Myth of Arrival

I have been thinking all week of the assassination last Friday in Istanbul of Hrant Dink, a prominent Turkish journalist of Armenian descent, by Turkish Nationalists. While it failed to make news here in the States it sparked International outrage in Europe, Turkey and Armenia. In a BBC report:

"The speaker of Armenia's parliament said the murder showed that Turkey should not even dream about joining the European Union … Hrant Dink was found guilty in October 2005 of insulting Turkish identity after he wrote an article which addressed the mass killings of Ottoman Armenians nine decades ago."

It was this, the world's first genocide, that inspired Adolf Hitler to dream up his Final Solution in the face of world apathy. "After all," he is supposed to have said, "who remembers the Armenians?"

But of course we all do and Armenian culture is very much alive and well, regardless of whether Turkey remains in denial over its actions or not. New York's "peacenik, techno-junky, traveler, potter, yogi and art lover, believer in culture and counter-culture" Lola Koundakjian emailed me today with news of her fascinating blog, Armenian Poetry Project that I recommend everyone to visit. She describes it as:

… a weekly RSS feed of poems written by Armenians from all over the world, 24/7 … The authors are from late 19th century to the present. Some are very famous, others are unknown, still others are budding writers. Their language of expression may not always be Armenian. Translations from the Armenian original will be posted whenever possible. The topics are organized as follows:

* ARMENIA
* ARMENIAN-AMERICAN
* AUDIO CLIPS
* CANADA
* CONTEMPORARY
* DIASPORA

I highly recommend this site to everyone, not just those of us with vested interests in Armenian poets and poetry but for all of us who enjoy good translations. Bravo!

The windflower, Garcia Lorca's anemonas, takes us into a land of sleep and dream. The notes from Collected poems tell us: "[the windflower] is the flower of Morpheus" (page 946).¹ According to Encyclopedia Mythica, Morpheus is the Greek god of dreams:

[He] lies on a ebony bed in a dim-lit cave, surrounded by poppy. He appears to humans in … dreams in the shape of a man. He is responsible for shaping dreams, or giving shape to the beings which inhabit dreams … His name means "he who forms, or molds" (from the Greek morphe), and is mentioned as the son of Hypnos, the god of sleep.

The poem certainly has an other world quality to it, placing love in a destructive, nightmare state. In that, the notes continue: "Anderson (Lorca's Late Poetry, 311) explains a web of allusion to the myth of Venus and Adonis" (ibid.); this being a common myth where the male partner dies and is reborn by the goddess. I do not know if I see all this within the poem; however, the fact that the dying vegetation god is a popular myth is evident at how fast it spread across Europe, North Africa, the Near East, finding root (as it were) in today's Christ-figure and many other similar newfashioned religions.

While the Armenian translation was worked out yesterday between myself and my tutor, I worked off of the Spanish/ English translations of Willis Barnstone from Six Masters of the Spanish sonnet² and Angela Jaffray from Collected poems.

Soneto de la Guirnalda de Rosas
Federico Garcia Lorca

¡Esa guirnalda! ¡pronto! ¡que me muero!
¡Teje deprisa! ¡canta! ¡gime! ¡canta!
que la sombra me enturbia la garganta
y otra vez viene a mi la luz de enero.

Entre lo que me quieres y te quiero,
aire de estrellas y temblor de planta,
espesura de anemonas levanta
con oscuro gemir un ano entero.

Goza el fresco paisaje de mi herida,
quiebra juncos y arroyos delicados.
Bebe en muslo de miel sangre vertida.

Pero, ¡pronto!, que unidos, enlazados,
boca rota de amor y alma mordida,
el tiempo nos encuentre destrozados.

Sonnet of the Wreathe of Roses
Translated by ZJC

That wreathe! Hurry! I am about to die!
Weave and twine quicker! Sing and moan and sing!
For this shadow in my throat moves, clouding
the light from an endless January sky.

Between my love for you, your love for me,
the quake of plants, stars filling the air,
a windflower's thicket is constructed, where
a year long sigh is moaning obscurely.

Love this, my wound's morning landscape, resigned
to break open this wild reed, this river;
and from my honeyed thigh, my poured blood's void,

drink. Quick! We, so bound together, entwined
as one, bite my soul, break my mouth, lover;
time will see that we are wholly destroyed.

Վարդաինջի Սոնետը

Այդ ծաղկեփուոջը: Շտապեք: Քանզի ես մեռնում եմ:
Հյուսեք արագ: Երգեք: Ողբացեք: Երգեք:
Քանզի խավարն է ծածկել կոկորդս և կրկին,
գալիս է լույսը հունվարի

միմյանց հանդպ իմ սիրո և քո սիրո միջև՝
աստղերի զեփյուռն ու բույսերի սառսուրը,
անեմոնների թփուտն է բարձրանում
ամբողջ տարվա գաղտնի հոգոցով:

Վայելեք իմ վերքի թարմ վերքի թարմ բնապատկերը,
կոտրեք եղեգները և նուրբ վտակները,
պեք մեղրահամ ազդրին թափված արյունը:

Բայց շտապեք: Այնքան համերաշխ, միահյուսված,
սիրով կոտված բերանը և խայթված հոգին,
ժամանակը կգտնի մեզ կործանված:

1. Collected poems of Federico García Lorca. Revised edition, with an introduction and notes by Christopher Maurer, New York: Farrar, Straus and Giroux (2002) [back]
2. Carbondale: Southern Illinois University Press (1993) [back]

I have spent the morning trying to find an Armenian translation of Rimbaud's The Drunken Boat other than what I am working on. My tutor, Lucine, told me that she was familiar with the poem, having read a translation of it in high school. She could not recall who the translator was, or even if it was in a text book or not.

