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Authors: Paula Deitz

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violently,

as if they didn’t want to be overheard

someone simply strokes my hair

and I am perfectly happy

for three minutes

then I go on falling

headlong

year aft er year it goes on

there is no hand to catch me

and that’s all

L a r s Gu s ta f s s on
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Darkness

Round my other side

my averted side

my uninhabited side

Darkness in darkness

and in the inmost dark

something to wrestle with

strong enough to whirl me away like a leaf

Fragment

(A . . . confi ned, in the command module

on the fi rst expedition to Jupiter

aft er thirty four weeks goes into orbit

round the biggest, most ancient planet.

en for four seconds

he weighs as much

as the biggest bronze bell in Kiev

and doesn’t know it.)

(A vanishes

like a shining point into the terminator’s giant shadow.)

A Poem on Revisionism

An uncertain fl y

trapped in a night-express

still tries fl ying

and fi nds it succeeds remarkably

404
S w e d i s h

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Having come from the southern to the northern end of the coach

a much wiser fl y already

the train going faster and faster into the night

Robin Fulton, 1974

L a r s Gu s ta f s s on
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V i e t n a m e s e

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Ngu y en Binh K hiem
(1491–1585)

Ironic Apology

is annoying war. And I, comfortable in my horror of it,

content, safe, solitary, terribly concerned, of course.

My duty pledges me to my former lord

and I must keep my word, remain apart, aloof—

all an immortal can hope for. I should not have to face the world,

only sing a little, meditate, blend my soul with the universe.

is inconsiderate war. I must dwell on the word “contentment,”

a poet, an immortal, aft er all.

Anyone can be involved, of course.

How many people can choose fame?

Nguyen Ngoc Bich and Robin Morgan, 1967

Ngu y e n Bi n h K h i e m
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Phùng K h ac K hoa n
(1528–1613)

On War

War, no end to it, people scattered in all directions.

How can a man keep his mind off it?

e winds dark, the rains violent year aft er year,

laying waste the land, over and over.

Aft er all, a man can make up his own mind

whether to act or not. Th

ey cut each other’s throats

for the world. I can’t take much interest in it.

Who is it that moves the clouds and permits the sun to shine?

He speaks, he smiles, he goes on bringing peace to the world.

Nguyen Ngoc Bich and W. S. Merwin, 1967

410
V i e t n a m e s e

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To Hu u
(1920–2002)

Road Sabotage

e cold moves from Th

ai-nguyen down to Yen-the

and the wind rages through the woods and the Khe Pass.

But I am a woman from Bac-Giang who does not feel the cold,

who feels nothing but the land, the land.

At home we have yet to dry the paddy

and stock the corn and chop the manioc;

at home we have quite a few children;

still, I follow my husband to sabotage the road.

Lullaby, my child, sleep well, and wait.

When the moon fades, I will return.

Over the hills

the moon squats, watching.

e road is too long, the holes too shallow.

Deeper, they must be deeper pits.

Spades, shovels, hands, men, women.

e rocks fall, the earth breaks.

Deeper, they must be deeper.

e soil smells rich in the darkness,

the women compete with the men in teams:

men, women, spades, shovels, hands.

You have grown skilled at this, but so have I.

e road is too long, the night too short.

e path curves, winds, twists,

yet we gash our trenches into its fl esh:

pits for the French when they come this way,

beds for the French to lie in,

graves in the land for the enemy of the land.

Faster, we must go faster. Deeper, they must be deeper.

e wind forms ice on my eyes and blurs the moon.

T o H u u
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No child’s cry breaks the silence, only the hushed rhythm

of spades, shovels, hands, sabotaging the road.

Nguyen Ngoc Bich and Robin Morgan, 1967

412
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Tru Vu
(b. 1931)

e Statue of the Century

I hammer the pain of separateness

into a statue to stand in the park.

Below it I carve a horizontal inscription

that reads: Soul of the Twentieth Century.

My statue spills no tears

for it has none left to spend.

My statue tells no stories

for what’s the use of telling stories.

My statue: the soul of the century

with no halos above its head.

My statue: the soul of the century

with no phoenixes beneath its feet.

My statue in fact is bare, naked,

no banner in its hand.

My statue casts its shadow aimless, everywhere,

with stone eyes fi xed on nothing.

