there's our catastrophe

Nagrobek / Epitaph - Wislawa Szymborska

shuddertree:

Tu leży staroświecka jak przecinek
autorka paru wierszy. Wieczny odpoczynek
raczyła dać jej ziemia, pomimo że trup
nie należał do żadnej z literackich grup.
Ale tez nic lepszego nie ma na mogile
oprócz tej rymowanki, łopianu i sowy.
Przechodniu, wyjmij z teczki mózg elektronowy
i nad losem Szymborskiej podumaj przez chwilę.

/

Here lies, old-fashioned as the comma,
the writer of a few lines of verse. The earth
has humbled itself to receive the sleeping dead
though she did not belong in any literary circles.
Her grave is barren, left only with
some thistles, rhymes, owls.
Passerby: open your briefcase, find the computer
to reflect on the fate of Szymborska for a time.

/

i accidentally deleted this post so i have to retype what i remember of this part, and i hate that, because there were a lot of feelings that i wrote out in here and this is completely different

wislawa szymborska died february 1 of this year. i did not know that until yesterday.

there has been so much death. there will be so much death. is this what it means to be a grown-up? that is my question. that was my question yesterday, and then i found out szymborska died.

it’s strange to mourn poets, it’s strange to mourn in a language i do not understand and will probably never understand

the above was my (rough, unfinished, very very rough) attempt at a translation of “nagrobek,” which i did 2 years ago with the help of my friend marta, who (i think she put it this way) is “fluent in polish but not in poetry.” i (feel that i) have lost some of my fluency in poetry in recent months because i have been dealing so deeply with depression instead, but this was a(n important) project where i tried to write a translation from a language i didn’t understand, and i was in a worse depression then. too often i remain tied to english and spanish (and sometimes portuguese); szymborska drew me in, all the z’s and w’s and roof-of-mouth-sounds (marta’s “cześć?” on the phone every day with her parents when we lived together)

szymborska wrote the kinds of poems that i hated in high school because i didn’t understand them, they were too existential, they didn’t mean anything to me, i was afraid of understanding them, how could a poem be real if it’s translated anyway, if you’re not reading the “original” “thing”

i love szymborska’s poems now, what i understand now of them, especially in translation i am grateful

thank you szymborska for your words, for your life

Upcoming: 2012

lia-incognita:

It seems I’ve got quite a few spoken word performances lined up during Midsumma: 

• Love Me, Love Me Not (Thu 19 Jan at Bar Nancy, curated by Lisa-Skye)
• Rapid Fire - 12 Writers, 6 Minutes (Fri 20 Jan at Hares & Hyenas)
• What a Piece of Work: Queer Verse (Mon 30 Jan, also at H&H)

I’m also likely to make an appearance at Word is Out Poetry Slam (Mon 23 Jan at H&H) to defend my title from last year.

It’s a pretty amazing program for spoken word this year, partly I think because H&H have 20 shows on to celebrate their 20th anniversary. My picks are Quippings (a night of “freaktastic delights” hosted by Kath Duncan - Tue 31 Jan) and Australia Day Hangover (programmed by OutBlack convenor Bryan Andy - Fri 27 Jan).

I also have some really exciting stuff coming up as part of the Ladies of Colour Agency - wait and see. 

oh man!  all this and only one 40 degree day so far.  summer in melbourne, you are  doing well

Earth Cafeteria//Linh Dinh

Mudman in earth cafeteria,
I eat aardwolf. I eat ant bear.
I eat mimosa, platypus, ermine.
 
“White meat is tasteless, dark meat stinks.”
(The other white meat is pork, triple X.)
 
Rice people vs. bread people.
White bread vs. wheat bread.
White rice vs. brown rice.
Manhattan vs. New England.
Kosher sub-gum vs. knuckle kabob.
 
“What is patriotism but love of the foods one had as a child?”*
 
To eat stinky food
is a sign of savagery, humility,
identification with the earth.
 
“It was believed that after cleaning, tripe still contained ten percent
excrement which was therefore eaten with the rest of the meal.”**
 
Today I’ll eat Colby cheese.
Tomorrow I’ll eat sparrows.
Chew bones, suck fat,
bite heads off, gnaw on a broken wing.
 
Anise-flavored beef soup smells like sweat.
A large sweaty head bent over
a large bowl of sweat soup.
 
A Pekinese is ideal, will feed six,
but an unscrupulous butcher
will fudge a German sheperd,
chopping it up to look like a Pekinese.
 
Toothless man sucking
a pureed porterhouse steak
with a straw.
 
Parboiled placenta.
 
To skewer and burn meat is barbaric.
To boil, requiring a vessel, is a step up.
To microwave.
 
People who eat phalli, hot dogs, kielbasas
vs. people who eat balls.
 
To eat with a three-pronged spear and a knife.
To eat with two wooden sticks.
To eat with the hands.
 
Boiling vs. broiling.
 
To snack on a tub of roasted grasshoppers at the movies.


 
 
 
*Lin Yutang
**Mikhail Bakhtin

(Source: poetryfoundation.org)

Tell Me News//Sipho Sepamla

Tell me of a brother
who hanged himself in prison
with a blanket
was he punchdrunk

Tell me of a brother
who flung himself to death
from the ninth floor of a building
did his grip fumble with the loneliness up there

Tell me of a hooded man
who picked out others of his blood on parade
was his skin beginning
to turn with solitude

Oh, tell me of a sister
who returned home pregnant
from a prison cell
has she been charged under the Immorality Act

Tell me of a brother
who hanged himself in jail
with a piece of his torn pair of jeans
was he hiding a pair of scissors in the cell

Tell me, tell me sir
has the gruesome sight
of a mangled corpse
not begun to sit on your conscience

(Source: socialiststories.org)

A Thank-You Note//Wislawa Szymborska

There is much I owe
to those I do not love.

The relief in accepting
they are closer to another.

Joy that I am not
the wolf to their sheep.

My peace be with them
for with them I am free,
and this, love can neither give,
nor know how to take.

I don’t wait for them
from window to door.
Almost as patient
as a sun dial,
I understand
what love does not understand.
I forgive
what love would never have forgiven.

Between rendezvous and letter
no eternity passes,
only a few days or weeks.

My trips with them always turn out well.
Concerts are heard.
Cathedrals are toured.
Landscapes are distinct.

And when seven rivers and mountains
come between us,
they are rivers and mountains
well known from any map.

It is thanks to them
that I live in three dimensions,
in a non-lyrical and non-rhetorical space,
with a shifting, thus real, horizon.

They don’t even know
how much they carry in their empty hands.
“I don’t owe them anything”,
love would have said
on this open topic.

(trans. Joanna Trzeciak)

(Source: pan.net)