Alex Kudera's Blog, page 38

he had volunteered

"The recruits were on the march with varying degrees of consent: some were volunteers, others were volunteered by their elders who themselves were under duress, some swept up or coerced by circumstances, some picked up on the road. The schutztruppe was expanding and was eager for fighting men. Some of them talked freely, already swaggering with anticipation, familiar with this kind of work, laughing at the bullying words of their escort, eager to be admitted into the language of scorn. Others were silent and anxious, perhaps even fearful, not sure yet of what lay ahead. Hamza was in the latter category, silently wretched about what he had done. No one had forced him, he had volunteered."

~~ from Afterlives by Abdulrazak Gurnah

Linghun

 

Linghun by Ai Jiang

note from January 6

from poet Lamont Steptoe
 

2022 Nobel Prize for Literature

Salmon Rushdie did not win the 2022 Nobel Prize for Literature. The Swedish Academy chose the knitting needle over the knife as their writing utensil, so to speak, if I heard correctly as a radio program discussed Nobel prizewinner Annie Ernaux's memoir of seeking an abortion in France in the early 1960s. It's worth noting, of course, that the decision could have been made well before Rushdie was nearly murdered on stage in a savage attack.

why pretend

"But what if I am overstating these points and everyone really does accept that race is cultural and not biological? Is this really such a good thing? If human beings are not members of scientifically measurable "bioraces," then why pretend as though they are? Why do the work of making race by other, non-scientific means? If witchcraft isn't real, then why pretend as though witches walk among us? When I asked Adrian Piper, the artist who 'retired' from being black, whether she believed there was even something so straightforward as a 'black' sensibility, she denied it. Her point, which is worth taking seriously, is similar to Henry Louis Gates, Jr.'s: All human culture is available and knowable to all human beings. (Which is not quite the same as saying all human culture is equally important to all human beings.)"

~~ from Unlearning Race: Self-Portrait in Black and White by Thomas Chatterton Williams

a tiny epic

"I picked this one up on the fly from a used bookstore just around the corner, a tiny epic about an adjunct instructor teaching in Philadelphia who is living an ironic life—being a [college]-educated professional making less [than] a bartender, with no health insurance or safety net thanks to the income inequities so common everywhere in America (and the globalized world) these days."

~~ from a review at Robert Raymond's Blogtorium with a selected quotation at his DOG EAR.

Sing Song Sonnet Persecuting the Poet

Miss Woman, over here, Woman I say,
Won’t you please join me for coffee today.
Don’t worry, of course, I like it done Dutch
For the Woman’s sake, I don’t pay for much.

Look, I’m reading a French Feminist play,
Women of Color, PC and OK.
I write modest poems, no rhyme and such;
Just true words, cautious tone—What? I can’t touch?

You’re late? You’re going? Give me time, don’t leave,
I’ll flip you the queen shoved down my shirt sleeve:
I’ve read Rich!
                         “You?”
                                     Yes, but she’s sure a bit—
(Uh oh, bad bet, no, wet, yet, won’t concede!)
I only meant she’s difficult to read!

Miss Woman, yes you, dear Woman I say,
Perhaps you would join me for tea today?

~~ from Spark Park: A Tale in Two Parts

pure, unadulterated mediocrity

"And when I reflected back on our post-prom trip to the Jersey Shore four years earlier, it occurred to me that some of the people who were still with us had since then gone to jail; some had sold and used drugs; most had drifted into lives of pure, unadulterated mediocrity; a few had babies they weren't prepared to raise; at least one had died. Charles and I were the only alumni from the group with our futures still intact, and that kind of bond doesn't easily unglue."
~~ from Losing My Cool by Thomas Chatterton Williams

how fond I waxed for thee

"But now, at the Spark’s entrance, Zak’s gaze turns to grin as crater-sized dimples reveal his true love. A couplet trespasses through his brain: “Oh park, dear Spark, how fond I waxed for thee/ while twiddling my thumbs in said Northern library.” Zak’s ebullience defies reason. Could he be fond for a depressed second-string city? Fond for a city park? From a cursory view, it seems like an ordinary park. At one end stand the half-eaten nets, at the other a jungly gym for children—logs, tires, pipes, and junk sculpted into a dog in crapper stance. Over the years, multitudes of . . . mutts have gotten the hint, and like many city parks, stale and fresh doggy doodoos dot the terrain."
~~ from Spark Park: A Tale in Two Parts

reading was his lone salvation

from Losing My Cool by Thomas Chatterton Williams