EZRA: An Online Journal of Translation Spring 2008 Vol. 2 No. 1 Ezra is thrilled to make the acquaintance of Chinese poet Cai Qijiao – a great contemporary discovery. And to have more of
We hope all translators will join PEN, as well as ALTA (American Literary Translators Association). The National Endowment for the Humanities is also a great resource: there are grant opportunities for translators. There
will be a Translation Workshop within the San Miguel Summer Seminars,
of the University of New Orleans low-residency Master of Fine Arts
program. That’s June 23-July 18, in San Miguel, Mexico. Just google UNO
MFA San Miguel. Let’s savor Rainer Schulte’s words (“The Paradigm of Translation,” Translation Review, no.
73, 2007): I think that the paradigm of translation should become the
new paradigm to revitalize the reading and interpretation of literary
and humanistic texts… The reader who approaches the interpretation of
literary and cultural texts from the point of view of “translation
thinking” changes the basic question of “what does a text mean?” to
“how does a text come to mean?” That attitude immediately indicates
that there is more than one interpretation of a text and that there is
no such thing as the “only” definitive interpretation or translation of
a work. And let’s welcome new editors
i traduttori/traduttrici:
Edward
Featured Translator: Bill Lavender
Serenity
—Homophonic translation by Bill Lavendar On two fronts, decant the color of lost armadas. Pablo Neruda, "Serenata"
—translated by Bill Lavender Pier Paola Pasolini, "La Rabbia"
—translated by Bill Lavender —translated by Bill Lavender
—translated by Bill Lavender
—translated by Bill Lavender
—translated by Bill Lavender —translated by Edward Morin, Dennis Ding, and Fang Dai Today I must be exceptionally gentle Here's what the moss in the rain is telling me, The fingers of the wind caressing my cheek Remember that bright day not long ago I guess the peach trees blooming by the lake In ploughed fields all over the countryside Time to view the colors of spring in the wild, Cai Qijiao —translated by Edward Morin, Dennis Ding, and Fang Dai How sad and desolate this winter night is— Cai Qijiao —translated by Edward Morin, Dennis Ding, and Fang Dai A vast net No one in the world Bitter tears Cai Qijiao —translated by Edward Morin, Dennis Ding, and Fang Dai your supple body drifting so gracefully Cai Qijiao —translated by Edward Morin, Dennis Ding, and Fang Dai The cost of having walked in lock step with others The gathering dusk is reason enough to feel assured Cai Qijiao —translated by Edward Morin, Dennis Ding, and Fang Dai On a battlefield long since turned cold and dark Cai Qijiao —translated by Edward Morin, Dennis Ding, and Fang Dai It’s sad that stars up in the vast sky Cai Qijiao Report of a Work-related Injury —translated by Keming Liu While stocking beer machine, Accordingly At the time of the accident Xie Xiang-nan —translated by Keming Liu September 5, 2005 The Roofer —translated by Keming Liu Father goes to find a ladder. “Not only do I need a ladder. I’ll need Father goes into town to find a tile. “The tile is here. I still need putty.” Father reaches up to the roof and brings one down. “I need a rope.” Father takes down the quilted jacket from the clothesline. “One last thing I need is a little mud.” Father casually digs a few shovels’ full in the yard, piles up He says, “Good. Just like that.” And like a monkey, But to our surprise, when he reaches the top, This time, father can’t think of any way to help him, Jiang Fei —translated by Keming Liu He has not bathed for a long time He is not bad I want to say they are friends Shu FRIENDS —translated by Arlene Zide The wind At this very minute, blood gushes out This is the hour of God. He knows Leaving all his work behind At this moment God has finally arrived This is the hour of God They —translated by Arlene Zide And then the Buddha said to the gathering of monks: None will stop. They will all go; as many as you shoo away. Will go and sit on the rock of some other life. Again they’ll wait for you. But there will be one who won’t go anywhere. To stay close, he’ll become invisible. Will follow you with every breath. In sun and rain. In memory and in forgetfulness. You will crawl into a cold bed and he will have warmed up your space. Only every so often, you’ll get suspicious. You’ll stop abruptly under the sky in the midst of the mountains, as if someone had asked you something. No, this is not the Mount of Memory. Those who seek answers never show themselves. Gagan Gill —translated by Brenda Nettles Riojas Always
