Poetry International article, Audacious tongues

AUDACIOUS TONGUES: THE HEART OF TRANSLATION

Poetry is what gets lost in translation
—Robert Frost
As you die/ you meet the light/ of before creation
—Bert Schierbeek

“Sometimes poetry is literally a matter of life and death,” said Martin Mooij, founder and shy godfather of Poetry International in Rotterdam, The Netherlands. A central focus of the 27-year-old literary organization is to liberate poets incarcerated by oppressive governments due to his or her literary work. The annual Poetry International Award “to distinguish an imprisoned poet, was established in 1979 to commemorate the 10th anniversary of Poetry International,” said Mooij.

At the 1996 festival, exiled South African writer and political prisoner Breyten Breytenbach, who received the Poetry International Award in 1981, was also the recipient of this year’s translation Vertaalproject where world-class poets participating in the festival translate a selected poet during the annual two-week event. Breytenbach is the only poet to receive both honors.

 Like many of the poets chosen for the Poetry International Award, Breytenbach lives in exile, borderless, without a country, having only his mother tongue to sustain the roots of his art and culture. We began our translation workshop honoring those imprisoned poets—Breytenbach painting the name of the latest recipient of the 18th Poetry International Award, Iraqi poet, Adnam Abbas Salman al-Sayegh, on the Poetry Wall mural on the corner of Niewe Binnenweg and Gaffelstraat in Rotterdam. It is hoped he’ll be released from prison to collect his award.

Executive director Mooij explained, “The Poetry International Award began as a fluke. I'd published some Turkish children's books, and I mentioned the name of an imprisoned poet, Nevzat Çelik.” Mooij said he was merely wondering aloud what had happened to the Turkish poet. Surveying Kruisplein from the squat, modern post-war De Doelen building in Rotterdam, Mooij explained, “The editor promised to write to a government official, and in 1987. . . the poet was set free!”

Mooij continued, “We cooperate closely with PEN International, and the Index on Censorship.” Without the political pressure and media exposure wielded under the auspices of the Poetry International Award, the voices of world-class poets might not be with us today—

Two poems by Lo Ch'ing 羅青

GOING HOME

Too late
to catch the last bus...

If you must go,
ride your shoes home.

I'll pedal the evening wind
to follow you.

          (tr. Maureen Hurley with Lo Ch'ing 羅青)


CROSSWORD

One jet fighter
a single dove
bisecting the sky
draws
an invisible cross

     (tr. Maureen Hurley with Lo Ch’ing)

EERSTE LIG (AUBADE, I)

EERSTE LIG (AUBADE, I)
   —a fake translation of Breyten Breytenbach's poem, from the Afrikaans
 
Dawn light strokes the sky of the sea
chasing shadows from our heads
urgent dreams, bright, restless
against the lingering slumber
of your body next to mine. 

The uneasy origin of poet’s work
trapped within the childish speech
wants to reinvent the world
where flight was not lost to the struggle of defeat
Our mouths open, tonguing
the fleeting warmth of your throat

How certain love seemed in the morning
I held the fading eye of your body
against that deeper sleep

But you threw open the balcony windows
the blind angel trampled
the circle of light

scattering mirrored words
on the new song of the wind

visual translation from the Afrikaans

OPEN POETRY WINSTON KINGDOM

WINSTON KINGDOM
&
OPEN POETRY

by JACEK NICHS
present:
Monday, 21 June I996. 22.00 hours
(from Poetry International, Rotterdam):

POETRY FILMS & VIDEOS
FROM THE WORLD’S LARGEST COLLECTION
HERMAN BERLANDT (USA)
Editor-in-chief of Mother Earth International Poetry Journal, San Francisco

+ POETRY READING BY
MAUREEN HURLEY (USA)
co-editor
concept: Charles McGeehan

Monday, 02 July1[996. 22. 00 hours
&
HERB WHARTON (AUSTRALIA)
a prominent Aboriginal writer, essayist and poet

"One of the most important Black texts..a creative work of
significance... enthralling "
(Mudrooroo about ’Unbranded', a novel published in 1992)

"Herb Wharton - a voice and presence in Australia "
{Seamus Heaney about 'Cattle Camp ', a novel published in 1993)

concept: Scott Rollins

OPEN POETRY WINSTON KINGDOM
EVERY MONDAY 22.00 HOURS
THE MEETING POINT FOR STREAMS & CURRENTS
IN INTERNATIONAL POETRY

open microphone + free entry
Warmoesstraat 127
Amsterdam

Waldo Rojas-Serrano (drawing)

Bert Schierbeek Memorial

As you die
you meet the light
of before creation

—Bert Schierbeek

Where to begin, at the beginning with a commemorative book to Bert Schierbeek. In the beginning was light, at the crematorium, the poets of the world paid homage to the fallen hero. We, the tribe, were 500 poets strong, but down one poet, we were 499 poets, we were both deluded and undiluted by light. Bert would've liked that pun.

