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transaction+transatlantic+tranceive+transcend+transcribe+
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Benjamin Friedlander
After Celan
Snapdragon
Dragon, snap
In our garden
In the back
This the hour
Yours the hour
Mine the pout
Theirs the power
With this lip
With this silence
With these words
Of no reliance
With the joining
With the sunder
With the nearest
Going under
With me one
With us three
Half bound up
Halfway free
Snapdragon
Dragon, snap
In our garden
In the back
(adapted from Paul Celan, "Selbdritt, Selbviert," _Gedichte 1_, p. 216)
Ken,
going through old manuscripts i discovered an attempt to make english an
uncharacteristically brechtian poem of celan's, which you're welcome to
use if you'd like. for the sake of rhymes & other such stuff i varied
the poem enough that i wanted to call it "after celan." the german title (&
i haven't figured out why) is "threesome, foursome." a somewhat more literal
variant translation of the second stanza would be:
This the minute
Yours the minute
Mine the mouth
Your words in it
anyway, let me know what's what. if this isn't what you're after that's
cool.
ben
+____________+---------+__________+---------+_________+---------+ transculturate+transduce+transeunt+transference+transfigure+transfinite+ +____________+---------+__________+---------+_________+---------+
Jorge Guitart
In Memory of Ferdinand
Here is the poem that I sent Ernesto. The caps mean to convey strong stress in the original language. I met this poet personally when I visited him in Plitaca, the capital of his country, Tuncory. The langauge is called Detaltsnart in Detaltsnart--don't know what the anglicized version is. The rhythms in Detaltsnart are similar to those of Glishen which in turn are similar to those of English, & Jerg is given like me to parody.
NIMORYME FO DANDIFER IN MEMORY OF FERDINAND
RUO TREH-fa our father
woh TRA ni-SE-nem who art in semen
RU-os SAWTE-sten-DEX sour waste extends
nor-SEP ying-CADE person decaying
er-GAL wing-NAY du-COLS large yawning clouds
raf meas KOOBS a-DER far same books read
ged-NIRF se-VOM sho-BIP ying-SAT fingered moves bishop staying
TER-aw-shif LING-cal PASS-ek water fish calling speaks
pas-SEK-ni REABST speaking breast
trap-TROIS NAITS GIHS portraits stain sigh
deun meer TERCS nude mere crest
doiv DIMN tsi nig-BEG-nig void mind its beginning
uchm aws E-kok much was coke
uchs aws PEN-hap such was happen
meb-MER-er sib-MERD-er remember dismember
me-GAS games
LEOV SI a CAYS-tim UCK-fup love is a mystic fuckup
REN-ols cufk REN-wots loners fuck towners
GINC-kuf NEDST, ot-NIM-cog fucking tends to coming
KASS ask
seod-RUSE-plea eth TUNS does pleasure the nuts
luld-- dull
cufk REN-wots fuck towners
ho HING-not CHES-tam SLOH oh nothing matches holes
XES-tnuc TEF-ra NUCT sex tunc after cunt
FLE-sym VER-en nis-TAINS-ga myself never sin against
AYLL-ers cufk REN-wots serially fuck towners
REN-wots, REN-wots, towners, towners
DOOG GRIN mon-XES, REN-wots good morning-sex, towners
DOR-o sas NES-dass GOURH door ass sadness rough
cufk REN-wots, MNA, cufk REN-wots fuck towners, man, fuck
towners
cufk REN-wots, cufk REN-wots, MNA fuck towners, fuck
towners, man
RE-sos rea DAIL roses are laid
LET-vios OOT violets too
fi OUY-re a REN-wots if you are a towner
ked-CUF EB LOUYL you'll be fucked
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transfix+transform+transfuse+transgress+t
ranscience+transitive+
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G. J. Racz
"N" Number of Questions on Translation
Constructed by Ernesto Livon Grosman.
Between the months of October 1994 and February 1995
G. J. Racz wrote a series of letters in reference to
the translation of several poems for an anthology
of Argentine poetry that will be published this fall
by Roof Books. What follows are excerpts of the
questions that G. J. Racz attached to those letters.
I am fully responsible for the selection of those excerpts.
[E.L.G.]
"N" Number of Questions on Translation or I Hope This Letter Finds You Well
I think the "circle" to the right contains one less word
in English than in Spanish, and so causes a bit of a rift
between the two versions.
