[Joe Crocker]

Today's Rattle has a poem by Matthew Buckley Smith, concerning Eratosphere stalwart Cameron.

[Julie Steiner]

Yes, it's lovely. Best poem in the issue.

[Roger Slater]

It's a fine poem, but I think it's based on a poor understanding of Rilke's original, which calls Apollo's head "ungehört", a word which has nothing to do with hearing in Rilke's poem. While it can mean "unheard" in the proper context, just as it can sometimes mean "disgraceful," it is widely used to mean something like "unrivalled" or "unprecedented", which is clearly what Rilke meant.

[Matt Q]

Or maybe it's clever word-play on "unerhörtes", appropriate to a poem that relates to (the loss of) the senses, and as such shows a good understanding of the German language? If the poem takes issue with Rilke's choice of a hearing-based metaphor, this doesn't mean that the poet doesn't understand that it's a metaphor.

[Roger Slater]

Well, I admit that I'm not fluent in German, but it seems to me that it's not really a hearing metaphor at all, since "unheard" is like the twentieth definition of the word after a range of meanings that have nothing to do with hearing. I could be wrong. But when someone writing in English makes a pun that only makes sense if you choose the right translation, it seems to dilute it quite a bit. The most famous translation (perhaps) is by Stephen Mitchell, and he translates the word as "legendary," not "unheard-of," which is much closer to Rilke's meaning in my (honestly) humble opinion.

Anyway, as I said, I do not have enough competence in German to hold this opinion strongly, and the poem won me over despite this quibbling issue.