Posted November 15, 2010
Arkansas Review :: Borderlands :: Cream City Review :: Descant :: Forklift, Ohio :: Front Porch :: The Main Street Rag :: Nimrod :: Phoebe :: Santa Monica Review :: The Sow's Ear Poetry Review :: Sycamore Review
Volume 41 Number 2
Review by Sima Rabinowitz
Formerly the Kansas Quarterly, this issue of the Arkansas Review features two essays, a memoir, a poem, one short story, and numerous reviews. I like the narrow double column format (found most commonly these days in newspapers and The New Yorker), which makes the analytical essays (“Ain’t No Burnin’ Hell: Southern Religion and the Devil’s Music” by Adam Gussow and “Farmers and Fastballs: The Culture of Baseball in Depression Era Northeast Arkansas” by Paul Edwards) highly readable. These essays are intelligent and informative, but not stuffy or opaque.
Margaret McMullan’s fiction “Insurance” is an affecting story about grief. CL Bledsoe’s personal essay/memoir of addiction, “The Shakes,” is smart and honest. Catharine Savage Brosman’s poem “Great Egret Feeding” is quiet and lovely:
In shallows near the bayou’s edge he feeds,
beyond the new bridge and the rippling bight –
attending to the keenest of his needs,
the daily tyranny of appetite.
Reviews include smart evaluations of books from major
university presses and independent presses on a wide variety of
Texas Poetry Review
Review by Sima Rabinowitz
The “borderlands” concept has never been more accurate. Along with a more general selection of more than 20 poets, this issue features a special section of “translingual poets,” defined as writers who “create in a language other than the one they were born into.” Editor Liliana Valenzuela praises the fine work of the translators whose work appears here alongside the originals and notes that many are gifted poets themselves. This issue also includes wonderful artwork by Liliana Wilson, terrific images with surreal elements, but wholly “real” human aspects that render the work both familiar and wondrous in the magical (but not silly or childish) sense of the word.
I appreciated the range of styles and voices in the poetry presented here. Highlights for me include “completely” by Charles Thomas, spare, elegant, direct, heart wrenching:
ribbons of read
sacrifices to lesser gods
And a poem built on the anaphoric use of “The End of Literature” by Irene O’Garden (“The End of Literature…is to attend a dazzly dinner / written in fiction, / cooked in truth, / and to feed on the people more / than the meal.”)
In the translingual section, I appreciated, above all, the dense lyricism of Peruvian poet Eduardo Chirinos in his poem “Poema de amor con rostro oscuro” / ”Love Poem with a Dark Face,” expertly translated by G.J. Racz; and Susanne Ayoub’s “Muchter & Trotte”/”Mother & Daughter,” with the wildly fabulous translation of Geoffrey C. Howes who successful captures Ayoub’s linguistic inventiveness (“nosear and yemouth / besistered daugtered / comorse”).
Ayoub’s poem ends “jaewig” (“ohforevery”). If it were not for
Borderlands, I would never know about Ayoub’s work.
Ohwhatpoetry – and wonderful literary journals like this one
– can do!
Volume 34 Number 1
Review by Tanya Angell Allen
Sarah Legow's cover art for the latest 245 page volume of Cream City Review depicts ordinary objects inside eggshells. One shell holds sand. Another holds fur. Others hold clock gears, cigarette butts, shells, and twine. It's oddly perfect for the issue, as Cream City is crammed with strange, good pieces that give magic-realistic tinges to ordinary and gritty subjects.
J. Weintraub’s domestic science fiction story “The Couch Club” is about a human woman’s marriage to a space alien. In Nicole Callihan's “Violet Egan and the Magic Circle,” a regretfully childless woman is haunted by a TV-watching ghost. Tim Wirkus’s dreamy crime story “Thirteen Virtues of a Colonial Detective” is broken into disjointed sections, giving it a graphic-novel like feel.
Cecilia Johnson has a number of paintings accompanied by fables. One is about Snow White and her Prince’s glass coffin fetish. Another two-sentence fable is about Little Bunny Foo Foo.
John Porcellino has an excellent portfolio of comics, many of which are about the philosopher Diogenes. Others are about cats, or the importance of looking at an anthill and thinking “nothing matters except this anthill.”
The magazine's poetry is consistently good. One of the take-away pieces is “The Stranger Experiment” by Lori Davis, based on a recent scientific study that proves that when two people are put into a dark empty room and assured anonymity, they will usually start groping each other. Anna Leahy’s “Rules for Writing a Poem” begins unremarkably: “Be uncanny and brilliant. Be remarkable.” It's then salted with footnotes, such as the one following an instruction to write deftly about one's father's death: “More deftly, according to Louise Gluck, than did Sharon Olds in The Father. Get to it before your dissertation director does in Keep This Forever because you cannot be as witty as he is. You will not do your father justice anyway. No one ever does.”
This issue also has the work of its Annual Literary Prize winners (Haines Eason in poetry, Eson Kim in creative nonfiction, and Roger Sheffer in Fiction,) plus Amy T. Olen's translation of Edgardo Rivera Martinez's "Azurita."
There's also an excellent flash nonfiction feature, including Katherine Riegel's "All The Love You Want" about a stranger who leaves a poorly written note in the writer's car ("u are so prety i wil pay u 1000 dollers for to our of yor tim") then helps her fix a flat tire. Another is Ken Brosky's "Amazon.com: The New Meta-fiction," about the "Three-Wolf Tee-Shirt" made famous by the mock-reviews random people wrote for it. Brosky clicks on connected links such as "Black Toilet Paper" and "Fresh Whole Rabbit" and writes, "by surfing from page to page I was literally piecing together little snippets of Meta-Fiction, creating my own story as I surfed the Web's most popular shopping site."
Brosky’s piece and the other essays, stories, poems, and
artworks in Cream City remind us of the beautiful and mad
bits of magic that can be made from ordinary life.
Volume 40 Number 3
Review by Tanya Angell Allen
In "The Last Jesus I Know Of – " a nonfiction piece from Descant's "Writers in Prison" issue – Stephen Reid writes "amongst living books, the shape of your world can shift a thousand times, one for each title, or be changed forever in a single page. In its own way, the prison library is more dangerous than the big yard."
This issue of Descant also has the power to change the shape of reader's worlds by shifting the way they think about prisons. Billed as the first of Descant's fortieth anniversary celebration volumes, this 150th issue was inspired when an editorial assistant noticed a large number of submissions coming from prisoners in Canada and the United States and suggested a themed issue.
It's hard not to keep a thumb in the contributor's page and constantly checking out the author backgrounds while reading this issue. One of the well-done, gritty but slightly romantic stories by a writer who (unless she doesn’t acknowledge it in her biographical notes) has never been to prison is by Yvonne Stiver. Her story "These Strange Days in Captivity" is about a woman wrongly imprisoned for terrorism who begins a sexual relationship with a visiting Catholic priest. Mark Strong also has a good story called "Devlin & Carl." In it, a blind man has his young cell mate read to him, and helps him find metaphorical freedom via The Odyssey and other books.
Several of the other authors have run writing workshops for prisoners. Dorothy Field has a pair of poems called "Volunteers: Who We Are" ("faded / women hungry for a hug, sensitive New Age / guys afraid to live in their pants, nuns, school / marms") and "Inside Guys: Who They Are." ("Murderers, rapists, thieves, dope pushers, great / cooks, guys who can barely open a can of beans, / bored out of their tree, drunk on learning"). "The Missing Picture" is Finn Clarke's simple story of a photographer who directs two elderly people to the prison that holds their son.
Then there’s the fascinating work created by the presently-incarcerated. In "Putting Myself Out There," James Wiley renders a heartbreaking series of memories leading to his killing four family members at age fifteen. Charles Bronson has several surreal, disturbing and colorful illustrations of prison life. Saint James Harris Wood has two typewritten letters sent from California Men's Colony. He talks there of trying to find a new place for writing after being transferred out of a prison where he wrote in the NEA funded Arts in Corrections program.
Former prisoner Rubin "Hurricane" Carter, who was falsely accused and imprisoned for murder, writes with Ken Klonsky in "Surviving Prison" that "When we make it impossible for people to be anything but criminals, they tend to live down to our beliefs; when we encourage, work with and believe in them, they tend to rise to our expectations."
This issue of Descant shows the humanity of the
incarcerated and the power of literature to help them reform,
heal, and survive. It’s an issue that should be circulated
widely in the hope of raising expectations.
Review by Sima Rabinowitz
It sounds huge – Forklift. It’s subtitled as if the description was written after a night of heavy drinking – A Journal of Poetry, Cooking & Light Industrial Safety. It’s quirky – for example, section titles from the TOC: A Precaution in Planting; Fresh from the Nursery; Animals in the Garden; Sprinkling vs. Watering; and so forth. It looks fun, with whacky illustrations and graphics. It feels small – Forklift fits in one palm. It’s all of these things. And none of them. And you should take it seriously, even if it does its level best to dissuade you from doing so, at least at first glance.
Heavy lifting worth paying attention to includes sudden fiction by Jenn Scheck-Kahn, “Uncorked (“Food cramps Franklin. He is hungry before he paints, but after it, he’s full. If he eats early, there’s no space for painting. It’s that simple.”), a poem by Nicholas Gulig, “Traveling” (“How could one not want this if it is / real this particle of sparrow / light this metal / fence between the shadow of / the city and the field if we are listening”), a translation of a poem by the prolific and much-admired Slovenian poet Tomaz Salamun from Michael Thomas Taren, “The Work on a Platform”; and several poems by Adam Clay and by Cynthia Arrieu-King.
Much of the work in the journal (though not the pieces cited above) are, indeed, quirky, and there is an equal measure of fun and drama – “the world’s no longer really ours,” concludes poet Thera Webb in “One Way the World Will End.”
And, yes, there are recipes: Melissa Barrett provides her versions of Vegetarian Pink Bean & Red Pepper Stew, and Easy Australian Lemonade Scones; and Cate Peeble gives us Sunday Lentil Soup Redux. These featured alongside Matthew Pitt’s story “Appetites,” a mock restaurant review.
Matt Reeck’s short story, “The Undertow of the World,” a
series of short numbered fragments, epitomizes the journal’s
sensibility and captures its tone precisely: “Seven cars pass
through one gate. They contain thirteen nations. Each nation
owns one vegetable. One vegetable is bountiful in its nation. To
seize each vegetable. To cease each nation.” Seize your fork and
Review by Henry F. Tonn
This journal is run by the MFA students at Texas State University and was founded in 2006. Each edition produces some combination of fiction, nonfiction, book reviews, interviews, poetry, and audio/videos.
I thoroughly enjoyed “The Many Fictions of Mustafa Kahraman” by Benjamin Doty, which begins “The day before the secret police arrested him, Mustafa Kahraman sat with Ahmet Gül over glasses of tea and contemplated the many lies of his life at a small Istanbul café.” I was less impressed, however, with “Red Rover, Red Rover,” by Rene Saldana, Jr., the story of a man who kills his ex-wife and her male friend in a fit of rage and then tries to flee to Mexico. This kind of plot is not only trite and well-worn, but is presented in neither a fresh nor an innovative way.
I was knocked over by Albert Abonado’s poem “In a Field Called Vietnam.” Lugubrious poetry at its best, transcendental:
Sometimes, I have
two mothers. I'm not sure which one
was the one I once saw holding
the hole in the neck of a man
dying in a field. I saw the hole
grow teeth and now the man travels
around the country talking
out the back of his head with two
voices: the bored voice
and the surviving voice,
and when he asks for water
his mother tilts his head back
toto let the air out of his brain.
There are excellent, very professional reviews of books written by or about luminaries such as Raymond Carver (A Writer’s Life, by Carol Sklenicka, reviewed by William Jensen), Alice Munroe (Too Much Happiness, reviewed by David Norman), and Anne Frank (another one about Anne Frank??), (Anne Frank: the Book, the Life, and the Afterlife, by another luminary Francice Prose; reviewed by Daniel Keltner) and more obscure writers such as H. L Humes. Humes, whose massive tome, The Underground City, about World War II, plus his gradual descent into madness, is expertly delineated by Evan McMurry. It did not make me want to read the book, but I was certainly impressed with the review.
I finish with another poem: “Grace,” by Jennifer Wrisley:
Grace is the egret, whose legs stream behind
like thin ropes when flying.
Or maybe, grace is the act of looking
when the head wants to turn. Grace in the sky,
and grace on earth: on earth, sometimes, it is
wanting the truth, and this, a small act of mercy.
Jennifer Wrisley took her own life at age thirty, the victim of chronic pain and seizures for many years.
Life is not fair.
Volume 15 Number 3
Review by Sima Rabinowitz
This issue is consistent with Main Street’s approach both to the mag and its chapbook series, direct, approachable poems and stories composed of casual diction, conversational tones, and familiar imagery. This issue features an interview with Main Street chapbook author Richard Allen Tyler, along with the work of 28 poets and a half-dozen fiction writers. The work of four photographers rounds out the issue. I liked, in particular, “A Pike’s Peak Spring” from M. Scott Douglass, clouds and snow gathered on and around railroad tracks captured at a moment of altering textures, depicted expertly in the photograph.
David Wortman’s story about cashing out to close another day in the retail world, “We’re Co-Workers, We’ll Co-Narrate,” is especially appealing, demonstrating the power of understatement: “The story I want to tell is big, with betrayals and love and murder, but my baby is sick and not getting better.” A poem by Fiona Sze-Lorrain, “Invisible Eye,” is moving, too, for its restraint. Here are the opening lines:
chalks the skeletons
of houses. I pry
open doors of dusk.
Every tree helps me
pick my way
Sze-Lorrain contributes my favorite of the many love poems in this issue, too, “Fragile”: “The sea under our bed / holds immensity for sleepless / hours.”
My favorite of the many poems on aging parents and family matters is Heather Ross Miller’s “Visiting Hours,” which captures the particular experience of the nursing home visit with precision. And my favorite views-of-nature contribution is actually one artist’s view of another’s, “Paintings” by Patricia Behrens.
Having just spent most of yesterday afternoon stuck just past the last toll booth going north toward Manhattan on the New Jersey Turnpike, courtesy of a (rented) broken down Toyota Sienna, I was, naturally, amused to read “A Brush with Reality in the Form of a Toyota Sienna” by Scott Owens:
The high-maintenance girls run by
my minivan, fuel-efficient, 8-seated
15 cup-holdered, easily-cleaned conveyance,
as I balance keys, cellphone, and morning
cup of coffee, a venti breve latte
with shots of Irish crème and crème de cacao,
a Becky’s Mozart they call it Taste Full
(2 words) Beans Coffeehouse (1 word)
the owner reminds me again.
I could have used that Becky’s Mozart while I waited for the
tow truck on the Turnpike shoulder.
Volume 54 Number 1
Review by Sima Rabinowitz
Nimrod’s eagerly anticipated annual awards issue features prize winners, finalists, semi-finalists, and honorable mentions in the Pablo Neruda Prize for Poetry and Katherine Anne Porter Prize for Fiction: Terry Blackhawk, Shannon Robinson, Harry Bauld, Lydia Kann, Dan Kelty, Deborah DeNicola, Morris Collins, Sue Pace, Jude Nutter, Francine Marie Tolf, Ed Frankel, William Pitt Root, Laura LeCorgne, Andrea L. Watson, Usha Akella, Mark Wagenaar, Kate Fetherston, and Pamela Davis. Their work is accompanied by poems and stories by several dozen other poets and prose writers, including the amazingly prolific poet Linda Pastan, widely published poet Richard Terrill, and several fine translations of poetry originally published in Turkish and German.
I liked, in particular, Lydia Kann’s story “The Arrival,” with its short narrative fragments and approachable prose: “The bus is smoking as it pulls into the slot between a Greyhound and Trailways. Not like Camels, mind you. Fumes.” Kann’s story begins with casual, conversational assurance and ends with lyrical impact. I appreciated Margarite Lindry’s story “Panic,” for much the same reasons, a story that amounts to more than the sum of its parts.
Poetry, prize-winning or not, is characterized by sharp focus on detail; cautious diction; and attention to sound. Melancholy, longing, and lost opportunity are prevalent themes, along with wistful nature scenes and poignant family stories. Here is an excerpt from Rebecca Hazelton’s “[The Birds Begun at Four o’clock – ]”:
This is not the dark wood, or the midway
ha-ha stumbled over. The birds
eke out a song over the din of leaf
And here is another from Amorak Huey’s poem “Crossing the Cahaba River on a Fallen Tree, My Brother Breaks His Arm”:
I don’t remember Silas falling,
though he did and I was there
so must have seen. I don’t remember
his landing or lying on a bed of creekstones,
though he must have. I remember
the water oak’s dirt-caked roots
spidering into the air, this giant
ripped free from its tethers,
and the cold breaking of the spring river
around my fist,
A number of extremely fine black and white photographs appear
at the end of literary contributions, including “Dancing
Whooping Cranes,” by Alice Lindsay Price, which captures the
birds lifting off from the water, wings about to open, and
poised for flight.
Volume 39 Number 2
Review by Lesley Dame
When I received phoebe, I was struck by the name. Phoebe was one of the Titan gods and for some time was in control of the Delphic Oracle. She’s been called Goddess of Wise Counsel, Thoughtful Replies, and Snappy Answers. What a great name for a journal! I though with glee. I began reading with an earnest hopefulness that phoebe would turn out to be wise, intelligent, and quirky. Was she ever!
The poetry in phoebe is colossal, by which I mean exceptional and demanding. Image-driven, mysterious, and contemplative, they urge you to slow down.
I could spend a day or two just pondering some of the more bizarre images. Take, for example,
sullen mermaids, angels washing
their underwear, the sea rising, trees
singing as they die, & feathers.
These lines come from an untitled poem by Emily Carr. It’s gorgeous and odd, a mixture of heaven, earth, and ocean. These are images I could never dream up, and yet, Carr places them neatly on the page. Forgive me, Carr, but what I get from these amazing images is a mixture of joy and pain, ordinary and extraordinary. For me, this poem is about the delicate balance of life, the sorrows we endure, and the hope we have for the future.
A second, shorter poem that is just as lovely and slightly more accessible is called “Your Name: An Aerie.” Written by Aran Donovan, it’s the winner of the Greg Grummer Poetry Prize. It begins, “I make a nest for your name. I weave / around it needles, pine, the down of a vest.” The gesture of creating a nest to cradle someone’s name, someone’s identity, is heart-warming. The unique images make this poem so much more than a kind of love poem. It’s both tender and raw.
After you’ve spent some time digging around the poetry in phoebe, don’t put your shovel away. The fiction is equally fascinating and less abstract. One story, called “Today is a Fish” by Rachel Khong, is about a neurotic woman who dates a drunken fisherman. Nothing much happens, but the writing is fabulous, and the story depicts a sense of loneliness and longing.
Another interesting story, Samantha Erin Tetangco’s “Asking For It,” is about a transgendered couple living in Albuquerque. Dust becomes a symbolic third character, a lingering heaviness that makes it impossible for the couple to shake their pasts.
Lastly, the story that moved me most is called “Good Morning Beautiful,” by Roya Khatiblou. It’s about Arsham, an Iranian pre-med student attending Loyola in Chicago. He’s lonely and alienated, doing poorly in school and almost starving as he tries to stretch out his student loans. His landlord, Lenny, is a bit of a mess as well. From a terrific stench in the hallway, they deduce that the elderly woman next door has died. Lenny wants to look for money in her apartment before calling the cops. Arsham is appalled, but he needs that money, too. What happens in the final scene is both macabre and inspirational.
After reading the magazine, I’m totally down with the title.
Phoebe is not only a Titan among journals, it’s
down-to-earth and intellectually stimulating, a difficult
combination to achieve. I don’t know how the journal really got
its name, but I know one goddess who’s softly chuckling her
Volume 22 Number 2
Review by Sima Rabinowitz
This issue of the Santa Monica Review features eleven stories introduced by a brief excerpt from each of the contributors (“Ab Intra”). The journal’s website describes its contents as fiction and nonfiction, though there is no genre classification in the TOC or the pages of the magazine. I’m tempted to refer to every entry simply as a “story” (real or imagined), though some pieces clearly do read more like fictive creations and others like “lived tales,” beginning with the opening piece in the issue, “Expert Opinion,” by Michelle Latiolais, a story about suicide, medical malpractice, and the fatal consequences of “adverse” reactions to commonly prescribed drugs.
One of the journal’s strengths is the range of subjects featured in the stories, from Judith Grossman’s personal account of time spent in the Israeli desert, to Christian A. Winn’s story of family, gambling, and losing one’s way through young adulthood; to Stephanie Kerley Schwartz’s prose-poem-y/sudden-fiction-like half-page, “Crow”: “She makes a plan to befriend a single crow.”
I was moved, in particular, by Michael Guista’s story, “Till Death do Us Part,” the strikethrough the literal embodiment of the story’s message; and by Karl Taro Greenfeld’s “Mickey Mouse,” the story of a Japanese painter in WWII. This is my favorite piece in the issue, though overall every piece is strong and the writing solid. Taro Greenfeld’s story is unique, original, emotionally satisfying, unexpected and unpredictably plotted. It is something of a relief, as well as immensely pleasurable, to read an original plot with uncommon characters, scenes, and situations. The prose is not unconventional and nothing about the author’s style or narrative tactics is particularly unusual or inventive, and neither need to be anything more than they are, a good – and interesting – story, told well.
A terrific reminder that there is more going in the world –
and in the history of the world – than the disaffection of
youth, the inertia of middle age, and aging parents.
Volume 20 Number 2
Review by Sima Rabinowitz
The magazine’s contest winner Dean Rader is joined by two dozen poets and a marvelous “Crossover” feature, “Book Sculptures” by Samantha Y. Huang, photo reproductions of exactly what the title of her work denotes, pages, spines, covers, words/text the stuff of three dimensional “ideas.” Poems in this issue, like Huang’s book sculptures, aim to reshape the way we think about spaces, places, and the capacity of language to capture unique angles.
Contest judge Kelly Cherry’s choice of “Hesiod in Oklahoma, 1934,” Dean Rader’s prize-winning poem is an excellent one. Rader’s poem is original, intellectually satisfying, sophisticated, and serious. I appreciate his attention to sound, his idiosyncratic lyricism, and his consistent and focused commitment to the poem’s vision. Rader never loses sight of the poem’s purpose and never releases his hold on a particular style of diction. Above all, the poem is incredibly satisfying rhythmically.
There is always the grass ahead of him on and on :
and behind him the grass the gouged skin they strip it from:
saltspiked and silty, endless and unending;
their labor the field’s body, the field’s body their stale host.
…furrowed and famished: find the poet swathed in dirt: inscrutable and silent:
I was moved by the emotional urgency in poems by Rebecca Warren (“The River in Rain”) and Robert Murdock (“Mucking It”), whose poem concludes: “Here’s an old entry / in the encyclopedia of what to do right now.” I kept coming back to this wonderful phrase again and again.
This issue also includes a number of fine works of art,
although it is not always easy to tell from these mini
reproductions what the originals are (drawings, paintings,
etc.). I loved Nerida de Jong’s “Playing Cards,” two female
figures (one older, one younger) in a slumber-party like image
of great texture, and “Furrows and Clouds” by Martin Sturgess, a
farm field and clouds that captures the way in which sky and
earth can seem to merge in certain landscapes.
Volume 22 Issue 2
Review by Sima Rabinowitz
Amber Albrecht’s intricately composed, enticing drawings, more than two-dozen of which appear in the magazine as well as on the front and back covers, are representative of the work in this issue. You want to look more closely, find out more, figure out why a tree is sprouting from the back of a dress or from the chimney of a house. These images and perspectives are hard to classify. They’re not whimsical or playful so much as intensely of-the-moment, heightened in a familiar, but somewhat mysterious manner. They seduce with a kind of welcoming strangeness, a dress that looks like an egg from which the figure is hatched, a patch of ground that resembles a flying carpet, and titles like “People Who Are Not Like Us,” a short story by Brock Clarke. The opening of the story, too, captures the spirit of magazine as a whole: “Rupert goes first. Rupert’s real name is Shamequa, but we call her Rupert because one of the things we do is give black women the names of white men.” An irresistibly original beginning.
Stories by Adam Prince, Kerry Jones, and Shannon Robinson, and an essay by Lisa Lee (“Dear Mary Wang”) are similarly appealing, narrated in original voices in casual, well- paced prose with seductive beginnings. The work of nearly two-dozen poets is consistent with this editorial predilection, approachable poems, familiar, yet new, mingling popular references with mythological ones, and daily experience with deeper concerns. Here, for example, are the first two stanzas of Dawn Lonsinger’s “Orpheus XXX”:
In this version you don’t look back
and does this mean that I escape into
the light, that we might frolic there?
or that I’m released into the whole-
hearted solitude of being?
You never look back, slip like wet clay,
your arm already around another life,
your Saab in the driveway, your head in the hollow
of her unerring clavicle, your body like any other point along the dim horizon.
Produced at Purdue University, two interviews transcribed from live events at the university appear, as well, in this issue. Poet Eleanor Wilner, who I’m happy to learn has a new book coming out, reminds us that it’s poetry’s “sudden insights” that have the power to change the way we think or look at the world (“The mind is amazing, and largest when discovering our smallness.”) Fiction writer Benjamin Percy explains how he revises to change voices and context until he finds the story he wants to tell. (“The whale becomes a bear.”)
Michelle Chan Brown’s poem “Hypnosis” concludes: “When we
wake up, we’ll remember everything.” You may not remember
everything in this issue of Sycamore Review, but I’m
pretty sure you’ll find much of it memorable.


