Burning Books, Again
Before this there had been only one burned book. I swear. It happened in 1992 and it scored a small scar on my personal integrity the way my one act … Continue reading
Identity Crash
Dear Bergen, When the airplane ducked under the cap of cloud that marks your location on the map, I expected to be met with, well, something else. You could have … Continue reading
Poetry review
Kvinner som hater menn by Sumaya Jirde Ali My rating: 5 of 5 stars Don’t let the title put you off this book, nor the sub-title-cum-blurb on the back which … Continue reading
Dagen derpå
I. Prague You wake up in a foreign city, somewhere in Eastern Europe by the look of the pretzels, speckled sausages, pickled onions, seven-layer cake for breakfast. And oh the … Continue reading
Stavanger festival for literature and free speech. Day 5. Retreat.
Thon Hotel Stavanger has a nice room they call the lounge. It’s not the lobby where there are chairs, sofas, computers and a Nespresso coffee machine. It more resembles the … Continue reading
Day 4: Kapittel – festival for litteratur og ytringsfrihet
Things to do: Pay my dues to Norsk Pen Find Mikail Eldin’s book about fighting in Chechenia Did I say pay my dues to Norsk Pen? Last year members of … Continue reading
Day 3: The Stavanger Festival of Literature and Free Speech
Day 3 starts at 11 o’clock, I’m still typing, in bed, in pyjamas, blurry eyed and tired… was up all night watching TV, something I only do in hotels, this … Continue reading
Stavanger Free Speech and Literature Festival Day 2
The Stavanger literature festival always has the subtitle “literature and free speech”. I like that. What is literature if not free speech? Still, authors like K.O. Knausgård and V. Hjorth have … Continue reading
On poetry, memoir, truth and revolution: Stavanger Literature Festival Day 1
Actually, they call it an International Festival of Literature and Freedom of Speech. The subtitle is Revolution. There are a number of sessions relating to the Russian Revolution in 1917, … Continue reading
Hidden Poetry Reveals Trump
Who would have thought that Trump was a poet? No one I’m sure. But finding poetry hidden in his inauguration speech is what the Erase-Transform Poetry Project is devoted … Continue reading
Brenda Ueland, revisted
In the late 1980’s I had returned from student years in Norway to start my adult life in Wisconsin. My youthful propensity for writing, the fake newspapers and spy documents … Continue reading
Plath: an under-standing
My volume of Sylvia Plath’s Collected Poems is on the bottom of my bookshelf. I notice it now that I have organized my favorite to-reach-for books at eye level. The … Continue reading
To Trump or Be Trumped
I awake the morning after the inauguration from a dream I don’t remember, but its mood lingers in the words I whisper into the dusky arctic dawning: That was my … Continue reading
Words at Year’s End
On the last day of the year I learn about a poet named Judith Ortiz Cofer who died yesterday. Someone on the women’s poetry (WOMPO) yahoo list sent out a … Continue reading
On the Happenstance of Luck and the Circumstance of Bliss
There is no reason one person is lucky and not another. No reason that Tuesday morning at 8:15 I opted to ride on the sidewalk – the safe alternative, … Continue reading
The Best Laid Plans….
I can’t wait for Wimbledon. Each summer since 2006, when I reluctantly indulged my sweetheart’s interest in watching the game, I have been hooked on the visual candy of green and … Continue reading
Book Review: I am the Beggar of the World
The beautiful translations of the landays in this collection allow Western readers to share the secret, crafty, sly, witty, subversive utterings of Afghani women, and to relish their vitality and vivacity. There … Continue reading
Yes, I am on strike!
In 1999 I quit teaching. No leave of absence, no early retirement option, no backup plan. I had just understood, finally on a deep nearly visceral level that I could … Continue reading
Maybe I’m a stickler for detail… but even the moose stopped in their tracks!
