READIN

Thursday, September 6th, 2012

🦋 Mataderos

(another poem written to a prompt from La universidad desconocida...)

Poesía que tal vez abogue
por mi sombra
en días venideros
cuando yo sólo sea un nombre
y no el hombre
que con los bolsillas vacillos vagabundeó
y trabajó
en los mataderos del viejo y
del nuevo continente

posted evening of September 6th, 2012: 1 response
➳ More posts about Poetry

Monday, September third, 2012

🦋 Parallel versions

Hm... merging a couple of the themes I've been writing about here lately. Writing/revising poetry, writing and thinking in a language not my own, the different voices of the writing process and translation process.... This is a poem I started working on in Oaxaca keying off the rhythm of the first line. (+first line should serve as a clue that I spent a lot of time in class working on imperative and subjunctive voices.) Mil gracias a Paty de ICO para sus direcciones y sugerencias. I added two more stanzas and reworked the first a bit in the past week or so, and turned it into what I think is a coherent poem, a pleasant read.

I uploaded a reading of the Spanish text to SoundCloud. That is a not-quite-final revision, I think the rhythm and clarity of it are really improved by the addition of "Oh" at the beginning of the seventh line. (If memory serves, this is an example of an edit to the original text prompted during the process of translation.)

posted morning of September third, 2012: Respond
➳ More posts about Projects

Tuesday, August 28th, 2012

🦋 Instrucciones

Escucha; oye. Mira. Ve.
¿Qué oyes, pues, amigo? ¿Me oyes
gritar en mi espanto hondo?
Tu mirada me recuerda algunas cosas olvidadas;
dime cosa divertida, hecho falso, algo que
yo pueda olvidar en su lugar.
Oh confuso, casi ciego, busca
simpatía o rechazo
—tratamiento por curarte—
escucha; oye. Mira. Ve.

posted evening of August 28th, 2012: 4 responses

Friday, August 10th, 2012

🦋 Alignment

(see you soon -- bloggy hiatus to ensue)

↻...done

posted evening of August 10th, 2012: 1 response
➳ More posts about Pretty Pictures

Sunday, August 5th, 2012

🦋 Hearing voices: L2 revisions

This afternoon I finished my first round of revisions/corrections on a translation of Aaron Bady's essay The Autumn of the Patriarch: forgetting to live. Not the first L2 translation I have done but certainly the longest, and I think perhaps as well, I have approached this text with a little more systematic method, more "seriously", than previous ones.

Writing in Spanish is a peculiar, unfamiliar feeling for me, as I've said; but it does not hold a candle to revising material that I have written in Spanish. The denseness of the bifurcations of identity of the speaker that I have to go through to get from "me the translator" writing the words to "me the identification-with-the-author" playing the parts of Bady and of Bady's authorial voice to "me the reader" speaking the words to "me the listener/hearer" digesting the syntax and meaning, is quite remarkable. I am finding the multiple "me" voices in harmony with one another for much of the essay, which makes me think the translation is pretty good -- there are a few parts that seem clumsy and a few parts where I'm totally in the dark as to whether the Spanish rings true -- but I think I need to get in touch with some Spanish speakers to ask...

posted afternoon of August 5th, 2012: Respond
➳ More posts about Language

Friday, August third, 2012

🦋 Peter, dropping names

(This post is a continuation of the earlier Peter's Voice thread -- I am trying among other things to make my reading of La universidad desconocida be Peter's reading, trying to get in his head and read through his eyes and hope to fully realize his character. Hope that anybody's going to be interested in reading about this guy and the books he is reading and translating; but of course this hope has always been intrinsic to the READIN project...)

Walking down Partition Street in the light summer rain and watching the lightning across the river past Rhinebeck. A really impressive storm but it's far enough off, the air's not moving here. You have to strain to make out the thunder. Nice -- I'm glad to fantasize the soundtrack and just watch the show, glad to get a little wet, glad to get home and inside and dry off.

Laura's a little spacey tonight. Dale and them had a gig down at Tierney's, we smoked some grass on the way over there and she really got into it --the intoxication goes very nicely with Megan's chops on the washboard, with Dale singing "Rag Mama Rag," it must be said... a lovely time but all too short as they only had a half-hour set. The other acts? Nothing really that interesting, so here we are back home and Laura's prowling catlike by the bookcase. I'm smiling and asking her what she's reading.

-- Eh, nothing's really grabbed my attention much since Snow.

I grin, and flash on the "Love and Happiness" scene and Al Green singing, and feel the little twinge of uncertainty that's always present around Pamuk, like I'm not really getting it or am getting the wrong thing. (And hm, I should really mention that song to Dale...) -- Want to check out some poetry I've been working on? I found these pretty intense old Chilean poems over at Calixto's blog... and don't mention, or perhaps it goes without saying in this context, these poems from Ávala seem to me like good trip material -- but I've mentioned Chile, and Laura would rather listen to Bolaño. Nice --I open The Unknown University at random and hit on "El dinero"; and it seems to me like this is the perfect poem for today, being as I am in receipt of a check from the Reality Fusion job, feeling confident about our rent for the next few months, even about a shopping trip over to Amazon...

Still not much headway on the literary translation thing. But I remain hopeful; how could I not be, with Laura snuggled against me here on the couch as I read to her.

posted evening of August third, 2012: 7 responses
➳ More posts about This Silent House

Saturday, July 28th, 2012

🦋 So Let's Say

So let's say you're standing now standing stock still on the front stoop
in Saugerties digging the ambient sounds of nighttime
quiet rainstorm       whirring thousandfold cicada and
let's say your skin looks yellow in the mottled light
and sight             and sight is in itself
      diffuse too diffuse
and your line of visionary darkness
and difficult
You're staring at the house across the street the stream of lovely golden monsters
passing
and the yellow light and patchy shadow mute them
mute them dancing
and dancing
and suddenly, you're dancing

let's say you're standing like that stock still outside now
your eyes are closed now feel the length
the indentations and extension of your spine expanding
stretching backwards
filling what was void above you
and your hands,
and from your hands expanding
canvas dream hands hanging nervous
limp down by your side you feel
the energy that's pouring out
that's pouring groundward
grounded

posted evening of July 28th, 2012: 1 response
➳ More posts about Cicadas

Sunday, July 22nd, 2012

🦋 Communion

(written to a prompt from La universidad desconocida)

Entre estos árboles que he inventado
y que no son árboles
estoy yo.

Saturday, July 21st, 2012

🦋 Notas breves y crípticas sobre la lluvia

por J Osner

(las que lea con disculpas a Roberto Bolaño: directed freewrite based on some references to rain in La universidad desconocida)

Mientras llueve sobre la extraña carretera
En donde te encuentras
Estoy
Créeme que estoy
En el centro de mi habitación esperando
Que llueva. Está lloviendo:
Corriendo las aguas sobre
Los huecos vitreos, ventanas
Deslizandose
Mis mejillas abajo
Y otras partes
Menos delicadas.
Creo
Creo
Tengo miedo
Créeme que tus huellas tan mojadas
Salpicando
Pulsan inquietante
     (And fade.)

posted evening of July 21st, 2012: 1 response
➳ More posts about Roberto Bolaño

🦋 My favorite tunnel is the one at 9th Street

es mi favorito, el túnel
el túnel del PATH a la calle 9^a
con los tubos desciendo
homeward bound

posted morning of July 21st, 2012: Respond

Previous posts about Writing Projects
Archives