by George Anca
MEDITATION ON AN IMAGINARY ANTHOLOGY
3. 07.
83. București
La Delhi pe iarnă moartea mi se uita în gât
ieri în centrul Bucureștiului mi s-a uitat gâtul la moarte
am revăzut-o și eu de nemaivzut o tristețe în picioare
încă nu cădeam m-au dus Nana și Nansi de colo colo
ori în care loc aș fi căzut putea fi cruce
schimbarea climei zice înfocată Mariana
anghina pulcelată pe același fond nu
e nicio problemă și nu se moare așa
dar dacă eu le-am cerut iertare și le-am spus că
le-am iubit și am călătorit împreună și
prin subteran nu puteam altfel traversa
simțind că n-o să mai pot urca de acolo
ieșisem în oraș cu 40 de grade pentru Mahabharata
1. 11.
83. Delhi (D5)
I
play chess with Vasile
wolves
dream a drink
you play piano alone
2. 11.
83. Delhi
the
wives'minds rejuvenated
beyond
tragic purification
when
forgetting the sins of game
in
dream you had arrived at down
with
other appearance mounted
on
the white ants tree
laughing
from lungs halving
the
pay of sitar illusion not
knowing
the ten adventures
and
who singing other music
had
pushed us in the sin
of
riverside coppices
I
quote negations from the gallows
over
a woman in the ghost
replacing
the nonsense
it
rings with an invitation
three
days after in Hanuman
Mandir
at his daughter shadi
since
yesterday no more distant pallor
since
today morning contributing
to
my sin with the birth
distinguishing
the mogul
from
Turk I retired
in
the nearness of Kublai
I
was distinguishing the love from death
Radha
loving only in the meaning
that
she will lose will lose Krishna
I'll
not transcribe the trembling
in
the abyss of awakening
to
not lose Radha not lose Radha
the
alley slips under monkeys
thoughts
shadow up to the tower
palm-tree
growing me green
guarded
by her child
this
untouchable woman
is
looking into the mirror
the
child sees me sees me
and
I see both covering with touches
the
matter of white mirror
a
paisa for Dusshera a paisa for
puja
jae mata immaculata
harijan
gone in the mirror
now
that it came the time
of
quiet word jiu-jitsu
how
without irmi and judo
in
tempo of kempo tae kwan-do
tang
soo-do aike-do
karate
kung fu
you
were painting annunciation
saying
lalat netra agun basan
from
Rabindranath ashes-eyes
and
again ma bole dakis nore mon
n-o
chema-n minte pe maica ta
run
like the calf after the cow
6.
11. 83. Delhi
non
sono sola
jae
jagadisha hari
accompanied
at piano-forte
say
something before
next concerto for credibility
of
yaksha's meghaduta
7.
11. 83. Delhi
Confused
I am by all snake's symbols – Achilles died in the Island of
Snakes, Leuke by name, and the island went some while ago unnoticed
to Yama. A letter I red in red ink from madness to madness, then once
again I met you within confusion and Monday morning in a kind cosmos.
It's
black ink over a page and a half. The empty white half doesn't help.
The child hadn't time after falling for the second time. No color. It
is written „nu s-a împiedicat”.
Free fall. Past. Three weeks plus two weeks and now, similarly
postponed.
Said,
you understand. Other colors. Walk. The unseen garden. Said, you saw.
Left the same. Seen nothing. Second time, at night, laughs over any
face and a half. Loved the white cow. Disturbing. Killing kidneys.
Economy, phallus and belonging. Jacket, urine, jacket. Commercial
name Rivatril, nothing in India, understand Kamla.
„Nine years ago on a November afternoon, two
weeks later, I was sitting on the same verandah, on the same chair
turning my back half to the sun, with half of my senses turning
towards the child on the other verandah.
We
were trying to make out the sense of English sentences, hearing the
crows, feeling the coming noise of nature. Another subtle voice of
birds, same feeling like under painted plantains. The child walking
in the dark, green shadows (with lures of brown, yellow and red) of a
late afternoon – it should last forever. The child now ten years
old is watching intensely Juliette and Hermione who I am not. My
brain is touched. We are going to explore it.”
God,
take my life, make two for my child, let him old in me and grown up
in him, a girl, a boy, unaware of us all. The night you did passed,
and a beautiful Indian November also today and all children and you
and me.
The
dream you gave me not long nights ago wasn't true, wasn't untrue,
like you an me, and a few troubles, not more sins. Cursed be you for
my enjoyment of being. You push me to those prints of child's fall.
