I especially enjoyed his poem about gays in Iran. But his responsive
poem to the President of Columbia University, as he acknowledged in
stunning ghazal couplets that, yes, indeed, the president of the United
States was indeed 'a petty and cruel dictator' showed just how fast he
was on his poetic feet.
Doug
On 23-Sep-07, at 11:58 PM, Geoffrey Gatza wrote:
> New York City — home to the United Nations and some of the most
> ethnically
> diverse communities on the planet — often finds itself in the curious
> position of being grudgingly hospitable to some of the world’s most
> controversial heads of state and loathsome tyrants.
>
> The arrival yesterday of Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, the Iranian president
> best
> known here for criticizing the United States and calling the Holocaust
> a
> myth, is the latest example of the diplomatic dance New York has long
> performed with international firebrands.
>
> Last week the Police Department denied Iran’s request to allow Mr.
> Ahmadinejad to visit ground zero, but BlazeVOX [books] is allowing him
> to
> participate in a Poetry reading Tuesday. Geoffrey Gatza spoke last
> night to
> a sympathetic and mostly Iranian audience at a Midtown hotel. “We are
> thrilled that President Ahmadinejad will read from his upcoming
> BlazeVOX
> book.”
Douglas Barbour
11655 - 72 Avenue NW
Edmonton Ab T6G 0B9
(780) 436 3320
http://www.ualberta.ca/~dbarbour/
Latest book: Continuations (with Sheila E Murphy)
http://www.uap.ualberta.ca/UAP.asp?LID=41&bookID=664
When you combine two unique voices
it creates a third, phantom voice.
Emmy Lou Harris
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