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John Milton


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Sunday, June 26th, 2011

🦋 El poeta licantrópico

I find myself fascinated by Steven White's statement about Alfonso Cortés, Nicaragua's "poeta loco," that he "was prone to fits of violence that coincided with the full moon" -- I am finding in Cortés' poetry some beautiful fragments without its yet coming together for me as a whole. Inscribed on Cortés' tomb in León (adjacent to the tomb of Rubén Dario) is his poem "Supplication."

Time is hunger, space is cold
pray, pray: only supplication
can satisfy the longings of the void.

Dreaming is a lonely rock
where the eagle of the soul can build his nest:
dream, dream, dream the whole day long.

(I see a couple of references, in the few of Cortés' poems that White includes, to ether -- I wonder if he was a recreational user and if so, whether that had anything to do with his reputation for insanity.)

posted evening of June 26th, 2011: 2 responses
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Sunday, June 5th, 2011

🦋 Un poema largo: imágenes dentro de las imágenes, imágenes construidas a partir de las imágenes

¿Cómo puedo entender el «Canto de guerra de las cosas»? Joachín Pasos me parece periodista incrustado en el ejército de la existencia...

Es un poema largo, 19 estrofas, 150 líneas, cada línea (casí cada línea) dibujando su propia imagen y cada estrofa surgiendo de estas imágenes en un cuadro complejo y múltiple. Todo junto es demasiado (para mí) para mantener...

Me parece que el mejor camino de entender el poema entero y también de traducirlo, es bien entender cada línea y cada estrofa, trabajar desde las raíces del árbol más bien que intentar todo en una vez comprender.

posted morning of June 5th, 2011: Respond

Saturday, June 4th, 2011

🦋 Fratres:

For I reckon that the sufferings of this present time [are] not worthy [to be compared] with the glory which shall be revealed in us. For the earnest expectation of the creature waiteth for the manifestation of the sons of God. For the creature was made subject to vanity, not willingly, but by reason of him who hath subjected [the same] in hope, Because the creature itself also shall be delivered from the bondage of corruption into the glorious liberty of the children of God. For we know that the whole creation groaneth and travaileth in pain together until now.

-- The letter of St. Paul to the Romans
Chapter â…§: 18-22
King James version

For a long time I have been wondering how a translation of Joachín Pasos' Battle-song: The War of Things might best preserve the voice of the poet. Throughout the poem he is addressing vosotros, the explicitly familiar, explicitly plural second person which does not exist in English. Turns out the key is the epigraph to the poem.

For an epigraph, Pasos quotes from the Vulgate version of the above verses of Romans; but he prefaces the quotation with "Fratres:" -- "Brethren:", which is not part of these verses. Paul's letter is addressed to his brethren the Roman Christians, so this insertion makes good sense. And if you read Pasos' poem as a continuation of Paul's address to his brethren, then the familiar second-person plural is clear from context.

This morning I had what seems to me like a good idea for a non-literal translation of the poem's third stanza:

Give me a motor, a motor stronger than man's heart.
Give me a robot's brain, let me be murdered painlessly.
Give me a body, metal body without and within another metal body,
just like the leaden soldier's who never dies,
never begs oh Lord, your grace, let me not be disgraced among your works
like the soldier of mere flesh, our feeble pride,
who will offer, for your day, the light of his eyes,
who will take, for your metal, take a bullet in his chest,
who will give, for your water, give back his blood.
Who wants to be like a knife, like one no other knife can ever wound.
(With liberal borrowings from Steven F. White's more literal translation.) This poem reminds me strongly of León Ferrari's paintings of armaments. Remember that the poet is addressing his brethren: He is asking for these cybernetic enhancements not from his God but from his peers.

posted morning of June 4th, 2011: Respond
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Thursday, September 23rd, 2010

🦋 Publication!

