Palabras Prestadas / Given Words

Darrell Ward: R.I.P.

Ever since Ice Road Truckers star Darrell Ward died in a planecrash at the early age of 52 - the first casualty among their core cast of daredevils - it's been a bit difficult to keep up our enthusiasm for the TV reality series.

This morning, however, I received the exciting news that expatriate Kiwi poet Charles Olsen had completed his translation of my poem "Ice Road Trucker" into Spanish, and posted it on his "Palabras Prestadas" website.

Charles Olsen

I have to say that I'm quite thrilled to see my words transformed into another language (especially one I can read) - just as I was when Dieter Riemenschneider included a couple of my poems in his 2010 bilingual German-English anthology Wildes Licht: Gedichte aus Aotearoa Neuseeland [Wild Light: Poems from Aotearoa New Zealand].

So far as I can judge, Charles has done a bang-up job. I do wonder, though, if I can repurpose his work here as some kind of witness to the immense pleasure I've got out of watching this series over the years? In particular, as a tribute to Darrell Ward himself, who strikes me as the most man of anyone I've ever seen.

That time when he managed to drag another truck out of the ditch single-handedly, by driving them both at the same time (I know that doesn't sound physically possible, but he did somehow accomplish it) had to be seen to be believed.

Anyway, here's the poem, in translation (you can read the original English version here, if you like). And what better date to have it appear online than the Cinco de Mayo?

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Jack Ross ha publicado varios libros de poesía, entre ellos City of Strange Brunettes (1998), Chantal's Book (2002), To Terezín (2007), Celanie (2012) y A Clearer View of the Hinterland (2014), además de cuatro novelas y dos libros de relatos cortos. Es director y editor de la revista Poetry NZ, y ha editado diversas revistas literarias y antologías. Tiene un doctorado en Inglés y Literatura Comparativa de la Universidad de Edimburgo y actualmente es Catedrático en Escritura Creativa en Massey University.

mairangibay.blogspot.co.nz
New Zealand Book Council – Jack Ross

Camionero sobre hielo

El motor se detuvo
a medio bajada por la rampa de salida

justo cuando cambió el semáforo a verde
para con cuidado en el arcén

y enciende
la luces de emergencia

decía Bronwyn
fuimos a buscar ayuda

me dejó en la estación de servicio
cuando llegué al coche

había un policía
un autobús había golpeado un vehículo utilitario

calle abajo
Necesitaba esto como un tiro en la cabeza

decía
el de la grúa era un viejo fibroso

que levantó el coche
sin esfuerzo

mientras dábamos saltos
en la cabina de su camión

pensé
ya sé qué se siente

al conducir un gran camión
sobre los campos de hielo

mi álter ego
radio frequencia en mano

abierta la botella de Jim Beam
entre las piernas

el horizonte gris de peltre

(Traducción del poema Ice Road Trucker de Jack Ross – traducido por Charles Olsen)

Battle of Puebla (5 May 1862)

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[19th August 2017]:

As part of his 'Poems on the Terrace' series of commentaries on New Zealand poems in Spanish, Charles Olsen posted the following video of "Ice Road Trucker" [Camionero sobre hielo].

Poem on the Terrace – Ice Road Trucker de Jack Ross

'Poem on the Terrace – poetas neozelandeses'. Una serie para dar a conocer la poesía de las antípodas de España. Los neozelandeses, Charles Olsen y Anna Borrie, recitan y comentan un poema en una agradable terraza de Madrid.

En este capítulo leen 'Camionero sobre hielo' de Jack Ross. Pueden leer más sobre el autor, y leer el poema en castellano, en Palabras Prestadas.

We present 'Poem on the Terrace – New Zealand Poets', where we introduce kiwi poets to a Spanish audience. Charles Olsen and Anna Borrie recite and discuss a poem on a relaxed Madrid roof terrace.

In this chapter they read 'Ice Road Trucker' by Jack Ross. Find out more about the author on New Zealand Book Council.

Charles Olsen & Lilián Pallares

1913: Apollinaire

Pablo Picasso: Potrait of Guillaume Apollinaire (1913)

on 7 September 1911, Guillaume Apollinaire was arrested and imprisoned as a possible accomplice in the theft of the Mona Lisa, as well as some Egyptian statues, from the Louvre in Paris. He was released after a week, but only after implicating Pablo Picasso (also called in for questioning, but not arrested). The statues, later recovered, had actually been stolen by the poet's former secretary, Honoré Joseph Géry Pieret.

As for the Mona Lisa itself, the actual thief, Vincenzo Peruggia, was not arrested till 1913, when he tried to sell the stolen painting in Florence. He had expected to be rewarded for his patriotism in returning 'La Gioconda' to Italy, but in fact the director of the Uffizi, to whom he entrusted it for 'safekeeping,' had him arrested for theft. The painting was returned to France at the beginning of 1914.

Guillaume Apollinaire (1913)

1913 was a vital year for Apollinaire. He published his masterpiece, Alcools [Alcohol], a selection of his best poems from the past two decades. He also published his classic work Les Peintres Cubistes, one of the first systematic attempts to theorise the aesthetic practice of such painters as Picasso, Georges Braque, Marie Laurencin, Juan Gris, Fernand Léger, Francis Picabia and Marcel Duchamp.

Louise Faure-Favier (1870-1961)

Judging from the poem below, written as a letter to his friend and fellow-writer Louise Faure-Favier in July 1913, he was in his usual state of heart-sick turmoil at the time. It's tempting to see, in the storm with which his poem ends, some kind of presentiment of what was going to happen to Europe over the next few years.