I am still reeling from what I heard on a Poetry Magazine podcast this morning. I just fired a letter off to the editors, and will follow up this post … Continue reading
On football, guns and gammelost
This weekend Norway has received notice of a possible terrorist attack from Syria, where about 40 Norwegians are currently on humanitarian aid missions. Some would say “supposed humanitarian aid missions.” … Continue reading
For WOMPO: A bit about being an expatriate writer…
Being an English-language poet in Norway was a challenge. I had been part of a manuscript group of women poets in Madison, Wisconsin for ten years before moving to Hawaii. … Continue reading
For WOMPO: A bit about Bodø, Norway and how I got here…
For those on the WOMPO list who asked about where I live and why…
Dog-(dg)-ing the Block
They meet, you see, every once in a while; each of them having a dog, so they have something in common. This is how they found each other, through … Continue reading
Abbreviated Learning
“That’s not an abbreviation,” I say to the student who has written a paragraph depicting the informal features of a text wherein he lists you’re as an abbreviation. “Oh,” he … Continue reading
Nostalgia for Darkness Sets In
Have you ever thought what it would be like to have a blow torch wave in slow motion across your line of vision? That is the arctic sun in … Continue reading
You Might be Interested in This…
I am slowly, surely and not too reluctantly joining the online world. As many of you know, I committed FB suicide a few years ago, and have not yet been … Continue reading
The Reports of My Early Demise are Largely Exaggerated
The fact that my blog has been silent for nearly a year, and the last entry was related to a boarding pass guffaw, can mean only one thing: I … Continue reading
Business Travel 101
So, the one time I try to do like other “frequent travellers” and use my SMART phone as a boarding card…. I stand there like a ninny PRETENDING I can … Continue reading
Buy an Essay of Rasma Haidri’s Work!
Giga Alert has alerted me to a FREE ESSAY website that has used my work. Should I be pleased? Indignant? Outraged? Entertained? LOL is the most erudite response I can think of. I mean, is … Continue reading
NORGE RUNDT – I fri dressur 8. juni 2013
Norge rundt I FRI DRESSUR AVISA NORDLAND LØRDAG 8. JUNI 2013 DENNE UKA HAR jeg vært på reisefot. Fem byer på fem dager i forbindelse med lanseringen av en lærebok … Continue reading
YA, I LOVE YA!
I am taking a moment out of my heavy duty writing schedule of a textbook for vocational English to say, YA rules. YA as in Young Adult literature. Last night … Continue reading
17th of May
It is a perfect 17th of May. Sun and a light breeze makes for almost too-hot-for-bunad-wearing weather. Pleasant, if we ignore the global warming implications, as well as the loss … Continue reading
A National Poetry Month Review: Mel Gibson is a Menace to Your LoveLife
National Poetry Month: The Sycamore Review shares one of my poems
India is a Woman
SUNDAY, MARCH 10, 2013 ATMA ADITI ACHUTA by Rasma Haidri India is a woman with bangles of gold, yellow silk draped over a bronze arm fingers elegant and … Continue reading
A few words about nothing that prove something, or not
Eeek, as soon as I set about blogging after a haitus of what, at least 6 months? I get a pop-up that says something like “Now you can call out … Continue reading
The American Dream
The dung colored military plane hovering, literally standstill, over Cloudberry at the intersection of riksvei 80 and Hunstadringen was an anomaly in the brilliant yellow and blue sky morning that … Continue reading
Hvem tror dere at jeg er?
— Vi skal begynne med en prøve. Elevene stirrer vettskremt på meg. Det er første engelsktime etter sommerferien. Jeg trøster dem med at det ikke er en faglig prøve. Bare … Continue reading
The August Syndrome
It’s been a while since I had it, the end of summer tidal wave of panic, the dumbfounded blinking at the time – space – trickery that turns a summer into … Continue reading
Postscript: Embassy Escapade Encore
The news is alarming when it comes on the radio. Just a week after the one-year-anniversary of July 22nd, central Oslo is being evacuated, including the palace, the national theater … Continue reading
A Day at the Embassy
This is MY country…! I can’t help myself. I start singing that song as soon as we catch sight of the American embassy, which takes up an entire city block … Continue reading
Seventh Summer
i. Because he is dying I tell him to stay, slow down stop and smell along the way the dog-piss greetings of his neighbors, dilly daly, tarry all he wants … Continue reading
Talk about freedom…
Okay, I’m probably years or months behind everyone else knowing this, but I just found out: paypal, VISA, etc. (who live off the fat of the fact that you are … Continue reading
Decisions to run or hide or pick up a pen
I am my father’s daughter. While growing up I HATED his tendency to start up a new enterprise at the drop of a hat. Tendency… no it was an obsession, … Continue reading
Another morning on the heavenly highway
At the airport again, a fine place for blogging. The strike is over in schools, but airport security workers are still striking and that makes for long lines at the … Continue reading
Out of Reach
Out of Reach I get numb on certain mornings or dazed dumbstruck stuck looking out the window in one suspended extended moment of no-thought. It happens often when I am going … Continue reading
Easter in the Old Country
It is Quiet Week in Norway, the period before Easter during which a hush falls over the country, and it is not just because of the continuous downpour of snow. … Continue reading
What Would You Do For Money?
I don’t know about you, but I am tired of the all too prevalent idea that the money we earn is compensation for the inherent suffering that work is. Is … Continue reading
