Michael Hamburger Event and Questions of Translation

A couple of days ago I went to an event at the British Library, 'Poet in the Archives: Michael Hamburger', with discussions between Karen Leeder, Jen Calleja and Iain Galbraith.

I will immediately admit that my interest in Michael Hamburger is (so far) almost entirely related to his translations of Paul Celan's poems: in fact, for me, he is the voice of Paul Celan in English. I have also been impressed by others' translations (Felstiner, Joris, etc) but I first encountered Celan through the English words of Michael Hamburger when I was only about 18 years old, and that was inevitably a more powerful experience than I was even able to comprehend at the time. In a way, it was good that this event didn't involve a lot of discussion of the Celan translations - it was more about his own poetry, his criticism, his correspondence, and his general approaches to translation (he also worked on Rilke and Hölderin among others), and so it broadened my horizons.

Karen Leeder said: "He wrote his criticism with the voice of a poet" and that Hamburger was interested in translation as a mirror image rather than as an imitation - "he only translated what he felt he could understand." There was discussion of the peculiar musicality of his translations, and his love of letter-writing - he sometimes kept up intense correspondences with people he'd only met once or who had simply written to him with a question or observation. Iain Galbraith, who had known him personally, quoted Hamburger as having said "The poems that don't embarrass me are the ones that surprise me." Jen Calleja, who had been working on Hamburger's material in the British Library archives, read poems based on this exploration, some of them wittily based on subjects like disgruntled readers' corrections of his English equivalents.

On a different but related note, I have just read this Asymptote article by Jen Calleja and Sophie Collins about translation: https://www.asymptotejournal.com/special-feature/jen-calleja-sophie-collins-she-knows-too-much/

I wanted to share it because I have occasionally thought of writing something along the same lines on this blog, but this is much more informed and thorough than anything I could have written. In essence, while there's an obviously growing interest in poetry translation and that's fundamentally a good thing, it's also quite obvious that some potential or even tangible problems have arisen, along the lines of poets who are only fluent in English superseding the actual translators in collaborative translation, and related issues. This article is essential reading for anyone interested in current developments in the translation of international poetry into English.

Poetry and TV: From Battlestar Galactica to The Little Drummer Girl

I recently finished watching all four seasons of Battlestar Galactica (the 2000s 'reboot' series - and yes, I am aware that it actually finished ten years ago. I'm also aware that streaming services are pure evil and that I have been watching too many box sets recently.) I'm not quite sure how I got started on this series; it is considered one of the best science fiction TV series ever made, but on the other hand, sci-fi is not usually my thing. However, Battlestar Galactica is really about politics, faith, human identity, the terrible challenges of leadership, conflicting loyalties, and a lot of other fascinating stuff, so it worked for me (as do films like Blade Runner, Inception and Arrival, and the works of Ursula Le Guin). It also turned out to have one of my favourite on-screen relationships of all time - William Adama (Edward James Olmos) and Laura Roslin (Mary McDonnell).

Anyway - in my defense for watching too much TV - I love a good poetry reference in the middle of an episode, and in Battlestar Galactica it happened during the episode 'A Disquiet Follows My Soul' (season 4), when an already bleak series has quickly become about ten times bleaker. Admiral Adama is heard reciting the first few lines of this poem by Emily Dickinson.


THERE IS A LANGUOR OF THE LIFE (Emily Dickinson)


There is a Languor of the Life
More imminent than Pain --
'Tis Pain's Successor -- When the Soul
Has suffered all it can --

A Drowsiness -- diffuses --
A Dimness like a Fog
Envelops Consciousness --
As Mists -- obliterate a Crag.

The Surgeon -- does not blanch -- at pain
His Habit -- is severe --
But tell him that it ceased to feel --
The Creature lying there --

And he will tell you -- skill is late --
A Mightier than He --
Has ministered before Him --
There's no Vitality.


I find it equally moving to imagine that some viewers will hear these words, have no idea where they're from and still be touched by them, while others will catch (or look up) the reference and appreciate the added dimension of intertextuality. Although only a few lines were quoted, the poem as a whole seemed to intersect with the show's themes in many ways.

I'm more used to finding poetry references in novels, short stories, or even non-fiction writing, but it occurred to me that I've come across several wonderful poet/poetry quotations or allusions in a few TV shows recently. In the most recent season of Elementary, the modern Sherlock Holmes adaptation which places Holmes (Jonny Lee Miller) in New York alongside Watson (Lucy Liu), Holmes quotes Rainer Maria Rilke: "When anxious, uneasy and bad thoughts come, I go to the sea, and the sea drowns them out with its great wide sounds, cleanses me with its noise, and imposes a rhythm upon everything in me that is bewildered and confused" (translated by Jane Bannard Greene and M.D. Herter Norton). I thought this was a particularly nice touch because the original Holmes liked to quote Goethe, among others; surely he would have quoted Rilke as well, but that poet's work came a little late for Holmes's original moment in time.

