Looking at words

Last Saturday I had a real treat. My friend had asked her Iraqi engineering professor friend to be our teacher for one afternoon. I didn't know this was going to happen.

I had forgotten how wonderful it is to see and hear all these words being said just there a few feet away from me. Every vowel is slightly different from how I say it and every consonant too. Just that bit more for real.

We sat in a circle and repeated words after him. First he'd say a sentence at the normal speed, for his own pleasure at speaking Arabic obviously, and we'd go blank, then he'd say it word by word and we would copy like baby birds again and again.

I was so happy in the car back home. But it disappears so quickly. I now can't remember what his voice sounded like. I need a constant flow of real people speaking, like in the bookshop in London.

Someone else said Kalila u Dumna to me, then changed it, so I thought, to Kalila wa Dimna. ?? what was going on there?

Then I bumped into a woman who may have been Spanish, but she spoke Arabic and we said hallos, names and welcome to Oxford :)

Time on my hands means

I put 'Arabic' in the search box on the Free Word Centre website and up popped this list of articles to read.

www.freewordcentre.com

I also found an interview from the US with the non-Arabic speaking translator of Adnan Al-Sayegh. That made me stop and think about translating in a new light. If people are doing it with no Arabic whatsoever, I am shocked. I distinctly remember my finals paper translating from French to English and this was not meant for anyone who couldn't completely understand what was going on. I got a first for that paper, so was extremely proud of myself. Mind you, I knew all the authors and had read their books, so it was a walk in the park. Imagine how bad some of my other papers were if overall I got a 2:2. Apparently apart from the one first I only got 2:1s and no actual 2:2s, the others must have been terrible, my tutor didn't tell me and I didn't ask. She was Dr Ann Moss then.

...

A draft from August last year, but with an updated link. This is all too enticing, I must stop and go and get dressed and give my son breakfast...

My first demo - thinking back

It was way back in 2012. I had the chance to drive over the hills to the A34 and enjoy the sunshine purely because I was on a mission to get to London.

I told myself as I walked along the familiar streets to Belgrave Square that it would be a disaster, no one would be there, they'd be horrible, not welcoming etc, so I wouldn't get my hopes up. I even approach going to the supermarket with an expectation of potentially bumping into someone I know! So this is a necessary precaution for me.

Anyway, I worked out that the women stood together and the men separately. But us London types intermingle, so I did that too.

One woman told me she'd been on many demonstrations before, in Iran and now in the UK. I haven't seen her since, maybe I need to go on more demos :)

Another woman told me she was Shia, clearly expecting me to know what this meant, which I did, very approximately, so I replied that I was Quaker, again expecting her to have heard of this term.

It was great to get hoots from cars as we walked in the very middle of the normally busiest part of London, round Hyde Park Corner and up  Park Lane.

I lurked at the back when we were in front of the Saudi embassy. At the end I turned into my most pretentious and enthusiastic self and even said thank you to the various police officers who had marshalled us.

I took the hand of a woman I was standing with and went over to say thank you to one of the guys with a gun right in front of the Saudi Embassy. She was totally astounded at the concept of going up to him and chatting!!

I said we wouldn't need to protest again, this would do it! He was funny and said that the protesters never give up. I found that surprisingly encouraging. He also told me about the police officers' favourite cafe round the corner. I'll go there on a pilgrimage one day, to celebrate the whole protesting and policing ritual.

Then I knocked on the window of the big police van full of officers. They were a bit surprised to get a collective thank you as well, but I couldn't ever say this was my first demo again :)

...

I was just so glad to get in and out alive, I had had visions of being kettled or being hit on the head by a fire extinguisher (Brian Ferry's son chucked one off the roof of a building) or even being killed like Ian Tomlinson. I hadn't drunk much so I wouldn't get caught short. It's nerve-wracking.

It all started with a Facebook chat in the middle of winter

Where would we be without rhyme
Nonsense needs some sparkle sometime
It lightens the soul
And we all need a goal
To focus on while becoming sublime

Some of us think in limericks, some can't fall asleep for frustrating end rhymes, some of us go away from the thread for a week and come back to find a party underway.