I
thank to first mother immolated, burned like a sati, in my very place
and of child's. It happens with no why, maharaj, good Bhagavan. There
was a story of stories you'll bitterly remember, giving a wind and a
rain with no why.
„I should understand. But with anger and
longing, I don't. I regret the steps, the same steps I walk down
through the same roadside, pebbles and known and unknown stones,
faces watching, everything in alert dressing to meet the
acquaintances.
I
need to hold your hand, feel you for long, long time, so long that I
could forget about everything, the noise outside, phalwala shouting,
waiting whores and raven crowing the hour of our death, drown around
my mouth, eyes, palms of my hands.
On
a nice worm Delhi winter evening, I was surrounded by nice, polished
young men. Then I could have told you and myself the truth about you,
about myself – half open windows, half drunk coffee, abandoned
books, type-writer half-filled with dust, my mother opening the empty
letter-box, Luiza in a guise of patience at the entrance, Vijay and
Terry playing a big game of scrabble.
And
the children loving being incarnations of all who have once been and
loved India, great possibilities of life and disappointment. I always
dreamt about reaching here, walking in the dust in the footsteps of
many, going with books in my hand, in a (cold) November morning,
smelling the fresh stark and crowning on my saree forever and of
course dying here, my ashes thrown into the Yamuna.
And
I find you here from the same and alien stock with all the
middle-European complexes, frailty, self-destroying depressions,
fears from being in the patch, Freudian complexes – we are doomed.
It is all fatal, too heavy for me.”
Did
you find Rivatril? - I didn't understand description of it. - Bad
E.E.G. How are your children? - Loving incarnations like ever. - I
eave the place to try again, Margaret, snake is wise indeed, no time
to be on one's way.
I
like it, after all. - Understanding another description. - Middle...
- That's. - For us. - Over -
And
now? - Rivatril. - American? - The doctor thinks also British, he was
furious when I said German. Why cannot God make myself Rivatril for
my child?
I
take profit in it (dear she), while, „stately,
plump came Buck Mulligan” „at work
with syllables to submit language as living” „and
delighting proof of” his
„gregariousness”, and
far from the middle your Dumrul, „not I”,
„MOUTH: ... out... into this world...”,
well, Billie, L R(omanian), left, right,
„M: Mother”, „It
all”, „Nothing to be done”,
„Yes, let's go”, „about
fifty”, our children know November, our children take awards.
„You love me so!”, „Birth
was the death of him”, I tried to start as SPEAKER, ending
„the sad tale a last time told” through
„The globe alone, alone gone”,
„Prematurely old” „rock
her off” as reader, „Little
is left to tell”, a little more,
„Ah!” (Krapp), „No,
I wouldn't want them back”, „On”
(Henry), „Not a sound”,
„Finished”, „You
remain”, „Desert”, „He
looks at his hands”, „pick it up”,
„what time you went back”, „and
gone in no time gone in no time”, „Good-evening”
(Female voice), „Repeat”, „When
I thought of her it was always night”, „among
the deepening shades”, „A penny for a
poor old man”, „Eh, Billie?”,
„Well” (B), „Well
I'll be...!”, „Madam” (HE),
„Tomorrow... noon...”, „Ready,
miss?”, „Tomorrow, who knows, we may be
free”.
At
superbazar I was advised to visit, not to
see, Chondni Chowk, that is Medical Bureau, opposite Chatne Wale
Sweet Shop. I dropped in Young Friends Chemist, knowing that no drugs
are being imported in India.
And
so in The New Book Depot, I got the following imports: The Book of
Dede Korkut, for our rivatril; for mine, by Beckett: „Ends
and Odds”, Endgame, Occasional Pieces, Happy Days, Waiting for
Godot, Foot falls, Not I. But for my wife's rivatril, Joyce's
Ulysses, as you already saw through the beginnings and endings,
remaining all alien in the middle in search of the needed rivatril.
Please
do say your sincere thoughts and impressions in the last 24 hours
since I am searching for RIVATRIL (bad EEG, two falls on the street
OF THE CHILD – the theme already arisen. Do not agree again be
Kafka's avatar, past are those times.
Yes,
how much can he tell. The last 24 hours – one had a long walk with
one, bumping up and down on the pavement all the known buildings of
the university all different now with one, one's knees still
trembling, shoulders, elbows, hands touching just a bit – once on
four steps.
