As I have been reading a lot of French and Latin American literature recently the issue of translations has been coming up, namely that it's often hard to know which translation of a foreign book to go for, and if you choose the wrong one you might be turned off from an author. In light of this, the Translators Association of the Society of Authors is celebrating their fiftieth year by compiling a list of the fifty best translation in the last fifty years. [via] While there are certainly some highlights on the list, some I've read and others I've been meaning to, I was disappointed to not find one of my favorite translators on the list, Stephen Mitchell, whose translations of Rainer Maria Rilke's works are some of the most breathtaking I have ever read. Equally masterful is Coleman Barks' translation of the spiritual poetry of Jalal al-Din Rumi.
Sometimes as an American it is easy to forget the difficulties that come in trying to get one's work read internationally. Beyond the barriers of communication there are also the challenges of time and space: dying before one's work is published, loosing it on a train... Here's a great article on forgotten and lost masterpieces that certainly got me drooling to think that one day someone might discover in a Polish attic Bruno Schulz's missing novel, The Messiah.
Showing posts with label Rumi. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Rumi. Show all posts
10.11.2005
poet as shaman
A friend has started working on an essay for her school about the thread of divinity in poetry, the ways it has been approached and how its expression still has very similar elements over the centuries, whether you're talking the ecstatic love of Rumi's entire cannon or the beat worship of Ginsburg's postscript to "Howl." She asked me for some examples of poets who express divinity, and besides those two, and the classic examples of Blake, Yeats, and the other romantic poets, I suggested my personal favorite, Rainer Maria Rilke, who was influenced heavily by Rumi's style of personally addressing the divine as a Beloved.
During her research my friend stumbled upon this fascinating article analyzing Rilke's poetry in the context of how the poem and poet metamorphose in relation to each other and the experience of the world.
"Each poem can be seen as a birth canal, a metaphysical tunnel, an entrance into reality which effects a distinct change in the man who travels through it. Although it is, in some sense, the poet who writes the poem, there is another sense in Hass of the poem changing the poet-writing him, as it were. "
This idea of poetry makes it very similar to the shamanic rebirth experience, but one in which the poet is constantly being reborn in new perceptions of the world. As my friend, the redneck poet Johnny "Squibb" Menesini, put it, "everytime I write a pome I think I'm dying."
The article goes on to paint Rilke as a man who would go running out into the street clutching a white iris to his chest in order to escape the torment of the images in his head, which brings up one of my favorite past times and role of both poets and shamans, solitary walks, when alone with the world (whether country or city) the divinity and clarity imminent in all things starts to break out and become real. When the mundane transcends itself, and crystallizes in an image that can be passed on which, as Blake put it, shows the whole world in a grain of sand. Very much like the chaos magician's use of a simple sigil image to encode much deeper levels of information within the psyche.
and as I told my friend, this is something that fascinated me greatly too, and it looks like we may have a bit of friendly competition trying to tie all this together. look for an essay about magic poetry on key23 soon.
During her research my friend stumbled upon this fascinating article analyzing Rilke's poetry in the context of how the poem and poet metamorphose in relation to each other and the experience of the world.
"Each poem can be seen as a birth canal, a metaphysical tunnel, an entrance into reality which effects a distinct change in the man who travels through it. Although it is, in some sense, the poet who writes the poem, there is another sense in Hass of the poem changing the poet-writing him, as it were. "
This idea of poetry makes it very similar to the shamanic rebirth experience, but one in which the poet is constantly being reborn in new perceptions of the world. As my friend, the redneck poet Johnny "Squibb" Menesini, put it, "everytime I write a pome I think I'm dying."
The article goes on to paint Rilke as a man who would go running out into the street clutching a white iris to his chest in order to escape the torment of the images in his head, which brings up one of my favorite past times and role of both poets and shamans, solitary walks, when alone with the world (whether country or city) the divinity and clarity imminent in all things starts to break out and become real. When the mundane transcends itself, and crystallizes in an image that can be passed on which, as Blake put it, shows the whole world in a grain of sand. Very much like the chaos magician's use of a simple sigil image to encode much deeper levels of information within the psyche.
and as I told my friend, this is something that fascinated me greatly too, and it looks like we may have a bit of friendly competition trying to tie all this together. look for an essay about magic poetry on key23 soon.