this sensation of anxiety. Of waiting for more. Today it’s the
butterflies and tomorrow it will be unexplainable sadness, the boredom
or the wild activity to fix this or that room, to sew, to go here or
there or do errands, while I try to cover the Universe with one finger,
make my happiness with ingredients from kitchen recipes, sucking my
fingers at moments and at moments feeling that I can never be filled
that I am a bottomless barrel, knowing that “I will never be satisfied”
but looking absurdly to conform while my body and my mind open, they
extend like infinite pores where a woman nests, a woman who had desired
to be a bird, ocean, star, a deep womb giving birth to universes,
shining novas… and I am exploding popcorn seeds in my brain, white
puffs of cotton, bursts of poems that assault me all day and make me
want to inflate like a balloon to fill the world, Nature, to soak in
everything and be everywhere, living one and a thousand different
lives… I
must remember that I am here and will continue longing, getting bits of
clarity, making myself a dress of sun, of moon, a green
dress-the-color-of-time, with the one I’ve dreamed of living with for a
time on Venus. Gioconda
—translated by Brenda Nettles Riojas I
feel that I am moving away, that I am leaving little by little this
reality from the mornings and the afternoons and I am entering a world
that I am constructing with my desires and my anxieties and all the
suppressed things that start wanting to escape and push me, almost
without me taking notice, in the uncertainty, there where I should
remain alone, where it makes me scared to go because I know I will have
to assume all responsibility for having taken notice, for knowing that
not everything is air and water and bread and milk and that there is
something more that surrounds us, that it is in the atmosphere, that
chases us and waits to envelop us in that painful beauty that we want
to share and bring close to others but, on the contrary, it distances
us, it makes us feel unreal, different, as if we had just been born
into a world we don’t know until later or as if we had arrived from the
closest stars or the farthest and we are completely open to the leaves,
the noise, feeling life spill, feeling that we are nearing that one,
the true reality, even though everyone thinks otherwise and we can’t
explain it to them. Gioconda
—translated by George Held Being rich and old, Gaurus, —translated by George Held Picens writes epigrams on the back —translated by George Held You often ask, Priscus, what kind of man I’d be —translated by Derek Updegraff Let’s live, Elizabeth, and so let’s love, A Warm Welcome to the City (Catullus 43) —translated by Derek Updegraff Hello. Good afternoon, young girl, whose nose Is certainly not seen or heard when she Your town says you are something to behold? —translated by Derek Updegraff I hate and love my girl. Perhaps from adoration to disgust but I have no idea. In fact, —translated by Derek Updegraff for Alfred Dorn
This issue of Ezra stretches across the wild abyss of a two thousand year debate over the relation of form to content. It reaches from Latin poems (even rhyming Catullus!) to
The loot of long violet halls echoes, our apiary,
counting carefully despite those fierce cartels, in logical
elegance delegating labor to the estates,
two pieces broken trembling like dueling vapors.
Her woven sin recalls the statue of a pregnant pauper's hopeless volition,
like hands of hell moving in two atmospheres, combing pigeons
from hunger's less grand and already
crusading near-miss, meaning incomplete,
crescendos so all can hear, all go on, bruised and doting
and palpable as those of us already in the red,
honing instruments, perfect and brilliant and submerged.
Or remember the diameter of the seed,
that sober appendage so similar to jasmine,
her corpse profound amid quagmires of recognition,
bound to a temporary shrine.
Pharoahs call the grand marshall, & she enters like a loon, soiled legs of
my vigilance mark her coming into the room,
or never, my always, incorrigible as precious
desperation, the poor old metal of necessity.
The Rabbit
Vacancy sullies ports to the garden, a piccolo
infuses cuneiform dice into the piano,
terror contracts with suburban
noise, and the ring-master of day glories in his mammals.
