Fragments

Lawrence Ferlinghetti’s poem ‘And the Arabs Asked Terrible Questions …’, and is entirely given here, is included in the 1955 ‘Pictures of the gone world’ collection. In the 2015 anniversary edition, he wrote that in these poems ‘there is a freshness of perception that only young eyes have, in the dandelion bloom of youth’.

The poem ‘A Vindication’ was written by the great Chinese poet Li Po of the 8th century CE. A multi-faceted personality, having lived both as a hermit and as a traveler to the vast Chinese hinterland, love and wine are central to his poems. ‘A Vindication’ poem refers to the second.

The poem entitled ‘Stratis Thalassinos Among the Agapanthi’, which is posted here, was written by the Greek poet Nobel laureate George Seferis, in 1942, in the city of Transvaal, South Africa, where he was found as a diplomat, following the exiled Greek government there.

Paul Celan’s poem entitled “Psalm” is one of the most meaningful and representative creations of the great art of this important German-speaking poet. It is included in the 1963 ‘The No One’s Rose’ collection, and is given entirely here in the English written version and as audio document, where Chellan reads its poem.

From the poetic collection of Pablo Neruda’s ‘One Hundred Love Sonnets’ (Cien Sonetos de amor), the poem Sonnet XVII, whith the conventional title ‘I don’t Love you As if you Were a Rose’, is given entirely here. The collection was released in 1959, and is dedicated to Neruda’s wife Matilde.