ni Amiri Baraka
aking salin
Bumalik siya at bumaril. Binaril niya siya. Nang siya ay
nanumbalik, bumaril siya, at natumba siya, nagpasuray-suray, lagpas sa
aninong kahoy, pababa, nabaril, naghihingalo, patay, ganap na pagtigil.
Sa ibaba, nagdurugo, pinaslang. Namatay siya noon, doon
pagkabagsak, ang kumakaripas na bala, pumunit sa kanyang mukha
at dugong tumilamsik nang pino sa mamamaslang at sa abuhing liwanag.
Mga litrato ng patay na tao, sa buong paligid. At ang kanyang kaluluwang
sumisipsip sa liwanag. Ngunit namatay siya sa kadilimang madilim pa
sa kanyang budhi at ang lahat na bulag na nagpasuray-suray nang naghihingalo siya
pababa ng hagdan.
Wala tayong balita
sa mamaslang, maliban sa bumalik siya, mula sa kung saan
upang gawin ang kanyang ginawa. At isang beses lamang binaril ang kanyang biktimang
tumititig, at agad itong iniwan nang maubos ang dugo. Alam nating
ang mamamaslang ay mahusay, mabilis, at tahimik, na ang bikitima'y
maaaring nakakakilala sa kanya. Maliban dito, maliban sa namuong asim
ng bungad ng mukha ng namatay, at sa malamig na sorpresa sa pagkakakabit
ng kanyang mga kamay at daliri, wala tayong nalalaman.
Okt 14, 2012
Ang Ika-Anim na Gabi: Paggising
ni Muriel Rukeyser
aking salin
Noong unang luntiang gabi ng kanilang pananaginip, habang nakahimlay sa paanan ng Puno, nagwika ang Diyos, "Magsigalaw ang mga kahulugan," at nagkaroon ng tula.
aking salin
Noong unang luntiang gabi ng kanilang pananaginip, habang nakahimlay sa paanan ng Puno, nagwika ang Diyos, "Magsigalaw ang mga kahulugan," at nagkaroon ng tula.
Okt 12, 2012
Ginsberg Thread
Read the poem, or listen to Allen Ginsberg read "In a Supermarket in California"
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AN— thanks for finding that out
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AN— yes, i think that does evoke the underworld. esp those aeneid and odyssey scenes where the heroes bribe the dead to come rise briefly from the mouth of hades by digging a pit under a tree and filling it with the blood and innards of slain animals
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AN— seems that (to ginsberg) whitman had the better end of the deal, and the better generation. it seems a touch cruel of ginsberg (instead of slaying the father) to import whitman to his time/hell and let him take on a diminished role with diminished faculties while he (ginsberg) retains more of the acuity and less (if none!) of the lethe
DE— An interesting take. Whitman teaches straying from him after all. Anyone who wishes to undertake that must somehow psychically and of course aesthetically "reduce" the father/forebear. Otherwise, no transcendence/straying shall occur. Ginsberg has to imagine his courage-teacher as in some way less capable of facing this present with its supermarkets and commercialism and dwindling (shelved) selves.
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DE— I found Dante here as well. I'm interested in where Ginsberg (Dante) wants his Whitman (Virgil) to take him. Dream-like, hallucinatory, or in keeping with the underworldly Inferno, the supermarket almost immediately takes the form of antiquity's hell the moment Ginsberg thinks of the outside.
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DE— That kind of makes this more of a hell—the fact that the Virgil here is also lost, a Whitman forgotten (Lethe) and forgetful. Dante could always count on Virgil, guide, protector, and translator. Ginsberg wants this Whitman to become a true Virgil, but it seems he has been rendered sterile thus displaced in the supermarket.
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AN— in dante's comedy, the great poets and philosophers of antiquity can't pass beyond limbo to purgatory because of their paganism and their loyalty to reason. reason (and a secular ethics that come with it) somehow saves them from hell, but it also too limiting to allow them paradise (or the purgatory that leads to paradise). following this, these two are somehow saved (or cursed), having no destiny (which way is your beard pointing?) other than to know now, to perceive now, but to forget later (lethe). just a tentative take. i'll have to read those limbo passages at some point to be sure
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DE— You sound like a poet yourself. But it's true, when your insides are reeling and you're lost in a crowd or a place of routines, the place takes on the shades of inferno and the routines suggest the cyclic punishments of hell.
AN— yes, i like this intertext! making whitman a teiresias does produce sound associations. teiresias who was not always in full control of his senses, who was sometimes male, sometimes female! he is definitely (if sometimes only momentarily) a courage-teacher to heroes like ulysses. also aeneas, i think :)
DE— Me too. Yes, Aeneas was also directed to seek counsel and help from Tiresias. It was said "that Tiresias, of all mortals, was permitted to keep a clear head about mortal matters" here. I'd like to read more into that because Whitman as Tiresias does not seem to have a clear head at all. But his questions about the murder of prokchops and other things seem to come from a special, underworldly insight into human affairs.
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AN— clarification: ginsberg's insanity, right?
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AN— to charon? (not to whitman?) because of the tendency toward the Lethe?
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AN— thanks for finding that out
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AN— yes, i think that does evoke the underworld. esp those aeneid and odyssey scenes where the heroes bribe the dead to come rise briefly from the mouth of hades by digging a pit under a tree and filling it with the blood and innards of slain animals
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AN— seems that (to ginsberg) whitman had the better end of the deal, and the better generation. it seems a touch cruel of ginsberg (instead of slaying the father) to import whitman to his time/hell and let him take on a diminished role with diminished faculties while he (ginsberg) retains more of the acuity and less (if none!) of the lethe
DE— An interesting take. Whitman teaches straying from him after all. Anyone who wishes to undertake that must somehow psychically and of course aesthetically "reduce" the father/forebear. Otherwise, no transcendence/straying shall occur. Ginsberg has to imagine his courage-teacher as in some way less capable of facing this present with its supermarkets and commercialism and dwindling (shelved) selves.
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DE— I found Dante here as well. I'm interested in where Ginsberg (Dante) wants his Whitman (Virgil) to take him. Dream-like, hallucinatory, or in keeping with the underworldly Inferno, the supermarket almost immediately takes the form of antiquity's hell the moment Ginsberg thinks of the outside.
—
—
—
DE— That kind of makes this more of a hell—the fact that the Virgil here is also lost, a Whitman forgotten (Lethe) and forgetful. Dante could always count on Virgil, guide, protector, and translator. Ginsberg wants this Whitman to become a true Virgil, but it seems he has been rendered sterile thus displaced in the supermarket.
—
AN— in dante's comedy, the great poets and philosophers of antiquity can't pass beyond limbo to purgatory because of their paganism and their loyalty to reason. reason (and a secular ethics that come with it) somehow saves them from hell, but it also too limiting to allow them paradise (or the purgatory that leads to paradise). following this, these two are somehow saved (or cursed), having no destiny (which way is your beard pointing?) other than to know now, to perceive now, but to forget later (lethe). just a tentative take. i'll have to read those limbo passages at some point to be sure
—
DE— You sound like a poet yourself. But it's true, when your insides are reeling and you're lost in a crowd or a place of routines, the place takes on the shades of inferno and the routines suggest the cyclic punishments of hell.
AN— yes, i like this intertext! making whitman a teiresias does produce sound associations. teiresias who was not always in full control of his senses, who was sometimes male, sometimes female! he is definitely (if sometimes only momentarily) a courage-teacher to heroes like ulysses. also aeneas, i think :)
DE— Me too. Yes, Aeneas was also directed to seek counsel and help from Tiresias. It was said "that Tiresias, of all mortals, was permitted to keep a clear head about mortal matters" here. I'd like to read more into that because Whitman as Tiresias does not seem to have a clear head at all. But his questions about the murder of prokchops and other things seem to come from a special, underworldly insight into human affairs.
—
AN— clarification: ginsberg's insanity, right?
—
AN— to charon? (not to whitman?) because of the tendency toward the Lethe?
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Okt 10, 2012
Ten Ten Twelve
SR. SOL— You have no work left for me.
ANATH— Of the Herculean labors, the thing about cleaning the stables struck me as the most unjust.
SR. SOL— Where is your room?
ANATH— Off limits, but that's a nice try. Attend rather to the lions gathering about your heart, biding time at the edges of your lungs.
SR. SOL— I want to shake this off.
ANATH— Mourn.
SR. SOL— She was also your loss.
ANATH— Mourn, but on whose behalf?
SR.SOL— All you ever truly taught them was cowardice.
ANATH— Of the Herculean labors, the thing about cleaning the stables struck me as the most unjust.
SR. SOL— Where is your room?
ANATH— Off limits, but that's a nice try. Attend rather to the lions gathering about your heart, biding time at the edges of your lungs.
SR. SOL— I want to shake this off.
ANATH— Mourn.
SR. SOL— She was also your loss.
ANATH— Mourn, but on whose behalf?
SR.SOL— All you ever truly taught them was cowardice.
Okt 8, 2012
XXII
ni William Carlos Williams
aking salin
napakaraming nakasalalay
sa
pulang
karetilyang
pinakintab ng tubig
ulan
katabi ng mga puting
manok.
aking salin
napakaraming nakasalalay
sa
pulang
karetilyang
pinakintab ng tubig
ulan
katabi ng mga puting
manok.
Okt 4, 2012
Dickinson Thread
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—So she's lamenting this susceptibility to splinters as a weakness of an otherwise powerful human brain? All the while I thought she was celebrating this (as she does the Brain's native powers in the Sky poem), but now I'm seriously considering your reading (and appreciate that you've anchored it on "true").
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—I think so. Or that thought is naturally rebellious. In addition to this, perhaps ED was also framing poetry as rebellious thought. As something that intrinsically splinters or multiplies the mind.
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—Yes I do. Your two points did indeed sound affirmative to me. In scooping a turnpike, the waters usurp the very instrument that was supposed to direct them. Your note on form says that, yes, this poem likewise "benefits" from splinters, and itself attempts to be a splinter in the reader's brain and in literary tradition as a whole.
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—You gave weight to the word "true" from tell all the truth but tell it slant. And so perhaps, the poet favors the brain before the splinter and would have had the brain be more resistant to splinters. I remember though that the poet said the truth should dazzle gradually. There's progression there, from states of less bedazzlement to states of greater bedazzlement. Could it not be that the "true" in the brain within its groove is a provisional truth? That yes, the brain is in part correct, has already achieved something, has trued, and so forth, but it is only on the way to "all the truth" and if truth is superb surprise, then the brain can't stay in that groove for much too long.
—So she's lamenting this susceptibility to splinters as a weakness of an otherwise powerful human brain? All the while I thought she was celebrating this (as she does the Brain's native powers in the Sky poem), but now I'm seriously considering your reading (and appreciate that you've anchored it on "true").
—
—I think so. Or that thought is naturally rebellious. In addition to this, perhaps ED was also framing poetry as rebellious thought. As something that intrinsically splinters or multiplies the mind.
—
—Yes I do. Your two points did indeed sound affirmative to me. In scooping a turnpike, the waters usurp the very instrument that was supposed to direct them. Your note on form says that, yes, this poem likewise "benefits" from splinters, and itself attempts to be a splinter in the reader's brain and in literary tradition as a whole.
—
—You gave weight to the word "true" from tell all the truth but tell it slant. And so perhaps, the poet favors the brain before the splinter and would have had the brain be more resistant to splinters. I remember though that the poet said the truth should dazzle gradually. There's progression there, from states of less bedazzlement to states of greater bedazzlement. Could it not be that the "true" in the brain within its groove is a provisional truth? That yes, the brain is in part correct, has already achieved something, has trued, and so forth, but it is only on the way to "all the truth" and if truth is superb surprise, then the brain can't stay in that groove for much too long.
Okt 1, 2012
Conference Wish List
1) I wish we stop laughing at jokes about "those who won't sit in front won't receive merit incentives, haha," and "those who don't arrive in time won't get the bonus... promise!"
2) I wish we don't make a habit of golf and country clubs.
3) I wish science would quit "conservation of timber" and start looking forward to trees.
4) I wish we invite more students to conference, ask them politely to dance.
5) Does the library know a question better than "What do corporations want?"
6) Why can't "World Class" mean everybody goes to school?
7) That the touching of screens will push teachers to muddy their knees in the fields.
8) I wish I went to the Kinder Sports Fest where my daughter comprehends the use of slides.
9) Suppose a lesson divides promptness and urgency between "What if in the real world you're late for a meeting with a magnate?" and "The people are waiting, the people..."
10) Among all the words in attendance, it was "courage" and "service" who wanted to speak.
2) I wish we don't make a habit of golf and country clubs.
3) I wish science would quit "conservation of timber" and start looking forward to trees.
4) I wish we invite more students to conference, ask them politely to dance.
5) Does the library know a question better than "What do corporations want?"
6) Why can't "World Class" mean everybody goes to school?
7) That the touching of screens will push teachers to muddy their knees in the fields.
8) I wish I went to the Kinder Sports Fest where my daughter comprehends the use of slides.
9) Suppose a lesson divides promptness and urgency between "What if in the real world you're late for a meeting with a magnate?" and "The people are waiting, the people..."
10) Among all the words in attendance, it was "courage" and "service" who wanted to speak.
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