Charles McGeehan, and I stood with the Dutch poets, wild-maned Jan Wolkers, a painter, Willem van Toorn and Simon Vinkenoog. I was well-sandwitched between corpulent Belgian poet, Hugo Claus, and Martin Mooij, who founded Poetry International in 1970.

Festival director, Martin Mooij, had invited Herman Berlandt and I to Poetry International. Herman founded Mother Earth Journal,; Uniting the world Through Poetry, an offshoot of San Francisco's National Poetry Week festival, which he also founded. (No, not Emma Goldman's anarchist rag, but the poems themselves are anarchists, focusing on the current political and ecological global crisis we're in.)

A musician played Route 66 on the trombone, it was a Beat poet homage moment. A woman placed poems on his coffin. We paraded past Bert one last time, someone left roses, we left a copy of Mother Earth Journal with Bert's poems in it. Bert was very supportive of our journal. When the crematorium doors opened, the furnaces roared like lions. We sent Bert, liberated from life, into the flames, the furnaces roared with joy.

We sent Bert off with words that burned like the stars; his coffin was a fiery arc in search of a new art form. We blanketed it with flowers and poems to offer Bert safe passage in order to meet the light that was born before creation. 

As we wept, Remco Campert read a final poem to Bert:

BERT 

So fragile
his legs
in his trousers
his chest
in his shirt
his hands bruised
from the work
of death
yet suddenly
a glimpse of a wink
never say die
let somebody else
say it
not Schierbeek.

     —(tr. Linde Voûte)

So much as happened in the past 24 hours, I hardly know where to begin. I did not expect to step off the plane to attend a funeral in Amsterdam. Joke (Yoka) Gerritsen of Poetry International told us last night during dinner. Schierbeek, a co-founder of the COBRA movement, died on June 9, right before the festival began. I knew Bert was sick—our host, Charles McGeehan had told us, but we fully expected to see him again. Upright.

Charles McGeehan, is Bert's brother-in-law, and translator; Charles' ex-wife was the sister of Bert's second wife, Margrait, who was killed in a car crash. Charles met us at Station Central, and we drove to the funeral.

I've met so many interesting people –Maija (I don't know her last name), whose brother is a famous actor, and whose father was a famous painter, I liked her so much on sight, I was sure she was both an artist and actor, but she has a studio for photographers, she is a makeup artist. Her art is other people's faces. She lives in Amsterdam, we will visit later, she said.

The reception was at the De Bezige Bij (Busy Bee) publishers. Poet and prolific columnist who writes for a daily newspaper, de Volkskrant, Rutger Copeland said he kept looking at me all through the service, trying to place me. I'm flattered that he was trying to figure out who I was. He probably saw me at Poetry International during previous years. Rutger was one of the famous Dutch poets my friend, and translator, Vins van Neerven, had told me about. 

Dutch poet Judith Herzog, who is a bit of a recluse was there (on previous visits, Vins wanted me to meet her but she kept brushing me off), along with Remco Campert, and one of the grand old Dutch poets, Dutch-American poet and doctor, Leo Vroman, and Toon Telegen—so many faces from Poetry International, on such a sad occasion. At the death of a poet, and such a beloved one.

I met the wife of the vice president of De Bezige Bij publishers, she was interested in our Mother Earth poetry project at, and the children's work I do. I will send her my Dutch translations of This Body is to Ask, perhaps I'll get it republished after all. 

The Holland connections are strong. I've had more cultural stimulation in 24 hours than I've had in the past two years in California.

Sipho Sepala was very pleased to get our magazine. He wanted an entire collector's set, he kept saying, I will learn much from these. Thank you. Thank you while hugging me. And so from one poet to another, the tradition of samizdat is alive and well.

Last night, Leo Vroman and I talked about the nature of physics poetry and the need for accuracy. Leo is a biochemist and hematology researcher, as well as an artist. Hematologists know of him because of a discovery named after him, called the Vroman Effect, which has to do with the attraction of blood proteins, he explained.

Leo was my dinner partner. We shared drawings. Herman and I were suffering from severe jet lag, as were American poet Barbara Goldberg, a translator, and Israeli poet, Moshe Dor from Tel Aviv. We were all practically sleeping on our dinner plates, so I drew in my journal in order to keep awake. Leo joined me.

We all went walking after dinner along the canals looking at the lights reflected thinking of Bert Schierbeek, thinking of how we let him go into the light, into the darkness and into the light. Welcome to Holland.

13 June 1996 Rotterdam, Poetry International
Quite a star-studded event.

See my article:
Poetry International AUDACIOUS TONGUES: THE HEART OF TRANSLATION

rev. from journal notes 11/2/2015

Writing the Arc

My neighbor, Sonny is adrift in a hostile sea. I've not been to bed this night, I heard him come home long after the bars have closed. He's probably sipping peach schnapps from the bottle. He may be one of the best mouth harp musicians around, but the blues have got him in a headlock, and the only way out is down and out.

