Also #amreading Laszlo Krasznahorkai’s SEIOBO THERE BELOW

Seiobo There Below is her first Krasznahorkai (translated from the Hungarian by Ottilie Mulzet), and she can’t believe she didn’t know before that this author is known for writing sentences that go on for as long as 50 pages.

From Story # 6 (Which appears in the Table of Contents as Story # 13, like we’re being punked by the author. Punked, punked, punked!), He Rises at Dawn.

(P.S. If you want to know more about Japanese temples, and that stillness of being which is only possible for true adherents of Buddha or Zen Mind, this book is for you)

• He rises at dawn; more or less the same time as the birds; he is a bad sleeper, only falling asleep is easy for him — in the evenings this happens quite often, although afterward there are frequent startled awakenings, where he’s drenched in sweat, worn out from a dream, and it goes on like this till dawn, when finally the skies begin to turn greay in the neighborhood of Kita . . .

Stay tuned, dear blog readers. Stay tuned.

 

Poetry Saturday, September 2017: Joanne Diaz

Excerpt from “Pyrrhic”

from My Favorite Tyrants, winner of the Brittingham Prize in Poetry

Art can make war look wrong, but most of the time
it doesn’t. Consider this terracotta jar, once filled
with olive oil to anoint the dead, now a souvenir
of fire, clay, and spittle standing in the back
of the Ancient Wing. Look closer: some dancers
are clothed in robes, others are naked, and all
wear helmets while the musician plays a double flute
and taps his toe. First, they join hands, then the delicate,
ceremonious footwork begins.