A few spy shows I've watched have also contained intriguing poetry references. This is often also the case in spy novels, and it always seems appropriate because poetry can resemble a code (which does not necessarily mean that it is a code). In the recent TV miniseries adaptation of The Little Drummer Girl by John le Carré, the young actor Charlie (Florence Pugh) reads a Mahmoud Darwish poem as part of the (literally) theatrical love affair she's embarked on:


Did you dance with young angels
while you were dreaming? Did the butterfly
light you up when it burned with the eternal
light of the rose?

(translated from the Arabic by Omnia Amin and Rick London)


In Season 4 of The Bureau (Le bureau des légendes), an exceptional French espionage show, a book of poems by Robert Desnos makes a brief appearance. The surrealist poet Desnos, who perished in Terezín in 1945, was also involved in the Réseau AGIR, a French Resistance espionage network providing information on German bombing facilities. Desnos' work for them involved the creation of false identity papers.

I've also been watching Counterpart, a disturbing spy show about parallel worlds in Berlin (obviously inspired by, but not exactly about, the divided city of the Cold War). Rilke also makes an appearance here, when Howard Silk (JK Simmons) reads his poetry to his wife, who is in a coma:


You, you only exist.
We pass away, till at last,
our passing is so immense
that you arise: beautiful moment,
in all your suddenness...

(translated from the German by Stephen Mitchell)


In another scene, the children's poem 'On the Other Side of the Door' by Jeff Moss is quoted, in one of the most bone-chillingly inappropriately appropriate uses of poetry I've seen on screen:


On the other side of the door
I can be a different me
As smart and as brave, as funny or strong
As a person could want to be.


TV shows (like any other entertainment) are never without their flaws, but the genuine depth added and the respect for literature shown by these poetry references are something I truly appreciated and for which I'll continue to watch.

Rodin and Rilke at the British Museum

I went to the Rodin and the art of ancient Greece exhibition at the British Museum (on until 29 July). It's almost impossible to go wrong with an exhibition like this: it's Rodin, it's classical Greek art, it's Rodin's history with the British Museum...what's not to like? To my surprise, I also found that the words of Rainer Maria Rilke were everywhere.

Rilke went to Paris in 1902 to write a monograph on Rodin, and subsequently became his secretary for a time and his friend. (You can read a fascinating excerpt from You Must Change Your Life: The Story of Rainer Maria Rilke and Auguste Rodin by Rachel Corbett, here.) All over the exhibition, writeups on the artwork were accompanied by Rilke's words on Rodin, often on the specific piece. Sometimes they made up the entirety of the writeup: this was especially moving where Rilke had written about the intensely emotional The Burghers of Calais. No one, it seems, has been able to improve on Rilke's words. This increased immeasurably my enjoyment of an already marvelous exhibition.

Here's what Rilke said on the figure of Pierre de Wissant in The Burghers of Calais:

He created the vague gesture of the man 'passing through life'... As he advances he turns back, not to the town, not to the weeping people, nor to those accompanying him. He turns back to himself ... his hand opens in the air and lets something go, somewhat in the way in which we set free a bird. He is taking leave of all uncertainty, of all happiness still unrealised... This figure, if placed by itself in some old shady garden, would make a monument for all who have died young. (Rainer Maria Rilke, 1902. Translator not named)

Rilke's French Rose Poems in Translation: XIX and XX

Pilgrim in the Garden, or The Heart of the Rose - Edward Burne-Jones 


Here are my two latest Rilke 'Rose' poem translations from French. Only seven to go in the sequence... I can do this.

The French originals are below the translations.


THE ROSES (Rainer Maria Rilke, translated from French by Clarissa Aykroyd)

XIX

Do you offer your own example?

Can we be sated like the roses,

increasing our subtle substance

just to let time go as it goes?

Because you might say it’s no trouble

to be a rose.

God, while looking out the window,

cares for the house.

XX

Tell me, rose, from whence comes

that which you enclose,

your slow essence imposing

on this space of prose

all these airy transports?

How many times does this air

act as though it’s cut,

or, with a pout,

look bitterly about.

Meanwhile, around your flower,

it plays ring-a-rose.

