Anthony Madrid | Jacket2

Twenty-six items from Special Collections (w)

Exhibit ‘W’: Russian. (Anna Akhmatova, ['The twenty-first. Night. Monday.'], 1917)

Bibliography: The image above is from The Complete Poems of Anna Akhmatova: Expanded Edition, translated by Judith Hemschemeyer, edited by Roberta Reeder (Zephyr Press, 1992), page 770. The poem below originally appeared in Akhmatova's book White Flock (Petrograd, 1917).

Twenty-six items from Special Collections (v)

Exhibit ‘V’: Yoruba. (Anonymous, six animal poems)

Anthony Madrid

Bibliography: Yoruba Poetry: An Anthology of Traditional Poems, compiled and edited by Ulli Beier (Cambridge, 1970).

Comment: A couple of notes from the book:
#1: "Much of the hunters’ Ijala poetry is concerned with the animals in the bush."

Twenty-six items from Special Collections (u)

Exhibit ‘U’: Scots Gaelic. (Sorley Maclean, 'Hallaig,' 1954)

Anthony Madrid

Bibliography: Modern Scottish Gaelic Poems, by Sorley Maclean, George Campbell Hay, Derick Thomson, Iain Crichton Smith, and Donald MacAulay: A bilingual anthology edited and introduced by Donald MacAulay (New Directions, 1977). Maclean's poem "Hallaig" appears on pages 84–89: English on the left, Gaelic on the right.

Twenty-six items from Special Collections (t)

Exhibit ‘T’: USA children (20th and 21st centuries)

Anthony Madrid

Bibliography: Wishes, Lies, and Dreams: Teaching Children to Write Poetry, by Kenneth Koch and the Students of P.S. 61 in New York City (Chelsea House, 1970).

Twenty-six items from Special Collections (r)

Exhibit ‘R’: Russian. (Anton Chekhov, 58 items from his notebooks)

Anthony Madrid

Bibliography: Notebook of Anton Chekhov, translated by S.S. Koteliansky and Leonard Woolf (Ecco, 1987). Originally published by B.W. Huebsch, Inc., 1921.

Comment: I am constitutionally opposed to the application of the statement You either have it or you don't to any situation whatsoever. My abiding intuition is that that sentence is mainly a means by which eminent persons discourage beginners.

All through January, February, and March of 2016, I'll be posting more or less exotic items here, every Monday and Thursday. That comes to twenty-six exhibits, so I'm labeling them 'A' through 'Z'. Almost all this material is foreign or old or (mostly) both. I'm hoping to expose readers of Jacket2 to stimulating things they've never seen before.

¶ For years I told my students every literary person ought to accumulate (over the course of, say, twenty years) his or her own Palgrave's Golden Treasury. I wanted people to actually keep detailed lists and, if possible, privately print the relevant materials "for subscribers only." Imagine reading Anne Carson's Golden Treasury. Or Guy Davenport's. Anyhow I mention this because all of the items I'll be posting are from my Golden Treasury.

¶ Every posting will begin with a bibliography. This is for the benefit of the bookhounds out there, who might like to order the original, beautiful, first-edition, smoke-smelling, water-damaged hardcovers, online. Also I'll throw down a few brief observations about the poems, if I have any.

¶ Let me stress: Satisfaction is guaranteed. If, for whatever reason, your expectations are not met, simply return unused portion for a full refund.

ANTHONY MADRID lives in Chicago. His poems have appeared in Best American Poetry 2013, Boston Review, Fence, Harvard Review, Lana Turner, LIT, and Poetry. His first book is called I Am Your Slave Now Do What I Say (Canarium Books, 2012).

