Myth of Arrival

Rooting around my collection of CDs I never listen to I discovered some Schubert Super Saver I must have picked up for 99 cents a few weeks ago at our local Flat, Black and Circular. You know, considering I thought Mr. Schubert was a stuck-up, sticky bit, I really like his version of Ave Maria and his "Unfinished" Symphony No.8."¹ Music always has a way of causing huge flashbacks and info dumps in me that other forms of art don't create.

For example, "Komdu slir, komi r slir" means "Good day, how are you?" "Kærar þakkir" is "thank you very much;" while "þökk" is simply "thanks." All useful words to know when you go traveling to Vestmanneyjar, Iceland. I must stop and think; was there really a time in my dim academic past where I harbored illusions about being a Fulbright Scholar and spend six months studying poetry and maritime folklore on the remote Vestmanneyjar, The Westman Island, off the coast of Lýðveldið Ísland/ Iceland?

Most people I talk to about Fulbright travel and study want to go to Paris or Rome or London. Big, exciting place; places where one has to compete with hundreds of other scholars for the opportunity. But Vestmanneyjar? The year in question was 2000 and only one person had applied the year before. I was willing to crank out an entire book on Seafaring Vestmanneyjar Folklore or maybe a book of poems concerning a caricature of a Ex-pat living abroad, full of risque misunderstandings. I had my application filled out, my letters of reference, my writing samples. I even went down to my local bookstore and ordered my Icelandic language courses.

Let there be more Vestmanneyjars of the world! I can delight in a people whose sense of didactic malaise, cultural perturbation, preceptive turbidity, when not talking of the 1973 volcanic eruption of The Holy Mountain, Helgafell, dates back to the 1627 Invasion by North African pirates when half of the island's population was forced into slavery. That's the speed I want to make retrospective headway at. I like the idea of local amusement featuring a ramble along cliffs heavy with multitudes of puffin, fulmar and auk. Or that the island itself has not been taken over by Lonely Planet, Inc. and its ilk; there are museums and galleries there, such as Galleí Prýði, but you can't google them. There are even artists such as Steinunn Einarsdóttir, and her Impressionist "Red Boat" series.

And what happened, you ask? Did you go? Why didn't you send me a postcard? Did I mention I am listening to Mr. Schubert? He's nice, but I am rather upset there are no blogs devoted to Tan Dun. His tribute to Bach, "Water Passion after St. Matthew," gets heavy rotation on my stereo. But I see I am drifting. What is the point of having a scantily clad info dump if you don't drift once and a while?² Let us just say forces beyond my control intervened to prevent my traveling. That is one way of telling a story, I suppose.

1. True, it is hard to ruin Ave Maria regardless who is performing it, but I had my doubts … this Mr. Schubert is interesting, he's no Tan Dun, granted, but I am sure he must have been amusing in his day. [back]
2. Granted, we must careful with our handling of our stories or we'll get linked to web sites with titles like The Malignant Love of Self and Relationships with Abusive Narcissists, Psychopaths and You and we wouldn't want that, would we? [back]

Tonight I walk on stage as that daemon of passion,Jalalu'ddin Rumi! I must go out and find myself a wooly beard … how hard can that be? It is Halloween week, after all. I asked my South African friend Sarah if she was going to dress up as anything. Sarah, who has lived in Michigan since the age of 16, didn't see the point.

"Back home we celebrate Guy Fawkes Day."

"You do? Why on earth for?"

"At one time we were under English Crown."

"Good god, you were under a lot of people … plus, it's a holiday about someone trying to blow up the British Houses of Parliament … and failed! What does that have to do with South Africa?"

"We like to celebrate British debacles."

