Thinking of the transience of language and how it correlates with cultural change over time, I wondered, What if classic poems were translated to now? I chose a few well-known poems and took a shot at updating them. If you’re wondering why the poets I chose are all male, it’s because I wanted to go for easily recognizable titles, and for the longest time, only men were allowed to be openly literary and write poems for all the world to see.
Here’s what these guys might have written if their world looked like ours:
1). Robert Frost
Then: Stopping by Woods on a Snowy Evening
Now: Stopping to buy Weed on a Snowy Evening
2). Edgar Allen Poe
Then: The Raven
Now: The Rain Man (“Quoth the rain man, ‘Nevermore.'”)
3). Samuel Taylor Coleridge
Then: Rime of the Ancient Mariner
Now: Rime of the Darth Vader
4). William Carlos Williams
Then: The Red Wheelbarrow
Now: The Target Red Card
5). William Blake
Then: The Tiger
Now: The Flesh-Eating Bacteria
6). John Milton
Then: Paradise Lost
Now: Sanity Lost
7). William Shakespeare
Then: “Shall I Compare Thee to a Summer’s Day?” (Sonnet XVIII)
Now: “Shall I Compare Thee to a Vacation with Pay?”
8). T.S. Eliot
Then: “Let us go then, you and I” (The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock)
Now: “Don’t they ever stop migrating?” (The Birds of Alfred Hitchcock)
I’ve brought you my own (previously published) poems, but I don’t believe I’ve shared another poet’s work. Today, I wanted to share with you a poem by American poet Robert Hayden, as this poem has been on my mind.
(Poetry is a favorite refuge of mine when I’m at a loss for words.)
In 1976, the United States’ Bicentennial year, Robert Hayden held the post of Consultant in Poetry to the Library of Congress; the post later became “Poet Laureate” of the United States. Hayden was America’s first Black Poet Laureate.
This poem by Robert Hayden was first published in his A Ballad of Remembrance (1962):
FREDERICK DOUGLASS
When it is finally ours, this freedom, this liberty, this beautiful
and terrible thing, needful to man as air,
usable as earth; when it belongs at last to all,
when it is truly instinct, brain matter, diastole, systole,
reflex action; when it is finally won; when it is more
than the gaudy mumbo jumbo of politicians:
this man, this Douglass, this former slave, this Negro
beaten to his knees, exiled, visioning a world
where none is lonely, none hunted, alien,
this man, superb in love and logic, this man
shall be remembered. Oh, not with statues’ rhetoric,
not with legends and poems and wreaths of bronze alone,
but with the lives grown out of his life, the lives
fleshing his dream of the beautiful, needful thing.
It’s been quite a while since I’ve offered a poetry post, I know! I thought I’d share a poem today for those of you interested in my older work, especially since some of you started reading here specifically for the poetry. As you know, I’m not posting new poems here these days, so back in time we go.
This poem, “Gold,” was first published in Safundi: The Journal of South African and American Comparative Studies. The issue was Volume 2, 2001; it looks like the journal’s work from that time is saved in PDF. I thought it would be easier, for the purpose of sharing the poem here, to take pics of the poem as it appears in my MFA practicum. I did get online to snip out the readily accessible abstract, though. (Once again, I redacted my former last name.)
Here’s the poem:
I hope you enjoyed this! It’s odd revisiting my older work. It seems longer ago than 16 years, and yet… 16 years?! That means 15 years since I graduated. Yikes. Time is a relentless creature.
Updates and more updates! Well, just writing updates, this time.
Update 1: My main project is 46% complete, which isn’t bad considering that November was pretty much a wash, as I knew it would be. Things should progress more quickly now that my calendar is clear of major/time-consuming agenda items. Whew! We got through it. Now back to it.
Update 2: My latest strategy in the war on sedentary lifestyle is to write while standing. At my washing machine. For at least half of my working day, often a little more. Since I’m no longer sitting on my ass all day, said ass has less of a chance of flattening out and widening in the wrong direction over time. You know what I’m talking about. A blob of cookie dough on a baking sheet is round and perky, and then you put it in the oven and it spreads out in the baking process. I’m not hyper-vain, but I don’t see how it can help anything to bake my ass, either. It’s not like I had much of an ass to begin with, so I want to save what I can of it. Moreover, it’s not healthy to sit so much.
