Lưu Diệu Vân translates Michael Brennan

!cid_190BEFB7-B172-471E-8485-CCC50C29680D@wi2_neLưu Diệu Vân, born December 1979, is a Vietnamese poet, literary translator, and managing editor of the bilingual Culture Magazin.  She received her Master’s Degree from the University of Massachusetts in 2009. Her bilingual works have appeared in numerous Vietnamese print literary journals and online magazines. www.luudieuvan.com. Her publications include 47 Minutes After 7, poetry, Van Nghe Publisher, (2010), The Transparent Greenness of Grass, flash fiction, Tre Publishing House, co-author (2012), Poems of Lưu Diệu Vân, Lưu Mêlan & Nhã Thuyên, poetry, Vagabond Press, co-author (2012).

 

!cid_1FEA160E-C469-459D-8723-B2011245D3BB@wi2_neMichael Brennan is a Tokyo-based writer and publisher. His most recent collection Autoethnographic was short-listed for the Victorian Premier’s Award and won the Grace Leven Prize. He established and runs Vagabond Press, one of the most prolific publishers of poetry in translation from Asia Pacific. His first collection translated into Vietnamese translated by Lưu Diệu Vân is forthcoming from Hanoi-based AJAR Press, and a second collection  in Japanese, titled アリバイ, translated by Yasuhiro Yotsumoto and in collaboration with Korean artist Jieun June Kim was released in July 2015.

 

Cast away

You’re a message in a bottle cast into the
ocean forty years ago at the end of a great
conflagration in a country no one cares much
for anymore. Drifting in that ocean of yours,
there are the great things to ponder: sky and
ocean, and you between with the message
you carry that no one has read. It’s all so
heartless in its ways, this mystery that was
halfway through when you awoke. Even if
you knew the beginning you doubt it’d make
much sense and somehow know now the end
will be a let down compared to the horrors
you’ve been imagining in the quiet moments,
which are many. Still, the sky is endless and
the ocean deep and its warm here inside the
unnameable. When you drift back to the
haste in which you were written, that long arc
of inertia that sent you out into the breakers
and the days heading out to open ocean, you
feel a little teary with everything that’s
passed and the hope that started it all. Some
nights, rocking on the waves under the stars,
you remember being in pieces on the shore
and her hand quickly scribbling you into
being, the distant cracks of gunfire bursting
distance, the night sky bright with burning
buildings and those rough voices getting
closer, when she stuffed you in your glass
cell and sent you on your way. It’s true you
will never get out and so you’re left to
wonder what witness you bear: an
accusation, a plea for mercy, a suicide note,
perhaps a last ditch love letter.


 
Noah in love

‘If one of us dies, I’m moving to Paris.’
That’s how it started, love, liquid and light,
no escape clause, no pre-nup, a cardigan and
fluffy slippers and the refrain of per capita
happiness indexed against inflation. #2+2=5.
LOL. It’s a business strategy, gimlet, not a
song! We’d friended on Facebook. I’d been
distracted, cruising drunk, hoping for just a
little disambiguation, to be fluently human as
YouTube. Then the fateful day she updated
her status and a little part of me died. I’d
followed their relationship for months,
lurking on the edge, thrilled by the
singularity, of love posted, cascades
intoxicating, distant and sweet. I learnt
French, then tried my hand at Java, PHP,
HTML, wanting to slip under the skin of
things, to get to grips with the apparent
devotion, the lack of context, the ease of
emotion. Think of it, Wherever US is, WE
are!! I’ve downloaded everything, I’m
learning every move she made on the
Boul'Mich' late last summer. I’m a study in
readiness, the promise of reincarnation.



Trôi giạt

Mi là mẩu tin trong chiếc chai bị ném vào đại
dương bốn mươi năm trước vào điểm cuối
cơn đại hỏa hoạn ở một đất nước chẳng ai
màng biết đến nữa. Trôi giạt trong đại dương
của mi, ngẫm suy bao điều to lớn: bầu trời và
đại dương, mi lẫn ở giữa cùng lời nhắn mi
đeo mang chưa ai từng đọc. Quá đỗi vô tình,
điều huyền bí ở khoảng giữa lúc mi tỉnh dậy.
Ngay cả khi đã biết điểm khởi đầu mi cũng
hồ nghi liệu điều ấy có ý nghĩa gì và cớ
chừng bây giờ biết rằng điểm cuối kết sẽ là
nỗi thất vọng so với những ghê rợn mi đã
tưởng tượng trong những phút lặng im, rất
thường. Thế mà, bầu trời vẫn bao la và đại
dương sâu thẳm, và nỗi ấm áp bên trong điều
không thể gọi tên này. Khi mi giạt trở lại lúc
mi được viết nên trong hối hả, vòng cung lê
thê của sự trì trệ ấy đã đẩy mi vào những con
sóng lớn, và trong những ngày trôi ra biển
rộng, mi rưng rưng nghĩ lại tất thảy những gì
đã qua và niềm hy vọng đã khơi nguồn mọi
thứ. Nhiều đêm, lênh đênh trên sóng dưới sao
trời, mi nhớ thuở còn là những mảnh rời trên
bờ và bàn tay nàng thoăn thoắt những nét chữ
thành hình mi, tiếng súng gãy vỡ lạnh nổ dòn
từ phía xa, đêm rực cháy những tòa nhà và
những giọng nói nặng nề càng lúc càng dồn
gần, khi nàng nhét mi vào nhà tù thủy tinh và
đẩy mi đi. Sự thật là mi sẽ không bao giờ
thoát khỏi, nên mi chẳng thể làm gì ngoài
việc tự hỏi mi đang cưu mang nhân chứng gì:
một lời kết tội, sự cầu xin tha thứ, tâm thư
tuyệt mạng, hoặc có thể là một tình thư tuyệt
vọng cuối cùng.


