From Alexis Romay at Belascoaín y Neptuno:
Hello, friends:
Please feel free to forward and circulate the following note regarding the escalation of police harassment and governmental intimidation that Yoani Sánchez and Claudia Cadelo (two bloggers residing in Cuba) are subjected to. I believe in the proverbial six degrees of separation. You have friends in the media, in Congress, in the Senate. Or you have friends who have friends on these high places. Please help us spread the word. Only by bringing wide international awareness of this issue we can assure a minimum of protection for these brave women whose sole crime is to write about their daily lives. Their safety is in your hands.
Best,
Alexis Romay
Subject: Cuban bloggers threatened by police
Dear Sirs,
We wish to inform you about recent facts that we have not seen
reflected in the international media that should be considered:
* Yesterday, the well-known Cuban Blogger, Yoani Sanchez
(Generacion Y) was summoned by the Cuban Department of Interior and
explicitly threatened by them in an effort to prevent a planned
independent Bloggers event scheduled for December 6.
* Today, Cuban independent blogger Claudia Cadelo (Octavo cerco),
has been summoned by the Cuban police.
* The Gaceta Oficial of the Republic of Cuba published a the
following as a warning to internet providers. "The regulations for
the suppliers of services of public access to the Internet," from
Resolution No. 179/2008 of the Ministry of Computer Science and
Communications. The resolution states, that providers have the
obligation to "adopt the measures necessary to prevent the access to
sites whose contents are opposite to the nations social interest, good
morals or customs."
This resolution, signed by minister Ramiro Valdés also establishes the
exigency to prevent "the use of applications that affect the integrity
or the security of the State". This is a outrageous attempt to censor
the rights of the incipient movement of independent Cuban bloggers.
We hope that in your next reflections on Cuba's "process of
transition" you will take into consideration some of the limitations
to basic liberties imposed on all citizens of the island.
Regards,
Ernesto Hernandez Busto
http://www.penultimosdias.com/
Thursday, December 4, 2008
Tuesday, November 4, 2008
The Clock by Aldo Palazzeschi
[A lot of tense clock-watching is going on & in response this is "L'Orologio," translated by Nick Benson as "The Clock," a poem by Aldo Palazzeschi from his book of 1910 L'Incendiario (The Arsonist).]
The Clock
The clock is the recorder of the time
that is no longer.
It marks the hours wretched man
donates to death.
- Valentino Kore
On a wall of my bedroom
there hangs
an old clock;
one of the old type,
with the counterweight and chain.
I used to wind it a lot,
just to have something to do,
not really sure
whether it bothered me more stationary
or in its damned perpetual motion.
For the longest time
the clock hasn’t worked anymore.
I’d always looked at it with scorn,
hoping for its demise,
wishing for that malicious chatterbox
a very sad end.
All you men
wear a clock on your person, and you don’t know
everything it knows about you,
everything it indicates,
and it will never tell you.
I watched it, thinking:
clock, you know
everything about me, tell me the hour of my death.
Two? Five? Three?
One minute after three, two minutes after?
God! I felt myself dying
every minute!
I unleashed all my fury
onto that clock,
everything I could get my hands on
I threw at it.
Insults, spit, trash,
shoes, inkwells!
And it stopped.
It stopped at six o’clock.
At the moment I figured
I was free of it,
it tick-tocked no longer,
it had stopped.
But the next day
when that hour came,
I looked at it,
and from that ferocious stillness
I understood
that was forever to be the time,
inexorable!
Was I to die at that time
on every single day?
At the sunset hour,
the hour of the Ave Maria,
just before night,
the last hour of the day,
six o’clock, terrible hour
of all my nightmares!
That evening hour
had quite justly become
the hour of my interment.
In my desperation
I ran at the clock,
I ripped out its guts!
I threw everything around, the hands,
its infernal
knifing mechanism,
everything all around!
And now you can’t see anything
but a gutted monster,
and a piece of chain
left dangling,
with a little wheel attached.
Bits of those putrid guts
I tore out.
You men know neither how to be born
nor how to die,
yet hold close, dear to your hearts,
this device that knows your hour
though it will not tell you, as all the while it beats
steadily into your breast, while you remain unaware.
I bless the one who knows the hour of his death,
and I kneel at the suicide’s feet.
I think: what am I waiting for?
Am I waiting for each beautiful hair,
for each of my beautiful teeth
to fall out, one by one?
Am I waiting for a yellow sore
to appear somewhere
and sully my white skin,
to invade and overcome it?
Oh! How beautiful it is to die
with a red flower at one’s temple!
The reddest rose
to ever unfurl, to unfurl
beside the pale visage!
O from the highest tower
to cast oneself into the void,
into voluptuous space!
So that nothing remains on the earth
but a red stain.
And you who already know that hour,
written as it is on your forehead,
you keep up your steady pace,
calmly mark that hour
and continue on.
But I won’t be among those who say:
that was it, that was what made me tremble
every day, what passed unnoticed,
what I had not expected.
No! I will make myself a tower on a mountain,
the highest in the world,
with all its bricks
piled on all your minutes,
and up there I’ll go at my appointed time,
the one chosen by me.
I stop to listen well to the ticking
of all the clocks of the world,
useless and vile hearts,
and to you I cry: take a look, clock, I’m going to jump!
And I do.
Ah! I heard a click!
It was you, you who’d already chosen the time,
and thought that was it!
Hahahahaha!
No, it wasn’t,
and I know when it’ll be!
I’m in charge now,
I’m the one who will tell you the hour, Clock!
And in my throat I find,
risen from my belly,
the most outrageous, obscene laughter,
the filthiest jokes,
the rudest howls of scorn,
just to make you wait
another five minutes.
The Clock
The clock is the recorder of the time
that is no longer.
It marks the hours wretched man
donates to death.
- Valentino Kore
On a wall of my bedroom
there hangs
an old clock;
one of the old type,
with the counterweight and chain.
I used to wind it a lot,
just to have something to do,
not really sure
whether it bothered me more stationary
or in its damned perpetual motion.
For the longest time
the clock hasn’t worked anymore.
I’d always looked at it with scorn,
hoping for its demise,
wishing for that malicious chatterbox
a very sad end.
All you men
wear a clock on your person, and you don’t know
everything it knows about you,
everything it indicates,
and it will never tell you.
I watched it, thinking:
clock, you know
everything about me, tell me the hour of my death.
Two? Five? Three?
One minute after three, two minutes after?
God! I felt myself dying
every minute!
I unleashed all my fury
onto that clock,
everything I could get my hands on
I threw at it.
Insults, spit, trash,
shoes, inkwells!
And it stopped.
It stopped at six o’clock.
At the moment I figured
I was free of it,
it tick-tocked no longer,
it had stopped.
But the next day
when that hour came,
I looked at it,
and from that ferocious stillness
I understood
that was forever to be the time,
inexorable!
Was I to die at that time
on every single day?
At the sunset hour,
the hour of the Ave Maria,
just before night,
the last hour of the day,
six o’clock, terrible hour
of all my nightmares!
That evening hour
had quite justly become
the hour of my interment.
In my desperation
I ran at the clock,
I ripped out its guts!
I threw everything around, the hands,
its infernal
knifing mechanism,
everything all around!
And now you can’t see anything
but a gutted monster,
and a piece of chain
left dangling,
with a little wheel attached.
Bits of those putrid guts
I tore out.
You men know neither how to be born
nor how to die,
yet hold close, dear to your hearts,
this device that knows your hour
though it will not tell you, as all the while it beats
steadily into your breast, while you remain unaware.
