Myth of Arrival

One of the draw backs of the book I have put out is that it is not a bilingual edition. It is wholly in English. I am not as knowledgeable as I should be with copyright law but there is debate as to how much of Garcia Lorca's work is still protected under copyright law.

One interpretation of the law states that, "A translation is a derivative work, and only the copyright owner can authorize a translation that will be distributed. This envisions a work that is translated into another language and distributed in parts of the world where that language is spoken. Derivative works are infringing if they are not created with the permission of the copyright holder." However, prior to the passing of the United States 1976 Copyright Act, many "copyrighted literary works, movies and fictional characters are soon to pass into the public domain due to their 56 year maximum copyright terms."

In other words, the book of Federico's poetry I was translating from, published in Buenos Aires in 1945, has passed the 56 years of copyright protection (it's been 63 years since 1945) and so, theoretically, has passed into public domain. However, what makes this insanely complicated and the reason I left out the original texts was that the Garcia Lorca estate in Spain has been attempting to reestablish copyright ownership over some of Federico's poetry in American courts. The attempt was made in 2006 and so far (as far as I can tell) there has been no verdict. It is one reason I put out the book now, since it falls into this gray zone of legal doubt. But I want to be in good faith if suddenly the Garcia Lorca estate is successful and retains copyright protection. I suppose if I was getting my book published through a large publishing house then I could find out what I could do and not do; self-publishing comes with its own dangers, it seems.

I thought that one way of getting around the whole issue of using original texts or not, but keeping the book true to the idea of a bilingual text (what I really, really want) is to present two translations, one in English and one in a third language, say Italian or French. I am terrible in languages (even English) but I have friends who offer me suggestions once in a while and if I was successful I could offer something to the reading public no one (to the best of my knowledge) has done. Sure, you can go down to Barnes and Noble and buy an English translation of Federico's poetry but an English and Italian and Chinese (with one version in Eastern Armenian thrown in)? That would be worth $9.99 I think.

So here is three new experimental attempts at reworking Garcia Lorca's Adivinanza de la guitarra. One in English:

Riddle of the Guitar

At the round
crossroads,
6 maidens
dance.
3 of flesh,
3 of silver.
Dreams from yesterday pursue them,
but they are held fast by
a Polyphermus of gold.
Ai!, the guitar!

In French:

Devinette de la Guitare

Au carrefour
tout rond,
6 jeunes filles
dansent.
3 de chair
et 3 d’argent.
Les songes d’hier les cherchent,
mais elles sont
au bras
d’un Polyphème d’or.
Ai!, la guitare!

In Italian:

Indovinello della chitarra

Nel rotondo
crocicchio,
6 donzelle
ballano.
3 di carne
3 d'argento.
I sogni di un tempo le cercano,
ma le tiene avvinghiate
un Polifemo d'oro.
Ai!, la chitarra!

And in Portuguese:

Adivinanza de la guitarra

Na redonda
encruzilhada,
6 donzelas
bailam.
3 de carne
e 3 de prata.
Os sonhos de ontem procuram-nas
porém têm-nas abraçadas
um Polifemo de ouro.
Ai!, guitarra!

This is a shout out to my friend, The Absinthe Review Network, a fellow Michigan resident who probably knows more about the French poet Charles Baudelaire and his love affair with absinthe than I do. However, my first exposure to Baudelaire was via Liam Clancy (of Clancy Brothers fame), when he read Charles' famous prose poem during a live performance on In Concert by Makem & Clancy. It did what Emily Dickinson said good poetry should do, blow the top of your head off … at least it to so with me. I was thirteen at the time and let's just say I was easily impressionable.

The translation here is my own (though I must admit it is hard to not hear Liam's voice in my head as I worked on it) so any errors you might find here — my French is worse than my Spanish — are all mine. Enjoy:

One should always be drunk. That is all that matters; that is our great urgent need. So as not to feel Time's horrid burden that breaks your shoulders and grinds you down, you must get drunk without resting.

But on what? On wine or poetry or virtue as you please, but get drunk!

