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This study focuses on the Mwomboko poetry, which emerged in 1940s among the Gĩkũyũ community. It represents the socio-historical origins and emergent dance styles. The central focus of the study is analysis of style and literary devices, aspects of performance and aesthetic values embodied in the compositions by selected performing artistes. Nevertheless, an analytical study of various musical works and listening to recorded cassettes on Mwomboko gives impetus to our findings. The researcher has coined and adapted a multiethnocultural approach whereby: dance, drama, song, language and philosophy that embraces the social interaction of communities and appreciation of each other's ways of life. The study demonstrates that Mwomboko poetry is rich in stylistic devices: irony, satire, metaphor, simile, metonymy and structural devices; repetition, parallelism, tonal patterns and rhyme. This study proves that these tools are the vehicles of literary communication in the community and society. Stylistic and extra-literay features are invaluable properties for the conduct of poetic discourse. Oral poets are the mouthpieces of the Gĩkũyũ community and its neighbouring communities: Embu, Meru and Kamba who cherish this cultural heritage. The multicultural nature of Mwomboko is further depicted in the incorporation of Waltz and Scottish dance art forms. The Luo, Luhya and Miji Kenda touches proves that Mwornboko represents historical, political, cultural, religious and economic realities in Kenya. The guiding light in this study is ethnomethodolo / ethnopoetics, stylistics, semiotic and multiethnoculturalogy approaches in uncovering the literariness in Mwomboko poetry. This project affirms that oral literature is not disappearing but thrives even today and it is a means of recording historical and educational events, which are relevant and popular in contemporary society. It is a demonstration that poetry and society are inseparable entities in humankind.

Hawaiian poetry developed in the nurturing embrace of oral tradition for nearly two thousand years before American missionaries introduced writing in the 1820s. Once literacy was established, Native Hawaiians enthusiastically set out to use the new technology to record their oral traditions in writing. During this period they also experimented with and developed new forms of mele, such as hula ku'i. After the Hawaiian language was banned and the government overthrown in the late nineteenth century, there was a period where Hawaiian poetry was carried forward into the twentieth century by entertainers—singers, dancers, and musicians—who kept the performance aspect of Hawaiian poetry alive. The art of Hawaiian poetry was transformed in the latter half of the twentieth century, when haku mele (poets) began to write primarily in English and Hawai'i Creole English while still maintaining Hawaiian themes and utilizing traditional metaphors. Since then, contemporary Hawaiian poetry in these languages has thrived alongside Hawaiian-language compositions, which are still perpetuated, mostly through the practice of hula. Today, Hawaiian poetry can be best described by using the metaphor of a haku lei, where different strands of language and influence are woven together to create something beautiful and unique, an enduring and perpetual symbol of Hawaiian cultural tradition—a lei ho'oheno no nā kau a kau, a lei to be cherished for all seasons.

The oral poetry of the Khakass people survived thanks to the masters and keepers of verbal creative work, who carefully kept the works in the memory and skillfully passed them on from generation to generation. In the public environment, the masters of epic were always surrounded by honor and respect. One of the greatest masters of storytelling improvisation is the outstanding khaidzhi-nymakhchi, Makar Konstantinovich Dobrov (1903-1969). The author focuses on the in-depth study of the storyteller's creative work, features of storytelling mastery.

This article discusses the ways in which eyewitness accounts about the Assyrian Genocide have been transmitted in writing and orally, reconstructed across generations, and how these accounts have been expressed in lamentations, poetry, and songs in the diaspora, after large numbers of Assyrians settled in Western states beginning in the 1960s. The study of poetry and songs is not only important for reasons of literary analysis, but more so because of the relatively few written primary sources about the Assyrian Genocide. The production of poetry and songs has partly been instrumental in avoiding censorship and renewed persecution, but in recent years has additional value as a medium to call for future action in preventing violence and transmiting memories of the past. The article also highlights culturally specific forms of coping with trauma and transmitting memory. It is based on the analysis of Sayfo lamentations and poetry produced in the homeland, 21 Sayfo songs and poems produced in the Western diaspora, and some recent interviews with the writers of these songs.