Ahem. Onward, then!
In closing, I have some old poems to share with you today, two that were originally published in the 2011 issue of Clackamas Literary Review (Oregon). The pics are dark and murky, but then, so are the poems. Enjoy!
If we’re fortunate, Thanksgiving with loved ones brings joy… but this year, reflecting on the holiday in and of itself, it also brought frustration. Because you can’t think about Thanksgiving without thinking about Native Americans, and it’s unthinkable that our Native Americans are still fighting for their basic rights on the land that was theirs in the first place.
Those who insist on defending their health and their heritage in the face of threat are justified in doing so. Those who join that defense on behalf of the threatened are justified in doing so. It wouldn’t make sense not to, in one way or another. Defending oneself and one’s people is an instinctual response to an unacceptable trespass. We need accountability from our government, but at its heart, Standing Rock is not a political issue. It is a human rights issue.
It’s a natural response to protest an action that could compromise well-being and desecrate cultural sites. Unnatural answers to this response include violence such as working over crowds of innocent, unarmed people with barrages of rubber bullets, clouds of pepper spray, and blasts of water in subfreezing temperatures.
Health and heritage. We all have a right to them, and it’s our right to demand them from those who are taking them from us.
The happenings at Standing Rock represent a breed of atrocity so perverse in its nature that honestly, I can’t even begin to comprehend it.
I’m one of many veterans outraged by this matter. In fact, thousands of veterans are planning a mission, a “deployment,” if you would (December 4), to Standing Rock to join in the fight.
I’ve watched several videos made by vets regarding this matter. There are too many to watch, but I thought I’d share a few.
WARNING for language in this one [skip to the next if language is a concern]:
Here’s the #NoDAPL video brought to you by Disabled War Vet:
“Thugs on a payroll,” indeed.
Thank you for reading, watching, and considering offering a contribution to the efforts of the veterans preparing to join the masses at Standing Rock on December 4. “We are United States Military Veterans for Standing Rock Sioux Tribe.”
One summer, when I was a teenager and the Big Island’s Kilauea volcano was also acting up, I sat in my Uncle’s living room in Hilo and watched the surreal sight of red-orange lava coursing down in the distance.
Many years later… and also many years ago… (it’s funny how time works)… I wrote a certain poem. An excerpt:
…do you remember the first / map you traced in the shape of the island / you left… An ocean between us fires / up, inhaling its own ash from the powerlines of existence…
The ocean becomes one with the volcano when flowing lava hits the salt water. I read that the meeting of the two explodes into black sand, creating a beach. A volcanic black sand beach is the lovechild of the ocean and the volcano, rich with lore and sacred to native Hawaiians.
The Hawaiian archipelago was formed out of massive volcanic events, which is why the islands are studded with active and inactive volcanos and craters. On Maui, from the road to Hana, you can turn onto Waianapanapa Road, where, emerging from the rain forest, you find yourself on the grounds of a park that features a small black sand beach. Let me tell you: If there’s one reason to drive the road to Hana – and there are many – this is it, as far as I’m concerned. The Waianapanapa black sand beach is a gift of the Haleakala volcano, and it is beautiful.
Waianapanapa black sand beach
Looking over the rim of lava rocks at this point, I spotted a large sea turtle swimming below in the clear blue-green water. I couldn’t get a pic of him, though, unfortunately.
Descending to the black sand beach
Most people think of the Big Island when they think of Hawaiian black sand beaches, but Maui has this little gem tucked away…
Stunning contrasts: sparkling blue-green water, white ocean spray, black sand, rain forest
Wet black sand, metallic in the sun
Waianapanapa black sand beach
I was quick to kick off my shoes and run down to the shore. That’s a strong tide! I had to use all the muscles in my legs to keep myself planted as the water rushed in and back out. It hit me at knee-level, and I was enthralled.
Enraptured at Waianapanapa
Life: complete!
Driving in from the Hana Highway, you know you’re there when you see the sign:
Entering the Waianapanapa State Park
The day we visited the summit of the Haleakala volcano crater, the sky was blue and the air was typically thin and cold above the clouds. But we were dressed for it, and other than Callaghan’s very mild touch of nausea, we weren’t bothered by altitude sickness.