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Your Children Can Learn From the Great Teacher
Children listened with fascination to the things taught them by Jesus Christ because he was able to make things simple and easily understood. He taught his listeners fine moral principles and Scriptural truths. He gave them a deep appreciation_ for their Creator and a confident hope for the future.
As children in the first century benefited from his teaching, so your children can today. This is possible with the help of the fine book “Listening to the Great Teacher.”
In simple terms this impressive hard-covered book presents in forty-six short chapters and in 192 pages many of the things that Jesus taught. It is designed for you to read with your children and helps you to take a personal interest in impressing right principles on their minds.
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Please send me Listening to the Great Teacher, for which I enclose 25c.
[Picture on page 32]
“Let the young children come to me, and do not try to stop them.”—Luke 18:16.


A discussion of the very rapid growth of the early United States; Its economic dynamism, political development, population growth and its immense territorial expansion. Also, how we simultaneously grew, in symbiosis, as a slave society and how, following on this, our new Constitution sanctioned slavery. Then how this system so heavily impacted and actually controlled much of our history and, almost from the beginning, created an increasingly bitter, relentless and unresolvable controversy. We’ll look at slavery’s direct relation to the annexation of Texas, the war with Mexico that resulted from it, and the chasm between pro and anti-slavery advocates that grew over the territories we took from Mexico. Whether they would be “slave” or “free.” We will follow how these increasingly divisive arguments led to secession and the Civil War. We will conclude with the war’s aftermath: Reconstruction and its collapse, the creation of the three “Civil War amendments,” the resumption of white supremacist control in the South and the creation of the Jim Crow regime that led to the effective re-subjugation of the four million newly freed people.