Hall Writers' Forum

Non-conversation during the Proms

I am writing two poems a day, on facing pages of my notebook

Now I don't plan ahead, but think on the spot

Obviously I am hoping for significant insights, miracles

The music is the starting point, the reason for sitting in one place

I apologise

This email subscribe button has been tricky for me to set up. I think it is now working properly because a post finally arrived in my own email inbox. This must be the third time I have tried to set it all up.

So I am sorry if I have annoyed readers of this blog.

The exact spot

This afternoon H read out to me from the history section of the life in the UK book. We discussed all sorts of things between each sentence.

We had just moved the table out of the sunshine, so it was in the same place as all those years ago in this post about afternoons burning down old candles.

Summer holidays :)

Syrian Short Films - 4th of 4 - 'General Situation' directed by Nart Alkass

https://vimeo.com/22671306

The title reminds me of Corporal Punishment, General Disorder, Captain Sensible.. some WW2 jokes.

If you haven't learnt the word for 'directed by' yet, you haven't been paying attention. It is:

اخراج - ikhraj

Also: a tiny film on the killing in Syria: https://vimeo.com/53787940 . No blood, so simple.

Experiment with cutting right back, not poems as such, just ideas

Cutting too much leaves a heap of sawdust. An online friend and I are choppers, we laughed that my poem would be a haiku by lunchtime during one morning of editing. It's happened here.

F ..  Just 3 lines

1986 - print was made
1987 - I bought it
1988 - year of marriage

E .. Now 3 words per line

playing with blutac
suddenly tearful again
feeling my heartbeat

needing to understand
how our complexity
arose back then
...

Now go further, what would have never emerged without this pressure, D:

D ..

If I stand and look from the side I see the indentation of the printing process

This is all physical, transitory: the print, vases, knowledge of eras could all go

The knowledge would be rediscovered; new vases created; new museums built

All this knowledge is to comfort us, carriers of one combination of dna

My dna is merely a collection of many fragments, they are all out there in others

I think culture is a quirk which seems to help transmission of the dna

...

The piece A below is very long. Regard it as preparation. What did I really get from thinking about this picture of mine? First I got to B, then left that behind and got to C.

C .. I reacted to the even colours by thinking of the shadows left of the people incinerated at Hiroshima and Nagasaki. Then I thought of a phrase in a book I was reading at the JR this afternoon, about the ghosts of knowledge left behind when someone dies. The book was 'Al Mutannabi Street Starts Here'.

B .. Calm, stillness, peace, contentment. Differences of design, but a permanent acceptance of each other. A space between them which is also beautiful, allowing each to breathe. A symbolic representation of a relationship.

...

A .. I spent a weekend at a family house after some weekends at hotels. The difference was that all the items in the house would have had a story behind them, even the strip of decorative edging along the top of the wall in the downstairs bathroom! Each of these stories would have involved people and particular events. What a thing, a household of stories.

I could take photos of things which have a story behind them, then tell the story.

(Imagine the photo)

This picture is of 2 vases or ewers - print by Betty Schlesinger

I bought it already framed for about £50, which was a bargain considering its size

I was the first person outside her family to buy a picture from her, so this was a significant sale

I knew her because I was renting a room in her parents' house in Durham

I had the money to buy a picture direct from the artist because I didn't drink, smoke, eat out, buy clothes...

I clearly wanted to spend what small amount I had on art and books even then and not on anything transitory

One day I happened to be in the V and A Museum and saw them in a cabinet in exactly the same relationship to each other as in my picture, so I realised that Betty must have stood there, just like me, and appreciated them enough to make such a large version of the cabinet. The cabinet was in the centre of that dark room.

The picture used to hang above our bed in the house in Hackney

I took a lovely photo of S sitting on the bed under it

It was above our bed in the house in Shillingford too, so T would have rolled on the bed as a baby under it

There is a lot of glass in a picture that big, now I wouldn't want so much glass anywhere near my head

Strangely my side of the bed was under the right hand side of the picture in both houses, even though the window was on opposite sides. Given that I prefer to be beside the open window at night I don't understand that, perhaps I needed to be by the door so I could get up and go to see to T in the night as a baby and toddler. We moved before he got any older. That overrides any need for fresh air doesn't it?

