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Thanks to Mariela Baeva for her legacy project In The Hug Of Arms , an anthology of writing dedicated to the child victims of conflict. I am honoured to be a part of this work with a poem that was initially published in a group called Two Songs of War and a Lyric, by the SouthWord Journal at the Munster Literature Centre. The Poem Gernika was written to be read out at the 75th commemoration of the Guernica Massacre in 2012. About AngelitaThe image Mariela Baeva chose for her cover is of a small girl from Anzio called Angelita who died from shrapnel wounds at the end of World War II. The contributors to the Anthology are from, Uganda, Somalia, Ireland, Russia, Belgium, Angola, the municipality of Anzio (Italy), Pakistan, Lebanon and Bulgaria. The texts are in English, French, Urdu, Somali, Russian (with translations into English).
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Category: Translation
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We Protect the Weak We protect the weak and call it love or ethics.
For the safety of our students this door
must remain closed at all times. Ani yalda tova. I am a good girl,
I tell the Israeli jeweler who is impressed with my Hebrew.
Someone nearby says, Fuck Israel. I offer, I am a bad girl. Ani yalda ra.
To dance is a kind of paralysis. Muscles contract
in a certain way and we call it beautiful.
The men on the beach made me think
they were dancing tango, but instead one
was helping the other will his feet to remember
walking. If I had withered hands and always gave you
your pen with my teeth would you think it beautiful?
For the continued safety of our money
these checkpoints must remain closed
at all times. For the quality of our progeny these legs
must remain closed at all times. These minds.
This mouth. This heart. Why don’t you substitute
your for these and this? See how it feels. Ani yalda ra.
Feel that. Feel me feel you. Tell me I’m good
and bad. Tova and Ra. Let us be both…
© Kimberly Campanello
Kimberly will be reading at the National Concert Hall, on Thursday, December 6th 2012. Kimberly will be read her poems on the sheela-na-gigs in Strange Country, a new work by composer Benjamin Dwyer for uilleann pipes, tape, and poetry. More information and booking details can be found at www.nch.ie.
We Protect the Weak was previously published in the pamphlet, Spinning Cities (Wurm Press, 2011). Kimberly read this poem at Catechism, Readings for Pussy Riot, in Dublin.
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Kimberly
Campanello was born in Elkhart, Indiana. She now lives in Dublin and London. She was the featured poet in the Summer 2010 issue of The Stinging Fly, and her pamphlet Spinning Cities was published by Wurm Press in 2011 . Her poems have appeared in magazines in the US, UK, and Ireland, including nthposition , Burning Bush II, Abridged , and The Irish Left Review .
Pic by Brian Kavanagh
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The Éigse Michael Hartnett Facebook group linked to The Metre archives this week. Here are poetic treasures including essays, interviews, translations and reviews. The link that I just embedded above contains two Hartnett translations, Clocán Binn and Cén Áinius , introduced and discussed by Michael Smith. Metre was edited by Justin Quinn and David Wheatley.
I decided to add the site onto my Irish Poetry Imprints blogroll so that my readers can do their own exploring rather than have me discuss the poems that I like.
Clocán Binn Calling bell
Brought here by wild wind nightly
I would contest your clarion
Rather than war with women.Translated by Michael Hartnett
I am linking my favourite download here with a recommendation to read the entire. The essay discusses a few preoccupations of mine with regards to dissipation of (unrenewable) poetic energies, performance, audience and response.
O’ Driscoll quotes George Mackay Brown who interests me, and who is represented on this blog with his poem, The Masque of Bread. I feel that George Mackay Brown is quite a neglected poetic voice, given the cragged and ruggedness of his expression, and his use of symbol (especially in his use of light symbol).
O’Driscoll brings Pliny’s letters into his discussion, and the art of Vona Groarke. I tend to subscribe to the Yeatsian adages about solitary writing myself, but it is interesting to look at an aspect of poetic writing which I feel intrigues many poets. Wallace Stevens had a horror of public-reading and is quoted here saying that he had no interest in being a troubadour and that he found public readings of poetry ghastly.
I remember coming up against the reading or not reading issue in college whilst studying Julian of Norwich, who I believed to have written or dictated her works just for the inner ear, where the reader of the pages she offered could discern The Revelation of Love‘s musicality all by themselves. Needless to say my theory was met with a consternation (which I have not forgotten).
I have linked the entire O’Driscoll essay here.
There is an under-developed Sound and Voice category on this blog which I have linked. I hope to add some new Kit Fryatt links there soon. I am also becoming fascinated with contemporary textual and sound poetry as a result of finishing the Modern and Contemporary Poetry at Pennsylvania course which I detailed in my Open Salon Blog.
