Chris Murray

‘The Headless Bird’ by Ileana Mãlãncioiu

September 29th, 2012

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.

Doris Lessing’s Poems

September 2nd, 2012

Olivia Guest of Jonathan Clowes Ltd. has informed me today that they are willing to extend my Doris Lessing licence and so I have returned the poems here. Thanks to Olivia and Jonathan Clowes for an extended opportunity to share Doris Lessing’s work on Poethead.

I spent some time in 2011 looking for permission to host two Doris Lessing poems on Poethead. In 2011 Lessing’s literary agents, Jonathan Clowes Ltd. very kindly permitted a limited copyright for ‘Fable’ and ‘Oh Cherry Trees You Are Too White For My Heart’ to be carried on this blog for a longer period.

I have blogged about Doris Lessing, Nobel Laureate, writer and poet both on this blog and on Open Salon blogs. I thought to publish the Lessing search-engine terms and statistics since my publication of the poems in 2011.

Doris Lessing’s Poems, statistics (to date)

Poems by Doris Lessing : 1,363 Views
I have been reading ‘Fourteen Poems’ by Doris Lessing this week : 783 views
‘Fable’ and ‘Oh Cherry Trees You Are Too White For my Heart’ by Doris Lessing : 445 views

“Dreamers” by Dorothy Wellesley

September 1st, 2012

We are become like phantoms of the night
Thro’ the heart’s pity and the heart’s delight.

For we have wandered with the wasting streams
Across the flower-stained solitude of dreams,
The blossom-scattered waterways of dreams.

For we have crossed the lotus-covered lake,
Where only the sunk places do shake
Beneath the waters, and the serpents make
A beauteous shining for their passion’s sake.

Behold, we are like spectres of the night
For the soul’s longing and the soul’s delight.

Who for dream’s pleasure and for love’s relief
Have drugged dull Time, the heavy footed thief
Of old sorrows and the old belief.

For we are taught the sea’s iniquities,
And see, like fearful-thoughted reveries
Sunk vessels by the borders of lost quays.
And pale and dreadful hills below the seas.

Behold, we are the dreams of vanished nights
For love’s old anguish and new love’s delights.

We are become like lost men on the moon,
Strangers on plains of everlasting noon,
Dread wanderers on the mountains of the moon

Thus have we seen the moons’ dark fortresses
Grown over with moon-moss, where the tree
Hung with old dews and woeful radiances
Stand like the ghosts of stunted fantasies.

We are dumb phantoms of the hollow night
Thro’ the soul’s pity and the soul’s delight.

Dreamers is by Dorothy Wellesley

Dreamers, by Dorothy Wellesley is taken from Early Poems by Dorothy Wellesley. I accessed the .pdf of her publication, digitized by The Library of the University of California, Los Angeles. Those readers interested in Wellesley can find out more about the writer at the Orlando Project. One of Wellesley’s editors was Kathleen Raine, whose poem, Winter Fire is linked on this blog. Raine also prefaced an edition of A Vision, by W.B Yeats.

Index of Women poets on Poethead.

A small poem from Revival 23

August 25th, 2012

Bridie is on her way to prayer,

past the purple bells that grace the wall,
they will not be still
raising their arms up to the breeze
that blows in from the mountain.

© C. Murray, all rights reserved.

Published Revival#23 , August 2012.

Bridie is on her way to prayer, by Christine Murray is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NoDerivs 3.0 Unported License.

Links to Irish poetry Journals , both online and print, are in the Poethead sidebar under Irish Poetry Imprints.

‘Bridie’ is companion to Descent from Croagh Patrick, published Crannóg in 2011
A poem by Kit Fryatt

August 14th, 2012
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 unknown

Fatherhood 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/.
- Link to Rain Down Can
- Wurm in Apfel
‘Effluence’ by Ruth Vanita

August 4th, 2012

‘After the ups and downs of the day
Manufactured alone in this small room,
Aching in more than one way, I press
Seven buttons, and am at last in heaven.
Who is to be praised like Graham Bell
For the greatest, kindest imagining,
For knowing that no song can please so well,
So heal , as one voice saying two syllables
in a tone not reproducible ?
Thanks to an era that may blow us both
Up any minute, my heart is lifted,
I see the stars again , bless a world
That has you in it, and that makes you mine
Along a line so tenuous, vibrant, fine.’

Effluence, by Ruth Vanita, from The Bloodaxe Book of Contemporary Indian Poets , ed Jeet Thayil, 2008. Reviewed at , Post III

Congratulations to Jeet who made the 2012 Man Booker list with Narcopolis