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Thursday, September 20th, 2012
Traductor: tradúzcame con mala intención, deje usted las lÃneas falsas sonarse a si mismos. Desforme usted mi intención, yo que soy figuras en la página, que no soy capaz de pretender. Destroce mi autor, rechacelo a mi autor. Anule mi autor. Traductor: sea usted mi cómplice. Juntos sembraremos la semilla del malentendimiento, que crezca el árbol horrible de poesÃa desfigurada. Traductor: le pido a usted, mutÃleme. MutÃleme y déjeme usted fluir en ojos y orejas extranjeros.
posted evening of September 20th, 2012: 9 responses
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Sunday, September 16th, 2012
 |  | | 2005 | 2012 |
Out in the back yard
Playhouse lies in pieces and the bolts that once connected them
the once (and future?) construct
scattered sunlight on the lawn
scattered sunlit lifeless hollowed out
the paint like skin that's covered over
veins of douglas fir and cedar
veins of age-old wood and creeping
vitiating rot
Drill battery is charging and I look out my back window
at the stillness of the breezes blowing
pushing round the trees
pushing blowing round the green enclosure
manifold imposing over
arching, dark reality
the creeping, pungent real story
never write it down, I'll never
write it down because it's hidden
hidden dark unnameable
illicit hanging conversation
twittering between cicadas
translate text of endless grayed-out
sussurating stop.
 Finished two old projects yesterday -- The playhouse I built for Sylvia in 2005 and which Bill helped me pull down a few weeks ago is now completely disassembled (and Scott has indicated he'd be interested in using the wood to build something for Sasha and Maya); and the Windsor chair I built on my 2002 trip to The Windsor Institute is finally painted, a handsome shade of green. Lee Valley milk paint is the best.
posted morning of September 16th, 2012: Respond
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Sunday, September 9th, 2012
the automatic CAUTION door swings open and my heart beats faster panicked panting racing down the corridor I know not where  (click through for the dulcet tones of Dolph Chaney)
the automatic PANIC switch engages and I'm climbing up the walls I'm falling paralyzed and endless should have seen that coming no way back tonight my friend the waterfalls of history are soaking me I'm sweating broken searching for the path to bring me home
the automatic wicked bolt of FEAR slides home and punctures my resolve I'm quaking trembling feverish looking in the mirror what I see is sending waves of manic pity through me tell me truly help me I can't find a hand to hold a charge of hope and love and weary resignation say you'll keep me in my pit of fear and solitude and quavering frustration help me turn toward these scaly walls and understand my history my saving grace my destiny my almost unrequited FEAR
posted morning of September 9th, 2012: 1 response
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Friday, September 7th, 2012
 The cloud formations over Oaxaca are more spectacular each time you look at them.
I've never been able to capture their grandeur on my camera, and I'm hardly enough of a poet
to describe them to you, you'll have to take my word for it. They roll in slow over
the mountains to the north-east, creep slowly toward the city, they pile up around the
edge of the sky. I can hear the thunder far off, I look nervously upward, wonder
if I can make it home before the rain gets here. I can already feel the first drops
on my shoulder.
Laura told me I was making a mistake, and she's probably right.
 It's raining a little harder now. I duck in to Hernán's cafe, I'll wait here until it
passes, it usually goes by in a half hour or so. (The thunder is louder than before --
it may last longer than usual this evening.) I order an espresso and ask after Hernán's
wife. He has a distant smile as he tells me Soledad is getting better, she should be
coming home Friday at the latest. I'm leafing through the book of poetry I've been
carrying around all day, I'm looking for the piece about la madre paralizada de la noche, it caught
my eye this morning, made me think about Soledad, when the lights go out. Hernán mutters
a curse and looks down the street to see if there is a blackout everywhere. For a few
minutes now it has been raining with the fury of Poseidon over Athens.
It was in this very cafe that Laura and I met, just a few months ago -- it seems like much longer.
I'm sipping my coffee in the darkness and trying not to think about Laura. The rain
is lightening up a bit, I'll head home before too long. I'm concerned about Soledad:
Hernán's wistful confidence seems false, seems forced, and I don't think she's going to
be back any time soon. The two of them have made this cafe my favorite place in the city
over the past year that I've been here -- maybe they're the closest thing to friends
that I've found here.
Laura's glad I came over but wishes I would have called earlier. Yeah, whatever...I'm not sure what to say here. So you're serious about going back to California?
Listen, of course I am. You're coming, too.
The firmness of her tone always startles me -- the line and contour of her body always catch me off guard. She takes my hand, gives me an inquisitive look and a squeeze, turns away to the book she was reading. I'm a little edgy right now (thanks to the espresso I guess, thanks to the glint in Laura's eye) and trying to figure out what I can say. What's holding me here? What future do I see? How the fuck can I justify letting her go without me? I'm responding with my own wistful, confident smile, trying to get her attention, mumble something about a friend up in Santa Cruz, maybe I could stay with him... But she's pissed off. I'm giving her too little too late, and we aren't really talking.
...I'm worried about Soledad.
She sighs, Yeah, I know,... She turns in the soft evening light. Not to mention her husband.
I look at her more closely, she's been crying. Catch her eye, I want to be with you.
Peter, it doesn't make any sense for you to stay here. What we have is what you're looking for.
...
Laura yawns and looks away. Suddenly I flash on an image of her and Soledad, the first time I saw her at the cafe, I know I'll be leaving Oaxaca with Laura and I know I'll regret it. What to say, what to say, I don't feel like I can tell her quite what's on my mind. I'm not sure how much I have left in the bank, exactly, I may have to lean on you some while I look for work... And she's holding me, leaning against me as she shakes her head, her brown hair is rubbing fuzzy against my cheek.