About Metre
Metre was a magazine of poetry that ran for seventeen issues from 1995 to 2005. For most of that period it was edited by Justin Quinn and David Wheatley. It presented original poetry, reviews, interviews and essays. Published and printed in Ireland, edited by two Irish people, it nonetheless billed itself as ‘A Magazine of International Poetry‘: the desire was present from the outset to provide a platform for the best of Irish work alongside the best from the UK, US, Australia as well as work in translation.
The magazine could not have continued without the generous support of the Arts Council of Ireland/An Chomhairle Ealaíon, and occasional support from the Arts Council of Northern Ireland. Also, patrons and sponsors generously contributed to our costs from the outset.
This site presents a database of PDFs of original contributions to the magazine, and is hosted by the Faculty of Arts, Charles University Prague, under the auspices of the Centre for Irish Studies.
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Last evening, 09/11/2012 , a poem called A Lament, written by me, was staged at the 2012 Béal Festival of New Music and Poetry. I am adding the Béal Festival website here. There will be shots and a recording available soon.
My thanks to Elizabeth Hilliard and David Bremner for their support in staging the poem and for a wonderful evening of music and poetry. I particularly enjoyed listening to Tom Johnson, and to The Sea-Farer.
Thanks to the wonderful women who spoke the poem with such powerful dignity, Dove Curpen, Réiltín Ní Chartaigh Dúill, and Emilie Champenois. Special thanks to Rita Barror who staged A Lament, and who helped with moving the poem from text to performance. Waltons Music school gave us a flexible rehearsal space which I am absurdly grateful for, and until this week I did not even know existed.
A Lament has always been companion to Two Songs of War and a Lyric, published by SouthWord Literary Journal in 2012, and deals with the subject of violence and conflict, especially on women and children. I wish to thank Mariela Baeva who is anthologising part of the series along with the PEN International Women’s Writers Committee, for her interest and support.
I hope to have pics and an audio at some near point, until then thanks everyone for making it possible.
Some Publications and readings by C. Murray
2012 Béal Festival -
This year I wrote a cycle of poems relating to war and to women. I titled part of it Two Songs of War and a Lyric for the SouthWord Journal, although it is intimately related to an earlier sequence of art poems, and to the 75th anniversary of Guernica which was marked in 2012.
The second poem in the art series , Gernika, was written for Euskal PEN and was read during the 75th anniversary commemoration of Guernica this summer of 2012. The first and last poem of the sequence, A Lament, was written some time ago and had been put in a folder. A Lament is too awkward a piece to submit to most journals as it is written for three voices and does not slip easily into the submission guidelines of many reviews. A Lament was written firstly as a poem and then as a chorus. It was conceived to weave in and out of the sequence which was published initially in SouthWord Magazine. Lament is an inherent part of the sequence because it involves the voices of the women who inhabit the poems in Two Songs of War and a Lyric.
As if, Sabine, Gernika , A Lament, and Through the Blossom-Gate are meant to work together, and are about loss and recovery. Here is what has happened to the original cycle, the Lament, and the unpublished cycle of seven poems since I sent them out.
Gernika
- Gernika was read on the Anniversary of the Guernica Massacre in 2012
- It was published in a batch of poems titled, Two Songs of War and a Lyric
- It will be anthologised forthis project
A Lament
- A Lament is a companion poem to Two Songs of War and a Lyric, published SouthWord in 2012.
- It will be programmed at the Béal Festival , November 2012. Notice here.
- Cycle of seven poems , at Bone Orchard Poetry
The 7 cycle is provisionally entitled Eamon Ceannt Park Cycle , after the park that the dream-sequence was written in. I had planned to send it out, as it is ready. However, in all the entire sequence including the lament amounts to thirteen inter-related poems written over the period of a year or two. They inherently form one piece. There is also an emergent coda for the entire. (Completed)
I am glad the poems have found homes and that they resonate with people. I hope to publish the thirteen poems together at some point, but I see that I will have to make my own arrangement for them, as they hardly fall into a traditional submission-shape. The most important thing for me is that they maintain their integral unity and coherence. I am editing them into a folder and deciding how I will eventually publish them in their integrity as a whole piece.
I included the list where the poems appear separately beneath this post.
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Béal Festival will be programming an experimental Lament for Three Women’s Voices, by myself. The lament is related to a cycle that SouthWord (Munster Literature Centre) published in the Summer of 2012. The original piece was called Two Songs of War and a Lyric
‘Béal Festival 2012 is a festival of new music and poetry. The whole festival takes place over three days (Nov 7th – 9th) in the Banquet Hall at Smock Alley. The format is open-plan, trying wherever possible to allow different aesthetics and approaches to rub against each other.
Featured composers include: Robert Ashley and Tom Johnson with a European première of Ashley’s recent opera World War III as well as a newly-commissioned work by Johnson for vocal ensemble.’
