GAZA LAND, APOCRYPHAL LEGENDS OF OUR TIME

Fady Joudah reads The Calm:

http://yalepress.yale.edu/yupbooks/podcast/fady_inthecalm.mp3

Now here is truly a laughable reveiw of Mr. Joudah's book:

http://www.barrelhousemag.com/growler/Reviews/The_Earth_In_The_Attic.htm

Chock full of platitudes such as "people's poet" and "seer". Bleck. With reviews of such ordinary bleckness, a poet doesn't need enemies.

Tell us about the exile of the hoopoe, the direction of the ants Mr. Rochkind. Just another day in Gazaland I suppose, for you and Mr. Joudah. As for Mr. Joudah's "there's enough to go around" well....as with all exiled poets and exiled Palestinian poets in particular, there is this cheesy type of 'oh, it's okay'. I have a feeling that the citizens of Gaza wouldn't agree with that point of view and prefer the resistance to the groveling. Achoo! Excuuse me.

And who am I to say that afterall? Ah well.....there is a difference between the exile who has a choice and has made that choice and those that haven't a hope of an iceberg in HELL of ever getting that choice. Amen.

There is GAZA and then there's GAZA. You have to be specific you know. And then there's this role playing that happens in poetry and in life itself. Me personally, I want to be a TV ANGEL. You know, like Landon running around the prairie solving murder mysteries and fighting spiritual demise and crime.

In life, I'm a muslim trying to solve the sexually transmitted disease problem in our county. It's a big problem you know and then I go to the funeral on Saturday afternoon of a young boy who committed suicide last week and meet the Nigerian priest who is governing the church where I was baptized. I promised to make him Potato Leaf Stew and this is one promise I hope to fufill. He said to us in the church basement (that I know like the back of my hand) "Look at all dees blessings this child had!" Indeed. What went wrong Father Godfrey?

Because it is important to know what is really going on and then, it is important to write about it. Not in the fluffy way that ignores the apocryphal literature of our times which is only apocryphal because knowledge of such things is at an all time low. Mr. Joudah's work is no doubt right up there with Naomi in terms of its flowery use of the Arab Metaphor (insert here: butterfly, eyelashes, birds) which is a very successful tactic. There is or rather, there ought not to be...any secret to the discussion of such work nor should there be such redundant criticism which isn't any better than the work it chooses to discuss. On all counts, I come away from such events as if I've just had too many genetically engineered olives. But have I? I wouldn't know the difference really unless of course I had met Mr. Joudah and offered the right greeting as he has mentioned in the event of his taxi driver exiling him or rather, excommunicating him from a certain strata of all people, not just Arabs. Then, I could tell you all about how a genetically engineered olive that one finds in Ms. Nye's work differs from the natural olive. The natural olive is picked and produced by natives only you see. It tastes different and is of a quality not bound for Trader Joe's. My favorite place to pick up a piece of something really TRUE. Trader Joe's is all about truth isn't it? Not really. It just smells better and the packaging is pleasing to the green in us, to that whole foods philosophy one finds at Teriyaki Bowl outlets throughout the land.


“And he sought among the birds and said: How is it that I see not the hoopoe, or is he among the absent?” Surah 27:20 (Verse)

“But the hoopoe tarried not far: he compassed (territory) which thou has not compassed and I have come to thee from Saba with tidings true.” Surah 27:22 (Verse)