Friday, November 23, 2007

Jimenez

Juan Ramon Jimenez was one of the great modern masters. His colloquial style has always appealed to me. In his best poems he is having a dialogue with his reader, and each reader feels as if Jimenez is talking to them only.

Jimenez was a mentor for another great Spanish poet, Federico Garcia Lorca. Lorca's early poems resemble Jimenez's work in many ways. There is passion, depth and spontaneity in his poems. It's as if a wind that we recognize but have never felt before had suddenly arrived.

Here are two small poems by Jimenez, in Robert Bly's translation:

MUSIC

Music--
a naked woman
running mad through the pure night!


OCEANS

I have a feeling that my boat
has struck, down there in the depths,
against a great thing.
And nothing
happens! Nothing...Silence...Waves...
--Nothing happens? Or has everything happened,
and are we standing now, quietly, in the new life?

2 Comments:

Blogger James Grabill said...

Allan:

It was great to discover your blog and to experience these Bly translations that use humor and resonance in the psyche to stop a person, to shift gears into a place where, for me, emotional current is released and a repositioning happens...

Bly's such a fine translator who works to keep the essential image-powers alive. Does your blog have a place where a person can order the 1990 Owl's Head Bly book? (Or is it sold out?)

I wanted to share the link to the earth poem anthology I've recently started, in case a reader doesn't know about it:

http://earthpoemanthology.wordpress.com

It's an "ongoing" anthology of what I'm calling "earth poems," which I picture as poems that use earth imagery to address whatever subjects, themes, or musical currents they're pursuing.

I'll tune in to your further posts and put a link on the anthology blog.

good energy to you, man--

Jim

James Grabill
Portland, Oregon

1:59 PM  
Blogger Unknown said...

hi jim, allan may have written back to you directly, but some used copies of the prolifically titled "Ten Poems of Francis Ponge Translated by Robert Bly & Ten Poems of Robert Bly Inspired by the Poems of Francis Ponge" can be found on amazon: click here for the amazon listings

2:36 PM  

Post a Comment

<< Home