Noah đang yêu

‘Nếu một trong hai ta chết, anh sẽ chuyển tới
Paris.’ Chuyện bắt đầu như thế, tình yêu, chất
lỏng và ánh sáng, không điều khoản lối thoát,
không hợp đồng tiền hôn nhân, một chiếc áo
len và đôi dép bông cùng sự kiềm chế của tỷ
lệ hạnh phúc trên mỗi đầu người tính theo chỉ
số lạm phát. #2+2=5. LOL. Đây là chiến lược
thương mại, mũi khoan, không phải bài ca!
Mình đã kết bạn trên Facebook. Tôi lúc ấy
rối bời, chuếnh choáng say, hy vọng dù chỉ
một chút gì sáng sủa, để nhuần nhị con người
như YouTube. Rồi đến cái ngày định mệnh
nàng cập nhật trạng thái mới, trong tôi chết đi
một phần. Tôi dõi theo quan hệ của họ hàng
tháng trời, ẩn mình bên lề, phấn khích với
tính chất độc đáo, của tình yêu được công bố,
say sưa như thác chảy, xa cách và ngọt ngào.
Tôi học tiếng Pháp, rồi thử cả Java, PHP,
HTML, mong muốn ngụp sâu vào mọi sự,
gắng thấu hiểu sự thành tâm hiển lộ, sự thiếu
ngữ cảnh, sự thanh thản của cảm xúc. Nghĩ
xem, Nơi Nào có HAI TA, thì MÌNH ở đó!!
Tôi tải về mọi thứ, tôi tìm biết từng chuyển
động của nàng tại Boul’Mich’ vào cuối hè
vừa qua. Tôi là đối tượng nghiên cứu của sự
sẵn sàng, một hứa hẹn của hóa sinh.

Denisa Duran translated by Florin Bican

SONY DSCDenisa Duran (b. 1980) is a Romanian poet, translator and cultural manager, author of four poetry books: the award-winning debut collection Pufos şi mechanic (Fluffy and Mechanical), Bucharest, 2003, was followed by the bilingual book Omul de unică folosință / Disposable People (translated into English by Florin Bican), published by Galway Print in Ireland (2009) and promoted during a reading tour in Cork, Limerick, Galway and Dublin; in 2012 she published Sunt încă tânără (I Am Still Young) – a selection of which was included in the anthology The Most Beautiful Poems from 2012; in December 2014 her new book came out, Dorm, dar stau cu tine (I Am Asleep, Yet Keep You Company), accompanied by illustrations. She signed her first three collections with her maiden name of Denisa Mirena Pişcu.

Selections of her poems have been included in several national and international anthologies and translated into: English, Czech, Bulgarian, German, Italian, Turkish, Arabic and Finnish.

 

Amintirile atârnă în mine

Amintirile atârnă în mine
grele
ca nişte mere verzi
cu viermi.
Viermi
şi sub ţărână,
departe,
în adânc,
au spălat oasele
alor mei.




Netezesc mormântul

Netezesc mormântul,
smulg buruienile,
trag cu mâinile de pământ,
ca de-o pătură,
încercând să-i trezesc.





Oamenii se adună în jurul lui

Tatăl
mânca din mâna mea
cu greu.
Şi a murit.

Oamenii se adună în jurul lui
grijulii,
preocupaţi
să nu se molipsească de moarte.




Candele

Am fost ieri pe la Europa
să împrumut o cană de ulei
pentru prăjit cartofi
(sunem mulţi şi mereu se termină uleiul
de parcă l-ar da cineva pe gât).
E drept, E. nu ştie
şi nici nu e treaba ei,
dar o părticică din uleiul pe datorie,
încleiat sau lucios,
eu îl pun la candelele aprinse
pentru morţii mei
şi ai săi.
Memories Hang Inside Me

Memories hang inside me
as heavy
as green apples
ridden with worms.
Worms
under the dirt,
deep down
in the earth,
have also washed clean
the bones
of my people.



I Level the Grave

I level the grave,
I pluck out the weeds,
I tug with my hands at the earth
as if it were a blanket,
attempting to shake them awake.





People Gather Around Him

The father
would eat out of my hand
with difficulty.
And he died.

People gather around him
reluctantly
worried
lest they catch death.




The Lamps I Light Up

Yesterday I dashed over to Europe
to borrow some cooking oil
for frying potatoes
(there’s too many of us and we keep running out
as if someone were guzzling the stuff).
Truth be told, E. doesn’t know,
nor is it her business,
that I pour the tiniest portion
of the oil on loan,
be it rancid or fresh,
into the lamps I light up
for my dead
and for hers.

Mario Bojórquez translated by Mario Licón Cabrera

BojórquezMario Bojórquez (Los Mochis, Sinaloa 1968) is a Mexican poet, essayist and translator. Since 1991 to date he has published 9 collections of poetry. His work has been widely awarded, including The National Poetry Prize  Clemencia Isaura (1995.) The National Poetry Prize  Aguascalientes (2007) the most wanted poetry award in México. The Alhambra Award for American Poetry (2012) Granada, Spain, amongst many other awards.

 

Mario Licón Cabrera (1949) is a Mexican poet and translator living in Sydney since 1992, he has published four collections of poetry and translated many Australian leading poets into Spanish.

 

La piedra más alta

Fui contando las piedras del camino
una por una

todas

La piedra más alta
era la nube de tu sueño

el hueco de tu sueño

Yo lo supe 

y fui contando las veces que el amor
nos abrió las puertas del destino.