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Twenty-six items from Special Collections

Exhibit 'A': Swahili. (Ahmad Nassir bin Juma Bhalo, "A bone is not cookable," and "Though you toast the popcorn")

Twenty-six items from Special Collections (b)

Exhibit 'B': Finnish. ("Elk and Snake" ["Hirvi ja Käärme"], sung by Oute, collected by A.A. Borenius, 1877; and "The Great Pig" ["Iso Sika"], singer unknown, collected by A. Ahlqvist, 1854)

Twenty-six items from Special Collections (c)

Exhibit 'C': medieval Italian. (Guido Cavalcanti, Ballad ["Era in penser d'amor quand' i' trovai..."], late 13th century)

Twenty-six items from Special Collections (f)

Exhibit ‘F’: medieval Welsh. (“Eiry mynydd,” anonymous, 12th century, two versions and the original)

Twenty-six items from Special Collections (d)

Exhibit 'D': Mahārāṣṭri Prākṛt. (Specimens from the Gāthāsaptaśatī of Sātavāhana Hāla)

Twenty-six items from Special Collections (e)

Exhibit “E”: Teleuts. (“Praise song of the buck-hare,” anonymous Siberian folksong)

Twenty-six items from Special Collections (g)

Exhibit 'G': Polish. (Zbigniew Herbert, five prose poems, 1950s and 60s)

Twenty-six items from Special Collections (i)

Exhibit 'I': Japanese. (Masaoka Shiki, thirty-seven haiku, 1892–1902)

Twenty-six items from Special Collections (k)

Exhibit ‘K’: Somali. (Anonymous, [“Like a she-camel with a large bell…”])

Twenty-six items from Special Collections (j)

Exhibit 'J': medieval Icelandic. (Anonymous, excerpt from 'Hávamál' ['The Sayings of the High One'], from 'The Poetic Edda,' manuscript circa 1270 CE, stanzas 111–137)

Twenty-six items from Special Collections (h)

Exhibit 'H': Kiriwina (Papua New Guinea). (Linda Thomas, 'Fetching it back,' circa 1970)

Twenty-six items from Special Collections (l)

Exhibit 'L': Sumerian. (Anonymous, ['In those days, in those far-off days…'], circa 1800 BCE)

Twenty-six items from Special Collections (m)

Exhibit ‘M’: Urdu. (Mirza Asadullah Khan Ghalib, eighteen poems, nineteenth century)

Twenty-six items from Special Collections (n)

Exhibit ‘N’: Serbian. (Vasko Popa, 'Homage to the Lame Wolf,' 1975)

Twenty-six items from Special Collections (O)

Exhibit 'O': Medieval Irish. (Anonymous, 'The Deer's Cry,' eighth century)

Twenty-six items from Special Collections (p)

Exhibit 'P': Occitan. (William VII, Count of Poitiers, IX Duke of Aquitaine, ['Farai un vers de dreyt nien'], circa 1105 CE)

Twenty-six items from Special Collections (q)

Exhibit 'Q': Chinese. (Su Dongpo, ['He is like white clouds …'], circa 1095 CE)

Twenty-six items from Special Collections (r)

Exhibit ‘R’: Russian. (Anton Chekhov, 58 items from his notebooks)

Twenty-six items from Special Collections (t)

Exhibit ‘T’: USA children (20th and 21st centuries)

Twenty-six items from Special Collections (u)

Exhibit ‘U’: Scots Gaelic. (Sorley Maclean, 'Hallaig,' 1954)

Twenty-six items from Special Collections (v)

Exhibit ‘V’: Yoruba. (Anonymous, six animal poems)

Twenty-six items from Special Collections (w)

Exhibit ‘W’: Russian. (Anna Akhmatova, ['The twenty-first. Night. Monday.'], 1917)

Twenty-six items from Special Collections (s)

Exhibit ‘S’: Koryak. (Two folktales, both told by Pa’qa, a girl of Kamenskoye Village on the Penzhinskaya Bay, collected 1901)

Twenty-six items from Special Collections (x)

Exhibit ‘X’: Ancient Greek. (Theocritus, 'Idyll #2,' third century BCE)

Twenty-six items from Special Collections (y)

Exhibit ‘Y’: Hausa (Nigeria). (Anonymous, dan tauri performance, 20th century)

Twenty-six items from Special Collections (z)

Exhibit ‘Z’: Sanskrit. (Five poems, two anonymous, one by Vacaspati, one by Vidya, one by Varahamihira; unknown dates)

Twenty-six items from Special Collections (Table of Contents)

Exhibits ‘A’–‘Z’: Complete list.