#wreading

From Charles Bernstein's Wreading Experiments List.

A lexical translation of a poem my friend Borcsi wrote in Hungarian, a language I cannot understand and can barely pronounce (though Borcsi kindly assures me that my pronunciation is very good when I repeat the select words she has taught me). I used both Google translate and ChatGPT, mostly the former, and then I made some slight adjustments.

I tried to be minimal in my edits, but it was tricky because phrases in Hungarian will sometimes translate to a single word in English and then a single word will translate to an entire phrase, with the meaning varying quite widely. So, for example, the word “hogy” caused me some consternation; in Hungarian, as far as I can tell, it’s a conjunctive that introduces subordinate clauses, but the translator would always output “that” (and according to the exercise you translate each word). So in an English translation you could omit it from the sentence, but I left it at “that” – I thought it would make for a more interesting translation if I kept more closely to the syntax than to (what I took to be) the meaning of each line.

Lights and apparitions Autumn memories Floating they disappear As strong into me they burned How mournful I was How melancholy And how much I see everything newly How magical One year elapsed November 1 - Looking at the date - I am trembling Last year at this time bent over I sobbed. Today I am laughing - there is a power in my voice Bittersweetly sometimes like this too, There is in the world and in me, something which makes me sad - But not sorry for my sorrow I’ll leave it, that it flow through On and on through me all feelings, Champagne excitement and profound suspense Flow through, on me, into the distance And let it carry through every quiver That Born for what. - Let me be here, who I am needed to be. I give Life I give sorrow And I give, that I can see, How I’m changing And one year from her perspective I can say Strong and beautiful the ache.

Just let me do what I have to, that everything passes through And thus the soul, the life, the eternal fun strong feeling Can live in me, life itself Completely Part of me as well as whole For evermore - Serenely with love embrace my aching heart to my chest

Original

Fények és tünemények Őszi emlékképek Lebegve elémtűnnek Ahogy erősen belém égtek Milyen szomorú voltam Milyen bánatos És milyen sok mindent látok most Ami varázslatos Egy év eltelt November 1 - A dátumra nézve - Beleremegek Tavaly ilyenkor görnyedve zokogtam. Ma nevetek - erő van a hangomban Keserédesen néha így is, Van a világban és az én mesében is, ami elszomorít - De nem bánom a bánatom Hagyom, hogy átfollyon Follyon végig rajtam minden érzés, Pezsgő izgalom és mélyrázó kétség Follyon végig, át rajtam, bele a messzességbe És minden rezzenés vigye végbe Azt Amiért született. - Legyek itt az, akinek lenni kellek. Adom az Életet Adom a bánatot És adom, hogy láthatom, Hogyan változom És egy év távlatából mondhatom Erős és gyönyörű a fájdalom.

hello tumblr!

Boredom of words. Ingenuity, originality, emancipation — sure — but the methods of concrete poetry and digital text suggest that traditional formation of words are relics in a constantly reorganizing world. Static becomes dynamic. Concrete combines thought and image, restoring creative agency to the poet from standard forms of lyric and verse. By reducing language to the word, concrete poetry liberates communication. Word combined with image translates to a symbol as powerful as logical grammar. Novelty aids in this process of symbolic freedom, proposing imaginative reconceptions of commonalities and modifying the world to fit individual feeling (as suggested by Marinetti). Even the move away from the literary “I” is not universal enough; with a global, online society as audience, the “I” is bloated with potential perspective, opinion, and alienation. In place of a detailed, personal experience of free verse is instead an eye-catcher poetry. As fast, as transient, as flashy as everything else. Easily translatable, easily commercialized, too.

Today’s poetry is interactively simultaneous: reader must click, scroll, touch, drag, press, hold, follow, watch, and play. Y0UNG-HAE CHANG HEAVY INDUSTRIES presents a cinematic poetry, that is sound poetry and visual poetry and performance poetry and concrete poetry encased in a video. “The Jew’s Daughter” rewards patience with completion for the reader who experiences the entire page before hovering to the blue word. In these ways, poetry becomes environment. Beyond words and pages, each element within the poet’s defined space enters the poetic sphere because technology makes each element customizable. Digital poets necessarily expand the limits of the poem in order to contend with the Youtube videos, Facebook posts, emoji-ed text messages, CGI-ed medias, and generally accessibility of entertainment that threatens traditional — comparatively “boring” — text.

Ricky

Language is naturally tied to meaning, which is emotion and thought and perception. At its most basic level, language and the words that construct it are features of advanced communication. I can make a sound with my mouth: ˈfī(-ə)r. That sound is communicated from speaking me to listening you, and you interpret that sound. Meaning appears when the sound I made is translated to image (bright, orange, spreading, smoke) and/or instinct (turn around! duck! run for your life!) and/or word (fire). While a fundamental relationship between language and meaning exists, this relationship only takes on a static dimension when on the page. The communicating body, the sound of language, the context of speech — each a function of time and space — distort and abstract language so that meaning is not standardized but subjective and dynamic.

Do the weaving threads have an origin? an end? I think the answer is no, or that origin and end are the same. Sabor a Mí embodies connectedness, holding on to the idea that “everything is a circle” (14), as do the quipus.

And this connectedness is as defiant as the revolutionary process that Vicuña is concerned with. Love, or a want for love, becomes embedded in each object photographed and written about. Forgetting, losing, existing beyond (out of reach) are threats to the love explored throughout Sabor. As objects of love, Vicuña boldly defies the erasure happening at the hands of state authority. These objects and their connected relationships produce multiple voices that speak — about communism, country, revolution, loss, and finding. The goal seems to be persistence, through “finding of a language” (71). Though there is a literal revolutionary process at stake between the self and the external structures acting on it, another revolution exists in the process of the poet nailing down and cementing the language of existence in a specific moment.

Vicuña’s art speaks to me about what it means to write poetry. Just as the quipus weaving place with memory and symbol, her art seems focused on what it means to exist and what it means to do something with that existence. In her interviews, she asks “what is poetry to you?” The responses initially hover around formalities, authors and written works, but then gravitate towards larger ideals, of internal reflection and ritualistic practice and expression. A focus on weaving, on bringing together, reveals a metapoetic quality to her work. More than expression, her art dwells upon what is means to express.

Ben Shafer

A wreading of Gerard Manley Hopkins.

The Cursed Mammon compared to the Air we Breathe

WILD air, world-smothering air,

Wresting us everywhere,

That each feather with snare

Girdles; turns bone transfixed

The fleeciest, ozone-fixed

Shearwater; that’s fairly mixed

With, marbles, and is rife

In every trash-heap’s strife;

This greedy, never spent,

And pois’nous element;

My once was meat and drink,

My now but rot and stink;

This air, which, free from law,

From lungs goes far and far,

To breathe, must wilds raze;

My mind knows not the ways

Of her we have only

Giv’n pains by our moaning

Dwindled, an old thing

Ousted from womb and breast

Milk taken, forgotten fresh

Our mother, on her face

Have scarred and made disgrace—

Devil Depravinous

A figment, yet ravenous

Whose being, power is;

Earth and skies doth kiss,

With steeped, steeped goo,

Of kings her face once knew,

Now melted and burnt blue;

The gory runneth over

From K2 down to Dover—