Brooklyn Bridge, looking west from Brooklyn, July 1899
The courageous immigrants of the elder generations cast the shards of their hopes and dreams across the landscape of this continent as prophecy. They worked hard and long for their visions. These people included my Lebanese maternal grandparents with their first-born children. They arrived in New York in 1897 on a boat from Syria. They petitioned for citizenship in 1925. Included also was my Turkish father who arrived here alone in 1919. He was just seventeen, eager to make good and to earn dowries for his four older sisters. The distaff side eventually settled in Brooklyn. That’s where they were when I was born and that’s where I was raised.
These were people who came to America in “the days of sail,” as the great New York writer, Irish-American Pete Hamill, would say. Today’s immigrants can and often easily do visit their countries of origin. They connect with their families and their linguistic and cultural roots. This was something that was generally not available to the people of my grandparent’s generation and before. Among the many reasons for this was an often crushing poverty. In Ireland “American wakes” were held for the sons and daughters who left for the United States. Heart-shattered parents knew it was unlikely they’d ever see their children again.
The immigrants I knew growing up worked hard. The immigrants that I know today work hard, often holding more than one job. They make real – though generally quiet – contributions to their communities, work places and their new country. They serve in the military. They make sure their children are educated.
Because of parents and grandparents who were resourceful and brave enough to come to this country, we had as children, not just economic opportunity, but a wealth of artistic and educational resources. On occasion we went, for example, to the Leonard Bernstein‘s Young People’s Concerts at the New York Philharmonic. I remember Mr. Bernstein with his charming and contagious enthusiasm calling our imaginations to Peter and the Wolf. We didn’t have to travel far to have access to talents like Mr. Bernstein or to visit museums, cathedrals, art galleries, music venues, theater (movies and stage), parks and so much more. It was all right there, ready to be plucked and savored like so many sweet and juicy summer plums.
Unveiling of the Statue of Liberty Enlightening the World (1886) by Edward Moran. Oil on canvas. The J. Clarence Davies Collection, Museum of the City of New York. (Public Domain)
The schools were good, whether public or private. The libraries were ubiquitous. I will ever and always be in love with the Hudson River and the incredibly beautiful and historic Brooklyn Bridge. To my child-self, everything was magical, mystical, mythological and monolithic. Brooklyn’s proximity to Manhattan added to my enchantment. The Cloisters. Central Park. The magnificent Statue of Liberty, symbol of our highest ideal.
The New Colossus
Not like the brazen giant of Greek fame,
With conquering limbs astride from land to land;
Here at our sea-washed, sunset gates shall stand
A mighty woman with a torch, whose flame
Is the imprisoned lightning, and her name
Mother of Exiles. From her beacon-hand
Glows world-wide welcome; her mild eyes command
The air-bridged harbor that twin cities frame.
“Keep, ancient lands, your storied pomp!” cries she
With silent lips. “Give me your tired, your poor,
Your huddled masses yearning to breathe free,
The wretched refuse of your teeming shore.
Send these, the homeless, tempest-tost to me,
I lift my lamp beside the golden door!”
– Emma Lazarus (1849-1887)
I’m sure that had I been born in the mountains of Lebanon or in rural Turkey, these places would have offered their own joys and charms but I’m grateful for my Brooklyn, New York experience.
I too lived – Brooklyn, of ample hills, was mine; I too walk’d the streets of Manhattan Island, and bathed in the waters around it; I too felt the curious abrupt questionings stir within me In the day, among crowds of people, sometimes they came upon me, In my walks home late at night, or as I lay in my bed, they came upon me.
Walt Whitman (1819-1892), Leaves of Grass
This week’s prompt is “immigration.” Write in prose (up to 750 words) or poem about your experience or observation. Your work doesn’t have to be about immigration to the US. It can address or illustrate the refugee experience if you prefer.
There are so many on the move – and on the run – right now, historic numbers, and the world is fraught with anger and meanness on this topic. It seems a good subject to tackle through Wednesday Writing Prompt, though please know that I won’t publish and will delete anything encouraging of violence or hate.
Leave your prose or poem/s or a link to them in the comments section below. All work shared on theme will be published here next Tuesday. If it’s your first time coming out to play for Wednesday Writing Prompt, please send a short bio in the body of an email and a photo of yourself as an attachment to thepoetbyday@gmail.com for use as an introduction. You have until Monday evening, 8:30 p.m. PST, to respond to the prompt. You are welcome – encouraged – to join in no matter the status of your career: novice, emerging or pro.
