What Sparks Poetry is a serialized feature that explores experiences and ideas that spark the writing of new poems. In our fifth series, What Translation Sparks, a group of poet-translators share a seminal experience in translation. Each Monday's delivery brings you the poem and an excerpt from the essay.
The great glut of potato bugs is how I think of this garden overturned wheelbarrow lessiveuse beneath a structure of flying colors the laundry line coated in gold oh sweet therapist from hutch to coop since the path with a view of the sea I have a neurosis at heart in times of mass production
desire devours censure austerity of yesterday disparate dreams which is their specialty sorrow commands it’s a bad bargain it’s a tale that begins among flies pylons and posts receive the calls the town embodies the irony now they are accomplished prophecies damned damned country tricks the blue sky tricks death in dreams come closer she says the little urchin swapped for the excellence of ire and fury
midway through the cabbages our shadow grows a shadow made of cabbages from ker to here subjecting the path to our channeled words minimum of space angry gestures against an infamous dualism walking in spirit through the cabbages doesn’t get my feet less wet I write to soak my feet among the cabbages
ladybugs of memory the bounding of lessiveuses the swallows like affect here and there I am affected by what’s inert in language I speak with the backdrop of capitalist deployment now irresistible in a country by the sea taking to the pedals against the wind you spit out your soul it hits you right on the mouth.
Note: A lessiveuse is a precursor to the washing machine. It was operated by hand, and a fire or hot coals heated the water.
from “Le Mur de Berlin ou La Cueillette des mûres en Basse-Bretagne”
La grande année des doryphores est ce qui donne mon sense à ce jardin brouette retournée lessiveuse et soutenant une construction de couleurs qui volent la corde de linge gainée d’or ah douce thérapeute du clapier au poulailler depuis le chemin d’où on voit la mer j’ai la névrose au coeur en des temps de production en masse
le désir dévore la censure austérité de la veille disparate du rêve dont c’est la spécialité la tristesse ordonne c’est un marché de dupes c’est un histoire qui commence parmi les mooches pylons et poteaux reçoivent les appels le bourg fait corps avec l’ironie maintenant que les prophéties sont accomplies maudit maudit pays ruse avec le ciel bleu ruse avec la mort dans les rêves approche dit-elle la pauvrette supplée à l’excellence du courroux et de la fureur chemin faisant dans les choux notre ombre augmente une ombre fait des choux de ker à ker soumettant la marche à nos mots canalisés minimum d’espace gestes de colère à l’adresse d’un dualisme infâme marcher mentalement dans les choux ne trempe pas moins les pieds j’écris pour me mouiller les pieds dans les choux
coccinelles mnésiques lessiveuses bondissantes les hirondelles comme l’affect ici et là je suis affecté par l’inerte dans la langue je parle sur la fond de déploiement du capitalism désormais irresistible en pays du bord de mer dressé sur les pédales contre le vent tu craches ton âme tu la reçois en pleine gueule
"Paol taught me how close writing and translating could be, and how both could pull from the deep well of changing landscapes and languages. Part of what drives this work is the way the original physical and cultural landscapes that inhabit our writing are always betraying their translations into poetry. We write the world down, but it doesn’t stay put"
"The sense of reality is often accompanied by a sentiment of the presence of an explosion. An explosion within being, within reality. And this sense of explosion is within art, within writing. It's there. We experience the very frequencies and we associate it with the presence of essential reality, essential as to be explosive."
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