Arte poética

Hemos visto
el ámbito azul de la tristeza

el vestigio insondable de lo que ya se va
Hemos visto también

cómo el descuido de la tarde

nos trajo la memoria de un árbol habitado por su sombra
Tú has visto

mi rostro entre las piedras del sepulcro
la muerte avanzando
Tú ves

el espacio irrevocable de la felicidad
el tiempo de la sonrisa
Yo veo

estas palabras dispersas
                    el poema.




Ditirambo

Acércate conmigo al fuego de las tribulaciones
que el abismo abierto entre los cuerpo
s
sea el espacio de una danza
               la caída o el vuelo
Acércate conmigo al borde del peligro insospechado
Que tus manos inventen otra vez

mi piel y mis sentidos.
The highest stone

I went along the road counting its stones
one by one
all of them
The highest stone
was the cloud of your dream
the hollow of your dream
I knew it
and I went on counting the times that love
unlocked destiny’s gates for us.



Ars poetica

We have seen
the blue sphere of sadness
the inscrutable vestige of what is now vanishing
We have also seen
how the carefree afternoon
brought us the memory of a tree inhabited by its shadow
You have seen
my face amongst the grave stones
death advancing
You see
The irrevocable space of happiness
the time for smiles
I see
These scattered words
                   the poem.



Dithyramb

Come with me closer to the fire of misfortunes
so the open abyss between our bodies
turns into a dance space
               the fall or the glide
Come with me closer to the edge of unexpected peril
So your hands once again invent
my skin, my senses.

The Burial by Bijan Najdi translated by Laetitia Nanquette & Ali Alizadeh

bijan najdiBijan Najdi (1941-1997) was an Iranian poet and short-story writer, famous for his collection The Leopards Who Have Run With Me (1994), from which the selected short-story “The Burial” comes from. His style is characterized by the use of unfamiliar and poetical images offering a fresh perspective on the everyday world.

 

 

 

The Burial

Translated by Ali Alizadeh and Laetitia Nanquette

Taher stopped singing in the shower and listened to the sound of the water. He watched the water flow down the sagging skin of his thin arms. The smell of soap dripped from his hair. Steam encircled the old man’s head. When he threw the towel around his shoulders, he felt as if parts of his body’s old age stuck to the long red towel and the swollen veins of his legs stopped throbbing. He buried his head in the towel and lingered by the door of the bathroom until he started to feel cold. Then he dragged himself to the mirror of the main room and saw that he was indeed an old man now.

In the mirror, he could see the breakfast spread on the floor and Maliheh’s profile. The samovar was boiling, silently in the mirror and loudly in the room, and Taher and his image in the mirror warmed up to it.

Maliheh said: “Don’t open the window; you’ll catch a cold, ok?”

Friday was behind the window with its incredible resemblance to all the winter’s Fridays. An electric line was bulging under the blackness of birds. The curtain dividing the main room was motionless and the wood-burner was burning to the song of the sparrows. Taher sat down for breakfast, switched on the radio (…with minus 11, theirs was the coldest part of the country), and raised a glass of tea.

Maliheh, turning her face towards the window, said, “Listen, it sounds like there’s something going on outside.”

Their home had a balcony overlooking the only paved street of the village. Twice a week, the sound of the train arrived, passed the window, and ended up on the broken pieces of the plasterwork of the ceiling. On the days when Taher did not feel like reading the old newspapers, when the smell of the old paper made him feel sick and when Maliheh was too tired to sing the forgotten songs of Qamar through her dentures, they went to the balcony to listen to the sound of the train, without ever seeing it.

“I’m talking to you, Taher. Let’s see what’s going on outside.”

Taher put down his glass on the tablecloth and went with his wet hair to the balcony, his mouth full of bread and cheese. There were people running towards the end of the street.

“What’s happening?” asked Maliheh.

She was more or less sixty years old. Thin. Her lips had sagged. She did not pluck her facial hair anymore.

“I don’t know.”

“I hope it’s not a corpse again… They must have found a corpse again.”

Even if Maliheh had not said “a corpse again”, they would have continued to eat their breakfast remembering the hot and sticky summer day when they had argued about the choice of a name: the day when the sun had crossed the frontier of Khorasan, lingered a bit on the Gonbad-e Qabus tower and travelled from there to the village to spread a pale dawn on Maliheh’s clothesline.

Taher, in the bed saturated with Sunday’s sun, had woken up to the music that Maliheh’s feet made each day. Maliheh would soon open the wooden door, and then she did just that. Before putting the bread on the breakfast spread, Maliheh said:

“Get up, Taher, get up.”

“What’s happening?”

“At the bakery, people said they’d found a corpse under the bridge.”

“A what?”

“A dead body… Everyone’s going to have a look at it, get up.”

The two of them walked towards the bridge. There were people standing on it and looking down. For such a crowd, they were not making much noise. A warm wind was blowing towards the mulberry trees. A few young men were sitting on the edge of the bridge with their legs pointing down to the sound of the water. The police had formed a circle around a jeep. As soon as Maliheh and Taher arrived at the bridge, the police placed the corpse into the jeep and drove away.

Maliheh asked a young girl: “Who was it, my dear?

“I don’t know.”

“He was young?”

“I don’t know.”

“You didn’t see?”

The young girl moved away from Maliheh.

A man leaning on the railing of the bridge said: “I saw him. He was all blown up and dark. It was a kid, Mother, a little one.”

Taher took Maliheh’s arm. The bridge and the man and the river swirled around her. All that could be seen of the jeep was some dust moving towards the village.

“This man called me Mother, did you hear Taher? He called me…”

The sun had set. There was a little triangle of sweat on the back of Taher’s shirt.

Maliheh said: “Where are they taking this kid now? Was he dead? Maybe he was in the water playing and then…” The warm wind had failed to ripen any mulberries and had come back to ruffle Maliheh’s chador. “I didn’t find out how old he was! Take my hand, Taher.”

