[New-Poetry] Eshleman on the travails of translating Vallejo

[Sigauke, Emmanuel]

Dear Poets, 
 
This poem is looking for a home; can someone offer an honest (not necessarily detailed) response? I'm sorry if it's too long.  
 

ROCKS DANCING IN THE MOON <http://sigaukepoetry.blogspot.com/2007/07/dancing-hill.html>  


When I lift my arms
the hill lifts his, and mother says
I need to see a n'anga, perhaps I am a medium
awaiting the ripe day when an ancestor
will claim his throne.

This happens at night -
when the moon is grinning 
when I am not at the village playground
nights of hide-and-seek, find-and-fix games;
those mother-and-I-only nights
when baba stays all night at the beer gathering.
Mother sits inside our hut, shelling nuts
and outside, in the embrace of moonlight,
I squint at the hill. The hill glares back
and near the entrance to a cave
two rocks, tall, stand
waving back at me, smiling at the moon.
I bend, get on my knees even
and they bend too, get on their knees even.
I lean to one side, they lean too, against each other
grinning still; pouting at me and at the moon.

So I laugh, and mother springs up, storms
outside to seal my mouth, but with the eyes open
I don't want to stop laughing
as long as the rocks don't stop sagging their stomaches
a dance for me
a lone boy bathing in the moon
whose water washes all:
hills and their rocks, mothers and their sons.


________________________________

From: new-poetry-bounces at wiz.cath.vt.edu [mailto:new-poetry-bounces at wiz.cath.vt.edu] On Behalf Of Anny Ballardini
Sent: Tuesday, August 07, 2007 3:20 PM
To: NewPoetry: Contemporary Poetry News &amp; Views
Subject: Re: [New-Poetry] Eshleman on the travails of translating Vallejo



INTELLIGENCE, GIVE ME

 

Intelligence, give me

the exact name of things!

I want my word to be

the thing itself,

created by my soul a second time.

So that those who do not know them

can go to the things through me,

all those who have forgotten them

can go to the things through me,

all those who love them

can go to the things through me...

Intelligence, give me

the exact name, and your name

and theirs and mine, for things!

 

Juan Ramòn Jimènez

Translated by Robert Bly

	----- Original Message ----- 
	From: Halvard Johnson <mailto:halvard at earthlink.net>  
	To: NewPoetry: Contemporary Poetry News &amp;Views <mailto:new-poetry at wiz.cath.vt.edu>  
	Sent: Tuesday, August 07, 2007 11:48 PM
	Subject: Re: [New-Poetry] Eshleman on the travails of translating Vallejo

	As in "In the beginning was the Word, and the Word 
	was not in any dictionary"?

	Hal

	
	"The nation without great poets will
	 not have great politicians."
	--Saddam Hussein

	Halvard Johnson
	================
	halvard at earthlink.net
	http://home.earthlink.net/~halvard/index.html
	http://entropyandme.blogspot.com 
	http://imageswithoutwords.blogspot.com
	http://www.hamiltonstone.org 
	http://home.earthlink.net/~halvard/vidalocabooks.html


	On Aug 7, 2007, at 4:29 PM, JforJames at aol.com wrote:


		
		In a message dated 8/7/2007 5:25:29 PM Eastern Daylight Time, anny.ballardini at tin.it writes:

			
			"This word was not in any dictionary."
			 

		Anny, when I read that sentence it seemed to be the title of a poem, a universal one.
		Finnegan



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