I had hardly graced the covers the night before, but sleep Insists upon its due. But I resist, wanting the fullest experience I can muster. I write long past the midnight oil hour.

And I rejoice in the fact that the words come unbidden – after so long, a silence, my art was weighing me down. The piece is finally done, but I worked on it some more, and I'm pleased with much of it.

It's an odd admixture of science, the flood, and the personal essay (love gone wrong), in the form of short prose poems: Building an Arc in the Dark of the Year. Every time I think I'm done with it, it comes back and insists upon another piece. Its had me in a headlock for six months, now.

I turned in a previous iteration of the manuscript to Jane Love for the Copperfield's Literary Magazine, along with some india ink artwork. This is the first official letting go, turning the manuscript loose. It's also the beginning of healing. I do feel vindicated, and relieved to receive the gift of such a powerful piece of writing—that came from a relationship that went so terribly wrong.

They say writing is the best revenge, indeed. Maybe writing the Arc saved me. But I miss Nathan, Sonny's young son. We healed each other, and the broken father was jealous of our uncomplicated love.

June 13, 1996

Somewhere over Greenland

We fly from the night, the earth's shadow is like a visor sequined with stars. Venus and sunset lingering in the west until west becomes north, and north becomes east, and the indigo crest of night escapes to the south. We are flying north towards the light, Venus on the penumbra, a watchful eye of God.

The land gives way to ice flows as we crossed the polar sea, ice packs like rotifers in a pond soup, the echo of indigo back from the sky, circles each ice flow like a wedding ring, the marriage of sky and sea. Floating islands. No anchor.

Crossing the pool, I realize I'm in the land of the midnight sun, the colors astound the eye: vermilion on maroon, and something darker than dried blood.

That place in the sky were light and dark intersect, particle or wave? A subdued rainbow, magenta and lavender hue painted on the mountains, a pale infinity without definition of time or form.

Polar ice is loosened from the matrix. Rosiated dawn, a blushing lace gown. I keep thinking of all the time zones we've crossed, our plane is an arrow dividing light and  time. 

Land again. Was that Baffin Island? We are in the land of eternal snow, crusted slabs of granite in a swirling sea of ice.

From the air, Tahoe was a skullcup of indigo wine held up to the thirsty sky, Mono Lake in a granite goblet. The earth falling away on all sides, as if by surprise.

I was just in Grand Rapids in September, I recognized it from the air, and though the approach was new, my eyes were hungry for the details of geography, dendritic patterns, the seasonal lakes alive again after decades of thirst.

We are in the air hurtling towards dawn at 33,000 feet, at 615 mph or is it kilometers per hour? Flying half the speed of the earth's rotation, the icy sea dissolves into clouds, and the repeated patterns delight the eye. 

I don't know where we are, but now the sea is free of ice flows, small icebergs, like fishing boats, or castles, are headed south for the summer, headed forward toward their own demise. 

June 12 - 13th 1996, midair over the polar circle headed towards Amsterdam.

Going away BBQ

I decided to throw a barbecue of sorts as my going away present to Steve and George. I started out by having dinner with Steve, and George. Then Paul came home and joined us, and Mark (who is Mark?) joined us too. Only Alastair and Sonny were missing from the home gang. Then Trygve pulled up on his motorcycle. Wow. Full house. Yeah, I liked the odds. I was holding court with five men, and Edwin had called today. My planets must be in lust.

Trygve and I went for a bike ride to the vineyards at Mark West Creek. Piper Sonoma, or Mark West Vineyards, some of those grapes go to DeLoach as well. Anyway, it was a chardonnay field. We parked the bike, after having ditched the helmets, we were riding free among the vines. Delicious chill of summer night against my skin. Here I am at 43 and a half, riding through the vineyards in the dark without helmet, without headlights, on a vintage Triumph, and having naughty bits.

Trygve dropped me off at the doorstep and I went over to visit Steve. I'd had a bit of wine. Wild Hog Pinot Noir and Foxhollow Cabernet, both good 1991 vintages. The Wild Hog was a light wine, with the Foxhollow being a robust fruity wine. It was one of those wonderful gossipy summer nights that makes California a special place to live.

I am no man's woman, and so I enjoy them all on one level or another, getting what I need from each man, not flirting, not acting coy, just being exactly who I am. No games no pretense. On my terms.

Then, on June 12 I'm off to Amsterdam.

Dream: Waldo Rojas

I never did write down that dream of the businessman type lover who inhabits my dreams as of late. I don't know who he is. But I remember his face so clearly. He's a bit pudgy with glasses, a short man in a suit, in his mid 50s. An unlikely lover body type, but I love him unreservedly and I have loved him before. 

I think the dream man was Chilean poet Waldo Rojas Serrano, whom I would later meet that summer, on the solstice, at Poetry International, and we would both "recognize" each other. A strange Celtic thing, but then, he's an O'Brien.