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.

Poetic Encounters in Victoria, BC

While back for a few weeks' visit to my hometown of Victoria, BC, I stopped in at Russell Books, which is an amazing and iconic used bookstore. It also happens to be where I had one of my first jobs after university, which was pretty good for a book lover without much work experience at the time.

I was searching the poetry section and decided to buy a small bilingual collection of Émile Nelligan's poems, partly because I am planning to try some more translations of his work. (You can read my translation of his 'Soir d'hiver', and some information about Nelligan's sad life, here.) Much to my surprise, when I looked inside the book, I found an inscription by Doug Beardsley. It was inscribed "Montreal, Quebec, at the Hotel Nelligan", and signed with dates both in 2006 and 2009, which added a little to the mystery. He had also made a few notes in the Preface. Doug Beardsley is a Victoria poet who was also an instructor at the University of Victoria until 2006 - and he taught the Canadian Poetry course which proved to be somewhat life-altering for me (both in introducing me to extraordinary Canadian poets, and in helping to open up modern and contemporary poetry to me.) Finding a book inscribed by him at my old workplace was sort of strange and wonderful. 

I also bought Karen Solie's Short Haul Engine, one of her older collections which she wrote while living in Victoria. I've browsed through it but am really looking forward to reading it more in-depth, especially in the light of her brilliant recent work.

Finally, I came across a tidbit in a local Victoria magazine regarding poet Rudyard Kipling. He visited Victoria in 1907 and commented to a reporter for the Times Colonist (which I think was called the Colonist or British Colonist then): "I am going to take a motor drive to see the beauties of the place. But I really don't see why I should move away from here. In Victoria, it is a waste of time to look for beauty. It is always with you."

The Great Canadian Identity Crisis: Karen Solie's 'All That Is Certain Is Night Lasts Longer Than the Day'

The South Saskatchewan River at Empress, Alberta. Photo by Emdx


My impending visit home to Canada seems to have brought on one of my bouts of Canadian identity crisis and questioning why exactly I left at all. Canadian identity crises (or simply, THE GREAT CANADIAN IDENTITY CRISIS) are quite complicated. If you are Canadian you will know what I mean, and if you aren't, you won't. But you could try looking up "western alienation" and "the two solitudes", for starters. Those are just two aspects of The Great Canadian Identity Crisis, but they will give you some clues.

Karen Solie is becoming a key Canadian poet at high speed, it seems. Her new Selected Poems, The Living Option, which has been published by Bloodaxe Books specifically for the UK/international market, has been extremely well reviewed. Writing in the London Review of Books, Michael Hofmann said: "Introducing Karen Solie, I would adapt what Joseph Brodsky said some thirty years ago of the great Les Murray: 'It would be as myopic to regard Mr Murray as an Australian poet as to call Yeats an Irishman. He is, quite simply, the one by whom the language lives.' Solie is Canadian [...] and, yes, she is the one by whom the language lives." Not bad at all. I seriously regret not seeing her at Poetry Parnassus, but maybe I'll catch her somewhere else someday.

Solie was recently interviewed for The Poetry Trust's Poetry Paper, along with other poets, about how landscapes and places affect their writing. She is from Saskatchewan and now lives in Ontario. "I've grown to love Toronto," she said. "It's a vibrant, crazy and often very warm city." However, she also lived for a time in my hometown of Victoria, BC, and said: "I had been living in Victoria, on Vancouver Island, writing my English PhD dissertation, when my resources ran out. Despite its beguiling and temperate Pacific character, Victoria requires an iron will from its residents and I did not have it." I have heard all sorts of things said about Victoria, both positive and negative (and I have said some of them myself), but this was a new one on me. I am still so intrigued by it that I sincerely I hope I can ask Solie what she meant, some day.

I have particularly enjoyed this poem of Solie's, 'All That Is Certain Is Night Lasts Longer Than the Day'.


ALL THAT IS CERTAIN IS NIGHT LASTS LONGER THAN THE DAY (Karen Solie)


As a description of changing identity over a lifetime, this poem could hardly be better. Mysteriously, I also feel as though it is about Canada. (Is that "In time you've learned that to behave badly isn't/necessarily to behave out of character"?) This is the self as place and journey, which feels very appropriate for Canadians. I read it and I think about trying to avoid regrets, which is valuable in itself. And the final lines are beautiful:


A mist not unlike it walks the morning streets, comments on
the distinction of Ottawa from Hull, Buda
from Pest, what used to be Estuary from what used to be
Empress and the ferry that once ran between them.


Ottawa is separated from Hull only by a conjunction of rivers, but Ottawa is the country's capital city, in Ontario, and Hull is part of the French-speaking province of Quebec. As for Estuary, it is a ghost town in Saskatchewan close to the tiny village of Empress, Alberta, and the two are also separated by rivers. Understanding the geographical nature of identity: this is really Canadian.

Keith Douglas: "Well, I Am Thinking This May Be My Last Summer..."

British soldiers near Bayeux, Normandy on 11 June 1944. Photo by Laing (Sgt), No 5 Army Film & Photographic Unit. Used under IWM Non-Commercial Licence


Keith Douglas died 70 years ago today, on 9 June 1944. The fact that this anniversary closely follows that of the D-Day Normandy invasion is of course no coincidence. Douglas had survived the battles of North Africa (including an incident where he stole a truck and against orders drove to the front at El Alamein) and D-Day itself on 6 June 1944, only to be killed by mortar fire near Bayeux a few days later.

After reading Douglas's poems and letters, it feels particularly strange to me that his life just stopped so suddenly. That's especially the impression when looking at the 'Recipients of letters' section of Keith Douglas: The Letters (edited by Desmond Graham, Carcanet, 2000. Any quotations from letters are taken from this volume.) Douglas's mother died in the 1980s, his girlfriends died in the 1990s, but his life (and poems, and letters) just stopped in 1944; and it seems especially strange and sad for one so full of life. He was only 24. The incredibly tragic thing is that countless families had similar experiences of losing children, spouses and others during the World Wars.

I read Douglas's letters a while ago and found myself mostly caught between laughter and a desire to give him a slap. He was not exactly a reliable boyfriend and was engaged in a lot of dramatic on-off relationships. Some of his poems, or earlier drafts, appear in the letters, but he gives relatively little commentary on his actual poetic technique. This is why you will tend to see the same passages quoted on Douglas's approach, including this one: "[M]y object (and I don't give a damn about my duty as a poet) is to write true things, significant things in words each of which works for its place in a line. [...] I see no reason to be either musical or sonorous about things at present" (page 295 of The Letters).

Rather less frequently quoted are comments such as: "I have actually written another poem. Great stuff. I've only shown it to Hamo Sassoon who said 'Ugh! Strange and awkward', and a Canadian who read it without asking and said nothing" (page 68. Hamo Sassoon was Siegfried Sassoon's nephew). As well as being funny, this does provide some insight into Douglas's wry personality, and so do many of the other letters. He was a rather contradictory character, tough and romantic - I suspect this was partly down to genuine complexity, and partly down to being a very young man whose personality was still developing.

Possibly most entertaining of all is the letter he wrote to a girlfriend in which he suggests a comprehensive makeover: "You could look (to use your favourite word), marvellous, if you would only wear the right clothes for your figure and colouring. I would hesitate to tell you in a way because you would be surrounded with boys in no time and forget all about me. [...] In your thin dress you are skinny and unhappy-looking. Go in for checks and autumn sort of woven scarves and you would be the best of yourself, and attractive. [...] Chris don't be offended by all this, but I would love you to look as nice as I know you could" (page 51). In at least one other letter Douglas mentioned an interest in clothing design - as well as art, horses, ballet, water-polo and pretty much anything else you can think of. The existence of Keith 'Colour Me Beautiful' Douglas is perhaps something that has escaped the notice of many enthusiasts of World War II poetry, but he obviously liked girls so much that he wanted them to look good. It all made me laugh and also made me sadder about his early loss. He was already an incredible poet and a talented artist, and he wanted to try everything, if only he'd had the chance. In his last poem, the prophetic 'On a Return from Egypt', he wrote: "...time, time is all I lacked".

Clive James, the Australian broadcaster, critic and poet who has recently talked about his terminal illness, was filmed a few weeks ago reading and discussing Douglas's poem 'Canoe', around the release of the anthology Poems That Make Grown Men Cry. You can watch the video here:

'Canoe' begins: "Well, I am thinking this may be my last summer..." It is a breezy enough opening that you might assume he is just saying goodbye to a summer girlfriend - until you realise that this is yet another of Douglas's many poems about what he saw as his imminent death. Douglas, who often seems consciously light-hearted in his letters, was also very preoccupied with his own end, which may just have been a symptom of those deathly times. He was quite a headstrong young man, though, and one wonders if his fatalism and his expectation that he wouldn't survive may have made him that much more reckless, and that much more likely to lose his life. 'Canoe' is in any case a very touching poem.

Douglas will be out of copyright next year, so I expect to write about and post many of his poems then. It is just like my sadness about Sidney Keyes; both could be alive today if it weren't for the war.

"Audacious Sunlight": Maya Angelou 1928-2014

Maya Angelou reciting her poem 'On the Pulse of Morning' at President Bill Clinton's inauguration in 1993. Office of the White House, PD-USGOV-POTUS


Maya Angelou, the great American author, poet and civil rights activist, has died at the age of 86.

I have yet to read I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings, and I have only read some of her poetry, but when I heard about her death today I thought of the performance of 'Still I Rise' which I saw a couple of years ago at a poetry-speaking competition. The girl who had chosen that poem recited it with relish and passion, and it provides a wonderful snapshot of this iconic writer's spirit. You have only to look online today to see how much she meant to how many people.

Here's another poem which I read and appreciated today, and which was new to me. It is dedicated to Angelou's brother Bailey, who died in 2000.

KIN (Maya Angelou)

Sidney Keyes: 'Death and the Maiden' (Four Postures of Death)

Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec, The Spanish Dancer, 1888



'Death and the Maiden', the first poem in Sidney Keyes' Four Postures of Death sequence, is the poem from which Richard Adams took the first few lines for one of his epigraphs in Watership Down. So this is the poem which introduced me to Keyes, and it is an important part of the wonderful interwoven, nature-celebrating and literature-loving texture of Watership Down. For years before I even felt strongly impelled to look up the whole poem and to find out more about Sidney Keyes, I wondered what kind of poet had written such singular, unforgettable lines.



FOUR POSTURES OF DEATH (Sidney Keyes)


I

DEATH AND THE MAIDEN


He said 'Dance for me,' and he said,
'You are too beautiful for the wind
To pick at, or the sun to burn.' He said
'I'm a poor tattered thing, but not unkind
To the sad dancer and the dancing dead.'

So I smiled and a slow measure
Mastered my feet and I was happy then.
He said, 'My people are gentle as lilies
And in my house there are no men
To wring your young heart with a foolish pleasure.'

Because my boy had crossed me in a strange bed
I danced for him and was not afraid.
He said, 'You are too beautiful for any man
To finger; you shall stay a maid
For ever in my kingdom and be comforted.'

He said, 'You shall be my daughter and your feet move
In finer dances, maiden; and the hollow
Halls of my house shall flourish with your singing.'
He beckoned and I knew that I must follow
Into the kingdom of no love.

Joan Miró: "Colours Like Words That Shape Poems"

Fundació Joan Miró, Barcelona


I just spent a few days in Barcelona, the city beloved of artistic types, party animals and those in search of the Catalan soul. It was my first time in this city, and I enjoyed the spectacular Gaudí buildings, the seaside and lovely seafood, the winding streets of the Barri Gòtic, the relaxed atmosphere and catching up with friends and family who were there at the same time. I think it is time for me to re-read George Orwell's Homage to Catalonia: as in any European city, darker histories lie behind the pleasant touristy reality you see on a brief visit.

On the last day, my friend flew out earlier than I did so I had a few hours left to visit the Fundació Joan Miró on Montjuïc. I knew Miró's work, of course, but this art gallery visit was a revelation - I didn't realise previously how much I liked his art. I think there is a ubiquity to Miró which means it is easy to take him for granted. His bright colours and gently geometric human and animal figures have been incredibly influential. It was wonderful, though, how this gallery displayed the range of his work and its development, the influence of Surrealism, of the Spanish Civil War and World War II, and his fascination with public art. I found the works very psychological. They exerted a gentle pressure on the mind which was very emotionally cleansing. Miró's almost comical depictions of people seemed to me to show humans as they are, full of oddities, of over- or under-developed qualities, and curious leftovers from childhood (as in the sculpture which showed a baby's foot emerging from the back of a small human figure).

What was totally new to me was the extent to which Miró was influenced by and collaborated with poets and poetry. Early on, he read Apollinaire and Pierre Reverdy, and during World War II he was influenced by Spanish mystic poets. Miró said that the purpose of painting was to produce poetry, and some of his works are called 'Poem-Paintings'. He also wrote some poetry of his own, which mainly served as notes and ideas leading on to visual artworks. In Paris, he associated with Surrealist poets, and his paintings are a visual expression of this genre of writing. He was friends with the poets André Breton and Robert Desnos, among others. Miró's Constellations are a particularly beautiful series of paintings which represented the artist's desire to escape the nightmare of World War II. They strongly feature images of stars, birds and women, and while dreamy, their bright accents of colour occasionally seem like stabs of pain. Breton later wrote a series of poems which not only illustrate but carry on a dialogue with the Constellations. Miró also made plans to collaborate with Robert Desnos, but was only able to illustrate some of Desnos' work decades after the poet's tragic death in a Nazi concentration camp.

It could be that the sense of wonder which overtook me in this gallery was related to Miró's poetic approach. I don't generally consider myself a fan of Surrealist art or poetry, but sometimes I wonder if it's just that I haven't found the key yet. Maybe I have found it now. I did think of Paul Celan, which admittedly I often do. He wasn't precisely a Surrealist, except maybe in his earliest works (including some of his Romanian poems, as opposed to his more famous German poems) but he was influenced by their work and approach. I have also seen some of the work of Celan's artist wife, Gisèle Lestrange, which is well suited to accompany his poems. It's not very similar to Miró, but perhaps there is some emotional commonality, or at least in the way that the art and the words seem to work off, illustrate and engage in dialogue with each other. Another poet recently said to me in a discussion about Celan that it seems as though he used language to bypass language. Celan's work uses surreal images to go directly to a place of emotion and reaction which reminds me, disturbingly, of the electro-shock treatment he underwent in the last years of his life. Although I found Miró much gentler, even in his darker moments, similar metaphors come to mind to illustrate how I reacted to his work.

I'm not sure whether these two poems by Breton and Desnos (below) have any direct connection with Miró, but they seem to have certain things in common with the great painter's work and to illustrate the approach he had in common with the Surrealist poets. "I try to apply colours like words that shape poems, like notes that shape music," Miró said. He certainly succeeded. 

CHOOSE LIFE (André Breton)

IDENTITY OF IMAGES (Robert Desnos)