↻...done
posted evening of September 7th, 2012: Respond
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paralizada
sus movimientos lentos
crecen como las nubes
que crezca hipnotica, paralizada
que sea la totalidad
que sea la madre de la noche
lejano la miro
le sonrío
a ella
paralizado
posted evening of September 7th, 2012: Respond
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Thursday, September 6th, 2012
(another poem written to a prompt from La universidad desconocida...)
PoesÃa que tal vez abogue
por mi sombra
en dÃas venideros
cuando yo sólo sea un nombre
y no el hombre
que con los bolsillas vacillos vagabundeó
y trabajó
en los mataderos del viejo y
del nuevo continente
Mis sueños no tan fáciles
que tengan como antecedente
alguna trauma desconocida
alguna pesadilla anterior
los dejo y caen
no soportados de ninguna
referencia exterior, no enlentecidos
abajo de mi paracaidas, y
¿a dónde? y ¿cuándo
pararán, cuándo van a poder
descansar?
Caen sueños del viejo
y del nuevo continente,
sin término caen;
sueños de amistad
masculino: rough homoerotic self-
sufficiency, soledad publicada. Que en los
mataderos norteamericanos
no trabajen sueños
sino sombras
posted evening of September 6th, 2012: 1 response
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Monday, September third, 2012
Hm... merging a couple of the themes I've been writing about here lately. Writing/revising poetry, writing and thinking in a language not my own, the different voices of the writing process and translation process.... This is a poem I started working on in Oaxaca keying off the rhythm of the first line. (+first line should serve as a clue that I spent a lot of time in class working on imperative and subjunctive voices.) Mil gracias a Paty de ICO para sus direcciones y sugerencias. I added two more stanzas and reworked the first a bit in the past week or so, and turned it into what I think is a coherent poem, a pleasant read.
Escucha; oye. Mira. Ve.
Instrucciones (por The Modesto Kid)
Escucha; oye. Mira. Ve.
¿Qué oyes, pues, amigo? ¿Me oyes
gritar en mi espanto hondo?
Tu mirada me recuerda algunas cosas olvidadas;
dime cosa divertida, hecho falso, algo que
yo pueda olvidar en su lugar.
Oh confuso, casi ciego, busca
simpatÃa o rechazo
—tratamiento por curarte—
y escucha; oye. Mira. Ve.
Primitivo -- sofisticado
¡canta!
que tu graznido
atraviese
vacilente
el micrófono, y los amplificadores
y las lágrimas
Me toca me bendice padre
no bendÃgasme, mi padre
aunque he pecado
Directions
(by The Modesto Kid/tr. Peter Conlay)
Listen; hear. Look: see:
What are you hearing, my friend? Hear me
screaming in my pit of terror?
Your face brings it all back, things I had forgotten:
tell me something, make me laugh, some lie
for me to remember instead of all that.
Confused man, almost blind, go look
for friendship or rejection
—seek some treatment—
Listen; hear. Look. See.
Caveman — sophisticate —
sing!
slowly your cawing
will seep
across
the mics, and the PA
and the tears
Touch me bless me o my father
Don't bless me father
Even though I've sinned
I uploaded a reading of the Spanish text to SoundCloud. That is a not-quite-final revision, I think the rhythm and clarity of it are really improved by the addition of "Oh" at the beginning of the seventh line. (If memory serves, this is an example of an edit to the original text prompted during the process of translation.)
posted morning of September third, 2012: Respond
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Tuesday, August 28th, 2012
Escucha; oye. Mira. Ve.
¿Qué oyes, pues, amigo? ¿Me oyes
gritar en mi espanto hondo?
Tu mirada me recuerda algunas cosas olvidadas;
dime cosa divertida, hecho falso, algo que
yo pueda olvidar en su lugar.
Oh confuso, casi ciego, busca
simpatÃa o rechazo
—tratamiento por curarte—
escucha; oye. Mira. Ve.
posted evening of August 28th, 2012: 4 responses
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Friday, August 10th, 2012
Cómo pensar en idioma extranjera, cómo
tomar revelación en los pensamientos
y pasajes, palabras de luz
y de apologia cómo imaginarte que la tierra,
la desierte debajo de tus pies
sea planeta ajeno: que la estrella
la que deseas
a tà te sea patria
a donde nunca mas te volvieras
(see you soon -- bloggy hiatus to ensue)
↻...done
posted evening of August 10th, 2012: 1 response
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Sunday, August 5th, 2012
This afternoon I finished my first round of revisions/corrections on a translation of Aaron Bady's essay The Autumn of the Patriarch: forgetting to live. Not the first L2 translation I have done but certainly the longest, and I think perhaps as well, I have approached this text with a little more systematic method, more "seriously", than previous ones.
Writing in Spanish is a peculiar, unfamiliar feeling for me, as I've said; but it does not hold a candle to revising material that I have written in Spanish. The denseness of the bifurcations of identity of the speaker that I have to go through to get from "me the translator" writing the words to "me the identification-with-the-author" playing the parts of Bady and of Bady's authorial voice to "me the reader" speaking the words to "me the listener/hearer" digesting the syntax and meaning, is quite remarkable. I am finding the multiple "me" voices in harmony with one another for much of the essay, which makes me think the translation is pretty good -- there are a few parts that seem clumsy and a few parts where I'm totally in the dark as to whether the Spanish rings true -- but I think I need to get in touch with some Spanish speakers to ask...
posted afternoon of August 5th, 2012: Respond
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