Final Exercise, June 3, 2020
nu-ţi garantează nimeni nimic
întâi treci prin foc focul nu e aşa cum îl ţii tu minte
un caras auriu cu aripi lungi înotând în sobă
sau alintându-se în iarbă (ochii lui fără pleoape
te-au urmărit o vreme te mai privesc şi acum)
un caras auriu cu aripi lungi înotând în sobă
sau alintându-se în iarbă (ochii lui fără pleoape
te-au urmărit o vreme te mai privesc şi acum)
focul e altfel nu se vedenu îl
vezi când arde curg de pe tine sudoare şi
zgură arde cu cuvinte incendiază
fantasmele provoacă metamorfoze groteşti vei
trăi nopţi în care statuile se schimonosesc stelele
fixe se zbat în zig-zag-uri lumina însăşi se umple de
pete hohotind ca o hienă vei trăi zile pline de fum
şi de mucuri zilele mutului
vezi când arde curg de pe tine sudoare şi
zgură arde cu cuvinte incendiază
fantasmele provoacă metamorfoze groteşti vei
trăi nopţi în care statuile se schimonosesc stelele
fixe se zbat în zig-zag-uri lumina însăşi se umple de
pete hohotind ca o hienă vei trăi zile pline de fum
şi de mucuri zilele mutului
nu-ţi garantează nimeni că nu vei crăpa
că nu te vei întoarce bâţâindu-te
nuâţi garantează nimeni nimic e pe bune
că nu te vei întoarce bâţâindu-te
nuâţi garantează nimeni nimic e pe bune
Transliterated Urdu to translate:
Main Khayaal Hoon Kisi Aur Ka Mujhe Sochta Koi Aur Hai
Sar-e-Aa'iinaa Mera Aks Hai Pas-e-Aa'iinaa Koi Aur Hai
Main Kisi Ke Dast-e-Talab Main Hoon Tou Kisi Ke Harf-e-Dua Main
Main Naseeb Hoon Kisi Aur Ka Mujhe Maangta Koi Aur Hai
Ajab Aitbaar-o-Be Aitbaari Ke Darmiyan Hai Zindagi
Main Qareeb Hoon Kisi Aur Ke Mujhe Jaanta Koi Aur Hai
Meri Raushni Teray Khadd-o-Khaal Se Mukhtalif Tou Nahi Magar
Tu Qareeb Aa Tujhe Dekh Loon Tu Wohi Hai Ya Koi Aur Hai
Tujhe Dushmano Ki Khabar Na thi, Mujhe Doston Ka Pata Nahi
Teri Daastaan Koi Aur Thi , Mera Wakiya Koi Aur Hai
Wohi Munsifon Ki Rivaayatain Wohi Faislon Ki Eibaaratain
Mera Jurm Tou Koi Aur Tha Par Meri Saza Koi Aur Hai
Kabhi Laut Aen Tou Puchna Nahi, Dekhna Unhe Ghaur Se
Jinhay Rastay Main Khabar Hue Ke Ye Rasta Koi Aur Hai
To Phir Is Ke Maa'ney To Ye Huwaye Ke Yahaan Khuda Koi Aur Hai
Italian to translate:
Forse perché della fatal quiete
tu sei l’immago, a me si cara vieni,
o Sera! E quando ti corteggian liete
le nubi estive e i zeffiri sereni,
e quando dal nevoso aere inquiete
tenebre e lunghe all’universo meni,
sempre scendi invocata, e le secrete
vie del mio cor soavemente tieni.
Vagar mi fai co’ miei pensier su l’orme
che vanno al nulla eterno; e intanto fugge
questo reo tempo, e van con lui le torme
delle cure onde meco egli si strugge;
e mentre guardo la tua pace, dorme
quello spirto guerrier ch’entro mi rugge.
Pure heart
ReplyDeleteI have no father, no mother,
no god, no country,
no cradle, no eyeshadow,
no kiss, no lover.
On the third day I do not eat,
neither much nor little.
Twenty years of power,
twenty years of selling.
If no one needs it,
then the devil will buy it.
I break in with a pure heart,
if I have to, I also kill people.
