In which the arts funding that is about to die, salutes you
- A multilingual poetry speaking-tube called the Poetry Periscope, which will also be visiting Birmingham and Durham.
- Athena Farrokhzad is a Swedish poet participating in Versopolis.
Untitled extract, by Athena Farrokhzad (translated by Jennifer Hayashida)
Min mor byggde oss en framtid av livskvantitet
I förortsvillans källarförråd radade hon upp konservburkar
som inför ett krig
My mother let bleach run through her syntax
On the other side of punctuation her syllables became whiter
than a winter in Norrland
Untitled extract, by Athena Farrokhzad (translated by Jennifer Hayashida)
Min bror sa: Någon gång vill jag dö i ett land
där människor kan uttala mitt namn
My brother said: Some day I want to die in a country
where people can pronounce my name
- Reading, books 2016, 107.
97. Neumitne jeseni (Imminent Autumns), by Goran Čolakhodžić who is a Croatian poet and philologist. I also read his poetry available online in English (and I've read some of it before). I especially like (1) Last Mowing, reproduced below, (2) and Rukama grobljima (With Hands-Graveyards) with an epigram: "Ti nemoj mene voljeti. / Moje su ruke ljetno groblje komaraca" - T. Augustinčić ("Do not love me. / My hands are a summer graveyard of mosquitoes" - T. Augustinčić), and (3) Grandma has long feared the first days of August (notes: ignore the odd formatting with split lines as I suspect it's an artefact of the web page, and although there's no Croatian original posted I believe this poem is a translation into English). I was given this booklet free at a free Versopolis event with financial support from the Creative Europe Programme of the European Union.
Last Mowing, by Goran Čolakhodžić (translated by the author)
The last mowing another quiet ritual.
It is not obligatory, but it is good,
and pleasant too, because it re-enacts August,
the time when mowing is as contagious as yawning,
when you start the engine and begin,
and when you stop for the first time
you hear the entire motor choir from the near
distance, from all the four corners of the world.
All of us conquering grass, playing cows,
playing neighbours in the suburbs of Chicago.
But the last mowing is more beautiful and manly:
you are alone in it, it’s often dusk and there is fog.
You do something unpleasant and painful to the grass
for its own good, like a doctor or a father.
You take care of the machine, you clean it before it sleeps,
you pour out the petrol, dealing with - as you never do,
being a philologist, a scribe and a gay - oil and steel. In the end
you lock the door, breathing out an 'everything’s ready' -
now winter may come, now the long nights without growth
spent far away from the earth,
that’s why you sigh.
- Versopolis was recorded live and is available via streaming or download from the Ledbury Poetry Festival website along with many other events (note: the recordings include notorious racist and Islamophobe Peter Tatchell who deliberately used his white power to silence gay Muslims and has repeatedly attacked anyone who protests Mr Tatchell's racism and Mr Tatchell's transphobia also an earlier post with more details ETA: link changed because truthful and valid criticisms of Mr Tatchell seem to keep mysteriously disappearing [/but don't let that distract you from the poetry]).
This entry was originally posted at http://spiralsheep.dreamwidth.org/587765.html and has
comments Please comment there using OpenID.
- Athena Farrokhzad is a Swedish poet participating in Versopolis.
Untitled extract, by Athena Farrokhzad (translated by Jennifer Hayashida)
Min mor byggde oss en framtid av livskvantitet
I förortsvillans källarförråd radade hon upp konservburkar
som inför ett krig
My mother let bleach run through her syntax
On the other side of punctuation her syllables became whiter
than a winter in Norrland
Untitled extract, by Athena Farrokhzad (translated by Jennifer Hayashida)
Min bror sa: Någon gång vill jag dö i ett land
där människor kan uttala mitt namn
My brother said: Some day I want to die in a country
where people can pronounce my name
- Reading, books 2016, 107.
97. Neumitne jeseni (Imminent Autumns), by Goran Čolakhodžić who is a Croatian poet and philologist. I also read his poetry available online in English (and I've read some of it before). I especially like (1) Last Mowing, reproduced below, (2) and Rukama grobljima (With Hands-Graveyards) with an epigram: "Ti nemoj mene voljeti. / Moje su ruke ljetno groblje komaraca" - T. Augustinčić ("Do not love me. / My hands are a summer graveyard of mosquitoes" - T. Augustinčić), and (3) Grandma has long feared the first days of August (notes: ignore the odd formatting with split lines as I suspect it's an artefact of the web page, and although there's no Croatian original posted I believe this poem is a translation into English). I was given this booklet free at a free Versopolis event with financial support from the Creative Europe Programme of the European Union.
Last Mowing, by Goran Čolakhodžić (translated by the author)
The last mowing another quiet ritual.
It is not obligatory, but it is good,
and pleasant too, because it re-enacts August,
the time when mowing is as contagious as yawning,
when you start the engine and begin,
and when you stop for the first time
you hear the entire motor choir from the near
distance, from all the four corners of the world.
All of us conquering grass, playing cows,
playing neighbours in the suburbs of Chicago.
But the last mowing is more beautiful and manly:
you are alone in it, it’s often dusk and there is fog.
You do something unpleasant and painful to the grass
for its own good, like a doctor or a father.
You take care of the machine, you clean it before it sleeps,
you pour out the petrol, dealing with - as you never do,
being a philologist, a scribe and a gay - oil and steel. In the end
you lock the door, breathing out an 'everything’s ready' -
now winter may come, now the long nights without growth
spent far away from the earth,
that’s why you sigh.
- Versopolis was recorded live and is available via streaming or download from the Ledbury Poetry Festival website along with many other events (note: the recordings include notorious racist and Islamophobe Peter Tatchell who deliberately used his white power to silence gay Muslims and has repeatedly attacked anyone who protests Mr Tatchell's racism and Mr Tatchell's transphobia also an earlier post with more details ETA: link changed because truthful and valid criticisms of Mr Tatchell seem to keep mysteriously disappearing [/but don't let that distract you from the poetry]).
This entry was originally posted at http://spiralsheep.dreamwidth.org/587765.html and has
comments Please comment there using OpenID.