Coy suits lined with soot rise & sound radios
in turn, theatrical compositions parade in peace—
tranquility, companionship—
that facile gall that gratifies
fascists despite unbound subsidiaries.
All the old red spaces languish in utero
like wounds that rhyme and fester, sons of Che
begin so low that oil threatens in gain or loss,
granting a glance at Mr. Other's center,
candid as a dove named The Morbid,
and one murder cancelled all fauna in the fluid fresco.
Quest for my poverty, guarded tutelage
piecemeal— my how comparisons age and
waste away. Organically made to matter,
this vast day of no special importance
announces a fratricide of legend, a pouting
obedient and roseate poll made to order,
trivial and pleased as portent, like some uncle
from a circular mobile farm. The new castle's crumbling.
Lost in stages, this crust of bucolic war
feeds a loose and verdant totality, locally vernal.
Clog
Oh why are all the ferns
and language forbidden?
In globs of their stern
warm welcome the glance employs
a sigh's judgment from the top,
in globs, in boots
that're always over-full.
Houses say it's the banging against
a house that ruins a rule—
guess later
in which cool house
their meaning was mine. As her scent hinted for us
in a grove of thistle thrives
the musical bleating.
Am I a fiend or just certain
mulch to work out and sign?
In globs of waste
our violet allies
giving head—
whether we earn a whistle start
or end it stalled in this hampered state.
Rainer Maria Rilke, "Klage"
Hell's Cloven Monarch
Came
in contingent as old leaders and precedents left the page, a quiet sign
of doubt incarnate, we estranged in terrorist armor.
Plowed up
limitations for the lard boys, brazen callous thugs, of larger passion
certainly than he, in situations where oreos defend those for whom
systems and mathematics silence guarantees. See, queers consummate
contempt, much as bells on Monday, curious or uncomfortable or
involuntary, a terrestrial ease, ruined a motor with choking hands, or
an eastern vault of fault, he spits denouncement like the movement he
questioned, coming back with oranges.
And/or the needle of pee
sequenced to the grand cigar store, florid and amber in hell's pure
cylindrical panic, he denuded the pugilist, came unto lyric and
desperate cabals from gruesome constituencies.
He my espoused and my oracle, old ladies of the rumored tall buildings that leap, my espoused bird-man, queen of hell's ray.
Soon
enrolled in the cartel's niggling entry-level best-of, you sue to
dislodge perpetuity: your acid air, your lacks noted, disinterested,
your moldy escutcheon melting gray as your wild ascent.
Pablo Neruda, "El Joven Monarca"
Hunt
Taught just the lame natural
past, couples cite servility,
the parqueted blank, vertigo,
a vapor jetting northward.
Ah Les, devout cooper's son,
neither lever nor orifice,
stoned, venting fair abandon
on these jambs and marbles.
By noon free of the crux, the taunt
that pours out light and land,
that lets caliphs guard their flank,
that imports buoyancy and flight,
not a grunt past aging, but defiant
genius who sees something better.
You can't cease in an instant
the rushes of debt. Trader,
come and chat with monks, rush the
dim frontier of spheres.
What the mouth portrays omens don't,
self's quilt on the prairie.
Arthur Rimbaud, "Honte"
The Mall
Dandies queue on crocheted rugs like a bitmapped
sniveling throat in jail; for leanness you'll steal the
cute anklets off guards, press old Roy's key like braille,
cruel as the battlements glassed for the feud.
Dandy queens fold & evaporate, brief
as fate, cement melts your domes until fuming,
paving over dark lessons, sand tribe, sand in jail,
nature, a tight key fits its own basement!
Well, the undo key ripped the nipple's damask,
the hotels, as mentioned, are ground glass dorms,
key to a basement that houses the horse.
It is revealed, quantity minus romance,
sand languishes and pleasant souls lean their bonnet near,
like currents of groceries lie and leer, munching.
Arthur Rimbaud, "Le Mal"
Ropey Cabanas
A boy's a nodding hell to test you.
A door is untroubled if trampled.
Trace-laden tumblers of sugar.