Heading up the Haleakala crater path
Mid-morning light on the lava rocks
Haleakala under a blue sky…
The inside of the volcano crater is another planet.
Looking down from the summit of the Haleakala volcano crater
The Haleakala volcano crater is too vast to capture in one phone pic…
Blue sky, carpet of clouds
We tried to get a selfie with the other-worldly crater floor visible behind us, but alas… this was our best shot:
Haleakala volcano crater – selfie at the summit
Haleakala volcano crater (10,023 ft above sea level)
Haleakala volcano crater
Treading on lava (Haleakala)
Entering the Haleakala National Park
I can’t think of a structure of nature that intrigues me as much as the Hawaiian volcano.
And for some reason, I didn’t get pics of the one Haleakala Silversword we saw. The Silversword is a rare succulent plant that only exists on and around the Haleakala volcano; it grows on volcanic cinder.
That concludes this post. Next up on Tuesday, I’ll share some pics from the road to Hana, and another gem we visited along the way!
I wrote “Canon of Disassembling an Iceberg” in 2010, and it appeared in Blackbird’s Spring 2011 edition.
Being more recent, this poem was published with my current name, so I didn’t black it out (my last name, that is).
Without further ado!
KRISTI GARBOUSHIAN
Canon of Disassembling an Iceberg
How about this: first
I’ll jolt the gutter,
ache for its town
without mourning—
nothing is unfixable
in light of the inevitable.
Then I’ll taste the blood
you left on the letter opener.
You’re gone;
you’ve always been gone,
disregarding speed
limits on the tundra,
tearing perforated ice—
you’re an assassin
going after sedge, slow
process of lichen
deforestation
truncating the philosophers’
question, yet pruning
their terraces of syllogisms
and proofs.
It’s a brain-wringing experience.
If I could hear
the bones of the hunted,
feel underpinnings of hunger,
see plasma and red cells
pull apart,
then touching the place
you used to be
could inspire me in the night.
I wait for New Year’s,
for tundra to become ocean.
We’ll say, let’s screw
the champagne,
pop vodka instead.
December 31st,
you’re still gone,
overlooking the sedge.
Your email wants to know
my resolution.
I say it’s to towel dry
an entire submarine.
Pain turns
everything bright,
but anger brings
dark where I can see.
I prefer ire to grief,
indignation to sorrow—
territories I know
well into the reaches
of my own stories.
You won’t
find me there.
What’s light in your eyes
becomes darkness in mine.
Unseen, untracked,
I disappear.
Roughly 20% of the way done. Not as far along as I’d like it to be at this point.
In my defense, 50% of the work happens in my head, away from the computer. (Actually, a lot of the thinking work happens in the shower.)
Not using Scrivener.
Set up shop on our dining room table due to feline-related shenanigans, but sometimes migrate around with the laptop. An occasional change of scenery is helpful.
Made an 80’s playlist for related reasons, but only listen to it on breaks.
Need total silence while writing.
Afternoon iced café au lait greatly anticipated.
Thing 2: Honoring a couple of requests, I’ve got another poetry throwback for you. Like the last one, this was first published in a journal… because when you’re in grad school getting your MFA in Creative Writing, you’re strongly encouraged to submit work; the process is an unofficial part of your education.
LUNGFULL! magazine is a literary and art journal that’s especially interesting because they request a rough draft of your poem along with its final version. They print the two versions side-by-side so readers can see a fragment of the creative process.
I wrote “Woman Ironing” in 2000, and it appeared in LUNGFULL! magazine in 2001.
“Woman Ironing” was inspired by – and titled after – my favorite Pablo Picasso work. Picasso painted “Woman Ironing” during his Blue Period in 1904.
“Woman Ironing,” Pablo Picasso, 1904
That being said! Here is the poem, with my then-last name blacked out, as before…
“Woman Ironing” [Click on the images to enlarge them into readability]
[“Woman Ironing” Kristi (now Garboushian) LUNGFULL! magazine number eleven]
Some of you have noticed that I haven’t posted haiku or other poetry in a while, and you’ve asked about it. Well, a few months ago, I decided to discontinue posting new poems here. Since you asked, though, I’ve got a throw-back to share today. From 17 years ago.
17 years. That is insane. The passage of time is just… creepy.
