animals – Page 11 – don't confuse the narrator

the real thing

Browsing the online sales pages, I came across this:

I’m glad the description warns me that it is an imitation. But I would rather like to know what a real Mongolian cushion looks like.

On the other hand, years ago, an American colleague assured me that faux pas was pronounced “fox paw”. So perhaps this cushion is made from the fur of the Faux Mongolian – a relative of the Siberian Fox, I suppose, but adapted to a grassier terrain if the colour is anything to go by.

more than words

I’ve been thinking a lot about translation recently. In particular I’ve been considering what happens to a poem that changes form or other details in transposition to another language, and when it ceases to be a translation and instead should be considered an original work: the point at which it becomes a poem inspired by another work, rather than an attempt to render the source in a different language.

This is a complex question, but not the only complex question to occur when considering translation.

In a recent discussion with some translator colleagues, we considered the problems arising when a central symbol means little in the target culture.
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some squirrels and a Wren

The squirrels in the previous post were photographed in St Paul’s churchyard, London. Like the ones I remember from the parks of my childhood, they were very friendly and keen to be fed by the tourists.

Nearer to home there are wild squirrels who visit and use the flower pots on the patio as storage jars for their winter supplies; they are not at all tame – which is why I couldn’t get closer for the next picture – but they do seem to have learned their kerb drill:

grey squirrel sitting on kerbside as if waiting to cross road — Tufty would be proud

October 20th was the anniversary of the birth of Christopher Wren, so it seems appropriate to make another post connected to his great work, St Paul’s. I made a brief visit there on a recent trip to London and sat in the churchyard, where I watched the squirrels and began planning a poem.
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pallette of greys*

silver
ripple and pause
squirrel

squirrel
nibble and paws
silver

*(Alternatively: “palate of greys”)

unnatural creatures

I should visit my mother more often.

The first good reason for visiting her more often is that she is really quite elderly, having celebrated her 90th birthday earlier this year. The second, far more selfish reason, is that I always find ideas when I do visit. Not necessarily ideas for poems, and not necessarily useful ideas, but usually there are oddities and slantwise perspectives that amuse me.

Today I have been hearing a faint alarm sound every 30 seconds or so; I knew it wasn’t the foghorns on the estuary – not least because it has been a gloriously sunny day – and it didn’t seem to be a phone or an alarm clock. When I asked if she had any idea what it might be, my mother denied all knowledge. Eventually, though, we managed to work it out. It’s her new “solar mole repeller”.