"Universal Canticle"
Virgil Mihaiu
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woman
if you had nothing
but jazz
what would you choose
for the child in your womb
to listen to
before the spring of milk starts to flow?
only bill evans
playing glass beads
on a keyboard
of ice crystals and sugar?
only the frenetic clowning
of dizzy gillespie
puffing out his jowls behind the trumpet
like a prince
turned into a bullfrog?
only thelonious monk
crossing a tightrope
with a piano on his back?
only the coltranean leap over the lion's den
balancing with the ax of his sax?
but if all these lullabies
seem too neurotic
for the little one?
then why not
the blue-note-drenched rhapsody
launched in 1924
out of the cannons
of the battleship
gershwin?
why not the flirting
of musical pontiffs
with jazzy butterflies?
stravinsky
shostakovich
ravel
prokofiev
bartók
martinΩ
or the chords
under which
the discords
among genres
become extinguished
debussy dissolved in jarrett
janá∂ek's trumpets
absorbed in orgies
let loose on the organ
by keith emerson
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March/April 2011
Table of Contents
SPECIAL SECTION: Neustadt Laureate Duo Duo
- Duo Duo’s acceptance speech and biographical profile
- Duo Duo new poems, trans. Yibing Huang
- Michelle Yeh, “Monologue of a Stormy Soul: Duo Duo, 1972–88"
- Yibing Huang, "Duo Duo: Master of Wishful Thinking"
SPECIAL SECTION: Jazz Poetry
Guest edited by Lauren Camp
- Introductory essay by Lauren Camp: "What's in the Notes: The Sound of Jazz in Poetry"
- Poetry from Lauren Camp: “Thelonious Monk on a Subway” and “What You Might Hear” plus web exclusive audio clips
- Virgil Suárez (Cuba/US): “Latin Jazz on the Go in Havana”
- Adrian Matejka (Germany/US): “Behind the Yashmak"
- Nii Parkes (Ghana/Great Britain): “Our Love Is Here to Stay” & “Hymn"
- Virgil Mihaiu (Romania; tr. Adam Sorkin): “Finesse de Brasil," “Universal Canticle,” and a web exclusive concert recording.
LETTERS
NOTEBOOK
- Author Profile: E.C. Osondu (Nigeria)
- City Profile: Seoul, South Korea
- First Words: Luma Sarhan, “Approaching Zainab”
- WLT Online Bookclub: The United States of Africa by Abdourahman A. Waberi
- New books: recent translations
CRIME & MYSTERY
- J. Madison Davis, “Scarface Al and His Pals”
POETRY
- Romeo Çollaku (Albania), Two poems, tr. Peter Constantine
- Stuart Friebert (US), “Good Leg Up, Bad Leg Down"
- Jan Wagner (Germany) Two poems, tr. Chenxin Jiang
Q&A: WLT INTERVIEWS
- Erwin Koch (Switzerland) by John K. Cox
ESSAYS
- Adrianne Kalfopoulou (Greece/US), “Ruin”
Web Exclusive: PHOTO GALLERY: Athens Street Art - Web Exclusive: "But It Was Beautiful" by Erwin Koch
FICTION
- Luay Hamza Abbas (Iraq), “Spit Out What Is in Your Mouth,” tr. Yasmeen Hanoosh
WORLD LITERATURE IN REVIEW
OUTPOSTS: Literary Events & Landmarks
