a high-ranking official of the Ming court and she married Yang Shen, the prominent son of Grand Secretary Yang Tinghe. Unfortunately for the young power couple, Yang Shen was exiled by the emperor early in their marriage and they lived largely apart for 30 years. During their long separations they would send each other poems which may belong to a genre of Chinese poetry I have dubbed 'sorrows of the wild geese' …

Sent to My Husband
by Huang E
loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

The wild geese never fly beyond Hengyang...
how then can my brocaded words reach Yongchang?
Like wilted willow flowers I am ill-fated indeed;
in that far-off foreign land you feel similar despair.
'Oh, to go home, to go home! ' you implore the calendar.
'Oh, if only it would rain, if only it would rain! ' I complain to the heavens.
One hears hopeful rumors that you might soon be freed...
but when will the Golden **** rise in Yelang?

A star called the Golden **** was a symbol of amnesty to the ancient Chinese. Yongchang was a hot, humid region of Yunnan to the south of Hengyang, and was presumably too hot and too far to the south for geese to fly there.



Luo Jiang's Second Complaint
by Huang E
loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

The green hills vanished,
pedestrians passed by
disappearing beyond curves.

The geese grew silent, the horseshoes timid.

Winter is the most annoying season!

A lone goose vanished into the heavens,
the trees whispered conspiracies in Pingwu,
and people huddling behind buildings shivered.



Bitter Rain, an Aria of the Yellow Oriole
by Huang E
loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

These ceaseless rains make the spring shiver:
even the flowers and trees look cold!
The roads turn to mud;
the river's eyes are tired and weep into in a few bays;
the mountain clouds accumulate like ***** dishes,
and the end of the world seems imminent, if jejune.

I find it impossible to send books:
the geese are ruthless and refuse to fly south to Yunnan!



Broken-Hearted Poem
by Huang E
loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

My tears cascade into the inkwell;
my broken heart remains at a loss for words;
ever since we held hands and said farewell,
I have been too listless to paint my eyebrows;
no medicine can cure my night-sweats,
no wealth repurchase our lost youth;
and how can I persuade that ****** bird singing in the far hills
to tell a traveler south of the Yangtze to return home?

She saved his name

In the dearest part of the

Places in her phone-book

As him

As the wall-paper

As the ringing tone

As the welcome message

As the shut-down message

As the reboot message

As the password

As the screen lock

As the screen saver

Because it was him.



She saved his name

In the tender-most spot of the

Tissues in her juvenile heart

As the billow of her night

As The pillar of her tired body

As the undergird for her weak shoulders

As The king of her threatened soul

As The man of her womanhood

As the human part missing in her nature

Because it was him.



She led herself wallow in the

Most turmoil of the whirlpool

in his social-sphere that came to her

Young academic world

For money

For sanity

For sanitation

For security

For preparedness

For social emergence

For the future calamity

And for self-completion

Because it was him

And he was available.



Married, settled and most available,

Available to all; the young, the adult and the aged

Available to men, bi-curious and women

Available to the poor, peasant and the owning,

Available to the unschooled, the so-so, and the knowing,

Available to the widows, the married and the divorced

Available to the immaculate, the citizens of red-street world

The Harem keepers, red-tent keepers and the ****’s protégée,

Available to the Arabs, Negroes, Asians, the black Jews, Chinese and the Albinos,

Available to the whites, Ab-origins, the lame, the bearded and ****-less women,

Available to the epileptic, the ghosts, the dead, and for the burial rituals of the Luo,

Available he was in extra version as a Libertino.



By Alexander Opicho

(From, Lodwar, Kenya)

Mail-opichoalexander@gmail.com

tooth
rhyme
seal
parade
enamel:
ammunition
axis
body
seal
Luo
oil­
Cats


"Under jurisdiction"

Lecture;

Rolling My  Bakers Snow
Hot Melancholy Life ^ Hinoki y
  Crown Yo Yorozu Yugi Quantity Warning  "Amount "  ... " Thinking"
3  hot summer 3D solid "nose" "three cement adhesives"  "... sacrifice"

Kiyoshi Kiyoshi

T Hot  Takashimas Abalone  Yoga  
One ... Category ^ Dan ‡  Mo 5 heat  )
V  "  

old
Accumulation
" Paragraph "  "Ashi  roaryo  one"
En  
As P
S  Week drinking g. "At the feet of the nose I am excited to hit the northern part.

SU SEPTEMBER                     9 months ago imprisonment for punishment

oil

Megumi "Orodori" wheat "" "

revenge

F  Mark  Life S 5

Life Heat Nickel Lucky Heat Paradise f Respect  Ivepai ... Two Signs]

I 2  CR  Free ñn ina²; 2 X trout advertisement. F War: Energ X Ichin X
Q shoes
Iwao
Nono
field
Troubled wings

... Eee Police
Libro! Res.  Mes

3 "Amount ..." Yoshio "5 Nyoyaku:" L Temple Heat G  Time S 1

"The two treasures of three summers are one word" summer  "
"Kaji" Paradise "Dan"  "" Denpaku Ban "Heat" Festival " 2" ... • f Burning 3 S 2   g Syg 5  "5" ... " Slave D Thermal ^ 5] Living Par 3


...   Benko Hot  Its hot and hot


Mie kanji  "Mand"  "...  Fujio F"  Ji Ri f "Shima" ... Yo  refreshing burning Lee  S "True"  "I   One"              
Art "..." "Whispering" Hot  "Earrings"  Dia ia Three "Ninko Futmusu "Jen" Yo Yona V Baby ... y  Visit  ... "Ding"



}: V ...                                                        3
Scorpion D Foot Hot Topic Yo Doornon Hot  55  Sotetsu   Shonen Paradise Life overview 5

3  "Two Weng" "O" ... Tunja Hot "Excitement of Birthday"  depression "f"
Say yuu wing  life  "  alive   " alive " rumor "" raw "... fog" ... " alive"
"7 y no  hosho  coast  rf> Tate 5 Nagashima paradise" "Paradise ..." "Hot weather y" dan y s "

C Kang                                                    

Y W] Gobo ["Yo" y ^ Category y  Campomo  "Basket" ... 3   Skin  Kirara
Living " kind of dragon 3 N ... accumulation of **** Dragon 3
G glience g depression
twin Korea T stone saw asleep letters Ninininini
"Responsibility"
Venge  Sono Plaster Kokumi Wo 3  fake accident  f Ko  first life Tsubasa Pass  Poison  ... ... ...  ugly Offshore
food
3 Weapons of algae.
thickness