Certainly he wouldn't have been the only one to have been troubled by strange dreams and visions in this last year of peace. Carl Jung, in his autobiographical Memories, Dreams, Reflections (1962) has left on record the strange dreams he was plagued with in the winter of 1913-14:

In October, while I was alone on a journey, I was suddenly seized by an overpowering vision: I saw a monstrous flood covering all the northern and low-lying lands between the North Sea and the Alps. When it came up to Switzerland I saw that the mountains grew higher and higher to protect our country. I realized that a frightful catastrophe was in progress. I saw the mighty yellow waves, the floating rubble of civilization, and the drowned bodies of uncounted thousands. Then the whole sea turned to blood. This vision last about one hour. I was perplexed and nauseated, and ashamed of my weakness.

Nor was he the only one. In 1914, the painter Giorgio de Chirico painted Apollinaire in silhouette, with (as the Guardian puts it) "what looks like a target drawn on his cranium":

Giorgio de Chirico: Premonitory Portrait of Apollinaire (1914)

Apollinaire was hit in the head by shrapnel in 1916, while sitting reading in the trenches (he had enlisted in the French artillery at the outbreak of war). Despite a brain operation, he was weakened by his wounds, and died in the great Spanish 'flu epidemic at the end of the war.

As he lay dying in his hospital bed, he could hear the crowds outside chanting: "À bas Guillaume" - Down with Guillaume. They meant Kaiser Wilhelm, who was on the point of abdicating just before the German surrender, but to the poet himself, it seemed the final irony. It was 9 November, 1918. He died just two days before the Armistice was signed.

The Wounded Apollinaire

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1913
(after Apollinaire)


Sea’s edge
summer’s end
gulls fly
waves leave behind
glass blobs
of jellyfish
ships pass
on the horizon
wind dies in the pines


sun sinks
behind the islands
foam
bruises the sand
the sea
darkens to purple
you fool
nakedalone
shout your fear into the storm



[13/7/13]

(21/6-12/8/2015)

Apollinaire in hospital

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And here's a rather more literal version of the same poem:

Je suis au bord de l’océan sur une plage
I am at the edge of the ocean on a beach
Fin d’été : je vois fuir les oiseaux de passage.
at summer’s end: I see the birds of passage fly.
Les flots en s’en allant ont laissé des lingots :
The receding waves have left ingots:
Les méduses d’argent. Il passe des cargos
silver jellyfish. Freighters pass
Sur l’horizon lointain et je cherche ces rimes
on the far horizon and I look for rhymes
Tandis que le vent meurt dans le pins maritimes.
while the wind dies in the coastal pines.

Je pense à Villequier « arbres profonds et verts »
I think of Villequier's "deep, dark trees"
La Seine non pareille aux spectacles divers
the Seine unequal to the diverse shows
L’Eglise des tombeaux et l’hôtel des pilotes
the church of tombs and the pilots' hotel
Où flotte le parfum des brunes matelotes.
where the aroma of brown stew floats.

Les noirceurs de mon âme ont bien plus de saveur.
The blackness of my soul has far more taste.

Et le soleil décline avec un air rêveur
And the sun goes down with a dreamy air
Une vague meurtrie a pâli sur le sable
a bruised wave pales on the sand
Ainsi mon sang se brise en mon cœur misérable
while the blood breaks in my miserable heart
Y déposant auprès des souvenirs noyés
lying down next to my drowned memories
L’échouage vivant de mes amours choyés.
the living wreck of my cherished loves.

L’océan a jeté son manteau bleu de roi
The ocean has thrown off its royal blue robe
Il est sauvage et nu maintenant dans l’effroi
it's wild and bare now with the fear
De ce qui vit. Mais lui défie à la tempête
of living things. Defiance in the teeth of the storm
Qui chante et chante et chante ainsi qu’un grande poète.
which sings and sings and sings like a great poet!

[23 juillet 1913]

- Guillaume Apollinaire. 'Je suis au bord de l’océan...' Poèmes Retrouvés. Oeuvres poétiques. Ed. Marcel Adéma & Michel Décaudin. Préface d’André Billy. 1956. Bibliothèque de la Pléiade, 121 (Paris: Éditions Gallimard, 1966): 734.

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Pablo Picasso: Portrait of Apollinaire (1918)

Xmas Poem

[Ponsonby (1960s)]


12-12-12
(after Dante, Inferno i: 1-30)

12 years into the new millennium
the shops and offices on Albert St.
are emptyingFOR LEASE

ON ADVANTAGEOUS TERMSThe bubble’s burst
Only the trees seem satisfied to lean
over the motorway approaches

greener – REDDER – LARGER than before
but on benefit day (as you might guess)
every bar and park-bench’s fullYour old

Ford Laser looks right at home
on Fanshawe St.Pull over
(no reason why) by Victoria Park

and walk up College Hill
where once the HYDRA bacon sign
frowned down on us with threats of

steelthough you’ve lost sight
of such-like pieties in these
pre-xmas madness days

So even when you get the fear
at the sight of some photographer’s
shop window full of soon-to-be

knocked-up teenagers in skin-tight
gownswith their barely human
dates crammed into tuxedos

horny wrists protrudinglike when
you’ve swum sideways out of a rip
and staggered ashore exhaustedglad

you made it but not sure how you did
you look down on spaghetti junction
and resolve to complete your gift shopping

then see The Hobbitfinally


[11-18/12/12]

[AUP New Poets 3: Janis Freegard, Katherine Liddy, Reihana Robinson (2008)]

So far only Katherine Dolan (published above as Katherine Liddy) has responded to the challenge to produce her own version of the opening of Dante's Divine Comedy. Her translation is characteristically sharp and focussed, I feel, with some particularly happy choices in "my self's mere" for lago del cor [lake of the heart], and "feral bush" for selva selvaggia [savage forest].