Nguyen Ngoc Bich and Robin Morgan, 1967

T ru V u
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T u K e T uong
(b. 1946)

at Painter in the City

in the morning you just wake up when that painter suddenly splashes

a swarm of green leaves

every one of us we see the sun suspended in air

but not that painter

he insists on thinking it a ripe fruit

and so he paints on the citreous background

a strange perfume

when he turns mad and jumps on the sandbag to perform

the children crowd round and cheer

the painter draws a ripe grenade hanging from a branch

and he loudly proclaims to the multitude

everlasting peace

he also points out to everyone

a sunbaked corpse loitering on the fence

then he adds to it just a touch of remaining fresh blood

and when the blind bird is with child

he sketches on our eyes a pair of wooden crutches

and says here is enduring happiness

to illumine your blackened days

then the day we lie down

that painter again strokes a fresh green meadow

he says that’s a cool and comfortable bed

and every morning

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he adds innumerable fragrant blossoms

as we start to forget to breathe little by little.

Nguyen Ngoc Bich and Robin Morgan, 1967

T u K e T uong
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A c k n ow l e d g m e n t s

N o t e s o n P o e t s

N o t e s o n T r a n sl a t o r s

I n d e x

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ack now ledgm en ts

special note of appreciation to the following authors’ representatives for

granting permission to publish their works in this anthology:

e translations of Anna Akhmatova appear with the permission of Mrs.

Margarita Novgorodova and FTM Agency, Ltd.

e Wylie Agency LLC.

Translation of “Chanson,” “Les Amours XIII,” and “Dedication of a Mir-

tion of “He goes, my lover,” “Friends, I cannot deny,” “Waken, my love, who

sleep in the cold morning,” and “At the voice of the enchanter” by W. S. Mer-

at the fevered

breath attain relief,” “Glorious Lord, fountain of clarity,” and “High waves

W. S. Merwin. Translation of “Insomnia. Homer. Taut sails.,” “Tristia,” “We

shall meet again, in Petersburg,” and “Armed with the sight of the fi ne wasps”

reprinted by permission of Th

e Wylie Agency LLC.

Permission for use of “Th

ree Fables from La Fontaine” (“Th

e Scythian

Philosopher,” “Phoebus and Boreas,” and “Th

e Schoolboy, the Pendant, and

the Man with a Garden”) is granted by David M. Moore, Administrator of the

Literary Estate of Marianne Moore.

Grateful acknowledgment is due the many sources that provided background

information for the biographical notes in this anthology.

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not es on poets

Anna Akhmatova
. Considered in the pantheon of renowned Russian poets,

along with Osip Mandelstam, Boris Pasternak, and Marina Tsvetaeva, she

survived blacklisting by Joseph Stalin, and the imprisonment of her son

under his regime, to become through her voice the conscience of Russia. Th

poems translated by Judith Hemschemeyer predate the revolution.

Anonymous Fourteenth-Century Poet
. He was active in the late fourteenth century, writing a more obscure northern dialect of Middle English than

his contemporary Chaucer, whose southern speech became the main source

of modern English. He is referred to as either “the
Gawain
Poet” or “the
Pearl
Poet,” from another poem accepted as by the same hand and surviving in the same manuscript not rediscovered until the mid-nineteenth century.

Guillaume Apollinaire
. Born in Rome, he traveled through Europe before

settling in Paris. Aft er he returned wounded from World War I, his play
Les
mamelles de Tiresias: Drame surrealiste
(Th

e Breasts of Tiresias), produced in

1917, contributed to establishing the surrealist movement. His poetic works

include
Alcools: Poèmes, 1898–1913
, edited by Tristan Tzara (1913), and
Calligrammes: Poèmes de la paix et de la guerre
(Calligrammes: Poems of Peace and War) (1918).

Jean-Antoine de Baïf
. One of the French poets forming the Pléiade, aft er the infl uential group of seven Alexandrian poets (third century b.c.), he created new metrical patterns and a system of spelling based on phonetics. As royal

secretary to Charles IX, he lived at court in Paris and, in 1570, founded the

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Académie de Poésie et de Musique. In 1572 he published his collected
Euvres
en rime
in four volumes.

Charles Baudelaire
. French poet and noted critic of contemporary art, he also gained renown as the translator of Edgar Allan Poe. Considered an early

modernist, his singular volume of poetry,
Les fl eurs du mal
(Th

e Flowers of

Evil) (1857), published in several subsequent editions, remains a major infl uence on the work of poets in later periods.

BOOK: Poets Translate Poets: A Hudson Review Anthology

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