(Well not until next summer, but still...) I got word today from Words Without Borders that they love my translation of Réquiem and are going to publish it in their "Homages" issue next July. I'm tremendously excited about this! I remember a line of Edith Grossman's to the effect that the way to be a translator is to assert that you are a translator, to just go ahead and do it; and now I feel like I am a translator, like I am going ahead and doing it. I also heard from John Carvill of the brand-new site oomska that he wants to publish my translation of Pablo Antonio Cuadra's "Black Boat". This is great... I think I will look around for a new story to start working on, maybe something by Soledad Puértolas.

posted evening of September 23rd, 2010: 8 responses
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Monday, April 26th, 2010

🦋 Odiseo en Nicaragua

Pablo Antonio Cuadra's poem "El barco negro" (in Poets of Nicaragua) inspired me to buy the book Songs of Cifar and the Sweet Sea, which is Grace Schulman's selections and translations from Cuadra's Cantos de Cifar, because I was so dissatisfied with White's translation. A really powerful poem, but the translation is nothing at all...

Well: the book arrived in the mail today; I'm looking at it and enjoying Schulman's translations by and large. But her selections not so much: she did not include "The black boat." Rats... Ok, so here is my first attempt at a translation of a poem.*

El barco negro

Cifar, entre su sueño oyó los gritos
y el ululante caracol en la neblina
del alba. Miró el barco
    â€”inmóvil—
    fijo entre las olas.

    â€”Si oyes
    en la oscura
    mitad de la noche
    â€”en aguas altas—
    gritos que preguntan
    por el puerto:
        dobla el timón
            y huye


Recortado en la espuma
el casco oscuro y carcomido,
(—¡Marinero!, gritaban—)
las jarcias rotas
meciéndose y las velas
negras y podridas
             (—¡Marinero!—)
Puesto de pie, Cifar, abrazó el mástil

    â€”Si la luna
    ilumina los rostros
    cenizos y barbudos
    si te dicen
    â€”Marinero ¿dónde vamos?
    Si te imploran:
    â€”¡Marinero enséñanos
    el puerto!
    Â¡dobla el timón
    y huye!


Hace tiempo zarparon
Hace siglos navegan en el sueño

    Son tus propias preguntas
    perdidas en el tiempo.

The Black Boat

Cifar, inside his dream he heard the cries,
the ululating conch out in the mist
of dawn. He saw the boat
    â€”immobile—
    fixed among the waves.

    â€”If you hear
    from the darkness,
    the middle of the night
    â€”on high seas—
    cries, cries that beg you
    for the port:
        turn your tiller back
            and flee


Outlined in the raging surf
the boat's hull dark and eaten away,
(crying, —O Seafarer!—)
the broken rigging
swaying and the sails
black and rotting
            (—O Seafarer!—)
He held his ground, Cifar, he clung to the mast

    â€”If the moon
    lights up their faces
    ashy, bearded, jinxed
    if they ask you
    â€”Seafarer, where you going?
    If they implore you:
    â€”Seafarer, show us the way
    to the port!—
    turn your tiller back
    and flee!


They set sail long ago
They're sailing for ages, in the dream

    The questions are your own
    forgotten in the ages.

...A different selection of Cuadra's "Cifar" poems (an objectively better selection since it includes "El barco negro") is on offer at Pelele's blog, Muchacha Recostada. Also the whole book is online at turtleislands.net.

* Wait no, that's wrong. So, the next attempt in an extremely infrequent series of poetry translations by Jeremy.

posted evening of April 26th, 2010: 4 responses
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Saturday, January second, 2010

🦋 Imagery

The old men lead their sins to pasture,
this is their only job.
They release them during the daytime, and pass the day forgetting,
and in the evening go out to rope them
to sleep with them, warming up.

-- from "The Old Indians"

For a few days I have been reading some poetry from the collection Poets of Nicaragua: a bilingual anthology 1918 - 1979; today I think I found a poet I really dig. Every poem I have read by Joaquín Pasos contains images that transfix me with their concreteness and clarity and originality -- "The old men lead their sins to pasture"! "Let us seek out a corner in the air,/ that we might lie down"! 14 of Pasos' poems are online at los-poetas.com, including his magnum opus, "Song of the war of things".

posted evening of January second, 2010: Respond

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