I very much admire her transposition of that trade-mark Dantesque extended metaphor about the swimmer escaping from the waves, too:

And just like one who, gasping,
spat up from the sea on the shore,
turns to the breakers and stares,

so my soul, still a runaway,
turned back to look on the pass
that never let out a living soul.

I suppose I still have to have a go at it myself (as promised), though, despite feeling a marked inability to compete with Katherine.

I don't know if the above can count as any kind of a translation, but it's the best I seem able to produce at present. I guess it's more of a continuation of the poem "Xmas" which I posted on this blog some six years back, on 3rd December 2006, than any kind of response to Dante's quest narrative.

Is he just a "garrulous old Italian," though, as Katherine claims in her comment? I take her point that a lot of people may undertake the task of re-presenting his words as a kind of embodiment of the spiritual path (a little like walking the lines of the Chartres labyrinth). I can't help feeling a certain awe at the precision and sharpness of his imagination, though, even after all these centuries.

It may be a bit much to claim him as a proto-SF writer (as so many have done), but his tale still remains far more readable and even terrifying than any other medieval (or even classical) epic I can think of - with the possible exception of certain sections of the Iliad ...

[Tara Beth Weishaupl: Walking the Chartres Labyrinth (2009)]

Divine Comedies (3): A Dante Translator's Primer

[Francesco di ser Nardo da Barberino:
Ms. of Dante's Divine Comedy (1337)]

A couple of years ago I posted a version of Eugenio Montale's poem "L'Anguilla" [The Eel] on this blog: first in my own translation, then as a literal Italian / English dual-text crib.

Quite a few of you took the opportunity to write in with your own suggested translations - while my one actually ended up in Marco Sonzogni's book Corno inglese: An anthology of Eugenio Montale's poetry in English translation (Novi Ligure: Edizioni Joker, 2009).

It occurred to me that it might be fun to try out the same thing with Dante. After all, as I've tried to illustrate in my last two posts, the English-speaking peoples seem to have a positive obsession with the Divine Comedy, so it seems a pretty safe bet that at least some of you are harbouring a secret desire to compose your own version of the whole colossal thing.

I don't think we can go quite that far (though if you do want to, there are plenty of resources to help you here). Instead, I thought I'd take the first 30 lines of the first canto - technically an introduction to the whole poem rather than just the first of three Canticas (which explains why the Inferno seems to have 34 cantos, rather than the 33 cantos of Purgatorio and Paradiso).

I've given them in various different versions:

1. First, in the original Italian;
2. Secondly, in Longfellow's nineteenth-century blank verse translation;
3. Thirdly, in Dorothy Sayer's mid-twentieth-century verse translation (which preserves the original terza rima rhyme scheme);
4. Fourthly, in Sandow Birk & Marcus Sander's millennial recasting into contemporary West-coast Valley-speak;
5. and Finally, as a dual-text, with my own literal prose translation (together with a few notes).

I promise to try my hand at a verse translation of my own if any of you do. Otherwise, I can't help feeling that there are quite enough of them in existence already.

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[Giotto (attrib.):
Dante Alighieri (c.1314)]

Nel mezzo del cammin di nostra vita
mi ritrovai per una selva oscura
ché la diritta via era smarrita.

Ahi quanto a dir qual era è cosa dura
esta selva selvaggia e aspra e forte
che nel pensier rinova la paura!

Tant'è amara che poco è più morte;
ma per trattar del ben ch'i' vi trovai,
dirò de l'altre cose ch'i' v'ho scorte.

Io non so ben ridir com'i' v'intrai,
tant'era pien di sonno a quel punto
che la verace via abbandonai.

Ma poi ch'i' fui al piè d'un colle giunto,
là dove terminava quella valle
che m'avea di paura il cor compunto,

guardai in alto, e vidi le sue spalle
vestite già de' raggi del pianeta
che mena dritto altrui per ogne calle.

Allor fu la paura un poco queta
che nel lago del cor m'era durata
la notte ch'i' passai con tanta pieta.

E come quei che con lena affannata
uscito fuor del pelago a la riva
si volge a l'acqua perigliosa e guata,

così l'animo mio, ch'ancor fuggiva,
si volse a retro a rimirar lo passo
che non lasciò già mai persona viva.

Poi ch'èi posato un poco il corpo lasso,
ripresi via per la piaggia diserta,
sì che 'l piè fermo sempre era 'l più basso.

- Dante Alighieri (1308-21)

[Johann Neumeister & Evangelista Angelini:
First printed edition of Dante's Divine Comedy (1472)]

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[Southworth & Hawes:
Henry Wadsworth Longfellow (c.1850)]

MIDWAY upon the journey of our life
I found myself within a forest dark,
For the straightforward pathway had been lost.

Ah me! how hard a thing it is to say
What was this forest savage, rough, and stern,
Which in the very thought renews the fear.

So bitter is it, death is little more;
But of the good to treat, which there I found,
Speak will I of the other things I saw there.

I cannot well repeat how there I entered,
So full was I of slumber at the moment
In which I had abandoned the true way.