Why
they don't walk to the end of world? No, let they go to Pondicherry,
lie down on the rock, put one's head on one's belly, listen to the
sea and one's body working. They appreciate all what they miss in
life. Long paths leading to unknown houses. Wild roses on the window
frames.
Oh,
no that is the end of romantics. Shops, business to be done, this is
the travel one has to take up alone. Never should admit when one
con-fused, wandering looks here and there, and immediately comes some
one.
One
is with the child, all the child's life, longer than their sum.
Laughing at roses. Little same dukha. Nothing of the middle park,
with a French mother carrying her Walachian Christ. Could be a movie
at Batta shouses.
Tantric
answers from Asian Southern hemisphere. Paise. See a skin cut by
dance of hastened desertion of the last darkness before the first
half. God listened one's prayer, as for an end of one's life for
nothing.
The
child came from the tutor. Went to tutoriality. If you'd written
more, half of a half more. Their listener from Cismigiu-Musoori
plantains didn't bother, you think, for the child's illness. Like
many other trees did. And difference between day and night at birth,
etc.
The
half empty white repeated in your friend's letter as for Rivatril.
Canceled visit and journey near Interstate Bus Stand, I love the
earth-goddess, feeling her help to the remained incarnations.
Cold
night. Joking knee. Morning Hindu-Muslim prayers. And that bottle of
perfect form. You are that. I always drink you like for the first
time, and you keep not only my thirst. Looked to child nose to nose
to parrot. Our children know November, our children are in good
health.
„E-n zadar, copile”. Isn't in vain, nu e-n
zadar, copile, „copii eram noi amandoi”
- „When I was little tiny boy”. Nobody
learned about rivatril in India. There's colder than in child's
winters here. Could be also the pre-puberty.
No
scandal by Amita-Calamita moves me by now. Bibi speaks on Romanian
rugby team, to go there. I'll fall in your place. Fist my nose. You,
falling woman. The newly married couple was not in that bus –
Andhra. Pendant que des parfums de roses viendront embaumer nos vingt
ans!
Sconosciuto.
Chiar? After all seas begin to boil on the main road. It returned the
eggs to be broken in its own memory. Only answer. Proof of dialogue.
And orgy. Who is the thief? One started dancing. God, says the whore.
Bones as ivory, well, respect the doctor, don't be like that with me.
I
need only rivatril. I cannot kill myself. Spring isn't for me any
more. Only sweet November. With sins full of graves. Sorry saying
doctor is god. Has no idea. The people look through window. Fools.
Something more than thieves. Confusion of lost senses.
After,
the whore said, for the third time, pray to god. Precising she is a
bachelor. Rhythmically: I pray for your child. Saint god is only one.
God is love and love is god. The sister of the flower-dealer saw
privately the Pope on 20th
October, in the fifth Room in Rome's Vatican.
It
was a November morning in Delhi. A cold nip, mist around leaves and
branches, child's knees shivering in the air. „Hurry,
we may be late for the school bus. And don't fall into the wholes dug
in the middle of the road”. On child's legs – what's there, snow
or smell of wet leave?
Each
morning is full of anticipation. I understand it only now. How
miserable. I was a wife. How much fuller of happiness one's life is
setting out every day for a new adventure. It's no moral, no feminist
teaching. I can't sum up my situation as: I am happier than any wife.
Perhaps, only luckier: to be able to manage on my own.
To
see the children from far away is a relief. To reach bus stop. To
feel I fulfilled for this morning my duty as a mother. Prepare to
meet the students. My inspiration must work. I have ready in my mind
what I thought till now. And still there is a little hope – they
may not come today.
As
I think just now: what if you come? I turn my face and you are there.
But, as you never come, they always come. Some very faithfully. Some
just a bit late. A bit not there in thought with their thoughts.
Why
did you come to love women in blood? Jerusalem seen by Jeremiah like
a whore. And so seen Canterbury by Passolini. Rivatril was the theme.
Letter to brain-surgeon. Even you, Falstaff, don't drink, say,
because of Mallory.
When
I wanted to jump from the top o Jantar Mantar, repeat, I saw the
water down there was dirty. I renounced also to don't regret in the
air. Dear Falstaff, you think one cannot try everything. I played it
all. I do everything. Anything. But...
We
have the freedom to do anything. Become painters and paint, spoil
colors. Children started crying at gate. Loving Falstaff was not
compulsion, but applications. Yet yesterday, an understatement: don't
embarrass one's agony.
16.
11. 83. Delhi
Ajung
acasă la ora șase. Acum e șapte. Mi-e foame. Am avut o zi
grea. De dimineață, am fost la ora de română. Ultima lecție: La
teatru. Ce teatru, domnule? Că apoi am mers la serviciu. Am probleme
personale.
Vreau
să mă însor, dacă sunt masculin. Dacă sunt fată, mă mărit.
Îmi trebuie ceva bani și câte și mai câte. Teatru? O scrisoare
pierdută? Eu cu cine votez? Curat examen. „Să-le spui curat / Că
m-am însurat”. E din Miorița, fără niciun măritat.
Ba
da. Că „a lumii mireasă” asta face.
Votez cu ea, domnule profesor. Altfel știi că îți vorbesc cu
dumneavoastră. Mai știm că nu se poate preciza asta pe
englezește, și facem o traducere pe cinste, liberă.
Nu am
înțeles floarea albastră chiar atunci, în grădină. Ați spus de
două ori Eminescu și încă o dată floare albastră. Nu știu la
ce vă gândeați. A, da, ne-ați pus în temă cu structuralismul de
la Panini la Saussure. Și alte nume.
De ce
nu ne-a mai vizitat și anul ăsta Sergiu Al-George? Mă gândesc să
mă gândesc, am de tradus ce mă gândesc. Nu ne mai dați proverbe.
Nici latini. Păi da, anul trecut studenții tăi au învățat
latina serios, de-au înțeles româna în istorie.
V-ați
ocupat cu știința, știm noi. Dar nici cu teatrul nu mi-e rușine.
Am început jocul cu vorbe. Am întâlnit substantivele pe drum, la
sărbători naționale și în expoziții. Astea sunt propoziții,
din câte înțeleg. A mai trecut, totuși, timp. Uitați-vă la ceas
– certificat de română, 1984, trei ore. Traduc titlurile
lecțiilor din cursul Cazacu.
20.
11. 83. Delhi
The
jamadarnis came in a long line. They filled up the path where I
wanted to come to you. In rags, the brest of some hanging out from
under blouses. Darkness fell and they passed by me
giggling and anticipating the pleasures after day work. And you went
by with jamadarnis. I saw you making love with them. It stroke me it
wasn't literature. It was you with same hands taking their measured
but love for 10 rupees.
20
steps more. I reach the steps. Nobody there. But the lock. The light
is deceit just your words to me, to put me to a good night's sleep.
There is not hesitation. Away from the closed door, from the lock
whose key is not in my hand. Away with all rhetoric of sailing ships
from island of cannibals. Away to listen to the palpitation of our
hearts.
Delhi,
Delhi at night, I never loved you so much. Love to stand on street. I
never knew one can stand so at night, waiting and watching the cars
which turn up and disappears in their own rhythm. I never new Probyn
Road so urban. Waiting for the prince, after his battles, on stage
and in life. Delhi on night, uncover me not, hold my hand, I have a
long way to go.
The
time was over, Nothing to do but smoking, running, hallucinating,
laughing, regretting, trying, remembering, writing, asking, keeping,
opening, drinking, listening, booking, breathing, chattering,
provoking, embracing, kissing, worrying, smelling, forgetting.
All
already in the great game. No able to reach his mother breast, to say
the word I. Closed up in the darkest square of the carpet. Lives
based on half truths. Daring not to say a sentence. Exaggerating
murderous wishes. I am the child, I played in all my orifices, let me
listen to God.
I
wouldn't say you are conventional – not exactly conventional, but
sometimes – value of official marriage, child having to love his
mother best, grimace when speaking about Mircea fucking Stella, if
daughter would fuck a black man. Appreciating people who would just
devour everybody just because they are a family. Or am I unjust?
Uncle
Billie, now, on top of Jantar Mantar. Sorry, son, do not suffer. I do
it for you. I did it immediately. Jumped by mistake. Even saint
fathers. I wanted simply to play with you. Looking in no mirror. In
no eye. Awfully burning sun.
I
moved into void under your conventional protection and love. Bad
looking uncle after fall. Say your mother why didn't she take care.
There is water in front of you, think of fishes. Can swim by my fatty
being and no-being.
Kid,
I didn't it to can say I did it. Happy your mother when given birth
to you. I give you this my death. The birth of my I. As I am not a
family and can jump alone. No, in the air, I wish I fly. But I want
you to see me among invented fishes.
I
don't know swimming. Water almost doesn't exist. Some dirty liquid. I
did it for so little water. With fire in it. With you following me by
camera, never realizing where I was, where I am, where I will be. You
click and turn playing: I pay homage to the Translator.
You
know no one of my ten professions: Killing, stealing, adultery,
cheating, double-talk, coarse language, talking nonsense,
covetousness, anger and perverted views. Young people of misery
adventure, connoisseur of real India killed himself, said the story
teller.
10.
12. 83. Delhi.
Within
modern Indianity and Indian modernity, condition of poetry surpass
condition of poet. As today revolt is universal, freedom of poetry is
limited. An anthology of underground poetry will be not published
anywhere, it can appear as an interference into internal affairs of
poetry, an unpublishable manuscript. A sclerotic idea of both poetry
and its belonging are making the job at least unpleasant if not
impossible.
There
is a great country of India, with poetry in different languages, with
poets feeling individually as everywhere, greatly concerned with
symbols and liberties of general hope. The feast of old aesthetics
passed through alankara science. Genuine subjectivity within
undivided inspiration of consciousness may preferable destroy before
building.
One
has indeed to feel loosing from one's hypocrisy. There is a softness
in the strong voices, a silent strength in the mystic melodies of
delicate singers. An ambition of modern poetry in India appears to be
the expression of Kali Yuga survival on one hand, on another, the
rediscovery of ancient perfection, like in any renaissance.
Translating
Indian poems, one feels getting indianized, using quiet virtual
Sanskrit, Bengali, Malayalam, Hindi, actually renouncing to
translate. Foreign poems written in India are still Indian. Religious
pressing on secular minds, the disregard of sympathy, shock carried
by crisis, entropy can be easier accommodated in a translation than
in the original. But for what use?
Theories
of poetry and poetics are all of a sudden forgotten, a new poem comes
into existence. With end or new beginning in translation, under
primordial attractive originality. To which extent the metaphor is
free of language and the language is a metaphor? Is poetry a
morphology?
Is
the society co-author with an individual poet against its progress?
India of poets and poets of India are in logic connection. Human
mankind is shaped in a considerable measure by poetry. Normal
decadence doesn't fit political pretensions of advancement.
What
is truth on poetry-lie? To translate is to create again a creation,
killing original author or killing self. If poets don't read poetry
to be not influenced, do readers read it to be influenced? Posthumous
reading of a poet is nobody's job?
Nobody
likes anthologies. Anyone knows poetry through own itinerary from
poet to poet. The few occasion of revelation could have come from
poetry, be it a prayer or a curse. Somehow poetics kills poetry as
poetry kills poet. The show excites less young imaginations busy with
reopening generation's eye, nourishing philosophies and children.
11.
12. 83. Delhi, D5.
Remembering
of Romanian poetry while reading an Indian poet, a commercial
optimism is as if doubled in divergent mirrors. Gone are the times of
bhakti poetry everywhere but not entirely here. Sad and silent are
revolutionary voices. Even anti-poetry age speaks metaphorically.
Crust of study doesn't cover crest of poetry. One chats easier with
Kalidasa.
Poetry
as personal experience and translation brings an utter impression
mixing lost impressions with received enthusiasms, sorrows and
rejection. Linguistics of translations have nothing to do with
poetry. Frankly speaking, linguists can work properly only on
generative errors with Wittgenstein and Jacobson. Let everybody learn
renunciation.
Poets
love each other most in occasion of one's death. Those poems written
as acknowledgment are worth to be not rewritten in a translation, but
slightly reshaped through metaphors and diction according to a
different colorfulness.
Poems
dedicated to critics will be most commented by fellow-critics. Poems
dedicated to poor and heroic require a messianic good-sense in front
of Babel ideologies and historical assassinating tragedy. Same about
contradictory god, hypocritical tolerance, Lucifer's atheism.
In
the beginning, translations were Greek-Latin. For Sanskrit
alankarikas, realizations were only samples. Unless religious ones,
the bodies of poetry are left. The Logos-Brahma resisted. Golden
pages share poverty of translator if not greatness of a Marpa, of a
Luther. Somehow, smallest translate greatest and vice-versa. There
are more anonymous translators of Shakespeare than better known
translators and original authors.
Translation
is most censurable work, firs by translator – most refined
censorship. Convention is of special omniscient criticism, applicable
to any other „introduction”.
Destroyers of anthologies are practically endless,
translator included.
Readers
aren't programmable. They have not only last word, but also first
stimulation. Don't wait for writer of other culture – the code will
be bot rejected and completed by their share. A translator is a
reader of or for readers, a re-writer. After all, reader isn't angel,
not easy acceptor of eternity.
Eminescu
refined Romanian poetry, also through his reader, to the extent of
dangerous universality. Coșbuc made a
still more Romanian Sanskrit Anthology. Blaga reopened mono
logically the gate. Anti-poetical 20th
century contributed to cold literary war. Let next century to give a
new chance.
Teaching
in hell of paradise, the heavy truthfulness of poetry comes from
outside, not from inside of poet. Poet's dream-negation-dream
language is to be translated, retold, as an outside work. It is
enough for a Romanian to know he exists in Punjabi under Mrs. Pritam
signature and in her magazine. While she confessed she was forgotten
in Romania.
That
can not happen after all. Be seen her poetry as gurdwara did. As
happened to Baudelaire from his contemporary judges, and later from
Sartre. Who Sartre was himself well fined in similar manner. Largest
way of remembrance-forgetfulness is still an anthology.
From
Tagore without Tagore, down Ghalib, preference to Walathol, free
underground poet, measured university one, traditionally musical
Sanskrit modern kavi as saint in speech as political father.
Gurudev's Child Christ. Aurobindo Greek-Latin involvements. Bharati's
many religions also out of religion's idiom.
If
poetry belongs to a higher order, the crisis of it is a good thing.
The poetic rights will be not claimed like human rights. Poetry of
eating, surviving, thinking, poetry of generations or generations of
poetry. Stories in process of translating are different than
previous ones. A translator transforms intellectually the feelings. A
translator seeing Jamuna thinks of poems on Jamuna.
Poet
is most unhappy being. Poetic being isn't human or divine only.
Kalidasa's Cloud Messenger became symbol of jails. Vergil's and
Horace's propaganda poetry for emperor and empire knows, within
greatness of Greek like perfection, the opposite dimension, sometimes
in the myth of India.
Rationed
translation-poetry doesn't damage poetry. Vastness of another poetry
comes to intensity of translation during hard times in one's own
country, or of his exile in country of which poetry he tries to
translate. Hardly can one speak of a free translator. Pity for
unpopularity of translations with writers and literature – readers
like them more.
Inhibiting
craft of excellence in another language isn't easily connected –
almost imaginatively – with original's quality. Sound is and isn't
too much. Meaning is and isn't too obvious even for reader of the
original. Inspired expression will be out of canons of poetry itself.
When
one starts to feel poet, who and how does one remain a poet while
translating, and if so, what kind of a relation exists between
himself and original authors? I met a Jewish old gentleman preferring
to read Solomon Song of Songs in Latin – Cantica Canticorum.
No
matter of translator, but of translation, of language. If not a poet,
translator talks as an avatar or sacrilege through poetry, on behalf
of another creator. On the other hand, more than one complete
version, direct from Sanskrit, Rig Veda will not shadow Eminescu's
Roamian replies to it. On the contrary, will increase its
singularity, as well as mystery of poetical creation, poetical stand
against senseless time of history.
If
something can be free of provincialism, language considered, poetry
comes in mind together with music. Orchestras of translators can
color differently, age after age, bibles in version. Religious beauty
will separate again and again accordingly sacred and profane, tot use
preferred terms in Mircea Eliade's Hermeneutics.
But
quiet translatable religion isn't as much tied with quiet
untranslatable poetry. Not only poets appeal, sometimes, to god, but
also god turns to be a gnostic poet. Time by time, and almost always
in translation. Are they not first translations Brahma's words in
Sanskrit, Buddha's in Pali, Jehovah's in Hebraic, Christ in Aramaic
and Greek, Allah's in Arabian, Zarathustra in Persian?
Unknown
writers in their own literature happen to be recognized by
translation. „That is not poet at all”,
one can learn of a dear representative already
translated. „This is not publishable with us” is suggested in
other bank. „This cannot publish us in exchange” things almost
everybody.
Does
ghazal answer some European form? Was Michel Madhusudan sure enough
about chances of sonnet in Indian languages? Is fashion of kai-ku a
western sign in Indian poetry, or remains a seventeen syllable
Sanskrit mandakranta meter? Daring innovators of forms are showing
solidarity in decadence too.
Page
on which a poet wrote his poem is it white again in translator's
imagination? Does it matter if the first wrote with left hand and the
second transcribes it with right hand? Are beliefs and morals of
translated author stimulating energy and choice of translators? What
the reader will say? Is cultural sclerosis blocking the way from
poetry to poetry?
The
confession beyond translation is of a third author. The voice of
silence from which both sound and echo play truest lie, most
promising illusion. Objectivity seems to be with founders, currents,
involvements in progress revolution, etc. How much a poet translated,
translator and reader belong to subjectivity, reducing full mystery
of imaginary India to a short black verse? Or, by contrast,
encountering revelation.
Poetical
myth in modern Indian poetry may be less myth, actual sensibility
being recognized in terms of general humanism and specific
tradition. Greater poet not lesser Indian, lesser Indian not greater
poet. Poetry isn't only creation of poet, but an appointment, a
marriage. Ubiquitous feelings are expressed and re-expressed as for
first, as for last. Poetry outside poet, poet inside poetry, poetry
inside poet.
Poetry
is only beautiful death-misery-sin together with love-life-purity.
Discussion with a poet, translation of a poem, thinking of its
making, according to author's talent inspiration mean appointment,
never disappointment.
How
translatable are politics, morals, superstitions? Is mystical
readership of poetry equal to non-riding it? Is poetry a recital of
language in poet's interpretation? Is it remembrance, prophecy,
rehearsal of reality through illusory illusion?
Absolute
blackness of Kali provides poetry daemon in poet's speech,
apparently one with that of reader, listener. Silent secret of
poetry is unknown to poet himself in other language than that
invented and simultaneously forgotten of his poetry. Poetical
inspiration doesn't belong to cosmos, nor cosmos to its projections.
Sever
game of objectivity leaves to object only professional rejection if
not interested acceptance of its re-inspiration. Through mechanical
categories of comparative literature as body of methods, a translator
can check themes, guess influences, open ways to affirmative
readings. A formulation like „India in Romanian”, i.e. Romanian
poems of Indian inspiration, try to accede sphere of poetical
awareness.
The
proof an anthology could make isn't of an experience of changing
principles described in this attempt, but extensive super-cultural
mythological India. Poetic civilization doesn't rebuild surroundings,
but contemplate and attack the ever existing ones. Practical love
reform by Tulsidas or Francisco d'Assisi, series published by Sahitya
Academi are seducing the anthologizer. South American analogy crosses
interest for African voices.
With
Tagore, in Bucharest and on Black Sea bank, we have infinitely more
than whitest beard in view. Reasserting poetry sacrifice is a lead to
sculptural abstraction re-imagined by Brancusi in Indore. With
Eminescu, Blaga, Arghezi, Eliade, other less famous but not less
poets, we have some real and imaginary Indian new mantras.
Brotherhood
poetry slows self alienation. Poetry of self increases need for
brotherhood. Color of tropic can get richer through diminutive
mountain-verse, less monumental for eye than Himalaya. Adaptation up
to renunciation. Renounced anthology suits still be tribute payed to
poetry expectations of worshiper.
Artifice-creation
as worship seems revenged. Critical job is by far other job than for
an anthology. Critical instrumentation, tired for imposing and
destroying, will stop working, at best. Poet's choice will be also
crushed by unemployed critics. Better a reader, a teller of those,
say, interesting poets of twentieth century.
Who
is poet's India, who is India's Poet? Selfishness but freedom before
getting it. Freedom of country, freedom of poetry. God has a temple
in poetry. Modernity self is to be seen with third eye. Felt with
sixth sense. Regretted nostalgia of lost paradises and hells.
Older
clarity of systematic perfection makes place to clear disintegration
of former patterns. Universal entropy by natural balance its poetry
fascination. Poets repeat the former creator playing his last sound.
The first and the last young poet aren't unknown to each other. Old
modern Indian poet, a father.
You
know poetry anthologies published here. If you don't find there a
poem known everywhere, please share some to present intended
translator. Between poetry sonority and hearing there is a space of
imaginary reconstruction of human consciences, a living poetical
opportunity.
An
imaginary anthology would mix primordial language with modernity, be
it in terms of Bremond and Tagore. Let lose intention, take
methodological ignorance or irony making Peguy to write a thesis in
verse, like Sanskrit treaties. Physician poet Vasile Voiculescu, who
applied a versified application to Health Ministry, actually rewrote
Kalidasa's Sakuntala in Carpathians.
Histories
of literature are spoiled anthologies as anthologies are renounced
histories. Unlike poet, the poetry faces victoriously the history.
Poets' biographies include personal epitaphs full of not so black
humor like philosophies, reconstructions, enthusiasms, dandy poses,
revolutionary calls. Let out age, audience, glory, suspicion as
negative stimulation.
From
Latin neoteric to Indo-Anglian bard we see reversed dispositions for
fashion in different times, geographies and cultures. Neoteric liked
finer Greek pattern differently from Indo-Anglian face to poetical
European English. Indian muse may have adapted to that language
which is not any more foreign.
In
a general anti-fiction age, non-poetry, essays or poems on poetry are
rather fashionable. For publisher, poetry is loss. Poetry of
censorship and censorship of poetry thrones on Nobel convenient
winners, schizophrenic realism, poetry of recovery in asymmetry to
poetry of improvement.
The
few changes in poetry during centuries, poet's eternal necessary
poverty are encouraging and educating facts for readers and society.
Transformations could even be balanced by return to poetical
mysterious depth, beauty and soundness beyond exemplary sufferance.
So
many members of anthology, or absents mentioned afterward are moving.
Is it worth to translate children, thinking to children of next
century? Long centuries after, like now in their choices in return to
old masters thinking to us not like children.
Children
weren't so popular with Sanskrit poet. Not so in aesthetic codes for
modern children, grown-ups, old, dead. Poetry life, life poetry. Is
middle class kind of middle-poetry class? Solar system, poetic
system.
Beautiful
conclusion to death, fear of ambiguous ends, Archimede's invading
disorder of circles, dear disorders – poetry of disorder, still
order? Aestheticians may be happy with broken patterns, reminding,
rebuilding, saving. Likewise, administrators could find consolation
for small interest to writing from ivory tower.
With
much more questions for a single unsure answer – what is to be
poetry itself – one can wonder, after a few years, what one's
indianization may mean? It's better to clarify it in India with no
regard how he will play a fool. Than to be confused in his own play
with prohibited corrupter of the right. Worship disposition clears
verse directness of negation.
Avoided
influences are at work. Open dissidence puts together tradition and
literary denial. With a new poet, poetry re-finds its origin which
cannot be younger than god. Remaining young, patriarch poet may be
rather god's father than his son.
Perfect
happy poet, like Milarepa, would be also stoned or poisoned like
Socrates, Dante and so many moderns. Unaccepted poet makes his poetry
silently accepted – only poetry isn't conspirator, on the contrary
is a reply to power brutalities. Poetry power: unchallengeable by
other powers. Poet-poetry challenge Sanskrit Ardhaniswara, Plato's
androgynous.
Anthology
retains poems in an adventurous way of choice. Some poems having to
be present are unknown to translator. He may translate masterpieces
in the picture, jumping from peak to peak under an illusion of
essences. What other image than a summary, beyond preimage if not
prejudice?
Answerable anthology connoting Asian spirit can
attract a better judgment of own tradition. Birth and rebirth of
poetic meaning repeats samskara. Like eggs double, birds songs mix
with human love songs. Orpheus knows all other beings than his. Birds
aren't consoled by Ramayana inspired by their sorrow.
Poetry as an integrated, sonorous soul of all
beings chose the poet and gives him a secret of novelty within
permanence. Modern distortions confirm perennial beauty of
contraries. God and devil play episodic roles in poetry like in a
Mozart opera a king, singing very little if at all.
17. 12. 83. Delhi, D5
True way to love and hate is poetry, through
Radha, or, otherwise, through modern verse pushed by politicians.
Some answering ghost-compassion to previous meditations in surplus.
Poetry-contemplation, poetry-action. Different from earthly muddy
conflicts.
Avoidance of poetry – hate for poet.
Pretensions of tensions. Rimbaud, isn't enough excellency to be free
to see a movie? Hunter of poets, poetry murder keeling a poet-two,
many-all. Logic of poetry and killing isn't unknown. Lyrical
explosions are opposed to killing explosions.
21. 12. 83, D5, Delhi
Hearing about death of a poet, the language of
thought returns to ritual of powerful silence. On 13 December 1983,
poet Nichita Staneascu passed away. We evoked his poetry in our class
of Romanian language. We translated his last poem signed by him,
Towards Peace. It is more shanti than pax.
Translator translates poet as wood-cutter. Forest
of symbols correspond with forest of non-symbols. Wood-cutter thinks
to Savitry without translation. How silent Yama is taking-giving life
there.
engleză nici pic, poezie pici-pecoloînrestbucuros ani eventualbuni. Asta-i!
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