At the time of the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan in 1979, it may be said that Afghans began to form exilic communities in Iran rather than simply intermittent groups of seasonal migrant workers. The binding institutions of these communities, in particular the community of Shi'a Afghans in Mashhad, were political parties and groups of mojahedin, religious centers and leaders, and cultural figures—notably poets. Poetry (both oral and written) in court Persian and local vernacular, has a long tradition in Afghanistan—much of which is shared with Iran—and continues to be the most respected and most widely practiced of the arts. It has also always had a direct, but not always approving, relationship with power and politics. Among refugees, it has been a vehicle for political commentary and incitement to jihad; for dialogue between Afghans and Iranians; and (in lyrical forms such as the classical ghazal or contemporary blank verse) for expressing subjective experience, thought, and emotion, particularly love or the pain of exile, with some license to criticize or subvert social convention. In this ethnographic analysis, I examine the role of poets and poetry in the cultural life of Afghans in Iran since 1979, focusing on the latest generation of young poets and tracing the influence of modernist Iranian literary developments on their work in the context of the gradual depoliticization of Afghan communities in exile, in particular after September 2001. I also argue that literary activities have been important in sustaining a separate 'Afghan' identity that has helped many young people transform their sense of marginalization to one of pride both in their non-Iranian origins and in their common heritage with Iranians.

Listening to poets read their work focuses critical attention on the craft of the poem, while raising questions about the relationship between social history, technology, and the poet's "voice." Recorded Poetry and Poetic Reception from Edna Millay to the Circle of Robert Lowell offers an analysis of a wide range of recordings, from commercial and amateur, to official studio sessions, to ephemeral events captured on reel-to-reel tape. Through the mid-century performances of poets such as Elizabeth Bishop, Dylan Thomas and Anne Sexton, Derek Furr draws penetrating new conclusions about how and why poetry was recorded in the U.S. from the 1930s to the 1970s

In this paper, I seek to investigate the manifold relationships between traditional and contemporary, oral and written Swahili poetry—in the utendi and mashairi forms—and its recitation in terms of the following considerations: how have advances in technology changed the production, transmission and reception of Swahili Islamic poetry? To what extent do writing and orality coexist in a recited text? What is the nature of performer identity formation within a "discourse network" of artists—the composer (mtungaji), reader (msomaji), and singer (mwimbaji)—who, in Goffman's words, play "participation roles" and appropriate poetry belonging to other living poets or to their own (sometimes anonymous) ancestors? In an attempt to answer these questions, I provide examples of performers and their performative craft.

This book explores the role of written and oral communication in Greece and is the first systematic and sustained treatment at this level. It examines the recent theoretical debates about literacy and orality and explores the uses of writing and oral communication, and their interaction, in ancient Greece. It is concerned to set the significance of written and oral communication as much as possible in their social and historical context, and to stress the specifically Greek characteristics in their use, arguing that the functions of literacy and orality are often fluid and culturally determined. It draws together the results of recent studies and suggests further avenues of enquiry. Individual chapters deal with (among other things) the role of writing in archaic Greece, oral poetry, the visual and monumental impact of writing, the performance and oral transmission even of written texts, and the use of writing by the city-states; there is an epilogue on Rome. All ancient evidence is translated

"Words as Events introduces the tradition of short, communicative rhyming couplets, the mantinádes, as still sung and recited in a variety of performance situations on the island of Crete. Recently, these poems have also entered modern mass media and they are widely being exchanged as text messages by Cretans. Focusing on the multi-functionality of the short form, Sykäri demonstrates how the traditional register gives voice to individual experiences in spontaneous utterances. The local focus on communicative economy and artistry is further examined in a close analysis of the processes and ideals of composition. By analyzing how the "restrictions" of form and performative conventions in fact generate impulses of creativity, the author creates a theoretical approach that is sensitive to the special characteristics of the short, rhymed poetic traditions. In this interdisciplinary study, the reader is invited to become familiar with the current folklore theory of oral poetry, which has a long tradition in Finland. The author combines the results of earlier folkloristic and anthropological insights, and extends the theoretical concerns further to address questions of spontaneity and individual agency. The research data has been produced in communicative interactions during long-term fieldwork. As a result, the short, rhymed poetry, often neglected by scholars in earlier research paradigms, can now be seen in new light – specifically as dialogic poetry – through its extended, multi-layered dialogic qualities."

The article makes a certain contribution to the study of the typology of Alexander Blok's characters, which arose as a result of the "theatricalisation" of the lyrical subject. We examine examples of some lyrical monologues written on behalf of the old man. Their aesthetic nature is revealed, poetics and functions are characterised. It is proved that the lyrical monologues of the old men" created in Alexander Blok's poems of the 1900s ("Under old age, forgetting the sacred...", "When I began to grow decrepit and get cold...", "Years have passed, but you are still the same...", "The Double") form a special local artistic integrity within his poetic "trilogy". It is shown that in the spontaneously formed ensemble unity, the image of the old man turns out to be Alexander Blok's "lyrical mask", his tragic double and in many respects expresses autopsychological experiences associated with the idea of "betrayal" of the mystical ideal of Eternal Femininity. The article emphasises that the poems ("Under old age, forgetting the sacred...", "When I began to grow decrepit and get cold...", "Years have passed, but you are still the same.." form an intersubjective paradigm. In these works, the image of the old men correlates not only with the personality of Alexander Blok and Dmitry Merezhkovsky, but also allows us to perceive the character as a completely independent hero with a unique character. The paper concludes that the "theatricality" of poetics is most clearly and clearly manifested in the poem "When I began to grow decrepit and get cold...", as if oriented towards oral pronunciation and stage incarnation.

