Dear poet-friends,
as you know I was asked to be a co-editor for a special FutureCycle Press Anthology for Malala Yousafzai and have sent out many invitations to friends and colleagues to send submissions. However, I've been rather unceremoniously removed from that position when it became clear to the publisher(s) that I was being too pro-Canadian in my selection of poems and generally too tough as editor, especially in regards to submissions from Americans. It was only until I first posted my own little tribute to Malala here and Joseph Hutchison his afterwards that FutureCycle, inspired by our posts, developed the idea of a special Anthology edition.
I'm calling out to Canadian publishers to perhaps pick up the impetus I started at 'Word-Dreamer' and begin our own Anthology. I'd be more than happy to share editing duties. In the meantime I'll continue to celebrate Malala here and ask that you please send to me at 'Word-Dreamer' any poetry that the recent shooting by the Taliban of Malala Yousafzai, a fourteen-year old blogger and women's education rights activist in Pakistan, may have recently inspired you to write. I will post all submissions as they are given to me at cdidiodato@yahoo.ca or cdidiodato@gmail.com. Any format & style (provided they be respectful) will be accepted.
Let's celebrate here the exemplary courage and dignity of this remarkable young person.
Thank you!
__________________________
1) Malala--
walking hand in hand,
a steep staircase
Conrad DiDiodato
2) The Harrows of Halloween
This night of black-leaf key
opens the old door between worlds,
the dead I knew flit through, cast no shadows
on the moist opened earth,
the dead I did not know this orbit
come costumed through
grimace at my puzzled witness,
for in this ancient valley
dead-sight is granted
to the fay-touched few.
They affirm connection
the helix thread of everything
since the singularity of creation.
The earth is old
her children seek forbidden revelation
unhallowed Halloween a harrowing.
Katherine L. Gordon
October 31st. 2012.
Pakistan stands up. And now she too can
stand, what will Pakistan do? March on...
4) Ed Baker's haiga tribute to Malala entitled "Sudden Sharp Pain" (click on image to enlarge):
3) MalalaHer father cries when Malala falls that all
Malala, your name sounds like a song
but it means grief-stricken in Urdu,
language of poets. You are named
after a poet, a warrior woman and
you have so lived up to your name.
The courage it takes to cross borders
defined by others, courage to uphold
freedom to read, learn, speak to be
the fully human that is all our birthright.
“Every girl in Swat is Malala. We will
educate ourselves. We will win. They
can't defeat us,” states her classmate.
Now it’s our turn to take up the call,
education for every child for which
women and girls today rally across
India, Pakistan and Afghanistan lands.
Malala, Malala. I hear the ululation
of lament and of celebration for her.
Can you hear what she’s crying? You
can join her common cause. But
how fares the girl in her hospital bed?
That beautiful face blasted. Her voice
silenced, her eyes shut. Hang on, girl,
hang on. There’s work to be done and we
desperately need such spirit among us.
Pakistan stands up. And now she too can
stand, what will Pakistan do? March on...
Grief is no time for emotion. Let sky open
and open to more sky. Light, we call for
light to dispel the darkest oppression. Her
name on a million lips in many tongues.
Malala, Malala, Malala. Hear the ululation
and respond.Penn Kemp
4) Ed Baker's haiga tribute to Malala entitled "Sudden Sharp Pain" (click on image to enlarge):
5) Speaking Out
Raising the
voice to speak against injustice
puts the
speaker on a path of collision
from those who vehemently oppose their ideas.
One young
blogger, Malala, dared to do so
Speaking out
about life in the Swat Valley
the need for girls to be educated
Pakistan and
the world has taken note
of the attempted murder of this girl
yet where was the outcry when many
Malalas
Ayeshas, Ahmads and Bilals were killed by drones?
Who spoke up for them on the world stage?
People like
you and me, living out their lives
their
existence snuffed out by unpiloted
drones
hope of their families, cut down where they stood.
Injustice is
a blight upon humankind
those who perpetrate
it will be judged harshly
in the history books of future generations.
People who
want harmony and peace
mothers,
fathers, sons and daughters
young and
old, let us work together
to eradicate injustices.
©Wilma Seville2012
6) Malala's Beads
Midway up the mountain,
on the day the bullets struck,
a flock of patterned Chukars,
the Partridge of Pakistan,
stood in feathered silence
as though they knew
your voice was stifled,
and the Sage
who sensed their stillness
strung your words
on mala beads,
said she learned
what lasts forever
when a thousand pairs of wings
filled the sky with sudden flight,
blessing schoolgirls with their shadows
beneath a streaming, soaring sun.
Andreas Gripp
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