7.11.2005
on the books
and just because I approve of this meme going around, the 20 books that have most impacted my life (in no particular order):
1. Carlos Castaneda - Journey to Ixtlan
2. Crimethinc. Collective- Days of War, Nights of Love
3. Hakim Bey- The Temporary Autonomous Zone
4. var.- The I Ching
5. Octavia Butler- Parable of the Sower
6. Douglas Hofstadter- Godel, Escher, Bach: an Eternal Golden Braid
7. Ayn Rand- Atlas Shrugged
8. Joseph Campbell- The Power of Myth
9. Jorge Luis Borges- Collected Fictions
10. Jalaluddin Rumi (Coleman Barks trans.)- Essential Rumi
11. Rainer Maria Rilke (Stephen Mitchell trans.) Duino Elegies
12. Robert Anton Wilson and Robert Shea- The Illuminatus! Trilogy
13. Jean-Paul Sartre- Nausea
14. George Orwell- Nineteen Eighty-four
15. Victor Hugo- Les Miserables
16. Kurt Vonnegut- Cat's Cradle
17. Lewis Carroll- Through the Looking Glass
18. Jostein Gaarder- Sophie's World
19. John Clellon Holmes- Go
20. Marshall McLuhan- Understanding Media
and though there are countless more books I want to include I honestly can't leave these two out in shaping my approach to living:
21.Bill Whitcomb- The Magician's Companion
22. John C. Lilly- Programming and Metaprogramming in the Human Biocomputer
It pleases me greatly that most of these books are fiction. There's nothing like a good story to really affect one's outlook on the world. Especially if your attention span for nonfiction is virtually nonexistent.
1. Carlos Castaneda - Journey to Ixtlan
2. Crimethinc. Collective- Days of War, Nights of Love
3. Hakim Bey- The Temporary Autonomous Zone
4. var.- The I Ching
5. Octavia Butler- Parable of the Sower
6. Douglas Hofstadter- Godel, Escher, Bach: an Eternal Golden Braid
7. Ayn Rand- Atlas Shrugged
8. Joseph Campbell- The Power of Myth
9. Jorge Luis Borges- Collected Fictions
10. Jalaluddin Rumi (Coleman Barks trans.)- Essential Rumi
11. Rainer Maria Rilke (Stephen Mitchell trans.) Duino Elegies
12. Robert Anton Wilson and Robert Shea- The Illuminatus! Trilogy
13. Jean-Paul Sartre- Nausea
14. George Orwell- Nineteen Eighty-four
15. Victor Hugo- Les Miserables
16. Kurt Vonnegut- Cat's Cradle
17. Lewis Carroll- Through the Looking Glass
18. Jostein Gaarder- Sophie's World
19. John Clellon Holmes- Go
20. Marshall McLuhan- Understanding Media
and though there are countless more books I want to include I honestly can't leave these two out in shaping my approach to living:
21.Bill Whitcomb- The Magician's Companion
22. John C. Lilly- Programming and Metaprogramming in the Human Biocomputer
It pleases me greatly that most of these books are fiction. There's nothing like a good story to really affect one's outlook on the world. Especially if your attention span for nonfiction is virtually nonexistent.
7.07.2005
between sacred and profane
So my friend and I have a deal worked out, if she goes to church with me, assuaging my curiosity to see what a service at her Unitarian Universalist church is like, I will willingly go to a strip club with her. Which may be just as enlightening of an experience, the way things have been going in my life. Amidst all the intense partying that's been going on lately I've spent hardly any time trying to understand the intense spiritual urges that have resurfaced in my life over the past year, much less learn how to put them into practice. I got a copy of Gustav Gutierrez's A Theology of Liberation today and what impressed me through reading the introduction was his insistance that it is not enough just to theorize (or theologize) about the need for the Christian faith to embrace and assist the poor in radicalizing themselves, but to actually get down into the streets and do it. Of course I'm in a very different place in my own spirituality right now. Though I was raised Catholic I never bought their conception of an external and anthropomorhised God, but at the same time I don't reject that there is something useful in the myth of being more than just one individual self at odds with the rest of the world. Call it a communion with life, perhaps, or a celebration of the diversity that coexists in our world. The Unitarian Universalist faith, from what I understand in having read little about it, practices a faith in which there is no set creed or religious dogma, asking that its particpants adhere to a set of seven principles promoting human dignity, justice, truth, interdependence, etc, which I already stand behind in my own life, and peculiarly remind me of the layers of consciousness. Talking to Katie about her experience with the UU she mentioned that their rituals were often pagan influenced and there was no mention of God in their teachings (if not a downright disbelief in "Him"), favoring instead an emphasis on the human community.
