Jill,
I should say that I had no involvement in the planning of that symposium,
and since so many university sub-units were credited, it was difficult to
discern who was responsible for which writer being there. However,
Georgetown does claim to be the only university in North America offering a
Certificate Program in Australian and New Zealand Studies. That Center has
hosted Peter Weir and David Malouf, among others. Its web address is
http://canz.georgetown.edu/
I did attend the reading by Adonis. After about 45 minutes, an unfamiliar
pattern of loud sounds disrupted the proceedings. The audience didn't want
to leave the auditorium and exited slowly even when it became clear it was
a fire alarm. While standing outside the building for twenty minutes, I
gathered that the familiar-looking man who had been seated in the row
behind me was the Syrian Ambassador. One of the uniformed university staff
specifically told me what had happened was a "false alarm". I can imagine
a scenario, but whether I'll ever learn how & why the alarm went off in
that circumstance . . .
After the reading, someone fluent in Arabic informed me that Adonis had
read three fairly long recent works, and since the poet didn't like the
repetition of having translations read immediately afterwards, Marc
McMorris had read (in three sets) Samuel Hazo's translation of a completely
different work, "Transformations of the Lover". I had tried to interest
myself in the variety of Adonis' hand movements and whatever sound patterns
I could perceive, but my afterimage continues to be dominated by the two
presentational surprises.
Barry
On Tue, 11 Apr 2006 09:42:49 +0800, Jill Jones <[log in to unmask]>
wrote:
>The program sure looks interesting. I'd love to hear Adonis.
>
>But I got a leetle cross reading the conference bumpf. Like a lot of
>these kinds
>of things claiming to range "across the globe", it clearly doesn't. "Globe"
>includes more than Americas, Europe, Middle East and Africa.
>
>Thinking of one of the oldest continuous poetic traditions, in China,
>let alone
>so many others.
>
>Just as discussion of Australian poetry recently petered out, it seems the
>so-called East, let alone South, is largely invisible, still. Don't these
>people have maps? Oh, I forgot - US-Brit-Eurocentrism is still alive and
well.
>
>But so's the elsewheres. And we have maps.
>
>Cheers and hello from an elsewhere,
>Jill
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