In the contentiously disputed and defended terrain of Identity, what's often missed is how authorship is not synonymous with Identity. Read two books recently that synchronistically offer the case for poems without bylines (itself something with which I empathize): the books are re the poetic forms of the ambahan from the Philippines and the landay from Afghanistan:
MANGYAN TREASURES / THE AMBAHAN: A POETIC EXPRESSION OF THE MANGYANS OF SOUTHERN MINDORO, PHILIPPINES compiled, translated and explained by Antoon Postma
I AM THE BEGGAR OF THE WORLD: LANDAYS FROM CONTEMPORARY AFGHANISTAN, Translated and collected by Eliza Griswold with photographs by Seamus Murphy
Hopefully I'll have time to engage with these books for the next issue of Galatea Resurrects...!
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