“…Old Uzbek, a language so rich that it had words for seventy different species of duck. Persian just had duck. Impoverished Persian writers had no words with which to differentiate between a burr and a thorn; younger and older sisters; male, female, and infant boars; hunting and fowling; a beauty mark on a woman’s face and a beauty mark somewhere else; deer and elands; being adorned and being really adorned; drinking something down all at once in a refined way, and drinking slowly while savoring each drop.
Persian, Diloram told me, had only one word for crying, whereas Old Uzbek had one hundred. Old Uzbek had words for wanting to cry and not being able to, for being caused to sob by something, for loudly crying like thunder in the clouds, for crying in gasps, for weeping inwardly or secretly, for crying ceaselessly in a high voice, for crying in hiccups, and for crying while uttering the sound hay hay. Old Uzbek had special verbs for being unable to sleep, for speaking while feeding animals, for being a hypocrite, for gazing imploringly into a lover’s face, for dispersing a crowd.” —Elif Batuman, The Possessed (2020)
Smith Rock State Park in Oregon.
the new black maps are ready
your eyes cannot hold them
for all of you standing patiently in line
you will go home empty handed & like it
the new black maps have been printed
just to give your lostness a name
& to tell you ev'rything you ever wanted
has been placed on infinity layaway plan
the new black maps replace the old black maps
that were found to be far too helpful
& often gave the citizens using them
a sublt sense of accomplishment standing there
these are the new black maps
we guarantee they will be the last
(2017)
The kingdom of the prickly poets.
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