Is "manita" "small hand" or "sparse manna"?
Is "apreta" an imperative?
Does a "stampeding mob/ digest?"
I also do not repeat the verb "desafina" but use
"a false note" as the direct object of "repite". Problem?
What do you think of "a slave to fashion" for
"la tran-tran de la moda"?
What is "plin"?
I write "trusted fairy-girl" for "ahijada," trying to
salvage "hija," "hada" and "fiada." Your thoughts.
What do we do with "pavo...empavesado"?
I don't understand who is falling off what?
To what or whom does the three "su"'s refer to?
Can you think of another word for "desplanta"
that keeps "plant" in the root?
I sense that the second "como" in the second
stanza should be "as if," but do we keep it as
"like" for the symmetry, or translate it as
"as if" along with the last instance in which
it appears "("like cut")?
Is there a reason for the slash "/79" in the original,
or is my apostrophe OK?
I took license in translating "cada espera" as
"the pregnant moments" because this line can go with
either the preceding line or the following one.
I put "pampa" in the plural (twice) for English readers.
"Se mezclaron" has too many nuances. What do you think of
"mingled and mixed" to conserve the idea of being swapped?
What is "sutural," "stitch-like"?
Is "el coso" the "thing"?
And I also omit the "es que" in the following line.
Does this hurt the sense?
What about "at the urging of the heights"?
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transom+transliteration+transmigrate+transmission+transrational+
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Nancy Dunlop
Translation is Stepping
Translation is Stepping from Oneself
to the Next
3.
trans late (trans-lat, tranz-, trans lat, tranz-) v. -lated, -lating, -lates.
6. Theology. To convey to heaven without natural death. 8. Archaic. To
transport; enrapture.
"So perhaps dreaming and writing do have to do with
journeying through the world, using all the available
means of transport, using your own body as a form of
transport."
--Cixous
What I want to say is this: All these birds in and around me. Are small
bobbing sites of translation. EEP. EEP. EEP. Each bird a little poem.
See they emerge from my palms. Beaks and wings and tiny bald heads pressing
through my skin. I shake my hands to dislodge them. Up and out they go.
EEP. EEP. Good bye.
Transformation. They do not leave. They hover in clouds around me. Visions
of birds like letters in the sky. Translation is many sitings of birds.
Citations. They carry me. From one >place< to another. They make me
into something else. They make me. Into them.
TRANSLATE
TRANSLATEN
TRANSPORT
Wings that bear me like cargo.
TRANSLATUS
TRANSFERRE
CARRY
ACROSS
Here in the hold of the dream boat. The night a vast sea. Down here my
astonished body curls in sleep between one shore and the next.
TEL
TELOS
TOLERARE
TO BEAR
Words, how much can you hold of the day we are leaving? You spin from my
dream like netting. A thousand meanings adhere to you. Strain your seams
to bursting.
TAL
TALIO
RETALIATE
From one shore to the next. Words, you betray the dreamer. Seize up and
shun what we want you to say. You dissolve before our very closed eyes.
The dream evaporates. Leaves us. Never leaves us. We are enchanted.
TANTAL
TANTALUS
TANTALIZE
We are enchanted. It is a sexual thing. The boat rocks and tingles and we
are happy in our bodies. We are not having the dream. The dream has us,
carries us, gives us back to our selves. The night continues.
LATUS
CARRIED
BORNE
And I am cargo in this gliding boat. This boat a mighty bird. From where
I sleep I hear its wings around me. They move up and fall. Up and fall.
Up and fall. I am falling. I am borne to dreaming's edges.
TOLLERE
TO LIFT
These wings are my wings. A memory of the night inside words. I will
remember this.
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Yi Sang v
Four Poems
Translated by Walter K. Lew
Poem no. XIII
Holding the razorblade my arms became severed and fell off. Looking closer I see how cold and pale they are as if seriously threatened by something. Confronted with this I stood my pair of lost arms up as candlesticks to ornament my room with. The arms are dead but seem to show all the more nothing but fear of me. Such frail etiquette I consider more lovely than any flower basin.
Poem no. II
when my father dozes off beside me i become my father and also i become my father's father and even so while my father like my father why do i repeatedly my father's father's father's... when i become a father why must i lopingly leap over my father and why am i that which while finally playing all at once my and my father's and my father's father's and my father's father's father's roles must live?