LES ROSES

XIX

Est-ce en exemple que tu te proposes?

Peut-on se remplire comme les roses,

en multipliant sa subtile matière

qu’on avait faite pour ne rien faire?

Car ce n’est pas travailler que d’être

une rose, dirait-on.

Dieu, en regardant par la fenêtre,

fait la maison.

XX

Dis-moi, rose, d’où vient

qu’en toi-même enclose,

ta lente essence impose

à cet espace en prose

tous ces transports aériens?

Combien de fois cet air

prétend que les choses le trouent,

ou, avec une moue,

il se montre amer.

Tandis qu’autour de ta chair,

rose, il fait la roue.

 Translations  © Clarissa Aykroyd, 2017

Rilke's French Rose Poems In Translation - XVIII

Photo by Clarissa Aykroyd, 2016


Here's the latest in my very slow-to-appear series of translations of Rainer Maria Rilke's Rose poems, from French. The original is below the translation.


THE ROSES (Rainer Maria Rilke, translated by Clarissa Aykroyd)


XVIII

You share all things that move us.
But we are unaware of your changes.
We could only read your pages
in the form of a hundred butterflies.

Some of you are like dictionaries;
those who pluck them
just want to re-read them.
As for me, I love rose-letters.



LES ROSES


XVIII

Tout ce qui nous émeut, tu le partages.

Mais ce qui t’arrive, nous l’ignorons.

Il faudrait être cent papillons

pour lire toutes tes pages.

Il y en a d’entre vous qui sont comme des dictionnaires;

ceux qui les cueillent

ont envie de faire relier toutes ces feuilles.

Moi, j’aime les roses épistolaires.

Translation  © Clarissa Aykroyd, 2016

Rilke's French Rose Poems in Translation - XVI and XVII

Photo by Clarissa Aykroyd - Red Cross Garden, London, 2015


I'm finally back to translating Rainer Maria Rilke's Roses poems from French. It's been over a year and a half since the last translations, so apologies are due to all my French translation fans. (I know you're out there.)


THE ROSES (Rainer Maria Rilke, translated by Clarissa Aykroyd)


XVI

Let's not speak of you. You are ineffable
by your very nature.
Other flowers adorn the table
that you transfigure.

We put you in a simple vase
and everything changes:
it might be the same phrase,
but now an angel sings.


XVII

It's you who prepare within yourself,
more than yourself, your quintessence.
That which comes from you, that unsettling rush,
is your dance.

Each petal consents
and in the wind
takes a few fragrant steps
unseen.

O music of eyes,
by them enclosed,
you become mysterious
within. 



LES ROSES


XVI

Ne parlons pas de toi. Tu es ineffable
selon ta nature.
D'autres fleurs ornent la table
que tu transfigures.

On te met dans un simple vase - ,
voici que tout change:
c'est peut-être la même phrase,
mais chantée par un ange.


XVII

C'est toi qui prépares en toi
plus que toi, ton ultime essence.
Ce qui sort de toi, ce troublant émoi,
c'est ta danse.

Chaque pétale consent
et fait dans le vent
quelques pas odorants
invisibles.

O musique des yeux,
toute entourée d'eux,
tu deviens au milieu
intangible.


Translations  © Clarissa Aykroyd, 2016

Mark Strand: 'A Piece of the Storm'

Snowflake-018 by yellowcloud. Used under Creative Commons license


American (Canadian-born) poet Mark Strand, who among other honours won a Pulitzer and served as the US Poet Laureate, died in November 2014. I was certainly somewhat familiar with his work at this point, but I'm now not sure if it was before or after his death that I read the poem 'A Piece of the Storm'. I think it may have been not long before.

Something reminded me of this poem today and I can't remember what it was. Or maybe it's not a case of remembering. It may have been the snow that isn't falling from the sky and hasn't fallen all winter, here in London. Maybe it was the snow that most certainly fell on the Eastern seaboard. Or it could be the feeling that a poem seems to be nudging at me, waiting to be created.

I loved this poem the first time I read it and I know I will never forget it. The poem itself is like the snowflake, the piece of the storm. It could be about "the lifting and falling away of attention" that sometimes - even much later - leads to artistic creation. It could be about an announcement of divine revelation, a vision of the future. It could be about the tiny moments, the tiny fragments that lead to an enormous change - "It's time. The air is ready. The sky has an opening" - like a Rilkeian "you must change your life." Or it could be, in its plainest form, about the moments before a storm. It is any and all of these, and probably a perfect poem.