But after I had reached a mountain's foot,
At that point where the valley terminated,
Which had with consternation pierced my heart,

Upward I looked, and I beheld its shoulders
Vested already with that planet's rays
Which leadeth others right by every road.

Then was the fear a little quieted
That in my heart's lake had endured throughout
The night, which I had passed so piteously

And even as he, who, with distressful breath,
Forth issued from the sea upon the shore,
Turns to the water perilous and gazes;

So did my soul, that still was fleeing onward,
Turn itself back to re-behold the pass
Which never yet a living person left.

After my weary body I had rested,
The way resumed I on the desert slope,
So that the firm foot ever was the lower.

- Henry Wadsworth Longfellow (1867)

[Gustave Doré:
Divine Comedy, Plate 7 (1861)]

•


[Dorothy Leigh Sayers (1928)]

Midway this way of life we're bound upon,
I woke to find myself in a dark wood,
Where the right road was wholly lost and gone.

Ay me! how hard to speak of it - that rude
And rough and stubborn forest! the mere breath
Of memory stirs the old fear in the blood;

It is so bitter, it goes nigh to death;
Yet there I gained such good, that, to convey
The tale, I'll write what else I found therewith.

How I got into it I cannot say,
Because I was so heavy and full of sleep
When first I stumbled from the narrow way;

But when at last I stood beneath a steep
Hill's side, which closed that valley's wandering maze
Whose dread had pierced me to the heart-root deep,

Then I looked up, and saw the morning rays
Mantle its shoulder from that planet bright
Which guides men's feet aright on all their ways;

And this a little quieted the affright
That lurking in my bosom's lake had lain
Through the long horror of that piteous night.

And as a swimmer, panting, from the main
Heaves safe to shore, then turns to face the drive
Of perilous seas, and looks, and looks again,

So, while my soul yet fled, did I contrive
To turn and gaze on that dread pass once more
Whence no man yet came ever out alive.

Weary of limb I rested a brief hour,
Then rose and onward through the desert hied,
So that the fixed foot always was the lower;

- Dorothy L. Sayers (1949)

[Dorothy L. Sayers:
Hell (1949)]

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[Sandow Birk & Marcus Sanders:
Dante's Inferno. Illustrated by Sandow Birk. 2003
(San Francisco: Chronicle Books, 2004)

About halfway through the course of my pathetic life,
I woke up and found myself in a stupor in some dark place.
I'm not sure why I ended up there; I guess I had taken a few wrong turns.

I can't really describe what that place was like.
It was dark and strange, and just thinking
about it now gives me the chills. It was so bleak
and depressing. I remember thinking I'd rather be
dead than stuck there. But before I get too far off track,
I should tell you about the other stuff that happened,
because, in the end, everything came out alright.

First off, I don't have a clue how I ended up there. I can't
remember anything about it because I had been pretty
tipsy when I wandered off the night before, and I was tired
and must've fallen asleep. After I got up, I wandered around
in the dark for a long time looking for a way out. Just when
I was feeling completely lost and was ready to give up,
I looked up and saw a faint light in the distance.
I figured that meant there must be a way out up ahead
somewhere. When I saw that light, I felt better, and the
fear I'd been holding inside of me that whole time started
to lift a little bit, because I figured I'd be outta there soon.
It felt like I'd almost been pulled over for something in a
car, but then the cop had turned away. I was sweating with
relief after making it through such a close call. As I started
up the hill, I looked back into the darkness behind me and
it seemed like no one could ever find their way out of there.

I was so exhausted; I sat down for a short rest,
then dragged myself uphill toward the glimmer
of light, leading with my left foot at every step.

- Sandow Birk & Marcus Sanders (2003)

[Birk & Sanders:
Inferno (2003)]

•


[Christopher D. Cook, curator:
Dante in Translation Exhibition (c.2005)]

Nel mezzo del cammin di nostra vita
[In the middle of the road of our life]
mi ritrovai per una selva oscura
[I found myself in a dark wood]
ché la diritta via era smarrita.
[because the straight way was lost]

You can see straight away just how accurately Longfellow has echoed the word order of the Italian. Unfortunately, that makes for pretty barbarous English:

I found myself within a forest dark,
For the straightforward pathway had been lost.

The noun-adjective inversion "forest dark" doesn't sound very idiomatic to me - neither does "the straightforward pathway." But is Sayers much better in this respect? There's been quite a lot of criticism of her decision to change the "road of our life" to "this way of life we're bound upon," but I don't myself see any falsification of the original meaning there. The expansions of simple Italian expressions - "wholly lost and gone" for smarrita, for example - required to pad out her lines to the requisite length (and to provide a convenient rhyme) seem rather more serious. Strangely enough, I find myself preferring Sandow and Birk's rather prolix - but conceivable - slacker-speak:

About halfway through the course of my pathetic life,
I woke up and found myself in a stupor in some dark place.

True, there's nothing to match "my pathetic life" in the original, nor does actually Dante find himself "in a stupor" - but both could be seen to be justified by the illustrations of the poet's spiritual state given further down.

Ahi quanto a dir qual era è cosa dura
[Oh, it's such a hard thing to say what it was like]
esta selva selvaggia e aspra e forte
[that wild and harsh great forest]
che nel pensier rinova la paura!
[that in thought it renews the fear!]

Longfellow's forest is "savage, rough, and stern;" Sayers' is "rude / And rough and stubborn." One can't really reproduce the effect of the expression "selva selvaggia" in English: perhaps the closest approach would be Shakespeare's "wood within this wood" (using "wood" in the old sense of mad, you understand) ...

