poetry – Page 114 – don't confuse the narrator

of telephones and translation

I went to a workshop in the Cotswolds last week, where we discussed translation and poetry. Specifically, translating the poems of Lorca, as it was related to the Lorca in England competition. I do want to write more about translation, but have been caught up in discussion of my other hobby horse, the narrator in poetry.

So, while I try and find time to compose my thoughts and write some more on the subject of translations, which, “like women, when faithful are seldom beautiful and when beautiful are unlikely to be faithful” – (I’m not sure who to attribute that thought to) – here’s a picture of an English telephone box, just to brighten the page.

of shoe-cleaning and elephants

I’ve been back in the DCTN archives discussing narrators – first person and third person – and what’s ‘real’ in my poetry, and have just written that the inspiration for a poem is almost certainly something in my life, but it isn’t necessarily something real that actually happened to me.

The trigger may be a personal experience, or it may be something I read or overhear, or something from today that I connect through to something half remembered from the past etc. I then take that kernel of an idea and extrapolate it and link it with other images and ideas to create a poem. The same trigger can inspire different poems in different styles or forms and with different protagonists, and the information that fleshes it out may come from personal experience, research or imagination.
Continue reading “of shoe-cleaning and elephants”

time to stand and stare

Travelling in the UK, I seem to be in headless chicken mode, with no time to sit and think or write, and yet achieving very little. Yesterday, though, I took a walk , as it was a glorious, slightly blustery, English summer afternoon.

I’ve commented before on the monkey puzzle in my mother’s village, but I’d never seen it with cones before:

coffee and countables

What is it with coffee shops and countability?

I’ve commented in the past on the Starbucks slogan “Less napkins. More plants. More planet.” *

Today, though, it’s Coffee #1 who have offended my grammatical – and poetical – sensibilites. Again, it’s napkins (or serviettes):

treachery, forgery, or the sincerest form of flattery?

I’ve been over at Cantueso’s blog again, looking at translations of a poem by Hans Magnus Enzensberger and wondering about some of the phrases. In the blog comments, Cantueso says:

[the English] translation is much better and much more faithful than [my Spanish]

Not knowing any German, it’s hard for me to comment on that, but the coupling of the two adjectives ‘better’ and ‘faithful’ catches my attention. It makes me think of the Italian expression traduttore, traditore – ‘translator, traitor’.
Continue reading “treachery, forgery, or the sincerest form of flattery?”