March 23, 2009
Ko Un
I was browsing an anthology of middle eastern and asian poetry and fell in love with one of Ko Un's zen poems. I didn't memorize it - which just goes to show how relying on Google is a bit like storing phone numbers in cell phones: the result is a memory not exercised. Arriving home, I looked it up and what I found didn't quite match. I didn't remember the precise words but the image conjured by this version was all wrong.
I have spent the whole day talking about other people again
and the trees are watching me
as I go home.
So, today I went back to the bookshop and this time I've got it.
I spent the whole day being someone else's story again
As I journey homeward
The trees are watching me
Much better.
I wonder if this is a case of poetry which improves on the original with a certain type of translation like Cavafy's.
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November 01, 2007
The reason I like Edna St Vincent Millay
Is that her name
sounds like a basketball
falling down stairs.
The reason I like Walt Whitman
Is that his name
sounds like Edna St Vincent Millay
falling down stairs.
David Mamet
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August 23, 2007
Strange to know nothing, never to be sure
Of what is true or right or real,
But forced to qualify or so I feel,
Or Well, it does seem so:
Someone must know.
Strange to be ignorant of the way things work:
Their skill at finding what they need,
Their sense of shape, and punctual spread of seed,
And willingness to change;
Yes, it is strange,
Even to wear such knowledge - for our flesh
Surrounds us with its own decisions -
And yet spend all our life on imprecisions,
That when we start to die
Have no idea why.
---Philip Larkin, Ignorance
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September 28, 2006
I realized Mother's Day was just two days
away, so I went into the florist and said, "I'd
like to send my mother a dozen long-stern red
roses." The guy looked at me and said, "My mother's
dead" I thought this was slightly unprofessional
of him, so I said, "How much would that be?"
--The Florist
Justine called on Christmas Day to say she
was thinking of killing herself. I said "We're
in the middle of opening presents, Justine. Could
you possibly call back later, that is, if you're
still alive?"
-- Making the Best of the Holidays
From "Return to the City of White Donkeys" by James Tate, a curious little book I've been reading at a slow pace, one poem every night before going to sleep.
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September 21, 2006
"The astonishing reality of things
Is my discovery every day.
Each thing is what it is,
And it’s hard to explain to someone how much this makes me happy,
How much it’s enough for me.
It’s enough to exist to be whole."
From "Poemas Inconjuntos" by Alberto Caeiro (one of Pessoa's heteronyms), taken from a wonderful online project at the Portuguese National Library
(translation stolen from this wonderful blog which owes its existence to the fact that Pessoa's writings are now in the public domain)
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July 18, 2006
A rug was too tired to fly. --- James Tate
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February 23, 2006
"Is a translation meant for readers who do not understand the original? This would seem to explain adequately the divergence of their standing in the realm of art. Moreover, it seems to be the only conceivable reason for saying "the same thing" repeatedly. For what does a literary work "say"? What does it communicate? It "tells very little to those who understand it. Its essential quality is not statement or the imparting of information -- hence, something inessential. This is the hallmark of bad translations. But do we not generally regard as the essential substance of a literary work what it contains in addition to information -- as even a poor translator will admit -- the unfathomable, the mysterious, the "poetic," something that a translator can reproduce only if he is also a poet? This, actually, is the cause of another characteristic of inferior translation, which consequently we may define as the inaccurate transmission of an inessential content. This will be true whenever a translation undertakes to serve the reader. However, if it were intended for the reader, the same would have to apply to the original. If the original does not exist for the reader's sake, how could the translation be understood on the basis of this premise?"
-- Walter Benjamin, The task of the translator
++++
Tricky, the art of translating. Isn't it?
Banubula had a great post on the various English versions of a Gustavo Adolfo Bécquer poem.
++++
The young daughter of the Honourable Master had a go at translating AB's poem I posted here.
I'm not sure he sent me this as any flaunty proud father of a talented (Portuguese) 15 year old would or if he means that "Even a junior high school kid can translate this better than you" :-)
Be attentive,
Be attentive to the conquests of your strength.