“Let’s sit down for a bit.”

Maliheh was thinking, if only there were children here instead of all these trees. “Ask someone where they’re taking him, will you?”

“Probably to the police station or to the clinic.”

Maliheh was thinking, if only I could see him.

Taher added: “What is there to see anyway, it’s just a kid.”

“That’s what I’ve been telling you.”

“You want to go and see Yavari?”

 

The doors of the clinic were open. There was a row of tall pine trees in the alley leading to the building’s landing, so dry that summer paled to insignificance next to them.

Doctor Yavari shook Taher’s hand and asked Maliheh: “Have you been taking your pills?”

“Yes.”

The doctor asked Taher: “Is she sleeping well at night?”

Maliheh interrupted: “Doctor, they’ve found a child. Do you know about this?”

“Yes.”

“Where is he now?”

“They’ve put him in the storeroom.”

“Storeroom? A kid? In the storeroom?”

“You know we don’t have a morgue here.”

“What will they do with him?”

“They’ll keep him ‘til tomorrow. If nobody comes to claim him, well, they’ll bury him.”

“If nobody comes, if nobody claims him, can we take him?”

“Can you… what?”

Taher said: “Take the child with us? What for, Maliheh?”

“We will bury him, we will bury him ourselves. Maybe then we can love him. Even now, it’s as if, as if… I love him…” Maliheh buried her head in her chador and the cry that she had kept from the bridge to the clinic broke out and her thin shoulders twisted under her chador and she blew her nose into her covered fist.

Taher poured a glass of water. The doctor had Maliheh lying down on a wooden bench. He stuck a thin needle under the skin of her hand. A bit of cotton with two drops of blood fell in the small bucket near the bench and until sunset that day, until the not-passing of the sound of the train, Maliheh did not open her eyes and did not say a single word.

 

It was Friday. The curtain of the main room was motionless and the wood-burner was burning to the song of the sparrows. The white winter, on that side of the window, wandered with its white coldness.

Maliheh said: “So many names, but nothing in the end.”

“We will eventually find one.”

“If we couldn’t find a name that day, then we can’t. Which day of the week was it, Taher?”

“The day when we went to the bridge?”

“No, the following day, when we went to the clinic…”

The day following that Sunday nobody came to claim the corpse. So on Monday, they sent the corpse from the clinic to the cemetery, carried on a crate, rolled up in a grey sheet. Outside of the clinic’s courtyard, Maliheh and Taher, who were not dressed in black, in a weather that was neither sunny nor rainy, started to walk at a slower pace than the man who carried the crate, who changed it from one hand to the other from time to time and sometimes rested it on the ground or against the trunk of a tree. They went around the small square of the village and entered its sole street. In front of the coffeehouse, the man rested the crate under a lamppost, which, although it did not look at all like a tree, was casting a shadow on the ground just like one. The coffeehouse keeper poured water from a jug and the man washed his hands and stayed at the same place to drink a glass of hot milk from the saucer. Maliheh turned her head and felt something leaking from between her breast to her shirt just as she walked past the crate. Taher slowed down his pace. Even though their house was nearby, Maliheh and Taher did not return home and stood still until the man was ready, for they did not wish the break the solemn silence of the funeral procession. They even stopped and looked at the balcony of their house where the window was still open to let the sound of the train enter, and they saw a young Maliheh bending to pour water in a flowerpot. When she lifted her head, an old Maliheh was gathering the empty flowerpots. Maliheh, with her firm flesh and her dark hair loosened, opened the curtain. Maliheh, with her small face and her hair tainted with henna, was walking in the rain. It rained just a few drops and then the man entered the cemetery. Taher and his wife had walked over the grass between the stones, a few steps away from the house where the corpses were washed. The burial ceremony—grey, dusty—lasted so long that they eventually had to sit down on the wet grass. When the gravediggers left, one could still hear the sound of the spade.

Taher said: “Get up, let’s go.”

“Help me then.”

They held on to one another. One could not say which one was supporting the other. As they struggled to stay on their feet, Maliheh said: “So he belongs to us now, no? Now we have a child who’s dead…”

All around them were stones, names and dates of birth…

Maliheh added: “We must tell them to carve a stone for him.”

“Ok.”

“We must find him a name.”

“…”

“…”

 

It was Friday; the wood-burner was burning to the song of the sparrows and from the balcony one could hear the hubbub of the people echoing from the other end of the street. They were making so much noise that Taher and Maliheh could not hear the sound of the train, approaching, passing, disappearing.

 

***

downloadLAETITIA NANQUETTE is a French translator and academic, based at the University of New South Wales, Sydney, specializing on contemporary Iranian literature and World Literature. She frequently travels to Iran.

 

 

 

???????????????????????????????ALI ALIZADEH is a Melbourne-based writer and lecturer at Monash University, and is co-editor and co-translator, with John Kinsella, of Six Vowels and Twenty Three Consonants: An Anthology of Persian Poetry from Rudaki to Langroodi

Mario Licón Cabrera translates Ali Cobby Eckermann

MLCMario Licón Cabrera (1949) is a Mexican poet and translator living in Sydney since 1992, he has publishe four collectios of poetry and has translated many Australian leading poets into Spanish . He’s currently conducting a Creative Writing and Reading workshop (in Spanish) at The nag’s head hotel, in Glebe, NSW every first Saturday of each month.

 
 
 
 
 
 
 

Kami

I walk to the south
I walk to the north

Where are you
My warrior?

I sit with the desert
I sit with the ocean

Where are you
My warrior?

I sing in the sand
I sing with the the rocks

Where are you
My warrior?

I dance with the birds
I dance with the animals

Where are you
My warrior?