I bless the one who knows the hour of his death,
and I kneel at the suicide’s feet.
I think: what am I waiting for?
Am I waiting for each beautiful hair,
for each of my beautiful teeth
to fall out, one by one?
Am I waiting for a yellow sore
to appear somewhere
and sully my white skin,
to invade and overcome it?
Oh! How beautiful it is to die
with a red flower at one’s temple!
The reddest rose
to ever unfurl, to unfurl
beside the pale visage!
O from the highest tower
to cast oneself into the void,
into voluptuous space!
So that nothing remains on the earth
but a red stain.
And you who already know that hour,
written as it is on your forehead,
you keep up your steady pace,
calmly mark that hour
and continue on.
But I won’t be among those who say:
that was it, that was what made me tremble
every day, what passed unnoticed,
what I had not expected.
No! I will make myself a tower on a mountain,
the highest in the world,
with all its bricks
piled on all your minutes,
and up there I’ll go at my appointed time,
the one chosen by me.
I stop to listen well to the ticking
of all the clocks of the world,
useless and vile hearts,
and to you I cry: take a look, clock, I’m going to jump!
And I do.
Ah! I heard a click!
It was you, you who’d already chosen the time,
and thought that was it!
Hahahahaha!
No, it wasn’t,
and I know when it’ll be!
I’m in charge now,
I’m the one who will tell you the hour, Clock!
And in my throat I find,
risen from my belly,
the most outrageous, obscene laughter,
the filthiest jokes,
the rudest howls of scorn,
just to make you wait
another five minutes.
Friday, October 24, 2008
Poems that talk to each other by Ian Engelberger and Clark Johnson
villanelle and elegy by Ian Engelberger
I
Maddening kinds of people now
foreign and decimated, closed-nothing.
and what of me do they allow?
today will be fine, but how?
original and nothing to sing,
maddening kinds of people now.
nothing to sing or disavow,
liberated with lost minds composed of things
and what of me do they allow?
a million sub-americans vow
broken to do, broken to say, to cling,
maddening kinds of people now.
maddening women who lead, drop, and endow
to mediocrity, with nothing to bring
and what of me do they allow?
maddening men who sit or stand tall avow
the structure is nothing, an early spring.
maddening kinds of people now,
and what of me do they allow?
II
I will melt on the people, the people people all the people
with holy dripping stillness that slides right
side up
I will melt on the sort that go and see,
I will melt on the wall paper people,
definitions stuffed down throats into hearts
I will live in the folds of horizons, and all things non-
withstanding I shall find ways to move and spill
and form the people
their who’s who formations,
the long dead order
the broken canvas people the dead window people the
news people the no more people
constantly becoming becoming into dust
I will melt on the no more people under suns that grow and
spread
and what are hands up against them,
the sun people, the sun.
sun children watching themselves in shadows on the shore
at dusk
the sun children will melt on me
the sun children will melt on me at dusk beaches of their
own choosing
dusk runs into sand into water into me.
the sun is up.
the people. by Clark Johnson
People doesn’t make sense. People? Really…
People people, running around.
People people the people in the streets.
Nobody knows what I mean. I don’t know what I mean.
I don’t mean anything.
But I think the people do.
The people melt onto each other.
& the people melt into each other.
People people people, over and over
again.
And the ‘o’ jumps
out and grabs and bites and I
can’t spell it now.
Too many people too many
fucking people on the page.
And I didn’t mean to say that,
but the people mass and swarm
and now we have a sun.
Did the sun melt the people?
I think I should make them
ask, but the sun can’t
melt the people because the people
will keep on melting,
melting all over the streets
under that hot hot sun.
The people aren’t Christian because
they die for themselves. They die
for the other melting people and
they don’t know why. They don’t
know why but they do it all
the same. All the same, all the
people are the same I think.
They will mass and they will
swarm all over each other because
they touched the sun and now
they will be melting.
And NOW we explain, we talk and
tell and expose but what if
we don’t want to know?
I don’t think you thought of that,
You and your people melt all into
each other
and regress into your minds where nothing
happens, and their thoughts about
the people melt and drip? into each other,
I hope they won’t smudge.
They won’t smudge in the future because in the
future everything will stop.
It will stop and they will look and they will
think, over and over again until your children’s
people will melt in the streets, under
the hot hot sun of people peopling people.
That was a new one.
I
Maddening kinds of people now
foreign and decimated, closed-nothing.
and what of me do they allow?
today will be fine, but how?
original and nothing to sing,
maddening kinds of people now.
nothing to sing or disavow,
liberated with lost minds composed of things
and what of me do they allow?
a million sub-americans vow
broken to do, broken to say, to cling,
maddening kinds of people now.
maddening women who lead, drop, and endow
to mediocrity, with nothing to bring
and what of me do they allow?
maddening men who sit or stand tall avow
the structure is nothing, an early spring.
maddening kinds of people now,
and what of me do they allow?
II
I will melt on the people, the people people all the people
with holy dripping stillness that slides right
side up
I will melt on the sort that go and see,
I will melt on the wall paper people,
definitions stuffed down throats into hearts
I will live in the folds of horizons, and all things non-
withstanding I shall find ways to move and spill
and form the people
their who’s who formations,
the long dead order
the broken canvas people the dead window people the
news people the no more people
constantly becoming becoming into dust
I will melt on the no more people under suns that grow and
spread
and what are hands up against them,
the sun people, the sun.
sun children watching themselves in shadows on the shore
at dusk
the sun children will melt on me
the sun children will melt on me at dusk beaches of their
own choosing
dusk runs into sand into water into me.
the sun is up.
the people. by Clark Johnson
People doesn’t make sense. People? Really…
People people, running around.
People people the people in the streets.
Nobody knows what I mean. I don’t know what I mean.
I don’t mean anything.
But I think the people do.
The people melt onto each other.
& the people melt into each other.
People people people, over and over
again.
And the ‘o’ jumps
out and grabs and bites and I
can’t spell it now.
Too many people too many
fucking people on the page.
And I didn’t mean to say that,
but the people mass and swarm
and now we have a sun.
Did the sun melt the people?
I think I should make them
ask, but the sun can’t
melt the people because the people
will keep on melting,
melting all over the streets
under that hot hot sun.
The people aren’t Christian because
they die for themselves. They die
for the other melting people and
they don’t know why. They don’t
know why but they do it all
the same. All the same, all the
people are the same I think.
They will mass and they will
swarm all over each other because
they touched the sun and now
they will be melting.
And NOW we explain, we talk and
tell and expose but what if
we don’t want to know?
I don’t think you thought of that,
You and your people melt all into
each other
and regress into your minds where nothing
happens, and their thoughts about
the people melt and drip? into each other,
I hope they won’t smudge.
They won’t smudge in the future because in the
future everything will stop.
It will stop and they will look and they will
think, over and over again until your children’s
people will melt in the streets, under
the hot hot sun of people peopling people.
That was a new one.
Friday, October 3, 2008
Ode by Farsh
i got to cruise the open road,
so on the road i wrote an ode.
an ode about my buddy's oud,
a short and fat and stubby dude
so on the road i wrote an ode.
an ode about my buddy's oud,
a short and fat and stubby dude
"it's all I think about" - Farsh
Tuesday, September 30, 2008
Monday, September 29, 2008
Friday, September 12, 2008
Poem by Ian Engelberger
to be drowsily like a father
the base lethargy, reinforced
paternal drowsiness caused by ancestral intoxication, drowsy.
one of the three debts-to stagger like a drunk a man
the other two being-to behave like an opiate or a person
from which, with a pin, he is freed when he begets a son
to be drowsily like a father
owing to intoxication
a father figure,
respected, revered,
to lament irritatedly
the world of fathers and of the deceased, presses crushes and kills for
consent
the rights are performed flaccidly on the fifteenth day
of the dark soft fortnight
of the month of over ripe soft
which marks farewell to the son
formed for the gratification of the father
patriarchs rendered flaccid soft
patricide enough to make a boy drink,
or to administer bilious threats-
evil spirited sons who speak ill
cliched slanderers
to be ground
to be powdered
to be pressed.