Right.
So I dug through ancient history and unearthed this poem. It was my first publication, published under my former name. I blacked out the name to protect the innocent.
A note on that: Several publications later, I married my X and took his name, then proceeded to publish more stuff under the new name. When I married Callaghan, one of my MFA professors strongly advised me to keep the name I had because of the publications (especially since one of them was major). There’s the answer, for those of you wondering why I never took Callaghan’s name.
My style has gradually taken new shape in the last 17 years, but even this poem was more narrative (I don’t at all mean that in a pejorative way!) than typical poems I was writing at the time. I do like this poem.
Have at it.
“A Garden to Tour”
[“A Garden to Tour” Kristi (now Garboushian) cimarron review fall 1999]
~Mary Shelley, Frankenstein. Shelley also wrote: “There is something at work in my soul, which I do not understand.”
Steampunk happens sometimes. It just happens.
Haiku 9: Steampunk
(by Kristi Garboushian)
1.
19th-century
mechanics: Mary Shelley’s
gaunt ectoplasm.
Art by Edward Gorey (“Amphigorey Too”)
2.
Inner workings breed
clockwork postmodernism –
no contradiction.
Antique helmet on antique German trunk
3.
Dry leather-bound book
trembling with recovery,
Lovecraftian myth.
Tentacle
4.
Subterranean
yesteryear, macabre air-
ship… gears, cogs, and all.
Antique gears
This was a fun set to write. Venturing into steampunk in my poetic imagination smacks of midlife crisis, perhaps! Finally! Also, I’m still marveling at the unexpectedness of this whole haiku adventure.
Er… about that big writing project I started a few years ago. I dragged it off the back burner. Don’t get all excited – it’s embryonic; it doesn’t look like anything yet. Eventually, it will look like a novel. (I hope.)
I’ve put together a loose agenda that includes a loose daily word count goal and a loose deadline. Everything has to be loose, because everything, as Heraclitus said, is in flux. You can’t nail down that which is in flux, and I’m not even going to try.
In my experience, creativity and prioritizing cancel each other out. Maybe it’s better to say that creativity often sabotages prioritizing, and prioritizing sabotages creativity. In the last few weeks, I’ve found that setting myself up for that clash (by attempting to prioritize my creative writing projects) shorts my brain connections and I wind up going around the house like a droid opening the mail, of all things, and organizing my workout clothing drawers and emptying the dishwasher and making playlists on SoundCloud and so on. You know. A rose by any other name is still procrastination.
So instead of fixed times, my agenda holds broad ranges of dedicated writing time, and I can shift between the project, poetry, and blog posts (which includes taking pics) as inspiration strikes me.
I’m setting my focus on that big project, though. I purchased a Scrivener license to help manage the ungainliness of it. I even did the full-length version of their interactive tutorial. If it sounds like I mean business this time, it’s because I do!
Nenette’s involvement is essential because I don’t have a choice in that matter.
All the water is Nenette’s water.
I’m happy to be in a position where I have to apply time-management strategies to solely creative projects. It’s a new challenge, and a very welcome one, at that.
Also, I’ve been thinking about dragging you along on my journey… any of you who may be interested, that is. Sharing the process with you may come with a side benefit of holding myself accountable for progress. I’ll see how things develop as I establish a rhythm!
Note on training:
In addition to my writing schedule, I’ve been hammering out a workout schedule supplemental to Body Combat three times a week. I’ve started a habit of beginning my days at the gym in order to re-create the daily walk I did when I was transporting myself to a job outside of the house. Getting to work used to involve 20 minutes of fasting cardio Monday-Friday, and my body loved it. Fasting cardio is somewhat controversial and not for everyone, but it works for me, so I’ve added that back into my life by going to the gym and walking on the treadmill (and doing a little on the stair-master) before breakfast every weekday morning.
ALSO-also! I’ve been taking 30-40 minutes out of my lunch hour to lift weights in the garage. New Year’s resolution strength-training finally underway, for real! I’ll still post martial arts/combat sports posts here since some of you enjoy those, but just to check in on that New Year’s resolution – the strength-training has been going well. It’s feeling really good to stick to that commitment.
This week revolved around ulcer pain. I spent time every day sitting outside with Cita the Unofficially-Ours outdoor cat, studying the weeds in our backyard.