The article reveals the place of the poetry of medieval Kazakh storytellers-zhyrau in the system of world heroic poetry, which glorified the knightly ethos and glorified real and mythical heroes. It is shown that, in contrast to the ideal of the European knight, in the ethos of the steppe warrior-batyr, as he appears in the poetry of zhyrau, a harmonious combination of cultures of rivalry and coopera­tion, striving for personal superiority and free cooperation to achieve common goals is achieved. In the very origins of the oral mythopoetic culture of the Kaza­khs, in proverbs and sayings, legends and epics, there is a reflective and ideolog­ical beginning, which predetermines its free character, open to the world and other cultures, and at the same time self-depth, creative self-appeal. This distinc­tive feature of the traditional culture of the Kazakh people and its spiritual, moral, intellectual development, the formation of national identity is clearly manifested both in oral folk art and in the philosophical reflections of outstand­ing Kazakh thinkers throughout the centuries-old cultural history of the Great Steppe. The heroic epic becomes a moral-forming factor of life since it sets so­cially and spiritually sanctioned normative personality patterns, produces worthy of imitation integral models of behavior and lifestyle.

This article makes a critical contribution to interpretive anthropology by recovering its interest in the moral imagination, while linking this to the poetics of wisdom divination, primarily among Tswapong of Botswana and more widely across a vast part of Southern Africa. This mode of divination appeals to imaginative moral reflection and ethical deliberation along with practical wisdom in the quest for well‐being. The esoteric oral literature in wisdom divination is rich in cross‐cultural understandings, transmitted over considerable barriers, and re‐created over centuries. Its evocative praise poetry, having no known author, is archived in the memories of experts, the diviners, and is recited and interpreted selectively during diagnostic séances. Yet anthropologists and literary scholars have not paid serious attention to the oral poetry and its remarkable wide‐ranging archive. Against that, this article documents the acrobatic stylistics of the divinatory poetry and shows how it appeals artfully for reflexivity, for heightened consciousness, and for unmasking the hidden in everyday life. The main analysis carries forward an anthropology of ethics that overcomes the usual division of labour between the study of ethics and aesthetics.

AbstractWriting about Kabyle literary history today is a difficult task, considering the very nature of this literature. It is fundamentally oral and did not take its first steps toward a written form until the mid-1940s. There is a considerable lack of works dedicated to Kabyle literature, and those that do exist have primarily focused on poetry, due to the characteristics inherent to this genre. Indeed, unlike prose, poetry includes temporal markers since it accompanies or relays easily identifiable historical events, whereas the narrative genres (legends, fables, and tales) are difficult to date, at least in the case of these last two. For this reason, undertaking more work in this area seems to be a matter of urgency. It is therefore necessary, as required by any work on literary history, to start with periodization; this consists of dividing the historical continuum into linear segments. This work should be based on the establishment of literary facts (e.g., authors, publication dates, etc.) as relevant elements, as well as on the socio-historical events that have marked literary production. By examining the textuality of some poetic works produced at different times by different Kabyle poets (e.g., Youcef Oukaci, Si Mohand Ou Mohand, Ben Mohammed, Idir, Matoub, Ferhat, etc.), I will attempt to propose a historical periodization that will account for the development of the theme of identity in Kabyle poetry.