(source: a hindi dictionary)
the base lethargy, reinforced
paternal drowsiness caused by ancestral intoxication, drowsy.
one of the three debts-to stagger like a drunk a man
the other two being-to behave like an opiate or a person
from which, with a pin, he is freed when he begets a son
to be drowsily like a father
owing to intoxication
a father figure,
respected, revered,
to lament irritatedly
the world of fathers and of the deceased, presses crushes and kills for
consent
the rights are performed flaccidly on the fifteenth day
of the dark soft fortnight
of the month of over ripe soft
which marks farewell to the son
formed for the gratification of the father
patriarchs rendered flaccid soft
patricide enough to make a boy drink,
or to administer bilious threats-
evil spirited sons who speak ill
cliched slanderers
to be ground
to be powdered
to be pressed.
(source: a hindi dictionary)
Sunday, August 17, 2008
Poems and Translations by Yvette Gottshall
Poems and translations from the German by Yvette Gottshall, an excellent poet we will be hearing more from. These are from her manuscript, The Damage Done To Certain Souls Is Proof.
OFF HEMPHILL AVENUE
The city on the hill makes for little light,
for all its claim of liberated bushels it gives
off little burning. The eight-hundred block
turning left off Seminary Drive smacks you
with the fried-chicken smell of the cotton
gins and mills over on Main. This smell
overhangs the 65 dollars-by-the-week
roomers across from Our Lady of Victory
School, settles on your shoulders as you
pass that Chinese vacuum repair and rental
place between the school’s empty dodgeball courts
and merry-go-round and the Gospel Truth
Mission. What is the truth? What is
the mission? Do you accept the poured out
fragrance of La Tortilla Ria, Tienda
and Restaurante, the Forty-Ten Club and
the yellow-eyed smokers gathered on its stoop?
What would you witness as you walk
quickly past the convenience store’s grilled
windows, the liquor stores, the check-cashing
storefronts. What will you give for the new
world smelting in the knocked out windows
and black crow rafters of the cotton-seed
mills and the barely up to code gins on Main?
WARRIOR SONG
I will gather my people into myself,
gather them into that coliseum cloud of witnesses.
I will be room enough for all of us,
and a room for each of us. I will be
the places of honor seating thousands
come to bear witness, come to cheer me on.
I will be the gladiator.
I will be the lion.
I will be the runner fleet of foot.
I will be, too, the one who falters,
the one who trips.
I will be the chariots and
the chariot’s wheels,
and the spoiling of enthrallment - calamity.
I will be the bread that is broken,
the good word spoken,
the banners of allegiances and alliances
blowing in the breeze and I will be the breeze.
I will be the dust the breeze stirs up,
the broken cup, the wheel, the potter and
the clay. I will be the fresh light of each new day.
I will be a few stars lost along Orion’s belt.
I will be the bruises and the welts
upon the bodies of the slaves
brought forth to be consumed for our little play.
I will be the slaves, the salve for which they pray,
the cells, and the doors and the doors’ lifting - Let
the offerings begin. Let us pray. I will be
the offerings, and the gods to be
appeased. I will be appeased.
I will be the banquet, and
the wine, and its lack, and I will
be the wine’s miraculous flowing
back. I will be the new wine in old skins –
uncontainable,
and too, the new skins expanding to
encompass aromas -
unattainable, the grafting into the vine
to make a new line. I will be the chaff gathered
up and burned, the wheat that wisdom has learned
to gather and to store in the coming lean-cow years.
Sickly lean cows, seven will I be, and the fat cows -
seven will I be - the famine and the feast.
My people are crying. My people are laughing – their cups
are running over with wisdom-gathering, with dying.
Those virgins waiting in the darkness by the door?
I will be the virgins trimming their wicks, and I
will be the wicks. I will be the thorns
which prick the brow, and the vinegar
-soaked cloth to draw out the How,
the innate death, the spear piercing the side,
and the collapsing of the breath. I will be the cock
crowing thrice to deny all these things I will be.
I will be the table, and the dogs sprawling beneath
the table for the crumbs which are falling
from my people’s hands, I will be the one crawling
to touch the hems of holy garments, the one
who will be healed by my faith. I will
be the anointing, the anointed one.
I will not be healed; I will be dead.
□
YOUR MOUTH ON MINE
Your mouth on mine.
I lost everything outlined.
Thousand small blooms
their cups opened
on my body.
You kissed me tenderly
and went.
Dry shame like a fire
stood red for me
on belly and chests.
(Translation of poem by Hilde Domin)
THE WORKING-MAN
We have a bed, we have a child,
My wife!
We also have work - work for two,
and have the sun and rain and wind;
and we lack just one little thing
to be as free as the birds are:
only time.
When on Sundays we go through the fields,
My child,
and over the corn, far and wide,
the blue swallows can be seen darting,
Oh, then, we want not for slight clothes
to be as fine as the birds are:
only time.
Only time! We sense a thundering wind,
we people.
Just one small forever;
We lack nothing, my wife, my child,
but all that blossoms in us,
to be as bold as the birds are:
only time.
(Translation of a poem by Richard Dehmel)
OFF HEMPHILL AVENUE
The city on the hill makes for little light,
for all its claim of liberated bushels it gives
off little burning. The eight-hundred block
turning left off Seminary Drive smacks you
with the fried-chicken smell of the cotton
gins and mills over on Main. This smell
overhangs the 65 dollars-by-the-week
roomers across from Our Lady of Victory
School, settles on your shoulders as you
pass that Chinese vacuum repair and rental
place between the school’s empty dodgeball courts
and merry-go-round and the Gospel Truth
Mission. What is the truth? What is
the mission? Do you accept the poured out
fragrance of La Tortilla Ria, Tienda
and Restaurante, the Forty-Ten Club and
the yellow-eyed smokers gathered on its stoop?
What would you witness as you walk
quickly past the convenience store’s grilled
windows, the liquor stores, the check-cashing
storefronts. What will you give for the new
world smelting in the knocked out windows
and black crow rafters of the cotton-seed
mills and the barely up to code gins on Main?
WARRIOR SONG
I will gather my people into myself,
gather them into that coliseum cloud of witnesses.
I will be room enough for all of us,
and a room for each of us. I will be
the places of honor seating thousands
come to bear witness, come to cheer me on.
I will be the gladiator.
I will be the lion.
I will be the runner fleet of foot.
I will be, too, the one who falters,
the one who trips.
I will be the chariots and
the chariot’s wheels,
and the spoiling of enthrallment - calamity.
I will be the bread that is broken,
the good word spoken,
the banners of allegiances and alliances
blowing in the breeze and I will be the breeze.
I will be the dust the breeze stirs up,
the broken cup, the wheel, the potter and
the clay. I will be the fresh light of each new day.
I will be a few stars lost along Orion’s belt.
I will be the bruises and the welts
upon the bodies of the slaves
brought forth to be consumed for our little play.