Tant'è amara che poco è più morte;
[It was so harsh that death isn't much worse]
ma per trattar del ben ch'i' vi trovai,
[but to treat of the good that I found there]
dirò de l'altre cose ch'i' v'ho scorte.
[I'll speak of the other things I discovered there.]

Birk & Sanders' "other stuff that happened" actually isn't too far off from the simplicity of "l'altre cose ch'i v'ho scorte" - the real trouble with putting Dante into English is that one tends to lose the directness and casualness of his phrasing. Finding equivalent expressions tends to shift one into a rather more pompous register, partly, also, because of the (comparative) paucity of rhymes in our language.

Io non so ben ridir com'i' v'intrai,
[I don't really know how to repeat how I entered there]
tant'era pien di sonno a quel punto
[so full of sleep was I at that point]
che la verace via abbandonai.
[when I abandoned the true way]

Longfellow has him as "full of slumber," Sayers "heavy and full of sleep" - there's certainly no suggestion of his being "pretty tipsy," but then Birk & Sanders' Dante does seem to be far more of a contemporary Angeleno than a medieval Italian.

Ma poi ch'i' fui al piè d'un colle giunto,
[But since I had arrived at the foot of a hill]
là dove terminava quella valle
[there where that valley ended]
che m'avea di paura il cor compunto,
[which had filled my heart up with fear]

Birk & Sanders leave out the hill altogether at this point; Sayers makes it a "steep hill," Longfellow a "mountain." Some have seen it as Mt. Purgatory itself, which Dante is trying to approach without having first acknowledged and named his sins. Certainly its sunlit top looks like a prefiguration of the earthly paradise which he'll encounter towards the end of the Purgatorio. If so, he must travel pretty far (from the Earth's Antipodes to Jerusalem) in the next few lines of the poem.

guardai in alto, e vidi le sue spalle
[I looked up on high, and saw its shoulders]
vestite già de' raggi del pianeta
[already dressed with the rays of that planet]
che mena dritto altrui per ogne calle.
[which leads everyone straight on every path.]

The "planet" is the sun - Longfellow is probably correct in writing "Which leadeth others right by every road" [my emphasis], rather than Sayers' "Which guides men's feet aright on all their ways." The question is, though, is Dante himself included among those who are guided by its light? I don't see how he can be excluded from their number, however far astray he's gone lately.

Allor fu la paura un poco queta
[Then my fear quietened down a little]
che nel lago del cor m'era durata
[which in the lake of my heart had lasted ]
la notte ch'i' passai con tanta pieta.
[the night that I had passed so pitifully.]

There's not much that one can do with that "lago del cor" metaphor: Longfellow calls it "my heart's lake," Sayers "my bosom's lake" (mainly for metrical reasons, I suspect). Perhaps the idea of a lake of blood at the heart of every individual seemed more natural before Harvey's 17th-century discovery of the circulation of the blood ...

E come quei che con lena affannata
[And just like one who with panting breath]
uscito fuor del pelago a la riva
[escaped out of peril to the bank]
si volge a l'acqua perigliosa e guata,
[turns back towards the dangerous water and looks,]

Longfellow gives us "with distressful breath," Sayers cuts that down simply to "panting." Birk & Sanders try out the first of their substitute metaphors for Dante's originals. In this case, they turn the drowning swimmer to a DUI driver:

It felt like I'd almost been pulled over for something in a
car, but then the cop had turned away. I was sweating with
relief after making it through such a close call.

Personally, I rather like their boldness. I can see how purists might be irritated, though.

così l'animo mio, ch'ancor fuggiva,
[so my soul, which was still fleeing,]
si volse a retro a rimirar lo passo
[turned back to look again at the pass]
che non lasciò già mai persona viva.
[which no-one alive has ever yet left.]

Longfellow calls it "the pass," Sayers the "the dread pass," Birk & Sanders simply "the darkness" - whatever one calls it, it's clearly the same as the "dark forest" Dante's just emerged from: one might with perfect fitness call it the "Valley of the Shadow of Death," given the fact that no one has hitherto escaped from it alive.

Poi ch'èi posato un poco il corpo lasso,
[Then, after I had rested my tired body for a bit]
ripresi via per la piaggia diserta,
[I resumed my way along the desert shore]
sì che 'l piè fermo sempre era 'l più basso
[so that the more firmly planted foot was always the lower.]

Does he lie down for a sleep or simply have a bit of a sit-down?. Birk & Sanders are perhaps a bit over-explicit here:

I was so exhausted; I sat down for a short rest,
then dragged myself uphill toward the glimmer
of light, leading with my left foot at every step.

It's hard to dispute their reading of that last detail about the "more firmly planted foot," though - it clearly means that he's heading upwards (though he'll shortly be chased from his path by those three famous wild animals: the leopard, the lion and the wolf ...)

- JR: literal translation & notes (2012)

[W. S. Merwin:
Translation drafts for Purgatorio (2000)]

•

So there you go. Not so easy as it looks, is it? Hats off to everyone who's ever accomplished the task of a Dante translation - even those (such as Seamus Heaney) who've only given us a few cantos out of the whole hundred ...

