If lost in the hills

Source | Soundtrack

The Bend in Arabic

[The verbs] i‘wajja, awida, māla, ḍali‘a, zawira, zāgha, ṣa‘ira, and ṣawira all mean the same. Ta’awwada is said of a thing that has a bend in it. And you say there is mayal in a bent thing, in addition to mayl, both verbal nouns of māla. [The nouns] ‘awaj, mayal, awad, ḍala‘, badan, zawar, zaygh, and ṣa‘ar are said especially for [affections of] the side of the face. God, be He Exalted and Magnified, says: Wa-lā tuṣa‘‘ir khaddaka li-n-nāsi "Twist not your cheek at people." Ṣawar and ṣayad are [upward bendings of a person's neck] from hauteur and pride, and [of a camel's neck] from the tugging of the rein upon the nose-ring.

From ‘Abd al-Raḥmān ibn ‘Īsā al-Hamadhānī's Book of Words for Secretarial Use in Arabic Language Science, the recension of
Ibn Khalawayh

    

[The nouns] ‘awaj, awad, ḍala‘, mayal, zawar, zaygh, ḥinw, and ṣa‘ar are said especially for [affections of] the side of the face. Ṣawar and ṣayad are [upward bendings of the neck] from hauteur and pride. Mayal is for a bend in the formation of a thing, as is ḍala‘, and its affiliated verb is mayila yamyalu; mayl is for when you incline towards another, and its affiliated verb is māla yamīlu. One uses the verb ta’awwada of a thing, and i‘wajja, in‘āja, and in’āda when it bends. And while the "contortion" of an abstract matter is called ‘iwaj, the "bend" in a stick is called ‘awaj.

From ‘Abd al-Raḥmān ibn ‘Īsā al-Hamadhānī's Book of Words for Identical and Similar Things, the recension of Abū 'l-Barakāt ‘Abd al-Raḥmān ibn al-Anbārī

Interview With a Ampire

 

After thirty years in the arts, it's happened that someone asked me thoughtful questions about my work, and recorded and edited our conversation for everyone to enjoy. I will be forever grateful that it was my friend Tenaya Nasser-Frederick. Thanks also to the editors of Full Stop, where the interview appears in two parts: Part One | Part Two

 

UPDATED AUG. 31: Tenaya and I just gave no. 148 in the Brooklyn Rail's Wednesday reading series, and for better or worse the cloud recording's been made viewable until kingdom come. Thanks to Anselm and everyone at the Rail who makes it happen.

ALSO Gabriel Kruis's review of my new book Zeroes Were Hollow has appeared in the Poetry Project Newsletter 273 (Summer 2023), 27-8, and can be read right here. Thanks so much to Kay et alii at the Newsletter and ov course to Gabe.

AND NOW (DEC. 5): Jared Joseph's review of Zeroes appears as an insightful web-exclusive feature of Gulf Coast 36:1 (Summer/Fall 2023). Thanks to Jared, Gabriel and Tenaya, the book's launch is now complete, and I can go back to watching YouTubs.

                             Sly Stone on Dick Cavett (ABC, 1970)

                             Van Halen, "I'll Wait" (1984), fan video

                             AC/DC, "Highway to Hell" (Paris, 1979)

                             Elton John, "I Guess That's Why They Call It the
                             Blues" (Las Vegas, 2012), feat. Jean Witherspoon

Man and crow

‘Ali ibn Sulayman al-Akhfash reported to me that Abu Sa‘id al-Sukkari said, on the authority of Muhammad ibn Habib, that

Abu 'l-Nashnash was a bandit of the Banu Tamim, an antisocial type and nuisance of the road who used to hold up caravans between the Hijaz and Syria. He was caught by one of Marwan's brigadiers, who fettered him and kept him prisoner, until Abu 'l-Nashnash took advantage of his captors' inattention and ran for it. He went along until he came to where a crow in a moringa tree was croaking and preening its feathers, and this filled him with disquiet. Then he came upon a group of the Banu Lihb, and said: "Ordeals and evils, imprisonment and dire straits—this man's been through them all, and escaped!" He looked to his right, and saw nothing. Then he looked to his left, and saw again the crow in a tree, croaking and preening its feathers.
     "If the omen doesn't lie, this man's headed back to prison," a Lihbite said, "to languish in fetters until he's executed and exposed on a cross." "Suck a rock," said Abu 'l-Nashnash. "Suck it yourself," said the Lihbite. To which Abu 'l-Nashnash recited (meter: ṭawīl):

        Many women ask where I'm headed, and many men.
            Why ask the irregular where he's bound?
        The broad highway, that's where. If someone hangs onto
            what they'd better hand over, that's when I come near.
        A lonely man who can't roam free and easy,
            and no one is happy to see,
        is better off dead than hovering
            in penury around his master's well.
        The open waste where the sandgrouse falters 
            is where Abu 'l-Nashnash comes riding through,
        to avenge someone's killing, or take someone's stuff.
            Is the prodigy not now in view?
        He lies down to worse poverty, finding nothing he seeks
            on darker nights than I've ever seen.
        Live lawless or die noble. I have found no one
            left behind that death came seeking.

From the Book of Songs

Words and meanings

Words that hint at flashing glimpses, and meanings that set captives free. Words like trees in flower, and meanings that inspire deep breaths. Words that borrow the sweetness of lovers' complaints, and crib from their tête-à-tête on the day of separation.

You'd think their words were pearls cascading from a cloud, if not purer drops in showers, whose meanings were pearls laced into a chain, only more precious. Language that is intimate and distant, provoking desires and dashing hopes, like the sun that brings light near while staying far above, and like water, so cheap when plentiful but costly when it runs out. Language that is easy for the astute to take in hand, and hard for everyone else. Language that ears will not reject and time will not wear away. Words that come as happy news gathered from a flower garden, and meanings like breaths of wind redolent of wine and aromatic herbs.