Trace-laden tumblers of sugar.
A boy's a nodding hell to test you.
You sold one type of belief but you
lost a ration of soul,
a loading of lost fumbles decoded;
you & me to mirror the rabbits.
You know to go, remiss or no,
mixed proportions follow me, a cousin
to an altar of occasion,
lost in Aquinas, not permanent.
The real detects the urinal, see-ya,
my carcass is lending it moisture.
Your toys quit when expression marks
expression with visas unchecked.
You're torn and muddy,
count shells, feet to come under, a special defeat.
Paraquat sons eat those Mr. Magoos?
Quick hit on the esteemed colanders?
A lost major hastened to India.
Your degree-zero coasting pours over.
Nicanor Parra, "rompecabezas"
FEBRUARY
so I can tell my friends the best of news.
Go on quickly budding your light green leaves--
the season in you already waves its greeting to me.
as it appears on top of the drenched walls:
such masses of bright life-giving green
are the sure sign of spring's arrival.
already seem surprisingly warm and soft,
my throat breathes in currents of moist air
as if drinking the mellowest wine without restraint.
when a butterfly paid a call at my window;
it sipped on a nearly withered winter-plum flower--
upon what hill slope could it be perching now?
must have watched this splendid parade in their dreams,
for they’ve hurriedly decked their branches with blossoms,
and greenness pulsates quickly through their boughs.
countless bands of sparrows frolic happily;
tranquil mountains that seem to float among the clouds
undulate like swatches of light green silk.
you my friends who have formed unbreakable ties with spring,
in this fine season that belongs to you alone,
what melody of life will you be singing?
WINTER NIGHT
except for the railway station nearby
and a freight train arriving in a thunderous roar,
its locomotive spouting a wisp of white smoke
that tumbles and rises under the shadowy clouds;
my thanks to the boat cruising upstream
past the foot of the tall embankment—
with a sharp thud, the bamboo barge-pole strikes a rock
and resounds through the iron-hard dark of night;
thanks also to lamplights in distant villages
that spark up in distinctive hues
at river banks and in the mountains
bobbing in the surrounding darkness
giving travelers the warm comfort of hope.
YOUR EYES
are the brightest most enchanting star
in my darkening evening sky;
in frenzied confidence
and hope I climb up,
facing your clear sacred brilliance
without batting an eyelash.
exudes a purple haze,
and in expectation the rose
ignites herself for me in the sky.
is more fortunate than I,
a small green bird
chirps in small branches all day long,
because of the intense fire
spreading through your eyes.
beat in time with the shouting of my pulse,
and at the subtlest half-closing of your eyelids
I have already thrown myself into the abyss.
NEW YEAR'S EVE
Removing striped gloves,
untying a snow-white scarf
under the soft lamplight,
imperially proud, you arch your delicate neck
and smile as you walk toward music,
keeping rhythm, and ever so slowly
raising your slender hand elegantly
as a swan flying in the distant sky,
I mistake it for a faraway cloud.
QIUPU RIVER
brings punishment as cruel as a march toward a mass grave
What folly to surrender obediently to conventional norms
or turn tail and stampede in retreat
Better to position oneself between these two extremes
that the life force has things under control
Regeneration of the spirit on a higher level
allows us absolute freedom of behavior
Late blooming flowers are most beautiful
COLLEGE STUDENTS
The warp and woof of hope and disappointment
are woven into the same time and space
A generation breaking out of a frozen mind set
is the light at dawn that everyone anticipates
they challenged the authorities' glaring scowl
as sirens blared throughout that fateful night
Freedom now lies where no hand can touch it
DARK SHADOWS UNDER THE EYES
I see reflected in your dreamy eyes
boughs in their earliest stage of budding
as they hasten on to bloom forever
and dye everything in the background black
are incapable of breathing freely
but must drop through dark heights above our clouds
like fluttering petals or doves that mourn in pain
Gong Hui-zhong
Female
Twenty years old
Native of Jiangxi province
ID Number: Z0264
Department: Molding
Line of Work: Beer machine
Employment Date: 24 August 1997
product fails to drop into mold
Safety door fails to open
Putting her hand in from the side
to push product down
Hand touches safety door
Mold folds
Crushing hand
Middle finger and little finger
Two segments of middle finger, one segment of pinkie
Result of investigation:
“Violation of factory safety procedures”
her hands had been burnt often.