We extend a warm welcome to poet and musician Dick Jones, new to Wednesday Writing Prompt, and a warm thank you to our treasured regulars: Colin Blundell, Paul Brookes, Kakali Das Ghosh, and Sonja Benskin Mesher and to occasional participants Gary W. Bowers and Denise Aileen DeVires. Welcome back!
The Northern Maronite Basilica in Brad (Barad), Aleppo courtesy of Hani Simo under CC BY 2.0
I’m pleased that Dick chose to write about Abu Ward, a citizen of Aleppo, the city from which my family sailed from the Middle East to come to the United States a little more than a century ago. CNN called Abu Ward the “last Syrian gardener.” He’s not, of course, though there are few like him. Nonetheless, how some support their spirit in the face of a tragedy so monumental is remarkable.
Like my Lebanese grandmother before me, I season my cooking with Aleppo Pepper. I know that it no longer comes from these beautiful people and their cultured city, which was one of the oldest in world. To say the heart aches is understatement. Rest in peace, Abu Ward, and all victims of this multifaceted violence. The peoples of Syria are not forgotten.
Join us tomorrow for the next Wednesday Writing Prompt. All are welcome: novice, emerging or pro. See you then … Meanwhile, enjoy – and perhaps be inspired by – this rather special collection.
ABU WARD
‘The presence of the world is flowers’. Abu Ward
This was the man
who planted flowers
where the bombs
were falling.
This is his son
who kneels alone
by the garden gate.
The dust he pushes
around their stems
with his thumb is where
his father lives now.
And each flower
will lift some dust
as it rises in spring.
Abu Ward (from the Arabic for ‘Father of the Flowers’) maintained his carefully nurtured flower garden during the worst of Assad’s systematic bombing of Aleppo. He was killed by a bomb dropped near his home. His son Ibrahim left school at thirteen to help his father. After Abu Ward’s death, Ibrahim attempted to maintain the garden, which is now closed. Sadly, in this instance, environmental justice has been, as so often, a victim of warfare.
DICK JONES says he was initially wooed by the First World War poets and then seduced by the Beats. He has been exploring the vast territories in between since the age of fifteen. His work has been published in a number of magazines, print and online, including Orbis, The Interpreter’s House, Poetry Ireland Review, Qarrtsiluni, Westwords, Mipoesias, Three Candles, Other Poetry, Rattlesnake and Ouroboros Review. In 2010 he received a Pushcart nomination for his poem Sea Of Stars. His first collection, Ancient Lights was published by Phoenicia Publishing and is available from them or via Amazon. His translation of Blaise Cendrars’ epic poem La Prose du Trans-Siberien… was published in an illustrated collaborative edition with artist Natalie D’Arbeloff by Old Stile Press in 2014. Dick writes lyrics and plays bass guitar in acoustic/electric songwriting trio Moorby Jones.
as you take the road to Paradise
about half-way there
you come to an inn
which even as inns go is admirable
you go into the garden of it
and see the great trees and the wall
of Box Hill shrouding you all round
it is beautiful enough (in all conscience)
to arrest you without the need of history
or any admixture of pride of place
but as you sit in a seat in the garden
you are sitting where Nelson sat
when he said goodbye to Emma;
if you move a yard or two you will be
where Keats sat biting his pen
thinking out some new line of poem
bagged sugar cherry extract oil
of cloves buckminsterfullerene
essences pantheonized for delectation
bottled genies at our command
we so love purities
fleece white as snow
anthracite darkly dense
radial 24-caratotomy
kruggerrandom acts
and we feel godlike
magicmongering
we soupify the sky
we landfillet the lakes
sadsaturate soil
slagsilt the seven seas
it is a remorseless juggernaut
this megamodular magicker
and some of us are waking up
some of us want a different magic
the magic of the camper
who goes sees enjoys records
leaves the site none the worse
some of us want a reckoning
a calling to account
shame and punishment
some of us want to be sheriffs
but YOU STOP THAT NOW
is just like any other war
on any other badguy
and artificial value
has yielded unartificial power
and corruptive pushback
and corrosive continuance
deliverance must come
as with any other childbirth
spasmodically and with some blood
crowning and pushing through membrane
a slap and a gasp and a wail
our magical recording
and
transmitting devices will help
ill-gotten gains though they be
our one-person choices will help
at least
the enormity of the challenge
the size and perversity of the beast
will be revealed
as you yes you
give up your midas’s vehicles
stop eating the factory-farmed
children of hell’s misery
and reduce
the
“places you must see before you die”
to
zero
serve up justice to yourselves
and fire the single brick
of your life’s commitment
in the kiln
of paradise
Raise your head
I’m your benevolent mother
My eyes -your azure sky
When you are blown by caustic fervor
My brimming watery eyes turn into serene raindrops to alleviate you
My hands -your verdurous trees
When you lie wearily on my verdant lap
My hands spread florid twigs to shade you
My moist lips -your rivers
When your thirst touches me
Words of my lips turn into rivulets to kiss you to mitigate your thirst
Now -my son
Why are you burning my eyes with your voluminous black smoke
Why are you cutting my hands with your severe axe so grimly
Why are you tearing my lips throwing poisonous blues
I’m your mother earth
I’m your reason of survival -with snowy peaks
-golden flowers
-dancing rivers
Wouldn’t you be just to me
Wouldn’t you be fair to me
Not only for me but also
For your nourishment
For your children’s nutriment
For your future’s sustenance ages after ages …
PEN America announced last week that it will honor author and LGBT cultural pioneer Edmund White with the annual PEN/Saul Bellow Award for Achievement in American Fiction.