Heaven is every were
Where are you?

 
Abuela

Camino hacia el sur
Camino hacia el norte

Dónde estás
Guerrero mío?

Me siento con el desierto
Me siento con el océano

Dónde estás
Guerrero mío?

Canto en la arena
Canto con las rocas

Dónde estás
Guerrero mío?

Danzo con los pájaros
Danzo con los animales

Dónde estás
Guerrero mío?

El cielo está por todas partes
Dónde estás tú?

 
Wild Flowers

Mallets pound fence posts
in tune with the rifles
to mask massacre sites
Cattle will graze
sheep hooves will scatter
children’s bones
Wildflowers will not grow
where the bone powder
lies
 
 
Flores Silvestres

Los masos golpean postes de cercas
a tono con los rifles
para ocultar los sitios de la massacre

El ganado pastará
las pesuñas de las ovejas dispersarán
osamentas infantiles

Las flores silvestres no crecerán
donde el polvo de los huesos
reposa

 

Crows

early dawn crows
tell of your impending arrival
that first day I wait
I fall asleep in the street
an earth angel comes
siting beside me
to divert the traffic.

the second day
neighbours wave brooms shouting
we don’t understand you,
you’re too different,
please don’t visit anymore
above my sobbing I heard the crows
tell me you’re closer.

on the third day
a blanket of crows
curtains my bedroom window
I stay in bed until
the knock on the door.

 
Cuervos

temprano por la madrugada los cuervos
hablan de tu inminente arrivo
ese primer día de mi espera
caí dormida en la calle
un ángel terrestre llega
se sienta a mi lado
para desviar el tráfico.

el segundo día
los vecinos agitan sus escobas gritando
no te entendemos,
eres muy diferente,
por favor no vuelvas más
arriba de mis sollozos oía a los cuervos
diciéndome que estabas muy cerca.

al tercer día
una parvada de cuervos
acortina la ventana de mi recámara
me quedo en cama hasta
el llamado en la puerta.

Luke Fischer translates Evening Poems by Goethe, Trakl and Ausländer

Photo Luke FischerLuke Fischer is a Sydney-based poet and scholar. His publications include the poetry collection Paths of Flight (Black Pepper, 2013), a monograph on Rilke and phenomenology (Bloomsbury, forthcoming 2015) and a book of bedtime stories (The Blue Forest, 2014), as well as poems, translations and articles in Australian and international journals. He won the 2012 Overland Judith Wright Poetry Prize and was commended in the 2013 FAW Anne Elder Award for a first book of poems. In 2008 he was awarded a PhD in philosophy from the University of Sydney. He has held post-doctoral fellowships and taught at universities in the U.S. and Germany.

WANDRERS NACHTLIED II

Über allen Gipfeln
Ist Ruh,
In allen Wipfeln
Spürest du
Kaum einen Hauch.
Die Vögelein schweigen im Walde.
Warte nur, balde
Ruhest du auch.


––Johann Wolfgang von Goethe (1749-1832)

VERKLÄRUNG

Wenn es Abend wird,
Verlässt dich leise ein blaues Antlitz.
Ein kleiner Vogel singt im Tamarindenbaum.

Ein sanfter Mönch
Faltet die erstorbenen Hände.
Ein weisser Engel sucht Marien heim.

Ein nächtiger Kranz
Von Veilchen, Korn und purpurnen Trauben
Ist das Jahr des Schauenden.

Zu deinen Füssen
Öffnen sich die Gräber der Toten,
Wenn du die Stirne in die silbernen Hände legst.

Stille wohnt
An deinem Mund der herbstliche Mond,
Trunken von Mohnsaft dunkler Gesang;

Blaue Blume,
Die leise tönt in vergilbtem Gestein.


––Georg Trakl (1887-1914)

VERWANDTER TRÄUMER

Abend
verwandter Träumer
mit Schweigen
begabt

Du zeigst
dem Menschen
das Ziel
das sanfte Hinüber
in eine
andere Welt

––Rose Ausländer (1901-1988)




WANDERER’S NIGHTSONG II

Calm is
Over every hill,
In all the canopies
You can feel
Barely a breath.
The birds in the forest keep silent.
Wait a while and
You too will rest.




TRANSFIGURATION

When the evening comes
A blue face quietly leaves you.
A small bird sings in the tamarind tree.

A gentle monk
Folds the lifeless hands.
A white angel distresses Mary.

A nightly wreath
Of violets, grain and purple grapes
Is the year of one who sees.

At your feet
Graves of the dead open up,
When you lay your brow in silver hands.

Upon your mouth
Silently dwells the autumn moon,
Dark song drunk on poppy-sap;

Blue blossom
That quietly sounds in yellowed stone.




RELATED DREAMER

Evening
related dreamer
gifted
with silence

You show
human beings
the goal
the gentle transfer
into
another world



Liang Yujing translates Zuo You

Liang YujingLiang  Yujing writes in both English and Chinese,  and is now a lecturer, in China, at Hunan  University of Commerce. His publications include Willow Springs, Wasafiri, Epiphany, Boston Review, Los Angeles Review, Bellevue Literary Review, and many  others.

 

 

 

 

 

Zuo YouZuo  You is a Chinese poet based in Xi’an. His poems have appeared in some major  literary magazines in China. He is hearing-impaired and can only speak a few  simple words.

 

 

 

 

The Hotel

Celestial trees stand upside down outside the window. The train a crackless gap
falling down from the clouds. Tonight I stay with bats,
crooning for darkness. Rocks contract their four fingers.

