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Readings
I like to read, and I read a lot of books -- the primary impetus for starting this site was to give myself a way of keeping track of what I am thinking about the books I am reading, and to remember the thoughts as time passes.
See my reading list for what I'm interested in this year.
The world gives you of itself in chips, in fragments: At bifucaria bifurcata, Rise reports that Wave Press will be publishing Mario Santiago's Advice from 1 Disciple of Marx to 1 Heidegger Fanatic in translation. You can read the original (which is dedicated to Bolaño and to Kyra Galván) at infrarrealismo.com -- it is 2000 words which seems a bit short for the description "book-length poem" but I imagine the book will have some supplementary material in it as well, and/or the material online is not the complete poem.
The poem has a nicely Tractatus-y quote from Auden as its epigraph: "We must remember here, too, that nothing is beautiful, not even in Poetry, which is not the case." (Back-translated -- I don't know the source of the quotation.)
2. Adaptation
The first of Bolaño's novels to reach the silver screen will be (the as-yet unpublished in translation) Una novela lumpen; Chilean director Alicia Scherson has filmed it as Il Futuro, currently screening at Sundance. The trailer: Thanks for the link, Jorge!
caminamos tú y yo
se anochece en el cielo
como un borracho en el arroyo
visitamos calles desiertos
esquinas quejumbrosas
y otras calles las que sigamos
y que formen argumento
cada vez mas aparente
hacia un propósito muy obvio
lo que sin embargo no podemos llamar
por cualquier nombre
o palabra
Possibly premature (heh) but I have a title page totally thought out for This Silent House... I had been thinking a snippet from "Lullaby for Laura" would be the epigraph, but I just found a JoaquÃn Pasos poem that makes me think of Ãvala: it is the one.
El silencio, roto por el repique sordo de un reloj—
A orilla de la calzada harapo mojado, harapo que solÃa ser camisa elegante—
La plaza que se llena de repente con oleada de sombras por delante
de la luz del sol, o de las alas—
El sueño que vuelve al cabo de cuarenta años, de volar por encima de un mar de lino—
Las huellas estampadas como rastros en la nieve
por la tarde disueltos en compunción y lluvia—
Fue aquà que te sentabas, junto al ramo de orquÃdeas
mirando más allá de la puerta del jardÃn, a tu lado la mujer
y el pelo ni siquiera gris—
por Luisa A. Igloria, en via negativa/tr. Jeremy Osner
On these pages I record and bequeath
the semi-autobiographical log,
a sort of last will and testament,
perhaps devoid of the Maestro’s
meter, rhythm and rhyme,
a run-away musical score
for a fugue in counterpoint
Colombian poet Luis Zalamea translated Prufrock into Spanish. The Fugue in Counterpoint is his own take on the poem, a take written in 1984 for the collection Voces en el desierto, with an introductory note. (The blog is duopoetico, looks very interesting, a collaboration between Zalamea and his daughter Pilar Kimbrell.)
caminamos tú y yo
se anochece en el cielo
como un borracho en el arroyo:
visitamos unos esquinas
y calles ya desconocidas
platicamos, sonreÃmos
me resulta muy difÃcil olvidar
-- The Modesto Kid
Let us go then, you and I,
the evening sprawled across the sky
just like a drunkard, passed out in the gutter.
The patrons scowl, and mutter.
-- Peter Conlay
posted morning of January 9th, 2013: 1 response ➳ More posts about Poetry
