[Mark Allinson]

Also, I meant to add, such exercises may lead to publishable "found" poems.

Two poems of the 15 selected by the editors of my recent chappie (out of 50 sent) were intra-linguistic translations of prose passages.

[Janet Kenny]

Mark, apologies for my cynicism. This is not a found poem but it tries to obey your injunctions.

The potency of simple scent recalls
the way I was before I wasn’t, yet
the touch and taste I somehow can’t forget,
no matter where time’s longer shadow falls.
I see behind those other houses’ walls
with freshly laundered linen neatly set
on breakfast tables where good people met
for fruits preserved against the wintry squalls.
Newly baked bread like ocean spray can bring
a rush of other memories that flood
in chaos and profusion like a spring.
Despite the peacefulness there is a sting--
anxiety, a dullness in the blood
that tells me that these words will never sing.

[Mark Allinson]

Janet!

An Italian and all!

The version I am working on is demanding to be an English sonnet.

And what you have done here is fine in itself - to use the passage as a springboard to your own meditations, incorporating elements from the passage.

As far as metrical issues are concerned, your poem is (as ever) impeccable.

But as far as an intra-linguistic translation of the prose to verse goes, it does stray. There is no "I" in the passage, for instance.

And the element of the simile of the smells in the rooms to the "myriad protozoa" by whose presence "entire tracts of air or ocean are illuminated or perfumed" needs some representation in the "translation", I feel.

One way to try and ensure the maximum coverage of all the important elements of the original, is to see if the passage can be broken up into three sections, which will be (as far as possible) represented in the three quatrains. And save a little bit to make the final couplet.

It's much more fun than crosswords, and, as I say, viable poems can result.

[Janet Kenny]

Quite right about "I" Mark. I take the all-embracing "one" to be a universal "I". I didn't even try to write a rendition of the translated (stress translated) original text, but an impression. I'm afraid that I'm simply not interested in doing that and I bet Marcel wouldn't be either. The universal egoist wants to use the time egotistically
Janet

[Mark Allinson]

That's fair enough, Janet.

If it doesn't feel right, don't do it. I agree.

I do it because I love the process of translation - re-cycling one body of words into another. That I operate sometimes within my own native language (which I know best of all) is no difference for me than working with Ancient Greek or Latin. I am re-cycling a previously existing body of words into a new form, and a new expression.

And I must say that I don't feel any less aesthetic pleasure in extracting a sonnet from a previously existing passage of English prose than I do in extracting a sonnet from a German poem or Greek hexameter or a previously existing personal experience or concept. They are all equally creative acts for me.

In each case the original experience needs to be sorted, sifted and re-presented in a poetic form. All manner of experience is capable of becoming a poem, so why not the experience of a passage of prose, even if in the same language?

Poetry is always about poetry anyway. Everything we write is already laden with the thousands of poems we have read, and whose echoes and reflections fill even our most “original” works. As Oscar says: “The proper school to learn art is not life but art.”

I am not sure Marcel would have condemned this approach. After all, if it helps re-direct readers back to the original source, why should he complain?

[Janet Kenny]

Mark,
You're absolutely right about the chief joy of translation being in an intimate feeling for language and that one is most at ease with one's own language. I do have one problem about that idea though. If a poem is already complete and of its time, one can only degrade it by reassembling it in modern dress. I have yet to be convinced that it's anything other than an escape from the responsibility of pure creation and I have always hated "updated" versions of real poems.
Janet

[Mark Allinson]

All I can say in response, Janet, is that if friends, myself and editors pick as two of my (so far) best pieces from my re-cyclers, I am happy to try more of them.

If I can produce something I consider aesthetically pleasing (and which also pleases and entertains connoiseurs of the art), I am content.

In this particular enterprise, I see myself as a type of miner or excavator, unearthing, polishing and setting otherwise hidden gems, presently buried in vast mountains of under-read prose.

This is precisely the procedure which gave us the English literary renaissance in the 16th/17th C. - a product of almost nothing entirely "new". For instance, we today (or some of us, at least) value English poems such this from Abraham Cowley (1618 - 1667), when it is entirely re-cycled from the work of the Greek poet Anacreon (563-478 B.C.)

Drinking

THE thirsty earth soaks up the rain,
And drinks and gapes for drink again;
The plants suck in the earth, and are
With constant drinking fresh and fair;
The sea itself (which one would think
Should have but little need of drink)
Drinks twice ten thousand rivers up,
So fill'd that they o'erflow the cup.
The busy Sun (and one would guess
By 's drunken fiery face no less)
Drinks up the sea, and when he's done,
The Moon and Stars drink up the Sun:
They drink and dance by their own light,
They drink and revel all the night:
Nothing in Nature's sober found,
But an eternal health goes round.
Fill up the bowl, then, fill it high,
Fill all the glasses there - for why
Should every creature drink but I ?
Why, man of morals, tell me why ?

========



[This message has been edited by Mark Allinson (edited August 26, 2006).]

[Janet Kenny]

Revision for Mark:

The potency of simple scent recalls
the way I was before I wasn’t, yet
the touch and taste I somehow can’t forget
no matter where time’s longer shadow falls.
I see behind those other houses’ walls
with freshly laundered linen neatly set
on breakfast tables where good people met
for fruits preserved against the wintry squalls.
Newly baked bread like ocean spray can bring
a rush of protozoan lives that flood
in chaos and profusion from a spring.
Despite the peacefulness there is a sting--
anxiety, a dullness in the blood
that tells me that my words will never sing.


[This message has been edited by Janet Kenny (edited August 26, 2006).]

[Mark Allinson]

A well-written, engaging sonnet, Janet.

Maybe still in the "After Proust" category, rather than a close re-presentation of the original passage, but well-done, nonetheless.

One of the reasons I was attracted to this passage was the simile of "entire tracts of air or ocean ... illuminated or perfumed by myriad protozoa" , which I didn't want to lose, so I start my sonnet off:


Like certain tracts of air or ocean fired
and scented by the breaths of minute lives,
the odors in these rooms remain inspired
by an atmosphere of habit which survives.


I am still fiddling with the rest of the sonnet, but I think this first quatrain is just about there.

[This message has been edited by Mark Allinson (edited August 26, 2006).]

[Janet Kenny]

Mark that's very nice indeed.

I still value original experiences most of all. I disagree that all the poets would start with the same inspiration if they used that text. Their own experiences would totally change the meaning and I know you'll say that it's like that when we read and I'd agree. But I feel protective towards the original creation. So many distortions and so much blurring of something personal.
Janet