For many years the vases were not on display at the V and A. All I had was the print and the memory of them

Then the picture spent some years not being loved until I decided to rehang the hall way and up it went again

I happened to go to the V and A in London recently and spotted the 2 small ewers in exactly the same formation, but by the back wall of the Islamic Room this time around. Someone must have remembered how they were set out before and decided to recreate it. Or perhaps it is an instinctively correct and beautiful arrangement. Maybe they only have those 2 vases, so are not likely to do anything else with them.

Apparently they come from the 2 main empires, Ummayad and Abbasid. The U came first, then the A. Mind you, which vase came from which? More of my endless questions.

Since I have visited various places since then I now know they might be water jugs for the loo. That didn't get mentioned in the captions in the museum. I viewed a flat and saw exactly the same jug there on the floor in their bathroom :)

An example of how my mind strays (long)

- 'mounds of wheat and corn, and olives and oranges from the hill orchards, and complaining oxen and fat-tailed sheep.' 

We have wheat and corn here, but have to import olives and oranges. In fact so much is imported, our native grown diet would be entirely different from the one we usually have. Nettle omelettes, leek and broccoli soup, lamb with new potatoes, carrot, kohlrabi and bean salad, Scottish cheeses, Welsh something delicious, raspberry jam, wholemeal bread, oatcakes...so I am now wondering if I could eat UK for a while to explore what comes along from around here, all in season. Edible flowers like nasturtium and borage. 

- '..February 1982, the time of the Muslim Brothers' uprising and of the government's response..' (Hama in Syria, 20,000-30,000 killed.)

So, can I remember anything of that at all? No, I was thinking of other things entirely, plus my first round of A levels. All completely natural. Always this parallel set of lives, my own and whichever one is presented in a book. 

When will North Korea come out of its misery? All my life that has been going on. I have one book by a man who escaped, but I haven't been brave enough to read beyond the introduction. 

I wonder about the many Uprisings and how fated they are to fail. Why not plan carefully from inside the system, be canny, wait, succeed slowly, develop processes which work reliably? Why be so foolhardy and wasteful of lives?

- 'They'd sent him a bearded, turbaned Egyptian to offer stale words and verses.' 

When my Grandfather was ill he had wanted communion in hospital, but had specifically requested a male priest. That deliberate dismissal of women priests shocked me after a lifetime of kindness from him. I guess it was because I hadn't ever challenged the male place in the current set up. 

If I had challenged the male succession for our family title, things might have become ugly. As it is I decided to marry into a non-titled family to avoid it altogether, and I do not use my title at all. Even mentioning it here is counter-productive because I wish to bury and ignore its very existence, an honour imposed on the descendants with no get out.

- 'the past that would outlive him.'

English will live on, the shape of this country, the road network and names of villages, the illnesses we get, the ways that children play, the processes of pregnancy, birth, breastfeeding, all I have painstakingly learned will have to be re-learned by each person in turn, no short cuts. 

The Iraq + 100 years project concept was about asking people to write about their towns in 100 years' time. I considered life here in this village. All that would remain would be the old things, plus one or two modern elements. I found that a big surprise, but it made sense. 

Fashions would be recorded and the census information. The way the snow falls and melts, the catkins and daffodils, noises of the animals, smells of the animals and cut grass. Thunder, rain, dawn...Maths, languages, literature, the culture of music all around us, older people's ways, how wood burns, the winds.

How can I imagine the future children in my wider family? It is so extended already, I don't have a good way of keeping in touch with each one. I will put in a wish for the internet to come up with an extended family app which is just right :) Each person has a different version of family.

Too many words. The phrases are taken from 2 pages of a book I am reading. This straying is why I read, to remind me of my own life.

Owen Lowery on poetry, marriage, life

Imagine writing a poem to your husband or wife every single day, what a conversation that would be.

http://www.writeoutloud.net/public/blogentry.php?blogentryid=50162

I surf until I find the thing which stops me in my tracks, this is it.

Jo Bell on admitting that poetry matters to you

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hojs12e1yRE

The Interpreter's House - Newspaper/Passive/2

Launch of issue 59 of The Interpreter's House

These names jumped out at me:

Andrey Ardern-Jones - (poem about plucking at the buttercups on the sheets)

Nancy Campbell - (poems about Greenland)

James Caruth - (poem about his grandfather, including the OT quotation)

Anas Hassan - The Front Row

Michelle D. Lauder - Lances

Mostly I looked carefully, but sometimes I looked at the floor to listen better.

