Literature in Translation |
On Revisiting Amelia Rosselli’s The Dragonfly: Panegyric to Liberty (1958) — & an Excerpt
“Retranslating The Dragonfly offered an opportunity to revisit one of my favorite poems, to establish a through-line more clearly, and to eliminate errors that were minor but, for me, persistently nettlesome.”
Literature in Translation |
“The Wasp of Time,” “A Glass Dress” & “Peephole”
“It won’t let me part, it won’t let me inside — / so we’ll stand here like this and we’ll look / at each other this way today, tomorrow, forever. / O my enemy, mirror-eye!”
Literature in Translation |
from Professor Schiff’s Guilt, a novel by Agur Schiff
“The past I am being asked to submit to you, distinguished members of the Special Tribunal, is my family heritage, for good and for bad, and when it rears its head, I cannot pretend to be surprised.”
Literature in Translation |
“Guaranteed By Clouds,” “Cry As a Bird,” “How Little Use I Am,” “Winter,” “Promise to a Dove” & “Birthdays”
“I was here. / I pass through / without a trace. / The elms at the roadside / wave to me as I approach, / green blue golden greeting, / and forget me / before I’ve gone by.”
Literature in Translation |
“In San Mamete With Morris: In Memoriam,” “Death of a Painter” & “Buried Crowd”
“Of many dreams, now this: plane parts / buried in the fields. Black iron / blanketed with moss over the years, / a broken wing. / Never had a thing to say. Not one thing.”
Literature in Translation |
from The Abduction / Le Rapt
“Me, I’m divorced / Don’t panic / it’s not so bad / except if you’d been there / my child wouldn’t have been taken from me”
Literature in Translation |
“The First Step,” “Dionysos in Procession,” “The Satrapy,” “Sculptor of Tyana” & “The Displeasure of Selefkides”
“It’s hard on you, born and raised as you were / for the noblest, most magnificent challenges, / that this frustrating destiny of yours / keeps blocking recognition and success. / Trivial things are forever in your way, / pointless small concerns, despondency.”
Literature in Translation |
“Onwards,” “Too Philosophical,” “Doll,” “The Comfort of Complaining,” “The Benefits of Talking,” “To a Writer,” “Self-Reflection” & “I Wish I Had”
“How ghostly my life / in its fall and rise. / Always I see myself waving to myself, /’ floating away from the one waving. // I see myself as laughter, / as deep mourning again, ‘/ as a wild weaver of talk; / but all this falls away.”
Literature in Translation |
“Sacred Sun,” “My Language,” “Poetry’s Silence” & “X-Askuñ”
“They ask me about my language, how it is made. / I tell them they should carry a pitcher to the creek. // They want to know about this wailing. / I tell them to walk in a place of rocks.”
Literature in Translation |
“The hood of my sweatshirt,” “On the other side of the Atlantic” & “O Street”
“Here, the day I put on my blue ‘Just Do It’ / and pulled the hood over my head for shelter / from the relentless cold also running down the street, / I offered myself to death by / police. Just for the hood. And my skin.”
Literature in Translation |
from Anima
“The body was interspersed and interwoven by veins of light. It / floats in the air. On its gray death shroud it floats high above the city / in the green summer air in the flood of light which pulls along with it / city, hospital, people in raging swirls upward …”
Literature in Translation |
from The Thorn Puller
“I went to Asakusa in Tokyo hoping to gain 46,000 days’ worth of virtue. Tradition says that a visit to Sensoji temple on that day is the equivalent of making pilgrimages for 46,000 days in a row. I’d planned to meet a gardening expert in Tokyo for work, and July 10 was the only day before the Obon holidays I had any free time.”
Literature in Translation |
from Final Judgements
“In art, as in any other activity, it is advisable to imitate for as long as possible. Only when there is no other choice does it become tolerable to be original.”
Literature in Translation |
from Motherfield
“Every year the motherfield is a bride / under a thin muslin of snow, / under the strict supervision of tradition, / it is smoothed with rakes, / combed with ploughs, / inseminated.”
Literature in Translation |
“I am Watermelon, I Am Lamb” and “Skin Mole”
“My family used me to drink water, / they thought I was a tin cup. / This goes back to the day I cupped my palm in prayer, / and to the times I’d fallen but didn’t break.”