They are captured and tied up, covered with
blessed earth,
and the grass- bearing hall that brings death to
my beautiful heart.
no one guarantees you anything
first go through the fire the fire is not as you remember it
a golden crucian with long wings swimming in the stove
or caressing in the grass (his eyes without eyelids
have followed you for a while still looking at you)
the fire is different you don't see it you don't
see it when it burns sweat and
slag flows from you it burns with words it ignites the
ghosts it causes grotesque metamorphoses you will
live nights in which the statues twist the
fixed stars struggle in zigzags the light itself fills with
stains roaring like a hyena you will live days full of smoke
and mucus the days of the dumb
no one guarantees you won't crack
you won't come back beating you
no one guarantees nothing is for real
I think someone else is burning me
Sir, this is my first post
If I am in Casey's group of students, then in every letter of prayer
I am lucky to have someone else
Ajab Atbar-OB Atbar's dharma is life
How close I am and someone else knows me
My rations are not as different as yours
If you come closer, see if the loan is the same or someone else
You do not know the enemy
Yes, I don't have friends. Your story was told to someone else, my story is to someone else
The same Mansifen's attitude, the same Feslin's Eberhant
My guilt was someone else's. I have someone else's
Never ask for Lot Ain, just stare
There is someone else who knows the way
So Monday is what Maa'ney is then Yahaan God is someone else
Maybe because of the fatal quiet
you are the image, come dear to me,
o Evening! And when they woo you happy
summer clouds and serene zephyrs,
and when from the snowy anxious air
darkness and long to the universe meni,
always come down invoked, and secret them
ways of my heart gently hold.
You wander with my thoughts on the hare
who go to eternal nothing; and meanwhile flees
this guilty time, and with him the crowds
of the cures with which he pines;
and while I watch your peace, he sleeps
that spirto warrior who enters me roars.
Manuel, this is remarkable-- wild! I think that you must have used ALL of the samples rather than one of them! I don't know if this will stand as an individual poem, but if you revise, you could probably make a fully realized poem out of it!
DeleteThese are literally the poems translated. I forgot to title them.
Delete@Manuel: I think professor just wanted us to sound out the words and come up with our own image of what the poems may mean. Thank you for the direct translations though.
DeleteHi Professor,
ReplyDeleteMy experience of doing the exercise above was very interesting and challenging at the same time. What I found interesting about it was that this exercise helped us see how a writer's intuition can guide them in translating as well as writing a poem. What helped me in completing this exercise was using my intuition of how the words sounded and appeared to translate the poem. The challenging aspect of this exercise was feeling conflicted about the translation's logic. As I continued translating different words throughout the poem, I struggled with the urge to want to keep the translation of the poem logical. That was a struggle for me because I felt uncomfortable translating the poem in a way where it didn't seem to make sense. I felt concerned about how it would sound. In line with that, another challenge for me that came up during this exercise was my tendency to overthink. I found myself delving deep into thinking about what the words mean. I feel that part of my experience doing this exercise alerted me to my need to be more self-aware about my tendency to overthink. As a poet, I think that's one thing I need to work on because I have noticed that about myself before. Sometimes, while I'm writing a poem, I will find a word that feels right to me but, then I tend to second-guess it by thinking there might be a better word to use. As a result, I end up debating back and forth about whether or not I should stick with my first choice or choose another word. However, this exercise helped me see even more that I need to work on my tendency to overthink things while writing. I want to get better at just letting the process be more natural.
In terms of what we learned this semester, I'd like to ask more about iambic pentameter. Even though we discussed it before in class, I'm still unclear about the purpose of iambic pentameter in poetry and what it does for our poems.
Janessa, "overthinking" is mostly bad in the early stages of composition; thinking a lot about word choice, one's aims, etc. is an important aspect of editing after the poem has reached a first or sometimes a second draft. When one is editing, "overthinking" is only a problem if what is good in the poem is disappearing before your eyes: that does happen, but only at times. Therefore, don't act like a critic until you have at least a full draft of a poem.
DeleteSome American poets still use iambic pentameter, and Derek Walcott, the Nobel Prize winner from St. Lucia who passed away within the last few years, often did from the beginning to the end of his long career. Louise Bennett, like Dickinson, frequently tends to alternate between iambic tetrameter and iambic trimeter. But ever since William Carlos Williams in the 1920s wrote against Americans taking European forms instead of developing their own, many poets and theoreticians of poetry have agreed with him. They would say that there is no purpose any more. The purpose had been to create a regularized, song-like meter with the skill of the poet creating small variations.
The other students should understand that you can pick ONE of the poems to translate. Manuel picked all of them, but one will suffice.