[Dante's Inferno: Translations by Twenty Contemporary Poets (1993)

Collecting Paul Celan

Gisèle Celan-Lestrange: Etching

Reading these letters doubled with poems is also to delimit the space where Celan habitually deployed his language, and which he referred to – not entirely seriously – as his “Celanie”: the Rue des Ecoles, the Rue de Lota, the Rue de Montevideo, the Rue de Longchamp, the Rue d’Ulm, the Rue Cabanis (Faculty Clinic, Saint-Anne), the Rue Tournefort and Avenue Émile Zola …

– Bertrand Badiou, “Notice Editoriale”. In Paul Celan & Gisèle Celan-Lestrange. Correspondance (1951-1970). 2 vols. Librairie du XXIe siècle (Paris: Éditions du Seuil, 2001): 2: 10.

Map of Bukovina
[Israel Chalfen (1979)]

I did some translations from Paul Celan, from his posthumously-published book Schneepart (1971), in about 2001 (You can find them online here).

Now, ten years later, I've re-entered the Celanian labyrinth (not that I ever really left it), and am working on some more translations (mostly from the poems included in his letters to his wife, the artist Gisèle Celan-Lestrange).

A lot of new books have appeared or been translated in these ten years. I did read most of what was available (in English) in 2001, when I made my first set of versions. Since then I've ranged a bit further afield - into the latest German editions, as well as the sumptuous 2-volume French edition of his correspondence with Gisèle.

The advantage of this is that he generally included vocabulary lists and comments on the poems he sent to her (her German was far from fluent) - sometimes complete literal French versions - which gives one a kind of authorial double-focus on each of the poems: very useful in the case of a poet so famously "difficult" as Celan.

The point of this post, though, is to make my own list of the most useful materials by and about Celan available at present to any reasonably enterprising English-speaking reader (it's worth going to this website, by the way, to hear the man himself reciting "Todesfuge").

There are certainly some omissions from the list: I haven't recorded all the translations of the poetry - only the ones I myself have found useful (some of the older versions are now, in fact, out of print and hard to find). Nor have I been at all exhaustive in my listing of secondary materials.

For what it's worth, though, here's my working bibliography of Celan materials:

Paul Antschel [Paul Celan]
(1920-1970)

[Texts:]



Paul Celan: Gesammelte Werke


1. Celan, Paul. Gesammelte Werke in fünf Bänden. Erster Band - Gedichte I: Mohn und Gedächtnis; Von Schwelle zu Schwelle; Sprachgitter; Die Niemandsrose. 1952, 1955, 1959, 1963. Ed. Beda Allemann & Stefan Reichert. 1983. Frankfurt am Main: Suhrkamp Taschenbuch Verlag, 1986.


2. Celan, Paul. Gesammelte Werke in fünf Bänden. Zweiter Band - Gedichte II: Atemwende; Fadensonnen; Lichtzwang; Schneepart. 1967, 1968, 1970, 1971. Ed. Beda Allemann & Stefan Reichert. 1983. Frankfurt am Main: Suhrkamp Taschenbuch Verlag, 1986.


3. Celan, Paul. Gesammelte Werke in fünf Bänden. Dritter Band - Gedichte III: Der Sand aus den Urnen; Zeitgehöft / Prosa /Reden. 1948, 1976. Ed. Beda Allemann & Stefan Reichert. 1983. Frankfurt am Main: Suhrkamp Taschenbuch Verlag, 1986.


4. Celan, Paul. Gesammelte Werke in fünf Bänden. Vierter Band: Übertragungen I - Zweisprachig. Ed. Beda Allemann & Stefan Reichert. 1983. Frankfurt am Main: Suhrkamp Taschenbuch Verlag, 1986.


5. Celan, Paul. Gesammelte Werke in fünf Bänden. Fünfter Band: Übertragungen II - Zweisprachig. Ed. Beda Allemann & Stefan Reichert. 1983. Frankfurt am Main: Suhrkamp Taschenbuch Verlag, 1986.



This is the standard German edition of Celan's works (now expanded to seven volumes, with the addition of some juvenilia and manuscript materials).




Paul Celan: Die Gedichte


6. Celan, Paul. Die Gedichte: Kommentierte Gesamtausgabe in einem Band. Ed. Barbara Weidemann. Frankfurt am Main: Suhrkamp, 2003.



The best edition of the complete poetry available at present.




Paul Celan: Gesammelte Werke



•

[Correspondence:]



Paul Celan & Gisèle Celan-Lestrange: Correspondence


7. Celan, Paul, & Gisèle Celan-Lestrange. Correspondance (1951-1970), avec un choix de letters de Paul Celan à son fils Eric. I – Lettres. Ed. Bertrand Badiou & Eric Celan. La Librairie du XXIe siècle. Paris: Éditions du Seuil, 2001.


8. Celan, Paul, & Gisèle Celan-Lestrange. Correspondance (1951-1970), avec un choix de letters de Paul Celan à son fils Eric. II – Commentaires et Illustrations. Ed. Bertrand Badiou & Eric Celan. La Librairie du XXIe siècle. Paris: Éditions du Seuil, 2001.



An indispensable work for true Celan fans. It's also available in German, but not (as yet) in English.




Paul Celan & Nelly Sachs: Correspondence


9. Celan, Paul, & Nelly Sachs. Correspondence. Ed. Barbara Wiedemann. 1993. Trans. Christopher Clark. Introduction by John Felstiner. Riverdale-on-Hudson, New York: The Sheep Meadow Press, 1995.



An important correspondence with the Nobel-prize winning poet Nelly Sachs.




Paul Celan & Ilana Shmueli: Correspondence


10. Gillespie, Susan H., trans. The Correspondence of Paul Celan & Ilana Shmueli. 2004. Preface by John Fesltiner. Introduction by Norman Manea. Afterword by Ilana Shmueli. Conversation between Norman Manea & Ilana Shmueli. Riverdale-on-Hudson, New York: The Sheep Meadow Press, 2010.