Guy Goffette's 'Elegy for a Friend': A Long Journey

Nicolas Vigier, Rain in Paris. Public domain


When I first read 'Elegy for a Friend', a sequence of thirteen-line poems by Guy Goffette written for his friend Paul de Roux, I was left overwhelmed and in tears. This reaction came from the pure beautiful power of the poem and its wonderful translation from French by Marilyn Hacker. It probably also had something to do with the fact that elegy has unfortunately been quite relevant in the lives of my family and friends in the past twelve months (not to speak of most of my life, it seems.) But when I started thinking about how I could write about the poem, it took me on a long and revealing journey of its own.

'Elegy for a Friend' has a certain focus on the cumulative effect of words, of events, and of simply living a life, which is perhaps also why it hit me so hard (a couple of years ago, a close friend and I were discussing the fact that 'cumulative' was one of the words of the year, and not in a good way.) Looking back on his relationship with his friend, the poet wishes that certain patterns could have been broken.


          Always, still, tomorrow, these paltry
          words, thrown off in passing, overflow us. 

          [...]

          if we had known
          that, would we have stayed
          sitting so long in our afflicted bedrooms?

          [...]

          It’s the same story always and we blame ourselves
          afterwards for having in the heat of words
          and wine allowed dark clouds to rise
          on the friend’s brow


Beyond this, on further readings I found myself quickly associating this poem with Ecclesiastes and re-reading it through that filter. The final stanza is, to me, overwhelmingly reminiscent of Ecclesiastes 12: "One day we must depart, no longer knowing/anything of what was at the source/of the fire...", alongside the vivid description of the decline of a human being with age: "before the silver cord is removed, and the golden bowl is crushed, and the jar at the spring is broken..." The conclusions are different: Ecclesiastes 12:13 says "Fear the true God and keep his commandments, for this is the whole obligation of man," whereas the poem is secular and contemplates the meaning of life and art ("written, read and reread/by a blind man dancing in the fire"), but it seems to me that both arise from a similar line of questioning.

I first read 'Elegy for a Friend' some months ago and have been thinking about it - and thinking about writing about it - for some time, whether actively or subconsciously. Recently, in relation to the Goffette poem, these lines by another poet came back to me: 


Do you know how it is when one wakes
at night suddenly and asks,
listening to the pounding heart: what more do you want,
insatiable?


I was so convinced that these lines were from Rilke that I leafed through my entire volume of his collected German poems and finally realised they weren't. The lines hadn't come back to me in an exact enough form to Google them accurately, but eventually I remembered enough key words to find them - in this poem by Czeslaw Milosz, 'Farewell' (scroll down to find it).

The connection isn't entirely clear to me: I think there are some stylistic similarities (although the fact that one poem is originally French and the other originally Polish may cloud this somewhat, in translation.) There are echoes of imagery across the poems: the suddenly beating heart, the self-questioning about life, meaning and desire. Milosz also asks: "From life, from the apple cut by the flaming knife,/what grain will be saved", which seems to echo the final lines of Goffette's poem. (Very starkly, Milosz concludes: "Nothing remains.") Milosz's poem is, too, a kind of elegy, though it seems to me to mourn the loss of places, groups of people and moments in time, than a single person.

In the past week, when I re-read the first stanza of Goffette's poem, something started nagging at me, and I had a feeling it had to do with TS Eliot. Granted, when things nag at me and they involve poetry, it's not that uncommon for them to have something to do with TS Eliot. (Also, I had just been listening to Viggo Mortensen read The Waste Land at the British Library, and I met him afterwards, and it's safe to say all of that had a lasting effect.) But eventually, after digging around for a while in a) my mind, and b) the Internet, I finally figured it out. It wasn't The Waste Land: it was a poem I have never loved quite as much, 'The Love Song of J Alfred Prufrock'.

'Prufrock' opens with an epigraph from Dante's Inferno, which translates as:


If I but thought that my response were made
to one perhaps returning to the world,
this tongue of flame would cease to flicker.
But since, up from these depths, no one has yet
returned alive, if what I hear is true,
I answer without fear of being shamed.


I suppose I was reminded of this for two reasons, both of which are found in the first poem/stanza of 'Elegy for a Friend'. This section refers to the friends "slipping from the métro to Dante’s/hell without changing faces or/pace", and then moves on to imagery of flame and finally "that shadow/that burns all shadows while it waits for us". I don't know whether or not Goffette intended a direct reference. But I do know that by the time I had tracked down the 'Prufrock' epigraph, I felt as though I had travelled a long journey.