Elba Rosario Sánchez was born 1949 in Atemajac, Mexico, a small town near Guadalajara. She is the oldest of three girls. Her father worked in the cotton mill until an accident injured one of his eyes. The accident sent him to the United States in search of work, first to Chicago, where the family had relatives, and then to San Francisco, where he worked as a bus boy at the Fairmount Hotel. After about eighteen months, he brought his family to San Francisco in 1960, where they lived at Divisidero and Pine, in a Black neighborhood. At the neighborhood elementary school, Elba was one of very few non-Black children; ironically, even as she struggled to adapt to a white-dominated country, in the racial definitions of that time she was considered white. She learned English quickly, and soon became the translator for her family. Within a few years of her arrival, the social movements of the 1960s altered the national landscape. Witnessing the brutal repression of Black civil rights protestors on television was formative for Sánchez's growing political consciousness and her eventual activism as a young supporter of the United Farm Workers movement. Her early activism with the United Farm Workers boycott on grapes was impressive, particularly since her family did not approve of her protest. This activism grew intertwined with her passion for writing and for language. In the oral history, Elba vividly recalls that her first pieces of poetry were written on small pieces of paper that she then crumpled up and hid in a drawer. Her first poem, "The Price of Color," was published in her parochial high school's yearbook. After graduation, Sánchez attended San Francisco City College. There she was inspired by the Chicano activist spirit of several classmates who had been taking courses at San Francisco State College, where the student protests had shut the campus down. But after a semester and a half she dropped out of college to marry and have a child. In the late 1970s, Sánchez and her husband relocated to Santa Cruz so that her husband could attend UC Santa Cruz. Sánchez became a bilingual counseling aide at Santa Cruz High School. In search of UCSC students who could serve as English tutors at Santa Cruz High, Sánchez met Paco Ramirez, a lecturer in Spanish who coordinated the tutorial program at Stevenson College and Paul Lubeck, a professor in sociology. Both encouraged her to return to college and finish her B.A., which she did, graduating in Latin American studies from Merrill College. At UCSC, Sánchez was a nontraditional student who lived off campus with her husband and her three-year-old child. This experience, plus the class and cultural differences between her and the mostly white middle-class student body of UCSC at that time, led to feelings of alienation and isolation. Professor Roberto Crespi, Sánchez's advisor in Latin American studies, encouraged her to go on to graduate school in literature at UCSC, which she did, earning her MA from UCSC. Crespi was one of very few Latino professors at UCSC in the early years of the campus. He was also one of the founders, with J. Herman Blake, of Oakes College. In 1979, Crespi also hired Sánchez as a tutor in the Spanish for Spanish Speakers Program (SPSS), which he had founded, and which was then only in its second year. Sánchez spent the next fifteen years teaching in, coordinating, and directing the multidisciplinary Spanish for Speakers Program. This pioneering, cutting-edge program, incorporated poetry readings, theatrical performances, cultural nights, political discussions, visual arts exhibitions, and small press publishing into its curriculum. Students studied Latin American history and literature in SPSS courses, and honed critical thinking, speaking, translation, and writing skills. Sánchez credits SPSS for higher levels of retention of Latino students at UCSC, and also for the successful careers of many of those students after graduation. Also while at UCSC, Sánchez was one of the founding and primary editors of REVISTA MUJERES, a bilingual literary and visual arts journal published at UC Santa Cruz from January 1984 to 1993. According to their mission statement, "REVISTA MUJERES: In Our Words and Work, Our Vision," REVISTA was dedicated to interviews, poetry, essays, as well as visual art work and set a page in the history, struggles, and contributions of Chicana and Latina undergraduate and graduate students, staff, and faculty members…REVISTA was also envisioned and produced as a response to the lack of access in mainstream publications for Chicana/Latina bilingual, budding as well as experienced writers, whose work was unpublished. Its aim was to promote and encourage a community of writers and artists, to plant a seed of reality and creativity. Sánchez's commitment to honor the Spanish language, teach Latin American history, and to offer a keen critique of colonization is part of her legacy on the UC Santa Cruz campus. This commitment was particularly evident in her fervent dedication to SSSP and the co-production of Revista Mujeres. In her oral history, Sánchez describes the organizational work that went into funding, editing, producing, and distributing this groundbreaking journal, which was distributed far beyond UCSC and was the first of its kind published in the state of California. Sánchez locates REVISTA in a cultural effervescence of Chicano-Latino writing and publishing in the 1980s and 1990s. Sánchez recalls that at the time of her earliest publications, there were very few Chicana and Chicano writers who were published. Sánchez's own development as a writer flourished during that cultural flowering. She participated in a bilingual writer's workshop in San Francisco with several other key Chicana and Chicano writers. She is the author or coauthor of several books of poetry including Tallos de luna /Moon Shots (Moving Parts Press, 1992), From Silence to Howl (Moving Parts Press, 1993) and is a contributor to many anthologies, including Chicana Feminisms: A Critical Reader (Duke University Press, 2003), Making Face, Making Soul/Haciendo Caras: Creative and Critical Perspectives by Feminists of Color (Aunt Lute Books, 1990). She continues to write and is currently working on flash fiction and children's books. Elba Sánchez was interviewed in three sessions by Susy Zepeda in several locations in the East Bay of the San Francisco Bay Area. The interviews took place on February 8, 2013, March 1, 2013, and April 5, 2013. The interviews were transcribed by Irene Reti and a transcript was returned both to Zepeda, who audited it for accuracy of transcription, and Sánchez, who edited it for flow and accuracy, corrected the Spanish. Both Zepeda and Sánchez added some footnotes. We chose not to italicize the Spanish in the transcript, a political decision that recognizes that italics can "other" Spanish words as "foreign," or non-normative. This is a style preferred by many Latino/a writers today. It was an honor and a pleasure to interview Elba Sánchez. Her storytelling was full of heart, joy, and animation. Her oral history offers a sense of her strength, vision, and dedication to forms of resistance.