Month: June 2015

Posted on by Dave Bonta

Historia de mi muerte / Story of My Death by Leopoldo Lugones

This entry is part 11 of 38 in the series Poetry from the Other Americas

Watch on Vimeo.

Story of My Death

I dreamed of death, and it was very simple:
I was cocooned in a silk thread
and at each of your kisses
another loop unwound,
and each of your kisses lasted a day
and the time between two kisses
lasted a night. Death was very simple.

And little by little that fatal thread
was unwinding. There was no longer more
than a single loop held between the fingers…
When suddenly you became cold
and no longer kissed me…
and I loosed my grip, and my life was gone.

Historia De Mi Muerte

Soñé la muerte y era muy sencillo;
una hebra de seda me envolvía,
y a cada beso tuyo,
con una vuelta menos me ceñía
y cada beso tuyo
era un día;
y el tiempo que mediaba entre dos besos
una noche. La muerte era muy sencilla.

Y poco a poco fue desenvolviéndose
la hebra fatal. Ya no la retenía
sino por solo un cabo entre los dedos…
Cuando de pronto te pusiste fría
y ya no me besaste…
y solté el cabo, y se me fue la vida.

*

Leopoldo Lugones - photo by Eduardo Vargas Machuca
photo by Eduardo Vargas Machuca

I translated this poem (with some invaluable assistance from Alicia E-Bourdin on Facebook) specifically with the intent of pairing it with that footage of cabbage white butterflies—which, when I shot it last week, I already recognized as having a certain Lugones-like feel. So it was just a question of finding the right poem. Running the Spanish and English side-by-side on the screen is a new experiment; I don’t know if anyone else has done it before. But most books of poetry in translation published in the U.S. include the original poems on the verso pages, so it’s tried-and-true approach for print.

Of all the early 20th-century Latin American poets in the Modernismo movement, Leopoldo Lugones may be my favorite. Even if he weren’t, I’d still feel obligated to include him in this series; his influence on Argentinian letters was inescapable. The English Wikipedia article on him is pretty threadbare, but the Encyclopedia Brittanica does a decent job.

Leopoldo Lugones, (born June 13, 1874, Villa María del Río Seco, Arg.—died Feb. 19, 1938, Buenos Aires), Argentine poet, literary and social critic, and cultural ambassador, considered by many the outstanding figure of his age in the cultural life of Argentina. He was a strong influence on the younger generation of writers that included the prominent short-story writer and novelist Jorge Luis Borges. His influence in public life set the pace for national development in the arts and education. […]

Lugones was director of the National Council of Education (1914–38), and he represented Argentina in the Committee on Intellectual Cooperation of the League of Nations (1924). He was also noted for several volumes of Argentine history, for studies of Classical Greek literature and culture, and for his Spanish translations of the Iliad and the Odyssey.

An introverted man who thought of himself primarily as a poet, Lugones was genuinely uneasy about the prominence that he had achieved and the public responsibilities that it entailed. He became a fascist in 1929. Under great emotional strain in later years, he committed suicide.

Posted on by Luisa A. Igloria

Arguments with destiny: 23

The earth has ears, news
has wings. And the stars,
being so far away, no longer
see the need to pass judgment.

*

The pain of the little finger
is felt by the whole body—
So then see how the warm
coffee softens hard bread.

*

If you are going a long way, go slowly.
The rain falls so it can fill the water jar.
No matter how long the procession,
it still ends up in church.

Posted on by Dave Bonta

On the way

(Lord’s day). This day I first put on my slasht doublet, which I like very well. Mr. Shepley came to me in the morning, telling me that he and my Lord came to town from Hinchinbroke last night. He and I spend an hour in looking over his account, and then walked to the Wardrobe, all the way discoursing of my Lord’s business. He tells me to my great wonder that Mr. Barnwell is dead 500l. in debt to my Lord.
By and by my Lord came from church, and I dined, with some others, with him, he very merry, and after dinner took me aside and talked of state and other matters. By and by to my brother Tom’s and took him out with me homewards (calling at the Wardrobe to talk a little with Mr. Moore), and so to my house, where I paid him all I owed him, and did make the 20l. I lately lent him up to 40l., for which he shall give bond to Mr. Shepley, for it is his money.
So my wife and I to walk in the garden, where all our talk was against Sir W. Pen, against whom I have lately had cause to be much prejudiced. By and by he and his daughter came out to walk, so we took no notice of them a great while, at last in going home spoke a word or two, and so good night, and to bed. This day I am told of a Portugall lady, at Hampton Court, that hath dropped a child already since the Queen’s coming, but the king would not have them searched whose it is; and so it is not commonly known yet. Coming home to-night, I met with Will. Swan, who do talk as high for the Fanatiques as ever he did in his life; and do pity my Lord Sandwich and me that we should be given up to the wickedness of the world; and that a fall is coming upon us all; for he finds that he and his company are the true spirit of the nation, and the greater part of the nation too, who will have liberty of conscience in spite of this “Act of Uniformity,” or they will die; and if they may not preach abroad, they will preach in their own houses. He told me that certainly Sir H. Vane must be gone to Heaven, for he died as much a martyr and saint as ever man did; and that the King hath lost more by that man’s death, than he will get again a good while. At all which I know not what to think; but, I confess, I do think that the Bishops will never be able to carry it so high as they do.

Lord’s day
is the Lord’s business;
my church is the known world.
On the road, they told me
that heaven died as much
as man did,
and bishops will never
be able to carry it
so high.


Erasure poem derived from The Diary of Samuel Pepys, Sunday 22 June 1662.

Posted on by Laura M Kaminski

Developments

Death transformed, eventually, through the course
of many dreams, his scythe divided, turned to talons,
his black cowled cloak to wings. His relentless pacing
became a gathering of fallen twigs of faith. He wove
a nest — it is within this that I rest, soul-embryo
encased in corporeal shell. When body becomes too
brittle, weakened, fragile to withstand the stretching
of my spirit, when it is no longer strong enough
to hold me, I will hatch. I am not yet fully formed
and ready, but these cracks no longer scare me.


After Luisa A. Igloria’s “Arguments with destiny: 21“

Posted on by Dave Bonta

Piety

Up about four o’clock, and settled some private business of my own, then made me ready and to the office to prepare things for our meeting to-day.
By and by we met, and at noon Sir W. Pen and I to the Trinity House; where was a feast made by the Wardens, when great good cheer, and much, but ordinary company. The Lieutenant of the Tower, upon my demanding how Sir H. Vane died, told me that he died in a passion; but all confess with so much courage as never man died. Thence to the office, where Sir W. Rider, Capt. Cocke, and Mr. Cutler came by appointment to meet me to confer about the contract between us and them for 500 tons of hemp. That being done, I did other business and so went home, and there found Mr. Creed, who staid talking with my wife and me an hour or two, and I put on my riding cloth suit, only for him to see how it is, and I think it will do very well. He being gone, and I hearing from my wife and the maids’ complaints made of the boy, I called him up, and with my whip did whip him till I was not able to stir, and yet I could not make him confess any of the lies that they tax him with. At last, not willing to let him go away a conqueror, I took him in task again, and pulled off his frock to his shirt, and whipped him till he did confess that he did drink the whey, which he had denied, and pulled a pink, and above all did lay the candlestick upon the ground in his chamber, which he had denied this quarter of a year. I confess it is one of the greatest wonders that ever I met with that such a little boy as he could possibly be able to suffer half so much as he did to maintain a lie. I think I must be forced to put him away. So to bed, with my arm very weary.

My ready rage, a creed
I put on to see
how it is: thin whip, rock
and candle on the ground.
Denied wonder, I suffer
to maintain a lie.


Erasure poem derived from The Diary of Samuel Pepys, Saturday 21 June 1662.

Posted on by Kristin Berkey-Abbott

Thrift

Who is without debt? Who is without
a raft or gondola of burdens?
—Luisa A. Igloria, “Arguments with destiny: 16”

So many dubious ways to unstitch
our souls from our skins:
the surgeon’s knife,
the chemicals that conceal,
the unknown lover,
the arrow or the bullet.

Who does not dream
of a raft, a river, a way to slip
away from the slave territories
of destiny carved out of flesh.

Schooled by ancient medievalists,
we know we cannot shed
our identities as easily as slipping
off a pair of shoes that pinch.

But we are not ascetics who flog
away, bringing a regime of discipline
to our days. We see no need
to sacrifice pleasures as we pursue
our purifications.

The answers can be found in the box
of buttons clipped before the clothing
found its final consignment in the collage
of the quilts in the cedar chest.

Touch the fabrics and imagine the dress
worn by your great grandmother’s spinster
aunt, the work shirt softened
by sun and sweat and soap. Sift
the buttons with your fingers, buttons saved
for an unknown future.

Make your own time capsule, the map
from the past that will show the way
to the future. Lash
the essentials to your raft.
Exit the river where you will.

Posted on by Luisa A. Igloria

Arguments with destiny: 21

The patience
of Job, the wanderer’s
twenty years, the virtue
of the wife who nightly
wove a winding sheet
to rip apart at dawn—

The world’s most
bitter wars that lasted
more than decades,
the bodies in the trench
kissing crumpled letters
or photographs goodbye—

The long courtship
and the always waiting,
the sacrifice that ends
with vows at last,
if at the brink
of the grave—

The hundred-thousand-
thousand times wings fold:
and we’ll attach on flimsy
strings these patterned
birds, these bits of prayer
set to flutter in the wind—

Posted on by Luisa A. Igloria

Arguments with destiny: 20

“Somewhere in the fog
the waitress
strangles a ghost”

(“En la niebla
la garzona
estrangula un fantasma.”)

~ from “Canción cubista” by José María Eguren, trans. Jean Morris and Dave Bonta

In the rain,
by the balete tree,
a woman dressed all in white
thumbs a ride.

And at the corner,
where the journalist was last seen
before soldiers took him away,
the road is an ideogram

looping into the hills.
Whose crushed blue
duffel bag is that,
stuffed into the corner

of the waiting shed?
Only the cat might know,
prowling through
the mossy quiet.

 

In response to Via Negativa: Birds of Smoke....

Posted on by Dave Bonta

Primates

Up by four or five o’clock, and to the office, and there drew up the agreement between the King and Sir John Winter about the Forrest of Deane; and having done it, he came himself (I did not know him to be the Queen’s Secretary before, but observed him to be a man of fine parts); and we read it, and both liked it well. That done, I turned to the Forrest of Deane, in Speede’s Mapps, and there he showed me how it lies; and the Lea-bayly, with the great charge of carrying it to Lydny, and many other things worth my knowing; and I do perceive that I am very short in my business by not knowing many times the geographical part of my business.
At my office till Mr. Moore took me out and at my house looked over our papers again, and upon our evening accounts did give full discharges one to the other, and in his and many other accounts I perceive I shall be better able to give a true balance of my estate to myself within a day or two than I have been this twelve months.
Then he and I to Alderman Backwell’s and did the like there, and I gave one receipt for all the money I have received thence upon the receipt of my Lord’s crusados. Then I went to the Exchange, and hear that the merchants have a great fear of a breach with the Spaniard; for they think he will not brook our having Tangier, Dunkirk, and Jamaica; and our merchants begin to draw home their estates as fast as they can. Then to Pope’s Head Ally, and there bought me a pair of tweezers, cost me 14s., the first thing like a bawble I have bought a good while, but I do it with some trouble of mind, though my conscience tells me that I do it with an apprehension of service in my office to have a book to write memorandums in, and a pair of compasses in it; but I confess myself the willinger to do it because I perceive by my accounts that I shall be better by 30l. than I expected to be. But by tomorrow night I intend to see to the bottom of all my accounts. Then home to dinner, where Mr. Moore met me. Then he went away, and I to the office and dispatch much business. So in the evening, my wife and I and Jane over the water to the Halfway-house, a pretty, pleasant walk, but the wind high. So home again and to bed.

We turn to the forest
(and other things

worth knowing
by not knowing)

to look our full
at all we fear,

our estate like a bauble
bought with trouble,

mind a pair of compasses
to walk home.


Erasure poem derived from The Diary of Samuel Pepys, Friday 20 June 1662.