The International Literary Quarterly
menu_issue12

August 2010

 
Contributors
 

María Teresa Andruetto
William Bedford
Richard Berengarten
Jorge Luis Borges
Sampurna Chattarji
Rubén Dario
Rosalía de Castro
Siobhan Harvey
Carla Guelfenbein
Marion Jones
Andrea Labinger
Suzanne Jill Levine
Hernán Neira
Paschalis Nikolaou
Nicolás Poblete
Wena Poon
Richard Reeve
Polly Samson
Maree Scarlett
Ana María Shua
Katri Skala
Elizabeth Smither
Sridala Swami
Nasos Vayenas
Mauricio Wacquez
Peter Wells
Alison Wong

Issue 12 Guest Artist:
Catalina Chervin

President: Peter Robertson
Deputy Editor: Jill Dawson
General Editor: Beatriz Hausner
Art Editor: Calum Colvin

Consulting Editors
Marjorie Agosín
Daniel Albright
Meena Alexander
Maria Teresa Andruetto
Frank Ankersmit
Rosemary Ashton
Reza Aslan
Leonard Barkan
Michael Barry
Shadi Bartsch
Thomas Bartscherer
Susan Bassnett
Gillian Beer
David Bellos
Richard Berengarten
Charles Bernstein
Sujata Bhatt
Mario Biagioli
Jean Boase-Beier
Elleke Boehmer
Eavan Boland
Stephen Booth
Alain de Botton
Carmen Boulossa
Rachel Bowlby
Svetlana Boym
Peter Brooks
Marina Brownlee
Roberto Brodsky
Carmen Bugan
Jenni Calder
Stanley Cavell
Sampurna Chattarji
Sarah Churchwell
Hollis Clayson
Sally Cline
Kristina Cordero
Drucilla Cornell
Junot Díaz
André Dombrowski
Denis Donoghue
Ariel Dorfman
Rita Dove
Denise Duhamel
Klaus Ebner
Robert Elsie
Stefano Evangelista
Orlando Figes
Tibor Fischer
Shelley Fisher Fishkin
Peter France
Nancy Fraser
Maureen Freely
Michael Fried
Marjorie Garber
Anne Garréta
Marilyn Gaull
Zulfikar Ghose
Paul Giles
Lydia Goehr
Vasco Graça Moura
A. C. Grayling
Stephen Greenblatt
Lavinia Greenlaw
Lawrence Grossberg
Edith Grossman
Elizabeth Grosz
Boris Groys
David Harsent
Benjamin Harshav
Geoffrey Hartman
François Hartog
Siobhan Harvey
Molly Haskell
Selina Hastings
Valerie Henitiuk
Kathryn Hughes
Aamer Hussein
Djelal Kadir
Kapka Kassabova
John Kelly
Martin Kern
Mimi Khalvati
Joseph Koerner
Annette Kolodny
Julia Kristeva
George Landow
Chang-Rae Lee
Mabel Lee
Linda Leith
Suzanne Jill Levine
Lydia Liu
Margot Livesey
Julia Lovell
Laurie Maguire
Willy Maley
Alberto Manguel
Ben Marcus
Paul Mariani
Marina Mayoral
Richard McCabe
Campbell McGrath
Jamie McKendrick
Edie Meidav
Jack Miles
Toril Moi
Susana Moore
Laura Mulvey
Azar Nafisi
Paschalis Nikolaou
Martha Nussbaum
Sari Nusseibeh
Tim Parks
Molly Peacock
Pascale Petit
Clare Pettitt
Caryl Phillips
Robert Pinsky
Elena Poniatowska
Elizabeth Powers
Elizabeth Prettejohn
Martin Puchner
Kate Pullinger
Paula Rabinowitz
Rajeswari Sunder Rajan
James Richardson
François Rigolot
Geoffrey Robertson
Ritchie Robertson
Avital Ronell
Élisabeth Roudinesco
Carla Sassi
Michael Scammell
Celeste Schenck
Sudeep Sen
Hadaa Sendoo
Miranda Seymour
Mimi Sheller
Elaine Showalter
Penelope Shuttle
Werner Sollors
Frances Spalding
Gayatri Chakravorty Spivak
Julian Stallabrass
Susan Stewart
Rebecca Stott
Mark Strand
Kathryn Sutherland
Rebecca Swift
Susan Tiberghien
John Whittier Treat
David Treuer
David Trinidad
Marjorie Trusted
Lidia Vianu
Victor Vitanza
Marina Warner
David Wellbery
Edwin Williamson
Michael Wood
Theodore Zeldin

Associate Editor: Jeff Barry
Associate Editor: Neil Langdon Inglis
Assistant Editor: Ana de Biase
Assistant Editor: Sophie Lewis
Assistant Editor: Siska Rappé
Art Consultant: Angie Roytgolz

 
Click to enlarge picture Click to enlarge picture. Three Poems by Sridala Swami  

 

The Unrepeatable Cloud

Somewhere, a silence of walls falling
dividing the skies. Prone. No need to see
the blue reflected in the brown grass to know

that the clouds are fickle and carry only rumours.
Don’t look around. Don’t look up.
Divination is inexact, not even a science.

Only the messenger in the cloud knows
how she lost her voice and how she let
the thunder become her ventriloquist.


Clearing the Air

After the untimely death
there were priests
five of them sitting on chairs
and not one purifying fire
between them.

Their chants were hard stones
spit out into the air
their feet churned keeping
the words up and moving
like threats

or curses: once pronounced
their import
set in stone.
“This place is cleansed
of death.

Here are the mustard seeds
you asked for
in proof.
Be content now.
And live as if nothing had happened.”


The Plastic Bag Feels Fear

Pinned against the wall
arms akimbo
head and feet
slapping and shivering
against the fall

a garbage bag doll
brought to life
by the smell of fear
coming from the kitchen’s
rotating door.