With one poet I had to shut my eyes, to simply listen. Have I done that before? Who was it?

A friend and I took a very long way round to get back to our cars, so we could talk the more.

I needed to sit down on a low wall so I could tell her about the line I loved the best, God is my hiding place and about his gentle accent.

That phrase is from the OT, in translation of course, none of us know Hebrew, but it's that close to us here in English, bathed in the words of the Old Testament in all those different translations.

Newspaper/Passive/2 

Earlier H saw a photo of Princes Diana on the back of my very old Arabic newspaper. Amazingly he listened when I showed him the letters of 'Diana' and spoke the words al-amiira diiana, he and I repeated this again and again, getting the emphasis in the right and wrong places! I don't know how Diana is pronounced in Arabic, so was at sea there.

How exciting, I chanced on a couple of lines about the vowels u and i which make the passive. I had no expectation of actually learning it.  Then I saw a passive in a translated book title in a poetry prize review. Then... I realised that wulidtu uses exactly those vowels (I was born), so I half know it already :)

Taking no chances, I have booked for 2 different Arabic classes this autumn. They can't both fall through. One requires an assessment. Will I have to go and talk to them? I hope so.

July Season of Short Films from Syria - 3rd of 4 - Director Amar Chebib - مشمش

https://vimeo.com/47386428

Made before the civil war started in 2011. Gained Short Drama Awards at 2 film festivals.

Making that decision to leave: when push comes to shove, all the things which keep the situation in balance are outweighed by one small final event or word, the one which encapsulates the central problem.

Peaceful --- In the house --- No noise --- It's been so long --- All these months of rushing around --- It feels unreal

No more rushing - We have time to talk to each other

Moving slowly - We can ask just one question at a time

Taking my time - We wait for the kettle to boil

One thing at a time - We went and did some digging in the front garden

Time to take photos - Let my sore feet rest after hours dancing

July Season of Short Films from Syria - 2/4

This one is called 'Case of Rhythm' directed by Dani Shahfeh:

https://vimeo.com/13661041

A drummer I know has joined the facebook group and came out with a whole load of comments I would never have dreamt of.

I wonder whether short films allow you to focus on the details because there isn't a huge sweep of history or long involved story to follow. A viewer only has a limited amount of attention. A short poem allows me to go right into the punctuation and words because I am not being pulled away to the next 10 stanzas. In fact the shorter, the better.

This film took me to the hot aimless summers of being teenage, where the surfaces of things seemed inexplicable and older people were at a vast distance, not explaining anything of any importance or being real in a way I could understand at all.

I also recognised the strangely body-built men of my son's games, a fantasy of sas commandos and blank-eyed warriors. This young man was a lot more human than them, but still had those overtones.

Practice reading the names in the credits. Eventually it will become second nature to recognise that the letters m h m d will always be Mohammad and m h m u d will always be Mahmood, for example.

andi dars attakallam al arabiyya, fi maktabi ma'a sadiqati, kull yaum aljama'a aw assabt, mumtaz! ana sa'ida!

My work colleagues and I have taken weeks to remember eachother's names and to speak clearly enough to each other. All those misunderstandings and apologies have paid off, because I can now chat to her in Arabic.

She doesn't mind being asked her name and how she is again and again.

A bit later she told me that she had heard the language students on the pavement below copying us, but with their own names. So they will be ready for chatting up any Arabic speakers who come their way! We have made a lot of people very happy just by larking around at work.

My other triumph was wandering off for fresh air....to our sister shop round the corner. I asked for their arabic section and was shown something very unusual from behind the counter, an album of photographs of a manuscript in Arabic script, labelled in French as a work on astrology. Since he didn't have a contact I suggested a couple of names at the Oriental Institute. I hope they don't get annoyed by random queries from bookshops. I was going to suggest the Weston Library or the London Library as other starting points.

