[Chris Childers]

Personally, I prefer Sam Gwynn's translation of Anne Carson from the Canadian, faithfully rendered into English verse:

Anne Carson: And Reason Remains Undaunted

From the Canadian

Searching for things sublime I went
Into big, muddy, windy hills
Where, past the town, trees plied and bent
According to their wills.

One saw a lot of moving green--
Over, under, above, across--
So the condensed and fanning scene
Made one’s eyeballs cross,

Each leaf a single, living cell
(Furious, nettle-streaked, unmowed)
It made me think of Milton’s Hell,
A sensory overload.

These trees were scattered through the heart
Like food upon a sumptuous table--
Green, strongly gloomier than a dart
Flung from the tower of Babel.

And, carrying secrets of their own,
They seemed to shake and shiver, crownly,
Not like the spring leaves I had known--
Not greenly; rather, brownly.

I thought, how juster than a shot,
Was the dark idol, king of terrors,
How many lines were snot, were not
Entirely free from errors.

Though architectural, scorned and clean
With blazing nostrils’ forceful blast,
I was no servant, and the scene
Went by not fast, fast, fast.

Searching for things sublime I walked up into the muddy windy big hills

behind the town where trees riot according to their own laws and



one may



observe so many methods of moving green—under, over, around, across,

up the back, higher, fanning, condensing, rifled, flat in the eyes, as if

pacing a



cell, like a litter of grand objects, minutely, absorbed, one leaf at a time,

ocean-furious, nettle-streaked, roping along, unmowed, fresh out of pools,



clear as Babel,



such a tower, scattered through the heart, green in the strong sense, dart-

shook, crownly, carrying the secrets of its own heightening on



up, juster than a shot, gloomier than Milton or even his king of terrors,

idol in its dark parts, as a word coined to mean “storm” (of love) or



“waving lines”



(architectural), scorned, clean, with blazing nostrils, not a servant, not

rapid, rapid.

EDIT: I still crack myself up imitating Sam attempting to read the original poem with a straight face, as if it made sense.

[Catherine Chandler]

Chris,

Where's the GUFFAW smiley when you need it?


C.