Poetry and Beyond in the Czech Republic

Prague, May 2015. All photos by Clarissa Aykroyd


A little over a month ago I was in Prague with my brother - we had almost a week together and also visited the nearby towns of Kutna Hora and Plzeň. It was my first time back in the Czech Republic after eleven years. In 2004 my brother was there working with the World Hockey Championships (er, that's 'ice hockey') and we were there for the same reasons again this year. So hockey was on the menu (including Canada slaughtering Russia 6-1 for the gold medal), as well as fairy-tale-like castles and Art Nouveau buildings, all the meat and dumplings I could eat, and even beer (which normally I never touch because I don't like the taste.)

Poetry is never off the menu, and that's especially so in a country like the Czech Republic. We had a tour one day with a man named Milos Curik, who turned out to be absolutely one of the most interesting people I have ever met. He showed us some beautiful and fascinating hidden corners of Prague, which was a good thing because as lovely as Wenceslas Square and Charles Bridge are, they are insanely rammed with tourists. Milos was part of the Beat generation and knew the American poetic icon Lawrence Ferlinghetti, as well as having met Allen Ginsberg and many others. He'd done everything in his life from organising Velvet Underground concerts in Czechoslovakia to studying funerary art - interspersed with many run-ins with the police during Prague's complex history - and he had evidently done it all with panache. Milos showed us a street where Ginsberg had stayed in Prague and told us about how Ginsberg had written the poem 'King of May' after being honoured as such by Czech students in 1965. (He wrote the poem on his flight from Prague to London.) Milos specialises in arts and music tours of Prague, and told us that later this year he will be showing around some poets on a tour of Prague taking in sights related to Seamus Heaney's visits to the city. (Heaney had very strong connections to Central and Eastern European poetry, and I came across this interesting article: http://radio.cz/en/section/books/a-certain-parallel-seamus-heaney-and-the-czechs)

Here are a couple of photos from that tour. The first is of that street where Ginsberg stayed, a semi-hidden but lovely area near the castle:

This is a table and chairs, attached to a tree, featuring a quotation from Vaclav Havel. There are a number of these in different cities now, known as 'Havel's Place'. Of course, Havel was one of the architects of the Velvet Revolution and was the first president after the fall of Communism, but he was also a playwright and, less famously, a poet.

In Kutna Hora, we saw a cathedral with a very unusual 'tent' roof, went down a silver mine, and emerged subdued from the eerily strange Sedlec Ossuary, or bone church. Over the years, Kutna Hora has attracted many poets, writers and artists because of its spooky, romantic atmosphere, and it now has a poetry festival in September. The poet-author of the Czech national anthem was born in this town. Here's a photo of the cathedral:

Plzeň was a real working town with a very interesting depth of history. I was pretty much forced to drink beer there, because of the Pilsner brewery, in whose icy depths we spent some time. We also saw this remarkable mural featuring many famous figures associated with the town's history. In this detail, the young man on the left in the cape is Josef Kajetan Tyl, who lived in the first half of the 19th century. He was another playwright who was also a poet. (Rather wonderfully, it often seems in the Czech Republic as though everyone is also a poet.) Rainer Maria Rilke apparently acknowledged Tyl's influence.

In Plzeň I was also very happy to see this set of characters in the wonderful Puppet Museum (puppetry is very important to the culture of Bohemia.) They were for a Hound of the Baskervilles puppet show, and yes, that's Holmes and Watson at the top!

With thanks to Czech Tourism

Mixed Borders (1): Poet In a Garden

Alhambra gardens, Granada, Spain. Photo by Clarissa Aykroyd


I'm very pleased to say that I will be taking part in Mixed Borders, a collaboration between the Poetry School and the London Parks and Gardens Trust, where a number of the gardens taking part in the London Open Garden Squares weekend (13-14 June 2015) will be hosting poets-in-residence. You can read more about the scheme in this blog post from the Poetry School.

I've been assigned the Red Cross Garden in Southwark for my residency, which has a great depth of Victorian and social history, and just looks to be a lovely little garden in a fascinating area - I am about to go and visit it for the first time.

What will I actually be doing for my residency? Writing poetry, of course. Our opening workshop included some exercises which proved fruitful, and various inchoate garden-poem ideas are circling in my head already. I'd like to explore different angles, such as the history, the associated people (particularly the founder Octavia Hill, also one of the National Trust founders), and the interaction with the Southwark area. Botany is far, far from being an area of expertise for me, but I want to have a look, at least. On the weekend itself I should be in the garden for at least a few hours on one or both days - watch this space. I might read, I might hand out poems, I might just sit there looking moody and trying to write. All shall be revealed in time (when I figure it out.) In a somewhat-related way, I might even get back to those translations from French of Rilke's 'Rose' poems which I've been neglecting so badly.