I will be the slaves, the salve for which they pray,
the cells, and the doors and the doors’ lifting - Let
the offerings begin. Let us pray. I will be
the offerings, and the gods to be
appeased. I will be appeased.
I will be the banquet, and
the wine, and its lack, and I will
be the wine’s miraculous flowing
back. I will be the new wine in old skins –
uncontainable,
and too, the new skins expanding to
encompass aromas -
unattainable, the grafting into the vine
to make a new line. I will be the chaff gathered
up and burned, the wheat that wisdom has learned
to gather and to store in the coming lean-cow years.
Sickly lean cows, seven will I be, and the fat cows -
seven will I be - the famine and the feast.
My people are crying. My people are laughing – their cups
are running over with wisdom-gathering, with dying.
Those virgins waiting in the darkness by the door?
I will be the virgins trimming their wicks, and I
will be the wicks. I will be the thorns
which prick the brow, and the vinegar
-soaked cloth to draw out the How,
the innate death, the spear piercing the side,
and the collapsing of the breath. I will be the cock
crowing thrice to deny all these things I will be.
I will be the table, and the dogs sprawling beneath
the table for the crumbs which are falling
from my people’s hands, I will be the one crawling
to touch the hems of holy garments, the one
who will be healed by my faith. I will
be the anointing, the anointed one.
I will not be healed; I will be dead.
□
YOUR MOUTH ON MINE
Your mouth on mine.
I lost everything outlined.
Thousand small blooms
their cups opened
on my body.
You kissed me tenderly
and went.
Dry shame like a fire
stood red for me
on belly and chests.
(Translation of poem by Hilde Domin)
THE WORKING-MAN
We have a bed, we have a child,
My wife!
We also have work - work for two,
and have the sun and rain and wind;
and we lack just one little thing
to be as free as the birds are:
only time.
When on Sundays we go through the fields,
My child,
and over the corn, far and wide,
the blue swallows can be seen darting,
Oh, then, we want not for slight clothes
to be as fine as the birds are:
only time.
Only time! We sense a thundering wind,
we people.
Just one small forever;
We lack nothing, my wife, my child,
but all that blossoms in us,
to be as bold as the birds are:
only time.
(Translation of a poem by Richard Dehmel)
Monday, August 4, 2008
Found in Translation: Alexis Romay on Miguel Correa Mujica
The following text accompanies Alexis Romay's translation of Miguel Correa Mujica's novel Al norte del infierno (North of Hell), forthcoming from Green Integer. This piece originally appeared in Passport: The Arkansas Review of Literary Translation, issue 4.
In 2003, I was working as a Spanish-language editor, translator, and copywriter for a New York publishing house when I came across a copy of Al norte del infierno, Miguel Correa’s first novel. The book had had an amazing trajectory: in 1983, the manuscript had won the Jesus Castellanos Literary Award in Florida and was published by SIBI within a year, with an introduction by Reinaldo Arenas that any writer would have killed for. The broadcasting rights were immediately bought by a Miami radio station, and the chapters were read every week to an amused and clandestine Cuban audience back on the island.
Shortly thereafter, the book fell out of print, the publishing house kept the rights, and for eighteen slow years, the author, like Penelope, had to stop, learn to weave, and wait for his moment. Finally, in late 2001, after Correa had regained his publishing rights, Carlos Espinosa, a Cuban writer, editor, and scholar, offered to publish an edition of the original Spanish work.
And here you have, in two condensed paragraphs, a summary of two decades of tribulations for the Spanish edition of North of Hell.
I bought my copy of Al norte del infierno soon after meeting the author at a reading at Columbia University. It was July, 2003. At that point, La entrevista, Correa’s first play, had been performed on the radio in Argentina and on the stage at Rutgers University. The Firestone Library of Princeton University had purchased the original manuscript of Al norte del infierno for its magnificent archives. An excerpt of the novel had been published in a German anthology of Cuban literature, and the same excerpt had appeared in English in an American quarterly. However, throughout the years, Correa’s work remained systematically ignored and/or banned on the Island of Dr. No. (Although it has never been officially disclosed, the list of forbidden books in Cuba may have as many digits as your bank account.)
Until then, I had never translated a work into English, with the honorable exceptions of a couple of short stories and articles by my admired friend Enrique Del Risco. I had under my belt almost a dozen picture books translated into Spanish and would soon embark on translating, also into Spanish, Flight to Freedom, a novel by Cuban-American author Ana Veciana-Suarez. But I had never considered translating a major work into English, mainly because Spanish was my native language. I was frankly horrified by the mere thought of “reverse translation.”
And then I read Al norte del infierno.
My first reaction was that of complete shock: although the book had been published in 1984, it described my complete Cuban experience, and I had left the island in 1999! The novel was simultaneously horrifying and hilarious, or rather, horrifyingly hilarious: It tickled my fear, my nostalgia, my sense of loss--of a place, a culture, a language--my permanent state of paranoia, and my personal exodus. The really scary part was that Al norte del infierno could also comprehend the gestalt of those who had fled the Socialist Tropical Paradise in the early sixties.
When I reviewed the re-edition of the novel for the New York Spanish-language newspaper Hoy, I wrote: “A healthy writer’s envy forces me to admit that this is the book, or one of the books, that I wish I had written” [translation mine]. I mentioned this factor--my familiarity with the content, that is--not only because I felt that I could have written Al norte del infierno, but actually because I (and, for that matter, anybody who had lived at least one year under the rule of He Who Mustn’t Be Named) had this book inside, knew this book before having read it. Correa’s novel was at once virus and antibody: something indelible, probably acquired through the Cuban water supply.
I was still a greenhorn when I first read Al norte del infierno: a displaced human being, a Cuban element surrounded by an overwhelming ocean of English-speaking editors and “book people.” As odd as it was for all parties involved, this was also mutually beneficial: I, Neanderthal-at-Large, would learn office politics from my colleagues and, in exchange, they would constantly bombard me with questions about my place of origin. Was I in contact with my family in Havana? Did we have nice beaches down there? Could I go back? Where did I stand in the case of the famous little rafter? Was I a rafter myself? Was I close to my relatives in Miami? Did I know a good recipe for black beans? Was I a defector? Was mint the secret twist to Mojitos? What would happen after the demise of Castro?
I would spend many hours and much energy trying to explain to my American friends and colleagues the many fallacies of the so-called Cuban Revolution until I realized that I had all the answers in my hand, in a delicate Spanish edition that was starting to fall apart from all the wear and tear. If only I could recommend to them that book.
The issue was, of course, that the book was in Spanish.
As a consequence of my constantly quoting from Al norte del infierno, a colleague dared me to translate the book into English. His suggestion came around the time I had finally coped with the fact that this novel had already been authored by Miguel Correa Mujica. (Some chutzpah!) I could not write something that had already been written. But I needed to have some kind of involvement with this book. So I decided to take the challenge. I approached Correa, told him of my fascination with his work, and asked him if he would allow me to translate his novel into English on speculation, in the hopes that we would find a publishing house for North of Hell. Once I had his approval, a minor issue arose: in order to embark on the translation, I had to convince myself that English was no longer my second language. That was an easy task. I lived in English; I worked in English; I spoke primarily in English. My communication with my wife, novelist Valerie Block, would take place a good eighty percent of the time in English. Spanish was my native language, no doubt, but at some point it had fallen to a secondary status.