Smooth-flowing language of fine vintage mixed with rainwater, bringing realizations closer to its hearers. Witticisms that are magic portals, and nuggets like riches after poverty. Language like cooling drink on an overheated stomach, like prestige garments on an unbridled youth, full of highlights, supple contents, exquisite edges and non-abrasive surfaces. Language that is licit magic, cold springwater, and robes and mantles of resist-dyed weave, and apothegms and maxims and immanent happiness and blooming youth. I see in it the picture of pure refinement, and a paragon of excellence in its casting and molding. Words of coltish newness that are knots of ancient sorcery. Words that gladden the despondent, and level rugged ground, and make the treasured pearl an otiose thing.

Language that is free from affectation and far from blemish. Language with magic on its breath, and a smile of pearls in a row. Words whose golden surfaces inspire delight, and meanings whose verity overcomes the inborn temper. Words so tender-hearted, you'd think them copied from from a page of puppy love, but so ingratiating you'd think they were dictated by appetitive passion. Language that comes as an announcement of noble birth to the ear of sterile old age. Language that comes tantalizingly near and is forbiddingly remote, descending until it's just "two bow-lengths away, or even closer," then ascending until it is the highest thing that can be seen.

Language of beautiful brocade and subtle mixture, sweet to take in, cast without flaw, of enticing verbal makeup in which I read hidden meanings made plain, and words at close hand that hit faraway targets. If ever there were language that could melt boulders, cool embers, heal the sick and set aright the broken bone, this is it. His language seats its hearers on carpets, and courses through their hearts like resin in an aloe-tree. A man whose words are flowers, and his meanings fruits. His language is company for the settled, and provisions for the traveler. Language in which gazelles seek refuge, and sparrows bathe their wings. Language that emancipates clarity but keeps beauty in its thrall. Language that hauls in pearls, ties magic knots, dilates bosoms, and appeases Fate. Language whose range is far and its harvest nigh, inspiring affection in its hearers, and despair in [would-be imitators of] its craft.

From The Magic of Eloquence and the Secret of [Rhetorical] Expertise by
Abu Mansur al-Tha‘alibi

Avant ‘Udhra

Abu ‘Ubayd Allah al-Marzubani reported that Abu Bakr Ahmad ibn Muhammad al-Jawhari informed him that Muhammad ibn ‘Ali al-Sulami said: It was reported to me by ‘Abd Allah ibn Abi Sa‘d that ‘Umar ibn Shabba al-Numayri said: Muhammad ibn al-Hasan told me: Muzahim ibn Zafar informed me that his uncle said:

In the land of the Banu ‘Udhra, I saw an aged man whose body was drawn in on itself like a bird's. I asked the woman attending him who this was. "It's ‘Urwa," she told me. So I bent down close and asked him, "Does your love affect you still?" He said (meter: ṭawīl):

      My gut is like a wingèd grouse of the sands,
          so very sharply does it flutter.

I went round to his left side, and he repeated the verse until I'd heard it from him four times.

Hisham ibn al-Sa’ib al-Kalbi reported that al-Nu‘man ibn Bashir said:

I was sent as tax collector to the Banu ‘Udhra, and went about collecting their taxes until, when I thought I had passed beyond their territory, a threadbare tent came into view. Lying in front of it was a young man reduced to skin and bones. On hearing my tread, he began to chant in a weak and mournful voice (meter: ṭawīl):

      To the healer of al-Yamama I'll pay what's due,
          and to the healer of Hajr—but first they must heal me.     

Just then, a rustling came from the tent, and inside it I beheld an old woman. "Old woman," I said, "come out, for this young man has passed the point of death, in my estimation." "Mine too," she said. "I haven't heard so much as a whimper from him in over a year, except these verses lamenting his departed soul" (meter: basīṭ):

      Mothers weep forever. Who weeps for me
          today? Now I am the one being subtracted.
      Today they let me hear it, but when I uplifted
          the people that I met, I heard nothing.

She came out and lo, the man had died. So I wrapped him in a shroud  and prayed over him. I asked, "Who was he?" She said, "This is ‘Urwa ibn Hizam, the man slain by love."

From Abu ‘Abd Allah al-Yazidi's recension of the Poetry of ‘Urwa ibn Hizam; cf. Poetry and Poets, the Book of Songs, the Meadows of Gold, and The Tribulations of Impassioned Lovers

Alexander the Sleepless XVIII

I will narrate another miracle, supernatural and superhuman, about a medicinal brew the foresightful blessed one prepared for some brothers who were sick. For this purpose, they took ramekins of clay and set them in the ground [near the hearth] to be heated there, and he tapped four brothers to oversee the preparation in day-long shifts. Then there came a day when it slipped their minds—or rather, the Lord allowed it to slip their minds, in order that His servant stand revealed to all. 

It was a day when no one paid attention. All they did with the ramekins that morning was to wash them, fill them with cold water and leave them sitting there. But when the hour drew nigh, and they were reminded of their duty, they were ashamed to look at any of their brothers, and did not dare to go to their abbot and let him know. Finally, one of them got up the courage, and went to him and said, "We had no wood, and heated no water." The blessed one, when he heard this, said, "And why were you not mindful of it this morning? Not that it matters: I know you're trying to test me. You can go back now, your water's hot." Doubtful as they were, they went back and found the ramekins bubbling, though it was obvious no fire had gone beneath them that whole day. And once again, the brothers marveled at the man's faith.

These few miracles have been chosen in order that we may believe in the many I could set forth, and that all things were possible for him through his perfect faith.

The Life of Alexander the Sleepless III.47