Our dear friend, Nanos Valaoritis, cherished Greek poet, sent us one of his new poems.

We find Calin Mihailescu's Cameo Therapy more amorous than therapeutic, which is what we look for in a poem, carefully weighing amor against therapy, and publishing only that which contains more amor. Calin is multilingual and writes with all his tongues: we post here some of his recent work in Spanish. Multilingualism manifests in the work of multilingual people no matter what language they write in: thus you can find Spanish in Calin's Romanian work, for instance, just as you'll find Romanian, English, French, and whatever, in his Spanish work. "Whatever" is eight other languages.

J.J. Phillips rearranges Plato's Cave! Then she puts everything back!

SEWING NEWS!

SEWING NEWS!

 Lidija Dimkovska's bells toll for us

Translated from the Macedonian by Ljubica Arsovska and Peggy Reid

Mark Sargent, our Odysseus, wanders the world for the Corpse, to bring news of nouveau labor. We also present his technology for "aural fashions," patent pending. Now and then Derrida haunts him, so he calls Lacan to exorcise him. And when he's done, guests who won't leave show up. Mark just sent us birthday greetings and a poem we aren't supposed to show to his wife. (Hint: it'right after "The Promise not to Trackle.") That was in 2005. At the end of the year 2011, this didn't seem to matter as much as olives, mortality, and the groans of our fading generation. In 2004 (Sargent disdains chronology) the poet was in love with Blaise Cendrars, the toughnik. Blaise Cendrars, the midcentury French poet, was an adventurer, a poetic journalist (see "The Trans-Siberian Express," translated by Ron Padgett), a novelist, an opinion editorialist, a radio personality, a playful genre busters (he busted many genres, gangster-style), and a lover of many amused women. Sargent's Cendrars infatuation must have corresponded to the adventurous confession of 2005. In 2004, Cendrars wasn't the only poet Sargent was in touch with: he modelled for Kenneth Patchen (see Recent), and he took a ride in a horse-and-buggy affair with Dr. Williams.

Bob Holman Released!

We woke up and there it was: poetry!

Doru Chirodea lives in London, which is why his horses have a whiff of British in translation.

J.J. Phillips brought this remarkable text to our attention. Here is an excerpt from her letter:

Andrei, Im sending you a few brief excerpts from the 17th century Egyptian satirist Yusuf al Shirbinis Brains Confounded by the Ode of Abu Shaduf Expounded (pub. by Peeters, a Belgian academic house).  It was translated by Humphrey Davies, an old running buddy, beloved friend (a Brit now living in Cairo), a highly respected, prizewinning translator of Arabic literature, primarily contemporary Egyptian fiction.  I think you might find this quite compelling.  Brains Confounded... is truly insane (the title alone tells you that), brilliantly insane, and parts of it are written in Egyptian Colloquial.  (Humphreys one of only a handful of people fluent in 17th century Egyptian Colloquial.)  Its outrageously transgressive, blasphemous, and anti-PC with a vengeance.  Rushdies a piker compared to Shirbini, who, unlike Rushdie, was defending the religious and cultural establishment of his day; and its apparent that Shirbini revels in being outrageous and disgusting in general.  It is also, not paradoxically (unless one is a rank dualist),  a marvelous text, written by a man who, whatever his personal politics, revels as much in the delights of the intellect and of language and linguistic precision as he does in flights of absurd fancy, crudity, funk, and buffoonery.  All this shines through in the translation and accompanying notes.

       Its a book that begs for a wider audience, not only for those with a taste for the weird and crazy, for perverse satire, and scatologists; but it offers a veritable deluge of fascinating information for social critics, cultural anthropologists, folklorists, historians, Middle Eastern scholars, theologians, linguists, and others.

       The attachment consists of a selection of verses that Humphrey sent me.  But the book isnt composed solely of these kinds of verses; theres much, much more, including crazy linguistic disquisitions (sometimes spurious, sometimes not, in fact on every level the question of whats spurious and whats not pervades the text so postmodern), a magnificent annotated catalog of farts, all kinds of folktales and folklore, many riffs on Alf Layla wa Layla, Arab poetry, theology, food, eating habits, sex habits, dress, you name it.  Id urge you to go out and buy the book except that the English translation alone (there are two more volumes, v. 1 the Arabic text, v. 3 a lexicon, all meticulously annotated) is obscenely expensive, thanks to the self-sabotaging, anal-retentive Belgian publisher.  May the director of Peeters be sodomized by one of his countrys fabled Belgian pommes frites for his crimes against the democratization of knowledge.  Its a shame because I doubt even that many college and university libraries would spring for it, even though they should.  However, Humphreys hoping that there will be a cheaper edition (from another publisher) sometime in the future.   Heres a link that'll give you some background info. http://wordswithoutborders.org/article/from-brains-confounded-by-the-ode-of-abu-shaduf-expounded .  More can be found on the Internet.  Humphrey is also working on a translation of Leg Over Leg, a book by Ahmad Faris al-Shidyaq, a 19th century writer (to be published by NYU), which also contains wild pre-postmodernist craziness.  http://www.thenational.ae/arts-culture/books/arabic-literature-found-in-translation.  Excerpts from his might also be something for The Corpse, but for now I want to let you know about Shirbini.

An addition to "The Disposition of Body Parts in the Romantic Era," in The Stiffest of the Corpse (City Lights)