So there is now a conversation class at work, pitched at exactly our level of forgetting and repetition:)

Small discoveries

I read the word 'imam' in a blog post, then realised that it comes from the same root as 'umm' and 'al-umam''. That's a satisfying feeling.

In order to do all this I needed to know the word to start with, the sound and the meaning. It's a common word here in the UK anyway, but reading it is a different step. Then putting two and two together is another step.

I can't follow the grammar and vocab well enough to follow a sentence, so I should pay more attention to the simpler email I get each day from an angel in the US somewhere: here is the latest one:

Arabic Blog

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Listen to Another Musical Arabic Masterpiece by Marcel Khalife Posted: 30 Jun 2015 11:37 AM PDT Marhaba! As you all by know by now, Marcel Khalife is one of the most respected and known musicians from the Arab world. He is actually one of my favorite artists. Today, I am sharing yet another beautiful ballad by this one-of-a-kind artist. This noteworthy masterpiece is called Ya Naseem el Reeh, which roughly translates to ‘Oh Soft Breeze.’ As always, I have added the song in the form of a YouTube video as well as the lyrics in Arabic. Similar to other musical posts, I have added the lyrics in Arabic so that you can follow and sing with Marcel and I have translated them to English so that you can learn what these beautiful lyrics mean. Click here to view the embedded video. مارسيل خليفة – يا نسيم الريح Marcel Khalife – Naseem El Reeh يا نسيم الريح ، قولي للرشا Oh soft breeze tell to the drizzle لم يزدني الورد إلا عطشا the rose didn’t bloom due to thirst لي حبيب حبه وسط الحشاI have a lover and his love is in the middle of my body organs إن يشا يمشي على خدي مشى If he wants to step on my cheeks, he would روحه روحي و روحي روحه His soul is my soul and my soul is his soul إن يشأ شئت و إن شئت يشاIf he desires, I desire and if I desire, he desires For now take care and stay tuned for upcoming posts! Happy Learning! Have a nice day!!نهاركم سعيد

I body-languaged a drunken man

How risky!

A man with a very red face was shouting at his woman in the street right outside the bookshop. After a bit he seemed to be showing no sign of stopping or of going somewhere else.

I stormed out, shutting the door behind me to let the reading continue. Without saying a word or making a sound I gave a massively threatening 'get out of it' whole body gesture at him in particular and the two of them in general.

I glared at them and watched him shift some yards to the side of the railings, where the row was still just as annoying to everyone.

I watched furiously for a while longer, still holding onto the door handle, then they went off.

It could have turned into a brawl, but I think he knew I just wanted him to shift his noisy awfulness somewhere else. The woman had a blank look to her face. She did look up at me, but was taking all this yelling as if it were a daily event in Walton Street.

I don't know whether to be shocked at myself for getting so angry or pleased that I sorted it out without any blood or 999 calls. Both. A doctor waiting to read his poetry got up to help me, but my friend said I'd be ok. Nice to know someone with plenty of Saturday nights on A & E was at hand if necessary to sit on the guy.

The un-buried

T and I drove down to the station, he was about to fly to Edinburgh.

I mentioned that he might fly over Haddington, where his great grandparents are un-buried, in coffins, but on a shelf in a crypt. His great aunt is there, her ashes in an urn on a shelf down there. My parents are planning to do this too. I am not so sure about this at all and have told my mother she can change her mind about it as many times as she likes.

Just to emphasise my dislike of ending up down there, I describe my ideal resting procedure: buried the next day, no hanging around in a freezer thanks, wrapped in a fur coat, cotton sheets, anything beautiful and biodegradable. Flowers all around, leaves, plus things like delicious strawberries!! Cherries even! I want to taste good and fresh for the worms and bugs :) I want the rain to seep down and the sunshine to land on the earth on top. I want to be close to thunderstorms and gentle breezes at dawn. All that.

The Lauderdale Aisle - an interactive view

St Mary's Haddington - general information

In the basement at parties - The mantlepiece again - ana qibla wuludaty, ila ummi, ma'a alqitt, 'caesar'

H is somewhere behind there. My friend from my Arabic classes was there too. We talked and didn't really pay full attention to the pictures. I think art galleries are for those at a loose end and with their full minds available. We just had a social time amongst the exhibits :)

H switched the lights on and off for fun. I took a little film of him appearing and disappearing again between the giant displays. It was very soothing down there in the basement. It could do with a couple of sofas for people like me to rest in, while thinking and making notes.

