Puedo escribir/Tonight I Can Write

Since I am doing a 30-minute lesson on poetry in translation next week (for fellow MAT students, not high schoolers), I figured I might as well let that leak into this post. I'm spending way too much time on it to begin with. Here is an original poem in Spanish by Pablo Neruda, followed by two different English translations. (Sorry, some of the diacritical marks have gotten garbled in computer-land, and I have no patience to fix them right now.) W.S. Merwin's translation (in blue below) has always been one of my favorite poems, one of those that really does something to me while I read it. Now I just need to learn Spanish so I can read the original and my heart can finish breaking apart. Anyway, if you're feeling particularly ambitious, ponder the different choices made in the translations.

Poema 20, "Puedo escribir los versos m‡s tristes..."

Puedo escribir los versos m‡s tristes esta noche.

Escribir por ejemplo: "La noche est‡ estrellada, y tiritan,
azules, los astros, a lo lejos".

El viento de la noche gira en el cielo y canta.

Puedo escribir los versos m‡s tristes esta noche.
Yo la quise, y a veces ella tambiŽn me quiso.

En las noches como Žsta la tuve entre mis brazos.
La besŽ tantas veces bajo el cielo infinito.

Ella me quiso, a veces yo tambiŽn la quer’a
Como no haber amado sus grandes ojos fijos.

Puedo escribir los versos m‡s tristes esta noche.
Pensar que no la tengo. Sentir que la he perdido.

O’r la noche inmensa, m‡s inmensa sin ella
Y el verso cae al alma como al pasto el roc’o.

QuŽ importa que mi amor no pudiera guardarla.
La noche est‡ estrellada y ella no est‡ conmigo.

Eso es todo. A lo lejos alguien canta. A lo lejos.
Mi alma no se contenta con haberla perdido.

Como para acercarla mi mirada la busca,
Mi coraz—n la busca, y ella no est‡ conmigo.

La misma noche que hace blanquear los mismos ‡rboles.
Nosotros, los de entonces, ya no somos los mismos.

Ya no la quiero, es cierto, pero cu‡nto la quise.
Mi voz buscaba el viento para tocar su o’do.

De otro. Ser‡ de otro. Como antes de mis besos.
Su voz, su cuerpo claro. Sus ojos infinitos.

Ya no la quiero, es cierto, pero tal vez la quiero.
Es tan corto el amor, y es tan largo el olvido.

Porque en noches como Žsta la tuve entre mis brazos,
Mi alma no se contenta con haberla perdido.

Aunque Žste sea el œltimo dolor que ella me causa,
y Žstos sean los œltimos verso que yo le escribo.


I can write the saddest verses tonight (trans. Mark Eisner)

I can write the saddest verses tonight.

Write, for example, "The night is filled with stars,
twinkling blue, in the distance."

The night wind spins in the sky and sings.

I can write the saddest verses tonight.
I loved her, and sometimes she loved me too.

On nights like this I held her in my arms.
I kissed her so many times beneath the infinite sky.

She loved me, at times I loved her too.
How not to have loved her great still eyes.

I can write the saddest verses tonight.
To think that I don't have her. To feel that I have lost her.

To hear the immense night, more immense without her.
And the verse falls onto my soul like dew onto grass.

What difference does it make if my love could not keep her.
The night is full of stars, and she is not with me.

That's all. In the distance, someone sings. In the distance.
My soul is not at peace with having lost her.

As if to bring her closer, my gaze searches for her.
My heart searches for her, and she is not with me.

The same night that whitens the same trees.
We, of then, now are no longer the same.

I no longer love her, it's true, but how much I loved her.
My voice searched for the wind which would touch her ear.

Another's. She will be another's. As before my kisses.
Her voice, her bright body. Her infinite eyes.

I no longer love her, it's true, but maybe I love her.
Love is so short, and forgetting is so long.

Because on nights like this I held her in my arms,
my soul is not at peace with having lost her.

Though this may be the final sorrow she causes me,
and these the last verses I write for her.

Tonight I Can Write (trans. W.S. Merwin)

Tonight I can write the saddest lines.

Write, for example, 'The night is starry
and the stars are blue and shiver in the distance.'

The night wind revolves in the sky and sings.

Tonight I can write the saddest lines.
I loved her, and sometimes she loved me too.

Through nights like this one I held her in my arms
I kissed her again and again under the endless sky.

She loved me, sometimes I loved her too.
How could one not have loved her great still eyes.

Tonight I can write the saddest lines.
To think that I do not have her. To feel that I have lost her.

To hear the immense night, still more immense without her.
And the verse falls to the soul like dew to the pasture.

What does it matter that my love could not keep her.
The night is starry and she is not with me.

This is all. In the distance someone is singing. In the distance.
My soul is not satisfied that it has lost her.

My sight tries to find her as though to bring her closer.
My heart looks for her, and she is not with me.

The same night whitening the same trees.
We, of that time, are no longer the same.

I no longer love her, that's certain, but how I loved her.
My voice tried to find the wind to touch her hearing.

Another's. She will be another's. As she was before my kisses.
Her voice, her bright body. Her infinite eyes.

I no longer love her, that's for certain, but maybe I love her.
Love is so short, forgetting is so long.

Because through nights like this one I held her in my arms
my soul is not satisfied that it has lost her.

Though this be the last pain that she makes me suffer
and these the last verses that I write for her.