The translation of Al norte del infierno occurred almost entirely during a daily rush-hour commute to New York City, facing industrial decay and the swampy reeds of the Meadowlands through a window of a train on the Boonton Line of New Jersey Transit. Every night I would return home with almost one vignette translated. As soon as I finished each chapter, I would share it with my wife, who would return the piece the same night with great recommendations for English usage, English equivalents, and, of course, with all the prepositions corrected. Correa would receive each new fragment by e-mail, fresh as a Boston lettuce, the next morning. He would comment when necessary, praise at all times, and call back at reasonable hours with an enormous wave of gratitude.
Translating his novel took as long as it took. And that was the relatively easy, enjoyable part. The tough job was finding a house interested in publishing a literary translation of a novel that followed no traditional narrative pattern.
I submitted the work to eight publishing houses, large and small, throughout the USA. In less than a year, we received two lovely rejection letters, were monumentally ignored by four houses, and had two publishers interested in North of Hell: David Landau, from Pureplay Press--who ended up buying the rights for Correa’s second novel, both in Spanish and English, as well as for my bilingual book of poetry--and Douglas Messerli, from Green Integer, who took the deal home for North of Hell.
And here you have, in just a few pages, a summary of two years of tribulations for the English edition of Al norte del infierno.
It is common knowledge that there are always things that get lost in translation. I must add that, in this, my case, quite literally (and literarily) some things have been gained, mainly to my advantage. With the advent of this new English edition, Al norte del infierno, North of Hell, my dear friend Miguel Correa Mujica and I will be, once and for all, bound in translation.
Sources:
Correa Mujica, Miguel. “A Decent Woman.” Trans. Judith C. Faerron. Caribbean Review 12.3 (1983): 30-31.
-----. Al norte del infierno. 2nd ed. Cincinnati: Término, 2002.
-----. Al norte del infierno. Miami: SIBI, 1984.
-----. “Eine anständige Frau.” Trans. Christiane Friedl Zapata. Geschichten aus der Geschichte Kubas. Ed. J. A. Friedl Zapata. Frankfurt: Luchterhand, 1990. 183-87.
-----. Furia del discurso humano. Los Angeles: Pureplay, 2006.
-----. North of Hell. Trans. Alexis Romay. Los Angeles: Green Integer, 2006.
Romay, Alexis. Ciudad de invertebrados / City of invertebrates. Trans. David Landau. Los Angeles: Pureplay, 2006.
-----. Rev. of Al norte del infierno, by Miguel Correa Mujica. Vida Hoy 14 Nov. 2003: 9.
Veciana-Suarez, Ana. Vuelo a la libertad. Trans. Alexis Romay. New York: Scholastic, 2004.
In 2003, I was working as a Spanish-language editor, translator, and copywriter for a New York publishing house when I came across a copy of Al norte del infierno, Miguel Correa’s first novel. The book had had an amazing trajectory: in 1983, the manuscript had won the Jesus Castellanos Literary Award in Florida and was published by SIBI within a year, with an introduction by Reinaldo Arenas that any writer would have killed for. The broadcasting rights were immediately bought by a Miami radio station, and the chapters were read every week to an amused and clandestine Cuban audience back on the island.
Shortly thereafter, the book fell out of print, the publishing house kept the rights, and for eighteen slow years, the author, like Penelope, had to stop, learn to weave, and wait for his moment. Finally, in late 2001, after Correa had regained his publishing rights, Carlos Espinosa, a Cuban writer, editor, and scholar, offered to publish an edition of the original Spanish work.
And here you have, in two condensed paragraphs, a summary of two decades of tribulations for the Spanish edition of North of Hell.
I bought my copy of Al norte del infierno soon after meeting the author at a reading at Columbia University. It was July, 2003. At that point, La entrevista, Correa’s first play, had been performed on the radio in Argentina and on the stage at Rutgers University. The Firestone Library of Princeton University had purchased the original manuscript of Al norte del infierno for its magnificent archives. An excerpt of the novel had been published in a German anthology of Cuban literature, and the same excerpt had appeared in English in an American quarterly. However, throughout the years, Correa’s work remained systematically ignored and/or banned on the Island of Dr. No. (Although it has never been officially disclosed, the list of forbidden books in Cuba may have as many digits as your bank account.)
Until then, I had never translated a work into English, with the honorable exceptions of a couple of short stories and articles by my admired friend Enrique Del Risco. I had under my belt almost a dozen picture books translated into Spanish and would soon embark on translating, also into Spanish, Flight to Freedom, a novel by Cuban-American author Ana Veciana-Suarez. But I had never considered translating a major work into English, mainly because Spanish was my native language. I was frankly horrified by the mere thought of “reverse translation.”
And then I read Al norte del infierno.
My first reaction was that of complete shock: although the book had been published in 1984, it described my complete Cuban experience, and I had left the island in 1999! The novel was simultaneously horrifying and hilarious, or rather, horrifyingly hilarious: It tickled my fear, my nostalgia, my sense of loss--of a place, a culture, a language--my permanent state of paranoia, and my personal exodus. The really scary part was that Al norte del infierno could also comprehend the gestalt of those who had fled the Socialist Tropical Paradise in the early sixties.
When I reviewed the re-edition of the novel for the New York Spanish-language newspaper Hoy, I wrote: “A healthy writer’s envy forces me to admit that this is the book, or one of the books, that I wish I had written” [translation mine]. I mentioned this factor--my familiarity with the content, that is--not only because I felt that I could have written Al norte del infierno, but actually because I (and, for that matter, anybody who had lived at least one year under the rule of He Who Mustn’t Be Named) had this book inside, knew this book before having read it. Correa’s novel was at once virus and antibody: something indelible, probably acquired through the Cuban water supply.
I was still a greenhorn when I first read Al norte del infierno: a displaced human being, a Cuban element surrounded by an overwhelming ocean of English-speaking editors and “book people.” As odd as it was for all parties involved, this was also mutually beneficial: I, Neanderthal-at-Large, would learn office politics from my colleagues and, in exchange, they would constantly bombard me with questions about my place of origin. Was I in contact with my family in Havana? Did we have nice beaches down there? Could I go back? Where did I stand in the case of the famous little rafter? Was I a rafter myself? Was I close to my relatives in Miami? Did I know a good recipe for black beans? Was I a defector? Was mint the secret twist to Mojitos? What would happen after the demise of Castro?
I would spend many hours and much energy trying to explain to my American friends and colleagues the many fallacies of the so-called Cuban Revolution until I realized that I had all the answers in my hand, in a delicate Spanish edition that was starting to fall apart from all the wear and tear. If only I could recommend to them that book.
The issue was, of course, that the book was in Spanish.
As a consequence of my constantly quoting from Al norte del infierno, a colleague dared me to translate the book into English. His suggestion came around the time I had finally coped with the fact that this novel had already been authored by Miguel Correa Mujica. (Some chutzpah!) I could not write something that had already been written. But I needed to have some kind of involvement with this book. So I decided to take the challenge. I approached Correa, told him of my fascination with his work, and asked him if he would allow me to translate his novel into English on speculation, in the hopes that we would find a publishing house for North of Hell. Once I had his approval, a minor issue arose: in order to embark on the translation, I had to convince myself that English was no longer my second language. That was an easy task. I lived in English; I worked in English; I spoke primarily in English. My communication with my wife, novelist Valerie Block, would take place a good eighty percent of the time in English. Spanish was my native language, no doubt, but at some point it had fallen to a secondary status.