Naturally, the weeds became a rabbit hole, and I fell in.
Haiku 8: Weeds (Les Mauvaises Herbes)
(by Kristi Garboushian)
1.
Aboriginal
acacia, mesquite, all your
rain shelters, sunsets.
Questions I asked myself all week: Does power always, in every circumstance, corrupt? Is power breakable? What would it take to break chains of power, and would it take a super hero or a super villain to break them?
In these new haiku, I explore the correlation between power and corruption.
Haiku 7: Power
(by Kristi Garboushian)
1.
Grand tribulation:
oak doors hewn by elected
justice. Reckoning.
Power of position
2.
Preternatural –
czars savoring backfire,
litanies of blood.
In a lighter vein, the week wound back down to normalcy after the in-laws departed. It was a good visit. We took them to typical Arizona places (i.e. Tombstone, Sedona), and they ventured down into the Grand Canyon. They saw a fraction of what Arizona has to offer… one really needs more than a week to take in all of its splendors. Our guests enjoyed what little they experienced.
Without preamble, I’ll go ahead and acknowledge that this set of haiku turned out to be just the faintest bit… creepy? Spooky? It wasn’t intentional, I swear. Not that I mind it in the least, though. I’m fond of creepy and spooky, and I like that these haiku came out this way of their own accord. Classical haiku has a way of taking on lives of their own within the 5-7-5 structure.
Haiku 6: Shadows
(by Kristi Garboushian)
1.
Patterns will shelter
the historic, ancestral,
extinguished, entombed.
Shadow tree
2.
Prehistoric ghost
running Santa Monica
stairs, eyeteeth intact.
Shadow bike
3.
Indeterminate
aging, voiceless between your
guardians… landlocked.
Shadow fence
4.
Palpable swivel:
alleles in a basin,
suspended in space.
Shadow self
In other news, we’ll have family visiting from France this week. They’re coming in tomorrow. I sense a whirlwind of housecleaning activity in today’s forecast… always a great side benefit of visitors!
[** This personal haiku discipline I’ve started has become something of a pleasurable habit. Helpful hint, if you’re so inclined: I’ve grouped my growing collection of themed haiku sets here. You can also click the link in the “Poetry” category in the sidebar. **]
I’m coming off of a fantastic and unusually creatively charged week, probably the most so of 2016 thus far. I wrote this set of haiku to sum it up…
Haiku 5: Emancipation
(by Kristi Garboushian)
1.
Disingenuous
snakes boiling over it all: Laissez-moi tranquille.
“The Art of Strategy” (R.L. Wing, new translation of Sun Tzu’s “The Art of War”)
2.
Serendipity.
No secret provocation,
no sly dorsal fin.
Newly created path.
3.
Bear witness: Too much
blinding white noise, stochastic
resonance. Failure.
Live a great story (and learn).
4.
Current volition:
auspices of Minerva,
prosaic temple.
Callaghan woke me up 25 minutes after the alarm should have gone off this morning. The alarm – my phone – failed to function one time before, and I couldn’t figure out why since I knew I’d set it. I didn’t understand why it happened this morning, either, and I was going to ask Callaghan if he’d heard the alarm and I somehow slept through it, except he was busy reading his email from Cècil the Goat in France (I asked him three times if the guy’s name was really La Chèvre because I was half-asleep and could have misheard him: Is his name really La Chèvre? Yes, it was), so I double-checked my phone and found that I’d accidentally set the alarm for tomorrow. Saturday. I SO wanted the week to be over that I subconsciously set the alarm for Saturday?
Anyway, I wrote another set of haiku last weekend in my mostly muted state (re-occurrence of laryngitis), and I was going to post it on Tuesday, but UFC 196 happened on Saturday night and I wanted to talk about that, instead. So here are the haiku.
This set of haiku was inspired by some pics I took on a stroll around my work campus.
Haiku 4: Car, pendulum, bougainvillea, art installation
(by Kristi Garboushian)
1.
Curved mannequin, all
disintegration, gesture,
all black-framed, rasping.
“Society of Automobile Engineers Formula 1992 Restoration Project”
Food poisoning this week. No details necessary… just to say that yesterday, I rose from the wish-I-was-dead and went around my house taking pictures and writing haiku.