Day 1: Wednesday 7th November from 6.30 pm
TheOpenRehearsals – short performance by improvised music theatre collective
Gráinne Mulvey – The Seafarer (soprano and electronics) World Premiere
Claire Fitch phone
Aodán McCardle – ‘nil’ ‘abair’ (a set of poetry readings / improvisations using projection)
Leuclade – Segundo Hechizo8.00 pm – a method: the road climbs
Haydn: String Quartet Op 64 No 6
Georges Aperghis: Recitations (exc.)
Tom Johnson: Formulas for String Quartet
Tom Johnson: Counting Music
readings by Billy MillsPerformers: Elizabeth Hilliard (soprano), ConTempo String Quartet, Aodán McCardle, Billy Mills
Day 2: Thursday 8th Nov
from 6.30 pm
TheOpenRehearsals a forty minute set from TheOpenRehearsals of their unique style of improvised opera
7.30 pm World War III: Just the Highlights
Robert Ashley: World War III: Just the Highlights (European Premiere), The Producer Speaks and When Famous Last Words Fail You
Performers: Tom Buckner (baritone) Vincent Lynch (voice and piano) Aodán McCardle
9.30 pm
Christopher Fox: MERZsonata
Aodán McCardle: Purgatory (a new work in response to Robert Ashley)
Bernadette Comac: The Virtual Performer
Day 3: Friday 9th Nov , from 4 pm
Derek Ball: Autour de la chambre de Sarah (for cello, piano, speaker)
Dennis Wyers: Beyond Strings: In Search of M-Theory (for soprano / spoken female voice, live processing and triggered sounds)
Sinead Finegan: Both beautiful, one a gazelle (for violin, speaker)
Christine Murray: Lament (for three female voices)
Michael Holohan: Plurabelle (tape piece)
Nicola Monopoli: Vocal Etude (tape piece)
Maurice Scully reading his own poetry
TheOpenRehearsals7.30 pm The air moves us : we move the air
Ailís ní Ríain: Eyeless
Scott McLaughlin: Phon 2
Sean Doherty: Saccade
David Bremner: Round
Tom Johnson: Tick Tock Rhythms
Christopher Fox: A Glimpse of Sion’s Glory
Billy Mills: Loop WalksPerformers: ensembÉal, Orla Flanagan, Iarla Ó Lionáird, Maurice Scully, David Bremner, Elizabeth Hilliard, Sinead Finegan
Info about Béal : http://bealfestival.wordpress.com/
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from Fan-Locked (2001-2004)
The sun embroiders the hinges on the door
Fan-lockedthe woman with the curdled breast
mirrors the colours one by one
mortifies their harmony with blood between her thighsShe’s jealous of every new whim
kneads her tongue with hankerings for saltReplies without eyes to a world in silence
Fan-Locked is ©Antonella Zagaroli, this translation is © Anamaría Crowe Seranno
A Ray. Wind on the waterfall
The rain doesn’t burst down
Slowly the grey ink gets closer,exhausted in the whirlwind, from the white crest
a ventricle a womb an island is newly born
slides into the lake to gather itself, perspireAnd there’s no downpour yet
The earth continues to spread out.
Fan-Locked is ©Antonella Zagaroli, this translation is ©Anamaría Crowe Seranno from Prose poetry from THE BLUE FOX (2002)
Les Amoureux.
At the hour that rises between water and harvest yellow a seagull
glided over the robust net of the fisherman Anchise
It had come from far away with no break
Its wings had withered, salt had dissolved their strength
Only thanks to its ever vigilant eye had it entered the clearing of
sheaves.
Anchise at that time of day would pause to look at the sky and had
noticed the bird for the solemn and cautious way it hovered
So it seemed from the flight path and angle which set the bird
apart from others
It must have been the leader of a flock though not of seagulls, of
exotic migrants from beyond the waves …The bird touched the water as if stroking it
happy to be pulled along
dived through the surface and let go
exhausted it aimed at the highest cloud
labouring to maintain height
with its wings glistening blue from the sea
then whirled back towards land.
Anchise, the white and nimble guardian of everything around him,
gauged the elements of that sea orchestra.© Antonella Zagaroli, translations © Anamaría Crowe Seranno
Antonella Zagaroli’s Mindskin is translated with an introductory essay by Anamaría Crowe Serrano. Thank you so much to Antonella for the poems and for facilitating their publication on Poethead. Thanks to Jen Matthews of SouthWord Publications for suggesting Antonella for Poets in Translation.