(This essay is in commemoration of the birth centenary this year of Bangabandhu Sheikh Mujibur Rahman, Bangladesh’s Father of the Nation; and the fiftieth anniversary of the making of Zahir Raihan’s Stop Genocide, with which the history of short filmmaking in Bangladesh begins.)
A road accident on August 19, 2011, robbed Bangladesh of its most exceptional filmmaker, and this writer of a dear friend, Tareque Masud. With his death at the age of fifty-four, the secular and democratic forces in that country suffered a huge loss. The many recognitions he received at home and abroad, including Cannes and Karachi, speak their own story of Tareque as an artist, but what still haunts me, nine years after his passing on, is the thought that I will never again come across that wonderful smile of his, his comradely greeting, and that firm handshake that told you that you mattered to him.
My mind goes back to a session of films from Bangladesh held in 1991 at Nandan, the West Bengal Film Centre in Calcutta, in commemoration of the 20th anniversary of the War of Liberation. The session, entitled Bangladesher Hridoy Hotey (From Bangladesh, Heartfelt), consisted of short fiction, documentaries and an animation film. To enliven the screenings and the discussions that followed, came the then young trio of the ever-youthful Tareque Masud, the scholarly-looking Tanvir Mokammel, and the strikingly-quiet Morshedul Islam.
From that session the film that impressed my friends and me the most was Tareque’s hour-long colour documentary, Adam Surat (The Inner Strength). This biopic, which was anything but a biopic, has the same special place in my heart today as it did when I first saw it. Tareque started on his filmmaking career with this engaging essay on the life, times and art of the maverick painting genius, Sheikh Muhammad Sultan(1923-1994), a household name in Bangladesh. If the film records with considerable control over the medium, the many dimensions of the artist and the many directions he travelled only to return to the strength and vitality of his grassroot moorings, it reflects no less the unshakeable faith of a young documentarian in the greatness and usefulness of such a life complete with a tenaciously held belief in a composite culture and society.
Having set out to do a ‘quickie’ (by the director’s own admission) on an artist looked upon by some as an exotic being or an extreme eccentric, and by still others as a playful, innocent child, Tareque found himself increasingly drawn into the irresistible labyrinth of Sultan’s world. Started in 1982, the documentary ultimately took seven years to complete. Financial difficulties were partly to explain for the inordinate time it took to complete the film, but that was only a part of the story. As day after day of shooting passed, the curiosity of the vicarious onlooker came to be emphatically replaced by a firm involvement in Sultan’s sense of time, space, rhythm, structure and comradeship. The deep respect that Tareque gradually came to have for his lofty yet down-to-earth subject was reflected in many decisions regarding what to include in the film and what to leave out.
For instance, initially, the androgynous aspect to Sultan’s persona asked to be included. There was a period in the painter’s life when he was given to roaming his ancestral village of Narail in Jessore district of Bangladesh dressed as Radha. He would wear a sari, put ghoongroos on his feet and feathers in his long hair. After prolonged mental wrestling, Tareque decided against including this in his film, fearing that it might turn this eclectic spirit into a market commodity to be lapped up by ignorant and impressionable audiences, particularly in the West.
Tareque: “I also felt that there were far more important things to show and tell viewers about Sultan, such as his quiet but intense nationalist spirit, his empathy for the poor farmer and his family, his secularism which comes to him as easily as his breathing and, of course, his robust and colourful canvases which are almost always about his country’s brave and hardworking yet desperately poor farming brothers and sisters.”
There is an epic quality as much about Sultan the man as about his paintings. Son of a poor mason, Sultan lacked formal schooling. However, thanks to the active interest shown in his welfare by the scholar and art critic Shaheed Suhrawardy, Sultan gained admission to Government Art College in Calcutta. After three years he left studies to explore the vastness of (undivided) India and spent a few years in Kashmir. Later, he travelled through the United States and Europe, and earned fame as a painter. He was at the height of his reputation in Europe when suddenly, Sultan decided to return to his native village in what had by then become East Pakistan, as far away from the glamour of the international art world as one can think of. A fresh period of meditation began in Sultan’s reclusive life. He isolated himself in the dilapidated remains of a deserted temple surrounded by thick weeds and many trees. He began to live with a large family of cats and was looked after by a poor widow and her daughters who had none to call their own. In one of the many delightful passages in the film, Tareque shows us Sultan’s long tresses being oiled and combed by the woman who was like a sister to him. Compassion and comradeship come together more than once in Sultan’s life to give new meanings to the institution of family.
Gradually, Sultan also developed a close relationship with the peasants of the area, sharing in their daily pains and struggles. During this period of self-exile, his attitude towards life and art underwent a deep transformation. He was profoundly affected by the social upheavals of the Liberation War and the assertive spirit of Bengali nationalism. At about this time a new spectacular dimension began to manifest itself in his art. It was with his epic paintings on the life of the Bengali peasantry that he re-entered the art world with an exhibition in Dhaka in 1976, his first in twenty-five years.
Tareque: “Sultan resembled the Sufi mystic of yore in many ways. His disinterest in money or fame, in material success in any form, made him give away countless paintings, each worth hundreds of thousands of takas, to anyone asking for them. The drawing room of many a Dhaka culture-vulture is adorned with a Sultan obtained without paying anything. Once I found him protecting himself from the rain using one of his paintings as an umbrella.”
Sultan’s larger-than-life peasant figures are strong and proud; big-built and muscular; strikingly colourful and in harmony with the green and brown of the fields they sow and reap. The huge canvases are a conscious and deliberate attempt at celebrating the rural ethos, the pastoral way of life. They glorify the titanic struggle waged by farming families to feed and keep alive the nation. In their own way, the paintings are a critique of the rural-urban divide that almost always works against the interests of villagers. The bulging muscles and exaggerated postures of the farmers are, in a sense, a great artist’s oblique condemnation of a grossly unjust system, reflections of which are increasingly in evidence in Bangladesh’s neighbours as well. Sultan’s farmers are indeed mythical creatures belonging to a feverish imagination and a stout conscience that seem to be mocking at official protestations of concern for them. There is about Adam Surat an air of free enquiry into the quiet, necessarily austere lifestyle of a man of the earth who happened to be gifted in a very special way – the way of brush and paints. In Tareque’s hands, the life of this rare person came to blend harmoniously with the lush greenery that surrounded him, producing a portrait of the artist in a state of childlike purity. This is a ‘must see’ film for anyone who feels strongly drawn to the poetry of Nature and the ability of Man to add to that poetry by the exertions of his imagination. Films such as Adam Surat provide sustenance for the soul in a world burdened with avoidable ambitions. The artistic and philosophical importance of this documentary is in direct proportion to the growing spiritual blight that has set in the country of its origin. The sensitive viewer may even be tempted to imagine Sultan turning and twisting in his grave at what more than one generation of Bangladesh leaders have done to the legacy of liberation fashioned out of extreme adversity by the nation’s founding fathers.
That 1991 package, which we saw with extreme interest, included Ganatantra Mukti Paak (Let there be Democracy), Tareque’s second work for the big screen. This is a three-minute silent animation film which narrated the history of Bangladesh by means of icons, images and motifs that keep visually changing all the while. This is the first animation film by a Bangladesh artist and is dedicated to the memory of Noor Hossain, who gave his life opposing the dictatorship of General Ershad. The film begins with the partition of India in 1947 (actually the partition of only Bengal and Punjab) and the birth of Pakistan. It then shifts to the momentous language movement of 1952 and the rise of Bengali nationalism. What follow carry echoes of familiar events as also of political or military figures – the army takeover in Pakistan; Yahya Khan’s crackdown on East Pakistan; the historic emergence of Bangladesh; and the reappearance of military rule and religious fundamentalism in post-liberation Bangladesh.
Tareque: “The role of imperialism bolstering the Ershad regime is juxtaposed with the heroic death of Noor Hossain, a working class youth who braved the junta’s guns. Hossain had taken to the street with the words, ‘Down with Autocracy’ emblazoned on his bare chest, and ‘Let there be Democracy’ on his back.”
Tareque tried his hand at other subjects as well, which should not be seen in isolation but as part of the overall need for greater freedom for the masses to experience equality and enjoy the fruits of liberation. A video documentary on gender violence, called Sonar Beri (Chains of Gold) was followed by another documentary – Ah! America – which records the attraction that many men and women in one of the poorest countries on earth feel for the richest and most powerful which is also the most violent and exploitative, especially towards poor and helpless immigrants from the East. Tareque knew what he was talking about, married as he was to an American film animator and editor, and spending some time each year in the United States. This enabled him to see through some of the most vigorously touted features of American society. He deplored the heartlessness with which the American nation exploited cheap immigrant labour to enrich itself more and more. At the same time, it pained him to see, as he put it, ‘how these immigrants are willing to demean themselves to gain entry into the United States or to stay on at the cost of their dignity and self-respect’.
Almost a quarter century after the birth of Bangladesh, Tareque with his wife Catherine, created a documentary called Muktir Gaan (Song of Freedom) which drew its inspiration from the memory and example of martyrs like Zahir Raihan. Based on ‘extraordinary footage from an extraordinary time’, Muktir Gaan (35 mm, colour, 80 minutes, 1995) is about a group of Bengali cultural activists which travelled through refugee camps and battle zones during the war of 1971, performing songs and skits that expressed the deep emotional attachment that Bengalees have to their land and culture. The feeling with which they sang the songs of Tagore, Nazrul, D L Roy, Gurusaday Dutta, Jyotirindra Moitra, Moshad Ali and Sikander Abuzafar moved teenage fighters of the Mukti Bahini (Liberation Fighters) and old peasants alike. The troop also enacted meaningful skits which combined with the songs to inspire the people.
The documentary itself has a history no less tortuous or triumphant than that of the Liberation Movement, a slice of which it depicts. An American film crew shot some twenty hours of footage capturing the daily experience of the troupe (the Free Bangladesh Cultural Squad), but their film was never completed. Muktir Gaan incorporates much of the original footage besides collecting archival material from all over the world to tell the story of the Liberation War to those who went through it and, in a sense more importantly, to the generations born after the war. Through the eyes of the troupe members – men and women, Muslim and Hindu – the film portrays the spirit of solidarity that brought together an entire nation plunged into indescribable suffering. Characterised by rigorous editing and imaginative reconstruction of real-life events, this remarkable narrative documentary relies as much on some moving testimonies from those who participated in the war as on soul-stirring songs and music.
Tareque: “Arguably, no film on the Liberation War, documentary or drama, has evoked the kind of frenzied enthusiasm in Bangladesh as Muktir Gaan. Thousands of men and women of all ages, classes and persuasions thronged the theatres of Dhaka and other cities and towns to see the film. The BNP government of Begum Khaleda Zia tried to suppress the film with the result that more and more citizens bought tickets to the screenings.”
Memories crowd in on me as I recall my first conversations with Tareque during and in the aftermath of that 1991 session of Bangladesh films. Whilst having food at a wayside eatery in the Free School Street area of Calcutta, known for its second-hand bookshops, foreign tourists with limited means, and sex-workers catering to all tastes and classes, Tareque told me how for sometime past he had been thinking of doing a full-length fictional feature with autobiographical elements. He said the proposed film would be as much about himself as a small boy as about his father who started out as an atheist, but somewhere along the line succumbed to the temptations of fundamentalism. Tareque believed that apart from his own self, his mother, too, suffered greatly on account of the sea-change in his Presidency College-educated father’s beliefs and lifestyle.
Matir Moina (The Clay Bird) was the name that Tareque gave to that film when it finally came to be made more than ten years after that conversation in the eatery – about himself and his friends at the madrasa to which he was forcibly sent, his father, his suffering but quietly disapproving mother, his little sister who had to pay with her life for the father’s obstinate ways, his uncle who was the antithesis of the father, and above everything else about a nation on the boil clamouring for freedom from a cruel oppressor.
Matir Moina went on to be screened at many prestigious film festivals and earned an international reputation that no film from Bangladesh has equalled to date. In Cannes, it received a standing ovation and won the international critics’ prize. The depth of feeling and the artistic excellence with which the film portrayed the anguish in the soul of a divided family at a time of nationwide upheaval, were amply recognised and richly rewarded. Comparing Tareque’s debut in fiction with the best of Satyajit Ray and Abbas Kiarostami, critics heralded the arrival of a talent that promised to grow from strength to strength.
It is an uncanny feeling to watch how exceptional artists separated by great distances are, however, often united in telling common stories. If the toy clay-bird in Matir Moina is a metaphor for the missing sister, a similar metaphor binding a brother and a sister is to be found in an animation film from Maharashtra made some years before the celebrated Bangladesh film. Shilpa Ranade’s Mani’s Dying is based on an extract from the Marathi novel Kosala (The Cocoon) by the noted writer Bhalchandra Nemade. The film tells the story of a young man who leaves his village to go to study in Pune. Life in the city alienates him from his home. The film is a reconstruction in crayons, pencils and photographs of events surrounding the death of the protagonist’s five year old sister in a small pox epidemic in their village. At the end of the film, the protagonist goes to the cave monastery at Ajanta where, through the painted stories from the life and teachings of Buddha, he comes to terms with death and suffering.
Mani’s Dying (1995, 16mm, 7.12 minutes, English) is a very personal attempt at reading meanings both poignant and profound in the lives of the little girl Mani and her big brother who finds the time to take her seriously only after she is dead of a scourge which is far from gone from the neglected interior of the country. It is a wrenching experience to grow with the brother as he recollects his failure to bring Mani a red sari which he had promised her. The unrealised red sari works as a moving symbol for the painfully and prematurely terminated life of little Mani. Again, the photographs at the close of the film showing Mani’s sisters getting married underline the pathos in the life of the absent one. Mani’s Dying is small only in duration. In every other way, be it in terms of art, technique or statement, it is big and beautiful; sadly and disturbingly beautiful.
It is not known whether Bhalchandra Nemade is telling an autobiographical story, but Tareque’s seriously sick sister actually died due to their father’s obstinacy not to treat her illness with western medicine which he seems to have thought of as the devil’s invention. In course of the last conversation I had with Tareque in Calcutta, he told me that his mother had never forgiven his father for having caused the death of the child. Tareque himself appeared to have softened, saying that the old man was in the last leg of his life’s journey and appeared to be full of remorse for what he had done. But there was nothing that he or anyone else in the family could do to bring round his mother to their point of view. Catherine was by his side as he remembered the past and connected it to the present in a wistful tone. The death of such a one asTareque Masud who symbolised a rare genius for carving lasting art out of individual traumas and collective tragedies, is a loss that no language can adequately express.