And obviously, I have been reading poetry of the garden, including selections from Flora Poetica: The Chatto Book of Botanical Verse, edited by Sarah Maguire, who herself worked as a gardener for some years.

Further blog posts should follow soon - about the garden, the poetry and more...

Here are a couple of garden poems worth reading, from either side of the pond, by Sarah Maguire (Britain) and Louise Glück (US).


ROSEMARY (Sarah Maguire)

THE SILVER LILY (Louise Glück)

My Translation of Rainer Maria Rilke's 'Song'

 

I translated this French poem by Rainer Maria Rilke some time ago. It isn't a very ambitious translation, but I found it to be such a beautiful poem that I didn't want to mess around with it too much - just be faithful to it (yes, I know it's a poem, not a relationship).

You can find the original French poem after the translation.

(For anyone who might wonder or care, I promise I'm going to get back to my translations of the Rose poems very soon.)

SONG (Rainer Maria Rilke, translated from French by Clarissa Aykroyd)

You, to whom I don't confide

my long wakeful nights,

You, who leave me so gently tired,

cradling me to sleep;

You, who hide your sleeplessness from me,

tell me, can we endure

this transcending thirst

without giving in?

Remember how lovers 

are startled by a lie

at the hour of confession.

You alone can enter my pure solitude.

You become all things; you are a murmur

or an airy scent.

Between my arms, the void streams with loss.

It never held you back, and it's surely by that grace

that I hold you forever.

CHANSON

Toi, à qui je ne confie pas

mes longues nuits sans repos,

Toi qui me rends si tendrement las,

me berçant comme un berceau;

Toi qui me caches tes insomnies,

dis, si nous supportions

cette soif qui nous magnifie,

sans abandon?

Car rappelle-toi les amants,

comme le mensonge les surprend

à l’heure des confessions.

Toi seule, tu fais partie de ma solitude pure.

Tu te transformes en tout: tu es ce murmure

ou ce parfum aérien.

Entre mes bras: quel abîme qui s’abreuve de pertes.

Ils ne t’ont point retenue, et c’est grâce à cela, certes,

qu'à jamais je te tiens.

Translation  © Clarissa Aykroyd, 2014

Rilke's French Rose Poems in Translation: XV

Here's another French Rose from Rilke, in my translation. Hopefully this means I am on a roll.

I (daringly?) went with "myriad chalice" for "innombrable calice". I know "myriad" can be an adjective, but I'm not sure if I went a step too far in grammatical terms - it just seemed to work well. Thoughts?


THE ROSES (Rainer Maria Rilke, translated by Clarissa Aykroyd)


XV

Alone, o abundant flower,
you make your own expanse;
you gaze at yourself in a mirror
of scent.

Your fragrance, like more petals,
surrounds your myriad chalice.
I grasp at you - you sprawl,
prodigious actress.



LES ROSES (Rainer Maria Rilke)


XV

Seule, ô abondante fleur,
tu crées ton propre espace;
tu te mires dans une glace
d'odeur.

Ton parfum entoure comme d'autres pétales
ton innombrable calice.
Je te retiens, tu t'étales,
prodigieuse actrice.



Translation © Clarissa Aykroyd, 2014.

Rilke's French Rose Poems In Translation: XIV

Roses at Milner Gardens, Qualicum Beach, BC. Photo © Clarissa Aykroyd, 2014.




On a very hot summer night in London, here's the latest (and rather appropriate) of my translations of Rainer Maria Rilke's Roses poems from the French. The original is also below.


THE ROSES (Rainer Maria Rilke, translated by Clarissa Aykroyd)


XIV

Summer: for a few days, to be
a peer of the roses;
to breathe in what encircles
the blossoms of their souls.

To make of each dying one
the closest of friends,
and to outlive that sister
in other roses' absence.



LES ROSES (Rainer Maria Rilke)


XIV

Eté: être pour quelques jours
le contemporain des roses;
respirer ce qui flotte autour
de leurs âmes écloses.

Faire de chacune qui se meurt
une confidante,
et survivre à cette soeur
en d'autres roses absentes.



Translation © Clarissa Aykroyd, 2014.

Rilke's French Rose Poems In Translation: XIII

Photo by Clyde Robinson. Used under Creative Commons license



In an attempt to keep the momentum going, here's my translation of XIII from Rilke's Les Roses/The Roses, followed by the original. I found this more straightforward than XII, but a little bit elusive.