Letters to his last love, whom he first knew as a girl in Romania, then met again long after the war in Israel.




Paul Celan & Ingeborg Bachmann: Correspondence


11. Bachmann, Ingeborg, & Paul Celan. Correspondence: With the Correspondence between Paul Celan and Max Frisch, and between Ingeborg Bachmann and Gisèle Celan-Lestrange. Ed. Bertrand Badiou, Hans Höller, Andrea Stoll & Barbara Weidemann. 2008. Trans. Wieland Hoban. The German List. London: Seagull Books, 2010.



Ingeborg Bachmann, herself an important German poet and fiction-writer, was Celan's lover in the late 40s and again (for a time) in the early sixties.




Ingeborg Bachmann & Paul Celan



•

[Translations:]



Paul Celan: Selected Poems (1972)


12. Celan, Paul. Selected Poems. Trans. Michael Hamburger & Christopher Middleton. 1962 & 1967. Introduction by Michael Hamburger. Penguin Modern European Poets. Harmondsworth: Penguin, 1972.



This is the Celan volume in that wonderful series, the Penguin Modern European Poets. Middleton only supplied a couple of versions to what is essentially the first draft of Hamburger's larger translation project.




Paul Celan: Collected Prose


13. Celan, Paul. Collected Prose. Trans. Rosmarie Waldrop. 1986. Fyfield Books. Manchester: Carcanet Press Limited, 2003.



Still a very useful book, often reprinted.




Paul Celan: Selected Poems


14. Celan, Paul. Selected Poems. Trans. Michael Hamburger. 1988. Penguin International Poets. Harmondsworth: Penguin, 1990.



A beautiful and poetic version, frequently revised and reprinted.




Paul Celan: Selected Poems and Prose


15. Celan, Paul. Selected Poems and Prose. Trans. John Felstiner. New York & London: W. W. Norton, 2001.



The scrupulousness of Felstiner's scholarshop makes this an indispensable volume for Celanians.




Paul Celan: Romanian Poems


16. Celan, Paul. Romanian Poems. Trans. Julian Semilian & Sanda Agdidi. Green Integer, 81. København & Los Angeles: Green Integer Books, 2003.



Rather weird surrealist prose poems, written by Celan in Romanian immediately after the war. Of interest mainly because they show that German was not the only language in which he could write creatively.




Paul Celan: Selections


17. Celan, Paul. Selections. Ed. Pierre Joris. Trans. Pierre Joris & Jerome Rothenberg. Poets for the Millennium, 3. Berkeley & Los Angeles: University of California Press / London: University of California Press, Ltd., 2005.



A well-judged selection of Celan materials, imaginatively edited and beautifully translated. Perhaps the best single-volume introduction to his work.




Paul Celan: The Meridian


18. Celan, Paul. The Meridian: Final Version - Drafts - Materials. Ed. Bernhard Böschenstein & Heino Schmull, with Michael Schwarzkopf & Christiane Wittkop. 1999. Trans. Pierre Joris. Meridian: Crossing Aesthetics. Stanford, California: Stanford University Press, 2011.



I have this on order but haven't seen it yet: twenty pages of text to 200 pages of notes and false starts. Just what the Doctor ordered!




Paul Celan: From Threshold to Threshold


19. Celan, Paul. From Threshold to Threshold. ['Von Schwelle zu Schwelle', 1955]. Trans. David Young. Grosse Point Farms, Michigan: Marick Press, 2010.



Some translators have started to provide us with complete dual-text versions of each of his major books - a trend which I for one certainly welcome. This is the first of three promised middle-period Celan books to be translated by David Young.




Paul Celan: Breathturn


20. Celan, Paul. Breathturn. ['Atemwende', 1967]. Trans. Pierre Joris. Sun & Moon Classics, 74. Los Angeles: Sun & Moon Press, 1995.



Joris has a good claim to be considered the most subtle living interpreter of Celan's poetry and thought. This is the first of a trilogy of versions of his last three books.




Paul Celan: Threadsuns


21. Celan, Paul. Threadsuns. ['Fadensonnen', 1968]. Trans. Pierre Joris. Sun & Moon Classics, 122. Los Angeles: Sun & Moon Press, 2000.



Paul Celan: Fathomsuns


22. Celan, Paul. Fathomsuns / Fadensonnen and Benighted / Eingedunkelt. 1968. Trans. Ian Fairley. Manchester: Carcanet Press Limited, 2001.



It's nice to have Ian Fairley's complete translation of Fadensonnen to set beside Pierre Joris's. I'd have to award the palm to Joris, but that's not to say that Fairley's doesn't have considerable merits also (as well as including the strange "abandoned sequence" Eingedunkelt).




Paul Celan: Lightduress


23. Celan, Paul. Lightduress. ['Lichtzwang', 1970]. Trans. Pierre Joris. Green Integer, 113. København & Los Angeles: Green Integer Books, 2005.



Paul Celan: Snow Part


24. Celan, Paul. Snow Part / Schneepart. 1971. Trans. Ian Fairley. Riverdale-on-Hudson, New York: The Sheep Meadow Press, 2007.



This is Fairley's second volume of Celan translations, a complete version of his posthumously-published last book Schneepart.




