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Quote by Maria Dahvana Headley

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The Mere Wife

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Author

Maria Dahvana Headley
Maria Dahvana Headley

Maria Dahvana Headley, born on June 21, 1977, is an accomplished American novelist known for her unique imagination, profound themes, and rich narrative techniques. Her works have gained popularity among readers. more

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“Dreams, always dreams! and the more ambitious and delicate is the soul, the more its dreams bear it away from possibility. Each man carries in himself his dose of natural opium, incessantly secreted and renewed. From birth to death, how many hours can we count that are filled by positive enjoyment, by successful and decisive action? Shall we ever live, shall we ever pass into this picture which my soul has painted, this picture which resembles you? These treasures, this furniture, this luxury, this order, these perfumes, these miraculous flowers, they are you. Still you, these mighty rivers and these calm canals! These enormous ships that ride upon them, freighted with wealth, whence rise the monotonous songs of their handling: these are my thoughts that sleep or that roll upon your breast. You lead them softly towards that sea which is the Infinite; ever reflecting the depths of heaven in the limpidity of your fair soul; and when, tired by the ocean's swell and gorged with the treasures of the East, they return to their port of departure, these are still my thoughts enriched which return from the Infinite - towards you.”

RomanticismTranslationWorld LiteratureFrench PoetryAleister Crowley19th Century PoetryCharles BaudelairePoetry In Translation
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“What bizarre things does not one find in a great city when one knows how to walk about and how to look! Life swarms with innocent monsters. Oh Lord my God, Thou Creator, Thou Master, Thou who hast made law and liberty, Thou the Sovereign who dost allow, Thou the Judge who dost pardon, Thou who art full of Motives and of Causes, Thou who hast (it may be) placed within my soul the love of horror in order to turn my hear to Thee, like the cure which follows the knife; Oh Lord, have pity, have pity upon the mad men and women that we are! Oh Creator, is it possible that monsters should exist in the eyes of Him alone who knoweth why they exist, how they have made themselves, and how they would have made themselves, and could not?”

Prose PoetryRomantic PoetryBaudelaireWorld LiteratureCrowley19th Century PoetryFrench Poetry In TranslationWorld Poetry
Author:Charles Baudelaire, Aleister Crowley
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“The obsession with past trauma refracts World Lit’s sense of belatedness, even when the genre advertises its contemporaneity. You can argue that we’re still haunted by Hiroshima or the Holocaust, that people refuse to speak about this haunting — kind of the way they refuse to care about the novel. Past horrors, unlike contemporary ones, also tend to be events liberal readers agree about. But they displace the contemporary world, locating politics always elsewhere, in some distant geography and irrecoverable past. Present day confusions and controversies are neglected or sentimentalized.”

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“Great works of literature from other places are not only censored by banning them, but even more so by silencing them, by refusing to translate them in the first place. Marginalization is the worst form of censorship and intellectual assassination. Likewise, choosing what gets translated into a certain language and what gets marginalized is a form of shaping and constructing the historical memory of a place according to whims of those who own the money and means of knowledge production.”

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“The Vase The bouquet of flowers in the vase is two weeks old, Or maybe a little older? They are all wilted and dead now. The scene is much like a mass grave, Each flower has died in its own way. The first flower—the biggest in the bunch— Opened as widely as it could. Each of its petals dried up. The second one seemed as though it had tried To bend itself towards the end of her life, It broke her neck as she dried in silence. The third flower tried to close after opening, As she felt her life was coming to an end. She died closed. The fourth flower looked like she had started to sacrifice herself For the sake of everyone else around her. She, too, dropped most of her petals, And died naked, except for one or two petals. The fifth flower didn’t have time to open, Or perhaps she realized the futility of opening up in such a tight vase. She also wilted and dried prematurely and half-opened. The sixth flower died very young, Before having a chance to bloom. The colorless water in the vase is now yellowish and dead. Yes, waters die too. For colorless waters, death can be colorful. April 12, 2013”

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Book:أنا زهرة برية [I am a Wildflower]
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“The Problem The problem I have, my friends, is too complicated. It is not only that I no longer have a home, Or a roof over my head. It is that I no longer wish to have one. I confess to you; however, that Even if I wished to have a place to call home, My wish would be impossible to realize, Because I have been erased from everywhere. Yes, the mercenaries And those who worship the dollar notes, Under the names of religions and ideologies, Have erased me from history. They have revised and rewrote my story. Everywhere I go, I find them lurking and waiting for me, To blockade me, To suffocate me, And to steal from my mouth The few crumbs of bread I have left. And so, I repeat, my friends, My problem is too complicated. I don’t have a home, I no longer want a home, And I couldn’t have a home to shelter me, Even if so I wished in my wild dreams. June 1, 2017”

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Book:أنا زهرة برية [I am a Wildflower]
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“(Sorrow in the Heart of an Apple) I clean up my old sorrow Wrapped it in a clean and scented piece of cloth Buried it under an apple tree in our apple orchard in the village. Seasons passed… It seemed to me that everything was over When the harvest season came again. I forgot that I had wanted to forget about my sorrow I forgot where I had buried it, too. I picked an attractive red apple That looked glorious and delicious. From the first bite, I immediately recognized The taste of that same age-old sorrow. I realized then that my buried sorrow Had multiplied. And here I am Face to face with it again: Here I am finding it In the heart of every single apple!”

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