{"id":18952,"date":"2012-05-08T09:56:55","date_gmt":"2012-05-08T05:56:55","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/mideastposts.com\/?p=18952"},"modified":"2012-05-08T10:29:31","modified_gmt":"2012-05-08T06:29:31","slug":"poetry-of-the-taliban-worth-all-the-fuss","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/mideastposts.com\/showcase\/poetry-of-the-taliban-worth-all-the-fuss\/","title":{"rendered":"‘Poetry of the Taliban’: Worth All The Fuss?"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

The forthcoming collection Poetry of the Taliban<\/em><\/a>, <\/em>which contains some 200 poems translated from the Pashto, is getting a little buzz in the UK<\/a>. The Talibani literary tradition is not related to the Arabic, according to the book\u2019s editors, but, \u201cdraws upon Afghan legend and recent history as much as upon a long tradition of Persian, Urdu and Pashto verse.\u201d<\/p>\n

Still, it\u2019s relevant here, as there has been similar (voyeuristic) interest in poetry recited by Osama bin Laden<\/a> and whatever nonsense Saddam Hussein called literature and scuttled about.<\/p>\n

So I was half-intrigued by the debate, and half by a comment on Twitter from NYTimes<\/em> correspondent Rod Nordland:<\/p>\n

Rod Nordland ? @rodnordland
\n@cathjam @talibanpoetry @AP Poetry? Considering the source, stupid drivel is closer to the mark.<\/p>\n

In fact, editors Felix Kuehn and Alex Strick van Linschoten don\u2019t suggest they\u2019ve put together this collection for its aesthetic value<\/a> (\u201d a fascinating insight into the minds and hearts of these deeply emotional people\u201d\u2026cough) and surely they were aware of its potential shock value.<\/p>\n

Indeed, Strick van Linschoten tweeted yesterday: \u201c@strickvl
\n\u2018Poetry of the Taliban\u2019 currently #1 in the war poetry section of Amazon,\u201d and not, \u201ccritics rave, sensitive translation of \u2018Poetry of the Taliban\u2019.\u201d<\/p>\n

No, I don\u2019t find myself agreeing with retired army colonel Richard Kemp, who was not particularly nuanced when he told\u00a0The Guardian<\/em>, \u201cWhat we need to remember is that these are fascist, murdering thugs who suppress women and kill people without mercy if they do not agree with them, and of course are killing our soldiers\u201d and, \u201cIt doesn\u2019t do anything but give the oxygen of publicity to an extremist group which is the enemy of this country.\u201d<\/p>\n

Nor can I agree with Rod Nordland, who decides that, \u201cconsidering the source,\u201d the poetry must ergo be drivel. It would be a much tidier sort of world if bad mean people wrote bad poetry, and good and genteel people wrote good poetry. And I suppose that it\u2019s highly unlikely that the editors found anything like \u201cgood\u201d poetry, since they weren\u2019t necessarily on the lookout for that \u2014 rather, to show off the \u201cminds and hearts\u201d of these \u201cdeeply emotional people.\u201d<\/p>\n

Also, as our friend Zora notes below, literary translators are usually sympathetic readers. In this case, of course, that\u2019s less likely.<\/p>\n

I suppose it\u2019s not the end of the world if this collection is translated for its \u201canthropological\u201d value, (with perhaps a good shake of \u201cshock and titillate\u201d). I guess worse things have happened, although one would prefer better.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

M. LYNX-QUALEY: The editors surely anticipated – and welcomed – the storm that has erupted around publication of their collection <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":16,"featured_media":18962,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[56,981],"tags":[24,3839,583,512,3008,1374,1541,166,18337],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/mideastposts.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18952"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/mideastposts.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/mideastposts.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mideastposts.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/16"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mideastposts.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=18952"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/mideastposts.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18952\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mideastposts.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/18962"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/mideastposts.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=18952"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mideastposts.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=18952"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mideastposts.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=18952"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}