Paul Celan reads



•

[Jack Ross:]



This might seem vainglorious, but - after all - it is my blog. I've included here a list of my published work to date (translations, versions and critical essays) about Celan. There's quite a bit more to come, but this is where I am at present:




Jack Ross: The Britney Suite


25. (May 1, 2001) The Britney Suite, by Paul Celan, Wendy Nu & Jack Ross. Auckland: Perdrix Press, 2001. [25 copies (20 numbered)]
    • [Paul Celan:] SCHNEEPART, gebäumt, bis zuletzt … (22/1/68)
    • Snowpart (24/10-30/11/2000)
    • [Paul Celan:] ERZFLITTER, tief im … (20/7/68)
    • Orespark (24/10-30/11/2000)
    • [Paul Celan:] KALK-KROKUS, im … (24/8/68)
    • Chalk-Crocus (24/10-28/11/2000)
    • [Paul Celan:] DAS GEDUNKELTE Splitterecho … (5/9/68)
    • Dark (24/10-28/11/2000)
    • [Paul Celan:] BEIDHÄNDIGE Frühe … (29/9/69)
    • Both-Handed (24/10-28/11/2000)






26. (August 17, 2006) “Coromandel" (after Paul Celan, 'Corona').



Percutio 1 (2006), ed. Bill Direen
[front cover image: Sandra Bianciardi]


27. (September 12, 2006) “Poems from Schneepart: Translations into English.” Percutio 1 (2006): 60-62.
    • Snowpart (24/10-30/11/2000)
    • Orespark (24/10-30/11/2000)
    • Chalk-Crocus (24/10-28/11/2000)
    • Dark (24/10-28/11/2000)
    • Both-Handed (24/10-28/11/2000)



Albrecht Durer, Melancholia II


28. (March 23, 2007) “Meeting Paul Celan." Poetics of Exile conference, Auckland University (July 2003)




All Together Now (2010)


29. (August 24, 2010) “Celanie.” All Together Now: A Digital Bridge for Auckland and Sydney / Kia Kotahi Rā: He Arawhata Ipurangi mō Tamaki Makau Rau me Poihākena (March-September 2010). [visited 25/8/10]
    • Leave [24/6/67] (8/2-25/4/10)



brief 41 (2010), ed. Richard von Sturmer


30. (December 31, 2010) “Celanie: 5 Versions from Paul Celan.” brief 41 (2010): 54-59.
    • Maïa [7/1/52] (9/3-11/4/10)
    • Islandward [22/6/54] (5/3-11/4/10)
    • Matter of Britain [13/8/57] (9/3-29/4/10)
    • Heart (for René Char) [6/1/60] (9/3-11/4/10)
    • Kew Gardens [6/4/69] (11/3-25/4/10)



Paul Celan & Gisèle Celan-Lestrange


31. (July 12, 2011) “The Twenty-Year Masterclass: Paul Celan’s Correspondence with Gisèle Celan-Lestrange (1951-1970)." Literature and Translation conference, Monash University, Melbourne (11-12 July 2011)




Rabbit


32. (September 24, 2012) “Channeling Paul Celan." Rabbit 5 - The RARE Issue (Winter 2012): 118-31.
    • Matter of Britain [13/8/57] (9/3-29/4/10)




Gisèle Celan-Lestrange & Paul Celan


33. (November 25, 2012) “Interpreting Paul Celan." brief 46 - The Survival Issue (2012).
    • What's stitched [10/1/68] (28/1-14/9/11)




Celanie: Poems & Drawings after Paul Celan (2012)
[cover image: Emma Smith / Cover design: Ellen Portch


34. (November 25, 2012) Celanie: Poems & Drawings after Paul Celan. Poems by Jack Ross & Drawings by Emma Smith. Introduction by Jack Ross. Afterword by Bronwyn Lloyd. ISBN: 978-0-473-22484-4. Pania Samplers, 3. Auckland: Pania Press, 2012. 168 pp.
    • Introduction: The Twenty-Year Masterclass




Ka Mate Ka Ora, Issues 1-13 (2005-2014)
[cover images: Richard Killeen


35. (April 14, 2014) “Paul Celan & Leicester Kyle: The Zone & the Plateau.” Ka Mate Ka Ora 13 (2014): 54-71.



Jack Ross: The Britney Suite (2003)
Front cover image: Gabriel White



•

[Secondary Texts:]



These are mainly biographical rather than critical works. There are just too many for me to list in the latter category. Felstiner's is the major biography still, but Israel Chalfen is necessary too for the earlier period:




Israel Chalfen: Paul Celan: A Biography of His Youth (1979)


36. Chalfen, Israel. Paul Celan: A Biography of His Youth. 1979. Trans. Maximilian Bleyleben. Introduction by John Felstiner. New York: Persea Books, 1991.



Jean Daive: Under the Dome (2009)


37. Daive, Jean. Under the Dome: Walks With Paul Celan. 1996. Trans. Rosmarie Waldrop. Série d'écriture, 22. Anyart, Providence: Burning Deck Press, 2009.



John Felstiner: Paul Celan (1995)


38. Felstiner, John. Paul Celan: Poet, Survivor, Jew. New Haven: Yale University Press, 1995.



James K. Lyon: Paul Celan and Martin Heidegger (2006)


39. Lyon, James K. Paul Celan and Martin Heidegger: An Unresolved Conversation, 1951-1970. Baltimore, MA: The Johns Hopkins University Press, 2006.

•

For further updates on this matter, see my subsequent post Collecting Paul Celan (2) (4/6/16).

•

Marc Chagall: Bridges over the Seine (1954)

Rest in peace

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