Accordingly
she had been on the job for over twelve hours.
After the accident, she
accordingly
did not cry.
neither did she
holler
holding her fingers she
staggered
there were no witnesses.
Remembering New Zealand
The killer’s hand
is white like the lotus
white like the white of the lotus
“Having killed, the hand cannot be changed”
That belongs to Gu Cheng
Gu Cheng belongs to the poets
He isn’t man’s
Excuses are for the dead
The hand of the killer is a lotus when in a tight fist
is an axe when open
The palm of the axe runs red
The wrinkles of the palm vanish.
Xie Xiang-nan
“To reach the roof, I’ll need a ladder.
How else would I get up there to change the tile?”
a new piece of tile, of course. The broken one
needs to be taken down and changed immediately
for a new one.”
a small amount of dirt, throws a bit of water on it.
climbs up on our roof.
the guy actually asks, “Where’s the problem?”
so he cheerfully moves the ladder away.
“Alive”
A circle
A rectangle
Four right triangles
This is a composite
although
it resembles him
only
roughly
very dirty
on the side of the composite I write
“filthy…”
On the side I draw
another circle
another rectangle
four right triangles
resembling another person
So
I link his right triangle
with his/her ninety-degree triangle
I draw a line
symbolizing the horizon
symbolizing they are still alive
also
they have lots of time to kill
is soaking up
their sounds of laughter
The wind is soaking up
their secrets, their sorrows.
Once they part,
they will be left shadows
of themselves.
what is going to happen to them
once they go away.
He’s come
to watch them all.
all of them move
like puppets
dangling from the magic hand of God.
It’s bad news.
the orphans
of God.
GAGAN GILL
CROWS
‘Monks, I allow a child under 15 to take vows. I allow any child who can
shoo away a crow to take the holy vows.’
- Vinay Pitak, The Rule Book for Monks
Always
I FEEL THAT I AM MOVING AWAY
VIII.27
Martial
whoever gives you gifts
is saying, if you have the sense
to comprehend, “Die.”
VIII.62
Martial
side of a paper,
and he’s miffed because the Muse’s back
is turned while he writes.
XII.92
Martial
if I suddenly became rich and powerful.
how can one tell one’s character in the future?
tell me, if you became a lion, what kind of man would you be?
A Multitude of Kisses (Catullus 5)
And let’s consider all the rumors of
Those prone to talk as worth less than a penny.
The sun can set and rise again, but when we
Find that our temporal light has set,
One everlasting night is to be slept.
Give me a thousand kisses, then a hundred,
Another thousand, then a second hundred,
Still a third thousand, then a hundred more.
Then with so many thousands kept in store,
We’ll jumble them around and lose our count
So even we won’t know the sure amount,
And then no prying eyes can send ill wishes
Because they know the tally of our kisses.
Is hardly small, whose foot is great in length,
Whose eyes are brightly dull, whose fingers, those
Cherry-topped stumps, are poorly masked, whose strength
Discusses anything, whose lips are damp
With spittle spots, mistress of that carefree
Yet bankrupt rake from your resort-side camp.
They think your “beauty” matches that of my
Elizabeth? Oh foolish times that mold
Dumb men whose tastes can’t help but stupefy.
I Hate and Love My Girl (Catullus 85)
you question how I can relapse
so easily. Ask, if you must,
I seldom choose how I’ll react
to her. I feel it done to me,
and I am left in agony.
To a Man of Letters, On a Tragic Occasion (Catullus 96)
If any sweet or beneficial thing
Can go where silent graves remain,
Alfred, from our grievous pain,
The longing that enables us to bring
Old loves to life and makes us weep
For friendships we no longer keep,
Surely Anita’s thoughts are not of grief
For her too early death, but of
The joy she feels from your great love.
