Breaking Up with Captain Cook on Our 250th Anniversary

We present this work in honor of Waitangi Day.

Selina Tusitala Marsh
Kiwi
b. 1971

 

Dear Jimmy,

It’s not you, it’s me.

Well,
maybe it is you.

We’ve both changed.

When I first met you
you were my change.

Well, your ride
the Endeavour
was anyway
on my 50-cent coin.

Your handsome face
was plastered everywhere.

On money
on stamps
on all my world maps.

You were so Christian
you were second to Jesus
and both of you
came to save us.

But I’ve changed.

We need to see other people
other perspectives
other world views.

We’ve grown apart.

I need space.

We’re just at different points
in our lives —

compass points

that is.

I need to find myself
and I can’t do that with you
hanging around all the time.

Posters, book covers, tea cozies
every year, every anniversary.

You’re a legend.

I don’t know the real you
(your wife did burn all your personal papers
but that’s beside the point.)

I don’t think you’ve ever really seen me.

You’re too wrapped up in discovery.

I’m sorry
but there just isn’t room
in my life
for the two of you right now:

you and your drama
your possessive colonising Empire.

We’re worlds apart.

I just don’t want to be in a thing right now.

Besides, my friends don’t like you.

And I can’t break up with them so…

To Hidalgo

We present this work in honor of the Mexican holiday, Constitution Day.

Fernando Calderon
Mexican
1809 – 1845

 

Plunged into the silence of the grave,
Were found the Mexican people:
Fatal silence interrupted only
By the chains they dragged.

The last groan of the unhappy slave
Was punished as if it had been an atrocious crime,
Or it resounded in the ears of the
Oppressors as if it were triumphal music.

Hidalgo cried at last with voice divine:
“Freedom to Mexico, and forever!”
And hurled war at the Spanish tyrant.

Eleven years the mortal conflict lasted;
The throne crumbled, and in its ruins
Floats the standard of liberty.

Translation by Ernest S. Green and H. Von Lowenfels

Redondilla VIII

We present this work in honor of the 400th anniversary of the poet’s death.

Vicente Espinel
Spanish
1550 – 1624

 

The tired thought
of the importunate pain
look for the best state
(if in love there is good condition).
That a chest so hurt
nor does glory feed him,
nor does the pain torment him,
how high the memory,
nor does he feel pain, nor glory,
neither good nor evil sustains him.

To the Historic Genízaro Tree

We present this work in honor of the 55th anniversary of the poet’s death.

Alfonso Cortés
Nicaraguan
1903 – 1969

 

I love you, old tree, because day and night
you generate mysteries and fate
in the voices of evening wind
or birds at dawn.

You adorn the main square
and your thoughts are more divine
than human ideas as you point us toward roads
with proud branches full of sound.

Jenísaro, all your old scars
are inscribed in your folios
the way time falls and keeps falling.
But your fresh and joyous leaves
sway in the highest reaches of infinity,
while humanity makes its way ahead.

Translation by Steven F. White

The Fragrance of Violets

Fatima Zahra Bennis
Moroccan
b. 1973

 

The violets that cover me
I anticipated their bleeding from time immemorial
But kept back what my blindness saw
So that I can breathe
I was in need of more wounds
To be worthy of this radiance
I was in need of more rambling
To realize
That only dreaming can pluck me out
Only the clouds can light me up.

I don’t remember when and how
I became crazy for these violets
I by chance saw myself joyful in their empty spaces
Feeding on their delights
In a wine-scented wedding of passion
Where I didn’t need a white dress
Since I was sheathed in the dewy morning
which led me to a hanging night
As if we had always been together
But suddenly parted because of a sin we didn’t commit
Then met again on the edge of a runaway life.
Yah!! many a branch dances in my body!
Many a madman’s language I master!
Many a bird inhabits my throat!
Whenever the tiny violet leaves whisper to me
My strings resonate!

Translation by Norddine Zouitni

Morning of the 7th of September, 1778

We present this work in honor of National Freedom Day.

Judith Sargent Murray
American
1751 – 1820

 

See the concomitants of baleful war,
Famine, and pestilence, and wild uproar!
Mark how they hover o’er Columbia’s head,
Mingling her heroes with the mighty dead!
Portentous omens with terrific glare!
Stamp on the breast the horrors of despair!
War, desolating war, stalks o’er the land,
And in his ranks appear a murd’rous band;
They shake the leaden spear and death pervades,
At whose dire touch undaunted valour fades!
The hostile grounds by slaughter covered o’er,
Mountains and vallies reek with human gore!
While agonized shrieks, and groans of death,
Torture the air and swell the ling’ring breath.
Dire is the scene, with various woes replete,
When rage and malice they insatiate meet.
Look down great God, our wand’ring steps explore,
The golden hours of harmony restore,
Give dark suspicion, baneful bird of night,
Far from our plains to wing its distant flight,
To climes congenial, some chaotic shore,
Where it can vex this younger world no more;
And when each hour shall be with concord crown’d,
When laughing confidence looks gaily round,
Contentment will advance her fair domain,
And peace unrival’d o’er our borders reign.

Burgersfort Landfill

Vonani Bila
South African
b. 1972

 

Vultures dwell here
Among the grim faced shack dwellers
With their famished children

When the waste delivery truck arrives
The dark human vultures shove and shuffle
Fighting over dirt
Competing with rats and pigs

No one talks about this grim enterprise
The vultures hope to turn rags to riches
In this, our wasted market economy

When ministers talk of black empowerment
No one mentions this grim enterprise
Which tries in vain to turn rags to riches

But on election day –
The vultures are fed with pap and beef stew
Dressed in a clean T-shirt with the leader’s face

And when darkness falls
The vultures jadedly retire to the dump
A celestial graveyard of hopes – their home

I Take Into My Arms More Than I Can Bear to Hold

We present this work in honor of the 20th anniversary of the poet’s death.

Janet Frame
Kiwi
1924 – 2004

 

I take into my arms more than I can bear to hold
I am toppled by the world
a creation of ladders, pianos, stairs cut into the rock
a devouring world of teeth where even the common snail
eats the heart out of a forest
as you and I do, who are human, at night

yet still I take into my arms more than I can bear to hold