Poem no. X
In the tattered wallpaper I see a butterfly dying. Secret mouthpiece bearing endless traffic to and from the other world. One day in the mirror I see on my beard a butterfly dying. Wings collapsed in exhaustion the butterfly eats the meager dew that collects glistening out of my exhaled breath. If I die while blocking the mouthpiece off with my palm the butterfly too as if starting up after resing shall fly away. Never do I let any word of this leak out.
Poem no. XI
That porcelain cup resembles my skull. I was grasping the cup tight with my hand when out of my arm another arm absurdly sprouted like a grafted branch and the hand pending from that arm grabbed the cup in a flash raised and hurled it against the floor. My arm is defending the porcelain cup to the death and so the shattered peices of course are my skull which resembles the procelain cup. If my arm had budged before the branching arm like a snake crept back into it the white paper holding back the flood water would have torn. But just as before my arm defends the porcelain cup to the death.
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transaction+transatlantic+tranceive+transcend+transcribe+
+____________+---------+__________+---------+_________+---------+
Charles Bernstein
Sane as Tugged Vat, Your Love
O when sanity tasted of muffled curtsy.
Talon -- Jokasta's vivisected valour.
Silly virtual item.
Sane as tugged vat, your love, kaput.
Tamed tapestry's caressed master's tasseled luaus.
O when sanity tasted of muffled curtsy.
Talon -- Jokasta's vivisected valour.
Silly virtual item.
Medusa pouts as vat's veil's oldest lament jokes.
Tamed tapestry's caressed master's tasseled luaus.
O when sanity tasted of muffled curtsy.
Talon -- Jokasta's vivisected valour.
President -- he itsy, oily, tainted, laminated.
Medusa pouts as vat's veil's oldest lament jokes.
Tamed tapestry's caressed master's tasseled luaus.
O when sanity tasted of muffled curtsy.
talon -- Jokasta's vivisected valour.
silly virtual item, yah!
sane as tugged vat, your love, kaput.
homophonic translation of Leevi Lehto's "Sanat Tulevat Yolla"
+____________+---------+__________+---------+_________+---------+ transculturate+transduce+transeunt+transference+transfigure+transfinite+ +____________+---------+__________+---------+_________+---------+
William Howe
Beetles and Lice
dance this terrain sender calcites sanskrit your
come share me planet urgent a lame torture
okay them penis envy gaunt gold hazard
jug goose eggs lentil meat sermon curl boy yard
a visor plumb mid descent regorge mating
a nuggie funnel brit grossed in temperature
quip or tart untrue beauty demands viceroy
sin babbles a day nigh gruel a curex
a beacon cider fraud dement ills cement
ah come these peasants suren fuck alls admire out
jealousy tends rear it shooter entire roo
in excangement might slang a mile clinic met to
with templars all looser sittie caricature
a sittie hombre dame letem it aint supposed to
lame egad indices pay less chevy o-vent
messy paw grad puttee devout sea born violence
sea goo cyst rye on in vacancy cedar oil
parts quills ate juror artists cement sour oil
velour inter ester ocean they said oilers
less eagles less crayons larouge sox a laugh yours
a mime oh no auto tours decease vile rubric
rictor inhalant cease irates publicans
jay rail puma ongreal aussi hut keel cement
dominatrix lean to a filigree these demands
ted turner simpleton mati souvenir
caesura noose pave your karma lure troop obscene
creep make no paw fey chancellor lay soil
lava ire demon cool row regard non-parable
a lure verge at par frock elk sale caress
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transfix+transform+transfuse+transgress+t
ranscience+transitive+
+____________+---------+__________+---------+_________+---------+
Jorge Guitart
Cold Pretend
moon grift bank grief grief bank grief grift bank grift grift grief grift moon grief bank angst flout polar lob angst lob polar flout lob angst flout lob flout angst lob flout cloud food channel stick channel food cloud stick cloud channel channel cloud food stick stick channel mimicky seed letter bra mimicky bra letter seed bra seed bra letter seed seed seed letter funnel pathos laughing site funnel site laughing pathos site funnel pathos funnel pathos site laughing funnel card shrine tree card tree shrine card tree shrine tree shrine card tree tree shrine shrine clog cartouche white singing clog singing white cartouche singing clog cartouche clog clog white cartouche singing marble milk paper suit paper milk marble suit milk paper milk marble suit marble paper marble demo love friend scan demo scan friend love love demo scan love love scan scan demo gaze bubble echo park gaze park echo bubble bubble park bubble echo park echo echo gaze focus sex harmony jerk focus jerk harmony sex jerk focus sex harmony jerk harmony jerk sex murk luck apple bell murk bell apple luck luck apple murk apple bell apple bell murk oil dream habit oil habit dream oil habit dream oil dream habit habit habit oil oil brain scratch picnic might brain might picnic scratch picnic brain brain picnic might scratch scratch picnic allusion deck doglike time doglike deck allusion time time deck deck allusion deck time doglike allusion grassy jazz jazzy grass grassy grass jazzy jazz gross virtue miracle scrap gross miracle virtue scrap virtue gross scrap miracle miracle gross virtue gross
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transom+transliteration+transmigrate+transmission+transrational+
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William Slaughter
China Poems
Head note to my China poems
I entered China the way Roland Barthes entered Japan. "Without words."
