Saqer @saqeram@wandering.shop

Daily Poems I'm reading in 2020 (won't you read with me?)

#introductions

Hi folks, I'm Saqer. I'm an academic, finishing up grad school. I spend a lot of time translating short science fiction into Arabic, but haven't published any yet because reasons. Maybe that will change over the next year.

I also spend a lot of time listening to audiobooks of scifi novels, and the usual scifi podcasts. I spend a lot of time also wondering about backstories of minor characters and societal myths and languages in scifi.

We're *this* close to the last month. I'm reading the recently published #poem by Michael Bazzett "The Revisionist"

I like how this isn't a time-reversal poem, but definitely a necromantic one.

http://strangehorizons.com/poetry/the-revisionist/

November 24, and I'm reading #poems by Tahir Hamut Izgil, translated by Joshua L. Freeman from #Uyghur

The #poem (of the 5) that caught my eye is A Hungry Ghost

https://www.asymptotejournal.com/poetry/tahir-hamut-izgil-five-poems/

November 23, and this #poem by Franny Choi

We Used Our Words We Used What Words We Had.

I recommend listening and looking at the poem. That is: look at the letters, the w, the x, the m.

https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poetrymagazine/poems/151512/we-used-our-words-we-used-what-words-we-had

The #poem I read for November 22 was Benjamin Zephaniah's Why You Don't Riot

"You don’t riot if you have a nice job and a home to come to at night.

You don’t riot if you’re well fed and unemployment doesn’t pressure your head.

You don’t riot if you live in the city but have a country cottage with a view so pretty.

You don’t riot. Riot happen too late. And that’s South Africa, Britain is great."

https://theanarchistlibrary.org/library/benjamin-zephaniah-why-you-don-t-riot

November 21, and I found a tab I've had open for *months*, of Assata Shakur's #poem Youngblood.

"They think they killed you
But I saw you yesterday"

http://www.assatashakur.org/poem5.htm

Today November 20'th's #poem is a really old one: from the Yoga Sutras of Patanjali translated by Kanya Kanchana. It's short and not as long as you think it is.

http://waxwingmag.org/items/issue10/52_Kanchana-Samadhi-Pada.php

Yesterday's #poem which I read was Raquel Salas-Rivera's "no flota por los aires"

Scroll down for the self-transalted English version.

http://waxwingmag.org/items/issue10/50_Salas-Rivera-no-flota-por-los-aires.php

Today's #poem is Michael Chang's Plump Rat (you can guess I love the stuff on Strange Horizons by now)

This line right here: "Her name is J.K. cuz this bitch aint serious"

http://strangehorizons.com/poetry/plump-rat/

So I set up my Bookwyrm all thanks to @tripofmice and yay!

It's a day, so I read 6 translations of the same #poem by Matsuo Basho

Enjoy this exercise.

https://en.wikisource.org/wiki/Frog_Poem

This is today's #poem: Alice Fulton's Cascade Experiment

The reason I went digging for it is because Karen Barad (who I'm re-reading) started a chapter with a part of this in the book she titled after this poem.

https://antiochcollege.edu/2017/04/cascade-experiment/

Yesterday I read Pedro Lemebel's #manifesto #poem Hablo por mi diferencia

the link to the Spanish poem: https://lemebel.blogspot.com/2005/11/manifiesto-hablo-por-mi-diferencia.html

I spent today looking for an English translation of y'all:

"People keep their distance
People understand and say:
He’s a fag, but he writes well
He’s a fag, but a good friend"

The English translation by Sergio Holas-Véliz and Israel Holas Allimant: http://cordite.org.au/poetry/notheme4/manifesto-i-speak-for-my-difference/

We're really getting closer to the end of 2020, it's Second Week of November. Just a few more to go.

I'm reading Fox's Testament by John Patrick Pazdziora. A little poem about fearing what might be behind you: "And see—who walks beside you, all alone?"

http://www.jabberwocky-magazine.com/2012/05/foxs-testament/

For November 13, I'm reading Edward Hirsch's "To D.B."

The thing I loved the most about this #poem is the radiators. I lived in a building where the radiators would knock all night and (as inefficient as they were) I loved them.

https://www.slowdownshow.org/episode/2020/10/27/502-to-db

It's November 12's #poem, so I'm reading Beth Cato's "At the End"

I *loved* this poem and it really brought out the catlover in me.

http://www.liminalitypoetry.com/issue-25-autumn-2020/at-the-end/

I'm catching up, so two poems: the first is Silly Comets by Geoffrey A. Landis from the Mundane issue of Eye to the Telescope https://eyetothetelescope.com/archives/012issue.html

Gotta say I love the mundane subgenre of speculative fiction and #poetry

And the #poem for today is Chinua Ezenwa-Ohaeto's I Wondered if God Saw Me Through My Father http://strangehorizons.com/poetry/i-wondered-if-god-saw-me-through-my-father/

My reading for November 9 is this #poem by David C. Kopaska-Merkel called "The Hungry Void"

This is a good way to end the day, because I've been thinking of silence, nothing, and voids.

http://www.kaleidotrope.net/autumn-2020/the-hungry-void-by-david-c-kopaska-merkel/

On that note, I'm listening to more Suhaiymah Manzoor-Khan's #poetry, this one is "Paki"

https://youtu.be/ii5ID4xZFtA