Archive for the ‘Translation’ Category
Linh Dinh
Seven Contemporary Italian Poets (2/7)
working + bgmole (12 paragraphs for Vivalibri, 18/06/2007)
21-22
21. In the middle of a scene from which he could see the end, kinch went to work, collaborating with the construction of the present and of autumn mornings. In the glimpses of shop windows, of crosswalks, of apartment buildings, he lost track of small, lazy trains of thoughts, irrelevant analogies, superfluous opinions no one bothered to register. From balconies, certain details distracted him deeply, triggering incongruent feelings and phrases such as “lithium” and “human nature.”
22. We look on with sympathy our natural propensity to live.
152-153
152. Successive evenings in time during which, erratically, definite decisions were made, and always in regard to the same torment or point: go on a diet, quit smoking, read Balzac, warm up towards one’s intimates. The flow of our wasted days dragged along empty detergent boxes, phone calls in the office, insignificant particulars of evenings spent with friends.
153. Arriving at the question of truth, or of goodness, we preferred to change the subject or to turn to an expert. The afternoon silence had vast limits. It insisted on an indistinct roar, a memory of first love, a profoundly wrong notion of the world.
Linh Dinh
Seven Contemporary Italian Poets (1/7)
Marco Giovenale, translated by Linh Dinh:
world dominion, XVII
the shifting of the earth’s axis, no? the collapse of the scaffolding on 4th of November Street, no? the landslide on Ischia, no? a pain on the ribs, no? the success of your last film, no? he was the son of an egyptian, from the first century, no? as elena walks by they turn around, no? a mouthful of air in mexico city, no? spike tried to get up, no? they checked the troubled breathing, no? the nurses were ready for the tracheotomy, no? the journalists arrive in small bunches, no? december hinders the ambulances, no? everyone frantic for presents, no? dust from the sarcophagus, no? she has already disappeared through the back door, no? the room spinned and the light went out, no? driving a taxi the wrong way against a check point he shot and was hit, no? they kidnap people arriving at the airport, no? there’s nothing to be done, no? now they go to notify the relatives, but there aren’t any, no? take a look, not even friends, no? the wife went out the service entrance, no? he only had beauty, no? not very brave but armed, no?
world dominion, XV
not satisfied? help us to improve_ © 2006 _supplying cross bars, a ministerial decree, and they won’t be applied homogeneously to all emergencies, the production doesn’t seem updated, the scientific one, of the majority of the minority group. why are there two doctors. unhappy. are you unhappy? help us to improve _ © 2007 _supplying medicine, aid, provoking a wave of responses of surprising proportion, unless specified it means that [omitted] has been prescribed for the interviewee. somewhat linked with vomitting. it’s very frequent among children, and could appear as an isolated symptom, or accompanied by intestinal irritations. “it was absolutely important that we win.” damages from the shed fire. at what point? help us to improve_ © 2008 _supplying workers. keep it hard. don’t give up more than 100 euros, i’m not satisfied with my life at all, from the moment my mind became lost in thoughts this evening, i can’t remember the password, from any assignment. “we’ve suffered too much.” performances, odd sundays, double shots, dogs
Forrest Gander
Europe: Don’t Look Away, 16 New German Poets (Burning Deck) & New European Poets (Graywolf)
New European Poets
, Edited by Wayne Miller & Kevin Prufer (Graywolf, 2008)
There’s a lot to complain about Graywolf’s New European Poets
, edited by Wayne Miller and Kevin Prufer, but only if you’re a sneering, retromingent malcontent. Otherwise, it’s impossible not to celebrate this book with a big whooping hurrah. It was published in 2008, the same year that Americans were skewered by The Swedish Academy’s permanent secretary, Horace Engdahl, for being insular, disinterested in translations, and influenced almost exclusively by our own culture. What Miller and Prufer bring to us is not an assemblage of the usual suspects, those big shot European writers whose names have seeped, against the odds, into our consciousness.
(If you are thinking of stopping here, at least read the poem at the end of this entry; you won’t forget it soon).
Lavinia Greenlaw
Yet share the same house
from Self-misunderstood
by Maxamed Xaashi Dhamac ‘Gaariye’
I can’t understand you, curious self,
nor grasp how you’re both life and death,
grabbed land and peaceful settlement,
grudging milker that makes me full,
sun set at evening whilst casting
noon’s shortest shadow: how can you be
two who can’t marry
yet share the same house?
How can I set this riddle and
give away its answer if
I fail to understand your secret
or even what you mean by it?
Are you something separate,
a stand-alone that leans
upon no man’s shoulder,
or such a part of the people
that you can’t be parted from them?
And are you that which is Gaarriye
or two opposing halves
he cannot fit together?
I call you, crooked creation:
bear witness to your character.
Gaariye’s poetry was translated by W.N. Herbert in collaboration with Martin Orwin, as part of the Poetry Translation Centre’s second World Poets Tour, which recently brought to the UK leading writers from Kurdistan, Cape Verde, Tajikistan, Pakistan, Somaliland and Sudan. Almost a year earlier, each was matched with a translator and a British poet, who worked together on producing English versions of their work.
W.N. Herbert had this to say about it all on the tour blog:
Forrest Gander
The Lives of Others
Javier Huerta’s excellent post on privilege and the bilingual pun (above) prompts me to share this note. On Monday, I received an email from KL, someone I know who teaches at a detention facility in Virginia, asking me to translate something that a girl in her class had written in Spanish. KL teaches high school-age children who are waiting for a court hearing or sentencing; they are usually incarcerated at the facility for just a few days or a few weeks. Obviously, it’s a difficult environment for learning.
Collage/Painting by Lisa Abbott-Canfield
Forrest Gander
Anniversary of Pablo Neruda’s Death
Today is the anniversary of Pablo Neruda’s death in 1973. In homage, I’m posting this poem, “Ode with a Lament.”* Written in the early thirties in Spain, it probably alludes to Neruda’s daughter Malva who was born with hydrocephaly and Down’s syndrome. I find the last stanza particularly moving in its depiction of the emotionally vulnerable girl killing ants and crying, her abecedary on fire because she will never learn to read.
Drawing by Douglas Culhane
Javier Huerta
Advertisement
(It is highly improbable that a reader would encounter an “Advertisement” in the opening pages of a contemporary book of poetry. Preface, Foreword, Prologue, Introduction—Yes to all of these. But the “Advertisement” is a past genre that didn’t make the evolutionary cut. It differs from those other types of prefatory remarks in that it explicitly references the contentious relationship between the author and his reader. In a way, the “advertisement” anticipates questions and criticisms that may be raised about a particular volume, and the author, thinly veiled in the third person, makes a preemptive strike against his detractors. It serves, if you will, as a warning.
Alan Gilbert
Coral Bracho
In my initial post for Harriet, I mentioned a roundup I wrote for the Village Voice back in April of recent notable poetry books. Space constraints and the critical-narrative arc I decided upon for the piece didn’t allow for the mention of other interesting collections (such as one I referenced in another post, Matthea Harvey’s Modern Life, or Richard Deming’s Let’s Not Call it Consequence), along with books by Renee Gladman and Wanda Coleman that blur the boundaries between poetry and prose.
There’s one poet I did mention whom I’d like to bring a little more attention to here: Coral Bracho.
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