Still, Dead Poets … free Halloween treats … great conversation … Rumi! The flyer I picked up reads: "You can expect to see old favorites like Walt Whitman, Emily Dickinson, and Dylan Thomas. . . . 'newer voices' like Jane Kenyon and Rumi. . . and poets unknown to American audiences, like Rosalia de Castro." I am not sure who doesn't know Rosalia de Castro, but it makes interesting press. Here is the Rumi poem I though I'd read tonight but decided against. Not because it isn't lovely, but because I only get to read 3 poems and there are so many to choose from:

The minute I heard my first love story
I started looking for you, not knowing
how blind that was.
Lovers don't finally meet somewhere.
They're in each other all along.

"… I think the world is so complicated that I can't be so presumptuous as to justify pessimism or optimism, so I'll stay agnostic. But I like waking up every day and I think breakfast is a fantastic thing."

Moby, as quoted in Time magazine, 10/24/05

Thinking about the comments I made in yesterday's post, I might argue that nostalgia is nothing more than our woolgathering over simple nefarious flashbacks, corrupt memories, even sanctimonious testimonials, but really! Some days make me cry: "abominations and havoc! over all these memories and frustrations.

Yes, frustrations and memory; a year and a half ago it was not enough for me to try to translate a poem from French into English, but to triple the stress by translating the English then into Eastern Armenian. Or, apparently, to start to; for I seem to have lost the computer file all that work was on and have discovered, horrors, horrors, horrors, all I have left of a month and a half of hard work in 2004 are the multifarious, numerous, jillion rough drafts/ copies of my poor-boy squiggly, longhand on dozens of tiny sheets of paper; none of them dated or marked as to which draft I labored through first, corrected next, one just as bewildering as the next. But I need to stay focused, stay agnostic as Moby puts it and re-type, the best I can, Jean-Nicolas-Arthur Rimbaud's most amazing poem, the beginning of French Modernism, The Drunken Boat.

Of course I can not speak French! I can barely read it; but I can look and compare. I can use my baby-French and labor through other translations and see what is appealing and what sounds harsh to my ear. To that end I went down to MSU's library and checked out every copy, no matter how old, of The Drunken Boat. Marilyn Hacker was right when she said: "we probably don't need another Rilke or Baudelaire translation … there are hundreds of them already …" and add to that Rimbaud. It seems every poetic translator (and many who aren't) has cut his or her teeth on this poem at some time. Keats might have said: "a thing of beauty is a joy forever"¹ but he probably wasn't talking about every translation of a thing of beauty. Let me add to that mine. As a way of reference, I used the following texts as background research:

* Rimbaud complete / Arthur Rimbaud; translated, edited, and with an introduction by Wyatt Mason. New York: Modern Library, 2002.

* From Absinthe to Abyssinia: selected miscellaneous, obscure and previously untranslated works of Jean-Nicolas-Arthur Rimbaud / translated by Mark Spitzer. Berkeley, Calif.: Creative Arts Book Co., 2002.

* Poems / Rimbaud; [selected by Peter Washington]. New York: A.A. Knopf: Distributed by Random House, 1994.

* Complete works, selected letters. Translation, introd., and notes by Wallace Fowlie. Chicago, University of Chicago Press, 1966.

* Rimbaud; [selected verse] with plain prose translations of each poem, introduced and edited by Oliver Bernard. Baltimore, Penguin Books, 1962.

* The drunken boat; thirty-six poems, with English translations and introd. by Brian Hill. London, R. Hart-Davis, 1952.

As I mentioned earlier, I have to go by hand and re-type both the English and also the Armenian before I can let you see it. I am going stanza by stanza, and it will take a while; thus I will post my work as I go along. You see, I used an early version of Armenian National Language Support Version 2.0.1 on my old, pre-Internet laptop so many moons ago. So ancient, in fact, that I can't even get it to work on this Ubuntu Linux 5.04: The Hoary Hedgehog system. Courier AM font, indeed. However, whatever similarities, transgressions or errors you might find in my translations are entirely the fault of the author, moi. Still, I hope the translation is imaginative enough to be a curiosity to most and a fascination to some.

