12-03-2011, 04:21 AM
ghill said: "I do so wish I could write stuff like that."
me too!
ghill said: "I'm not allowed to say that on here..."
Huh? Is there some demon spirit lurking or are you under some
literary moral constraint?
Oh, I forgot to credit the translator for Tua Forsström's "Never Make
Friends with a Crow": it's Stina Katchadourian. And shame on me as I think
a translator is JUST as important as the original poet. Some literary critics
assume this and even go as far as to claim translations are unique works and
should be criticized as such and NOT linked to the work they were derived from.
Not sure I'd go that far on most translations, but some are definitely that
way. (German is the only language I'd be barely qualified to make that comment
on, well ok, maybe Spanish, nah, no, that's me deceiving myself again but I'd
love to be able to as I'm much more attuned [despite my name] to Spanish
poetry.)
Here's another of hers and Katchadourian's:
__The City was Sparkling__
The city was sparkling at a distance, and
I stopped. Everything looked so beautiful,
the street plans and the terraced gardens,
as if water-transparent, and I saw it all
very clearly. I thought about the great cities
with cathedrals, and the small local museums in
the countryside in Sweden, and the meadow-sweet with its
strong fragrance, and I remembered how attached I had been
to the little kitten with the spotted paws who
ran away and how I had missed it.
I turned around and someone was crying, I couldn’t
pay attention to it. The city was made of transparent glass.
I stood there. I saw my pre-eminent love.
Shimmering of pearls. The black swans. Chalcedony.
I tried calling the small kitten. Everything was sparkling.
I hesitated, I knew everything, I would
not come back.
. . .
me too!
ghill said: "I'm not allowed to say that on here..."
Huh? Is there some demon spirit lurking or are you under some
literary moral constraint?
Oh, I forgot to credit the translator for Tua Forsström's "Never Make
Friends with a Crow": it's Stina Katchadourian. And shame on me as I think
a translator is JUST as important as the original poet. Some literary critics
assume this and even go as far as to claim translations are unique works and
should be criticized as such and NOT linked to the work they were derived from.
Not sure I'd go that far on most translations, but some are definitely that
way. (German is the only language I'd be barely qualified to make that comment
on, well ok, maybe Spanish, nah, no, that's me deceiving myself again but I'd
love to be able to as I'm much more attuned [despite my name] to Spanish
poetry.)
Here's another of hers and Katchadourian's:
__The City was Sparkling__
The city was sparkling at a distance, and
I stopped. Everything looked so beautiful,
the street plans and the terraced gardens,
as if water-transparent, and I saw it all
very clearly. I thought about the great cities
with cathedrals, and the small local museums in
the countryside in Sweden, and the meadow-sweet with its
strong fragrance, and I remembered how attached I had been
to the little kitten with the spotted paws who
ran away and how I had missed it.
I turned around and someone was crying, I couldn’t
pay attention to it. The city was made of transparent glass.
I stood there. I saw my pre-eminent love.
Shimmering of pearls. The black swans. Chalcedony.
I tried calling the small kitten. Everything was sparkling.
I hesitated, I knew everything, I would
not come back.
. . .
a brightly colored fungus that grows in bark inclusions