And if, at some time, on steps of a palace, or in the green grass of a ditch, or in the bleak loneliness of your room, as you wake and find your drunkenness already dying away, ask the wind, ask the waves, ask the stars, ask the clock — all that which runs, all that which groans, all that which rolls, all that which sings, all that which speaks — ask them, what time is it? and the wind, the waves, the stars, the birds, and the clock, will all reply: “It's time to get drunk! So that you may not be the martyred slaves of Time, get drunk, get drunk and never pause for rest on wine or poetry or virtue as you please.”

Il faut être toujours ivre, tout est là ; c'est l'unique question. Pour ne pas sentir l'horrible fardeau du temps qui brise vos épaules et vous penche vers la terre, il faut vous enivrer sans trêve.

Mais de quoi? De vin, de poésie, ou de vertu à votre guise, mais enivrez-vous!

Et si quelquefois, sur les marches d'un palais, sur l'herbe verte d'un fossé, vous vous réveillez, l'ivresse déjà diminuée ou disparue, demandez au vent, à la vague, à l'étoile, à l'oiseau, à l'horloge; à tout ce qui fuit, à tout ce qui gémit, à tout ce qui roule, à tout ce qui chante, à tout ce qui parle, demandez quelle heure il est. Et le vent, la vague, l'étoile, l'oiseau, l'horloge, vous répondront, il est l'heure de s'enivrer ; pour ne pas être les esclaves martyrisés du temps, enivrez-vous, enivrez-vous sans cesse de vin, de poésie, de vertu, à votre guise.

I tried recording this poem in several locations, none of them really getting the energy I was hoping for. In one my cat Haiku began chirping in the background and in another the dehumidifier kicked in, drowning out half the poem. However, on this hot and humid day, being downstairs in my basement was a treat (though it does look a lot like an abattoir). Maybe I could do a series of poems in friends' basements? If you have a really dire and dreary looking basement drop me a line … it might be worth the road trip.

Listen. I'll be sober. In time. But not
today. No. Not today. I'll be – listen!
Sober, but not today. Often I thought
to be. Yes. Often. Listen. I often
thought to be. With the buckle and the boot.
With the whip and cutouts. All this passion
means so little sober. Listen. This brute
does not forgive. This lush life – this drunken
brute and painted raw silk and my brutal
henna hands – passion gobbling away
like silk, muslin, silk. Often silk is sour
to my tongue. And sober? inedible.
I'll be sober. In time. But not today.
No. Not today. In time. I'll be sober.

Green Baudelaire

I took a wonderful Shakespeare course my last semester of graduate school and one of the text we examined was The Tempest. One direction of scholarship that proved extremely interesting was the re-examination of colonial literature not from the point of view of the colonizer but the colonized. In other words, what does literature written at a time when various empires were expanding over the planet show us about the mind-set, the attitudes and apprehensions of the invading powers trying to re-shape various indigenous peoples into their own images? As Caliban says, You taught me language, and my profit on 't / Is I know how to curse. The red plague rid you / For learning me your language!¹

I have been forced to approach much of Baudelaire's poetry in this fashion. He is, of course, like all of us, a product of his culture. That is, Paris, France, in the 1840s and 1850s. Charles was middle-class, taken to living off the allowance his mother gave him and fond of prostitutes and absinthe. That is the popular mythology that surrounds him. What this means is he developed various venereal diseases that stayed with him his entire adult life and which he apparently passed onto all his lovers.

But in many of his poems there is a figure of a certain woman, who Louis Simpson refers to as "quadroon," or octoroon, a person having one-quarter African ancestry, named Jeanne Duval.² It has been the tendency of several of the critical essays I have read so far (see: Ward, 2001; de Jonge, 1976; Piaget Shanks, 1974) to eroticse Duval as much as Baudelaire does. That is, they take the poem on face value without bothering to question what the poet was attempting to do.

For example, in Parfum Exotique, what is curious to me is not so much that from a scent of exotic fragrance brings forth all these images to the speaker of the poem, Proust does the same thing but for 600 pages, but what those images are. The speaker talks of a sun-drenched, lazy island where outlandish trees grow and the population is both submissive and sexually libidinous.