My search has uncovered many things, an older Rimbaud translation, however, was not one of them. With the concept that information on anything can be shared here in blog-land, I encourage everyone who clicks on here to read a little about The Order of the Armenian Sisters of The Immaculate Conception.

"Be modest, do not look for fame or glory, search to remain obscure, be a closed garden; work, work unceasingly …"

Being neither Armenian nor Christian, my attachment to certain causes, such as the re-building of the city Gumri or the Armenian language itself have to do with my time spent in Armenia, my friends I made, my interest in other cultures. I have only the highest regard for anyone who has dedicated their time and energy to help the orphans of that ruined, mountainous city. In Armenian, the word for "Orphan House," is "Manga'toon." You can read several well-though out articles on plight of these children, here, here and here.

While I would appreciate anyone e-mailing me with information concerning an Armenian translation of Rimbaud, I would appreciate any support people can give not just to The Sisters or aide organizations, but to the orphans, much more.

8.
I know skies splitting with lightning, I know streams, waterspouts, nightfall, the dawn rising up like a flock of doves and I have seen what men have imagined they have seen!

je sais les cieux crevant en éclairs, et les trombes et les ressacs et les courants: je sais le soir, l'Aube exaltée ainsi qu'un peuple de colombes, et j'ai vu quelquefois ce que l'homme a cru voir!

ես ծանաոթ եմ կացծակով յեղքվող երկինքներին, ծանոթ եմ հեղեղային պտտահողմերին, գիշերամուտին, աղավնիների երամի պես բարձրացող լուսաբացին և ես տեսել այն ամենն, ինչ մարդ արարածը երևակայում է թե տեսել է:

9.
I have seen the violet, low-hanging sun with long, thick clumps, splotched by mystic horrors, like the actors in an ancient drama, waves rolling lost, shivering like a compass.

j'ai vu le soleil bas, taché d'horreurs mystiques, illuminant de longs figements violets, pareils à des acteurs de drames très antiques les flots roulant au loin leurs frissons de volets!

ես տեսելխմ մա նուշակագույն ցածր արեվը՝ կոշտուկներով պատած, առեղծվածային սարսափներով կեղտոտված, կարծես հնագույն դրամայի դերասանները, ալիքները, որ մսլորված գլորվում են դողդողալով, կարծես կողմնացուցը:

10.
I have dreamed a green night incandescent with snow, a kiss slowly rising in the eyes of the seas, circulation of unknown elixirs, these blues and yellows of the morning song of the phosphorous!

j'ai rêvé la nuit verte aux neiges éblouies, baiser montant aux yeux des mers avec lenteurs, la circulation des sèves inouïes, et l'éveil jaune et bleu des phosphores chanteurs!

ես երազում էի ձյունից բոցավառված կանաչ գիշերվա մասին, ծովային աչքերում դանդաղորեն բարձրացող համբույրի մասին, անհայտ հեղուկների շրջապտույտի մասին, ֆոսֆորի լուսաբացի երգի այս կապույտների և դեղինների մասին:

One of the reasons I am keen on translating this poem is the sense of bright drunkenness Rimbaud crafted. I have been reading and re-reading "Arthur Rimbaud,"¹ while one song plays endlessly on loop: "believe it now/ a wave is breaking/ I've been tracking you across the sky … look at you your hands are shaking/ shut your eyes it's time for waking" … LastExile, Vol.2 … I love what Le Bateau Ivre can do; its sense of inevitable failure, the pure spirit of negative ecstasy Rimbaud was able to create at, what? 17 years old? Enid Rhodes Peschel write:

Throughout Le Bateau Ivre, signs of suffering, decay and death appear as Rimbaud uses his aesthetics of ugliness, combining beauty and horror, to paint a picture of ecstatic agony, which thrills — but ultimately overwhelms and destroys — him. For example, he sees "mystic horrors" in the sun and drowned people in the sea … in addition, he encounters "hideous wrecks," menacing flowers "with yellow sucking cups" and a rotting Leviathan. Figures of love convert to symbols of drunkenness and madness in the narrator's portrayal of his commingling hopes and despairs." (page 84)

Though I use slightly different words in my translation, Peschel is correct in describing the sense of intoxication found in the poem. And the whole idea of a drunken inevitable failure that also brings grace. Isn't that the same spiritual transcendance that meditation, lucubration, prayer gives to us? Didn't Rimbaud's countryman, Baudelaire, cry:

"It is time to get drunk!
So that you may not be the martyred slaves of Time,
get drunk, get drunk,
and never pause for rest!
With wine, poetry, or virtue,
as you choose!"

The Drunken Boat

Le Bateau Ivre

Հարբած Նավակը

1.
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:

2.
I did not care for other crews or cargoes carrying Flemish wheat or English cotton when my ferrymen could no longer haul me I forgot everything and drifted away into the ferocious undercurrent

j'étais insoucieux de tous les équipages, porteur de blés flamands ou de cotons anglais quand avec mes haleurs ont fini ces tapages Les Fleuves m'ont laissé descendre où je voulais.