The wall gradually resembles the face of my grandma who died a decade ago.
Empty bells mingle with streetlight. Under the moon,

the tea is fragrant. A woman guest stays in the adjoining room, playing the flute.
One of her oil-copper breasts lies outside the quilt. Laden with grief,

she plays a series of vacant echoes.
Whose cat suddenly jumps on the table? A teacup rolls. It keeps up its courage:
tiptoed, it creeps into the hot edge of the woman guest’s quilt.


旅馆

左右
窗外倒立着天空的树。火车像云朵上掉下来的
没有裂痕的缺口。今夜我和蝙蝠们在一起
为黑暗低歌。岩石紧缩着四个手指头
墙面越来越和逝去十年的老祖母——脸庞吻合 

空荡荡的钟,和路灯交杂在一起。月光下
茶香喷喷。吹笛的女旅客,住在我左手隔壁
她一只油铜色的乳房,掉在被外。忧伤满面
吹出空荡荡的回声 

谁家的猫突然窜在桌面上,茶杯翻滚。它一直在鼓足勇气:
轻手轻脚,溜进女旅客滚烫的被角

 


Horary Chart

Cold night falls. It keeps raining. The air is fresh.
Inside me, a horary chart is turning without stop. Petals clinging to the ground.
A conscious wind gently knocks at my door. The sandglass on my lips has foretold:
my dream will go back to where you are lost.

 

桃花上的卦盘

寒夜来临。雨一直下着,带有清新的空气
身体里的卦盘旋转个不停,花瓣沾在地角
风随意识轻轻敲门。唇上的沙漏预告过我:

在哪里遗失过你,我就梦回哪里

 

Zeina Issa translates Khalid Kaki

GetAttachmentZeina Issa is a Sydney based interpreter and translator, a columnist for El-Telegraph Arabic newspaper and a poet.

 

 

 

 

 

Khalid Kaki was born in Karkouk, Iraq. He moved to Madrid, Spain and has resided there since 1996. He is a poet, writer, artist and musician. He won the Grand Prize of Poetry at the International Poetry Nights at Curtea de Arges, Romania in 2012. He has published three poetry collections.

 

A belated message from “Halabja”

The children, the mules
and the dragonflies
fell asleep exhausted
in the shade of the village’s clay walls,
they will not wake up again…
Nor will the sunflowers
bowing their heads after the last sunset…

*  *  *

The women villagers
the harvesters of wheat,
the carriers of water from the spring,
the milkers of the morning’s first drop…
They shall stop
at this border in life,
despite the faithful sun
promising them much more

*  *  *

The singing voice of the pupils
spreading across the mountain’s map,
hurried towards the ringing bell of death
thinking it was time for class…

*  *  *

The sticky white clouds
did not distinguish the snakes from the sparrows,
nor the gates from the tiny windows…
They travelled through the houses and the alleys
and devoured the swallows’ nests,the village’s lamps,
its rocks and its fruits…
And they stretched, bleating inside the stables
like an animal spattering its poison and flames

*  *  *

Cadavers embraced
grabbing each other in fear…
The four cardinal points
were leading to the same direction…
They died on their land
it was the only direction

*  *  *

The deformed birds made of steel
dropped their weighty gifts on them…
Coated by wrappers of pain
they returned to eternity

*  *  *

The dreams, the shoes and the horseshoes
melted in the crucible of this little hell…
Death was a mobile well
drenched in captured lives.

رسالة متأخِّرة من “حلبجة”

الأطفال والبِـغال

واليـعاسـب

التي رقدت منهكـةً

في ظل الـجدران الطـيـنـيّـة في القريـة ،

لن يـستـيـقظـوا بـعد الآن ..

كذلك أزهار الشـمـس

التي أطرقَـت بعد الغروب الأخير..

* * *

نساء القريـة

حاصدات السنابل،

حاملات الـماء من الـنَـبع،

حالبـات ضرع الصـباح ..

سـيَـتَـوَقَّـفـنَ

عند هذا الـحد من الـحياة،

رغـم إن الشمسَ الـمخـلِصة

وعَـدَتـهُم بالـمَـزيـد

* * *

نَـشـيد التلامـيذ الـمُنتشرين

على خارطـة الـجبل،

لـحـقَ راكضاً بـجرس الـموت

ظانّـاً أنـّهُ الدرس ..

* * *

السُحُب البِـيـض الـلَّـزجـة

لـم تـميـِّز الأفاعي مِن العصافـيـر،

ولا الأبواب مِن الكـوى ..

سارَت في الـمساكن والشِعاب

والتهمت أعشاش السـنونـو،

وفوانـيـس القـريـة

وأحـجارها والـثِـمار ..

وتَـمـَطـَّت وثَـغـَتْ في الإسطـبـلات

كـحيوانٍ من نِـثـار الـسُم والنـار

* * *

تعانـقت الـجُـثَـث

تـتخـاطَفُ فـزعاً ..

إلـى بعضها كانَـت

تؤدي الـجهات الأربـع ..

ماتوا في أرضهم

التي كانت الـجهة الوحيدة

* * *

الطيور الـحديدية الشـوهاء

ألـقـت علـيـهم

هدايـاهـا الـثـقـيـلـة ..

مغمورين بالألـم الـمغـلَّف

عـادوا إلى الأبـد

* * *

الأحلام والأحـذيـة والـحدوات

ذابت في بوتـقة الجحيم الصغيـر..

كـان الـموت بـئـراً متحـركـة

تـنـضَحُ بأقـفال العُمرِ الكبـيـرة

He went and came back

He went to the orchard
and came back with a flower…
To the shops
and came back with bread
and a can of sardines..
To the war
and came back with a thick beard
and letters from the dead!

  ذهبَ وعادَ

ذَهب إلى البستان

فعاد بزهرة..

وإلى السوق

وعاد بخبز

وعلبة سردين..

وإلى الحرب

فعاد بلحية كـثـة

ورسائل من موتى !