EDMUND WHITE (b. 1940) is an American novelist, memoirist, and an essayist on literary and social topics. Much of his writing is on the theme of same-sex love. His books include The Joy of Gay Sex (1977) (written with Charles Silverstein, a writer, therapist, lecturer and gay activist), his trio of autobiographic novels, A Boy’s Own Story (1982), The Beautiful Room Is Empty (1988) and The Farewell Symphony (1997), and his biography of Jean Genet. His website is HERE. His Amazon page is HERE.
If you are viewing this from an email subscription, you’ll likely have to link through to the site to watch this video.
The 2018 PEN/Nabokov Award for Achievement in International Literature will go to the extraordinarily prolific Irish novelist Edna O’Brien, whose acclaimed work broke down social and sexual barriers for women in Ireland and elsewhere.
Edna O’Brien at Hay Festival 2016 courtesy of Andrew Lih under CC BY-SA 3.0
EDNA O’BRIEN, DBE (b. 1930) is an Irish novelist, memoirist, playwright, poet and short story writer. Philip Roth described her “the most gifted woman now writing in English”, while the former President of Ireland, Mary Robinson, cited her as “one of the great creative writers of her generation”.
O’Brien’s works often revolve around the inner feelings of women, and their problems in relating to men, and to society as a whole.Her first novel, The Country Girls, is often credited with breaking silence on sexual matters and social issues during a repressive period in Ireland following World War II.The book was banned, burned and denounced from the pulpit, and O’Brien left Ireland behind.
O’Brien received the Irish PEN Award in 2001. Saints and Sinners won the 2011 Frank O’Connor International Short Story Award, the world’s richest prize for a short story collection. Faber and Faber published her memoir, Country Girl, in 2012. Her Faber & Faber author’s page is HERE. Her Amazon page is HERE.
If you are viewing this from an email subscription, you’ll likely have to link through to the site to watch this video.
PEN America will also honor:
poet Kamau Brathwaite with the PEN/ Voelcker Award,
translator Barbara Harshav with the PEN/ Manheim Medal for Translation, and
author Dave Kindred with the PEN/ ESPN Lifetime Achievement Award for Literary Sports Writing.
The PEN/ Laura Pels Foundation for Theater Awards will be conferred on playwrights:
Luis Alfaro for Master American Dramatist,
Sibyl Kempson for American Dramatist in Mid-Career, and
Mike Lew for Emerging American Playwright.
White, O’Brien, and PEN America’s other career achievement award winners will accept their prizes at the 2018 PEN America Literary Awards Ceremony on Tuesday, February 20, at the NYU Skirball Center near Washington Square Park. Featuring readings, performances, and edge-of-your-seat live announcements of the winners for the year’s prizes, this annual celebration of literature and free expression has become one the city’s premier literary events drawing the biggest names and the hottest new voices in literature. Special guests, finalists, and presenters in attendance will include:
Tanwi Nandini Islam
Yahdon Israel
Hari Kunzru
Victor LaValle
Colum McCann
Lynn Nottage
Philip Roth
Layli Long Soldier
Monique Truong
Kevin Young
David Zirin
… and many more
Hosted by author, social activist, and political commentator
Sally Kohn
A full list of finalists for the 2018 PEN America Literary Awards is available HERE . All book award winners will be announced at the ceremony. Purchase tickets HERE. I understand that this is the first year tickets are being made available to the general public. Student tickets are discounted.