Tear the new days with what you've learnt from your weaknesses.
Pledge with the chalice of your tears
Hold it high and well.
Never, never detain yourself and cry out the dreams you will capture.
The springs you crave to discover await you.
Always follow the North of your woes.
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September 30, 2005
Brazilian Visual Poetry
Here is the site for the online Brazilian Visual Poetry Exhibition.
This one is by Bené Fonteles (it says "discover the other"):
Omar Khouri ("Vagina/Ioni among the vaginas or Sapho and the Girls"):
Paulo Miranda ("a POE m"):
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August 03, 2005
Self-absorbed
My mind's sunk so low, Claudia, because of you, wrecked itself on your account so bad already, that I couldn't like you if you were the best of women, —or stop loving you, no matter what you do.
- Catullus
"Claudia Pulchra Tertulla, born in circa 95 BC, was the third daughter of the patrician Appius Claudius Pulcher and Caecilia Metella Balearica. Despite being a woman, Claudia was very well educated in Greek and Philosophy, with a special talent for writing poetry. But she shared the recklessness of her younger brother, the political agitator Publius Clodius Pulcher. Her life, immortalized in the poems of Catullus and the writings of Marcus Tullius Cicero, was lived on perpetual scandal.
Madly in love with her, Catullus wrote several poems about his feelings towards Lesbia, the name he gave her."
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July 25, 2005
Octavio Paz on my notebook
Time was elastic; space was a spinning wheel. All time, past or future, real or imaginary, was pure presence. Space transformed itself ceaselessly. The beyond was here, all was here: a valley, a mountain, a distant country, the neighbours' patio. Books with pictures, especially history books, eagerly leafed through, supplied images of deserts and jungles, palaces and hovels, warriors and princesses, beggars and kings. We were shipwrecked with Sinbad and with Robinson, we fought with d'Artagnan, we took Valencia with the Cid. How I would have liked to stay forever on the Isle of Calypso! In summer the green branches of the fig tree would sway like the sails of a caravel or a pirate ship. High up on the mast, swept by the wind, I could make out islands and continents, lands that vanished as soon as they became tangible. The world was limitless yet it was always within reach; time was a pliable substance that weaved an unbroken present.
****
Al cerrar los ojos
los abro dentro de tus ojos.
(Closing my eyes
I open them inside your eyes.)
****
Óyeme como quien oye llover
(Listen to me as one listens to the rain falling)
****
Note to self: the blog as an online notebook - instead of pieces of paper everywhere and half-used moleskines; rebuild categories!
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July 22, 2005
Haiku
nothing at all
but a calm heart
and cool air
Kobayashi Issa (1813)
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July 21, 2005
Rohmer meets Rimbaud meets Ferlinghetti meets Duchamp
Le Rayon Vert - Delphine has a superstition: the playing cards she finds on the streets are omens.
(Rohmer)
Betrayed by the people at the Cinemateca, a Jules Verne adventure was replaced by a more highbrow, obscure reference to an optical phenomenon.
*****
Ah ! que le temps vienne
Où les coeurs s'éprennent.
Ah ! Let the time come
When hearts are enamoured.
(Rimbaud)
The verses that inspired Rohmer.
*****
(La Hire, french commander in the Hundred Years War, a loyal companion of Joan of Arc)
The Jack of Hearts - A dear friend, good news, a declaration of love, a date
*****
The Man from La Mancha riding bare back
The one who bears the great tradition
The Mysterious Stranger who comes & goes
The Jack of Hearts who speaks out
in the time of the ostrich
the one who sees the ostrich
the one who sees what the ostrich sees in the sand
the one who digs the mistery
and stands in the corner smiling
like a Jack of Hearts
(Ferlinghetti)
Because.
*****
(Duchamp)
Inspired by Jules Verne's "Le Rayon Vert"?
