The poems I chose and the reasons why
Nov. 20th, 2017 08:07 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
radiantfractureIt is a peculiar (though not, you know, rare) feature of my mind that, though introverted and solitary, I often write more when I have some external deadline, call, or summons.
During my master's program, in an uncharacteristic but fortunate move, I joined a writing group. There were some fine poets in there, poets who have gone on to win awards and publish things (and some fine poets who didn't). After the program, they all scattered. (I remained.)
One of these poets, A., now lives nearly at the opposite end of this long and ridiculous country. In October, he went to a poetry reading by Sina Queyras, in which she read from My Ariel, written through -- or into, with -- Sylvia Plath's Ariel.
A.'s master's paper, you see, was on Ted Hughes, so they had some useful debate.
(I've always been Team Plath myself, but A. and I manage to be friends despite.)
He texted me about this process.
A: I just accidentally went to a reading for this book
A: We just had a short chat about how P+H can unwelcomely take over your life
RF: Pension & health?
A: Plath and Hughes
A: I just left the pub & she stopped me in the smoking area & forgave me for the “Hughes thing"
RF: What, seriously? Like this is all happening in real time?
A: It was
RF: It's like we're scribbling on a bar napkin together.
A: I'm gone now.
RF: A chill wind cuts through the tavern and I shiver, clutching my empty glass
A. invited me to do a similar exercise, writing through each other's work. Translation through another consciousness. Nervous, I suggested using some outside poems as fuel, so we agreed to find three poems each. A. set a deadline of two weeks -- that of course turned into a month, but yesterday I finally sat down and found some poems.
Going in to this search I felt dry as dust. (To A., I wrote: Any choice is, of necessity, a disappointment, since it resolves possibility into the particular. This pains me and slows me down. I so want to break the sky-egg for you and create a really fantastic scramble. Like with feta cheese in it.) However, stacking up a pile of poetry books in front of yourself is not a bad way to engage a morning, and I did by reason and intuition come up with a few things.
What I ended up doing was choosing poems written in English that I wanted to see translated though his mind because the language was alienated in ways I found interesting.
I'm not wholly satisfied with them as a list -- it's not a very diverse set of experiences and gifts -- but I've sent something -- so maybe we can begin.
I also re-read much of Anne Carson's The Beauty of the Husband which, for me at least, is still an almost perfect book of poetry. It does what I want a book of poems to do, and so elegantly, fervently. It's more formal and experimental than The Glass Essay, but it doesn't veer off into highly personal classical esoterica the way some of Carson's later work has done.
Anyway, below are the poems I sent to A., with my notes on why.
1. Louis MacNeice, "Snow"
I chose the MacNeice -- I hope it isn't too much of a chestnut -- because it bugs me. Its ideas have always seemed to me rather at odds with its imagery. Roses and snow don't seem various to me -- dichotomous, yes, though even this seems not entirely sound -- but then, I don't come from Northern Ireland.
Here's a quote from one of MacNeice's letters: "The point is: I think life must be dialectical (not of course in the Marxist sense)." [Pause to roll eyes] "One ought to be firm & able to change, active (using one's right of choice) & passive (Keats's 'negative capability') and so on."
2. Alfred Starr Hamilton, "Walkative Talkative"
I chose Alfred Starr Hamilton because he's a sort of outsider artist who clearly used language in a profoundly personal and particular way -- a bit like Gertrude Stein, only more modest. He is in a sense writing in another language, though with English words.
3. Anne Carson, "Tango XII" from The Beauty of the Husband
I chose Anne Carson because I like the idea of translating the inimitable Anne Carson, and she's like a more academic self-aware outsider artist herself. Again, she uses the language in another way. Translation, audience, voice -- these are a huge part of the tangos.
So those are my choices. The Carson is a favorite, the Hamilton is a pleasurable puzzle, and the MacNeice is a little bit of a bugbear.
{rf}
During my master's program, in an uncharacteristic but fortunate move, I joined a writing group. There were some fine poets in there, poets who have gone on to win awards and publish things (and some fine poets who didn't). After the program, they all scattered. (I remained.)
One of these poets, A., now lives nearly at the opposite end of this long and ridiculous country. In October, he went to a poetry reading by Sina Queyras, in which she read from My Ariel, written through -- or into, with -- Sylvia Plath's Ariel.
A.'s master's paper, you see, was on Ted Hughes, so they had some useful debate.
(I've always been Team Plath myself, but A. and I manage to be friends despite.)
He texted me about this process.
