By Dady Chery, News Junkie Post | Haiti Chery. “‘Why fight?’ Some ask, when we have probably passed the tipping point in climate change…. One might as well ask: Why live the best lives we can, although we will all die?…. But on accepting the human condition, we also discover that there is pleasure in cherishing what we cannot possess.”
Par René Depestre, du receuil En Etat de Poésie (Les Editeurs Réunis Francais, Paris, 1980) | Haiti Chery. Il y a ceux qui crient sur tous les toits / Vive la Révolution! / derrière ce cri se cache parfois le voeu / secret que la révolution se casse une jambe….
By D. H. Lawrence | Introduction by Dady Chery, Haiti Chery | David Herbert Richards Lawrence (born September 11, 1885) is best known for his novels and the persecution he endured for them, but he also wrote some 800 equally subversive poems. His 1923 collection “Birds, Beasts and Flowers” is a contemplation of the natural world and man’s relation to it. “Snake” is a favorite.
By shaman Black Elk, as told through John Neihardt, from: Black Elk Speaks, Washington Square Press, 1972, originally published in 1932. Introductory chapter of a great classic on spirituality. The book is a translation and transcription by John Neihardt of oral history, as told to him in 1931 by shaman Black Elk of the Oglala Sioux.
By Katherine Dunham, Doubleday 1969, University of Chicago Press Edition 1994 | YouTube | Introduction by Dady Chery, Haiti Chery. Katherine Mary Dunham was a dancer extraordinaire, choreographer, anthropologist, writer, and political activist. In 1936, Dunham, a brilliant and adventurous young woman torn between dance and anthropology, went solo to Haiti to study primitive dance and ritual. (UPDATED Aug 1, 2012 with video of Dunham 1962 interview and dance).
By Pablo Neruda, with English translations by Donald D. Walsh: The Mountain and the River, Poverty, Little America, from the collection The Captain’s Verses (Los Versos del Capitan). New Directions Publishing, bilingual edition, 1988. Chilean poet Pablo Neruda is regarded as one of the greatest poets to have ever lived. His death in September 1973, shortly after the Chilean coup d’etat led by Augusto Pinochet, remains a topic for speculation.(English | Spanish)
Originally by Clarence Gillis, as told by Tommy Douglas, Information Clearing House | You Tube | Mangas Verdes | Haiti Chery. “Mouseland was a place where all the little mice lived and played, were born and died. And they lived much the same as you and I do. They even had a Parliament. And every four years they had an election…. And every time on election day all the little mice used to go to the ballot box and they used to elect a government. A government made up of big, fat, black cats.” (English | Spanish, with video)
By B. Traven, Hill and Wang, New York, 1967 | Scribd | Wikipedia | Introduction by Dady Chery, Haiti Chery. The Treasure of the Sierra Madre is regarded as B. Traven’s masterpiece, and it is indeed a superb novel; but this book, written in 1935, is merely the best-known work by a master storyteller who lived and wrote for another 34 years. Traven’s body of work celebrates wildness and chronicles the loss of individual freedom in his lifetime.
By Frederic Back, You Tube | Based on Jean Giono’s short story “The Man Who Planted Trees.” Director Frédéric Back’s marvellous interpretation of Giono’s allegory won an Oscar for short animation. The story is a tribute to hard work and patience. (English | French | Portuguese | Spanish, 30 min.)
By Dady Chery, Haiti Chery. The dance: a poem inspired by a conversation, the birds, and Bach’s little fugue in G minor.
By Granma | Elespectador | NY Times | Thomas Christopher’s blog | You Tube| Haiti Chery. Jose Saramago wrote Claraboya in the 1950′s but received no word until 40 years later from the publisher to whom it was sent. The dictatorial regime of Antonio de Oliveira Salazar in Portugal is presumed to have censored the novel, and in the end Saramago decided that it should be published posthumously. It has just appeared in Portuguese and Spanish — the latter version being from Pinal del Rio, Saramago’s widow and translator. (English | Spanish)
By Frederico Garcia Lorca | Translation by A. S. Kline | Paintings by Gabriel Alix | Editorial comment by Dady Chery, Haiti Chery. Frederico Garcia Lorca describes the lullabies of Spain in their cultural contexts and with a singular respect for children’s appreciation of abstraction. One lullaby from the region of Burgos is reminiscent of Haiti’s “Dodo Titit.”
Politics and Conscience: An Essay By Vaclav Havel
By Vaclav Havel, in: The Natural World as Political Problem – Essays on Modern Man (Prague: Edice Expedice, Vol. 188, Feb 1984) | translated by Erazim Kohák and Roger Scruton (Salisbury Rev, No. 2, Jan 1985). “If a medieval man were to see something like that [huge somestack] suddenly on the horizon — say, while out hunting — he would probably think it the work of the Devil and would fall on his knees and pray that he and his kin be saved.” – Vaclav Havel: Czech playwright, essayist, poet, dissident and statesman.