(_EMPIRE OF SIGNS_) Leaving his own language behind, as I did mine,
Barthes enveloped himself in what he called "the murmuring mass of an
unknown language." He moved with "a faint vertigo" that swept him into
"its artificial emptiness," an emptiness "consummated" only for him and
"the pure significance" of which he grasped. Writing: "I live in the
interstice, delivered from any full meaning." Just so. My China poems
were written on the inside of "a great envelope empty of speech" because
"all the alienations of the mother tongue," English for me, were halted
at my ears by "an auditory film"--the Chinese language, my murmuring mass.
Translating that murmuring mass is the work my China poems are about.
Beijing Bird Men
are beautiful,unlikely and strange
as the word is,
having to do with men.
They have retired,
as in China
by law at sixty
they must,
but they are not old.
Late in the afternoon,
in a brown city,
they come together
in parks without names,
wherever green is.
Beijing bird men
no longer
have drowsy emperors
to keep awake,
but still their birds,
with soft beaks
in bamboo cages,
sing. Still they sing.
The Man Who Washed His Ears
for Shen Congwen, 1902-1988,one of China's greatest writers,
and his people . . .
Shen Congwen, the same man,
who wrote books in China all his life
no matter what was in them
so long as he believed it.
Who said: "I never believed in power.
Wisdom is more important."
Who was made to suffer
during the Cultural Revolution.
Who was punished for his books.
Shen Congwen, the same man,
who was "rehabilitated" by Chairman Mao
who had a different plan for him,
who called him in and "invited" him
to write for the people.
Shen Congwen, the same man,
who had given himself in China all his life
to writing for the people.
Who heard Chairman Mao out
and said: "Isn't it nice to be in demand."
The same man who washed his ears
and wrote nothing ever again.
Power, wisdom. Shen Congwen.
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4 Poems from Haiti
Joj Kastra (Georges Castera)
Translated by Jack Hirschman from Haitian
Zilch Movement
Poverty makes all things faded,
crooked, cracked, emaciated,
wasted away, dingy, stupid, ground-down,
pocked;
when it's finished
we're trading laughter for weeping
we're swapping misery with brothers
in order to clutch at a blade of grass.
On Saturdays, the whole town on the coast
gets off by throwing their bodies into the sea
like people in heat.
Hereabouts, life burns!
Both Today and Yesterday
all our lives,
forks without teeth
all our lives,
the backs of spoons,
both today and yesterday.
a country in transit
over all the sea's roaring,
a land of poverty escalating
on all sides,
a land where every lie is
this big
with life in danger of death.
a sidewinding land
where all the clock hands
are working rushrush
ticktock ticktock ticktock ticktock
inside out-of-work heads
who see their lives hanging
like banana leaves
kneeling on the ground.
a land scabby in the hand
for the profit of shameless hustlers
who make the price of each piece of bread
skyrocket
both today and yesterday.
all things
stir in prayer
both today and yesterday.
gods come cheaply
just like whacks of clubs on your ass,
both today and yesterday.
where's the change?
where's the workers' union?
where's agrarian reform?
yesterday climbs aboard the belly of today
with its military hat.
that is, both today, as with yesterday,
Haiti stays down on the skin of its ass.