About Mindskin
Poetry, Bilingual Edition. Translated from the Italian and introduced by Anamaría Crowe Serrano. Antonella Zagaroli is a poetic phenomenon. She writes prolifically, applies poetry to psychological studies, runs poetic workshops and organizes poetry, art and awareness events in health-care centers, schools and libraries. Her work is fluid and constantly evolving. Mindskin offers a generous selection from two collections of poetry (La maschera della Gioconda/The Gioconda’s Mask and Serrata a ventagli/Fan-locked), a volume of prose poems (La volpe blu/The Blue Fox) and an epic poem (Vinera minima/Minimal Venus).’
(http://www.spdbooks.org/Producte/9780982384978/mindskin-a-selection-of-poems-19852010-.aspx
Related Links
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According to custom, the old people have shut me away
not to scare me stupid when they killed the bird,
and I am listening by the bolted door
to the trampling and the struggle.I twist the lock time has worn thin
to forget what I have heard, to get away
from this struggle where
the body races after the head.And I jump when the eyes, thick with fear
turn backwards, turn white,
they look like grains of maize,
the others come and peck at them.I take the head in one hand, the rest in the other,
and when the weight grows too much I switch them
around
until they are dead, so they are still connected
at least in this way, through my body.But the head dies sooner,
as if the cut had not been properly done,
and so that the body does not struggle alone
I wait for death to reach it passing through me.© Ileana Mãlãncioiu, English Trans. Eiléan Ní Chuilleanáin
Ileana Mãlãncioiu is a familiar poet to Irish readers, she is translated here by Eiléan Ní Chuilleanáin. Her recent books are After the Raising of Lazarus, (SouthWord Editions) and Legend of the Walled-Up Wife (Gallery Press).
I thought to do a short post today on the work of collaborative translation, which my readers will know that I prefer in the approach to disseminating poetic literature. I also prefer bilingual poetry editions where possible. I think there is a good tradition of collaboration and poetic sympathy in Irish translators’ work, be it in Hugh Maxton’s sympathetic approach to the wonderful Nagy, or Peter Fallon’s translations of The Georgics Of Virgil. I have also recommended Tess Gallagher‘s translations of Liliana Ursu, and John Felstiner’s translations of Todesfuge by Paul Celan, as demonstrative of sympathetic approach in poetry translation.
Poethead readers interested in reading more on Ileana Mãlãncioiu can access her reviews, her books, and websites which I have included below this brief post in Related Links. I particularly recommend Jennifer Matthews’ review of Legend of the Walled-Up Wife for SouthWord.
Related Links
- http://munsterlit.ie/Bookstore/Translations/malancioiu_ileana.html
- http://www.nistea.com/ileana.htm
- http://www.anonimul.ro/2009_imalancioiu_ro
- http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eil%C3%A9an_N%C3%AD_Chuillean%C3%A1in
- http://www.nistea.com/ileana-across.htm
- http://www.munsterlit.ie/Southword%20Editions.html
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Months-dead grandfather
I couldn’t have written this when you were alive,
& you kept living,
unknown to me,like someone not obscure but obsolescing
whose death surprises mainly by his
having been alive till now (I googled Lawrence Ferlinghetti
today – he’s still alive:–). & unknown to my mother
. she has a half-sister
. three weeks younger, alike unknownFatherhood is a bit of a mystery
when you put it about like that.From you I have serial faithlessness
from you she has a name
. & a maiden name
. that I am asked to say when asked by one of the ‘team’
. on the Credit Card
. Hotline, it being typically something unknown
. to other people, even those we’re close to,
. (I made one up)
& her hoary orphan paranoia.
© Kit Fryatt , all rights reserved
Untitled poem by Kit Fryatt is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs 3.0 Unported License.
Based on a work at http://wurmimapfel.net/.
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1.
He who’s never known tempting distance,
the momentum of moving,
the wonder of danger,
the tipsiness of space
and the weariness of wandering –
He’ll never know the meaning of either life, or death,
nor will he ever grasp good, or evil.
Nor will he ever try the communion of the trial,
the joyous lull of arriving.
He’ll never taste the true ambrosia
of warmth in the nest that’s home,
of bread on the father’s table,
or rest near a mother’s knee!
2.
Cosmic, heavenly whiteness, of veiled distance,
from early childhood you attracted my eyes,
you infected my blood, which restlessly spurts
drawing me to eternal quests and wonder.
Whenever soft breezes flailed green cornfields,
whenever a bird’s wing sliced the blue heaven,
a caravan of clouds , grainey and forlorn,
or a sail on the sea’s horizon –
The hands were stretched like stems –
until, transparent and thin they dispersed,
the eyes like birds took off to free skies,
and so they stayed yearning for space.by Elisaveta Bagryana , from Selected Poems of Elisaveta Bagryana; Penelope of the Twentieth Century. Publ. Forest Books 1993, Trans. from the Bulgarian by Brenda Walker, with Valentine Borrisov and Belin Tonchev.
Chris Murray 