That this idea of Primitivism is still in art speaks volumes. That is that "primitive peoples" (read: non-Western, white and middle class) contain some sort of destructive force that is continually lurking on the outside of our (read: male) understanding, particularly ecstasy, spiritual punishment and/or unsuppressed urges of violence or sexuality. This idea had been sweeping through Paris at the time of Baudelaire, with Paul Gauguin's paintings of the Tahiti and the South Pacific, featuring nude, highly sexual women in various "native" poses. However, like many other things, Primitivism is a racist construct, developed by outside observers searching for solutions to various problems of their own society. The original poem reads as follows:

Quand, les deux yeux fermés, en un soir chaud d'automne,
Je respire l'odeur de ton sein chaleureux,
Je vois se dérouler des rivages heureux
Qu'éblouissent les feux d'un soleil monotone;

Une île paresseuse où la nature donne
Des arbres singuliers et des fruits savoureux;
Des hommes dont le corps est mince et vigoureux,
Et des femmes dont l'oeil par sa franchise étonne.

Guidé par ton odeur vers de charmants climats,
Je vois un port rempli de voiles et de mâts
Encor tout fatigués par la vague marine,

Pendant que le parfum des verts tamariniers,
Qui circule dans l'air et m'enfle la narine,
Se mêle dans mon âme au chant des mariniers.

That Baudelaire would find the Pacific, or the Caribbean or Africa exotic is less shocking than if he somehow would have had the creativity and humanity not to. Perhaps what this shows to us is how quickly what titillates changes. What was once seen as forbidden or taboo is now common. Common is not a bad thing, it means we are no longer scandalized by the "Other." The sonnet I would love to read would be Jeanne Duval's reply to Baudelaire, After giving me the clap, I lay next/ to your pasty flesh and smell Paris'/ sewer system in one fetid breath … but sadly, we do not have that.

Bewitching, on an autumn night with eyes
closed I breathe in the musk of your breasts, see
far off shores, atolls, all bright and happy
under a dazzling, endless sunrise.

Lazy island, where Nature breeds countless
wondrous trees and fruits of weird delight,
and whose men, with their lithe bodies, invite
women, whose eyes flash with lewd directness.

Lured by your scent to an isle so charming,
I see a port full of sail, mast, rigging
all still weary from the ocean's furies

while the tamarind trees breathe their flavor
to please my senses with greedy pleasure,
mingled with sailor's sea-songs and chanteys.

Notes in Translation:

For those who are not familiar with the terms, Tamarind trees are a tropical Asian evergreen tree, having pale yellow flowers and long seed pods. Chantey is a song sung by sailors to the rhythm of their movements while working.

1. This line alone from The Tempest has been interpreted, among many things, as Shakespeare speaking on behalf of the enslaved peoples Britain had conquered at a time when they had no voice at all. [back]
2. Simpson, Louis. Modern Poets of France: a bilingual anthology. Story Line Press (1997) page 381 [back]

Let us look at an actual Baudelaire sonnet and see what makes it different from other sonnets? First, there is the rhyme pattern. ABAB ABAB CCD EED But form in itself is not enough to make this poem Modern. Let us look at the original French. What do you see beyond the 14-lines?

La Géante
Charles Baudelaire

Du temps que la Nature en sa verve puissante
Concevait chaque jour des enfants monstrueux,
J'eusse aimé vivre auprès d'une jeune géante,
Comme aux pieds d'une reine un chat voluptueux.

J'eusse aimé voir son corps fleurir avec son âme
Et grandir librement dans ses terribles jeux;
Deviner si son coeur couve une sombre flamme
Aux humides brouillards qui nagent dans ses yeux;

Parcourir à loisir ses magnifiques formes;
Ramper sur le versant de ses genoux énormes,
Et parfois en été, quand les soleils malsains,

Lasse, la font s'étendre à travers la campagne,
Dormir nonchalamment à l'ombre de ses seins,
Comme un hameau paisible au pied d'une montagne.

When I say this is a Modern poem what interests me about Baudelaire's point of view is the very real crisis he wrote this poem in. Bermann recounts the following:

By the nineteenth century, the poet's social position — and the very purpose of his poetry — had of course changed enormously from what they had been in the Renaissance, and Baudelaire's particular plight as a nearly destitute art critic and journalist for most of his adult life is a case in point. No longer attached to or supported by a court eager to promote the revival or ornamentation of a national language and literature, the poet of the 1850s was, if anything, a person without a clear social function. Needed by neither an aristocracy nor, as in the Renaissance, by a newly wealthy merchant class seeking to add artistic luster to commercial success, the poet had to appeal now to a growing middle-class public, a reading public broader by far than ever before existed.¹

Here, then, is a poet attempting to write a poem that will be looked at with commercial success. Indeed, La Géante is the sort of poem where, even if you have never read Baudelaire's work, you might think, "hey, that sounds sort of familiar … I didn't know he wrote that." It is the sort of poem the tired old Decadent poets loved sixty years ago. The objectifying of women's body becomes literal here, with the narrator of the poem describing fascination with a female body of mythical size and enough time to caress her marvelous flesh at my ease. In a 1961 translation of Flowers of Evil Francis Duke claims the notion of giantess here evoked is strictly of classical: one of the race of Gaia, earth-goddess and mother of all things: poetry, the physical sciences, etc.² I do not know if I agree completely with that statement, but regardless, La Géante is distinctive in that it struck a note with the licentious reading public, a note that carries on today. In fact, if you ask most people what sort of poetry they read in their spare time, many will cite poetry that has a care-free naughtiness to it, a joyous decadence. This is what makes this poem Modern and if you are the kind of person who likes decadence then we must thank Baudelaire for paving the way. If it was not for Charles Baudelaire we would never have had Charles Bukowski a hundred years later and all his glorifying of wine, women and song.

Giantess
translated by ZJC

In old times, when Nature's lust could transgress
and breed monster children, I wish I had been
in love with a girl giant, some teenage giantess,
like a voluptuous cat beside his queen.

Let me watch her body bloom with desire
that blooms with each new exquisite surprise.
Try to guess if her heart conceals dark fire,
fire whose misty smoke swims before her eyes.

Let me caress her marvelous flesh at my ease,
crawl on the cliffs of her enormous knees,
and when depraved suns in summer season

force her to lie down across a plain to rest
let me sleep in the shadows of her breast
like a town in the shade of its mountain.

1. Bermann, Sandra L. The sonnet over time: a study in the sonnets of Petrarch, Shakespeare, and Baudelaire Chapel Hill and London: University of North Carolina Press (1988) pages 96 - 97. [back]
2. Duke, Francis. Flowers of Evil and other poems. Charlottesville: University of Virginia Press (1961) page 287 [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:

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]

"I know you're in there - I can smell your brain …" Return of the Living Dead (1985)

I suppose if I were forced by powers beyond my control to come back as a zombie, a flesh eating one might be of some interest. Yet it seems so stereotyped, commonplace, platitudinous. And why a hunger for brains? I don't like the brain;¹ the spleen is much better. Or gonads, ovaries, testes? Just think of all the Freudian symbolism in a testes-eating zombie film. John Osborne would go crazy. Perhaps the world needs a testes-eating villanelle? Something along the lines of Mark Strand's "Eating Poetry": "Ink runs from the corners of my mouth … I romp with joy in the bookish dark"? Or Wislawa Szymborska's wonderful "Evaluation of an Unwritten Poem;"

In the poem's opening words
the authoress asserts that while the Earth is small,
the sky is excessively large and
in it there are, I quote, "too many stars for our own good" …

Too much rapture for our own good … too much of everything for our own good! Maybe we need to start with corrections, then? One of my friends, Lydie, who lives in a little house on the French Atlantic coast, sent this to me about a week ago; correction of my little French poem. She wrote, in part, "I found myself really suprised this morning … I was not expecting … translations in 6 different languages including unreadables, and so on … I also read that you stayed in Armenia for a while; which explains why you translated in this language (I first thought you were insane) …"

Tu ne peux pas te regarder
dans les vagues. Toute
chose va tres vite. Mon
visage est cicatrisé
ou abîmé par
les fleurs qui flottent
dans la mer.