Distinguished as he was, it is however arguable whether Tareque would have turned out the way he did if he had had to plough a lonely furrow. Artists, more than others, flourish in packs. They gain their inspiration, their urge to excel, and a shoulder to cry on from each other. To arrive at a credible and provocative evaluation of Tareque’s body of work, it is necessary to place by its side the films of at least two of his contemporaries – Tanvir Mokammel and Morshedul Islam. In a sense they are all chroniclers of death. The War of Liberation is a subject that has been repeatedly visited by each of them in varied styles, different genres, with varying degrees of artistic success. It is a startling coincidence that Tareque should have left us on the 50th anniversary of that war which ended in a Pyrrhic victory and the birth of a separate Bengali-speaking nation. No less than three million Bengalee lives – Muslim, Hindu, Christian, Buddhist and others – were ended by the murderous Punjabi and Pathan hordes of Yahya Khan, Tikka Khan and Rao Firman Ali.
Mokammel: “The history of short filmmaking in Bangladesh begins with Zahir Raihan’s Stop Genocide. During the 1971 war, Raihan, a gifted filmmaker, rose to the occasion and made this remarkable short documentary. The film is a vehement protest against the pogrom on Bengalees by the marauding Pakistan army. Three more documentaries were made during the war. These are Alamgir Kabir’s Liberation Fighters, Babul Chowdhury’s Innocent Millions, and another film by Zahir Raihan, A State is Born. These films have great emotive value for our people and considering the conditions in which they were made, one may overlook certain technical limitations. This is the heritage of our short filmmaking.”
Tanvir Mokammel came to the fore with a short fiction film called Hooliya (Arrest Warrant). Based on a poem by the well-known Bangladeshi Left intellectual and former activist, Nirmalendu Goon, Hooliya is about a young man who is forced to stay away from his village home on account of an arrest warrant hanging over his head.
Tanvir: “The period of the film is during the autocratic regime of Ayub Khan in the late ‘60s. But the film draws parallels with the democratic movement against the autocracy of Ershad, presenting certain aspects of Bangladesh politics in symbolism.”
Notwithstanding the poor quality of sound or the indifferent camerawork, Hooliya exerts an appeal that is, by turns, poetic, romantic or quietly political. The appeal stems largely from the conviction with which the director works on a theme that is so close to the heart of the nation. The film works well at the personal level too. The young man’s relationships with those around him (his father, mother, small sister or a neighbourhood sister-in-law), or with the village comrades who come visiting him at night for news of the world outside, are convincingly fleshed out.
One particular passage merits more than passing mention. It relates to an ‘affair’ between the rebellious youth and a young girl. Having fled East Pakistan with others of her family for want of security, the girl is shown living in a dingy part of Shyambazar in north Calcutta. She yearns for him as much as for the open spaces and blue skies of her lost homeland, as revealed in a letter to him. But she also admits that she feels safer in her new environment. The mood of the passage borders on the lyrical; a mixture of romantic nostalgia and a profound sadness that perhaps the two of them will never meet again.
Tanvir: “Maybe there was no such ‘affair’ in the young man’s life; maybe there was. Who can tell? Perhaps he is dreaming of an impossible romance. Every true revolutionary cannot but dream of a better day, a slightly better order, and a little love and decency among human beings.”
After Hooliya, Mokammel shot a documentary in 35 mm colour. Smriti Ekattor (Memories of ’71) relates the fate of at least 300 leading Bengali intellectuals, artists and political figures who were systematically liquidated by Islamic fundamentalists during the liberation war.
Tanvir: “Masterminded by the Pakistan army, these ghastly killings were spearheaded by Al-Badr, the death squad of Jamaat-i-Islami (whose leader was none other than Gholam Azam who later came to be shielded from popular wrath by the government of Khaleda Zia, which depended for its survival in the early ‘90s on the support of fundamentalist elements in the Bangladesh Parliament)… During the war when Dhaka would be under curfew at night, Al-Badr buses would pick up doctors, litterateurs, artists, teachers, playwrights and others, blindfold them and take them away. Later, their bodies would be found in marshy areas near the city. In some cases, like that of the filmmaker Zahir Raihan, the bodies were never found. The film aims at exploring the reasons and events behind the murder of these intellectuals and public figures.”
Although visually flat and aesthetically unexciting, Smriti Ekattor nonetheless provides for a credible documentation of events during a period that carried within itself germs of the present struggle between fundamentalists drawing material and moral support from Pakistan, Iran and Saudi Arabia on the one hand, and forces epitomizing the tenets of the socio-political faith which inspired the nationalist war against Pakistan on the other. In Tanvir’s words: “We are caught between Mujib’s legacy and the lure of fundamentalism.”
The liberation war and the role of fifth-columnists was again raised by Tanvir in his first full-length fictional feature, Nodir Naam Modhumoti (Modhumoti, the Name of the River). Examining the character and activities of ‘razakars’ (the name given to traitors in Bangladesh) in a rather loud and long-winded fashion, the film reflects the concerns and commitments of not just Tanvir but practically every important director of the alternative school in Bangladesh. For, as they are never tired of explaining, they cannot bring themselves to forget what the liberation struggle cost the nation in terms of moral and psychological devastation, not to mention the 3 million unarmed, defenseless people who were killed, or at least double that number who were maimed and left useless for life.
Tanvir: “Come to think of it, this monumental tragedy would have passed into the folklore of man’s inhumanity to man, meriting mention alongside Hitler’s annihilation of Jews, had it occurred in some part of the West and not in one of the poorest countries of the so-called third world.”
Tanvir says in regard to Nodir Naam Modhumoti, which was banned by the Khaleda Zia regime in the mid-‘90s: “Motaleb Kazi, chairman of a union council and a collaborator of the Pakistan army, had been causing havoc during the 1971 war. But his son joins the freedom fighters, the Mukti Bahini. In the code of the freedom fighters, the punishment handed down to collaborators is death. But the guerillas resist from taking any action against the father of one of their comrades. However, one day, the son himself takes the decision to strike at the father. Thereby, a Hamlet-like story is enacted in the riverine, marshy-land of Bangladesh with the bloody war of 1971 providing the backdrop.”
Chitra Nodir Parey (Quiet Flows the River Chitra, 1998), Tanvir’s next venture, is set in the ‘50s and ‘60s in Narail, a small provincial town in what was East Pakistan. This is a social drama portraying the harmonious relationship between two families, one Hindu and the other Muslim, in the backdrop of larger-than-life events working towards the growth of Bengali nationalism, Chitra Nodir Parey has several memorable ‘moments’ and some distinguished acting which audiences on the international festival circuit have not failed to appreciate. Even as the country is beset with turmoil, the river Chitra, a silent witness to the human tragedies being enacted on its banks, continues to flow freely.
Equally freely flows Tanvir’s hope for the rejuvenation of his people. “Our films are not shown in the regular theatres which are reserved for films that have no relation to the lives of the people. However, my films and those by my friends draw thousands of eager viewers in Dhaka and other cities and towns in Bangladesh, thanks to an alternative network of viewing places. It reassures us to see people buying tickets and thronging to our films even as the authorities try out everything they can think of to discourage us and dissuade the people.”
At least two other films by Tanvir deserve a few words each. In 1996, he made an hour-long video documentary called Achin Pakhi (Unknown Bard) on the life and music of Fakir Lalon Shah, the doyen of Bengal bauls (wayside minstrels). The half-real, half-mythic figure scoured the countryside singing of the love between man and man that no knife can cut. In his own way the director was making a similar plea for lasting human values through his films. It goes without saying that the countries of the sub-continent could do with a few more Tanvir Mokammels.
After a screening of his Lalshalu (A Tree without Roots) at Siri Fort, New Delhi, several years ago, Tanvir said: “They are constantly trying to undermine the gains of the 1971 liberation war, but one would be mistaken to think that the secular, democratic, liberal forces in Bangladesh have disappeared.”
Lalshalu leaves a strong impression by virtue of its bold and authentic rendition of the 1948 classic by Syed Waliullah. The story of the self-seeking preacher, who is able to use religion for wrong ends for sometime but in the end comes a cropper, is arguably the most remarkable novel about the rural Muslim community of what was East Bengal. Tanvir: “In Bangladesh, Syed Waliullah is still regarded as a writer of deep insight, and I thought the need of the hour is to bring home to people the plea for humanity that the great writer made in his great novel.”
To give credit where credit is due, it must be said that one of the films that inspired Tareque to give his all to it once he chose filmmaking as the vocation of his life was Agaami (The Morrow). Syed Salahuddin Zaki, an early product of the Pune Film Institute and a leading Film Society activist in Bangladesh during the 80s and early 90s, is on record thus: “Alamgir Kabir, one of the leading exponents of film culture in Bangladesh, propagated the concept of making low-budget short–length purposeful films – preferably in 16mm – and distribute such films independently outside the bondage of the so-called mainstream cinema’s distribution and exhibition system. With the making of Agaami (1984) and Hooliya (1985), the ideas of Alamgir Kabir gained momentum.”
An effective fusion of documentary and drama, Morshedul Islam’s Agaami, which won a Silver Peacock at the International Film Festival of India in 1985, played a path-breaking role in that many of the short films that emerged from Dhaka in subsequent years resembled it in theme, style and a realistic idiom that appealed to viewers in the newly independent nation. True, Agaami has its moments of technical awkwardness – and no one is more aware of it than the film’s soft-spoken, mild-mannered director – but the more important thing to note is that it is difficult to ignore the film’s ability to tell the truth as its director Morshedul perceived it, with a simplicity of touch combined with a rare depth of conviction. It is in this that Morshedul’s first film carries important lessons for short film directors working in adverse conditions on either side of the river Padma. What was true then is true even now.
In 1988, Morshedul directed Suchona (Warning), an hour long fictional feature in 16mm colour. In a sense, Suchona took off from where Agaami ended, speaking of the need for another and a new kind of struggle by the survivors of the war of liberation. Morshedul is articulate about the disillusionment in the ranks of the liberal forces in Bangladesh, as also about the need for a fresh popular upheaval to complete the unfinished revolution that rocked the country fifty summers ago. Should such a development come about in the years ahead, it is doubtful how many of Bangladesh’s Urdu speaking ‘New Citizens’ will play a positive role in it.
If first Zahir Raihan, and later Alamgir Kabir were the principal sources of inspiration for Tareque and his friends, Bangladesh’s most important woman filmmaker, Yasmine Kabir, may be said to have been influenced by Tareque and his fellows. What unites the second and third generations of Bangladeshi filmmakers is the will, first, not to forget the lessons and legacy of the Liberation War, and second, to convert them into films that reflect a nation in perpetual turmoil.
There are not too many woman filmmakers in Bangladesh. Porobashi Mon Amaar (My Migrant Soul, colour, video, 34 minutes, 2000) first brought the gifted and argumentative Yasmine Kabir to the notice of the documentary film world. The film is about Shahjahan Babu, a young migrant worker from Bangladesh who left for Malaysia in search of work. After selling the little property he had, Babu arrived in the host country to face misery, frustration and disillusionment. He who had left Bangladesh with dreams of returning home rich and improving the fortunes of his impoverished family, died in a far off land among strangers, racked by poverty and humiliation. The film highlights the plight of the migrant worker and the role of those who trade in human misery. “It is a story about modern-day slavery.” – this is how Yasmine sums up her deeply moving film.
My Migrant Soul speaks of the marginalised and the excluded in an engaging investigative style which if followed with the care it deserves, can yield rich rewards. Using Babu’s deep love for his mother as a metaphorical cry in the wilderness, Yasmine mounts a wrenching message with universal echoes against a world order that forces the young and the vulnerable to embark on quests for success and happiness that are more often than not doomed to failure. Deservedly, this remarkable journey through the trauma of exile ending in premature and lonely death, came to be critically acclaimed wherever it was shown.
But Yasmine’s finest hour as a chronicler of her times and fellow-Bangladeshis was yet to come. Shadhinota (A Certain Liberation, colour, video, 37 minutes, 2003) must surely be counted among the most important films made in recent times on the subject of prejudices and cruelties that make for war, as indeed the search for love and humanity that transcends the severe limitations imposed on human beings by war.
The film is about Gurudasi Mondol ‘who gave herself up to madness’ in 1971, as she watched her entire family of husband and several children, including a breast-feeding infant, being wiped out by Pakistani soldiers aided by their local agents, the razakars. Thirty-two years later, Gurudasi still roams the streets of Kopilmoni, a small town in Bangladesh, searching for all that she lost for no fault of hers. According to Yasmine, “In her madness Gurudasi has found a strategy for survival.” Through her extremely lively presence, at times bordering on rip-roaring hilarity; through her ability to draw even strangers and outsiders to her empty bosom till they have become her own; and, finally, through her resolute will not to forget, Kopilmoni’s (read Bangladesh’s) ‘Mother Courage’ has kept alive the spirit of the Liberation War.
I remember the vivid impression that A Certain Liberation made at the 2004 edition of Mumbai International Film Festival (MIFF), where it won a Golden Conch to unanimous acclaim. But, come to think of it, the Special Mention that the film received from the jury at the fourth Kara Film Festival (KFF) in Karachi the same year, was even more significant. It proved the existence of progressive people across the border who saw sense in owning responsibility for the dastardly deeds committed by their government in 1971. Taken together, the two recognitions underline the fact that the entire sub-continent rose as one to salute the artistry of the director and, no less, the patience and courage of a great sufferer.
Any war is tragic, chiefly because of the human lives lost. But it should be remembered that the Liberation War of Bangladesh was a monumental confrontation where the death toll was not restricted to a few thousands or even a few lakhs. No less than three million lives were lost and many times that number were displaced, economically destroyed, or traumatized for life on account of rape and other forms of inhuman torture. About the crippling effect of the war in emotive terms, no amount of words can suffice. It was in no way less devastating, physically and spiritually, than the extermination of Jews by the Nazis. To get under the skin of the documentaries relating to that period, the viewer must necessarily have an adequate idea of what the people of Bangladesh endured for long before coming out in open revolt. Bangladeshi documentarians in particular, do not want the world to forget the legacy of the martyrs of 1971. Gurudasi Mondol is one of the countless upholders of that legacy of resistance and reconstruction. The Muslim family which had taken in the homeless Gurudasi is heard telling the filmmaker that they have given up having beef in the house ever since the middle-aged devout Hindu widow had come to stay with them. It is in such telling details that the essence of the inclusivist nature of the Bangladesh Liberation War lives on.
Vidyarthy Chatterjee writes on cinema,society, and politics.


My friend SteveC told me about TK3 from Night Kitchen. He said this was one of the more interesting tools he has seen in a while. He said that TK4 will come out as open source and should be useful for education and those who share info online.
Nightkitchen says, TK3 is both a new format for multimedia electronic documents and a flexible, easy assembly tool for making them.
I've downloaded the reader, but not done much with it yet.
This engine was mentioned in a recent Tech Review article on what comes after Google. I've just started playing with Teoma and Mooter, Dipsie is not ready for prime time yet. The article goes into more detail, but here is a quick blip on each from their own pages.
A friend of mine pointed out that Chris Philips will be speaking in DC tomorrow and Thursday. Here's info about the group:
The Society for Philosophical Inquiry (SPI) is a grassroots nonprofit organization devoted to supporting philosophical inquirers of all ages and walks of life. Its members strive to form and facilitate "communities of philosophical inquiry", which typically, though not always, meet in groups called Socrates Cafés®. These meetings take place at coffee houses, libraries, hospices, senior centers, nursing homes, prisons, plazas and other public spaces, bookstores, homeless shelters and community centers; and at schools,...
Over the years Sally and I have occasionally gone to the local public library to browse for books and such (we do that weekly); the occasional thing is to check out the serials and read magazines for an hour or so.
Yesterday we read magazines at Mary Riley Styles Library in Falls Church, VA.
Here are my notes from stories and ads in the Jan/Feb 2004 Utne Reader.
> Kitchen Sink - www.kitchensinkmag.com
> Ready Made - www.readymademag.com
> Acent - www.ascentmagazine.com
> 10x10 - www.tenbyten.net
> Neologisms - www.tenbyten.net
> Eckhart Tolle - "The Power of Now"
> Ultimate bed - www.ultimatebed.com
> Fierce - www.fiercemag.com
> Canadian Immigration info - www.cic.gc.ca
> Expats -


Sources I can find portray a grim picture of the birth of the nation of Dathen. It seems that in the First Age of Ruin, the Highborn’s Vetian provinces faced formiddable threats from barbarian hordes and dwarven enmity. Many elves fled into the West, settling in the colonies that the Pearl Throne had already established in Silexia, and began to tame that wild region. Yet this work made them grow resentful of the Aldan nobles who sought to profit from what they were building, and who had sent no aid to them in Vetia before. Aldan’s control was rejected, sparking a civil war that coincided with internal revolt in the Highborn’s home island of Celeda Ablan. It seems that in this war the ruthless spirit of the Dread Host was born and set forever, and the independence of their nation secured. To this day, Daeb ships bring terror around the world.
The Obsidian Thrones are the very core and symbol of power of the Republic. Upon them, the three Crimson Consuls embody the will of the Senate, a body of 9 9 elected individuals seated in the Tower of Gar Daecos in Rathaen. But there are other key players in the Daeb’s great game of intrigue, power and ambition - it appears three principal factions dominate the politics of this land. At the time of Sonnstahl’s birth, our people suffered a terrible assault under the auspices of the first of these: the Fatherland faction, which seeks to reclaim its lost realms in Vetia. The second, the Motherland Faction, attracts those who desire dominion over the old Empire and the Republic’s greatest enemies: the Highborn of Celeda Ablan. Finally there are the Slavers, often popular among the youngest Daeb, or the most daring on the seas. Their faction looks only to Silexia as its homeland, and seeks to build its power on trade... which in Dathen means slavery.


England and the Orléans Monarchy
Автор: John Hall
In this volume the story is told of the first entente cordiale and of the circumstances which led to its disruption. The questions which occupied the attention of the French and the British governments at that period have now passed into the domain of history. The resentment evoked by the Egyptian crisis of 1840 and the controversies raised by the Spanish marriages has died away. The attitude towards the Liberal and national movements in Europe, adopted, on the one side, by Louis Philippe and M. Guizot and, on the other, by Lord Palmerston, can, at this distance of time, be reviewed dispassionately. In the light of the knowledge of to-day, the difficulties which beset the “Citizen King” may be estimated, and the injustice of many of the attacks made upon the policy of Palmerston can be demonstrated.


2005 Future Trends in State Courts Articles Available
From the National Center for State Courts:
Individual articles from the 2005 Future Trends in State Courts Report are being featured on the Knowledge and Information Services portion of the Web site. Current articles include "Human Trafficking: A Growing Crime to Hit State Courts" and "The Future of Court Security and Judicial Safety." The report will be available in print in November 2005.


The Sociology of Healthcare, Second Edition explores the impact of current social changes on health, illness and healthcare, and provides an overview of the fundamental concerns in these areas. This new edition features a brand new chapter entitled End of Life which will help health and social care workers to respond with confidence to one of the most difficult and challenging areas of care. The End of Life chapter includes information on changing attitudes to death, theories of death and dying, and palliative care. All chapters have been thoroughly updated to address diversity issues such as gender, ethnicity and disability. In addition, expanded and updated chapters include Childhood and Adolescence and Health Inequalities.
The text is further enhanced through the use of case studies that relate theory to professional practice, and discussion questions to aid understanding. Links to websites direct the reader to further information on health, social wellbeing and government policies. This book is essential reading for all students of healthcare including nursing, medicine, midwifery and health studies and for those studying healthcare as part of sociology, social care and social policy degrees.
In an age when health policy follows an individualist model of personal responsibility this book by Alan Clarke demonstrates with a vast array of evidence, just how much there is such a thing as society. An excellent overall book.
Dr. Stephen Cowden, Senior Lecturer in Social Work, Coventry University
Table of Contents
Chapter One: An introduction to the sociology of
health and illness
Chapter Two: Experiences of health and illness
Chapter Three: Perspectives on mental illness
Chapter Four: Inequalities in health
Chapter Five: Childhood and adolescence
Chapter Six: Later life
Chapter Seven: End of life
Chapter Eight: Care, community and the family
Chapter Nine: Communication in healthcare settings
Chapter Ten: Contemporary issues in healthcare


A rare example of a Visigothic manuscript made for royal use, the deluxe Book of Hours of Ferdinand I bears remarkable witness to artistic and religious transition in the kingdom of León. Commissioned in 1055 for King Ferdinand I of León by his wife, Queen Sancha, the prayer book combines the Old Spanish Psalter and Canticles, the Latin calendar and litanies, and the Carolingian tradition of private devotional prayer. Lavishly endowed with hundreds of gold initials and seven fully decorated pages, of which four are on purple ground, this unequivocally royal manuscript reinforces Ferdinand’s own imperial ambition while serving as a reminder of the crucial role of noble women in introducing Romanesque forms and the Roman rite into the Visigothic tradition.
The core of the Book of Hours consists of a Psalter, Canticles, litanies, and prayers. A calendar and transcriptions of letters from Florus of Lyons, St. Jerome, and Alcuin form the prefatory material, and a Leonese royal obituary followed by nocturnal offices with musical notations form the final section. Written in Latin by Petrus and illuminated by Fructosus, named in the colophon, this manuscript was made in a monastic center in the north of the Iberian Peninsula.
An Imported Imperial Tradition
On every page, the Book of Hours of Ferdinand I proclaims its royal status. Its full-page decorations consist of an Alpha and Omega frontispiece, in gold on purple ground; an ex-libris made up of purple and gold geometric shapes; a dedication miniature embellished with gold and purple; a display page of gold writing upon bands of blue and purple; a Beatus Vir initial of gold interlace with purple infill; an obituary written in gold on purple ground; and the colophon page written in gold upon a background of dense purple and gold interlace.
Hundreds of interlace and figure initials are enriched with gold and purple. Fructosus skillfully incorporated traditional Mozarabic techniques into the imported Romanesque aesthetic, all the while visually reinforcing the Carolingian and Ottonian imperial associations throughout this royal book.
Visigothic Writing in Purple and Gold
Petrus the scribe wrote in an elegant Visigothic bookhand with Carolingian influence, in a single column of twenty-two to thirty-four unbroken lines per page. The prefatory material and the offices were each executed by different scribes.
The obituary, the colophon, and the Incipit to the Psalter all feature gold display lettering, while the names of Ferdinand I and Sancha in the ex-libris are in silver. Each psalm opens with an initial decorated with gold interlace or human and animal figures, followed by the title in red. Verse initials in gold complete the decoration of the text.
The History of a Royal Manuscript
Produced in the Kingdom of León, possibly in the monastery of Sahagún, the Book of Hours of Ferdinand I arrived to the University of Santiago from the Benedictine monastery of San Martín Pinario after the ecclesiastical confiscations for 1835.
We have 1 facsimile edition of the manuscript "Ferdinand I Book of Hours": Libro de Horas de Fernando I de León facsimile edition, published by Testimonio Compañía Editorial, 1995Request Info / Price


May 19, 2013
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See your advisor before it's too late!
Summer Open Registration begins April 8, 2013 - May 24, 2013.
SEARK has relocated tutoring to the Library this semester. In addition, SEARK added additional tutoring options. Call Ron...


Topic of the Month: Historic football artefacts
Many people live and breathe football as a matter of course, but the sport is currently even more in the spotlight. Far from heralding the start of a football-free period, this year the close of the Bundesliga season will mark the start of the run-up to the FIFA World Cup finals, to be held in Brazil between 12th June and 13th July.Adidas “Argentina” shoe; 5th FIFA World Cup 1954, Switzerland (© Deutsches Sport & Olympia Museum)
And a dip into the Deutsche Digitale Bibliothek could serve as a taster. As with all other areas of life, the history of sport, too, has its place in the digital database of cultural heritage. The German Sports and Olympics Museum in Cologne, for instance, has a range of digitised items from its collection on display in the DDB. They include a number of remarkable and fascinating exhibits relating to the history of football along with detailed explanatory commentaries that will surprise even the most passionate fan.
We learn, for example, that Herbert Burdenski was wearing boots with the evocative name of “Atom” when he scored Germany’s first post-war goal in an international match in 1950. No less interesting are the “Argentina” shoes, based on the removable-studs design – revolutionary at the time -, that gave the German team a decisive advantage on the drenched pitch and helped them to victory in the 1954 World Cup final.
The collection’s detailed accompanying texts are a trove of fascinating trivia. We read, for instance, of the controversy triggered by “Mr. Crack” – the official football in the 1962 World Cup in Chile – on account of its physical properties, prompting the fatalist remark from Sepp Herberger: “The ball is not a living thing; it has no soul”. Very much alive, however, is the interest people have in these and other sports artefacts waiting to be discovered in the Deutsche Digitale Bibliothek.


Author’s Bio: Jae Sherwood lives in Annapolis, MD and writes creative nonfiction and poetry for children and adults. Previously a stay at home mom to three amazing people and then later a middle school English teacher, she is now redirecting her time and energy to focus on her writing. Jae is currently working to expand the Little Leona safety series with more picture books that tell stories of how kids can keep themselves safe in various situations.
What inspired you to write your book?
JS: As a mother, I loved reading quality books to my children, books that were interesting to me as well and had some sort of message to them. When I started the poem about a little girl playing dress up and fighting imaginary monsters, it morphed into her fighting a dragon, then morphed into the dragon being a metaphor for a fire. Finally, I saw that I could relay a message about fire safety through the text and illustrations.
Is there any particular author or book that influenced you in any way either growing up or as an adult?
JS: Yes, I was heavily influenced by an older version of Beauty and the Beast and The Boy Who Drew Cats. Both were large hardback books with gorgeous illustrations. I loved reading these to my children. Also, Dr. Seuss played a role in that I found my children loved the rhyme.
Is this your first book? How long did it take to start and finish your book?
JS: This is my first book. From start to finish it took a year to have a printed copy in my hand. Much time was spent with the illustrator getting the illustrations exactly right.
Do you write with an outline, or just let it flow organically?
JS: It just came out, almost all at once. Of course I edited over months, but the body of the poem came out in one sitting.
Do you listen to music when you write? If yes, is there a theme song for this book?
JS: No, I don’t listen to music. I find it too distracting. I do love opening the window and listening to the wind or if I’m really lucky, the rain.
What are the keys to success in getting your book out to the public?
JS: Perseverance. Plain and simple. I went on my own to the Annapolis Fire Department and asked them to read the book and then asked them for an endorsement. Not only did they endorse Little Leona, but they are now using it in their child safety education programs in the schools. I applied for awards and won the silver award from Mom’s Choice. I held book signings at my own expense, gave almost 100 copies of my book away to organizations I thought might endorse the book, I begged local vendors to carry my book in their stores, etc. etc. When the job of marketing my book started to interfere with my writing time, I hired a publicist to help me out. Eclectic PR was able to get me a television interview and helped with scheduling more book signings.
What advice would you give to new authors?
JS: Don’t write unless you’re passionate about it. But if you are, just persevere and in some way, shape or form, you will be successful.
How about sharing an excerpt from Little Leona Of Monsters and Fire?
Little Leona learns quite young
That there are monsters to be slayed
So she dons her dress
And combat boots
For she is not afraid.
Her mother’s mismatched earrings
She wears for luck, you see
And Daddy’s old tie
A scarf around her neck
Hangs way down to her knees.
Her baby blanket becomes her cape
Flowing from her back
And in her hand
Is Grandpa’s cane
With which she can attack.
Leaping Leona emerges at last
From behind her bedroom door
Tilts her head
Is there stomping on the floor?
Hearing nothing she takes a breath
And marches forth in stride
Looking amid the shadows
And all those places
Where monsters tend to hide.
What’s next for you?
JS: I’m working on the next book in the series titled Little Leona and a Chessie Tale. It’s a book about water safety which takes place on the Chesapeake Bay. Leona and her crew go sailing one day and run into Chessie (our own Loch Ness monster legend) which is a metaphor for a storm. In the chaos, someone goes overboard, but because Leona knows what to do, she gets all of her crew safely to shore. It should be out later this year.
Where can readers find out more about you and your book(s)?
· Website: www.little-leona-books.com
· Amazon Author Page: https://www.amazon.com/Jae-Sherwood/e/B018MOFLQ8/ref=ntt_dp_epwbk_0
· Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/Jae.Sherwood
· Twitter: @poetsdaughtr
· Blog: www.little-leona-books.com/blog/
· Book buy Links:
Barnes and Noble:
From Maple Creek Media:


Each reader, depending on their spiritual knowledge and intuition, will fathom more, or less, the Temple of Wisdom from what they are going to read.
The order to follow is to READ and MEDITATE, because the involvement will force the understanding, the wider and deeper understanding.
This is the synthesis – READ to UNDERSTAND and UNDERSTAND to READ better, so as to extract the most of the content from the key of knowledge.
Of the Origin, of the Evolutionary Process and of the Sacred Purpose of Life.
Copyright © 2000 / 2011 - Divinismo.org


BEIJING JINGGUAN. (Views and Sights of Beijing). N.p., 1939. 65 pp. b/w plates each with an accompanying page of text. A few plates in colour. 27x20 cm. Decorative cloth.
A Japanese publication with joint Chinese and Japanese texts describing and illustrating in black-and-white photographs (plus a few in colour) the sights of Beijing and the surrounding area. Scarce.
Out of stock, as of: 01/02/2019
Was item 156 in printed List 194.
Record produced by Hanshan Tang Books, www.hanshan.com.


Some New England Pewter
- Collection Name
- Old-Time New England
- Collection Code
- Date Notes
- Volume 42, Number 146 (Fall, 1951)
- After Percy E. Raymond volunteered to catalogue the pewter at the Harrison Gray Otis House in the autumn of 1949, a gift of 42 pieces was bestowed on SPNEA. This collection increased the number of the organization's previously under-represented early American examples. In this article, Raymond takes a look at some of the notable pieces.
- Full Article
- Collection Type
- Description Level
- Additional Identification Number
Article ID: 356
- Reference Code
Percy E. Raymond (Author)
Society for the Preservation of New England Antiquities
- Publisher Series
Old Time New England
- Place of Publication
- Publications Referencing This Collection
(1951). Old Time New England. Boston, Mass.: Society for the Preservation of New England Antiquities.
Use the links below to browse up and down the collection hierarchy from the current record.