Of course, my own beliefs as they now stand are perhaps a bit more radical leaning and self-transcedent, being shaped as they are by intense personal experiences of interconectedness to all life and a great deal of anarchist and quantum physics thought. Not that these beliefs are at all formalized, and if anything change too much with each day to really be pinned down into a cohesive theology. Not that I don't try. Ironcally I don't often get much chance to "talk religion" amidst all the insane parties and art shows, and it doesn't come up much in conversation, even frightfully little among my housemates who could perhaps be classified as zen existentialists, and much more inclined to wax spiritual than other of my dear friends. Especially the anarchists, who in their ideals of "no gods no masters" often find it fit to reject the benefits of spirituality and faith alltogether and deride those among us who are spiritual for being weak or closed minded and hypocritical. I know a few punks who are openly christian, but don't talk about it for fear of repreisal, and even the Pittsburgh Punk legend's Gunspiking's singer wrote a song called "Methodology of a Book Burning" to address all the shit she's gotten from her peers for being an anarchist catholic. Which isn't to say that this keeps anyone from practicing their beliefs however they choose, and even I still manage to sneak in a few "prayers" before my band goes on stage.
Oddly enough, a good number of my most intense spiritual experiences have happened at raging parties, or when walking down the street and paying attention to the social climate and crumbling buildings of the city. I don't have my Rumi book in front of me, but a good number of his poems extoll the illuminaing virtues of getting really drunk. I guess that would be one of the tenants of my practice, that even the most profane or mundane of situations can contain the same element of meaning found in meditation or ritual worship or the intentional use of certain mind altering chemicals. In fact, there have been many times when I was a kid at church when I found the whole situation to be absolutely banal, if not most times, and more recently many occasions that ought to be considered potentially spiritual where the mind rebels and just can't believe the absurd zealousy of the whole thing. I would rather have a sunny day in Bloomfield or a late night porch talk about the most inconsequential of things. The spiritual dimension is not in the events but in the way we approach them, more a mindset or an openess towards the importance of an event in not just our own lives or "God's life" or society, but in a synthesis of them that still leaves room for us to have no clue towards understanding the essential mystery of being here in this weird world.
Of course, my own beliefs as they now stand are perhaps a bit more radical leaning and self-transcedent, being shaped as they are by intense personal experiences of interconectedness to all life and a great deal of anarchist and quantum physics thought. Not that these beliefs are at all formalized, and if anything change too much with each day to really be pinned down into a cohesive theology. Not that I don't try. Ironcally I don't often get much chance to "talk religion" amidst all the insane parties and art shows, and it doesn't come up much in conversation, even frightfully little among my housemates who could perhaps be classified as zen existentialists, and much more inclined to wax spiritual than other of my dear friends. Especially the anarchists, who in their ideals of "no gods no masters" often find it fit to reject the benefits of spirituality and faith alltogether and deride those among us who are spiritual for being weak or closed minded and hypocritical. I know a few punks who are openly christian, but don't talk about it for fear of repreisal, and even the Pittsburgh Punk legend's Gunspiking's singer wrote a song called "Methodology of a Book Burning" to address all the shit she's gotten from her peers for being an anarchist catholic. Which isn't to say that this keeps anyone from practicing their beliefs however they choose, and even I still manage to sneak in a few "prayers" before my band goes on stage.
Oddly enough, a good number of my most intense spiritual experiences have happened at raging parties, or when walking down the street and paying attention to the social climate and crumbling buildings of the city. I don't have my Rumi book in front of me, but a good number of his poems extoll the illuminaing virtues of getting really drunk. I guess that would be one of the tenants of my practice, that even the most profane or mundane of situations can contain the same element of meaning found in meditation or ritual worship or the intentional use of certain mind altering chemicals. In fact, there have been many times when I was a kid at church when I found the whole situation to be absolutely banal, if not most times, and more recently many occasions that ought to be considered potentially spiritual where the mind rebels and just can't believe the absurd zealousy of the whole thing. I would rather have a sunny day in Bloomfield or a late night porch talk about the most inconsequential of things. The spiritual dimension is not in the events but in the way we approach them, more a mindset or an openess towards the importance of an event in not just our own lives or "God's life" or society, but in a synthesis of them that still leaves room for us to have no clue towards understanding the essential mystery of being here in this weird world.
