From TERTRE (MOUND)
What they
would say a man
would say
that the rain
was a threat / that a man
had drowned
the body of
his child / a body
in the river (in the
salt mine) said it again
& for no reason / and the
snow at long last
on the abandoned
broken streets
drops down like
a shroud on
the throngs
wandering by
.
on the
banks far off
where the children
are dying / the men
keep silent and stare at
the sky / the fixed
stars the bow
& the lyre may we
remember
the dying man’s
kiss
.
a man once gave me
the name that I’ve
carried / you should have
seen how
the sky on this theme
hauled out its white
ink / and the corpse
on the earth of the macular
cloud
stretched out alone
in the order of
sunset
From UN PRE (THE MEADOW)
“Au Terme”
For that night who would speak? / whose shadow
Fanning out veiling a drop more of the pond
Where the lonely voice could be lost –
Be reborn in the morning in hope of his song
Between the spread branches of beech
On the crushed carpet of dead & dry leaves
Trod underfoot by a horde of men
Passing by on the outskirts of villages
And shared there the fruit of their plunder
Then one by one scattered. A single one
Lingered who ought to have sung them
(Those wars) unable to live in a peaceable
Time, so ephemeral, so on the edge of an
Other frontier – over the land of that woman
She who once lived, on the banks of the lake
Where slowly the silent
Boats anchored, heavy
With harvests of green wood. Leaning alone
On a tree trunk he dreamed
Of countries they crisscrossed / later
Of wheat fields & deserts & massacres
Wrought that winter on women their throats slit
Of black children hanged, of the bellies agape
From which worms oozed out, of the severed necks
Of the draft animals – all of these
Harvests, these farms that they torched
Smoke & fog in his memory that one sole
Morning he’d want not to speak of, facing
The uncertain land in front of him
Austere & dry. Because something would
Illumine him too, with a name he no longer
Recalled, nor what mystery ever would justify him
But under the tree would bruskly
Make sense of his story:
A fire inside the fire from yesterday evening
The sword in his hand with no past
A man still in back of this man
Tamping down the cinders that morning –
For the sake of repose, who knows,
Simply there / beyond page and plain
Of a singer / a warrior
Translations from French by Jerome Rothenberg
A Note on Yves di Manno
Born in the Rhône region of France in 1954, Yves di Manno is an extraordinary poet, translator, essayist & editor, who presently lives & works in Paris. Since the 1970s, he has been collaborating on various poetry magazines, has translated several major American poets (William Carlos Williams, Ezra Pound, George Oppen, among others), & has published more than twenty books of his own poetry, among them: Les Célébrations (Bedou, 1980), & Champs (1984-1987), Kambuja (1992), Partitions (1995) & Un Pré, chemin vers (2003), the last four with éditions Flammarion. He is also the author of a number of critical works on twentieth-century poetry: La Tribu perdue (Java, 1995), “endoquote” (Flammarion, 1999), & two “narrations as dreams”: Domicile (Denoël, 2002) & Discipline (Ed. Héloïse d’Ormesson, 2005). He has been the director for many years of a major poetry series at Flammarion, through which he has edited nearly 100 books, including an important collective work: 49 poètes, in 2004. He is also the editor of a newly translated edition of Ezra Pound’s Cantos, published in 2002, & his epical translation of my own Technicians of the Sacred was published by éditions José Corti in 2008. His poem "Tertre," excerpted here, is like other of his poems a work in many parts.
Born in the Rhône region of France in 1954, Yves di Manno is an extraordinary poet, translator, essayist & editor, who presently lives & works in Paris. Since the 1970s, he has been collaborating on various poetry magazines, has translated several major American poets (William Carlos Williams, Ezra Pound, George Oppen, among others), & has published more than twenty books of his own poetry, among them: Les Célébrations (Bedou, 1980), & Champs (1984-1987), Kambuja (1992), Partitions (1995) & Un Pré, chemin vers (2003), the last four with éditions Flammarion. He is also the author of a number of critical works on twentieth-century poetry: La Tribu perdue (Java, 1995), “endoquote” (Flammarion, 1999), & two “narrations as dreams”: Domicile (Denoël, 2002) & Discipline (Ed. Héloïse d’Ormesson, 2005). He has been the director for many years of a major poetry series at Flammarion, through which he has edited nearly 100 books, including an important collective work: 49 poètes, in 2004. He is also the editor of a newly translated edition of Ezra Pound’s Cantos, published in 2002, & his epical translation of my own Technicians of the Sacred was published by éditions José Corti in 2008. His poem "Tertre," excerpted here, is like other of his poems a work in many parts.
0 Response to 'Yves di Manno: Two Poems from the French'
Post a Comment