Adventurous Beyond Barriers
I was the numero-uno in everything means everything that my hands lay upon in any field. Life was peaceful yet really magnetizing but voila, due to a (brainy) clotting mechanism, everything was scattered. From childhood till date, life has taken umpteen number of turns for me but every point was an adventure... from the faultless riches to the agony of rags. Being a doctor means being only a ‘doctor’ because a doctor in my case is just a prefix to my name and nothing else.
From the introductory speech (Before the Beginning) to the summary (The Epilogue), I shall open from the very start i.e. from my birth till today. I live in a world where the laws of one heroic act after another are just unfitting due to a disability. But I find the real disability in people who can't find joy in life and are bitter and malevolent. If you have a disability... whatever it takes, don't be mean to people. There is a plan and a purpose behind every act, no matter what is it’s location, place or time.
A genuine friend knows your weaknesses but shows you your strengths; feels your fears but fortifies your faith; sees your anxieties but frees your spirit; recognizes your disabilities but emphasizes your possibilities.
- Paperback: 236 pages
- Publisher: White Falcon Publishing; 1 edition (2018)
- Author: Dr. Satyakam Das
- ISBN-13: 9789386210999
- Product Dimensions: 12.7 x 1 x 20.3 cm
Indian Edition available on:
We Also Recommend


The spiritual journey takes unexpected turns for the women of Sensible Shoes in this third book of the series. Having been challenged to persevere in hope, can they now embrace the joy of complete surrender?
Keeping your love on. It's a hard thing to do. Sometimes it's the hardest thing to do. But if you want to build healthy relationships with God and others, learning to keep your love on is non-negotiable. Adults and children alike thrive in healthy relationships where it is safe to love and be loved, to know and be known.
More than 1 million sold! You know you love your child. But how can you make sure your child knows it? The #1 New York Times bestselling The 5 Love Languages(R) has helped millions of couples learn the secret to building a love that lasts. Now discover how to speak your child's love language in a way that he or she understands.
Over 12 million copies sold! A New York Times bestseller for 10 years running. Falling in love is easy. Staying in love--that's the challenge! How can you keep your relationship fresh and growing amid the demands and conflicts and just plain boredom of everyday life? In the #1 New York Times bestselling book The 5 Love Languages, you'll discover the secret that has transformed millions of relationships worldwide.
This concordance is based on the New American Standard updated Version of the bible. It contains over 400,000 entries that list every word in the NASB Updated Bible alphabetically, with each book, chapter, and verse where the word appears.
© Copyright Ebenezer Christian Shop


I ... Am ... A ... Doctor
- Eight Rants. Ossip, Kathleen // Paris Review;Summer2002, Issue 162, p97
Presents the poem "Eight Rants," by Kathleen Ossip. First Line: The Fatso; Last Line: you fixing things as God fixes them.
- Rain Rant. Cooper, Jack // Oracle (19417896);Mar2009, Vol. 8, p48
The poem "Rain Rant," by Jack Cooper is presented. First Line: With your mud-awful tantrums; Last Line: this downpour of languishing.
- RANT. Perelman, Bob // Ten to One: Selected Poems;1999, p2
The poem "Rant," by Bob Perelman is presented. First Line: You're it. The scene is set. More prizes. By this time; Last Line: wind is the ally, not air.
- RANT. Ikeda, Cathy Kanoelani // Bamboo Ridge;Sep2003, Issue 84, p184
Presents the poem "Rant," by Cathy Kanoelani Ikeda.
- Remington's Late Rant. Hulm, David // Interdisciplinary Humanities;Spring2011, Vol. 28 Issue 1, p100
The poem "Remington's Late Rant" by David Hulm is presented. First Line: Where better to meet than the desert, Last Line: None feel outside the family.
- RATTLEBONE'S RANT. Strahan, B. R. // Texas Observer: A Journal of Free Voices;Jul2015, Vol. 107 Issue 7, p42
The poem "Rattlebone's Rant" by B.R. Strahan is presented. First Line: It shouldn't surprise anyone; Last Line: might even fit together?
- ESPRIT D 'ESCALIER RANT. Whalen, Philip // Collected Poems of Philip Whalen;2007, p66
The poem "Esprit D'Escalier Rant," by Philip Whalen is presented. First Line: You didn't see me, you didn't hear me, I said; Last Line: May not call it love, but that's what it is.
- On Laura Schlessinger and Her N-Word Rant. // Journal of Pan African Studies;2010, Vol. 4 Issue 2, p349
The poem "On Laura Schlessinger and Her N-Word Rant," by Tony Medina is presented. First Line: If she would've; Last Line: Dr. Laura Schlessinger rinsing her mouth in the morning.


- This event has passed.
UNESCO WORLD RADIO DAY
12 February 2017 @ 2:00 pm - 4:00 pm| Free
Join us for this two-hour session and explore the fun of interactive radio plays. Speaking parts, sound effects and audience members are all required so come and join us as we celebrate the unique power of radio to touch lives and bring people together. In partnership with Geelong’s own community radio station 97.4FM The Pulse.


Comments submitted to the ICC as stakeholder input to its energy storage proceedings. The ICC hosted a series of workshops on energy storage policy. This submission addresses cost-benefit valuation for energy storage and was accompanied by several CEG publications and other documents.
Share this publication:
Author(s): Todd Olinsky-Paul
Published By: Clean Energy Group
Project: Energy Storage Policy, Resilient Power Project
Technologies: Energy Storage


Enhancing the QUAlity and Transparency Of health Research
The Library contains a comprehensive searchable database of reporting guidelines and also links to other resources relevant to research reporting.Search for reporting
|Diagnostic / prognostic studies||STARD||TRIPOD||Other|
|Quality improvement studies||SQUIRE||Other|
|Animal pre-clinical studies||ARRIVE||Other|
The Eighth International Congress on Peer Review and Biomedical Publication will feature three days of original research. If you haven’t already done so, start your research now! The Congress will be held September 10-12, 2017, in Chicago, Illinois, USA. As … Read More
The plagiarism detection software company iThenticate recently interviewed EQUATOR’s Head of Programme Development, Iveta Simera Read More
Liz Wager talks about the newly published GPP3 guidelines and highlights the changes that feature in the update to these guidelines.
Professor John Ioannidis talks about replication and transparency of published research findings at the PLOS Medicine 10th Anniversary Symposium.


This practical, environmentally informed, and lucid book persuasively argues for a change of perspective. If consumption is the problem, as Ozzie Zehner suggests, then we need to shift our focus from suspect alternative energies to improving social and political fundamentals: walkable communities, improved consumption, enlightened governance, and, most notably, women’s rights. The dozens of first steps he offers are surprisingly straightforward. For instance, he introduces a simple sticker that promises a greater impact than all of the nation’s solar cells. He uncovers why carbon taxes won’t solve our energy challenges (and presents two taxes that could). Finally, he explores how future environmentalists will focus on similarly fresh alternatives that are affordable, clean, and can actually improve our well-being.
Watch a book trailer.
About the Author
Ozzie Zehner, who has collaborated on numerous projects in industry, government, and academia, is a visiting scholar at the University of California, Berkeley.
Table of Contents
List of Illustrations
List of Figures
Introduction: Unraveling the Spectacle
Part I: Seductive Futures
1. Solar Cells and other Fairy Tales
2. Wind Power's Flurry of Limitations
3. Biofuels and the Politics of Big Corn
4. The Nuclear-Military-Industrial Risk Complex
5. The Hydrogen Zombie
6. Conjuring Clean Coal
7. Hydropower, Hybrids, and other Hydras
Part II: From Here to There
8. The Alternative-Energy Fetish
9. The First Step
Part III: The Future of Environmentalism
10. Women's Rights
11. Improving Consumption
12. The Architecture of Community
13. Efficiency Culture
14. Asking Questions
Epilogue: A Grander Narrative?
Resources for Future Environmentalism
What People are Saying About This
"What set Zehner's work apart from the glut of other environment-related titles are his fresh ideas and superlatively engaging prose."—Carl Hays, Booklist Online
“Provocative and essential! Green Illusions shakes us awake to the true challenges we face as a species . . . and inspires us to take action.”—John Perkins, author of Confessions of an Economic Hit Man
"With chapter subtitles like "Step Away From the Pom-Poms" and epigraphs from the likes of Dr. Seuss, Zehner is a delightful apostate in the church of green energy."—Sarah Rothbard, slate.com


The denizens of an Asian underground who waged a clandestine struggle against European colonial powers.
The historian Eric Hobsbawm kept faith with the Marxist orthodoxies of his youth even after the Soviet invasions of Hungary in 1956, of Czechoslovakia in 1968 and the fall of the Berlin Wall in 1989. Why?
How important was China’s senior diplomat to his nation’s rise to global power, or is it too early to say?
On the centenary of the Russian Revolution, five books track its transition from idealism to tyranny.
Leo Steveni was a British officer based in St Petersburg at the time of the Russian Revolution. He became an active eyewitness to the chaos of the Civil War that followed.
The October Revolution of 1917 inspired a generation of young Russians to embrace new ideals of socialist living.
Underneath the sweeping history of the Russian Revolution is another story, one told through the lesser-known people, moments and objects of a world in transformation.
The Six Day War of 1967, in which Israel devastated its Arab neighbours, also struck a blow against the military prowess of the Soviet Union and its Warsaw Pact satellites.
Michael D. Richards profiles the Marxist Revolutionary whose life was devoted to the Communist and Socialist movements in Poland and Germany.
It was Russia’s tragedy, writes Leonard Schapiro, that a greater man than Stalin supplied Stalin with the means to put his nightmare Utopia into practice.


This guide focuses on the topics in your course and outlines research strategies and resources for your final project. Use the searches and linked examples as jumping off points for exploration.
The Background Information page will help in developing your research question and understanding the broader context for your specific topic. Journal Articles and Books will give you material for cultural and historical analyses. Primary Sources provides more direct information from historical time periods. Using visual mages can often give new information, not otherwise available, about intended audience and associated social and cultural meanings.