fragments of contemporary poetry

[quasimodo1]

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/04/19/ny..._r=1&ref=books --- A Celebrated Princeton

Poet Organizes a Festival of His Peers



By MARY JO PATTERSON
Published: April 17, 2009
"POETRY is not everyone’s daily bread, but even those who would be hard pressed to name three great living poets

understand its power, says Paul Muldoon, the Pulitzer Prize-winning poet and professor of creative writing at

Princeton University. ..."

[quasimodo1]

from The Colossus and Other Poems

WATERCOLOR OF GRANTCHESTER MEADOWS

There, spring lambs jam the sheepfold. In air
Stilled, silvered as water in a glass
Nothing is big or fat.
The small shrew chitters from its wilderness
Of grassheads and is heard.
Flits nimble-winged in thickets, and of good color.

Cloudrack and owl-hollowed willows slanting over
The bland Granta double their white and green
World under the sheer water
And ride that flux at anchor, upside down.
The punter sinks his pole.
In Byron's pool
Cattails part where the tame cygnets steer.

It is a country on a nursery plate. ... {excerpt}

[quasimodo1]

{from Nigeria, 1932-1967}

ELEGY FOR ALTO
{with Drum Accompaniment}

AND THE HORN may now paw the air howling goodbye. . . .

For the Eagles are now in sight:
Shadows in the horizon--

THE ROBBERS are here in black sudden steps of showers, of
caterpillars--

THE EAGLES have come again,
The eagles rain down on us--

POLITICIANS are back in giant hidden steps of howitzers, of
detonators--

THE EAGLES descend on us,
Bayonets and cannons--

THE ROBBERS descend on us to strip us of our laughter, of our
thunder--

THE EAGLES have chosen their game,
Taken our concubines--

POLITICIANS are here in this iron dance of mortars, of generators--

THE EAGLES are suddenly there,
New stars of iron dawn;

So let the horn paw the air howling goodbye. . . .

O mother mother Earth, unbind me; let this be my last testament;
let this be
The ram's hidden wish to the sword the sword's secret prayer to
the scabbard--

THE ROBBERS are back in black hidden steps of detonators--

FOR BEYOND the blare of sirened afternoons, beyond the
motorcades;
Beyond the voices and days, the echoing highways; beyond the
latescence
Of our dissonant airs; through our curtained eyeballs, through our
shuttered sleep,
Onto our forgotten selves, onto our broken images; beyond the
barricades
Commandments and edicts, beyond the iron tables, beyond the
elephant's
Legendary patience, beyond his inviolable bronze bust; beyond
our crumbling towers--

BEYOND the iron path careering along the same beaten track--

THE GLIMPSE of a dream lies smouldering in a cave, together with
the mortally wounded birds.
Earth, unbind me; ... {excerpt}

{in 1967, Christopher Okigbo was killed as a combatant in a Nigerian civil war}

[quasimodo1]

{Austria, 1926-1973}

INVOCATION OF THE GREAT BEAR

Great Bear, come down, shaggy night,
Cloud-coated beast with the old eyes,
star eyes.
Through the thickets your paws break
star claws.
We guard our herds with a watchful eye,
though caught in your spell, and mistrust
your tired flanks and sharp,
half--bared fangs,
old bear

. . . . . . . . . . . .


Be afraid or don't be afraid!
Just drop your coins in the collection basket and give
the blind man a good word,
let him hold the bear on its leash.
And spice the lambs well.
Perhaps this bear
will break loose, stop threatening
and chase all the cones that have fallen
from the pines, from the great, winged ones
hurled down from Paradise.

{translated from the German by Mark Anderson, excerpt}

[quasimodo1]

{Brazil, 1902-1987}

SEVEN-SIDED POEM

When I was born, one of the crooked
angels who live in shadow, said:
Carlos, go on! Be gauche in life.

The houses watch the men,
men who run after women.
If the afternoon had been blue,
there might have been less desire.

The trolley goes by full of legs:
white legs, black legs, yellow legs.
My God, why all the legs?
My heart asks. But my eyes
Ask nothing at all.

The man behind the mustache
is serious, simple, and strong
He hardly ever speaks.

. . . . . . . .




Universe, vast universe,
if I had been named Eugene
that would not be what I mean
but it would go into verse
faster.

Universe, vast universe,
my heart is vaster.

I oughtn't to tell you,
but this moon
and this brandy
play the devil with one's emotions.

{translated from the Portuguese by Elizabeth Bishop, excerpt}

[quasimodo1]

{Italy, b. 1921}

HOW LONG

How long between the grain and the wind
of those garrets
higher, more spun out than the sky,
how long I have left you
my writings, my withered risks.
With angel and chimera
with ancient instrument,
with the diary and the drama
the nights play by turns with the sun.
I left you up there to save
from the cauterizing light
my uncertain roof
the disoriented gables,
terraces where the crazed hail walks:

you, only shadow in winter,
shadow among the ice-demons.
Moths and noxious butterflies
rats and moles descending to hibernate
taught and refined you,
Sagittarius and Capricorn
slanted cold lances at you
and Aquarius tempered in its silences
in its transparencies
a year dripping with blood, an inexplicable
loss of mine.

{excerpt, not from link posted below}

{translated from the Italian by Ruth Feldman and Brian Swann} ...................
http://www.press.uchicago.edu/presss...bookkey=190728 --- Andrea Zanzotto is widely

considered Italy’s most influential living poet. The first comprehensive collection in thirty years to translate this

master European poet for an English-speaking audience, The Selected Poetry and Prose of Andrea Zanzotto includes the

very best poems from fourteen of his major books of verse and a selection of thirteen essays that helps illuminate

themes in his poetry as well as elucidate key theoretical underpinnings of his thought. Assembled with the

collaboration of Zanzotto himself and featuring a critical introduction, thorough annotations, and a generous

selection of photographs and art, this volume brings an Italian master to vivid life for American readers. ...

[quasimodo1]

WHAT GOES ON
Selected and New Poems, 1995-2009.
By Stephen Dunn.
Norton, $24.95. --- ---

MERCURY DRESSING
Poems.
By J. D. McClatchy.
Knopf, $25. --- ---

ONE SECRET THING
By Sharon Olds.
Knopf, $26.95. --- ---

SESTETS
By Charles Wright.
Farrar, Straus & Giroux, $23. --- --- {reviews of these new collections...

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/04/26/bo...1&8bu&emc=bua2 }

[quasimodo1]

{Portugal, 1919-2004}

MUSE

Muse teach me the song
Revered and primordial...
.....................

Or changed into the wall
Of the first house
Or become he murmur
Of sea all around

(I remember the floor
Of well-scrubbed planks
Its soapy smell
Keeps coming back)

Muse teach me the song
Of the sea's breath
Heaving with brilliants
Muse teach me the song
Of the white room
And the square window

.................

Because time pierces
Time divides
And time thwarts
Tears me alive
From the walls and floor
Of the first house

Muse teach me the song
Revered and primordial
To fix the brilliance
Of the polished morning

That rested its fingers
Gently on the dunes
And whitewashed the walls
Of those simple rooms

Muse teach me the song
That chokes my throat

{translated from the Portuguese by Ruth Fainlight, excerpt}

[quasimodo1]

{Serbia, 1922-1991}

THE SHADOW MAKER

You walk forever and ever
Over your own individual infinity
From head to heel and back

You're your own source of light
The zenith is in your head
In your heel its setting

Before it dies you let your shadows out
To lengthen to estrange themselves
To work miracles and shame
And bow down only to themselves

{excerpt}

[quasimodo1]

from Poetry, May 2009

WINTER

..........

Winter is out for a lot this year
the hand already is stiff
the crying of children is heard in the house
one will we be one life
I hear my house slip with the world
and scream all that has been screamed
the heart rams its boat into ice
shells rustling in the hull
winter is out for as much.

If I freeze fast in the ice
if you freeze fast my child
my great fear as I come
if you freeze fast my life:
then I am a vulture of wings and ice
tearing my liver, my living life
awake in eternity.

This winter is in for a lot.
{excerpt}

[quasimodo1]

BESIDE A CHRYSANTHEMUM

To bring one chrysanthemum
to flower, the cuckoo has cried
since spring.

To bring one chrysanthemum to bloom,
thunder has rolled
through the black clouds

Flower, like my sister returning
from distant, youthful byways
of throat-tight longing
to stand by the mirror:

{excerpt}

[jinjang]

So Chong-ju

The SNAKE

A lovely snake
lies on the footpath
thick with mint and musk.
What sorrow has shaped your form,
so repulsive?
Beautiful as a colored ankle-band
of my boy's.
Your forked tongue that darts, speechbound,
in and out of a red cave
was once glib enough
for your ancester to tempt Eve.
Bite spitefully into the blue sky.
Be gone with your repulsive head.

Breathless as if kerosene would burn my vitals
I chase it, hurling stones as it
as it slithers along the path
thick with musk and flowers,
but not to avenge Eve, Adam's spouse.

I wish to wear around my body
your skin-color lovelier than colored ankle-band.
With your beautiful lips redder than Cleopatra's,
sink into my soul, Snake.
You have lovely lips like a cat's,
like the lips of my daughter Sunhi
turning twenty.

-1936

[jinjang]

Yi Hyong-gi

FALLEN PETALS

It's beautiful to see one
sensible enough to go
when it is time to go

Passing through the inferno
of springtime passion
my love is fading now

Petals thickly falling
we must go now
loaded with parting bliss

Toward the deep green shade
toward autumn about to bear fruit
my youth fades like a flower

Let us part
our pale hands waving
when petals start to drift to the ground

My love, farewell,
you're my soul's sad eyes that mature
like water filling up a well

-1963

[quasimodo1]

So Chong-Ju


A SNEEZE
......
I stepped out
into the blue autumn day's
winds that touched the ricepaper door.
I sniffed at the weather,
and sneezed.

Somewhere
is someone
saying my words?

Somewhere
as someone says my words,
Has a flower overheard and passed them along?

The clouds split as I look up--
a shining brassy spot of sun
on the mountain's back.

Traces that stir
the waves of an old love.

Is someone
somewhere
saying my words?

..... {excerpt}

{translated from the Korean by David R. McCann}

[JBI]

So Chong-Ju


A SNEEZE
......
I stepped out
into the blue autumn day's
winds that touched the ricepaper door.
I sniffed at the weather,
and sneezed.

Somewhere
is someone
saying my words?

Somewhere
as someone says my words,
Has a flower overheard and passed them along?

The clouds split as I look up--
a shining brassy spot of sun
on the mountain's back.

Traces that stir
the waves of an old love.

Is someone
somewhere
saying my words?

..... {excerpt}

{translated from the Korean by David R. McCann}

Do you have the collection, or just one poem? I'm curious as to how the translation is, as I hear he was one of the most revered of modern Korean poets.