Another section of my parents' house. The sheep's skull used to be there for decades.. but is now up in my father's study. I can't tell who is in that little oval photo at the front, so will have to check next time I am there.

This is the best one. That photo of my mother resting with the cat Caesar while pregnant is one of my favourites. Guess what this says:

أنا قبل ولادتي، داخل والدتي، مع القط بجانبنا

Messy task, sweet opportunity

It was lovely to spend a couple of hours clearing out T's uni room and loading up the car. We had to be inventive, use a pillow case as a bin bag, find ways of opening doors with every arm filled with heavy things. I dropped a lamp base on my toes, but it hit all of them at once and the force was dissipated. T was proud to keep marked assessments showing lots of high marks. We agreed that teachers marking work are heroes.

His flat mates are so kind, holding doors open for us and making it easier.

Lots of sorting out and deciding. Lots of feeling tired, hot and sweaty. I told T to lie down on the bed at one point, just rest. I headed to his little bathroom and stopped thinking for a bit while cleaning the sink.

The car was so heavy I drove at 20 instead of 30. All those speed bumps.

(from several weeks ago)

Season of short films from Syria 1 of 4

Syrian Season part 1 of 4: 'Saturday Morning Gift' directed by Bassel Shahada.

...

'Uploaded on 30 Dec 2010

A short film based on a real interview with a kid survived the 2006 war on Lebanon.

This short produced as a part of the admission application for the MFA in Cinema.

The crew is simply me and my little talented cousin Ziad in his bedroom, we had to shoot the kitchen scene in 3 hours while his mother was out of the house.

Cast: Ziad Salame, Dina Bouz

Sound: Munsef Turkmani

Set Design Assistance: Layal Jazi

Director, Scriptwriter, Cameraman, and editor: Bassel Shahade

Music: under the roof by colleen, In a silent way by Miles Davis, Ana la Habibi by Fairuz

This is my first movie with a non actor kid, no lighting equipment, and without a shooting crew and I can proudly call it my first bad movie'

...

YOUTUBE.COM

...

Also posted on facebook in the Arabic Study Group - Oxford Area. It is always open to new members, as long as I know you in some way.

...

Who's this then? - Thank you - Infrared Thermometer - Moon lit night

Another go at writing a 3rd person bio:

'Sarah Maitland Parks got started by the man at the write-your-own-poem Tube Train tent at Poetry Parnassus in London 2012 and by taking part in the Modern and Contemporary American Poetry MOOC run by the University of Pennsylvania in 2013. She studies Arabic, loves encouraging other poets, and blogs at globeonmytable.'

Thank you

First poetry workshop, of a sort: A young man sat me down on a bale of straw with a sheet of blank paper on a hard surface with a pencil attached with a piece of string.  There were simple instructions on how to write a first poem, so I looked at the Thames and wrote about my mixed up weekend.

First reading I attended: Readers and organisers at the Migrant Resource Centre, 3 blocks from where I grew up. Iraqi man who chatted with me, but then said nothing, not a single physical response to my question: 'How's your Arabic?' His heart may well have just fallen shattered from its sockets, or I might have sounded a bit rude? I will never know. 

A household with sons

Means coming into the kitchen at 10pm  and being lasered to see what temperature I am. After a bit I use it to see how warm it is outside by aiming the red beam out of the window, 26c. Then I get all excited and stand outside aiming it into the night sky, 1c and -5c.

Moon

I am always going out with bags of rubbish. H tells me, you just fucked off and left me. I say yes, I am busy doing housework. Really, I'd been standing at the gateway listening to the quietness, feeling the night air moving. It is the 1st, so one breath is all the meditation I can do tonight. He had come out to find me, but didn't want to know about the bright moon light.

Experiments with 4 lines

Heat wave

A bit like Hong Kong
minus the humidity
the typhoons
and the downpours

Summer dress

My pregnancy dress
way more sheer
than I realise
I still wear it

Crammer

I owe so much
to those focused classes
graded homework
no assemblies

I can't remember
any of the teachers
only the drug addict
opposite me in French