The translation of Al norte del infierno occurred almost entirely during a daily rush-hour commute to New York City, facing industrial decay and the swampy reeds of the Meadowlands through a window of a train on the Boonton Line of New Jersey Transit. Every night I would return home with almost one vignette translated. As soon as I finished each chapter, I would share it with my wife, who would return the piece the same night with great recommendations for English usage, English equivalents, and, of course, with all the prepositions corrected. Correa would receive each new fragment by e-mail, fresh as a Boston lettuce, the next morning. He would comment when necessary, praise at all times, and call back at reasonable hours with an enormous wave of gratitude.
Translating his novel took as long as it took. And that was the relatively easy, enjoyable part. The tough job was finding a house interested in publishing a literary translation of a novel that followed no traditional narrative pattern.
I submitted the work to eight publishing houses, large and small, throughout the USA. In less than a year, we received two lovely rejection letters, were monumentally ignored by four houses, and had two publishers interested in North of Hell: David Landau, from Pureplay Press--who ended up buying the rights for Correa’s second novel, both in Spanish and English, as well as for my bilingual book of poetry--and Douglas Messerli, from Green Integer, who took the deal home for North of Hell.
And here you have, in just a few pages, a summary of two years of tribulations for the English edition of Al norte del infierno.
It is common knowledge that there are always things that get lost in translation. I must add that, in this, my case, quite literally (and literarily) some things have been gained, mainly to my advantage. With the advent of this new English edition, Al norte del infierno, North of Hell, my dear friend Miguel Correa Mujica and I will be, once and for all, bound in translation.
Sources:
Correa Mujica, Miguel. “A Decent Woman.” Trans. Judith C. Faerron. Caribbean Review 12.3 (1983): 30-31.
-----. Al norte del infierno. 2nd ed. Cincinnati: Término, 2002.
-----. Al norte del infierno. Miami: SIBI, 1984.
-----. “Eine anständige Frau.” Trans. Christiane Friedl Zapata. Geschichten aus der Geschichte Kubas. Ed. J. A. Friedl Zapata. Frankfurt: Luchterhand, 1990. 183-87.
-----. Furia del discurso humano. Los Angeles: Pureplay, 2006.
-----. North of Hell. Trans. Alexis Romay. Los Angeles: Green Integer, 2006.
Romay, Alexis. Ciudad de invertebrados / City of invertebrates. Trans. David Landau. Los Angeles: Pureplay, 2006.
-----. Rev. of Al norte del infierno, by Miguel Correa Mujica. Vida Hoy 14 Nov. 2003: 9.
Veciana-Suarez, Ana. Vuelo a la libertad. Trans. Alexis Romay. New York: Scholastic, 2004.
Saturday, August 2, 2008
Reading on South Silk Road
I was in Montclair, New Jersey last Wednesday to read translations alongside host and fellow-translator Alexis Romay. The event was at the teahouse Cha Ma Gu Dao, well worth the visit if you’re in the area – and there is now the reading series, hosted by Alexis and his wife, the writer Valerie Block, with readings every Wednesday evening. Many thanks to our lovely and gracious hosts, who accommodated our unruly caravan in style and with unflappable charm. Stay tuned for some of what Alexis read, from his translation of Miguel Correa Mujica’s North of Hell (Al norte del infierno), which is set to be published by Green Integer. Here’s something I read, from my translation in progress of the volume The Arsonist (L’Incendiario, 1910) by Aldo Palazzeschi (1885-1974).
The Festival of the Dead
The poets sing
melancholically
this festival day:
each one the same way,
whether the day’s black or gray.
(But you can surely sing
an entirely different way.)
They say it never rains
but pours,
that everything flowers from mud
in a spring of muddy spray.
The same foolish old sayings
of the same old folks!
And yet today, it’s not raining,
a glorious sun shines;
the wind brings us its finest.
Black thoughts?
Come find release
in the cemetery.
You can enter, come in,
everybody forward,
the gates are open wide,
even to those with no one to mourn!
Everyone can come
and wander as they wish;
a poet too can certainly mingle
to his heart’s content.
The usual jesters’ shacks
stand outside the gate −
the social class that has the goal,
more so even than the astronomers,
of making men aware
that the world turns.
Monkeys dress as ballerinas
or in military uniform;
one walks off arm in arm
with a little sergeant,
another tries to pull
a corporal into a room;
one dressed as a maid
is busy with the cleaning,
a captain slaps
a petrified private.
Women yell themselves hoarse
about some scientific miracle,
the latest scientific revelation
within reach of the common man,
odd bodies, psychological freaks!
And the well-intentioned fairgoers
stand speechless before them.
Horns, cymbals, tin pans,
everyone shouts like mad:
it’s the festival of the dead!
And the homemade pastry, unforgettable pastry
everyone’s waiting for,
the hot roasted birds
they did not neglect to castrate.
In the taverns they’re playing guitar,
they’re singing songs of the country,
the latest folk tune
or Neapolitan romance.
They hang bleeding at the butcher’s,
the phenomenal, superb fresh hams,
those of All Saints’ Day,
that have already felt the first frost of the dead.
And on the counters, in stacks,
or sinuously linked,
miles of sausage
that seem the heaped diseased intestines
of all the dead.
The deli owners have hung
the new salamini, cotechini,
zamponi, mortadelle;
and an appetizing aroma
of hare and pappardelle
issues right into the street.
Everyone lurches to the feast
and eats till they burst.
The mounted Carabinieri
with their feathered red hats
proudly take up their positions
amidst the heedless throng of fairgoers.
You can go to the cemeteries
with flowers or without,
but even the most insufferable,
remotest relative
can expect a flower on that day
from his kin.
The dead aren’t all the same,
as some believe,
and above all, they’re not mute –
those in the cemeteries at least
are shameless gossips.
On the marbled skin of their faces,
far better than on those of the living,
their character’s features
are clearly revealed.
“Here lies
a man of rare virtue:
Telemaco Pessuto,
fifty-three years of age,
exemplary husband and father.”
If we’d encountered you alive,
who’d have known?
Everyone wanders around, reading,
more or less in a rush,
some sounding out the words.
Don’t you know that what
you’re so blandly reading
are the faces of the dead?
That all those sweet expressions
are the looks on their faces?
Oh! Curious coincidence!
“Celestina Verità
ninety-seven years of age”
and alongside:
“Peppino
three years of age
of the Del Re.”
Strange coincidence!
Which of you two forced your destiny?
Each of you were meant to reach a hundred,
yet, Peppino Del Re,
Celestina Verità,
against your will
you made such brief society
of your lives?
Was it Peppino who came to you, o Celestina,
and unexpectedly took from you
three years of your life?
Or did you, Peppino, at birth,
find your years
already virtually spent
by Celestina?
One of you is the parasite
of the other.
What little space the dead occupy,
far less than seems natural.
And some of you were sole owners
of some plot of land
that had always seemed so tiny!
Those high walls
with all those heads packed in tightly,
no room to budge,
seem the walls of a loggia
for an exceptional emissary.
And everyone wanders around indifferently,
chomping on hot roasted game,
sucking on sweets or mints,
reading distractedly, hypocritically,
the doggerel of those poor souls.
Clever men,
who always walk amongst the living,
and can’t wait for the moment
to walk amongst the dead.
The living have such faces,
so expressive, yet mute,
even a scoundrel’s
can appear sympathetic;
but the faces of the dead
are full of excellent information.
If you meet a thoughtful lad in the street,
how can you tell if he’s virtuous?
At the highest point of the cemetery,
atop a great platform
built for the occasion,
they’re putting the skulls up for auction.
They press around
in the hundreds,
fixed on the athletic auctioneer
who yells himself hoarse, at the top of his voice.
Cops are everywhere.
– Four!
– Five!
– Eight!
– Ten!
– Fifteen bucks!
