On English and other than English poems

Remember the old saying about not saying anything at all if you can’t say something good? Today we’re not going to mention the weather. Instead, let’s talk a little about poetry, since this is national poetry month. I’m in the midst of reading a couple of non-American poets together with a handful of Americans. Sometimes, cultural references can throw me off any sort of comprehension. Other times it’s the English language that does me in. Here’s an example of the latter.

One of the non-American poets I’m reading is Eavan Boland. This morning I started reading Elegy for a Youth Changed to a Swan from her New Collected Poems. The second stanza begins with a line that threw me into momentary chaos: “Urchins of the hurdled hawthorn, sparrows,” created massive cognitive dissonance as I tried to envision sea urchins hurdling hawthorn. I was through the third stanza and into the fourth before the miasmic mess that passes for my brain triggered the recollection that “urchin” is also a term for a playful or mischievous youngster. Only in English(?) would we find such an incongruous combination of definitions. The difficulty in comprehension in this case is, I believe, far more attributable to the language than to the poet.

“No Ideas But in Things”

Photo by J. Harrington

The other non-American poet I’m currently working my way through, I’m reading in translation from the Polish, is Czeslaw Milosz. I had already read and enjoyed his Road-side Dog and, on that basis and something I came across on the internet recently, decided I should explore his poetry. Unbeknownst to me, the Better Half took my expressed interest and gave me two volumes of Milosz’ poems. I’m not sure it’s the translation that’s giving me heartburn and far be it from me to be presumptuous enough to suggest that a Nobel laureate in literature isn’t writing great poetry, but, so far, most of what I’ve read is incomprehensible. I understand each of the words but the combination and sequence leaves me grasping for meaning, other than experiencing a sense of diminished expectations that makes Beckett seem like an optimist. (Oops, I think I just blew up that old saying about saying something good, didn’t I?)

For today, let’s close with a recommendation that, if you haven’t already, you should find and read Ted Kooser’s The Poetry Home Repair Manual. Mr. Kooser and I have very similar preferences and / or taste in the poetry we prefer. It’s there in A Poet’s Job Description in chapter 1.

A Song on the End of the World

By Czeslaw Milosz

Translated by Anthony Milosz

On the day the world ends

A bee circles a clover,

A fisherman mends a glimmering net.

Happy porpoises jump in the sea,

By the rainspout young sparrows are playing

And the snake is gold-skinned as it should always be.

         

On the day the world ends

Women walk through the fields under their umbrellas,

A drunkard grows sleepy at the edge of a lawn,

Vegetable peddlers shout in the street

And a yellow-sailed boat comes nearer the island,

The voice of a violin lasts in the air

And leads into a starry night.

And those who expected lightning and thunder

Are disappointed.

And those who expected signs and archangels’ trumps

Do not believe it is happening now.

As long as the sun and the moon are above,

As long as the bumblebee visits a rose,

As long as rosy infants are born

No one believes it is happening now.

Only a white-haired old man, who would be a prophet

Yet is not a prophet, for he’s much too busy,

Repeats while he binds his tomatoes:

There will be no other end of the world,

There will be no other end of the world.

Warsaw, 1944

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