These haiku were inspired by some of the art on our walls at home. The pieces are from France, except the one that was done by Callaghan, who is French. You get the common theme.
Haiku 3: Art
(by Kristi Garboushian)
1.
Déjà vu hunting
blind, agnostic galleries –
counting hours.
Cromagnon detail (original art by Callaghan)
2.
Insurmountable:
vapor of millenniums,
vaporous château.
It’s a new week, and other than some residual congestion, I’m flu-free. Seven days of viral craptastic downtime makes for a giddy return to work. I only went in on Tuesday last week. I went on Wednesday, too, but I was sent home almost immediately, so Wednesday doesn’t count.
(Aside: Remember when “viral” really was just a bad thing?)
Even on Sunday, I coughed so much, Callaghan said, “There’s no way you can go to work tomorrow.” But I felt much better when I woke up yesterday. The whole day felt glorious. It was warm and the sky was extra sunny, clear, and blue – even more blue than usual – so I went outside (glorious!) during my lunch hour and took some pics. I didn’t go far… just to the art museum near my building. The museum and the adjacent little theatre.
I’m sharing some of the pics with a few more haiku, because they go together. I’m feeling the haiku these days, and it feels good. It feels good to pick up poetry again!
Haiku 2: Blue Sky
(by Kristi Garboushian)
1.
To be undulant,
an unfinished votive dream
soothing chess-players.
Blue sky with theatre box office.
2.
Elasticity:
five hundred sodden leaves around
the arctic building.
Blue sky with art museum.
3.
Plumage battering
an alternative fossil –
carnage emerging.
Blue sky with fake lava.
4.
A feast of words held:
tense, shy, the gloved telegrams,
chronological.
Blue sky with art museum, 2.
I love how Haiku encourages pictures in 17 syllables.
Kitty updates today! I was feeling a pull toward something different when I sat down to write last night, so I went with it. What ended up happening was I wrote about Nounours and Nenette in haiku. It was a fun change of kitty-update pace, plus I’ve been thinking it’s kind of sad that I’ve written so few poems since getting my M.F.A. in Creative Writing with a Poetry concentration.
If you’re not into haiku or poetry in general, just scroll on down… I added a paragraph of non-haiku kitty updates under the last pic.
Haiku 1: Cats
(by Kristi Garboushian)
1.
Bedtime ritual –
the voyeur of espresso,
wicker ball, a lyre.
Nenette cleaning her feet at bedtime.
2.
His roaring soft self
to curl, melt the desert bright
in pastoral glow.
Nounours in the nest Daddy made.
3.
A swing, a feather
like a river marring stars:
Possibility.
Nenette deciding which toy.
4.
The round vacancy –
morning routine, following
the feral other.
Nenette and Nounours enjoying a sunbeam.
In plain speech, Nounours and Nenette have been happily snuggling down in their special nighttime beds that we put together for them: Nenette on her padded bar-stool (in the bedroom corner next to my side of the bed) that I’d swathed in t-shirts I’d worn, and Nounours in the couch nest that Callaghan made with a serape and random cushions.
Nenette still loves her toy corner in the living room more than anything! She studies her toy basket and paws at the toys she wants, lifting them out with her teeth.
On weekend mornings, I’m home to watch both kitties winter sunbathing in beams on the floor.
As the dust settled at the end of this crazy week at work, I finally got to sit down and look at the list of nominees for Oscars at this year’s Academy Awards.
I’m happy with some of the big nominations. Mad Max: Fury Road and The Revenant were two of my favorite films of the year (of the Best Picture nominees, I hope Mad Max wins). I also enjoyed Bridge of Spies, Creed, and The Big Short.
I hope Amy wins for Best Documentary Feature.
I wish that Ex Machina got nominated for something more than a small award.
Moving on to OUTRIGHT SNUBS, Straight Outta Compton, another of my favorite films of 2015, deserved a Best Picture nomination, in my opinion. I also believe that Straight Outta Compton is worthy of a Best Director nomination, and why Jason Mitchell didn’t get nominated for Best Supporting Actor as Eazy-E is beyond me.
But the main questions in my head as I read the list of Oscar nominees were:
1). Why wasn’t Idris Elba nominated for Best Supporting Actor for Beasts of No Nation?