THE ROSES (Rainer Maria Rilke, translated by Clarissa Aykroyd)


XIII

Do you prefer, rose, to be the ardent companion
of our present raptures?
Or does remembrance take the upper hand,
when some happiness returns?

I have seen you so often, brittle and content,
- each petal a shroud -
in a fragrant casket, beside a candle...
or when reading alone, in leaves of a book well-loved.



LES ROSES (Rainer Maria Rilke)


XIII

Préfères-tu, rose, être l'ardente compagne
de nos transports présents?
Est-ce le souvenir qui davantage te gagne
lorsqu'un bonheur se reprend?

Tant de fois je t'ai vue, heureuse et sèche,
- chaque pétale un linceul -
dans un coffret odorant, à côté d'une mèche,
ou dans un livre aimé qu'on relira seul.



Translation © Clarissa Aykroyd, 2014.

Rilke's French Rose Poems In Translation: XII

John William Waterhouse, Gather ye rosebuds while ye may, 1909.



It is once again ages since I posted any translations of Rilke's Roses poems from the French, but I do mean to get back to them now. I have every intention of translating the whole cycle (please remind me that I said this.)

That said, I found XII particularly challenging. I really messed around with the line breaks and the number of lines - the latter, at least, is something I try not to do much. But this was the only way I could get it to work, somehow. This poem seems to contrast with many of the other poems in the cycle - it has a rather harsh and blunt tone, and sprawls down the page awkwardly (though probably deliberately). So I hope I haven't wreaked too much havoc.

As usual, I have included the French original after the English translation. And I'm very open to comments and suggestions. Part of the master plan is to revise these all at some point.


THE ROSES (Rainer Maria Rilke, translated by Clarissa Aykroyd)


XII

Rose, who are you fighting
with those thorns?
Did your fragile joy force
this change to a hostile thing?

Against whom does this weapon guard you?
How many enemies have I warned away
who feared it not at all?
Instead, through summer and autumn days,
you harm the hand that helps you.



LES ROSES (Rainer Maria Rilke)


XII

Contre qui, rose,
avez-vous adopté
ces épines?
Votre joie trop fine
vous a-t-elle forcée
de devenir cette chose
armée?

Mais de qui vous protège
cette arme exagérée?
Combien d'ennemis vous ai-je
enlevés
qui ne la craignaient point.
Au contraire, d'été en automne,
vous blessez les soins
qu'on vous donne.



Translation © Clarissa Aykroyd, 2014.

New Poems! New Poems!

Pieter Bruegel the Elder, Hunters in the Snow (Winter), 1565. Kunsthistorisches Museum, Vienna



On Friday three of my poems were published in one day, which was a nice record for me. Also a bit of motivation for 2014, because last year I was anything but prolific poetry-wise.

Shot Glass Journal published 'Wicklow Mountains After Rain' and 'Okinawa', here: http://www.musepiepress.com/shotglass/issue12/clarissa_aykroyd1.html

The 'Wicklow Mountains' poem is actually ten years old but I always hoped to find a home for it. The final lines are still among my favourites that I've written. 'Okinawa' was written after my trip to that part of Japan a few years ago - it's another travel snapshot, but I also think (and sort of hope) that it might just possibly be the only poem ever written (let alone published) to mention both JMW Turner and Def Leppard. If anyone knows of such another poem, I desperately want to read it.

Josephine Corcoran's wonderful blog/e-zine And Other Poems published my version of Rainer Maria Rilke's French poem 'Winter' (Hiver), here: http://andotherpoems.wordpress.com/2014/02/07/clarissa-aykroyd-2/

I subtitled this "after Rilke" because it was a bit too free to really be a "translation", I think. You can read the original French poem here. I had the (perhaps totally wrong and presumptuous) feeling that this poem was unfinished, that Rilke would like to have worked on it some more. So I think that a lot of the words are mine, building on the original, but the ideas are essentially the same as in Rilke's original poem. I chose not to try to reproduce the end rhymes which appear in the French poem, but my version is far more alliterative than Rilke's. The alliteration is perhaps the aspect in which it is the most my own. It was a very enjoyable poem to create a version of because, as so often with Rilke, his words seemed to speak from his heart to my heart.

Rilke's French Roses In Translation, IX, X and XI

Rose photo © Christina Kosaki, 2013.



Here are my latest translations of the next three poems in Rainer Maria Rilke's French Roses poems, with the originals as well.

These all presented their own difficulties. I thought IX came out quite well but I was bewildered by the phrase "déconcertante de son interne paix". I called on some of my Frenchies for help, who first told me that the grammar was incorrect, then tried to help, but we all had a hard time with it. Consulting other English translations didn't help much either. I may revise again later (as I plan to eventually do with the whole sequence) - I was happy enough with the sound of the phrase I chose, but am not sure if it is a correct reflection of meaning.

X was probably the most successful translation of these three, on the whole. XI looked deceptively simple - which made it hard. I was almost totally unable to impose rhyme, for instance - that would probably have resulted in a major distortion of meaning and I didn't want to make that choice.


THE ROSES (Rainer Maria Rilke, translated by Clarissa Aykroyd)


IX

Rose, aflame and yet clear,
that should be named here
the shrine of Saint Rose..., dispensing the faint,
unsettling scent of an unclothed saint.

Rose never again tempted, disturber
of its inner peace; last of all lovers,
so far from Eve and her first awaking - ,
rose, this loss forever possessing.


X

Friend of hours where no one lingers,
where all is denied to the bitter heart;
consoling witness of the most tender
caresses, airborne, near and far.

If we renounce life, if we deny
what once was and what could yet be,
we never think of the insistent ally
who beside us does its work of fantasy.


XI

I'm so aware of your being,
absolute rose,
that my consent confounds you
as my heart rejoices.

I breathe you in as though you were,
rose, all existence,
and I feel myself the perfect friend
of such a friend.



LES ROSES (Rainer Maria Rilke)


IX

Rose, toute ardente et pourtant claire,
que l'on devrait nommer reliquaire
de Sainte-Rose..., rose qui distribue
cette troublante odeur de sainte nue.

Rose plus jamais tentée, déconcertante
de son interne paix; ultime amante,
si loin d'Eve, de sa première alerte - ,
rose qui infiniment possède la perte.


X

Amie des heures où aucun être ne reste,
où tout se refuse au coeur amer;
consolatrice dont la présence atteste
tant de caresses qui flottent dans l'air.

Si l'on renonce à vivre, si l'on renie
ce qui était et ce qui peut arriver,
pense-t-on jamais assez à l'insistante amie
qui à coté de nous fait son oeuvre de fée.


XI

J'ai une telle conscience de ton
être, rose complete,
que mon consentement te confond
avec mon coeur en fête.

Je te respire comme si tu étais,
rose, toute la vie,
et je me sens l'ami parfait
d'une telle amie.




Translations © Clarissa Aykroyd, 2013.  

Rilke's Rose Poems In Translation, VIII

J W Waterhouse, The Soul of the Rose, 1908.



This painting by Waterhouse, The Soul of the Rose, is itself apparently inspired by a line in a poem, 'Come Into the Garden, Maud' by Tennyson - "And the soul of the rose went into my blood". You can read the whole poem here.

Here's the latest of my translation of Rilke's French Roses poems. I'm really not sure about this one (although I couldn't see to improve it) and am wondering if I should just go to sleep and give up translation, at least for tonight.



THE ROSES (Rainer Maria Rilke, translated from French by Clarissa Aykroyd)


VIII

From within a crowded dream
where you were one of many flowers,
soaked as though by tears
you reach towards the dawn.

With uncertain desire
your gentle, sleeping powers
develop tender forms
resembling cheeks, or breasts.


LES ROSES


VIII

De ton rêve trop plein,
fleur en dedans nombreuse,
mouillée comme une pleureuse,
tu te penches sur le matin.

Tes douces forces qui dorment,
dans un désir incertain,
développent ces tendres formes
entre joues et seins.



Translation © Clarissa Aykroyd, 2013.  

Rilke's Rose Poems In Translation, VII

Rose photo © Christina Kosaki, 2013.



Here is the latest of my translations from French of Rilke's Roses poems, VII, with the original as well. This one was a bit tricky.

(I have all sorts of other blog posts that I should be writing, but am finding it a bit difficult to collect my thoughts these days, plus I'm a little bit sick this weekend. Excuses, excuses. For some reason, translation seems ok.)



THE ROSES (Rainer Maria Rilke, translated from French by Clarissa Aykroyd)


VII

Fresh clear rose, resting
upon my closed eye - ,
you'd think a thousand
eyelids lie

on mine that's warm.
A thousand slumbers press against
my mimic under which I roam
in a maze of sweet scents.



LES ROSES


VII


T'appuyant, fraîche claire
rose, contre mon oeil fermé - ,
on dirait mille paupières
superposées

contre la mienne chaude.
Mille sommeils contre ma feinte
sous laquelle je rôde
dans l'odorant labyrinthe.


Translation © Clarissa Aykroyd, 2013.