Blog PostsFriends | [Kul, A Spell Cast With the Entire Mouth][Kul by Fatimah Asghar]Allah, you gave us a language where yesterday and tomorrow are the same word. Kul A spell cast with the entire mouth. Back of the throat to teeth. What day am I promised? Tomorrow means I might have her forever. Yesterday means I say goodbye, again. Kul means they are the same. I know you can bend time I'm merely asking for what is mine. Give me my mother for no other reason than I deserve her. If yesterday & tomorrow are the same, Bring back the grave. pluck the flower of my mother's body from the soil Kul means I'm in the crib eyelashes wet the first time they open. Kul means my sister is crawling away from her on the bed as my father comes home From work. Kul means she's dancing at my wedding not-yet-come kul means she's oiling my hair before the first day of school. Kul means I wake to her strange voice in the kitchen Kul means she's holding my baby in her arms, helping me pick a name ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- [Black Mother c.1927–1931 by Ernst Neuschul https://artuk.org/discover/stories/breastfeeding-in-art-ernst-neuschuls-black-mother#] Mr_Mindblank: Is "kul" a made-up word or did she borrow it from another language? Google Translate detects Swedish for "fun." The poet herself is Pakistani and "kul" in Urdu means "a lot." paganpoetry: I do not know about the word itself, I rely on the speaker's use of it. And maybe, there lies some of the "limit" on language she mentions...... Maybe how it is translated to us, "means" differently to her, individually.... And how words can change and mean many things to us all...individually... Idk. Mr_Mindblank: That is what she seems to suggest in the quote. A "private language" - which Wittgenstein would not approve of. |
https://www.npr.org/sections/codeswitch/2019/04/28/700903340/a-bouquet-of-poets-for-national-poetry-month
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On the painting: [But Neuschul’s picture brought a tantalising new dimension to this old concept, which immeasurably strengthened its challenge to Nazi ideology, and raised the importance of its message to the world today, already significant, to an epic level. In 1931, the year the 'Black Mother' was painted, Louis Leakey found one of the world’s oldest manmade tools in the Olduvai Gorge, Tanzania, and presented it to the British Museum. We may never know if Neuschul had this in mind when he painted Black Mother, his fundamental anthem to motherhood, but this 1.8 million-year-old object proved that modern humanity did not arise from a supreme Aryan race, but began in Africa. This sensational discovery made headline news, and the world knew for the first time that Africa was indeed the mother of all nations.]
https://artuk.org/discover/stories/breastfeeding-in-art-ernst-neuschuls-black-mother#