2). Why wasn’t Abraham Attah nominated for Best Actor for Beasts of No Nation?
3). Why wasn’t Beasts of No Nation nominated for Best Picture?
4). Why wasn’t Cary Joji Fukunaga nominated for Best Director for Beasts of No Nation?
5). Why wasn’t Beasts of No Nation nominated for Best Costume Design?
Idris Elba and Abraham Attah in Beasts of No Nation.
6). Why wasn’t Beasts of No Nation nominated for Best Cinematography?
7). Why wasn’t Beasts of No Nation nominated for Best Original Score?
(“A Song for Strika”)
At least Straight Outta Compton received a nomination for Best Writing – Original Screenplay. Beasts of No Nation received ZERO Oscar nominations. It was completely left out of the competition, and I’m incredulous. Who, exactly, is responsible for deciding what constitutes art in cinema?
Idris Elba’s searing performance as Commandant should be recognized. And young Abraham Attah? His performance as Agu hurt my heart so profoundly, I’m unable to shake the memory of it, or the pain I felt when I witnessed it.
That’s how Beasts of No Nation made me feel: Like a witness. Not a movie-goer, an audience member, an entertainment seeker. A witness. That is what good art can do. It can put us in the picture, in the moment, make us see and feel things we don’t necessarily want to see or feel; it can unflinchingly cast light on the abominable, because we need to see it. We need to acknowledge it.
A part of the brilliance of Beasts of No Nation is that somehow, overall, it manages to be poetic. Maybe at the end I was too emotionally spent to see it, but thinking back on it now that I’ve processed the film as a whole, the imagery in that last scene was poetry… and it was beautiful.
My personal feelings aside, Beasts of No Nation is next-level outstanding in every respect of film-making, and for it to have been excluded from the Academy Awards is a gross oversight. A colossal oversight. I would go so far as to say that it seems like a deliberate oversight, because anyone with eyes and a heart can see that it’s a masterpiece, and the movie-nominating people have eyes and hearts, do they not?
Idris Elba’s and Abraham Attah’s performances are performances that deserve Academy Award recognition.
Beasts of No Nation is difficult to watch, for sure, as I’ve said before. But art’s intention isn’t solely to entertain us. Good art in all of its genres makes us feel things, including real despair for real-life realities.
How is it that The Martian received a nomination for Best Picture, while Beasts of No Nation and Straight Outta Compton did not?
Lately, I’ve been hearing a lot about “life-coaching.” I’m not exactly sure what that is, I’m no coach of any kind, and I certainly can’t claim to be an expert on life, but I thought I’d venture into related territory (meaning distant-cousin related). I thought, if I was to give just simple, pithy life advice, what would that look like? It seemed like a fun and worthwhile challenge. I searched my experience and came up with something for every letter of the alphabet, because my brain likes lists. Some of the “advice” is literal, some figurative; some are quotes, and some are definitions. It’s all helpful to me. So, for what it’s worth –
Life advice A-Z!
Age: Depends on the individual
Balance: “Pick your battles”
Caution: Conceal your true weaknesses
Design: Create your reality
Equilibrium: Drink lots of water
Fitness: Master a physical activity
Guidance: Have a goal
Health: Take the stairs
Intention: Kick ass in the kindest way possible
Juggernaut: Willpower on crack
Key: Unlock with fit, rather than force
Livelihood: Connect to artworks
Detail from “Dreams for the Earth, #6” (Beth Ames Swartz, 1989)
Mental Health: Exercise hard
Nourishment: Cultivate relationships
Organizing: Turn procrastination into productivity
Provocation: Control your reactions
Quote: “Keep your hands up and your chin down”
Resonate: Remember interconnectedness
Strategy: Adjust your lifestyle
Thorn: Strengthen your mind
Urgent: Practice selective response
Vigilance: “Stay alert to stay alive”
Wealth: Clean sheets
Xerox: Never run out of ink
Yin and Yang: “Only when it’s dark can you see the stars”
Zenith: Construct your own ladder
[Full annotation on the image:
Dreams for the Earth, #6
“So the darkness shall be the light/and the stillness the dancing”
Beth Ames Swartz, 1989
(Donated by Louise G. Fink to honor the contributions of the Center for the Study of Law, Science, and Technology)
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