Compiled with thanks to PEN America, White’s website, Faber & Faber, Wikipedia and Amazon.
PEN Americastands at the intersection of literature and human rights to protect open expression in the United States and worldwide. It champions the freedom to write, recognizing the power of the word to transform the world. Its mission is to unite writers and their allies to celebrate creative expression and defend the liberties that make it possible.
PEN America announced the finalists for the 2018 Literary Awards last week, revealing a diverse roster of authors and works to recognize today’s best literature and translation spanning genres and continents.
For the first time, the finalist pool for the prestigious PEN/ Robert W. Bingham Prize for Debut Fiction is comprised entirely of women and includes:
Hannah Lillith Assadi for Sonora (Soho Press),
Venita Blackburn for Black Jesus and Other Superheroes: Stories (University of Nebraska Press),
Carmen Maria Machado for Her Body and Other Parties: Stories (Graywolf Press),
Emily Fridlund for History of Wolves (Grove Atlantic), and
Jenny Zhang for Sour Heart (Lenny).
The announcement also included finalists for the $75,000 PEN/Jean Stein Award for book of the year, one of the largest U.S. literary prizes, established last year by the late author and oral historian. Addressing some of the key themes of our time from fraudulent news to systemic racism, the list includes:
White Tears by Hari Kunzru (Alfred A. Knopf),
We Were Eight Years in Power: An American Tragedy by Ta-Nehisi Coates (One World),
Whereas by Layli Long Soldier (Graywolf Press),
Bunk: The Rise of Hoaxes, Humbug, Plagiarists, Phonies, Post-Facts, and Fake News by Kevin Young (Graywolf Press), and
The Changeling by Victor LaValle (Spiegel & Grau).
Ursula K. Le Guin (1929 – 2018), whose death on January 22nd in Portland is deeply felt, is shortlisted for the PEN/Diamonstein-Spielvogel Award, Art of the Essay for her No Time to Spare: Thinking About What Matters, which is the collected writing from the blog she started at 81 years.
The video below is of Ms. Le Guin’s wisdom-filled acceptance speech for the National Book Foundation’s Medal for Distinguished Contribution to American Letters at the 65th National Book Awards on November 19, 2014.
“We will need writers,” she says, “who remember freedom . . . poets, visionaries … the realists of a larger reality.”
(If you are viewing this post from an email subscription, it’s likely you’ll need to link through to the site to watch the video.)
The new film adaption of Ms. Le Guin’s science fiction fantasy, A Wrinkle in Time, is due out in theaters on March 9.)
“It is fitting that our Literary Awards this year spotlight five new women’s voices in fiction, as well as a dazzling diversity of writers for our flagship Stein prize and in other categories,” said PEN America Executive Director Suzanne Nossel. “PEN America’s Literary Awards celebrate some of the greatest fruits of free expression—stories that inspire, spark empathy, and change minds. At a time when the fabric of our discourse is being torn by polarization, technological change, and political upheaval, literature has the power to help us see past impasse and imagine a different future.”
Winners of the 2018 PEN America Literary Awards will be revealed at the February 20 ceremony at the NYU Skirball Center in New York. The ceremony will feature performances of honored works and will be followed by a champagne toast. Link pen.org/2018finalists for the complete list of finalists.PEN announced that for the first time it is offering a limited number of tickets to the general public. PURCHASE TICKETS.
For over fifty years, the PEN America Literary Awards have honored many of the most outstanding voices in literature across such diverse fields as fiction, poetry, science writing, essays, sports writing, biography, children’s literature, translation, and drama. With the help of its partners and supporters, PEN America will confer twenty-four distinct awards, fellowships, grants, and prizes in 2018, awarding more than $350,000 to writers and translators.
*****
Sources: Ms. Le Guin’s website, PEN America, Amazon, Wikipedia, and the New York Times. PEN America nonprofit logo by Mltellman under CC BY-SA 4.0 license; photo credit Suzanne Nossel by PEN America under CC BY-SA 4.0 license.
PEN America stands at the intersection of literature and human rights to protect open expression in the United States and worldwide. It champions the freedom to write, recognizing the power of the word to transform the world. Its mission is to unite writers and their allies to celebrate creative expression and defend the liberties that make it possible.
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