Hersuavevoice - Bellezza è Destino

“Without a terrain in which, to which, I belong, language itself is my one home, my Jerusalem”

— Denise Levertov, from “To Stay Alive,” To Stay Alive (New Directions, 1971)

Oblivion

on the other side of the night love is possible

—take me there—

take me among the sweet substances that die each day in your memory

—Alejandra Pizarnik, from Selected Poems, trans. by Cecilia Rossi (Waterloo Press, 2010)

The first known poet in history, Enheduanna, was an Iraqi woman. She wrote about Inanna on tablets in the cuneiform language.  The interesting thing about her is that she had a position or title. It was “The keeper of the flame.” I think that if a poet should have any role at all, it should be (wherever and whenever) the same: “keeper of the flame.”

—Dunya Mikhail, from “New Directions Interview with Dunya Mikhail,” Cantos (April , 2010)