Verne said that those lucky enough to see the green ray are able to see clearly into their hearts and the hearts of others.
****
More on the Green ray/flash on the wikipedia.
Note to self: Alice as a witness at the trial of the jack of hearts
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April 22, 2005
Manuel Mujica Lainez - Luminosa Espiritualidad
I bought a beautiful book (in more than one way) by the Argentinian writer Manuel Mujica Lainez at the bookshop on Centro Cultural Recoleta in Buenos Aires.
Its title is "Luminosa Espiritualidad" and contains a series of something we could call visual poems. Poems are written as if they were part of these labyrinthic naïf drawings. A beautiful form of expression.
"Mi amor es como un río, a veces liviano e musical, ya veces tormentoso, cuya corriente fluye sin pararse, te refleja sin cesar y te lleva consigo, a través de dulzuras y tempestades; te lleva, siempre, como se fueses su único e hermoso navío."
"My love is like a river, sometimes light and musical, other times stormy, whose current flows without stopping, reflects you incessantly and takes you with it, through sweetness or storms; it takes you, always, like you were its only and beautiful ship."
"Por esta puerta me fui, por esta puerta a buscarme, uma mañana de julio, por esta puerta a buscarme. Boca del infierno la llaman; para mí del Paraíso, que todo está en encontrarnos mientras andamos perdidos. Cada uno debe hallar en tierra su laberinto y recorrerlo hasta el fondo para saberse a si mismo. Lo que es gloria para alguno, para el otro es suplicio: la mano oscura se dan el Infierno, el Paraíso. Haber hallado la Puerta, le agradezco a mi destino, que bien puede no encontrarla y seguir siempre perdido."
"Through this door I left, through this door to find myself, one July morning, through this door to find myself. Mouth of Hell, they call it; for me it's Paradise, all is in finding ourselves while we are lost. To know oneself, each person must find on shore its labyrinth and cross it until the end. What is glory for some, for others is suplicy: Hell and Paradise, hand in hand. I thank my destiny for finding the Door because I might have not found it and go on, lost forever."
As usual I'm the only one to blame for the translation...
To AB; thanks for the lunch, book and conversation.The next one's on me!
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July 12, 2004
Pablo Neruda
Today would be the 100th anniversary of one of my favourite poets: Pablo Neruda.
Photo: Fundación Pablo Neruda
| Veinte poemas de amor y una
canción desesperada
XX Puedo escribir los versos más tristes esta noche. Escribir, por ejemplo: "La noche está estrellada, El viento de la noche gira en el cielo y canta. Puedo escribir los versos más tristes esta noche. En las noches como ésta la tuve entre mis brazos. Ella me quiso, a veces yo también la quería. Puedo escribir los versos más tristes esta noche. Oir la noche inmensa, más inmensa sin ella. Qué importa que mi amor no pudiera guardarla. Eso es todo. A lo lejos alguien canta. A lo lejos. Como para acercarla mi mirada la busca. La misma noche que hace blanquear los mismos árboles. Ya no la quiero, es cierto, pero cuánto la quise. De otro. Será de otro. Como antes de mis besos. Ya no la quiero, es cierto, pero tal vez la quiero. Porque en noches como ésta la tuve entre mis brazos, Aunque éste sea el último dolor que ella me causa, | Twenty Love Poems and a Song of Despair XX Tonight I can write the saddest lines. Write for example, 'The night is shattered The night wind revolves in the sky and sings. Tonight I can write the saddest lines. Through nights like this one I held her in my arms. She loved me, sometimes I loved her too. Tonight I can write the saddest lines. To hear immense night, still more immense without her. What does it matter that my love could not keep her. This is all. In the distance someone is singing. In the distance. My sight searches for her as though to go to her. The same night whitening the same trees. I no longer love her, that's certain, but how I loved her. Another's. She will be another's. Like before my kisses. I no longer love her, that's certain, but maybe I love her. Because through nights like this one I held her in my arms Though this be the last pain that she makes me suffer |
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