Let your voice be heard! It is most important to the republik of poets here…

In this online (Zoom) workshop we will look at protest poetry in translation, and discuss poetry of witness in its context as an historical artifact. Writers will then be given a prompt and asked to generate their own poem of protest/witness for work-shopping.

Since it is the job of writers to bear witness to the truth, and the habit of writers to read widely, think deeply and seek their own counsel rather than adopt the propaganda of their leaders and the self-serving rationalizations of their fellow citizens, it should not be surprising that writers often find themselves in mortal opposition to the state apparatus: Naguib Mahfouz, a Nobel prize winning author, was stabbed for his liberal, secular political religious views. Wole Soyinka, Nigerian, had to flee for his life because of his support for democracy. Taslima Nasrin, a Bagladesh essayist who wrote in favor of women’s rights, was forced to flee to Europe under threat of assassination by religious extremists, and El Salvadoran Roque Dalton who was executed for his writing.  In the United States we have a continuous faction trying to ban books in libraries and state apparati silencing voices.

It is again a perilous time to be a poet. Let your voice be heard!

When? April 12th, 2021

Pacific: 9:00 AM (PST)

Email to request Zoom meeting information at poetrepublik (at) gmail (dot) com

Sur/face

Light metal narcissus
devours his brother reflexion
the spark, invisible fire
the sacred incantation
the magical language
the desire revealed

Read More >

droppin’ 

droppin’, am I 

droppin’ keys my

droppin’ soap the 

droppin’ always deuce well-formed always an

droppin’ seat my remember 

droppin’ meal last Kafka’s Read More >

Cave Read More >

Calaveras (literally, sugar skulls,) are traditional satirical Mexican poems published on and around the Day of the Dead (Dia de los Muertos). The celebration of the day of the dead predates the independence of the countries in North America. Read More >

Deaf Republic by Ilya Kaminsky is a poetry collection in two acts about what can happen to a community when the military moves in to control them. It is a tale of how the ethics of those who love, desire, or harmlessly gossip, can be transformed into actors who rape, torture, and engage in murder. Read More >

The Monterey Bay Poetry Consortium Presents:

Maria Garcia Teutsch
&
Danusha Laméris

Sunday, September 13, 2:00 p.m. via Zoom

Email jfellguth@sbcglobal.net by Sat. September 12 to receive a logon link

Danusha Laméris’ first book, The Moons of August (2014), was chosen by Naomi Shihab Nye as the winner of the Autumn House Press poetry prize and was a finalist for the Milt Kessler Book Award. Some of her poems have been published in: The Best American Poetry, The New York Times Magazine, The American Poetry Review, The Gettysburg Review, Ploughshares, and Prairie Schooner. She is the 2020 recipient of the Lucille Clifton Legacy Award. Her second book is Bonfire Opera (University of Pittsburgh Press, Pitt Poetry Series). She teaches poetry independently, and was the 2018-2020 Poet Laureate of Santa Cruz County, California.

Maria Garcia Teutsch is a poet, editor, educator and performance artist. She has published over 25 book/journals of poetry as editor-in-chief of the Homestead Review, published by Hartnell College in Salinas, and Ping-Pong journal of art and literature, published by the Henry Miller Library in Big Sur, California. She teaches poetry and creative writing at Hartnell College as a member of their faculty. She is the founder and Editor-in-Chief of Ping-Pong Free Press, and publisher and Editor-in-Chief of Poet Republik Ltd. Her collection, The Revolution Will Have its Sky, won the Minerva Rising chapbook competition, judge: Heather McHugh. www.marialoveswords.com

Upcoming Reading: October 11 – Ken Weisner and Nils Peterson

For more information, please contact John Laue: (831) 684-0854

Sponsored by The Monterey Bay Poetry Consortium

Poet Republik Ltd’s chose as its first micro-press publication,  J. Hope Stein’s  collection of poetry, Occasionally, I Remove Your Brain through your Nose. No spoiler alert, but there’s something going on in this collection that is a kind of petroglyph for the times we are living through. These poems are original, experiential and vital. Read on…. Read More >

Circus  

(translated by Ry Beville)

There have been however many eras  
And there has been brown war

There have been however many eras  
And in the winter gales have blown

There have been however many eras  
The one here this evening, in its prime       
The one here this evening, in its prime

From the circus tent’s lofty beam  
A solitary trapeze artist swings
A barely visible trapeze artist swings

Hanging his arms while upside down  
Beneath the dirty cotton canopy
Yuahhn     Yuyohhn     Yuyayuyon

A white lamp burning nearby  
Exhales its breath of cheap ribbons

The spectators, all of them sardines,  
With oyster shells of ululating throats
Yuahhn     Yuyohhn     Yuyayuyon

Darkness beyond the tent     the darkest dark  
The evening stretches on endlessly late  
The nostalgia of him in his little parachute  
Yuahhn     Yuyohhn     Yuyayuyon

from Poems of the Goat

Born in 1907 Nakahara Chûya was one of the most gifted and colourful of Japan’s early modern poets. A bohemian romantic, his death at the early age of thirty, coupled with the delicacy of his imagery, have led to him being compared to the greatest of French symbolist poets.
Since the Second World War Nakahara’s stature has risen, and his poetry is now ranked among the finest Japanese verse of the 20th century. Influenced by both Symbolism and Dada, he created lyrics renowned for their songlike eloquence, their personal imagery and their poignant charm.

Translator: Ry Beville graduated from the University of Notre Dame (B.A.) and UC Berkeley (Phd), and studied Japanese poetics at the University of Tokyo. He has translated Nakahara Chûya in three volumes: Poems of the Goat (2002), Poems of Days Past (2005), and Uncollected Poems (2007). He also created the Haikuism app. His most recent publication is the novel, What Remains. He is president and CEO at Brightwave Media, and a professor at UC Berkeley.

originally published in Ping-Pong Journal of Art and Literature

This month’s Poet Republik feature is another poem from Jean-Noel Chazelle’s first collection of poetry, Le Sang de L’Étoile / Star-Blood. Poet Republik Ltd. is proud to publish his debut in a bilingual translation. Special thanks to Brooke Petersen for translating. Jean-Noel is already an accomplished artist whose paintings have been exhibited around the globe. Below is a sampling of the outstanding poetry in this collection. You can see the influence of his painterly mind in the lush images in his poetry. Enjoy! Read More >