ես չէի հոգում ուրիշ նավավազմերի կամ նավաբեռերի համար, որ կրում եին ֆլամանդական ցորեն կամ անգլիակամ բամբակ, երբ իմ լաստավարն այլևս չէր ձգում ինձ, ես մոռանում էի ամեն ինչ և քշվում էի հեռուն վայրենի ստորջրյա հոսանքով:

3.
last winter in the furious slap of the tide I was in more rapture than a child I ran and the unchained peninsulas never endured chaos more victorious than mine.

dans les clapotements furieux des marées, oi, l'autre hiver, plus sourd que les cerveaux d'enfants, je courus et les péninsules démarrées n'ont pas subi tohu-bohus plus triomphants.

անցյալ ձմեռ մակընթացության կատաղի ապտակով ես ավելի զմայված էի քան երեխան, ես վազում էի և կապն արձակաժ թերակղզիները, երբեք չէին դիմադրում քաոսին ավելի հաղթականորեն քան ես:

4.
the storm blessed my awakening at sea, more buoyant than a cork I danced on the waves known as eternal breakers of the dead, for ten nights I did not hunger after the lights of man.

la tempête a béni mes éveils maritimes plus léger qu'un bouchon j'ai dansé sur les flots qu'on appelle rouleurs éternels de victimes dix nuits, sans regretter l'oeil niais des falots.

փոթորիկն օրհնում էր իմ արթնացումը ծովում. ավելի թեթև քան խցանը, ես պարում էի ալիքների՝ խեղդվածների այդ հավերժական կոհակների վրա, տաս գիշեր շարունակ առանց մարղու լույսի փափագի:

5.
sweeter than sour apple flesh to children, the green water broke into my pinewood hull, cleansing me of vomit and blue wine-stains, sweeping away my rudder and anchor.

plus douce qu'aux enfants la chair des pommes sûres, l'eau verte pénétra ma coque de sapin et des taches de vins bleus et des vomissures me lava, dispersant gouvernail et grappin.

ավելի քաղցր քան թթու խնձորի միջուկը երեխաների համար՝ կանաչ ջուրը ճեղքեց իմ սոճե մարմինը, մաքրելով ործանքը և կապույտ գինու բծերը, սրբել-տանելով ղեկս և խարիսխս:

6.
and from that time on I bathed in the Poem of the Sea, infused with milky stars, devouring the green azure, where sulky victims sometimes sink in the pale, enraptured fathoms;

et dès lors, je me suis baigné dans le Poème De la Mer, infusé d'astres, et lactescent, dévorant les azurs verts; où, flottaison blême et ravie, un noyé pensif parfois descend;

և այդ օրվանից ես լողանում էի Ծովի Պոեմում, ներշնչվելով մշուշապատ աստղերով, կլանելով լազուրը, ուր մռայլ զոհերը երբեմն խորտակվում են գունատ հիասքանչ անդունդում:

7.
where suddenly in the glow of the day's hallucinations and slow rhythms under the gleams of the daylight, stronger than alcohol, vaster than lyres, tainting the fermenting blues, the bitter red of love!

où, teignant tout à coup les bleuités, délires et rhythmes lents sous les rutilements du jour, plus fortes que l'alcool, plus vastes que nos lyres, fermentent les rousseurs amères de l'amour!

ուր հանկարծ օրվա զգայախաբությունների փայլում և ցերեկվա լույսի շողքում արտացոլվող դանդաղ ռիթմերում, ավելի ուժեղ, քան ալկոհոլը, ավելի լայնարձակ, քան քնարները, կապույտի բորբոքված բծերը, սիրո դառը կարմիրը:

8.
I know skies splitting with lightning, I know streams, waterspouts, nightfall, the dawn rising up like a flock of doves and I have seen what men have imagined they have seen!

je sais les cieux crevant en éclairs, et les trombes et les ressacs et les courants: je sais le soir, l'Aube exaltée ainsi qu'un peuple de colombes, et j'ai vu quelquefois ce que l'homme a cru voir!

ես ծանաոթ եմ կացծակով յեղքվող երկինքներին, ծանոթ եմ հեղեղային պտտահողմերին, գիշերամուտին, աղավնիների երամի պես բարձրացող լուսաբացին և ես տեսել այն ամենն, ինչ մարդ արարածը երևակայում է թե տեսել է:

1. Edited and with an introduction by Harold Bloom (1988). [back]

Translating a work into two languages simultaneously is hard work. I have been examining six French to English translations, Simpson, Sorrell, Mason, Spitzer, Cameron and Hill; all of them lacking. With the exception of Spitzer, what I take objection to is the various ways translators have butchered the poem simply in order to keep a sing-song rhyme that changes from translation to translation. For example, Stanza 10, which I am now working on, runs:

"I've dreamed green nights of snow and kisses mounting
Slowly to meet the sea's eyes in desire;
I've dreamed the beat and flow of unknown vigours;
The opal dawns of Phosphor's singing fire"
– Brian Hill

"I have dreamed a green night with dazzling snow,
A kiss rising slowly to the eyes of seas,
Circulation of unknown saps, blue and yellow
Of the morning song of phosphoruses!"
– Louis Simpson

Both remain faithful to this inner-rhyme which, in my opinion, does not add anything to the poem. I have opted to remove the rhyme altogether. Even the word choice used by various translators is troublesome. What is this fluid running through the night the boat is dreaming of? The poem reads: "a circulation des sèves inouïes," which, depending on who you are reading gets translated as "saps" (Simpson, Sorrell), "humors" (Mason), "fluids" (Cameron), "vigours" (Hill) and "resins" (Spitzer). All this simply proves is that even a simple idea like "des sèves inouïes" can be rendered into as many different ways as there are translators.

I have no idea what I am going to say with Stanza 10, nevertheless. When I am done, however, I sit down with Lucine and we try to get the rough idea of the poem into Armenian. Phaw!

4.
the storm blessed my awakening at sea more buoyant than a cork I danced on the waves known as eternal breakers of the dead for ten nights I did not hunger after the lights of man.

la tempête a béni mes éveils maritimes plus léger qu’un bouchon j’ai dansé sur les flots qu’on appelle rouleurs éternels de victimes dix nuits, sans regretter l’oeil niais des falots.

փոթորիկն օրհնում էր իմ արթնացումը ծովում, ավելի թեթև քան խցանը, ես պարում էի ալիքների՝ խեղդվաժների այդ հավերժական կոհակների վրա, տաս գիշեր շարունակ առանց մարղու լույսի փափագի:

5.
sweeter than sour apple flesh to children, the green water broke into my pinewood hull, cleansing me of vomit and blue wine-stains, sweeping away my rudder and anchor.

plus douce qu'aux enfants la chair des pommes sûres, l'eau verte pénétra ma coque de sapin et des taches de vins bleus et des vomissures me lava, dispersant gouvernail et grappin.

ավելի քաղցր քան թթու խնձորի միջուկը երեխաների համար՝ կանաչ ջուրը ծեղքեց իմ սոճե մամինը, մաքրելով ործանքը և կապույտ գինու բծերը, սրբել-տատնելով ղեկս և խարիսխս:

6.
and from that time on I bathed in the Poem of the Sea, infused with milky stars, devouring the green azure, where sulky victims sometimes sink in the pale, enraptured fathoms;

et dès lors, je me suis baigné dans le Poème De la Mer, infusé d'astres, et lactescent, dévorant les azurs verts ; où, flottaison blême et ravie, un noyé pensif parfois descend;

և այդ օրվանից ես լողանում էի ծովի Պոեմում, ներշնչվելով մշուշապատ ստղերով, կլանելով լազուրը, ուր մռայլ զոհերը երբեմն խորտակվում են գունատ հիասքանչ անդունդում:

"And I am a pretty/ piece of flesh, I am a pretty piece of flesh"; I got the news last night when I got home from work, the anthology is: "alive."¹ Yes, ISBN: 0595370594 is a reality. What, might you ask, is ISBN: 0595370594?

About six months ago a group of Lansing poets, Ruelaine Stokes, Sam Mills, Robert "Bibbit" Rentschler and I got together to put an anthology of our verse together. We had performed ten years earlier at Albion College as 4 Against the Wind and before we all shuffle off this mortal coil we thought some sort of book would be a good thing. After all, there are only a few remaining Lansing poets, and none under the same cover. Cue: iUniverse.

That was six months ago. We changed our name to 4 Against the Wall because Ruelaine pointed out "4 Against the Wind" sounds sort of like "4 Pissing in the Wind." Now that there is a book, however, there are several things that need to be addressed. For example, once you pull it up on BN.com, where is everyone else? I am the only one mentioned and my friend's names aren't even in the system. Plus, it doesn't say anywhere that this is actually poetry. That was sort of our selling point, or so I thought.²

But let's look on the bright side, at least they got my name spelled right!

In other news, I went over to Luscine's house, my Armenian translator, to work on The Drunken Boat today. She made many corrections, which just goes with the work. So I am presenting everything she feels is ready to see the light of day. My radio is screaming: "I feel so stupid, happy and dumb as I write this … ah, soundtracks that mimic the soul.

The Drunken Boat

Le Bateau Ivre

Հարբած Նավակը

1.
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:

2.
I did not care for other crews or cargoes carrying Flemish wheat or English cotton when my ferrymen could no longer haul me I forgot everything and drifted away into the ferocious undercurrent

j’étais insoucieux de tous les équipages, porteur de blés flamands ou de cotons anglais quand avec mes haleurs ont fini ces tapages Les Fleuves m’ont laissé descendre où je voulais.

ես չէի հոգում ուրիշ նավավազմերի կամ նավաբեռերի համար, որ կրում եին ֆլամանդական ցորեն կամ անգլիակամ բամբակ, երբ իմ լաստավարն այլևս չէր ձգում ինձ, ես մոռանում էի ամեն ինչ և քշվում էի հեռուն վայրենի ստորջրյա հոսանքով:

3.
last winter in the furious slap of the tide I was in more rapture than a child I ran and the unchained peninsulas never endured chaos more victorious than mine.

dans les clapotements furieux des marées, oi, l’autre hiver, plus sourd que les cerveaux d’enfants, je courus et les péninsules démarrées n’ont pas subi tohu-bohus plus triomphants.

անցյալ ձմեռ մակընթացության կատաղի ապտակով ես ավելի զմայված էի քան երեխան, ես վազում էի և կապն արձակաժ թերակղզիները, երբեք չէին դիմադրում քաոսին ավելի հաղթականորեն քան ես:

1. Cue: Young Frankenstein music with Gene Wilder in background crying, "live, damn you! live!" [back]
2. Though I was smiling at the little sidebar that read: "Find Other Books by • Zachary Jean Chartkoff" … cool, I thought, I wonder what I've written? [back]

All this translating gives me a heady feeling; as if I am gobbling on ballad mongering; omnivorous with Modernism and chewing up rhapsodism. There are several Armenian artists I would like to find on the Internet, not because I like to gab and blab over e-mail but that I am always curious if my translation sings … or just burns up on re-entry; Diana Der-Hovanessian; Peter Balakian; Araxy Tatoulian; Margarit Tadevosyan. If anyone knows how to contact them, please drop me a line. Or, for that matter, anyone in Paris, Marseilles, Lyon, and Nice who knows both languages wants to give a shout back, you might just make a new friend, an'ker. As they say thank you, shnor'hakal'utsoon.

Here is the second stanza from The Drunken Boat:

II.
I did not care for other crews or cargoes carrying Flemish wheat or English cotton when my ferrymen could no longer haul me I forgot everything and drifted away into the ferocious undercurrent

J’étais insoucieux de tous les équipages, porteur de blés flamands ou de cotons anglais quand avec mes haleurs ont fini ces tapages Les Fleuves m’ont laissé descendre où je voulais.

Ես չէի հոգում ուրիշ նավավազմերի կամ նավաբեռերի համար, որ կրում եին ֆլամանդական ցորեն կամ Անգլիակամ բամբակ, երբ իմ լաստավարն այլևս չէր ձգում ինձ, ես մոռանում էի ամեն ինչ և քշվում էի հեռուն վայրենի ստորջրյա հոսանքով:

"… 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]

"It is very certain that the desire for life prolongs it." — Byron

Կյանքի տենչը անշուշտ երկարացնում է այն: — Բայրոն

Yesterday was Thanksgiving in Canada. Over the weekend I went to my first Tim Horton's. It's good to know one's own weaknesses, and one of mine is caffeine and industrial, refined sugar in all its myriad of forms. I do not want to provoke International relations¹, so I will refrain from making any comparisons between Tim Horton's doughnuts and Krispy Kremes; let's just say if you are in Amherstburg, Ontario, and looking for a cup of coffee and a place to work a cross-word puzzle² before heading across the Ambassador Bridge, don't go to the Tim Horton's on South Sandwhich Street.

Though winter is closing in on us fast and my thoughts begin to drift to warmer climates, like Çatal Hüyuk, Canada's Pacific Haida Gwaii/ Queen Charlotte Islands, British Columbia, have their own shark mythology. Dogfish Woman; a powerful figure in the folklore of creatures of the sea. Dogfish Woman is related in a story of a woman who could transform herself into a shark, and in this form she could enter into other-realms of the world, her undersea world.

"K'aaxada awga," the dogfish (Squalus acanthias) in Haida vernacular, is a small variety of shark that inhabits the waters of the North Coast, including those of Queen Charlotte Islands. Various tribes have a system to identify important figures in their art, and the dogfish is recognized by its gill slits as crescents, crescent shaped mouth, depressed at corners and filled with saw-like teeth.

An old medicine man living near the end of Cape Flattery on the north coast recorded a song addressed to the goddess with these words: “Where are you, on whose back the waves break?”

While the "Tiburón" of this poem always appeared to me as a large creature, the particular type of shark seems a rather moot point. Dogfish Woman might just as easily make her appearance here as one of the more exotic Hawai'ian goddesses. When I began translating this poem into Eastern Armenian back in September, I expressed doubts about the usefulness of: "whether translating a poem concerning an animal that there isn't even a word for … made sense?"

The answer is yes; I am glad I continued with the work. The whole work, now in another language, takes on a life of its own.

1. Who knows when I will be forced to flee to Canada to seek poetic asylum with the way the world is gyrating nowadays, eh? [back]
2. Is it my imagination or has the New York Times cross-words gotten easier over the years? Is Will Shortz worried people will not be able to answer complicated questions concerning things other than Pop Culture? I know I can't. [back]

Apparently in early September the "Seven Things I Plan To Do Before I Die" list was circulating the poetry blog world as I keep finding more and more people posted it. Artichoke Heart's #6 wish is: "See the Jellies: Living Art exhibit at the Monterey Bay Aquarium." I like that; it calls up endless hours of listening to the Dead Milkmen in my bedroom as a lad: "jelly fish heaven/ is full of dead jelly fish."

Memory seems to be a running theme of late. "call this memory. memory call this/ back to me, I forget;" I wrote in my last villanelle. It is true, my memory is full of holes. I cannot tell if they are imposed holes, or naturally constructed, but either way it bothers me. Just trying to explain simple things feels beyond my grasp at times; a color, a mood, a taste. Music! I can compare things, like I did yesterday while working with my Armenian tutor Lusine. We were hard at work with a translation of a poem that had appeared in the Hawaii Review back in Fall 2000. Why I had not bothered to translate my own poems written about my Peace Corps experience when I was busily translating Mariyln Chin, Philip Levine and Federico Garcia Lorca, I am not sure. Perhaps it is easier to translate someone else? Some established author whose work has stood the test of time? Perhaps, but I think it might also be I simply loved the poems I was working on.

"It's a poem about a duduk," I explained to Lusine as we began. Or more exactly, it was a poem about a sound that I once heard from that mysterious wood-wind instrument, "music of rocks crying."

I tried to explain to her why the poem came to me in the first place. But the more I tried, the more tongue-tied I became. I rubbed my temples in frustration.

"Perhaps this is good," she said, "many people have heard its sound in movies but not many know what it is."

I just claimed my memory is full of holes, but through the act of translating these meanings from one source to another, suddenly I was able to recall small things; a color, a mood, a taste. Music! I recall the first time I heard the duduk:

The earthquake which destroyed the Gumri region and in turn brought me to Armenia some seven years later struck on December 7, 1988. Ever since the day is marked as one for mourning and families go to the hillside cemeteries that ring the city to pay their respect to their dead.

The days leading up to December 7, 1995 were unusually cold, snow lay heavy everywhere and that constant sharp wind that seems to start somewhere on the other side of the world, pick up strength as it rushes across that great Turkish plane with nothing to impede its speed until it lashes over Gumri and finally comes to rest in the circling low mountains was guttural as ever. December 6, however, saw a sudden warm snap, the sun showed itself briefly and when I awoke the next day a heavy fog lay upon the city. It was a bewitching winter fog, being both sunny and phantasmal¹ at the same time. Then, just as the clocks struck 11:41 a.m., the moment the first 6.9 quake rocked the region, every speaker and boombox, every radio and stereo began playing the same haunting duduk melody. I have no memory as to what composition it was or who played or worte it; but wondrously, simultaneously, that distinct slow beguiling music of "rocks crying"² was issued everywhere.

I must give special thanks to Ron Silliman's review of Ubuweb where I found a fanastic essay by Jerome Rothenberg on the perils of translating poetry. Mr Rothenber writes of translating the Navajo Horse Song into English, but I feel the experience he describes can be applied to a much wider range of translating experiences:

It was the possibility of working with all that sound, finding my own way into it in English, that attracted me now … It was, I think, that the music was so clearly within range of the language: it was song & it was poetry, & it seemed possible at least that the song issued from the poetry, was an extension of it or rose inevitably from the juncture of words & other vocal sounds. So many of us had already become interested in this kind of thing as poets, that it seemed natural to me to be in a situation where the poetry would be leading me toward a (new) music it was generating.

"Leading me toward a (new) music it was generating;" fascinating! It is from that memory of a sound, that shard I retrieved, this poem comes from and now returns to a language I cannot speak but started this whole event.

1. It was a Brigadoon fog; simply walking to the market four blocks from my hut disoriented me; sounds were amplified and neighbors suddenly appeared at my elbow, staggering blindly at mid-day just like myself. [back]
2. Even though the instrument has many uses and faster dance-tunes are used at weddings, I cannot separate its tranquil lyrical moan from anything else than a lament. I was asked later by a friend when I tried to describe the music and the best I could do was say: "if I were a mountain in pain this is the song I would sing." I am listening to "I shall not be sad in this world" by Djivan Gasparyan as I write this and getting goosebumps up and down my arms at the memory. [back]

Around five years ago, while living in Las Vegas¹ I fell in love with Carcharodon carcharias, the Great White Shark. It happened in the same manner other people fall in chocolate, Jesus and pet rocks "Obsession," might be a better word. Sharks appeared in my dreams, my poetry, even my magazine subscriptions. I began to plan a way to go on one of those shark diving tours where you go in the little cage into the cold ocean and wait until the sharks are swimming all around you and then stick out your hand and pet them. It is a well known fact Great Whites fall into a stupor after getting their noses rubbed; that their ampullae de lorenzini, which permits them to detect electromagnetic fields emitted by the movement of other living animals, somehow goes crazy and the shark appears to fall asleep and float away for several minutes. The more I studied their behavior, the more similarities I found with my own house-cat. I even found an on-line database Fishbase with dozens of regional and vernacular names for Great Whites; fueling my imagination for weeks:

"Cação-anequim" in Brazilian Portuguese;
"Canavar baligi" in Turkish;
"噬人鯊" in Mandarin Chinese;
"Devorador de hombres" in Cuban Spanish;
"Grand requin blanc" in French;
"K'wet'thenéchte" in Canadian British Columbian Salish;
"Karish lava" in Hebrew;
"Kelb il - Bahar Abjad" in Maltese;
"Peshkagen njeringrenes" in Albanian;
"Rechin mancator de oameni" in Romanian;
"Σμπρίλιος" or "Skylópsaro sbríllios" in Greek;
"Weißer Hai" in German;
"Tunnu palamitu di funnu" in Italian;
"Witdoodshaai" in Afrikkaans;
"Zarlacz ludojad" in Polish;
"Tiburón blanco" in Mexican Spanish.

One of the best books on the subject of Great Whites, Richard Ellis and John E. McCosker, The Great White Shark (1991) is both easily accessible to the beginning Weißer Hai aficionado or the life-long Carcharodon carcharias geek. There is not, curiously enough, very much poetry on the subject of sharks². There's Herman Melville's The Maldive Shark; E. J. Pratt's The Shark; and The Great White Shark Poem by Queensland poet Michael Sariban: "Twenty fathoms below, sexier/ than the squid, more celebrated than coral,…"

I am, of course, limited in what I can personally translate. Knowing only one other language, Eastern Armenian, and marginally at that, I questioned whether translating a poem concerning an animal that there isn't even a word for in Hayeren³ made sense? Spanish tiburón sounded wonderful to my ear; however, shark is "շնաձուկ" in Armenian — "shna'dzook" phonetically — "great" is "մեծ" and "white" is "սպիտակ" but is "Մեծ Սպիտակ Չնաձուկ" Armenian for Great White Shark? I asked my ever-patient tutor, Lucine Petrosyan (Լուսիմե Պետրոսյան), a cello player at Michigan State University and she said I should stick with the general term for shark.

Note: these are the stanzas we've worked out so far of a much longer poem. Updated 10/2/05 to put the original and translation side-by-side - hooray for learning html!!

1. home of the world's biggest man-made shark reef [back]
2. Except for a few verses penned in the late 1970s and looking like someone sat through one too many viewing of Jaws [back]
3. What Armenians call their own language, as in "du Hey es?"/ are you Armenian? [back]

It was about a year ago I started my search for the Armenian Sonnet. It was a description of the work of Vahan Tekeyan (1879-45) by Diana Der-Hivanessian, poet and translator, in The New Princeton Encyclopedia of Poetry and Poetics: "… his painstakingly honed sonnets have earned him a reputation as a visionary" (page 100) along with a translation of "We Shall Say to God" (1917).

The thought that moved me was less to do with Tekeyan's work, and more with the basic question: "What makes an Armenian Sonnet different from all other sonnets?" Is it simply written in the language, and thus Armenian? Had it something to do with the ending of Armenian words and thus followed a different beat or rhyme pattern than the sonnets I knew? The more research I did, the less I learned. I e-mailed Armenian Literary professors at the University of Michigan, Fresno State, Stanford and UCLA. I learned nothing more than a little chiding for my use of the Armenian phrase, "bari luis" (բարի լուս); literally, "good light." I was told in no uncertain terms that it never goes at the end of a letter, always the beginning; this coming from a doctoral professor.

This got me thinking about my time spent in Armenia, from 1995 to 1997, as a Peace Corps Volunteer. It is strange how memories will trigger certain things. I worked in an orphanage for mentally and handicapped babies and witnessed many of them die due to a lack of medicine and proper care and I went insane. Literally.

But that was almost ten years ago. I have Bach's "Die Kunst der Fuge (Art of the Fugue)" on the CD player. A mug of hot chocolate is by my elbow. Life is still good. Still, in a letter I sent to a friend today, I wrote down as many memories as I could find:

Peace Corps can Medi-Vac (Medical Evacuation for short) a Volunteer if the regional medical services are not up to modern standards — in other words, getting sent to Washington DC for a week so you can get root canal is a lot more fun than normal. In Peace Corps slang, the Psycho Vac was the Medi Vac for Volunteers suffering under great emotional distress and unable to function at their jobs. Three days before my 27th birthday our Peace Corps doctor came for me and asked if I wanted to be sent home for a while to de-thaw and reassess my situation. You see, somewhere in the second year of my tour of duty I had broken down and was so miserable I didn't even know I was in pain.

It was the day one of the nurses I worked with showed me a photo of where all the babies were buried after they died … the town dump. I had slowly realized to my horror than the orphans under my care were not even considered human by the locals, that they were considered "things" and it was better if they died sooner than later. But it was that photo that did it to me — the realization that the children I had been caring for over a year and a half would die and be buried in the town dump. It was middle winter and the snow was everywhere. Armenia is high up in the mountains; Gumri, the earthquake-devastated city I lived in lay between a mountain range from Yerevan, the capital. I recall walking out in the middle of a blizzard and just starting to walk (this was November 1996, I believe) to Yerevan; 150 kilometers away. A priest who didn't speak a whit of English (and my baby-talk Armenian was pitiful) picked me up half way there but I walked until my feet bled and my hip creaked in its joint. I remember seeing things in the whirling snow, shapes and voices and strange forms. I ended up three days later at a fellow Volunteer's village on the outskirts of Yerevan, Karpi, where I promptly fell asleep for three more days.

After that it was only a matter of time before Peace Corps Administration saw me a hazard and put their gears into motion to do something. They sent me to DC for a month where I stayed in the Peace Corps hotel with all the other medical evacuated volunteers (80% of Medi Vac volunteers are female and of that I'd say 90% are there because they are pregnant and have to decided if they want to have an abortion or drop out of Peace Corps). My first meal (I arrived on my actual birthday itself) was a pint of chocolate milk and cottage cheese — the two things I couldn't get in Armenia.

After a month of hearing therapists tell me it wasn't my fault that the babies all died and that yes, I could return to finish my tour if I made sure I wasn't in an isolated city with no support system and working with an infant population with a high mortality rate, I returned to Armenia. I lived in Yerevan for the remaining half year of 1997 and helped train the new set of Volunteers.

That's one way of looking at what happened to me in Peace Corps. But I don't mention any of my friends, or the adventures I had (wandering the hills one summer night and coming up a hidden Russian nuclear base and getting chased by robot security drones; driving with friends by the Armenian-Azerbaijan border and finding ourselves surrounded by Azerbaijan troops who had snuck into the country, etc.) or my work teaching English at the Lord Byron English School or the Teacher's Pedagogy School (both in Gumri) or even the food. Though Armenians cook heavily with salt and pepper, they make a lovely grilled sandwhich wrap called "hori'vatz" (հորիվատս) … on a cold day you could buy steaming sandwhich wraps on the corner for 50 cents. But for years my Psycho Vac had been the all-consuming feature of my Peace Corps experience. I defined myself¹ as … not necessarily a failure, but … being one who had gone insane; I now had returned, ready to talk.

As to what makes an Armenian sonnet purely Heyeran², I am still not sure. In the autumn of 2004 I began work translating Federico Garcia Lorca's Sonetos del amor oscuro (Sonnets of Dark Love) into Armenian. The collection I used was Obras (1981), though the poem can be found on-line. In effect then, I present one version of an Armenian sonnet, a sonnet translated into Armenian, though not what I was originally looking for.

Since my Spanish is malo I consulted Willis Barnstone's Six Masters of the Spanish Sonnet (1993) and Christopher Maurer's edition of Garcia Lorca's Collected Poems (2002), though the English translation is my own. I include all three versions here for simplicity's sake.

“El Poeta Habla Por Telefono Con El Amor”
“The Poet Speaks with His Beloved on the Telephone”
«Թանաստեղծը խոսում Է Հեռախոո իր Սիրելիի Հետ»

Tu voz rego la duna de mi pecho
en la dulce cabina de madera.
Por el sur de mis pies fue primavera
y al norte de mi frente flor de helecho.

Your voice watered the dunes of my chest
inside the sweet wooden telephone booth.
South of my feet was spring
and north of my brow ferns sprouted plumed crests.

Քո ձայնը ջրում էր ավազաբլուրն իմ հոգու
փայտյա թաղցրավետ հեռախոսակրպակը:
Ոաբերիս հարավում գարունէր
և փթթուն հոնքնրիս հյուսում բողբոջում էին փետուրները:

Pino de luz por el espacio estrecho
canto sin alborada y sementera
y mi llanto prendio por vez primera
coronas de esperanza por el techo.

A pine tree of light in the narrow space
sang with no music of dawn, no seed bed,
and my lament learned to calm and soothe,
hung crowns of hope above the roofs.

Լուսպփայլ սոճին նեղ մակերեսում
երգում էր առանց լուսաբացի մեղեղու կաարծես սերմն առանց մարգի,
և իմ հառաչանքը սովոր է հանդարփվելն մերմանալ,
տանիքներըի վերեվում կախվաճ իուսո թագերի պես:

Dulce y lejana voz por mi vertida.
Dulce y lejana voz por mi gustada.
Lejana y dulce voz adormecida.
Lejana como oscura corza herida.
Dulce como un sollozo en la nevada
¡lejana y dulce en tuetano metida!

Sweet and distant voice poured out for me.
Sweet and distant voice I tasted.
Sweet and distant swooning voice.
Distant like the dark wounded deer.
Sweet like a sobbing where a snowfall spread.
Sweet and distant placed in the marrow quietly!

Քաղցր և հեռավոր ձայնը հնչլմ էր ինձ համայր:
Քաղցր և հեռավոր ձայնը, որ համտեսում:
Քաղցր և հեռավոր ձայնը, նվաղումով:
Հեռավոր, սարճես գորշ վիրավոր եղջերում:
Քաղցր, կսարճես հեկեկ անքըձյան:
Քաղցր և հեռավոր հոգուվ անդորրու:

1. I have been reading Tara Birch's The White Tree Poems while thinking of all this. Her last stanza from While waiting for a single stone to be placed sticks in my head: "My sister says I've known worse/ and I don't argue the point./ But it's not the blow of the hammer/ when what shatters is glass. [back]
2. The Armenian term for Armenians [back]

One of the aims for this website is to generate a new home for translations. The whole concept of the power of good translations was brought home to me during one of the conversations held at the 2004 Dodge Poetry Festival at the Duke Farms. I attended "The Mysterious Life Within Translation" at the Mud Lake Tent. The conversation was presided over by the Greek poet Adonis, Marilyn Hacker, Venus Khoury-Ghata, Khaled Mattawa, C.K. Williams and others.

A question was asked of Marilyn Hacker whether it was better not to attempt to translate a poem if the translator was not an expert in the field — or whether a bad translation was better than none at all. She pondered for a second and said:

"it depends who you are translating … we probably don't need another Rilke or Baudelaire translation … there are hundreds of them already … but if you are translating a poet who has never been brought into English … even if the translation is poor … perhaps it will inspire another translator with a better grasp of the language to work on the poems …"

This is the spirit I want to approach these tranlations, done by myself and others. They might not be perfect, but it is the spirit of communication between languages and poets of different cultures that is important.

These are translations of a poem I wrote in 2002, based on the myth of Narcissus. I had been writing to Maja Kleer, a German student from Essen (near Düsseldorf), who agreed to try her hand at bringing the poem alive in German.

"Narcissus' Lament"

You can't look
at yourself in these
waves, everything
moves so fast. My
face, marred
by floating
sea flowers.

«Narziss’ Klage»

Du kannst dich
nicht in diesen
wellen anschauen, alles
bewegt sich so schnell. Mein
gesicht, ruiniert
durch gleitende
seerosen.

The South African artist Sarah Hillman did a brilliant job of translating it into Afrikaans:

Jy kan nie,
in hierdie branders,
na jouself kyk, alles
beweeg so vinnig. My
gesig, stukkend
van dryf
seë-blomme.

Zozo McCarus from Kinshase, Congo, worked the poem into French:

Tu ne peux pas te regarder
dan les vagues. Toute
chose va tres vite. Mon
visage est cicatrise
ou abîme par
les fleures qui flotte
dans la mere.

This is my own translation in Eastern Armenian:

«Բու Չես Կարող»

տեսնել քեզ այս
ալիքների մեջ, ամեն ինչ
շարծվում է այնքան արագ:
իմ դեմքն այլանդակված է
լողացող ծովային ծաշիկներով: