more first than sun
Today is the fifth birthday of more last than star.
Monday, October 08, 2007
Definitely worth reading
One of many highlights in William Luse's most recent post:
That's me most of the time, I'm afraid.
At Apologia, you can also find reflections on beer, yardwork, mockingbirds, and young lesbians; a review of a recent film; and a philosophical quandary that involves a wolf attacking Mahmoud Ahmadinejad. And you can see a fine painting as well! But don't rely on my all-too-quick précis; hasten thither.
One of many highlights in William Luse's most recent post:
I know a lot of Christians go to church and recite with the crowd, asking God to, for example, take away their manifold sins and wickedness, but I don't think they mean it. Based on the evidence. It's as though they hope for a heaven that's much like what's going on now, but with the physical ailments and the criminal element removed.
That's me most of the time, I'm afraid.
At Apologia, you can also find reflections on beer, yardwork, mockingbirds, and young lesbians; a review of a recent film; and a philosophical quandary that involves a wolf attacking Mahmoud Ahmadinejad. And you can see a fine painting as well! But don't rely on my all-too-quick précis; hasten thither.
Friday, October 05, 2007
I was just saying this to someone the other day
Basically the same prediction that's in that last sentence, about Hillary.
Here's hoping that the commenter and I are both wrong.
Basically the same prediction that's in that last sentence, about Hillary.
Here's hoping that the commenter and I are both wrong.
Cavatina
by David Gascoyne (1916-2001)
Now we must bear the final real
Convulsion of the breast, for the sublime
Relief of the catharsis; and the cruel
Clear grief; the dear redemption from the crime,
The sublimation of the evil dream.
Beneath, all is confused, dense and impure;
Extraordinary shiftings of a nameless mass
From plane to plane, then some obscure
Catastrophe:
The shattered Cross
High on its storm-lit hill, the searchlight eyes
Whose lines divide the black dome of the skies,
Are implicated; and the Universe of Death --
Gold, excrement and flesh, the spirit’s malady,
A secret animal’s hot breath ...
Yet through disaster a faint melody
Insists; and the interior suffering like a silver wire
Enduring and resplendent, strongly plied
By genius’ hands into the searching fire
At last emerges and is purified.
Its force like violins in pure lament
Persists, sending ascending stairs
Across the far wastes of the firmament
To carry starwards all our weight of tears.
by David Gascoyne (1916-2001)
Now we must bear the final real
Convulsion of the breast, for the sublime
Relief of the catharsis; and the cruel
Clear grief; the dear redemption from the crime,
The sublimation of the evil dream.
Beneath, all is confused, dense and impure;
Extraordinary shiftings of a nameless mass
From plane to plane, then some obscure
Catastrophe:
The shattered Cross
High on its storm-lit hill, the searchlight eyes
Whose lines divide the black dome of the skies,
Are implicated; and the Universe of Death --
Gold, excrement and flesh, the spirit’s malady,
A secret animal’s hot breath ...
Yet through disaster a faint melody
Insists; and the interior suffering like a silver wire
Enduring and resplendent, strongly plied
By genius’ hands into the searching fire
At last emerges and is purified.
Its force like violins in pure lament
Persists, sending ascending stairs
Across the far wastes of the firmament
To carry starwards all our weight of tears.
From the most recent issue of Dappled Things
Fragment from Assisi, a poem by Meredith of For Keats' Sake!
Fragment from Assisi, a poem by Meredith of For Keats' Sake!
Tuesday, October 02, 2007
Two very different autumn poems
Poem in October by Dylan Thomas (1914-53):
Here were fond climates and sweet singers suddenly
Come in the morning ...
and:
Autumn by Adam Zagajewski (b. 1945):
... the cold bayonets of autumn
suddenly glint in the fields and the wind
rages.
Poem in October by Dylan Thomas (1914-53):
Here were fond climates and sweet singers suddenly
Come in the morning ...
and:
Autumn by Adam Zagajewski (b. 1945):
... the cold bayonets of autumn
suddenly glint in the fields and the wind
rages.
Saturday, September 29, 2007
Donald Hall
Never, never, never show a poem to anybody until you have worked on it in solitude for at least six months.
from Flying Revision's Flag
Never, never, never show a poem to anybody until you have worked on it in solitude for at least six months.
from Flying Revision's Flag
Friday, September 28, 2007
Cummings
this is the garden:colours come and go,
frail azures fluttering from night's outer wing
strong silent greens serenely lingering,
absolute lights like baths of golden snow.
This is the garden:pursed lips do blow
upon cool flutes within wide glooms,and sing
(of harps celestial to the quivering string)
invisible faces hauntingly and slow.
This is the garden. Time shall surely reap
and on Death's blade lie many a flower curled,
in other lands where other songs be sung;
yet stand They here enraptured,as among
the slow deep trees perpetual of sleep
some silver-fingered fountain steals the world.
this is the garden:colours come and go,
frail azures fluttering from night's outer wing
strong silent greens serenely lingering,
absolute lights like baths of golden snow.
This is the garden:pursed lips do blow
upon cool flutes within wide glooms,and sing
(of harps celestial to the quivering string)
invisible faces hauntingly and slow.
This is the garden. Time shall surely reap
and on Death's blade lie many a flower curled,
in other lands where other songs be sung;
yet stand They here enraptured,as among
the slow deep trees perpetual of sleep
some silver-fingered fountain steals the world.
Thursday, September 27, 2007
This is how metrical verse is done
Quite apart from formal considerations, this is a beautiful, moving elegy: "Long Distance II" by the English poet Tony Harrison (b. 1937).
Quite apart from formal considerations, this is a beautiful, moving elegy: "Long Distance II" by the English poet Tony Harrison (b. 1937).
Stephen Fry's Poetry Exercise 19
I haven't attempted a Petrarchan sonnet in close to 20 years. I did produce a draft in an hour and a half, a draft that will not be shared here in its entirety. I liked exactly two lines of my effort, the opening and closing lines of the octave:
The apathetic voter shrugs his mind
and
He joins the party of the disinclined.
[Addendum, Saturday: Come to think of it, that first line is rather redundant, isn't it? If the voter "shrugs his mind," it's clearly implicit that he is apathetic, or at least indecisive ...]
My sestet (rhymed cdeedc) began with three rather facile lines, intended to be ironic:
Behold the politician smiling bright
A public servant in the truest sense
Noble self-sacrificial and the rest
But from there, if such a thing can be imagined, it got worse. I resorted to slant rhyme, all manner of cliché (vide supra, "smiling bright"), etc. ... The best that could be said about the effort is that it scanned well. Too well, in fact. No metrical roughness, no variation ...
I think that Fry's exercises result (for me, at least) in rather sad adventures in pseudo-neo-formalism. When a poem is a homework assignment, given by someone else, I tend to flounder. I do a little better when I'm my own taskmaster, when the poem is (tired phrase, but apt) a labor of love.
But I thought I'd try these exercises, some of them anyway, because I've just emerged from four years of having attempted no poetry at all, and I need the practice, no matter how cringe-inducing the result.
Write a Petrarchan Sonnet on Electoral Apathy.
I haven't attempted a Petrarchan sonnet in close to 20 years. I did produce a draft in an hour and a half, a draft that will not be shared here in its entirety. I liked exactly two lines of my effort, the opening and closing lines of the octave:
The apathetic voter shrugs his mind
and
He joins the party of the disinclined.
[Addendum, Saturday: Come to think of it, that first line is rather redundant, isn't it? If the voter "shrugs his mind," it's clearly implicit that he is apathetic, or at least indecisive ...]
My sestet (rhymed cdeedc) began with three rather facile lines, intended to be ironic:
Behold the politician smiling bright
A public servant in the truest sense
Noble self-sacrificial and the rest
But from there, if such a thing can be imagined, it got worse. I resorted to slant rhyme, all manner of cliché (vide supra, "smiling bright"), etc. ... The best that could be said about the effort is that it scanned well. Too well, in fact. No metrical roughness, no variation ...
I think that Fry's exercises result (for me, at least) in rather sad adventures in pseudo-neo-formalism. When a poem is a homework assignment, given by someone else, I tend to flounder. I do a little better when I'm my own taskmaster, when the poem is (tired phrase, but apt) a labor of love.
But I thought I'd try these exercises, some of them anyway, because I've just emerged from four years of having attempted no poetry at all, and I need the practice, no matter how cringe-inducing the result.
Surrealism
The Cage
by David Gascoyne (1916-2001)
In the waking night
The forests have stopped growing
The shells are listening
The shadows in the pools turn grey
The pearls dissolve in the shadow
And I return to you
Your face is marked upon the clockface
My hands are beneath your hair
And if the time you mark sets free the birds
And if they fly away towards the forest
The hour will no longer be ours
Ours is the ornate birdcage
The brimming cup of water
The preface to the book
And all the clocks are ticking
All the dark rooms are moving
All the air’s nerves are bare
Once flown
The feathered hour will not return
And I shall have gone away.
September Sun: 1947
by David Gascoyne
Magnificent strong sun! in these last days
So prodigally generous of pristine light
That’s wasted only by men’s sight who will not see
And by self-darkened spirits from whose night
Can rise no longer orison or praise:
Let us consume in fire unfed like yours
And may the quickened gold within me come
To mintage in due season, and not be
Transmuted to no better end than dumb
And self-sufficient usury. These days and years
May bring the sudden call to harvesting,
When if the fields Man labours only yield
Glitter and husks, then with an angrier sun may He
Who first with His gold seed the sightless field
Of Chaos planted, all our trash to cinders bring.
_______________
From the poet's obituary, a fascinating biographical datum:
[...] depression, fuelled by amphetamine abuse, took its toll. The writing dried up, and, in the 1960s, Gascoyne retreated in despair to his parents' home on the Isle of Wight, fetching up, after his father's death, in the local asylum. There, a miracle occurred. A therapist named Judy Tyler Lewis read one of his poems, September Sun, to the inmates. When he claimed it as his, she thought it one more of his delusions. But they married, and lived happily thereafter on the island.
The Cage
by David Gascoyne (1916-2001)
In the waking night
The forests have stopped growing
The shells are listening
The shadows in the pools turn grey
The pearls dissolve in the shadow
And I return to you
Your face is marked upon the clockface
My hands are beneath your hair
And if the time you mark sets free the birds
And if they fly away towards the forest
The hour will no longer be ours
Ours is the ornate birdcage
The brimming cup of water
The preface to the book
And all the clocks are ticking
All the dark rooms are moving
All the air’s nerves are bare
Once flown
The feathered hour will not return
And I shall have gone away.
September Sun: 1947
by David Gascoyne
Magnificent strong sun! in these last days
So prodigally generous of pristine light
That’s wasted only by men’s sight who will not see
And by self-darkened spirits from whose night
Can rise no longer orison or praise:
Let us consume in fire unfed like yours
And may the quickened gold within me come
To mintage in due season, and not be
Transmuted to no better end than dumb
And self-sufficient usury. These days and years
May bring the sudden call to harvesting,
When if the fields Man labours only yield
Glitter and husks, then with an angrier sun may He
Who first with His gold seed the sightless field
Of Chaos planted, all our trash to cinders bring.
_______________
From the poet's obituary, a fascinating biographical datum:
[...] depression, fuelled by amphetamine abuse, took its toll. The writing dried up, and, in the 1960s, Gascoyne retreated in despair to his parents' home on the Isle of Wight, fetching up, after his father's death, in the local asylum. There, a miracle occurred. A therapist named Judy Tyler Lewis read one of his poems, September Sun, to the inmates. When he claimed it as his, she thought it one more of his delusions. But they married, and lived happily thereafter on the island.
Wednesday, September 26, 2007
Tuesday, September 25, 2007
Monday, September 24, 2007
Some real poetry
Dylan Thomas reading "The Force that Through the Green Fuse Drives the Flower":
Dylan Thomas reading "The Force that Through the Green Fuse Drives the Flower":
The force that through the green fuse drives the flower
Drives my green age; that blasts the roots of trees
Is my destroyer.
And I am dumb to tell the crooked rose
My youth is bent by the same wintry fever.
The force that drives the water through the rocks
Drives my red blood; that dries the mouthing streams
Turns mine to wax.
And I am dumb to mouth unto my veins
How at the mountain spring the same mouth sucks.
The hand that whirls the water in the pool
Stirs the quicksand; that ropes the blowing wind
Hauls my shroud sail.
And I am dumb to tell the hanging man
How of my clay is made the hangman's lime.
The lips of time leech to the fountain head;
Love drips and gathers, but the fallen blood
Shall calm her sores.
And I am dumb to tell a weather's wind
How time has ticked a heaven round the stars.
And I am dumb to tell the lover's tomb
How at my sheet goes the same crooked worm.
Stephen Fry's Poetry Exercise 3
from his book The Ode Less Travelled
The suggested time limit for this exercise was 45 minutes. I failed miserably. I enjambed when I didn't mean to, and had difficulty with my caesuras. I may post the results later tonight, with the exception of the dream couplets. My dreams don't translate well into ordinary language.
_______________
Addendum:
Here they are. Written last Wednesday evening.
1a Outside the Window
The field where our town's high-school football players
Practice, it seems, for sixteen hours a day.
2a What I'd Like to Eat
I'm full from pizza but suppose I could
Have a few wheat thins or potato chips.
4a Pesky Tasks Overdue
Although the laundry piles up in the basket,
I think I'll put it off until next week.
5a Portrait of the Artist
A forty-six-inch waist and coffee-breath.
Unmanageable hair. A scruffy beard.
*
(1b)
The Cougars practice. How long have they been
Out there? Since time began? A whistle blows.
(2b)
Wheat thins, potato chips, you sit inside
My kitchen cabinet. Right now I'm stuffed.
(4b)
Downstairs. Into the cellar, where the clothes
Get washed and dried. Not now. Too much to do.
(5b)
Excessive girth. A buzz-cut that won't grow
Back properly. An unattractive face.
_______________
I enjambed couplets 1a and 2a, and arguably put a caesura in the second line of 5a. So I didn't do the exercise exactly right. But there you have it.
I think that Mr Fry's book, The Ode Less Travelled, is intended for poets and would-be poets who have never ventured rhyme and meter before. I don't think I'll attempt all the exercises in the book. (Poetry Exercise 13: Write a dramatic monologue in heroic couplets in the voice of someone who is clearly stoned out of his mind and trying to explain to the cops the half-ounce of cannabis they found on his person. Exercise 14: Write a villanelle. Exercise 15: Write a sestina.) I have done some of those things before -- guess which one I haven't done! -- but doubt strongly that I could produce examples of those forms on command. For now, I'm having fun with the easier exercises ...
from his book The Ode Less Travelled
Write five pairs of blank (non-rhyming) iambic pentameter in which the first line of each pair is end-stopped and there are no caesuras.
Now write five pairs with (give or take) the same meaning in which there is enjambment.
Make sure that each new pair also contains at least two caesuras.
[...]
To make it easier I will give you a specific subject for all five pairs.
1. Precisely what you see and hear outside your window.
2. Precisely what you'd like to eat, right this minute.
3. Precisely what you last remember dreaming about.
4. Precisely what uncompleted chores are niggling at you.
5. Precisely what you hate about your body.
The suggested time limit for this exercise was 45 minutes. I failed miserably. I enjambed when I didn't mean to, and had difficulty with my caesuras. I may post the results later tonight, with the exception of the dream couplets. My dreams don't translate well into ordinary language.
_______________
Addendum:
Here they are. Written last Wednesday evening.
1a Outside the Window
The field where our town's high-school football players
Practice, it seems, for sixteen hours a day.
2a What I'd Like to Eat
I'm full from pizza but suppose I could
Have a few wheat thins or potato chips.
4a Pesky Tasks Overdue
Although the laundry piles up in the basket,
I think I'll put it off until next week.
5a Portrait of the Artist
A forty-six-inch waist and coffee-breath.
Unmanageable hair. A scruffy beard.
*
(1b)
The Cougars practice. How long have they been
Out there? Since time began? A whistle blows.
(2b)
Wheat thins, potato chips, you sit inside
My kitchen cabinet. Right now I'm stuffed.
(4b)
Downstairs. Into the cellar, where the clothes
Get washed and dried. Not now. Too much to do.
(5b)
Excessive girth. A buzz-cut that won't grow
Back properly. An unattractive face.
_______________
I enjambed couplets 1a and 2a, and arguably put a caesura in the second line of 5a. So I didn't do the exercise exactly right. But there you have it.
I think that Mr Fry's book, The Ode Less Travelled, is intended for poets and would-be poets who have never ventured rhyme and meter before. I don't think I'll attempt all the exercises in the book. (Poetry Exercise 13: Write a dramatic monologue in heroic couplets in the voice of someone who is clearly stoned out of his mind and trying to explain to the cops the half-ounce of cannabis they found on his person. Exercise 14: Write a villanelle. Exercise 15: Write a sestina.) I have done some of those things before -- guess which one I haven't done! -- but doubt strongly that I could produce examples of those forms on command. For now, I'm having fun with the easier exercises ...
Sunday, September 23, 2007
Sonnet XVII
by Pablo Neruda (1904-73)
I don't love you as if you were the salt-rose, topaz
or arrow of carnations that propagate fire:
I love you as certain dark things are loved,
secretly, between the shadow and the soul.
I love you as the plant that doesn't bloom and carries
hidden within itself the light of those flowers,
and thanks to your love, darkly in my body
lives the dense fragrance that rises from the earth.
I love you without knowing how, or when, or from where,
I love you simply, without problems or pride:
I love you in this way because I don't know any other way of loving
but this, in which there is no I or you,
so intimate that your hand upon my chest is my hand,
so intimate that when I fall asleep it is your eyes that close.
*
No te amo como si fueras rosa de sal, topacio
o flecha de claveles que propagan el fuego:
te amo como se aman ciertas cosas oscuras,
secretamente, entre la sombra y el alma.
Te amo como la planta que no florece y lleva
dentro de sÃ, escondida, la luz de aquellas flores,
y gracias a tu amor vive oscuro en mi cuerpo
el apretado aroma que ascendió de la tierra.
Te amo sin saber cómo, ni cuándo, ni de dónde,
te amo directamente sin problemas ni orgullo:
asà te amo porque no sé amar de otra manera,
sino asà de este modo en que no soy ni eres,
tan cerca que tu mano sobre mi pecho es mÃa,
tan cerca que se cierran tus ojos con mi sueño.
(100 Love Sonnets: Cien Sonetos De Amor, trans. by Stephen Tapscott)
_____________
According to Wikipedia, today is the 34th anniversary of Pablo Neruda's death. May God have mercy on the old communist so-and-so: he could write beautifully.
by Pablo Neruda (1904-73)
I don't love you as if you were the salt-rose, topaz
or arrow of carnations that propagate fire:
I love you as certain dark things are loved,
secretly, between the shadow and the soul.
I love you as the plant that doesn't bloom and carries
hidden within itself the light of those flowers,
and thanks to your love, darkly in my body
lives the dense fragrance that rises from the earth.
I love you without knowing how, or when, or from where,
I love you simply, without problems or pride:
I love you in this way because I don't know any other way of loving
but this, in which there is no I or you,
so intimate that your hand upon my chest is my hand,
so intimate that when I fall asleep it is your eyes that close.
*
No te amo como si fueras rosa de sal, topacio
o flecha de claveles que propagan el fuego:
te amo como se aman ciertas cosas oscuras,
secretamente, entre la sombra y el alma.
Te amo como la planta que no florece y lleva
dentro de sÃ, escondida, la luz de aquellas flores,
y gracias a tu amor vive oscuro en mi cuerpo
el apretado aroma que ascendió de la tierra.
Te amo sin saber cómo, ni cuándo, ni de dónde,
te amo directamente sin problemas ni orgullo:
asà te amo porque no sé amar de otra manera,
sino asà de este modo en que no soy ni eres,
tan cerca que tu mano sobre mi pecho es mÃa,
tan cerca que se cierran tus ojos con mi sueño.
(100 Love Sonnets: Cien Sonetos De Amor, trans. by Stephen Tapscott)
_____________
According to Wikipedia, today is the 34th anniversary of Pablo Neruda's death. May God have mercy on the old communist so-and-so: he could write beautifully.
Saturday, September 22, 2007
Cummings
dying is fine)but Death
?o
baby
i
wouldn't like
Death if Death
were
good:for
when(instead of stopping to think)you
begin to feel of it,dying
's miraculous
why?be
cause dying is
perfectly natural;perfectly
putting
it mildly lively(but
Death
is strictly
scientific
& artificial &
evil & legal)
we thank thee
god
almighty for dying
(forgive us,o life!the sin of Death
dying is fine)but Death
?o
baby
i
wouldn't like
Death if Death
were
good:for
when(instead of stopping to think)you
begin to feel of it,dying
's miraculous
why?be
cause dying is
perfectly natural;perfectly
putting
it mildly lively(but
Death
is strictly
scientific
& artificial &
evil & legal)
we thank thee
god
almighty for dying
(forgive us,o life!the sin of Death
And now, a quiz
| What Your Pizza Reveals |
 You have a hearty appetite. You are likely to complain if a restaurant has small portions. You aren't particularly picky about pizza. It's so good... how could you be? You fit in best in the Western part of the US. You like food that's traditional and well crafted. You aren't impressed with "gourmet" foods. You are dependable, loyal, and conservative with your choices. You are cultured and intellectual. You should consider traveling to Vienna. The stereotype that best fits you is geek. You're the type most likely to order pizza to avoid leaving your computer. |
Friday, September 21, 2007
Thursday, September 20, 2007
More pentametric practice
in attempted compliance with the rules of Poetry Exercise 2 in Stephen Fry's book The Ode Less Travelled: Unlocking the Poet Within. Twenty lines of straight iambic, single lines or pairs of lines, taking ten minutes for the exercise. I took twenty minutes, and unconsciously used trochees and pyrrhics and feminine endings. Fry said to avoid rhyme, and I did use rhyme in one or two instances. Don't know why I'm sharing these; they are truly lame. And not terribly original (stealing from Wordsworth and Will Rogers).
Anyone reading this blog can easily do better!
_______________
Deduct three minutes from the speeding clock.
*
Hail, Hillary, our president-to-come!
Four years of you will be, oh! so much fun ...
*
He wanders lonely as a poet pale
Who eats no meat and drinks no Scottish ale.
*
If I were taller, I could reach that shelf.
As matters stand, I'm only five foot one.
[Not true.]
*
The Red Sox lately are a stinking mess
While A-Rod and his crew meet with success.
[All too true.]
*
F. Scott Fitzgerald wrote a five-beat line
And stuck it in his greatest work of prose:
"The eyes of Doctor T. J. Eckleburg."
*
October is a habitation brisk.
*
Summer comes back this weekend for a while.
*
I don't like flies or spiders. Kill them all.
*
Can I perform this simple exercise
Without resorting to a bunch of spondees?
Oh, no -- I've cheated, with an unstressed ending!
Two in a row! Disaster. I should stop.
*
Pizza and pasta. Could I live without them?
*
I never ate a steak I didn't like.
_______________
See? Dreadful in the extreme.
I've also done Exercise 3 in Fry's book. The results were even more embarrassing, so I don't think I'll post those unless I revise them for eighteen months.
in attempted compliance with the rules of Poetry Exercise 2 in Stephen Fry's book The Ode Less Travelled: Unlocking the Poet Within. Twenty lines of straight iambic, single lines or pairs of lines, taking ten minutes for the exercise. I took twenty minutes, and unconsciously used trochees and pyrrhics and feminine endings. Fry said to avoid rhyme, and I did use rhyme in one or two instances. Don't know why I'm sharing these; they are truly lame. And not terribly original (stealing from Wordsworth and Will Rogers).
Anyone reading this blog can easily do better!
_______________
Deduct three minutes from the speeding clock.
*
Hail, Hillary, our president-to-come!
Four years of you will be, oh! so much fun ...
*
He wanders lonely as a poet pale
Who eats no meat and drinks no Scottish ale.
*
If I were taller, I could reach that shelf.
As matters stand, I'm only five foot one.
[Not true.]
*
The Red Sox lately are a stinking mess
While A-Rod and his crew meet with success.
[All too true.]
*
F. Scott Fitzgerald wrote a five-beat line
And stuck it in his greatest work of prose:
"The eyes of Doctor T. J. Eckleburg."
*
October is a habitation brisk.
*
Summer comes back this weekend for a while.
*
I don't like flies or spiders. Kill them all.
*
Can I perform this simple exercise
Without resorting to a bunch of spondees?
Oh, no -- I've cheated, with an unstressed ending!
Two in a row! Disaster. I should stop.
*
Pizza and pasta. Could I live without them?
*
I never ate a steak I didn't like.
_______________
See? Dreadful in the extreme.
I've also done Exercise 3 in Fry's book. The results were even more embarrassing, so I don't think I'll post those unless I revise them for eighteen months.
Tuesday, September 18, 2007
A arte de perder não é nenhum mistério
Someone made a YouTube video inspired by (the Portuguese version of) Elizabeth Bishop's "One Art."
(The music sounds familiar; is it Enya?)
And here is the original Bishop poem:
Someone made a YouTube video inspired by (the Portuguese version of) Elizabeth Bishop's "One Art."
(The music sounds familiar; is it Enya?)
And here is the original Bishop poem:
The art of losing isn’t hard to master;
so many things seem filled with the intent
to be lost that their loss is no disaster.
Lose something every day. Accept the fluster
of lost door keys, the hour badly spent.
The art of losing isn’t hard to master.
Then practice losing farther, losing faster:
places, and names, and where it was you meant
to travel. None of these will bring disaster.
I lost my mother’s watch. And look! my last, or
next-to-last, of three loved houses went.
The art of losing isn’t hard to master.
I lost two cities, lovely ones. And, vaster,
some realms I owned, two rivers, a continent.
I miss them, but it wasn’t a disaster.
— Even losing you (the joking voice, a gesture
I love) I shan’t have lied. It’s evident
the art of losing’s not too hard to master
though it may look like (Write it!) like disaster.
Monday, September 17, 2007
More poetry in translation
A Brazilian poet has translated Elizabeth Bishop's villanelle "One Art" into Portuguese, retaining the structure and the rhyme. "The art of losing isn't hard to master" becomes A arte de perder não é nenhum mistério ("The art of losing is no mystery") -- still, a most skillful rendering.
Here, on one page, are Mr Britto's translation and Miss Bishop's original.
A Brazilian poet has translated Elizabeth Bishop's villanelle "One Art" into Portuguese, retaining the structure and the rhyme. "The art of losing isn't hard to master" becomes A arte de perder não é nenhum mistério ("The art of losing is no mystery") -- still, a most skillful rendering.
Here, on one page, are Mr Britto's translation and Miss Bishop's original.
pentameters
(for exercise)
brave idols of a brazen summer
crushed
*
an excellence conceals itself
is mute
*
poets will die
their poems live
and grow
*
the risk of life, its crosses and its joys
*
our disconnected meditations laugh
*
pleasant will be each breath
when autumn comes
*
metropolis, thou many-mouthèd lout!
*
the quiet candles of an eastern church
*
admit not Broadway into Sunday Mass
*
grim entertainment of a needful task
*
pronounce the casual curse
and forfeit grace
*
etcetera begins the balladeer
(for exercise)
brave idols of a brazen summer
crushed
*
an excellence conceals itself
is mute
*
poets will die
their poems live
and grow
*
the risk of life, its crosses and its joys
*
our disconnected meditations laugh
*
pleasant will be each breath
when autumn comes
*
metropolis, thou many-mouthèd lout!
*
the quiet candles of an eastern church
*
admit not Broadway into Sunday Mass
*
grim entertainment of a needful task
*
pronounce the casual curse
and forfeit grace
*
etcetera begins the balladeer
Emily Dickinson
two poems
#1587
He ate and drank the precious Words —
His Spirit grew robust —
He knew no more that he was poor,
Nor that his frame was Dust —
He danced along the dingy Days
And this Bequest of Wings
Was but a Book — What Liberty
A loosened spirit brings —
_______________
#1585
The Bird her punctual music brings
And lays it in its place —
Its place is in the Human Heart
And in the Heavenly Grace —
What respite from her thrilling toil
Did Beauty ever take —
But Work might be electric Rest
To those that Magic make —
two poems
#1587
He ate and drank the precious Words —
His Spirit grew robust —
He knew no more that he was poor,
Nor that his frame was Dust —
He danced along the dingy Days
And this Bequest of Wings
Was but a Book — What Liberty
A loosened spirit brings —
_______________
#1585
The Bird her punctual music brings
And lays it in its place —
Its place is in the Human Heart
And in the Heavenly Grace —
What respite from her thrilling toil
Did Beauty ever take —
But Work might be electric Rest
To those that Magic make —
Sunday, September 16, 2007
Poeta
by Alberto de Lacerda (1928-2007)
Ser poeta... é delirar,
Delirar alegre, ou triste,
Fazer versos é sonhar
Co' aquilo que não existe.
Ser poeta... é esquecer,
Da vida a realidade,
É, num abraço, abranger
O mundo e a eternidade.
Ser poeta, realmente,
É viver da ilusão
Nas horas de solidão,
É escrever o que se sente
Dando asas, livremente,
À nossa imaginação.
_______________
I know about ten words of Portuguese, and therefore cannot translate this poem in its entirety; but I like the way it sounds when I read it to myself.
Here is what Babelfish makes of it:
To be poet... is to be delirious, To be delirious glad, or sad, To make verses it is to dream Co ' what it does not exist. To be poet... is to forget, Of the life the reality, Is, in one hugs, to enclose the world and the eternity. To be poet, really, Is to live of the illusion In the solitude hours, It is to write what it is felt Giving wing, freely, To our imagination.
And here is an obituary for the recently deceased poet (mind the pop-up).
by Alberto de Lacerda (1928-2007)
Ser poeta... é delirar,
Delirar alegre, ou triste,
Fazer versos é sonhar
Co' aquilo que não existe.
Ser poeta... é esquecer,
Da vida a realidade,
É, num abraço, abranger
O mundo e a eternidade.
Ser poeta, realmente,
É viver da ilusão
Nas horas de solidão,
É escrever o que se sente
Dando asas, livremente,
À nossa imaginação.
_______________
I know about ten words of Portuguese, and therefore cannot translate this poem in its entirety; but I like the way it sounds when I read it to myself.
Here is what Babelfish makes of it:
To be poet... is to be delirious, To be delirious glad, or sad, To make verses it is to dream Co ' what it does not exist. To be poet... is to forget, Of the life the reality, Is, in one hugs, to enclose the world and the eternity. To be poet, really, Is to live of the illusion In the solitude hours, It is to write what it is felt Giving wing, freely, To our imagination.
And here is an obituary for the recently deceased poet (mind the pop-up).
Saturday, September 15, 2007
Friday, September 14, 2007
Waste Land Limericks
by Wendy Cope (b. 1945)
I
In April one seldom feels cheerful;
Dry stones, sun and dust make me fearful;
Clairvoyantes distress me,
Commuters depress me --
Met Stetson and gave him an earful.
II
She sat on a mighty fine chair,
Sparks flew as she tidied her hair;
She asks many questions,
I make few suggestions --
Bad as Albert and Lil -- what a pair!
III
The Thames runs, bones rattle, rats creep;
Tiresias fancies a peep --
A typist is laid,
A record is played --
Wei la la. After this it gets deep.
IV
A Phoenician named Phlebas forgot
About birds and his business -- the lot,
Which is no surprise,
Since he'd met his demise
And been left in the ocean to rot.
V
No water. Dry rocks and dry throats,
Then thunder, a shower of quotes
From the Sanskrit and Dante.
Da. Damyata. Shantih.
I hope you'll make sense of the notes.
_______________
Cope has also written these lines (seen at her Wikipedia page):
My true love hath my heart and I have hers
We swapped last Tuesday and felt quite elated
But now whenever one of us refers
To 'my heart' things get rather complicated.
And another Cope poem, "An Attempt at Unrhymed Verse," has been blogged at Enchiridion.
by Wendy Cope (b. 1945)
I
In April one seldom feels cheerful;
Dry stones, sun and dust make me fearful;
Clairvoyantes distress me,
Commuters depress me --
Met Stetson and gave him an earful.
II
She sat on a mighty fine chair,
Sparks flew as she tidied her hair;
She asks many questions,
I make few suggestions --
Bad as Albert and Lil -- what a pair!
III
The Thames runs, bones rattle, rats creep;
Tiresias fancies a peep --
A typist is laid,
A record is played --
Wei la la. After this it gets deep.
IV
A Phoenician named Phlebas forgot
About birds and his business -- the lot,
Which is no surprise,
Since he'd met his demise
And been left in the ocean to rot.
V
No water. Dry rocks and dry throats,
Then thunder, a shower of quotes
From the Sanskrit and Dante.
Da. Damyata. Shantih.
I hope you'll make sense of the notes.
_______________
Cope has also written these lines (seen at her Wikipedia page):
My true love hath my heart and I have hers
We swapped last Tuesday and felt quite elated
But now whenever one of us refers
To 'my heart' things get rather complicated.
And another Cope poem, "An Attempt at Unrhymed Verse," has been blogged at Enchiridion.
Thursday, September 13, 2007
Eugenio Montale
From the Italian Nobel literature laureate (1975): Salt.
An excerpt:
Not all poetry gets lost in translation!
From the Italian Nobel literature laureate (1975): Salt.
An excerpt:
starched consonants braid the tongue at its root
so all sense of who we are is lost to words,
and nothing that we know can be unravelled.
Even then, some vestige of the sea,
its plosive tide, its fretwork crests will surge
inside our syllables, bronze like the chant of bees.
Not all poetry gets lost in translation!
Monday, September 10, 2007
Ogden Nash on the martini
(spotted at Andrew Sullivan's blog)
There is something about a Martini,
A tingle remarkably pleasant;
A yellow, a mellow Martini;
I wish that I had one at present.
There is something about a Martini,
Ere the dining and dancing begin,
And to tell you the truth,
It is not the vermouth --
I think that perhaps it's the gin.
(spotted at Andrew Sullivan's blog)
There is something about a Martini,
A tingle remarkably pleasant;
A yellow, a mellow Martini;
I wish that I had one at present.
There is something about a Martini,
Ere the dining and dancing begin,
And to tell you the truth,
It is not the vermouth --
I think that perhaps it's the gin.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)