Weights and Measures: Review of Uyghur Poems

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Monday, January 22, 2024

Poet Karen Klein has published an insightful review of Uyghur Poems (including 13 of my translations) on the Boston Area Small Press and Poetry Scene. Here is the link: https://dougholder.blogspot.com/2024/01/uyghur-poems-edaziz-isa-elkun-transaziz.html

Another age: our greed-governed ancestors

Venture forth, significant supercargoes

Compelling the twins: speed and economy.

They bounded oceans for Madagascar

Or Malay, craved the Orient’s garb.

We watch for their return with telescope

Of brass: pennants streaming, hull stowed with teas

And silks. We dream them into our harbors.

We await tribute from captains now arrived,

Long doldrumed—their ships in need of repair:

Sails split and rotting, spars sprung.

Ascending the granite steps, these dangerous men,

These men unable to meet our tariffs

Curse the collectors of the world, the weights

And measures; their minds unbalanced, salt-eaten.

They sulk impatiently, clawing their daggers:

We’ve seen their kind before.

Once in every while a revolution;

They murder us at our desks: stabbed with pen,

Bludgeoned with ink bottle. We disappear

For a time: there are advantages,

Our ghostly machinery still keeping account.

In the end they always pay.