Today marks the first day of National Hispanic Heritage Month, running through October 15th.

                                          https://uca.edu/news/latinos-unidos-comes-to-uca-for-hispanic-heritage-month/

José Dominguez, the First Latino in Outer Space

BY DAN VERA

In that very first episode

the transmission is received on the starship Enterprise

that Space Commander Dominguez urgently needs his supplies.

Kirk tells Uhura to assure him

that the peppers are “prime Mexican reds

but he won’t die if he goes a few more days without ’em.”

Calm down Mexican.

You can wait a few more days to get your chile peppers.

In the corner of my eye I see Uhura’s back hand twitch

and though I never see him on the screen

I image José giving Kirk a soplamoco to the face.

But this is the year 2266 and there are Latinos in Outer Space!

We never see them, but they’ve survived with their surnames

and their desire, deep in the farthest interplanetary reaches,

for a little heat to warm the bland food on the starbase at Corinth 4.

As it is on earth so it shall be in heaven.

Ricardo Montalbán will show up 21 episodes later

to play a crazy mutant Indio,

superhuman and supersmart

who survived two centuries

to slap Kirk around and take over his ship.

Announcement!!!

Dear Students,
Due to some festivities freshmen students do not have class on Monday and Tuesday (http://halic.edu.tr/tr/duyurular/2019-2020-oryantasyon-programi).
However, I will be present for my lectures of American Poetry I and Postmodern Lit for the junior classes.
Graduate students of the department of American Studies who contacted me and wish to say farewell, pls be aware that I do not have any office hours this semester. So e-mail me before you plan to visit me. Toi Toi Toi!
see you soon,
best
gh

“I like to write when I feel spiteful. It is like having a good sneeze." (Letter to Cynthia Asquith, November 1913)” ― D.H. Lawrence, Letters

towani yura, 「Taboo & Tattoo」

D.H. Lawrence is best known for his infamous novel 'Lady Chatterley's Lover,' which was banned in the United States until 1959. He is widely regarded as one of the most influential writers of the 20th century.

Born today in England in 1885, D.H. Lawrence is regarded as one of the most influential writers of the 20th century. He published many novels and poetry volumes during his lifetime, including "Sons and Lovers and Women in Love", but is best known for his infamous "Lady Chatterley's Lover". The graphic and highly sexual novel was published in Italy in 1928, but was banned in the United States until 1959, and in England until 1960. Garnering fame for his novels and short stories early on in his career, Lawrence later received acclaim for his personal letters, in which he detailed a range of emotions, from exhilaration to depression to prophetic brooding. He died in France in 1930.
source: https://www.biography.com/writer/dh-lawrence

here you can find the PDF version for "Lady Chatterley's Lover":
 https://www.planetebook.com/free-ebooks/lady-chatterlys-lover.pdf

"Words were her plague and words were her redemption." - Hilda Doolitle

Nele Azevedo, Melting Men

H.D.’s walk through the “city of ruin” excerpt:

we are powerless,
dust and powder fill our lungs
our bodies blunder...
  ...

we walk continually

on thin air
that thickens to a blind fog...

  ...

we know no rule
of procedure,

we are voyagers, discoverers
of the not-known

the unrecorded;
we have no map;

possibly we will reach haven,
heaven.

Born today H.D.'s life and work recapitulate the central themes of literary modernism: the emergence from Victorian norms and certainties, the entry into an age characterized by rapid technological change and the violence of two great wars, and the development of literary modes which reflected the disintegration of traditional symbolic systems and the mythmaking quest for new meanings. Within this modernist tradition, H.D.’s particular emphasis grew out of her perspective as a woman regarding the intersections of public events and private lives in the aftermath of World War I and in the increasingly ominous period culminating in the Atomic Age. Love and war, birth and death are the central concerns of her work, in which she reconstituted gender, language, and myth to serve her search for the underlying patterns ordering and uniting consciousness and culture.
source: https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poets/h-d

Je préfère septembre. Il est plus féminin, plus discret, plus mystérieux. Il ressemble à un printemps vu en rêve. (Gabriele D’Annunzio)

ankunft in ithaka, fflepp 2012

“The Uses of Sorrow” 

by Mary Oliver 

(In my sleep I dreamed this poem)

Someone I loved once gave me

a box full of darkness.

It took me years to understand

that this, too, was a gift.

Today is International Literacy Day

Jot Weigelt, http://netskater.net/

Learning to Read

BY FRANCES ELLEN WATKİNS HARPER

Very soon the Yankee teachers

   Came down and set up school;

But, oh! how the Rebs did hate it,—

   It was agin’ their rule.

Our masters always tried to hide

   Book learning from our eyes;

Knowledge did’nt agree with slavery—

   ’Twould make us all too wise.

But some of us would try to steal

   A little from the book.

And put the words together,

   And learn by hook or crook.

I remember Uncle Caldwell,

   Who took pot liquor fat

And greased the pages of his book,

   And hid it in his hat.

And had his master ever seen

   The leaves upon his head,

He’d have thought them greasy papers,

   But nothing to be read.

And there was Mr. Turner’s Ben,

   Who heard the children spell,

And picked the words right up by heart,

   And learned to read ’em well.

Well, the Northern folks kept sending

   The Yankee teachers down;

And they stood right up and helped us,

   Though Rebs did sneer and frown.

And I longed to read my Bible,

   For precious words it said;

But when I begun to learn it,

   Folks just shook their heads,

And said there is no use trying,

   Oh! Chloe, you’re too late;

But as I was rising sixty,

   I had no time to wait.

So I got a pair of glasses,

   And straight to work I went,

And never stopped till I could read

   The hymns and Testament.

Then I got a little cabin

   A place to call my own—

And I felt independent

   As the queen upon her throne.

CALL FOR PAPERS: SUBMIT YOUR TRANSLATIONS

To my students at the Translation Studies and also to my American Lit students,
You can now submit your work for a chance to be featured in the Fall 2019 issue's Special Feature on International Microfiction! They are looking for the best unpublished translations (into English) under 1,000 words. for more pls read: https://www.asymptotejournal.com/submit/
best
gh

We’re thrilled to unveil plans for a second International Microfiction Special Feature in our Fall 2019 issue, after the success of our first, published in the Winter 2018 edition. If you’d like to be a part of the lineup, send in your best work under 1,000 English words. We’re looking for the best specimens of this genre that linger in the mind long after. Take note that this call is limited to English translations of foreign-language texts only. To inspire you, click over to some of the following pieces from our archive that speak to the power of microfiction: Pedro Novoa’s “The Dive,” László Krasznahorkai’s “I Don’t Need Anything From Here,” Rachel Shihor’s “Stalin is Dead,” A.L. Snijder’s “Animal Stories,” and Marta Zelwan’s  “The Human Species.” General guidelines (see below) apply. Deadline: September 15