Imagination
sparrows on the horizon
like musical notes on a bar
in front of them, on the G
I plant the violin key
that old shading tree
the world listens not
to the songbirds she
listens to me.
Poetry
Reading: Past One O’Clock by Vladimir Mayakovsky
Vladimir Mayakovsky (1893-1930) was one of the important futurist Sovjet poets. He was a versatile writer, with work ranging from stage plays, poetry, travel books, propaganda... He committed suicide in 1930. I heard his name, but when I saw his photograph I wanted to read his poetry, too. This short poem was written in 1930 ...
Reading: Body, Remember by Constantine Cavafy
Cavafy (1863-1933) was of course one of the most important Greek modern poets. I read this short poem in an English translation by Edmund Keeley and Philip Sherrard Body, Remember Body, remember not only how much you were loved, not only the beds you lay on, but also those desires that glowed openly in eyes ...
Reading: The little mute boy by Lorca
I am going to call Federico García Lorca (1898-1936) one of my favorite poets. Perhaps because I like surrealism when it is done well, or because I am as old today than he ever became, which gives some profundity to my admiration of his mighty words. I enjoy the power of longer poems like City that ...
Reading: The Stranger by Gabriela Mistral
Gabriela Mistral (1889-1957), pseudonym of Lucila Godoy Alcayaga, was the first Spanish Amerian woman to win the Nobel Prize for literature (1945). I was impressed by the imagery of her poem La extranjera, that I read here in an English translation by Helene Masslo Anderson: The Stranger She speaks in her way of her savage ...
Reading: I never sought the glory by Antonio Machado
The Spanish poet Antonio Machado (1875-1939) is among the most important of the twentieth century. I read a short poem entitled 'I never sought the glory' in a translation by Katie King: I Never Sought the Glory I never sought the glory nor to leave in memory of men my song; I love subtle worlds, ...
Reading: Yet to die. Unalone still by Osip Mandelstam
Here is a pretty translation I found of a poem by Osip Mandelstam (1891 - 1938), one of Russia's acclaimed anti-formalist (Acmeist) poets along with Akhmatova, Pasternak, Tsvetaeva. This was written in 1937: Yet to die. Unalone still. For now your pauper-friend is with you. Together you delight in the grandeur of the plains, And ...
Reading: In the Greenhouse by Eugenio Montale
Eugenio Montale (1896-1981) is considered the greatest Italian poet since Leopardi. He won the Nobel Prize for literature in 1975. I read In the Greenhouse in a translation by Charles Wright. Here is an alternative translation (and seven other poems for good measure). In the Greenhouse The lemon bushes overflowed with the patter of mole paws, the scythe ...
Reading: The Just by Jorge Luis Borges
Jorge Luis Borges (1899-1986) must be anthologized or else... I have mixed feelings about the co-founder of postmodernist literature, who was praised, canonized and catapulted into the realm of immortality. I find his aleph a funny story and his experimental prose (eg 'Borges and I') were innovative at the time, but there is not much of the ...