Day 28: Translation

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Here’s a thumbnail portrait of today’s process…

I tried to take seriously Chris Jarmick’s assignment for day 28, to “translate” a poem into English from a language I don’t know. I found a poem by Johann Wolfgang von Goethe and printed it out. I carried it around. I don’t know German, but I thought I could make out a few of the words. I opened my poetry book and copied out the poem in longhand. It’s a longish poem (“Erlkoenig” is the title, I think) and I thought I would copy only a stanza or two, but I ended up copying the whole thing. Then…for a long time…I stared at it. Then, I wrote this (please excuse the lack of cool accent marks):

Resisting Translation

The assignment is to translate a poem into English
from a language I don’t know–
and knowing so little of languages other than my own,
it seems an easy enough assignment.

“Translate,” in smart quotes, which must mean,
“not really translate,” though I can guess
that Nacht und Wind 
means Night and Wind. (Is that cheating?)

Assignments, I tell my students, are about
getting out of our accountant, linear left brains
and into our creative, more imaginative
right brains, into what poets count our better half.

But aren’t I beyond assignments, beyond
all that sturm und drang, not to mention the Nacht
und Wind? No knave or knabe, not I.
And spat (which I looked up) has nothing to do with spitting,

not even a spitting wind. Mein Vater, my father,
let me off the hook of this difficulty,
let me mutter and growl in my own tongue,
write (whatever it might mean) birgst du so bang. 

day 27: writing on my phone–a first!

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I am writing this post on my iPhone, an experiment. To explain, we spent the WHOLE day getting a DOG!!! A big deal for our family (the hold-out-Dad who has said no for 20 years, suddenly said fine). Our new dog, sort of a rescue, is a Tibetan Terrier named Pabu (Tibetan for Puffball, which I understand he was as a puppy; he’s bigger now), completely adorable (and really smart). I’m writing now as we cross home on the ferry. I’ll have more, no doubt, to tell you as this adventure unfolds.

The assignment for Day 27 was to choose a state, write down some names of towns, and then write a poem using the towns as adjectives, or in other unusual ways.

 

 

 

Set in Massachusetts

It was the Boston of possibilities, the perfect center
Like a pearl set in a necklace
Strung Ipswich to Andover, across
The throbbing pulse point
Of a throat. Warbling Cambridge for culture.
Salem searched for Lenox folds,
A Suffolk lamplight, Bristol
Cheeks stumbling like Chatham.
Taunton’s tightest embrace. East Bedford
Of hearts, Wesford for bedding.
Fall River dropping out of a Harwich sky.

Day 26: Rebellion Cento

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Yesterday’s assignment at POETRYisEVERYTHING was to write a Cento, a poem consisting solely of lines from other poet’s poems. Today’s assignment is to write an “opposite or oppositional poem” (Chris admits to be deliberately vague). Having missed the Cento assignment, I thought pulling one together today would be a good way to be oppositional. And I think I found the perfect first line.

When I assign centos to students, we physically cut apart lines of poems and then reassemble them (printed out, very large type, taped on the whiteboards of the classroom — great fun).

I thought Emily Dickinson might help me out.  (It’s late, and I refuse to make more sense of this. “My syllable rebelled” is likely to become the start of something else for me.)

My syllable rebelled —
The Dews drew quivering and chill —
Out of the foxglove’s door —
To Stump, and Stack — and Stem —

My river waits reply
As all the Heavens were a Bell
Unmoved — she notes the Chariots — pausing —
The Motion of the Moon

Day 25: Almost There

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There’s always a point where you have to let a story go. Art isn’t finished, as many people before me have pointed out, only abandoned. And eventually you abandon your new child and hope that you’ll get it right next time, or the time after that, and you never do. –NEIL GAIMAN

This was the advice today at Jon Winokaur’s blog, Advice to Writers. It was fitting. No, Bethany, you do not need to read the novel one more time.

And, for National Poetry Month…it was a another day in which I didn’t get a chance to look at the poetry assignment. But, somewhere in there, midday (sitting in my car, looking at the water), I wrote this:

Who knew the ocean could be so implacable–
implacable, a word that has nothing

to do with plaits, with implicate, for instance,
with inextricable, with intricate. The ocean

waves are like braids undone, or like pleats
of a skirt unfolded, coming undone, white caps

not like demure Puritan caps with their tucks and embroidery,
but maybe like Victorian petticoats

or knickers…implacable as in constantly assailed,
unassailable if only in the sense

of not caring at all for the assault,
for your fingers tapping along with its pulse.