The first ones sell like hot cakes!
− Think about it, gentlemen!
The impatient ones pay even more
than a buck per skull.
Many wait for competition to die down
and the price to fall.
– Four!
– Six!
– Eight!
Bathed in tears,
a young newlywed
clasps her husband’s arm:
– Buy me that skull.
– Be quiet! the young man says to her.
– Buy me that skull.
– Be quiet silly,
toward evening they’ll be giving them away for nothing.
– Ten!
– Eleven!
– Twelve!
– Think about it, gentlemen!
– Buy me that skull.
– Be quiet I said,
can’t you see it’s a crummy old skull?
– Buy me that skull.
– If you’re not quiet we’re leaving.
– That could be the skull of my own mother.
– What’re you talking about!
– What happened down below?
– The cops are on the run!
– Where are all those people running to?
– They’ve arrested that dwarf
who was selling those second-hand skulls.
And along the roads,
the winding country lanes,
in a pretty sunset full of smoke,
of violets and flame,
the people happily return
from the cemetery.
And every good devil
makes off with a skull under his arm.
(Thanks to the editors of the journal Calque for publishing this translation in their issue #4.)
The Festival of the Dead
The poets sing
melancholically
this festival day:
each one the same way,
whether the day’s black or gray.
(But you can surely sing
an entirely different way.)
They say it never rains
but pours,
that everything flowers from mud
in a spring of muddy spray.
The same foolish old sayings
of the same old folks!
And yet today, it’s not raining,
a glorious sun shines;
the wind brings us its finest.
Black thoughts?
Come find release
in the cemetery.
You can enter, come in,
everybody forward,
the gates are open wide,
even to those with no one to mourn!
Everyone can come
and wander as they wish;
a poet too can certainly mingle
to his heart’s content.
The usual jesters’ shacks
stand outside the gate −
the social class that has the goal,
more so even than the astronomers,
of making men aware
that the world turns.
Monkeys dress as ballerinas
or in military uniform;
one walks off arm in arm
with a little sergeant,
another tries to pull
a corporal into a room;
one dressed as a maid
is busy with the cleaning,
a captain slaps
a petrified private.
Women yell themselves hoarse
about some scientific miracle,
the latest scientific revelation
within reach of the common man,
odd bodies, psychological freaks!
And the well-intentioned fairgoers
stand speechless before them.
Horns, cymbals, tin pans,
everyone shouts like mad:
it’s the festival of the dead!
And the homemade pastry, unforgettable pastry
everyone’s waiting for,
the hot roasted birds
they did not neglect to castrate.
In the taverns they’re playing guitar,
they’re singing songs of the country,
the latest folk tune
or Neapolitan romance.
They hang bleeding at the butcher’s,
the phenomenal, superb fresh hams,
those of All Saints’ Day,
that have already felt the first frost of the dead.
And on the counters, in stacks,
or sinuously linked,
miles of sausage
that seem the heaped diseased intestines
of all the dead.
The deli owners have hung
the new salamini, cotechini,
zamponi, mortadelle;
and an appetizing aroma
of hare and pappardelle
issues right into the street.
Everyone lurches to the feast
and eats till they burst.
The mounted Carabinieri
with their feathered red hats
proudly take up their positions
amidst the heedless throng of fairgoers.
You can go to the cemeteries
with flowers or without,
but even the most insufferable,
remotest relative
can expect a flower on that day
from his kin.
The dead aren’t all the same,
as some believe,
and above all, they’re not mute –
those in the cemeteries at least
are shameless gossips.
On the marbled skin of their faces,
far better than on those of the living,
their character’s features
are clearly revealed.
“Here lies
a man of rare virtue:
Telemaco Pessuto,
fifty-three years of age,
exemplary husband and father.”
If we’d encountered you alive,
who’d have known?
Everyone wanders around, reading,
more or less in a rush,
some sounding out the words.
Don’t you know that what
you’re so blandly reading
are the faces of the dead?
That all those sweet expressions
are the looks on their faces?
Oh! Curious coincidence!
“Celestina Verità
ninety-seven years of age”
and alongside:
“Peppino
three years of age
of the Del Re.”
Strange coincidence!
Which of you two forced your destiny?
Each of you were meant to reach a hundred,
yet, Peppino Del Re,
Celestina Verità,
against your will
you made such brief society
of your lives?
Was it Peppino who came to you, o Celestina,
and unexpectedly took from you
three years of your life?
Or did you, Peppino, at birth,
find your years
already virtually spent
by Celestina?
One of you is the parasite
of the other.
What little space the dead occupy,
far less than seems natural.
And some of you were sole owners
of some plot of land
that had always seemed so tiny!
Those high walls
with all those heads packed in tightly,
no room to budge,
seem the walls of a loggia
for an exceptional emissary.
And everyone wanders around indifferently,
chomping on hot roasted game,
sucking on sweets or mints,
reading distractedly, hypocritically,
the doggerel of those poor souls.
Clever men,
who always walk amongst the living,
and can’t wait for the moment
to walk amongst the dead.
The living have such faces,
so expressive, yet mute,
even a scoundrel’s
can appear sympathetic;
but the faces of the dead
are full of excellent information.
If you meet a thoughtful lad in the street,
how can you tell if he’s virtuous?
At the highest point of the cemetery,
atop a great platform
built for the occasion,
they’re putting the skulls up for auction.
They press around
in the hundreds,
fixed on the athletic auctioneer
who yells himself hoarse, at the top of his voice.
Cops are everywhere.
– Four!
– Five!
– Eight!
– Ten!
– Fifteen bucks!
The first ones sell like hot cakes!
− Think about it, gentlemen!
The impatient ones pay even more
than a buck per skull.
Many wait for competition to die down
and the price to fall.
– Four!
– Six!
– Eight!
Bathed in tears,
a young newlywed
clasps her husband’s arm:
– Buy me that skull.
– Be quiet! the young man says to her.
– Buy me that skull.
– Be quiet silly,
toward evening they’ll be giving them away for nothing.
– Ten!
– Eleven!
– Twelve!
– Think about it, gentlemen!
– Buy me that skull.
– Be quiet I said,
can’t you see it’s a crummy old skull?
– Buy me that skull.
– If you’re not quiet we’re leaving.
– That could be the skull of my own mother.
– What’re you talking about!
– What happened down below?
– The cops are on the run!
– Where are all those people running to?
– They’ve arrested that dwarf
who was selling those second-hand skulls.
And along the roads,
the winding country lanes,
in a pretty sunset full of smoke,
of violets and flame,
the people happily return
from the cemetery.
And every good devil
makes off with a skull under his arm.
(Thanks to the editors of the journal Calque for publishing this translation in their issue #4.)
Friday, July 18, 2008
Poems and a translation by Kory Martin-Damon
Three poems by an amazing young poet, the Cuban-born, Seattle-based poet Kory Martin-Damon, from her manuscript in progress Blue, Yellow, Red, followed by her translation from the Spanish of a poem by Coral Bracho.
Poetry is
a country of loss. Everything within
its borders weeps. Memories are
mannequins in windows, their naked arms
displayed in thoughtful poses. Here
are the tears of loss collected in opaque
vases, the salt of them like frost filming
the glass. Here is the hole everything
disappears through. Here is Cassandra
calling into the wind. Her hair has come
undone. Her eyes are mad, her words torn
from her mouth. She is the muse of poetry.
The poet listens to her and believes her
no more than anyone else does.
In it my childhood swims
I take my coffee sweet and light.
I learned from my mother
how to drink it, when to drink it, and why.