3.02.2005
lyric poems of yunus emre
Lyric poems of Yunus Emre
Yunus Emre (d. 1320?), called "the greatest folk poet in Islam" (Talat Sait Halman), was an unlettered Turkish shepherd who sang mystical songs which are still popular today. He was the first of a whole tradition of Turkish Sufi troubadors who sang of the Divine Presence, the Beloved, the Friend. His songs/poems convey a profound yet earthy spirituality. His subject is the Heart, the point of awareness where God is realized in us. "I've come to build some hearts," Yunus sings.
To be in love with love with love is to gain a soul,
to sit on the throne of hearts.
To love the world is to be afflicted.
Later the secrets start to make sense.
Don't be bramble,
become the rose. Let your maturity unfold.
The brambles will only burn.
Prayer was created by God so man could ask for help.
It's too bad if you haven't learned to ask.
Accept the breath of those who are mature-
let it become your divining rod.
If you obey your self, things turn our wrong.
Renouncing the world is the beginning of worship.
If you are a believer, believe this.
Respect your parents and ancestry,
and you will have fine green clothes of your own.
If you earn the complaints of neighbors,
You'll stay in Hell forever.
Yunus heard these words from the masters.
If you need this advice, take it.
They say one who is received by heart
becomes more beautiful.
Emre's poetry reminds me of the great Sufi poet Rumi, who also wrote about the personal realization of godhood. The two poets appearently crossed paths at some point in their lives and had an amusing conversation about the subject. The story goes like this: One day Rumi and Yunus Emre met. They had an intimate and very pleasant conversation where Rumi told Yunus of all he had done, reciting to both their delight some of his sublime verse. Yunus Emre was very grateful and highly pleased, but a doubt of personal ability to achieve the same came over him in his utter humility. He remarked aloud: "How true, how lovely; but what a lot of words you have used to say such a simple thing. I could never have done it." Rumi asked him: "How would you have said it?" Yunus Emre, who was what may be called a 'Folk Poet', replied in a couplet:
I wrapped myself in flesh and bones And appeared as Yunus.
(Ete kemige burundum Yunus deyu gorundum)
What is meant then, is that you as a separate reality do not realise, understand or know anything, or, to tell the truth, exist as such.
via ollapodrida
Yunus Emre (d. 1320?), called "the greatest folk poet in Islam" (Talat Sait Halman), was an unlettered Turkish shepherd who sang mystical songs which are still popular today. He was the first of a whole tradition of Turkish Sufi troubadors who sang of the Divine Presence, the Beloved, the Friend. His songs/poems convey a profound yet earthy spirituality. His subject is the Heart, the point of awareness where God is realized in us. "I've come to build some hearts," Yunus sings.
To be in love with love with love is to gain a soul,
to sit on the throne of hearts.
To love the world is to be afflicted.
Later the secrets start to make sense.
Don't be bramble,
become the rose. Let your maturity unfold.
The brambles will only burn.
Prayer was created by God so man could ask for help.
It's too bad if you haven't learned to ask.
Accept the breath of those who are mature-
let it become your divining rod.
If you obey your self, things turn our wrong.
Renouncing the world is the beginning of worship.
If you are a believer, believe this.
Respect your parents and ancestry,
and you will have fine green clothes of your own.
If you earn the complaints of neighbors,
You'll stay in Hell forever.
Yunus heard these words from the masters.
If you need this advice, take it.
They say one who is received by heart
becomes more beautiful.
Emre's poetry reminds me of the great Sufi poet Rumi, who also wrote about the personal realization of godhood. The two poets appearently crossed paths at some point in their lives and had an amusing conversation about the subject. The story goes like this: One day Rumi and Yunus Emre met. They had an intimate and very pleasant conversation where Rumi told Yunus of all he had done, reciting to both their delight some of his sublime verse. Yunus Emre was very grateful and highly pleased, but a doubt of personal ability to achieve the same came over him in his utter humility. He remarked aloud: "How true, how lovely; but what a lot of words you have used to say such a simple thing. I could never have done it." Rumi asked him: "How would you have said it?" Yunus Emre, who was what may be called a 'Folk Poet', replied in a couplet:
I wrapped myself in flesh and bones And appeared as Yunus.
(Ete kemige burundum Yunus deyu gorundum)
What is meant then, is that you as a separate reality do not realise, understand or know anything, or, to tell the truth, exist as such.
via ollapodrida
Subscribe to:
Comments (Atom)
