Twenty-six items from Special Collections (y)

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

Bibliography: Poetry, Prose and Popular Culture in Hausa, Graham Furniss (Smithsonian, 1996), pages 76–7.

Comment: The piece below has a frenzied, zigzag quality I find exhilarating. Does anybody remember that Warner Bros. cartoon character who would literally become a tornado? (Also cf. Stephen Leacock's Lord Ronald, who flung himself upon his horse and rode madly off in all directions†.)
I have always speculated this might make a nice class exercise: "Say anything at all, no rhythm/no nothing, just lay about freely with an Indiana-Jones bullwhip, making sure the sense jumps around nimbly and quickly. Throw down a bunch of commands."
The question arises: "Yeah but how much of that kind of thing can a reader actually tolerate?" Answer: Any amount, provided the poet can manage to exclude inert materials from the presentation. Look at contemporary American poet Abraham Smith. He's probably the closest thing we have to the style of the piece below. Hank (Action Books, 2010) was 129 pages, and I gobbled it in one sitting.
_______
† Leacock reference pilfered from David West's introduction to his translation of Horace.

Furniss writes: [Edward L.] Powe provides a detailed analysis of the many patterns to be discerned in lengthy kirari performances, but to provide something of the flavour of one such performance in which a dan tauri "performer with knife blades" praises himself, I quote from Powe:

Ni na Ramlatu maye
Ramlatu na ga kin fi mata kyau
Mata halin kwarai suk fi ki
Ni bafar wuta maci littafi
Ni kahirin kare, sai sarka
Ni babbaken ruwa na Yazidu
Kowa ya sha ni, ba shi ke labari
Aljana gafara, wuta sallamu alaikum
Arna ga babbanku, wanda bashi nan ya dawo
Sarka ba ta yi din, sai bawa
In bawa ya kiya
Ku sa min yagwai
In yagwai ya kiya
Ku sa kistani
In kistani ya kiya
Ku kawo abawa
In wannan ya kiya
Ku kama gabanku
Shi kwana kiyama
Don ku watsaya
Ayihu, ayihu
Yaro, jaye! jaye!

I am of the sorceress Ramlatu!
Ramlatu, you are prettier than other women!
The character of women is better than yours!
I am the black fire that consumes books!
I am an unbelieving dog, only a chain!
I am the gathering water of Yadizu!
Whoever drinks me vanishes!
Excuse me, O djinns, greetings O fire!
Pagans, here is your lord, he who was not here has returned!
If the chain doesn't work, try bark!
If bark fails
Try rope!
If rope fails
Try cord!
If cord fails
Try coarse thread!
If this fails
Grab your leader!
He will awaken you in the afterlife!
So that you disperse!
Hey! Hey!
Boy, move back! move back!

(Powe 1984, 524-5)*

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*Edward L. Powe, "Hausa combat literature: an exposition, analysis and interpretation of its form, content and effect," Ph.D. thesis, University of Washington, Madison: 1984.

March 26, 2016

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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).

Posts

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.