(Original Spanish and Eisner translation can be found at redpoppy.net)

For Johny

Ulysses by Lord Alfred Tennyson

It little profits that an idle king,
By this still hearth, among these barren crags,
Matched with an aged wife, I mete and dole
Unequal laws unto a savage race,
That hoard, and sleep, and feed, and know not me.
I cannot rest from travel; I will drink
Life to the lees. All times I have enjoyed
Greatly, have suffered greatly, both with those
That loved me, and alone; on shore, and when
Through scudding drifts the rainy Hyades
Vexed the dim sea. I am become a name;
For always roaming with a hungry heart
Much have I seen and known--cities of men
And manners, climates, councils, governments,
Myself not least, but honored of them all--
And drunk delight of battle with my peers,
Far on the ringing plains of windy Troy,
I am a part of all that I have met;
Yet all experience is an arch wherethrough
Gleams that untraveled world whose margin fades
Forever and forever when I move.
How dull it is to pause, to make an end,
To rust unburnished, not to shine in use!
As though to breathe were life! Life piled on life
Were all too little, and of one to me
Little remains; but every hour is saved
From that eternal silence, something more,
A bringer of new things; and vile it were
For some three suns to store and hoard myself,
And this gray spirit yearning in desire
To follow knowledge like a sinking star,
Beyond the utmost bound of human thought.

This is my son, mine own Telemachus,
To whom I leave the scepter and the isle--
Well-loved of me, discerning to fulfill
This labor, by slow prudence to make mild
A rugged people, and through soft degrees
Subdue them to the useful and the good.
Most blameless is he, centered in the sphere
Of common duties, decent not to fail
In offices of tenderness, and pay
Meet adoration to my household gods,
When I am gone. He works his work, I mine.

There lies the port; the vessel puffs her sail;
There gloom the dark, broad seas. My mariners,
Souls that have toiled, and wrought, and thought with me--
That ever with a frolic welcome took
The thunder and the sunshine, and opposed
Free hearts, free foreheads--you and I are old;
Old age hath yet his honor and his toil.
Death closes all; but something ere the end,
Some work of noble note, may yet be done,
Not unbecoming men that strove with Gods.
The lights begin to twinkle from the rocks;
The long day wanes; the slow moon climbs; the deep
Moans round with many voices. Come, my friends,
'Tis not too late to seek a newer world.
Push off, and sitting well in order smite
The sounding furrows; for my purpose holds
To sail beyond the sunset, and the baths
Of all the western stars, until I die.
It may be that the gulfs will wash us down;
It may be we shall touch the Happy Isles,
And see the great Achilles, whom we knew.
Though much is taken, much abides; and though
We are not now that strength which in old days
Moved earth and heaven, that which we are, we are--
One equal temper of heroic hearts,
Made weak by time and fate, but strong in will
To strive, to seek, to find, and not to yield.

Everything's in the lake

It took me a while to find a poem that to any degree expresses how I am feeling right now. And even this one does not fully capture it. Instead:

“Let the image float inside you; pass lightly,” wrote French literary critic Charles Augustin Saint-Beuve, “the slightest idea of it will suffice for you.”

Dignity in the Home

by Betsy Brown

All the chairs and the long brown couch just lay

down on the floor in a line and the thin

curtains joined them, sort of on the side

or fluttering down onto them and I watched

thinking this is the kind of loneliness I

should’ve known about and this is nonsense: I object.

But the furniture line was so heavy

it went right out the door and some of my

neighbors’ lamps joined in, the tails

of extension cords and paths of towels and bedding

went straight down the lawn to the lake where

even my toothbrush and coffee mug with the cats

on it had slunk, so dejected it didn’t

even matter they were in the water with some

cold rocks and a clam. All were loaded down

with the despair so poignant in furnishings, each

I tried to coax back into the house, gathering

the alarm clock and frying pan from the lake,

but, almost politely, they moved from

my hands back down to that cold home

with the fierce clam, who guarded them

from my confusion. They were so quiet

about it, I love them. My pajamas floated

with such purpose, reached for the laces of one of my

old tennis shoes out nearly to the reef,

reached without expectation.

When a Poetic Moment Just Hits You

Ripped off (or, euphemistically, inspired by) from Ken's "When a Musical Moment Just Hits You," here's "When a Poetic Moment Just Hits You."

So we have styles of poetry that we like, we have poets that we like, we have poems that we like... but when you really get down to it sometimes there are really just little particular moments that just hit you and fill you up with all the meaning and beauty and joy that comes from good poetry. Sometimes it's just one word, a particular line break, a sound, a few lines, a turn of phrase, an image, or whatever that really gets inside you and makes the incredibleness of poetry really just fill you up with joy. This post is dedicated to all who would like to share and post their own favorite moments that just make you go "ahhhh" or "yesss!" or however you respond. I'll get it started with posting a few of my own favorite moments and then please join in and post your own favorites! :)

"a chipped crystal doorknob-- a solid polyhedron" -Michelle Cliff, "Claiming an Identity They Taught Me to Despise"

"dozens of bleak/ white frame houses stuck/ like oyster shells/ on a hill of rock" -Robert Lowell, "Water" (The fluid "l's" against the "k" sound matches the perfect image)

"A girdle of orange, Puritan-pumpkin colored girders" -Lowell again, "For the Union Dead" (It probably has even more of an effect within the context of the poem, since every word dedicates itself to the whole. But as seamlessly as this fits in, it's always a surprise.)

"That the Science of Cartography Is Limited --and not simply by the fact that this shading of/ forest cannot show the fragrance of balsam,/ the gloom of cypresses/ is what I wish to prove." -Eavan Boland, "That the Science of Cartography Is Limited" (mostly because I'm a sucker for anything that refers to maps, but this is a beautiful opening)

"In sixth grade Mrs. Walker/ slapped the back of my head/ and made me stand in the corner/ for not knowing the difference/ between persimmon and precision./ How to choose// persimmons. This is precision." -Li-Young Lee, "Persimmons"

"After August and mango trees decked out in all their little moons" -Aimé Césaire, "Notebook of a Return to the Native Land"