The Drunken Boat

Le Bateau Ivre

Յարբած Նավակը

descending rivers of apathy I no longer felt the pull of the ferrymen caught and nailed naked to painted poles that howling Natives used for target practice.

comme je descendais des fleuves impassibles, je ne me sentis plus guidé par les haleurs des Peaux-Rouges criards les avaient pris pour cibles, les ayant cloués nus aux poteaux de couleurs.

իջնելով գետերն անզգայության ես այլևս չէի զգում ձգումը լաստավարվ՚ բռնվաժ և մերկռրեն մագլվաժ ներկված ձողերին, որ ոռնացող Բնիկներն օգտագործում էին որպես թիրախ վարպետության:

(to be continued)

1. Book 1 of Endymion [back]

Technorati Tags: agnostic, nostalgia, translate, French, poor-boy, Rimbaud, Modernism, The Drunken Boat, Le Bateau Ivre, Յարբած Նավակը

Many interesting things are happening with the folks over at The Mississippi Review. They have extended their $1000 Poetry Prize until November 1; with the only restrictions being: "Fee is $15 per entry … poetry entries should be three poems totaling 10 pages or less." That is easy. I think I shall submit TIBURÓN IF THE LAMB, MOON JELLYFISH and OCTOPI to them and see what happens. They are also seeking submissions for their upcoming January 2006 issue: Defining the Literary Now. Their question goes as follows:

Is there now a “now” distinct from a clearly recognizable “then,” or are we just the New Edwardians, drinking, picnicking and being clever until the next explosion shifts our paradigm?

What is this? Instead of being Edwardians of any stripe, shall we then be the "It Girl" of Poetry? The Clara Bow of "Now"?¹ Isn't "Now" a culturally constructed idea to begin with? Isn't "Now" a corruption, prevarication, misconstruction of everything that is going on?

This urge to pin point where we are in some literary map, to set up definitions, to hem us in is much more "Now" than any literary movement we could devise. Deconstruction is popular in poetry today, but so is stylized form. The only thing every literary critics has in common is this mania of using chop logic to characterize us, of endless theorizing, of (mind-bogglingly dull) analyzing our "situation" in "history," why not just quote Super Tramp? — "Won’t you please, please tell me what we’ve learned/ I know it sounds absurd/ But please tell me who I am." Yes, what is this ready-made, prefabricated, submissive "community" I happen to be part of? Who are all these "Now" poets who spend their time, not writing beautifully poetry, not amorous, not burning, not even ebullient; but rather worrying about how some Future Academy might receive all of this?

we've
succumb
to believe

that we grieve
for reason.

All of this! Why not substitute "we analyze/ for reason?" instead? Where is that "ancient heavenly connection to the starry dynamo we are suppose to burn with anyway? I love splendor, dazzling talent, lavish beauty; so many fantastic things are happening right now I will never witness, be a part of. The Tenth Kalamazoo Russian Festival will happen this October 29. The Kirov Ballet and Orchestra will perform Tchaikovsky's Sleeping Beauty at the Detrot Opera House. Don't think, just do!

"how?"
we ask,
and "now?"

we vow
that we shall bask
in hoopla, but how?

hue and cry and kowtow?
beg that each task
be glorious? now

we hide our bent brow,
dim nose under, what? mask
and key? somehow

we will endow
each octet with flavor; basque
blues but spanish rhyme? now,

now, we say; we are judge, hoosegow,
maven. let our words unmask
each "how?" each "now"! "how";
as in: "how/ now?" "how/ now." "how/ now!"

1. Speaking of which, if you get the chance to see them, Blue Dahlia's collabrotive art/ funk soundtrack to the Clara Bow film "It" is worth the $2.95 per gallon it takes for you to drive up and see them. Blue Dahlia rocks! [back]

I want to hollow myself out, empty myself; I want the ocean. You might live next to one or in one or under one, you might write to me and invite me to visit, pole about on your punt, paddle about with flippers and snorkel, you might; yet that is probably not the ocean I want. Even by the act of wanting I am creating a transcendental situation. I am creating flimflam; for the ocean I desire is the one other's have created for me.