ReplyDeleteForce fatal quietness,
ReplyDeleteYou are the image within. My face succumbs.
Perhaps! When they cut you slowly,
we find serenity in the clouds.
And when the sky gets nervous
I will launch the universe in me.
Always invoked, the secret
within me you can slowly possess .
My emptiness is forgotten when I think of your name.
Lets go to a infinite black hole, lets try to escape
to our own time, and when a storm comes
the cure will be our struggle;
in mind I have your peace, let your
quiet spirit rest in my heart.
(I decided to attempt the translation of the Italian poem based on what I was hearing out loud.. Might not be the best but I tried sounding out certain words and also relate them based on context clues)
I also thought this was an amazing exercise! I was shocked with how much I could come up with from a poem I don't directly understand. I was able to use some of my Spanish speaking skills to loosely translate some words and create a new poem almost entirely!
DeleteI might utilize this method when I'm stuck with "writers block". This exercise showed me you can create anything out of nothing. I definitely need to invest more time reading poetry in my native language as well as other ones.
There are some great lines here, Melany, especially lines 2, 5, and 6. I'm amazed that you were able to make it so coherent. It has the feeling of a Romantic (and romantic) poem with a few happy injections of surrealism.
DeleteThis is really good, Melany! I love it <(•́⌄•́๑)૭✧
DeleteSo I did the last passage, the Italian to translation. Admittedly, the process was so odd and counter-intuitive. My mind wanted to write such things that were so foreign and seemingly made no sense. It was interesting to let my intuition of language speak for itself, even if it went against everything I've been taught. I haven;t checked the actual translation yet, so I wonder how far off am I from the original prose and truth?
ReplyDeleteIn the end, my poem came across very fantastical and oddly biblical. On the other hand, it seems like the Anglo-Saxon poetry I read in British Literature, i.e. "The Dream of the Rood", or dare i say, a dash of John Donne a la "An Anatomy of the World?" ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
Original -
Forse perché della fatal quiete
tu sei l’immago, a me si cara vieni,
o Sera! E quando ti corteggian liete
le nubi estive e i zeffiri sereni,
e quando dal nevoso aere inquiete
tenebre e lunghe all’universo meni,
sempre scendi invocata, e le secrete
vie del mio cor soavemente tieni.
Vagar mi fai co’ miei pensier su l’orme
che vanno al nulla eterno; e intanto fugge
questo reo tempo, e van con lui le torme
delle cure onde meco egli si strugge;
e mentre guardo la tua pace, dorme
quello spirto guerrier ch’entro mi rugge.
Translation -
First, perch down fated quiet
You see me go, a piece of my carnal flesh
Oh Seraph! Transcendental to constellation; life-or-death
Let nirvana eschew zen serene!
Transformation does make you nervous and disquiet
Tenet of Lucifer in all universe’s men
Except for scenes of invocation, done in secret
Veil of meteoric, sacramental testament
Void of massacre, presence of mind in true form
The vanishing of nun eternal; the infantile fugue-state
Quest rood temple, a village of torment
A coup of cures on mercy’s edge of struggle
A mantra guards the dormant place
Quell the spirit guerrilla, from entering my room
-Brianna
Brianna, I see you included katakana in the note before the poem but I couldn't quite understand it.
DeleteSince you are (often) a surrealist, perhaps it wasn't such a stretch to seem at first to "make no sense." By referring to Donne's "Anatomy," I take it you either mean the Christian references (interspersed as they are with Eastern religious imagery) or the notion of metaphysical wit, which Samuel Johnson described as yoking together two images by violence.My favorite phrases in the "translation" are "veil of meteoric," "void of massacre," "the vanishing of nun eternal," "infantile fugue-state," and "spirit guerilla."
I meant the metaphysical and Christian elements/allusions, yes. Especially the dream of the rood.
DeleteIt wasn't katakana. It was just a copy and paste style Japanese emoticon. You know, like an emoji?
DeleteAs for whether you're "off" the original, it would be very unlikely that you'd hit the mark in a language far from your own. It would be accidental. But Italian is not quite so far, so sometimes you would probably capture something involving the meaning of the original signifiers.
DeleteVery interesting take! I loved lines 2,3 and 12 :)
DeleteWell, one part of the emoticon included katakana, much of which I've forgotten. In the parentheses is the katakana sound for "shi," I think
Delete@Fink oh, cool
Delete