Jan Owen translates Charles Baudelaire

Jan OwenJan Owen’s most recent book is Poems 1980 – 2008. Her selection of Baudelaire translations has been accepted for publication in the U.K., and a New and Selected, The Offhand Angel, is also forthcoming in the UK with Eyewear Publishing.  

 

 

 

 

 

La mort des amants

Nous aurons des lits pleins d’odeurs légères,
Des divans profonds comme des tombeaux,
Et d’étranges fleurs sur des étagères,
Ecloses pour nous sous des cieux plus beaux.

Usant à l’envi leurs chaleurs dernières,
Nos deux coeurs seront deux vastes flambeaux,
Qui réfléchiront leurs doubles lumières
Dans nos deux esprits, ces miroirs jumeaux.

Un soir fait de rose et de bleu mystique,
Nous échangerons un éclair unique,
Comme un long sanglot, tout chargé d’adieux;

Et plus tard un Ange, entr’ouvrant les portes,
Viendra ranimer, fidèle et joyeux,
Les miroirs ternis et les flammes mortes.

 

The Death of Lovers

We shall have beds imbued with faint perfumes,
and flowers from sunny lands on shelves above
the sofas deep and welcoming as tombs
will bloom for us as sweetly as our love.         

Flaring up, our hearts will shine through space                   
like blazing torches spending life’s last heat,
with our twin souls, two mirrors face to face,
reflecting back their dazzling doubled light.

One evening born of rose and mystic blue,
a lightning flash will leap between us two
like a long sob heavy with last goodbyes;

and later on, half-opening the doors,
an angel slipping in with joyful eyes
will raise the tarnished mirrors and dead fires.

 


La mort des artistes

Combien faut-il de fois secouer mes grelots
Et baiser ton front bas, morne caricature?
Pour piquer dans le but, de mystique nature,
Combien, ô mon carquois, perdre de javelots?

Nous userons notre âme en de subtils complots,
Et nous démolirons mainte lourde armature,
Avant de contempler la grande Créature
Dont l’infernal désir nous remplit de sanglots!

Il en est qui jamais n’ont connu leur Idole,
Et ces sculpteurs damnés et marqués d’un affront,
Qui vont se martelant la poitrine et le front,

N’ont qu’un espoir, étrange et sombre Capitole!
C’est que la Mort, planant comme un soleil nouveau,
Fera s’épanouir les fleurs de leur cerveau!


The Death of Artists

How often must I shake my jester’s stick
and kiss this dismal caricature? Will I ever
hit the hidden target? Tell me, quiver,
how many more lost arrows will it take?

We waste our souls in subtleties, we tire
of smashing armatures to start again
in hopes we’ll stare the mighty creature down
that we’ve sobbed over with such hellish desire.

Some have never ever known their god,
and these failed sculptors branded with disgrace
go hammering their chest and head and face,

with one last hope, a capitol of dread—
that death sweep over like a second sun
and bring to bloom the flowers of their brain.

 

 

La Cloche fêlée

Il est amer et doux, pendant les nuits d’hiver,
D’écouter, près du feu qui palpite et qui fume,
Les souvenirs lointains lentement s’élever
Au bruit des carillons qui chantent dans la brume,

Bienheureuse la cloche au gosier vigoureux
Qui, malgré sa vieillesse, alerte et bien portante,
Jette fidèlement son cri religieux,
Ainsi qu’un vieux soldat qui veille sous la tente!

Moi, mon âme est fêlée, et lorsqu’en ses ennuis
Elle veut de ses chants peupler l’air froid des nuits,
Il arrive souvent que sa voix affaiblie

Semble le râle épais d’un blessé qu’on oublie
Au bord d’un lac de sang, sous un grand tas de morts,
Et qui meurt, sans bouger, dans d’immenses efforts.

 

The Cracked Bell

How bitter-sweet it is on winter nights                                 
listening by the fire’s flicker and hiss                
to distant memories slowly taking flight
with the carillons resounding through the mist.

Faithfully the sturdy-throated bell                           
flings its holy cry abroad. Unspent
despite it’s years, it’s vigorous and well
—a veteran keeping watch inside his tent.

As for me, my soul’s cracked through with pain;
I scarcely hold a tune in sun or rain,                                                                    
and often now my voice turns weak and thin

as the last rattling breaths of a wounded man
crushed under a mound of corpses piled up high
next to a lake of blood. Struggling to die.

 

Çiğdem y Mirol self translated (with Andrew Carruthers)

images ÇIǦDEM Y MIROL was born in Ankara, Turkey, in 1983. She is a writer, and even more fundamentally in her terms, a reader. Mirol is engaged in a long project entitled QUARTET, the first part of which was published under the title Myface Book (Yüzüm Kitap) in 2012. Mirol studied American and then Turkish literature at Bilkent University, completing an MA on Orhan Pamuk’s The White Castle, and is now working towards a doctorate on Gertrude Stein, authorship and performance at the University of Gent. Her website, which contains some of her other work, including drawings, can be accessed at www.cigdemymirol.net.

ANDREW CARRUTHERS is a PhD candidate at the University of Sydney. He writes on musical analogy, musical notation and militant politics in twentieth century long poems. His work has appeared in Southerly, Mascara Literary Review and Contemporary Asian Australian Poets (Puncher and Wattmann).

 

KİTAPERFORMANS MANİFESTO

                     11.11.11                       

1.   Kitap, şimdi ve burada, yazarıyla ve okuruyla, sesli ya da sessiz bir performanstır. Kitaperformans çıplak, sabit ve metinsel bir vücuttur. Sabit olanda hareket imkânsızsa, imkânsızı mümkün kılmak için tuhaflaşmak ve saçmalamak gerekir. Tuhaflaşmak ve saçmalamak içinse kayda değer bir zekâ seviyesinin yanısıra üstün bir cesaret ile tuhaf ve saçma olanın farkına varmak, bu ikisinin o değişik gücünü kabul etmek gerekir. Bunları yapabilmek içinse herşeyden önce iyi bir okur olmak gerekir.

