One cannot simply decide to write apolitical poetry, in the way one decides to drink lemonade instead of tea, it's far more subliminal than that.
Andre Naffis-SahelyPoetry either pulses with real life or it's just an aborted simulacra. There's no middle ground.
Andre Naffis-SahelyDealing with politically-engaged writers of color like Abdellatif Laรขbi and Rashid Boudjedra - who ran away from school aged sixteen to fight against the French in the Algerian war - first requires convincing an editor to take a chance on them, which very few like to do these days.
Andre Naffis-SahelyI've heard of translators collaborating closely with their authors, sometimes even living with them for a while, but that's not me.
Andre Naffis-SahelyIn a sense, I never got over Robert Lowell's History. A flawed, infinitely brilliant project I never tire of going back to. It's a modern Inferno, where Lowell plays both Dante and Virgil, guiding us through dozens of illuminating, bitter episodes from human history, all the while managing to hold a mirror to our confused hominid face as it squints at eternity and fails to grasp any of it.
Andre Naffis-Sahely