That the reading was themed made me think that we do tend to have only a few models—here in the US—for what a poetry reading is. And this leaves out a lot of kinds of readings that don’t or could happen much, if at all, hereabouts.
There’s the stadium filling readings given by Yevtushenko, readings where the poet is a cultural hero, or not just a cultural hero but THE cultural hero (more on this below). At the other end, there are the samizdat-ish readings held privately that are de facto treason. And many different kinds in between.
In these parts, readings are mostly monocultural, like corn or soybeans, with not very various varietals. There’s the nationally-known-poet poetry reading where one or maybe two poets (with substantial credentials and chops) read, followed sometimes by a Q&A session. There’s the local poetry reading: one or more local but known poets reading, usually followed by an open mic which helps to assure that there will be an audience. And then there are slams, performance poetry events, poetry read with music. But that’s about it.
Seven out of nine of the poems had the original text as well as the translation. The readers read the translations and then the last stanza or two in the original. It was this last bit that made me think about what does and doesn’t get translated when we translate poetry.
No big surprises or revelations or thoughts there. Hearing bits of each poem in its original language brought the sound, the patterning, rhyme when present, rhythm to the foreground. As you would expect. The Arabic of “Hoora” was just—I can think of no other word—beautiful. It was the combination of sounds—from guttural to open, fricatives and labials—with sounds not that common in English—organized but not in a metronome-like way—just very melodic, fluid, but not hammy—as if the music of the poem were inherent in the language and rose from within it, not imposed from some schema from outside.
Which is what poetry is supposed to be like, eh?
Here are some selections (in translation) from the reading:
Liechtenstein
Foliage I and II by Evi Kliemand
Read by Her Excellency Ambassador Claudia Fritsche
From Foliage I and Foliage II – Sequences
I
It had become calm. The surfaces, she said – the surfaces.
She pressed her hand on it. Her palms were chalices.
They closed, opened – the surfaces began to vibrate, the grounds,
she said, the ground.
II
There was nothing to see. The stages of language were empty.
She had cleared away the images. There shoe was for moments
in the mirror. Really. So ill-natured, so much evil? Nothing more.
III
Outdoors, the wind
tidies up, clears away.
The raven
gives instructions.
IV
The trees seemed light-weighted
It was as if they took off, floated away.
The raven disagreed.
So they remained.
Yet space took hold of them.
V
The scent of rain filtered through the worlds and she
knew of the many times she’d felt the same. The
scent of rain arriving on earth.
Somehow, it was as if she held the earth in her hands
for the duration of a sentence. Images will, she
said, these.
Evi Kliemand (aus Blatterwerk, | edition Howeg, Surich 2008)
***
Austria
“Again Still Once” by Michael Donhauser
Read by Mr. Andreas Riecken, Charge d’Affaires of Austria
Word I asked would be the first
here or smoking looked and
along the main street where no
person was only flowers in
the gravel swayed troubled from
Afar by knowing bricks lost land
it was I belonged to the lost land the
morning fringing with grasses the
beds which lay there broken up
grown over with vetch wreathed
trans. Iain Galbraith
Michael Dunhauser
Wieder Noch Einmal (Again Still Once)
from Sarganser Land (1998)
***
Slovenia
“Great Black Bull” by Dane Zajc
Read by Ms Miriam Mozgan, Charge d’Affaires of Slovenia
Great Black Bull
The great black bull bellows in the morning.
Great black bull, who are you calling?
The pastures are empty.
The mountains are empty.
The gorges are empty.
Empty like the echo of your call.
The great black bull bellows in the morning.
As if spraying dark black blood
over the crowns of dark pines.
As if the bull’s bleeding eye
had spilled open that morning
over eastern forests.
Great black bull, who are you calling?
Do you take pleasure in hearing
how your hollow scream
returns as echo?
Great black bull, the morning is bloodless.
Your voice falls into gorges
like a tattered swarm
of black ravens.
No one hears your solitude.
You quench no one’s thirst
with you black and bloodied voice.
Be silent, great black bull.
The great black bull bellows in the morning.
The eastern sun sharpens
its glistening hatchet.
Dane Zajc
UP NEXT: Part Three - our concluding post on the 2009 SMPR, translation, the status of poetry, greatness, littleness, etc.
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