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?
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?
posted by Al Cooper at 12:20 PM
2 Comments:
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
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
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