Poems for the Millennium, Vol. 4

Poems for the Millennium #4

by Pierre Joris, Habib Tengour (Editor)

In this fourth volume of the landmark Poems for the Millennium series, Pierre Joris and Habib Tengour present a comprehensive anthology of the written and oral literatures of the Maghreb, the region of North Africa that spans the modern nation states of Libya, Tunisia, Algeria, Morocco, and Mauritania, and including a section on the influential Arabo-Berber and Jewish literary culture of Al-Andalus, which flourished in Spain between the ninth and fifteenth centuries. Beginning with the earliest pictograms and rock drawings and ending with the work of the current generation of post-independence and diasporic writers, this volume takes in a range of cultures and voices, including Berber, Phoenician, Jewish, Roman, Vandal, Arab, Ottoman, and French. Though concentrating on oral and written poetry and narratives, the book also draws on historical and geographical treatises, philosophical and esoteric traditions, song lyrics, and current prose experiments. These selections are arranged in five chronological “diwans” or chapters, which are interrupted by a series of “books” that supply extra detail, giving context or covering specific cultural areas in concentrated fashion. The selections are contextualized by a general introduction that situates the importance of this little-known culture area and individual commentaries for nearly each author.

Genres: Poetry

792 pages, Paperback

First published October 21, 2012

About the author

Pierre Joris was a Luxembourgish-American poet, essayist, translator, and anthologist. He moved between Europe, North Africa, and the United States for fifty-five years, publishing over eighty books of poetry, essays, translations and anthologies — most recently Interglacial Narrows (Poems 2015–2021) and Always the Many, Never the One: Conversations In-between, with Florent Toniello, both from Contra Mundum Press. In 2020 his two final Paul Celan translations came out: Microliths They Are, Little Stones (Posthumous prose, from CMP) and The Collected Earlier Poetry (FSG). In 2019 Spuyten Duyvil Press published Arabia (not so) Deserta (essays on Maghrebi and Mashreqi literature and culture). His other recent books include: A City Full of Voices: Essays on the Work of Robert Kelly (co-edited with P. Cockelbergh and J.Newberger, CMP, 2020); Adonis and Pierre Joris, Conversations in the Pyrenees (CMP 2018); Stations d'al-Hallaj (translated by Habib Tengour; Apic Editions, Algiers, 2018); The Book of U (poems, 2017, Editions Simoncini, Luxembourg). His translation of Egyptian poet Safaa Fathy's Revolution Goes Through Walls came out in 2018 from SplitLevel. In June 2016 the Théatre National du Luxembourg produced his play The Agony of I.B. (published by Editions PHI). His earlier publications include: An American Suite (early poems; inpatient press 2016); Barzakh: Poems 2000-2012 (Black Widow Press 2014); Breathturn into Timestead: The Collected Later Poetry of Paul Celan (FSG 2014); A Voice full of Cities: The Collected Essays of Robert Kelly (co-edited with Peter Cockelbergh; 2014, Contra Mundum Press) and The University of California Book of North African Literature (volume 4 in the Poems for the Millennium series, coedited with Habib Tengour, 2012).
In 2011 Litteraria Pragensia, Charles University, Prague, published Pierre Joris: Cartographies of the In-between, edited by Peter Cockelbergh, with essays on Joris' work by, among others, Mohammed Bennis, Charles Bernstein, Nicole Brossard, Clayton Eshleman, Allen Fisher, Christine Hume, Robert Kelly, Abdelwahab Meddeb, Jennifer Moxley, Jean Portante, Carrie Noland, Alice Notley, Marjorie Perloff and Nicole Peyrafitte (2011).
Other books include The Meridian: Final Version—Drafts—Materials by Paul Celan (Stanford U.P. 2011), Canto Diurno #4: The Tang Extending from the Blade, (poems, 2010), Justifying the Margins: Essays 1990-2006 (Salt Books), Aljibar I & II (poems) and the CD Routes, not Roots (with Munir Beken, oud; Mike Bisio, bass; Ben Chadabe, percussion; Mitch Elrod, guitar; Ta'wil Productions). Further translations include Paul Celan: Selections (UC Press) and Lightduress by Paul Celan which received the 2005 PEN Poetry Translation Award. With Jerome Rothenberg he edited Poems for the Millennium, vol. 1 & 2: The University of California Book of Modern & Postmodern Poetry.

Reviews

[Tatyana · Rating 5 out of 5]

"In silence
after my voice grows hoarse
I shall keep shouting your stormy name,
your pain, your wounds, your solitude."
- Mohammed Ebnu

"Your eyes
are lakes of tenderness
I look into them and see
shadows and lights.
I see the impossible.
How often have I traveled through them
into a world that makes one lose one’s head
as if erring through the museum of marvels !"
- Noureddine Sammoud

"I made snow into a bed and covered myself with the wind
I made the moon into a lamp and went to sleep in the starry night."
- Sidi Abderrahman el Mejdub

"Your love resides at the root of my heart and is as precious as a single eye.
As often as the bee makes honeycomb after honeycomb."
- Sidi Lakhdar Ben Khlouf

"The best of my poetry begins with God’s name and with yours."
- Sidi Lakhdar Ben Khlouf

"I am tired of always forgiving
those who would burn me alive.
I feel as tired as the musk rose
of the dry hot summer breeze.
Can someone tell me what’s wrong with me ?"
- Aissa al Jarmuni al Harkati

"Like the sun under water
your face,
like time
a crucifix in my night."
- Khaled Najjar

"And to say to you: your fingers are buds of silk, or
ember; beware of losing them in space. Harvest
your jewel-encrusted garden: sun, dew, secret of the light,
star and scent."
- Mohammed Sebbagh

"Your eyes, my love,
are two beautiful butterflies
in a perpetual verdure.
Two pearls
on a ground of pure mother-of-pearl
ceaselessly thirsting
for the blue of the sea.
Two doves
in quest of a nest of tenderness
warm and peaceful."
- Noureddine Sammoud

"I search
for your hands …
an iris of ecstasy
in
the season of desires"
- Fatima Mahmoud

"To extinguish the coals smoldering in his heart
He makes a river spring through his eyelids, flooding his torso.
In fact, there are tears that in their very abundance ease the heart."
- Mohammed Ben Brahim Assarraj

"In her meadow, there is none but her
so she alone is invoked.
A wonder, she remains distant, nowhere."
- Abu al-Hassan al-Shushtari

[Kalindi Bellach · Rating 5 out of 5]

I bought all four volumes of this anthology many years ago when I was still in school, and dabbled in the first two, read the third quite thoroughly, and mostly left this one untouched. Having now (finally) gone through it properly, I can say that it is absolutely as excellent as the first three. Just wonderful.

[EIJANDOLUM · Rating 5 out of 5]

Blood
Quintessenced by night.

— MOHAMMED HMOUDANE

♥

A treasure.