Felix Morisseau-Leroy
Translated from Haitian by Jack Hirschman
Sometimes I'm not Myself
Sometimes I'm not myself
There's a wild loa dancing in my head
A sorrowful loa which stamps on the ground
When it's like that I'm not myself
There's a huge drum beating in my heart
A marvelous voodoo is dancing in my body
When it's like that I can't say 'darling'
It's comrade-friend I call you
If you take hold of my hand
There's a loa of revolution that's boiling in my blood
My horse is saddled
I'm set to go
A lambi of revolution is sounding
If you've the courage take my hand
My horse is saddled
Let's go.
Note: translator Hirschman prefers Haitian to Creole in referring to the
popular language of Haiti.
Jacques Viau
Translated from French by Robert Anbian
TEARS AND MORE TEARS
Man walks on, accumulating words of redemption
along with his bits of crust, folds himself up with torn hands,
and displays his tattoo of a mutilated life.
They deposited his head in a basket.
They put it up for bids.
Along his road they placed candelabra,
votive candles, black veils, steel necklaces.
He mustn't forget he has but one road.
He mustn't forget his life belongs to others,
that his life isn't for himself, that
it has never been for himself.
And that he walks along, dragging a bum's overcoat,
nourished by fever and a large sky,
by words and alleyways shrieking
in his ears. And yet,
man isn't born only to bite the dust
and swallow his words.
He isn't born to contemplate
a wail, but to draw it out
like a weapon
to pierce the wall of the prevailing ache.
It's necessary to search out the entrepreneurs of death.
It's necessary to knock even without hands.
It's necessary to scream even without voice
against those who provoke tears
with their grand smiles.
Humankind hasn't had the time to laugh,
only to bite the dust.
Look at the heart of humanity-
a handful of blood under the sky.
Look at the heart of humanity-
star folded in a shadow.
Look at it,
tear speeding on moldy rails.
Look at the heart of humanity-
knot of rage sustained by blood.
Man and woman,
here is your face and flesh;
Brave youth, here is the grave already excavated.
O poor youth! You didn't leave to the earth
the fruit of your seed.
They didn't give you the time.
But it doesn't matter.
I am your son
and I will raise my voice in your name
because your lips have left their imprint on mine.
Jacques Viau Renaud was a Haitian student studying in the Dominican Republic in 1965 when U.S. Marines invaded that country to put down a popular insurrection. He took up arms in solidarity with the insurrectionists and was killed in the fighting on the 21st of June. Remembered as the "poet of one island and two nations," he was 23 years old when he died.
"Tears and More Tears" was originally published in "Antinostalgia" (Ruddy Duck Press, 1992) by Robert Anbian. Reprinted by permission.
[This section of RIF/T emphasizes texts written in a responsive mode.]
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transaction+transatlantic+tranceive+transcend+transcribe+
+____________+---------+__________+---------+_________+---------+
David Dowker
"Content-transfer-encoding"
what nearly became entangledwith the articulation
wobbles
wildly
clearly
she is rhythmic
as the sea is
syllabic
the shape within
the flute
congruent to the labyrinth
inside the ear
ambient
noise of the whorl
(genital etymologies)
later wave spawned language
and surf poetics spume swell in- sistent faceted sibilance
"the tone of a distinction"*
often and because of
myself tendency to
a awkwardism of
information
exploring to
and perhaps far
for relationship
to place
my emotionality
constant materials
mediate between
feel think
write recognize
isolate
the specific
extent in which
meaning is
anomalous
world merely mumblings
a lack
unlike language
that solitary fact
maybe root chatter
yet located
conditions
the physical
the therefore material
effect say
a distinction
and a part of
*response to Katie Yates ("...Words cannot be wholly transparent")
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transaction+transatlantic+tranceive+transcend+transcribe+
+____________+---------+__________+---------+_________+---------+
+____________+---------+__________+---------+_________+---------+
transculturate+transduce+transeunt+transference+transfigure+transfinite+
+____________+---------+__________+---------+_________+---------+
+____________+---------+__________+---------+_________+---------+
transfix+transform+transfuse+transgress+t
ranscience+transitive+
+____________+---------+__________+---------+_________+---------+
+____________+---------+__________+---------+_________+---------+
transom+transliteration+transmigrate+transmission+transrational+
+____________+---------+__________+---------+_________+---------+
+____________+---------+__________+---------+_________+---------+
transnotational+transpiration+transportation+transposition+transpoesis+
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