A: I just accidentally went to a reading for this book
A: We just had a short chat about how P+H can unwelcomely take over your life
RF: Pension & health?
A: Plath and Hughes
A: I just left the pub & she stopped me in the smoking area & forgave me for the “Hughes thing"
RF: What, seriously? Like this is all happening in real time?
A: It was
RF: It's like we're scribbling on a bar napkin together.
A: I'm gone now.
RF: A chill wind cuts through the tavern and I shiver, clutching my empty glass
A. invited me to do a similar exercise, writing through each other's work. Translation through another consciousness. Nervous, I suggested using some outside poems as fuel, so we agreed to find three poems each. A. set a deadline of two weeks -- that of course turned into a month, but yesterday I finally sat down and found some poems.
Going in to this search I felt dry as dust. (To A., I wrote: Any choice is, of necessity, a disappointment, since it resolves possibility into the particular. This pains me and slows me down. I so want to break the sky-egg for you and create a really fantastic scramble. Like with feta cheese in it.) However, stacking up a pile of poetry books in front of yourself is not a bad way to engage a morning, and I did by reason and intuition come up with a few things.
What I ended up doing was choosing poems written in English that I wanted to see translated though his mind because the language was alienated in ways I found interesting.
I'm not wholly satisfied with them as a list -- it's not a very diverse set of experiences and gifts -- but I've sent something -- so maybe we can begin.
I also re-read much of Anne Carson's The Beauty of the Husband which, for me at least, is still an almost perfect book of poetry. It does what I want a book of poems to do, and so elegantly, fervently. It's more formal and experimental than The Glass Essay, but it doesn't veer off into highly personal classical esoterica the way some of Carson's later work has done.
Anyway, below are the poems I sent to A., with my notes on why.
1. Louis MacNeice, "Snow"
I chose the MacNeice -- I hope it isn't too much of a chestnut -- because it bugs me. Its ideas have always seemed to me rather at odds with its imagery. Roses and snow don't seem various to me -- dichotomous, yes, though even this seems not entirely sound -- but then, I don't come from Northern Ireland.
Here's a quote from one of MacNeice's letters: "The point is: I think life must be dialectical (not of course in the Marxist sense)." [Pause to roll eyes] "One ought to be firm & able to change, active (using one's right of choice) & passive (Keats's 'negative capability') and so on."
2. Alfred Starr Hamilton, "Walkative Talkative"
I chose Alfred Starr Hamilton because he's a sort of outsider artist who clearly used language in a profoundly personal and particular way -- a bit like Gertrude Stein, only more modest. He is in a sense writing in another language, though with English words.
3. Anne Carson, "Tango XII" from The Beauty of the Husband
I chose Anne Carson because I like the idea of translating the inimitable Anne Carson, and she's like a more academic self-aware outsider artist herself. Again, she uses the language in another way. Translation, audience, voice -- these are a huge part of the tangos.
So those are my choices. The Carson is a favorite, the Hamilton is a pleasurable puzzle, and the MacNeice is a little bit of a bugbear.
{rf}
no subject
Date: 2017-11-20 09:21 pm (UTC)I would love to see what these come out like, if A. is amenable (and if not, I understand). The idea of translating a poem into the same language but a different person is fascinating.
What have you been assigned?
no subject
Date: 2017-11-22 07:48 am (UTC)No assignment yet. I can't complain, given that I was so late with mine. (Now that I have finally started, though, of course I'm eager to go on.)
Thanks for the interest -- if A. is amenable, I'll post. Your thoughts are always appreciated.
no subject
Date: 2017-11-22 08:09 pm (UTC)I'm not sure I've ever encountered it before—the closest I think I've seen is the fan writing idea of the remix, which is not identical. With original material, it would be an amazing idea for an anthology.
Thanks for the interest -- if A. is amenable, I'll post. Your thoughts are always appreciated.
Thank you.
no subject
Date: 2017-11-23 12:31 am (UTC)[Edited to clarify] Rather, not really this idea, since real translation from language to language is taking place -- but something about the sliding of meaning in translation and through perspective is still here.
(Checks back hall bookshelf) No, I think I got rid of it. I didn't like the end product all that much, but I loved the concept. Translation itself has so much allure.
Here it is. It would probably be worth a revisit if I hadn't banished it. Some of the translations are radically, deliberately changed, which is one of the things I didn't like so much qua translation between languages, but might work between minds.
no subject
Date: 2017-11-23 02:24 am (UTC)That looks like a fascinating experiment! I'm sorry it didn't work out in practice, although I can see that the language-to-language/mind-to-mind aspect would get blurred with so many different authors involved.