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The Right to Be Lazy: And Other Writings (New York Review Books Classics) https://a.co/d/b3YtJ60

By the creole son-in-law of K. Marx, who described him as an n-word.

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love it. Thanks.

 

[Bigtitsbitch1000x]

I have long been fascinated by the power of a great translation to carry the cultural characteristics of a poem from its original language. It goes beyond getting the words right. Another poet I love, Forugh Farrokhzad wrote in Persian. Most of the English translations I've read are not great (compared to Merwin's Neruda poems, for example), but they still manage to convey the magical, romantic and sensual qualities of her poetry.

Persian culture is one of the world-creating cultures. The Persians stand with the Chinese, the Greeks, the Hebrews, and the Nordics as global "influencers," as we would now call them.

Ancient Egypt, medieval-era Ghana, and the Mayans created great civilizations, but remained within their own ambits. I believe the great return of the Mayans is upon us. There are 30k Yucatecans in my City, and they will soon be a force with which to reckon.

We all should be aware that Jalalud'in Rumī is now believed to be the best selling poet in America. Molavi (his Persian nickname) also exists in Turkish, as Mevlana. Persian was the court language of the Ottomans. My ex published alongside his most popular translator, Coleman Barks.

This is a very counter-intuitive take on Persian culture. Please watch to the end:

Persian and Turkish poetry are especially melded in the Sufi tradition.

In this book I dealt with this phenomenon:

The Other Islam: Sufism and the Road to Global Harmony https://a.co/d/5H9uZqz

Yunus Emre is a very great Turkish Sufi poet. I financed a translation of his poetry into Hebrew.

This i consider to be the greatest poetic work in history, equal to Aristophanes, Ovid, The Zohar, and Han Shan:

The Tarjuman al-Ashwaq: The Interpreter of Desires The Tarjuman al-Ashwaq: The Interpreter of Desires

In this Arabic work the greatest of all Sufis addresses the feminine presence in the world. It was composed while Shaykh ul-Aqbar was a guest in Makkah al Mukarramah and was inspired by the beauty of his host's daughter. It caused a scandal and Shaykh wrote an argument claiming the female character represented wisdom rather than a specific woman. Later he admitted it was IRL.

A citation from translations by my very dear friend and mentor Michael Sells:

Amid the Scent of Absinthe and Moringa Blossoms​

The friends we treasured are gone and with them our patience

gone and they had been alive in the black core of the heart

I asked where the riders halted and knelt their camels

Amid the scent of absinthe, they said, and moringa blossoms

I told the wind to track them down

in the shade of the thicket where the wings of their tents

were spread

To bring them greetings from the brother of grief

When the tribe scattered his heart was torn.

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Attached: Rumī; Yunus Emre in Hebrew

 

[Bigtitsbitch1000x]

there are many poets here who have been published around the globe. there are publishers, professors, teachers and everyone in between from novice to expert. most of us here are far more interested in writing and discussing poetry on this forum with an eye to improving our own quality of work rather than bragging about 'credentials'.

Yeah, here we go again. Here's a poem:

I have big credentials.
I have big boobies and a big booty.
People attack me on the street.
My teeth were nearly knocked out.

I was put in jail.
I am chased through the city like a mad dog.
I "passed" three 5150 exams, as Trump might say.
When I stumble and fall, because I have a "service injury," nice poets laugh.

I had a boyfriend. He's in a wheelchair now.
Because he walked down the street with me.
I was cheated of my money by a fake friend.
Another said, "you're a ho. You can make money."

Men feel my boobies because they feel they can.
They do it because a tranny is the only "thing" they can do that to.
I don't mind. I wish they wouldn't stop.
They don't stop when they beat us. They kill us.

Dear Litster Commentators, I came to the site,
Looking for examples to guide me though the night.
But the gatekeepers were intent on holding oh-so tight
To the door they keep shut, closing off the light.

+++

Sir, correct me if I am mistaken, but were you not one of RoryN's crowd, that made an allegation against me that exceeded the worst hallucinations of the Stalin era?

That I am not a trans woman?

That I am a MAGA seeking to undermine transfolk?

That my credentials were stolen from someone else?

That my pictures were stolen from someone else?

Did you not, in effect, incite those like Filthy Fart who insist that I am ugly and scary?

Of course I'm scary. I'm here to collect a bill. On behalf of the massacred children I helped bury in the Balkans. Nice poets like Robert Hass covered for the assassins of Sarajevo. Because that's what nice poets do!

Hey, Loverboy Neruda was so nice he pretended his only daughter didn't exist, and handicapped Malva was liquidated in the nice Netherlands by the Not-nice Nazis.

Hi ho, as Vonnegut would say.

After I was subjected to a barrage of gross insults that left me physically depressed my view of Literotica changed. The assault on my personality made me aware that the site needs people with credentials.

And, terribly sorry for this, but my communities, trans women and sex workers, need people with credentials.

This is how the world works:

If I had been allowed to putter around Literotica I would have gotten bored and gone away.

But I was battered psychologically.

I came back from this.

But I came back in a militant frame of mind.

I once danced in soft, girly shoes, velvet, and silk, to the last two songs, for Lawrence Ferlinghetti and other poets. Ferlinghetti wrote a poem about me. It was suppressed. You can't read it.

Other works I created with Ferlinghetti became an object of plagiarism. The highest compliment.

I have been cancelled more often than a lost ATM card.

Gatekeeping is not an honorable profession.

In the invented country of Kosovo, I held a fictional job. I didn't exist. I was just a rumor. I heard people say to their oppressors, "kill me, but don't insult me."

Once and for all: ban me, but don't insult me.

[Full disclosure: Kosovo was invented, and the job was fictional.

].

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[Bigtitsbitch1000x]

A footnote:

It's great to be a poet.
It's wonderful to finish a poem.
But as Breton said, "existence is elsewhere."

Here's my permanent poem:
"The people are silent. I will be their advocate in their silence. I will speak for the mute; I will speak for those who are silent from despair. I will interpret stammering; I will interpret the grumbling, murmurs, the tumult of crowds, the complaints, the cries of [humans] so degraded by suffering and ignorance that they have no strength to voice their wrongs. I will be the people's word. I will be the bleeding mouth from which the gag has been snatched. I will say everything."

Katayama Sen, founder of Japanese socialism.

Attached is my finest new poem.

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[butters]

Women of literotica
Oh sexy women of lit ,,
I hope you will appreciate my wit..
Read on with stardust in your eyes
While the men only dream of between your thighs..

Oh fair maidens with such beautiful smiles ,
On broken glass I’d walk a mile
Just to feel your arms around my neck,
I’d save you from the sinking wreck..

Tell me more of what it is you crave ..
Of tousled hair, jeans and a sexy knave ?
Or perhaps something more refined,
Designer suits and shoes , candlelight and wine?

Intrepid girls, working ladies , moms, milfs and more ,
All looking for desires, lust , and fetishes to explore ,

Each new story sets the imagination to inspire,
an orgasmic delight of sex and pleasure on fire !

i'm reluctant to 'rate' poems, but if you insist then i'd give it a 5 out of 10, more for the attempt than the result... it comes across as just shy of 100% cheesy, but i also suspect it may be written with a good sense of humour so kudos there. If not, it comes across as Hallmark does Porn.

and that's criticism, not critique, and does little to help and a lot to hinder

now, i guess the 'success' of this piece will depend entirely on your audience: if your reader is also a writer, possibly older and more experienced both in a literary and physical/emotional sense, then this is unlikely to tickle their fancy. However, if you post this to a non-poet, much younger, newish to lit reader, then they may love it. It's just a matter of what we, as the reader, find in your words.

as a writer, i appreciate your seeming to tackle a form and managing to do reasonably well with the rhyming, plus there are a few words such as 'tousled' i like. I believe you need to address your placement of punctuation (those additional spaces are distracting), and perhaps search for something a little more authentic and original. It lacks any depth but you could work on that... if you intend to ever do anything with this. There are word-choices that do this no favours, and if striving for wit then, perhaps, you could come up with something a little sharper.

if i fell into the other category of reader i mentioned, then they'd probably be really happy with what you have here

i really hope you posted this with a sense of fun but if you are serious about improving your writing, try to avoid the clichéd tropes about what women want, k?

 

[Bigtitsbitch1000x]

It's great fun to treat an aspiring author like a child.

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