Is this the escapist urge to flee, from what? Enterprise? Errand fatality? Kismet? Not exactly, I am looking to see what worlds others have created. I want to be there, in your idyll's waters, her verse's depths, his ballad's sea. I am not interested in creating my own world, there are so many unconnected worlds to visit already. After all, as Margaret Drabble in TLS said: "When is a borrowing a theft, and when is it a benign sign of cross-cultural fertilization?" I feel fertile enough as it is, I break apart on every landmass I visit. No, I want sunburned insomnia, glorious asphyxiation twelve leagues down, ingenious hemorrhaging somewhere below the gut.

I think this started this morning with reading Beverly A. Jackson's little photo journey of Costa Del Sol, Spain. She linked it under the heading "Desire." Desire, maelstrom, frenzy. No poetry or even words, as I recall. Just wondrous photography awaking, what? Is it possible to write a poem like that? I have been working on minimal villanelles of late, finding single words that must carry the whole weight and meaning that my earlier iambic pentameter lines could lounge in. It reminds me of Whimsy Speaks' #9 Rule from Secrets of a Slush-Piler, a list of advice for up-and-coming poets wishing to avoid the pit-falls of submitting their work for publication, which goes as follows: "A mediocre poem is no less mediocre because each word is a single line."

But we are wasting time! It is Sunday night, my ability to be transcendental under dull pain is limited at best¹. Halvard Johnson tell it like it is, fueling this urge for vagabonding with a meditation on preparation:

26.
replacing old maps with new ones
preparing the cat for summer camp
paying the bills in advance
brushing up on our Spanish

I like that. Spanish for Idiots, Spanish for Lovers, Spanish for the Languorous. I like poets who translate their ¡mots! ¡words! ¡λέξεις! for others too. Lisa Jarnot comments on her 1996 book,Sea Lyrics: "translation of [it] into Swedish is in the works." But the ocean I want is the one I found in The Earth decides to give birth by Birdie Jaworski, with the lines:

The water and sand
travel up my legs,
chilling my thighs,
ocean brine sloshing
inside the cavity of my body …

My body! These senses! As Whitman cried: "The armies of those I love engirth me and I engirth them," and now I stand apart from myself, and now they rage against me. Shelby and I have just finished making a spinach and triple cheese lasagna. I am drinking some jasmine and rose hip tea and my cat, who spent the better part of the day laying in the sun, is sitting on my lap. All these wonderful smells are floating about the house; melted cheese, tart tomato sauce, sebaceous jasmine, sun-baked kitty fur. To top it off, now that it is getting colder and colder each night, I went into my closet and found my peculiar, polar bear slippers to wear. Put together, all this makes me feel secure and snug, the exact opposite of where my emotions are going. Where is there any apprehension in this "watery world's welkin, eh? Any damned comprehension in this "mad milky melody"? I think this is where I shall start today's villanelle:

we've
succumb
to believe

that we grieve
for reason. "to become
ash and clay?" we've

cried, "we'll deceive
mab, bedlam,
erebus, we believe

we can reweave
the fate's loom." welcome
to our rebirth. we've

finally to achieve
a bedlam of boredom.
do you believe

it can be done? deceive
us at sappho's aquarium?
that last dish of life we've
worked so hard to believe.

1. Not that I am stressed out, just under the weather … it is flu season; so I took these pain relief pills this afternoon but by accident I took the "P.M. Night" pills, not the "A.M. Day" which has made me all plaster-headed and woozy-brained [back]

Technorati Tags: hollow, ocean, snorkel, transcendental, Kismet, poem, Sunday, vagabonding, Spanish, Languorous, brine, Whitman, kitty fur, villanelle, sappho's aquarium