Thank you, Pimousse, thank you! With Szymborska's and Lydie's comments in mind, with Pablo Neruda's "Poet's Obligation" and "Oatmeal," by Galway Kinnell in mind, I thnk this is where we shall start, with a word, "oracular," meaning "1. of, relating to, or being an oracle; 2. resembling or characteristic of an oracle: a) solemnly prophetic; b) enigmatic; obscure" —

spit it out/ the word/ all oracular
words/ meaning: heat/ flash/ you, meaning: rapture

But let us not be enigmatic or obscure because we have nothing to say; let's not confuse or surprise anyone because its easier to be obscure than wise, sagacious, understandable. Because, because, words concerning empty poetry aren't the only thing that happened to me lately. Photoplay, cinema, moving pictures also surprised me. At some point in the distant past I thought I would be clever and devise a grand "list of every movie featuring a poet or poem I could think of;" string them together in some loose way and present it to the world. By all means, I thought, no one else could have thought about Hollywood's connection to the spoken word as source for inspiration and fascination. The list took a long while because I rarely watch movies. A little of what followed looked a bit like this:

Dylan Thomas' "And Death Shall Have No Dominion" in Solaris, (2002);
Walt Whitman's "I Sing the Body Electric" from Bull Durham (1988);
Edgar Allan Poe's “Ulalume” in Lolita (1962);
Langston Hughes' "Montage of a Dream Deferred" in A Raisin in the Sun (1961);
T. S. Eliot's The Hollow Men from Apocalypse Now (1979);
"The Song of Songs" from the Bible in Once upon a Time in America (1984);
W.H. Auden's "Funeral Blues" in Four Weddings and a Funeral (1994);
Charles Baudelaire's "The Jewels" in La Letrice [The Reader] (1988);
Dorothy Parker's "Resume" in Girl, Interrupted (1999);
W.B. Yeats' "The Stolen Child in A.I.: Artificial Intelligence (2001);
Federico Garcia Lorca's "Lament for Ignacio Sánchez Mejías" in The Disappearance of Garcia Lorca (1997) …

Then, one fine morning before dawn, I discovered that Stacey Harwood had beaten me to the punch some time ago with "Poetry in Movies," a much more exhaustive list than I could ever hope to come up with published in The Michigan Quarterly Review. This just proves there is great joy not only in moving your arms but in discovering there are no original thoughts under the sun. Sooner or later I will discover everything I have written was footnoted a long time ago in some translated, yellowing, rag-tag autobiography, journal, hagiography. And yes, before you ask, the line: "talking vulgar of the furies" is a poor man's riff on Yusef Komunyakaa's book title: "Talking Dirty to the Gods." O, fou, fou, fou, sauvage, sauvage, sauvage.

spit it out/ my word/ all oracular,
crude/ we are always so crude?/ speak all these
words/ meaning: heat, flash, you/ meaning: rapture

except you don't/ buy it/ myths/ gods/ moisture
for you isn't hades' dew/ crises
you spit out/ your words/ all oracular

with rage/ doubting is rage/ each more vulgar
as if/ "talking vulgar of the furies"/
could mean words: heat/ flash/ you, could mean: rapture

too/ rapture without hubris/ a seizure
without a body/ you mouth a word:/ "please"
spit it out/ the word/ all oracular

in its fawning/ "you[r w]help"/ see? these lesser
signs hide inside the bigger/ our whimsies'
words/ meaning: heat/ flash/ you/ meaning: rapture

"i honk rapture"/ reads a bumper sticker
crudely/ we are always crude/ but with ease
we spit it out/ words/ all oracular
words/ meaning: heat/ flash/ you, meaning: rapture

1. Regardless of Woody Allen quipping it is his second favorite organ. [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: