The Rain That Sweetens the Name of Things
Salgado Maranhão
Translated from the Portuguese by Alexis Levitin
I

It takes time for the sun to rise
between my fingers;
                                      the tide
has lingered in me and already
it is night
when the ships
depart...

Oh, holy madness
that warms my soul
and its rooftop!

I am that wounded
animal beneath the inventions
of hostile love;

I am that truce
in which forgiveness 
stirs the wheat.

It takes time for the rain
                                             that sweetness
the name of things
to flow.

For now, I arouse
mythologies
when time ruminates
the vampire's law.

To live is to bleed.


II

To bleed, one's fortune written
by the scythe; to bleed
with wings stretching
                                            to the stars.

Everything is a splintered mirror
to hide all questions. Everything.

And what I have is what I retain
in flesh and life: the obvious
nails, 
             signs of the border.

Importunities
howl in me—
                                close to the bone
and to desire.

That is why I cling
to that naked rage.

My colts are starving—
for light and goodbyes
(and I've sold my maps
for a shot of love).

What I have now
is what the sea has left me;

growling beside the rocks.



I

Demora erguer-se o sol
entre os dedos;
                                    demoram
em mim as marés e já
e noite
quando zarpam
as embarcações...

Ó loucura santa
que me aquece a alma
e o seu telhado!

Sou este animal
ferido sob o invento
de amor hostil;

sou essa trégua
em que o perdāo
exorta o trigo.

Demora escorrer
a chuva
                 que adoça
o nome das coisas.

Por hoje, acordo
as mitologias
em que o tempo rumina
a lei dos vampiros.

Viver é sangrar.
 

II

Sangrar com a sorte escrita
a foice; sangrar
com a asa expandida
                                        aos astros.

Tudo é lâmina de espelhos
para esconder perguntas. Tudo.

E o que tenho é o que guardo
em carne e vida: os pregos
aparentes,
                    as marcas de fronteira.

Estão bramindo em mim
os assédios —
                            rente os ossos
e ao desejo.

É por isso que me agarro
a essa ira despida.

Estāo famintos meus potros —
de luz e despedidas;
(e vendi meus mapas
por um trago de amor).

O que agora tenho
é o que me deixa o mar;

para rosnar junto à pedras.
from the journal MID-AMERICAN REVIEW 
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For Salgado and me, the music of poetry is the heart of the matter. Rhythm, alliteration, assonance. Of course, the translator cannot always reproduce the same sounds in the same places. But he can attempt to create an equivalency of emotional effect through language. Here is a modest example of the translator’s challenge and struggle. The first stanza of poem III is held together by repeated s sounds:
 
Sangrar com a sorte escrita
a foice; sangrar
com a asa expandida
                                    aos astros.
 
In translation, I could only come up with three s sounds, but they appear in important places:

To bleed, one’s fortune
written by the scythe; to bleed
with wings stretching
                                          to the stars.

 
The happiest moment for me came with the stretch of “stretching/to the stars.” Hope the reader feels the same.

Alexis Levitin on "The Rain That Sweetens the Name of Things" 
Color headshot of Mosab Abu Toha
René Kladzyk Interviews Palestinian Poet Mosab Abu Toha

"I think poetry is maybe one of the only tools that emerges from under the rubble of a bombed city. Israel is not only killing houses or neighborhoods, they are killing the city itself. Because if you look at Gaza, it doesn’t look like a city. It looks like a graveyard, really. I think poetry is the most direct way of communicating the horrors of the war and the siege."

via THE CREATIVE INDEPENDENT
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Cover image for Johannes Goransson's translation of Ann Jaderlund's work, Lonespeech
What Sparks Poetry:
Johannes Göransson on Ann Jäderlund's [Not here]


"The influence between texts seems to flow in mulitple, volatile, anachronistic directions. It’s perhaps even wrong for me to say that the poems are based on Celan’s and Bachmann’s correspondence. The correspondence is one source, but from these letters, Jäderlund’s poetry is brought into contact with Hölderlin, Heidegger, Shakespeare, Rilke and others. Like Manny Farber’s infamous concept of 'termite art,' Jäderlund’s writing 'goes always forward eating its own boundaries.'"
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