My father took his coffee twice a day, upon
rising and when he came home from work.
My mother could not drink it—this dark,
smoky flavor drowned in sugar. Her stomach
would not tolerate the acid. But every morning
she would sneak a tablespoon into her mouth,
as if she were fooling the body beneath her
clothes. She smelled of soap in the morning,
sweat in the evening when she came home from work.
Sweat and a strange odor like burnt plastic.
One time she came home with a burn on the palm
of her hand. Her mind had drifted off the conveyor
belt, into some place where the tropical breezes
teased the sweat in her hair, where the sky was
wide open and promising, no cloud anywhere in sight.
Maybe she was dreaming of eating beans and rice,
or guava pastries. The next day the burn had
swelled to a pus sack. As she made coffee
for my father and harangued me for getting up
again before I had to, she was careful with
the hot coffee maker. She was careful to look
at me so that I would understand why a child
does not get up at 4 a.m. even though the kitchen
smells of coffee I’ve yet to taste, and mother
is there smelling of soap, her face clean, her
hair all in place, before the day has time to weary
her, before conveyor belts get to nip at her hands,
before her eyes begin to dream. She is there,
with that spoon of sweet coffee, her hand shaking.
“Father rocked me later by the water…”
--Lynda Hull
What must it be like? What must it be like—
that when a father holds his daughter,
a father simply holds his daughter?
What must it be like, to have a door in the heart
that swings with each kiss, with each hug, with
every touch? The echoes of its swinging,
that breath of air that whispers, “You’re home.
You’re home. You’re home.” The child listens
and knows, little rifts and tears healing with
each breath. What must it be like, arms strong
and warm, that feeling of never having to fall
through the lies of them, through arms that conspire
with a heart where the worm has made its way,
eating and corrupting until the wood
is a filter through which blood leaks, meaning
nothing. This child knows because her heart’s
door never swung, never whispered, screamed instead,
slamming shut before she could spell the word “door.”
□
A poem by Coral Bracho (born in Mexico City, 1951),
translated by Kory Martin-Damon
Love is its own half-closed being
Aflame in the forests of time, love
is its own half-closed being. It opens
its marmot snout and inextricable
paths upon paths spill forth. This is the path
the dead
return upon, the luminous place from which
they shine. Like sapphires under sand,
they make their beach, they make their intimate waves,
their flint flowering, their white, drowning,
erupting foam. This is how it whispers in the ear: of the breeze,
of the water’s calm, and the sun
that brushes,
with delicate, igneous fingers
the vital freshness. That is how it speaks to us
with its shell-like candor; that is how it reels us in
with its light that is stone,
and that begins with the water, and is a sea
of impregnable deep foliages,
and that only so, at night,
allows us to see
and ignite.
El amor es su entornada sustancia
Encendido en los boscajes del tiempo, el amor
es su entornada sustancia. Abre
con hociquillo de marmota,
senderos y senderos
inextricables. Es el camino
de vueltade los muertos, el lugar luminoso en donde suelen
resplandecer. Como zafiros bajo la arena
hacen su playa, hacen sus olas íntimas, su floración
de pedernal, blanca y hundiéndose
y volcando su espuma. Así nos dicen al oído: del viento,
de la calma del agua, y del sol
que toca,
con dedos ígneos y delicados
la frescura vital. Así nos dicen
con su candor de caracolas; así van devanándonos
con su luz, que es piedra,
y que es principio con el agua, y es mar
de hondos follajes
inexpugnables, a los que sólo así, de noche,
nos es dado ver
y encender
Poetry is
a country of loss. Everything within
its borders weeps. Memories are
mannequins in windows, their naked arms
displayed in thoughtful poses. Here
are the tears of loss collected in opaque
vases, the salt of them like frost filming
the glass. Here is the hole everything
disappears through. Here is Cassandra
calling into the wind. Her hair has come
undone. Her eyes are mad, her words torn
from her mouth. She is the muse of poetry.
The poet listens to her and believes her
no more than anyone else does.
In it my childhood swims
I take my coffee sweet and light.
I learned from my mother
how to drink it, when to drink it, and why.
My father took his coffee twice a day, upon
rising and when he came home from work.
My mother could not drink it—this dark,
smoky flavor drowned in sugar. Her stomach
would not tolerate the acid. But every morning
she would sneak a tablespoon into her mouth,
as if she were fooling the body beneath her
clothes. She smelled of soap in the morning,
sweat in the evening when she came home from work.
Sweat and a strange odor like burnt plastic.
One time she came home with a burn on the palm
of her hand. Her mind had drifted off the conveyor
belt, into some place where the tropical breezes
teased the sweat in her hair, where the sky was
wide open and promising, no cloud anywhere in sight.
Maybe she was dreaming of eating beans and rice,
or guava pastries. The next day the burn had
swelled to a pus sack. As she made coffee
for my father and harangued me for getting up
again before I had to, she was careful with
the hot coffee maker. She was careful to look
at me so that I would understand why a child
does not get up at 4 a.m. even though the kitchen
smells of coffee I’ve yet to taste, and mother
is there smelling of soap, her face clean, her
hair all in place, before the day has time to weary
her, before conveyor belts get to nip at her hands,
before her eyes begin to dream. She is there,
with that spoon of sweet coffee, her hand shaking.
“Father rocked me later by the water…”
--Lynda Hull
What must it be like? What must it be like—
that when a father holds his daughter,
a father simply holds his daughter?
What must it be like, to have a door in the heart
that swings with each kiss, with each hug, with
every touch? The echoes of its swinging,
that breath of air that whispers, “You’re home.
You’re home. You’re home.” The child listens
and knows, little rifts and tears healing with
each breath. What must it be like, arms strong
and warm, that feeling of never having to fall
through the lies of them, through arms that conspire
with a heart where the worm has made its way,
eating and corrupting until the wood
is a filter through which blood leaks, meaning
nothing. This child knows because her heart’s
door never swung, never whispered, screamed instead,
slamming shut before she could spell the word “door.”
□
A poem by Coral Bracho (born in Mexico City, 1951),
translated by Kory Martin-Damon
Love is its own half-closed being
Aflame in the forests of time, love
is its own half-closed being. It opens
its marmot snout and inextricable
paths upon paths spill forth. This is the path
the dead
return upon, the luminous place from which
they shine. Like sapphires under sand,
they make their beach, they make their intimate waves,
their flint flowering, their white, drowning,
erupting foam. This is how it whispers in the ear: of the breeze,
of the water’s calm, and the sun
that brushes,
with delicate, igneous fingers
the vital freshness. That is how it speaks to us
with its shell-like candor; that is how it reels us in
with its light that is stone,
and that begins with the water, and is a sea
of impregnable deep foliages,
and that only so, at night,
allows us to see
and ignite.
El amor es su entornada sustancia
Encendido en los boscajes del tiempo, el amor
es su entornada sustancia. Abre
con hociquillo de marmota,
senderos y senderos
inextricables. Es el camino
de vueltade los muertos, el lugar luminoso en donde suelen
resplandecer. Como zafiros bajo la arena
hacen su playa, hacen sus olas íntimas, su floración
de pedernal, blanca y hundiéndose
y volcando su espuma. Así nos dicen al oído: del viento,
de la calma del agua, y del sol
que toca,
con dedos ígneos y delicados
la frescura vital. Así nos dicen
con su candor de caracolas; así van devanándonos
con su luz, que es piedra,
y que es principio con el agua, y es mar
de hondos follajes
inexpugnables, a los que sólo así, de noche,
nos es dado ver
y encender
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