2.   Okurluk evrimdir. Yazarlık devrimdir. Bu bağlamda da her bağlamda olduğu gibi evrim devrimin içindedir. Okurluk ve yazarlık özel bağlamında ise evrim arketip bir yolculuktur, devrim ise narsistik bir biçimdir. Bunların ön koşulu benliktir: Tam benlik.

3.   Olmak ya da olmamak bilince endeksli bir durumdur. Bu durumsal alan, kendini kendisi dışında şu şekillerde de harekete geçirir ve olaysal alanlara dönüşür: Anlatmak ya da anlatmamak, okumak ya da okumamak, anlamak ya da anlamamak. Anlamak ya da anlamamaktan kasıt kitaperformansta keyif almak ya da keyif almamaktır. Keyif vermenin komik olmakla sınırlandırılamayacağı gibi keyif almak da gülmek ile sınırlandırılamaz.

4.   Gerçekçi değil doğrucu olmak esastır. Hayâl değil kurmaca kurmak şarttır. Çünkü amaç doğrucu bir kurmaca oluşturmaktır. Bunun ne tuhaflaşmakla ne de saçmalamakla çelişmediği gün gibi ortadadır.

5.   Kahramanlaşan okurun kurmacalama deneyimi, kurmacalaşan okurun kahramanlaşma deneyimine eşit olmanın yanısıra eştir de. Her iki durumda da söz konusu okur kitaperformans yazarının imkânsızı mümkün kılacak olan bilinçiçi okurudur. Bilinçiçi okurun kim olduğunu bilinçiçi okurdan başka kimse bilemez, bilmemelidir.

6.   Kitaperformansta yaratıcılık öksüz bir fenomendir. Ne zaman nasıl ortaya çıkacağı kitaperformansın ne zaman nasıl harekete geçeceğinin ilk ve tek koşuludur.

7.   Aşk, şimdi ve burada, okur ve yazar arasında, fâni değil metinsel bir olgudur. Bu aşk, okuma edimini yazma edimine karıştırır. Bu aşkta boşluklar hayâllerle doldurulur. Bu aşkta olumsuzluklar gizlidir. Bu aşktan sabit anlam (!) çıkarmak imkânsız bir ihtimaldir. Bu aşk birbirinden farklı biçimlerde dışavurulabilir. Bu farklılık yazarı özgünleştirmeli, okuru özgürleştirmelidir.

 

Sonsöz: «Kitaperformans Manifesto» 11.11.11 tarihinde yazıldı ve ilk kez Çiğdem y Mirol KUARTET’in ilk parçası olan Yüzüm Kitap’ta yayımlandı. Bknz. «Kitaperformans Manifesto», Yüzüm Kitap. Ankara: Kanguru Yayınları, Ağustos 2012. 299-300. ISBN: 9786054623112

 

Pre-script: When appropriate I do call “bookperformance” as “authoreader performance” or “readerauthor performance”. There are seven items of my manifesto, because I know that seven is a significant number.

 

 

BOOKPERFORMANCE MANIFESTO

11.11.11

1- The book, here and now, with its author and reader, either uttered or silent, is a performance. Bookperformance is a naked, fixed and textual body. If movement is impossible for a fixed body, to turn the impossible into the possible, it is necessary to attempt the weird and the absurd. In order to successfully attempt the weird and the absurd, you must possess not only a considerable intelligence but also an extraordinary courage for realizing and accepting the significant power of the weird and the absurd. To be able to do all these it is necessary to be a good reader.

2- Readership is an evolution. Authorship is a revolution.  In this specific context, as is true in every  context, evolution takes place within revolution. For readership and authorship, evolution is an archetypical journey whereas revolution is a narcissistic form. The prerequisite of the two is the self: the absolute self.

3- To be or not to be is a statement about consciousness. This situational field, apart from its very self, activates the following forms and turns into their corresponding action-fields: to narrate or not to narrate, to read or not to read, to understand or not to understand. In bookperformance, to understand or not to understand means to enjoy or not to enjoy. Just as giving pleasure cannot be limited to being funny, joy cannot be limited to laughter.

4- To be realistic is a matter of choice, but to be truthful is essential. To imagine is a matter of preference but to fictionalize is an obligation. Because the objective is to create a truthful fiction. This guideline does not at all oppose the attempt at the weird and the absurd.

5- The protagonized reader’s experience of fictionalization not only corresponds to the fictionalized reader’s experience of protagonization, but is even its equivalent. In both cases, the reader is the intra-conscious reader of the bookperformance author, who can turn the impossible into the possible. No one except the intra-conscious reader could (or should) recognize who the intra-conscious reader is.

6- Creativity is an orphaned phenomenon in bookperformance. How and when it occurs determines the first and the only condition of how and when bookperformance is activated.

7- Love, here and now, between the reader and the author, is not a factual but a textual matter. This love mixes the act of reading with the act of writing. In this love, the spaces are filled in with imaginings. In this love, the negations are hidden. It is an impossible possibility to deduce a fixed-meaning (!) from this love. This love may be acted out in various ways. Such diversity will render the author authentic and the reader individualistic.

 

 

Post-script: “Bookperformance Manifest” has been translated by its author Çiğdem y Mirol and first published in its Turkish version in the first piece of Çiğdem y Mirol QUARTET which is entitled as Yüzüm Kitap (Myface Book). Ankara: Kanguru Publishing. August. 2012. 299-300. ISBN:9786054623112