On religion

Finished Ayaan Hirsi Ali's Infidel (Free Press, 2008) and couldn't sleep afterwards. Not because of the description of brutal genital mutilation in an early chapter.

What particularly stayed with me was the clear-sighted description of life in Europe, from the point of view of a newly-arrived Muslim person. I believe that Holland is a particularly advanced and open society (having lived and worked there for six years). She witnesses the mostly calm and measured way in which ordinary people air their differences and resolve them. In her experience until then, hierarchy enforced its wishes violently - her mother for instance beat her and her sister relentlessly. People - women in particular - seemed powerless to effect any change in their lives.

There is a beautiful moment when she refuses to marry a man and her statement to a Court that it is her soul which refuses the union, is unexpectedly respected by a senior Muslim man - what an amazing liberation this must have been for her. This official reappears later, and again acts in a beneficial way - and he is unique in the narrative, the single Muslim person capable of ethical, thoughtful conduct. I am sure he is not in fact the only one, but there does not seem to exist any education or modelling within the ambit of most people around Ayaan at the time she lived in Muslim countries which would enable them to grow into such a person. Her mother for instance does not cope with life: she is tormented and explosive.

Ayaan documents her slow move away from Islam. It happens little by little, and the book portrays it most believably. Having finished reading it, I thought about Islam and how dangerous extremism is, and then realised - as if it was an entirely new thought - that this was true of all religions.

I felt as if I'd been led by the hand and given an education. It is not that I haven't thought about this often - it is a topic of frequent discussion in our home. But here I had reached a clear conclusion. It is a very good book. She is an impressive woman.

Champagne at the bus stop

Only my second post this month. I returned from a Zen retreat after just three days when a person close to me became ill. He was - still is - in a lot of pain, on morphine at times. We spend most of the time in silence. He seems to like it as much as I do.

Judy Hojin Kimmel

The retreat was led by Hojin Kimmel of the Zen Mountains and Rivers Order. She ran an art workshop on the first day  - something they call journalling; I learnt some useful ways of expressing oneself a la Natalie Goldberg, painting and writing in concert, practical methods of managing.

During the morning before I left, it happened that I looked up towards the altar where she was sitting and had a perception of emptiness, as if no one was there. 

Earlier this month, I enjoyed reading a graphic novel entitled Persepolis, by  Marjane Satrapi (Pantheon, 2007), an autobiography revealing the effect of fundamentalist Islam on a young girl in Iran. Someone had lent me the book, and as soon as I finished it, I bought my own copy, the complete work in two volumes: the first  is better, I think. The illustrations are plain line drawings, black and white, most expressive. The story has been pared down and down, very good.

A recent experience: I was one of the winners in a translation competition with a translation of Rosa Ausalender's Dichten. Rosa Auslaender managed to survive the Holocaust and returned to Germany after the war. She is regarded as an important 20th century poet, a friend of Celan's. Her most famous poem is entitled Motherland:

Mutterland


Mein Vaterland ist tot
sie haben es begraben
im Feuer


Ich lebe
in meinem Mutterland
Wort
 
The local Goethe Institut and the German lecturers at Victoria University organised an exhibition of her poems in German, with wonderful photos, accompanied by translations of varying quality - some were by established translators, some by students, some by Google Translate. A translation workshop was great fun: Lloyd Jones read a translation he'd worked on, and so did Kate Camp, beautiful.

I don't feel that my work is as good as theirs by any means  - but maybe it has the quality of being faithful to Rose Auslaender's words. I am not sure how pleased she would be herself. She may have liked some of the minimalist translations, which allow a lot of air around the words, letting them float.

The four winning entries will be posted in bus-stops around Wellington for two weeks. My friends say, let's party in the bus stop, drink champagne! It will be fun!

Poet Lynn Jenner

On a different scale altogether: Lynn Jenner's book Dear Sweet Harry won  the Best First Book of Poetry Award in the 2011 New Zealand Post Book Awards - congratulations, Lynn!