Twenty Poems about Silence (3 of 4) – Analysis and Commentary

Second post in the series:

https://poetryofgonzalinhodacosta.blogspot.com/2018/07/twenty-poems-about-silence-2-of-4.html

This next group of poems consists of translations into English. Translations from another language allow us to contemplate the written symbols and spoken sounds of the original language.

O SILÊNCIO por Eugéniode Andrade

Quando a ternura

parece já do seu ofício fatigada,

e o sono, a mais incerta barca,

inda demora,

quando azuis irrompem

os teus olhos

e procuram

nos meus navegação segura,

é que eu te falo das palavras

desamparadas e desertas,

pelo silêncio fascinadas.

SILENCE by Eugéniode Andrade

Original language Portuguese

Translated by Alexis Levitin

When tenderness

seems tired at last of its offices

and sleep, that most uncertain vessel,

still delays,

when blue bursts from

your eyes

and searches

mine for steady seamanship,

then it is I speak to you of words

desolate, derelict,

transfixed by silence.

Graffiti

This poem in Portuguese was originally published in Obscuro Domínio (1971).

Translation was originally published in Inhabited Heart: The Selected Poems of Eugénio de Andrade (1985).

See: http://www.poetryinternationalweb.net/pi/site/poem/item/4830

The poem is notable for its mystery. It speaks of a moment when “tenderness seems tired” and “sleep still delays,” in response to which words are “desolate, derelict” and, paradoxically, silent. Transporting us from beginning to end is a delicate lyricism.

STILLHETEN EFTERPÅ av Rolf Jacobsen

Prøv å bli ferdige nu

med provokasjonene og salgsstatistikkene,

Søndagsfrokostene og forbrenningsovnene,

militærparadene, arkitektkonkurransene

og de tredobbelte rekkene med trafikklys.

Kom igjennem det og bli ferdige

med festforberedelser og markedsføringsanalyser

for det er sent,

det er altfor sent,

bli ferdige og kom hjem

til stillheten efterpå

som møter deg som et varmt blodsprøyt mot panden

og som tordenen underveis

og som slag av mektige klokker

som får trommehindene til å dirre

for ordene er ikke mere til,

det er ikke flere ord,

fra nu av skal alt tale

med stemmene til sten og trær.

Stillheten som bor i gresset

på undersiden av hvert strå

og i det blå mellemrommet mellem stenene.

Stillheten

som følger efter skuddene og efter fuglesangen.

THE SILENCE AFTERWARDS by Rolf Jacobsen

Original language Norwegian

Translated by Robert Bly

Try to be done now

with deliberately provocative actions and sales statistics,

brunches and gas ovens,

be done with fashion shows and horoscopes,

military parades, architectural contests, and the rows of triple traffic lights.

Come through all that and be through

with getting ready for parties and eight possibilities

of winning on the numbers,

cost of living indexes and stock market analyses,

because it is too late,

it is way too late,

get through with and come home

to the silence afterwards

that meets you like warm blood hitting your forehead

and like thunder on the way

and the sound of great clocks striking

that make the eardrums quiver,

because words don't exist any longer,

there are no more words,

from now on all talk will take place

with the voices stones and trees have.

The silence that lives in the grass

on the underside of every blade

and in the blue spaces between the stones.

The silence

that follows shots and birdsong.

The silence

that pulls a blanket over the dead body

and waits in the stairs until everyone is gone.

The silence

that lies like a small bird between your hands,

the only friend you have.

...the only friend you have.

Original poem in Norwegian, and English translation published in The Roads Have Come to an End Now, translated by Robert Bly, Roger Greenwald, and Robert Hedin (Port Townsend, Washington: Copper Canyon Press, 2001), pages 92-93.

The poem consists of a series of metaphors climaxing in a single powerful image—“a small bird between your hands, the only friend you have.” “Try to be done now” with noise, the poem says, ready yourself to experience encompassing silence. The statement is skillfully, lyrically constructed.

Every reader will probably find in this poem at least one metaphor they relish. I like “the silence afterwards that hits you like warm blood hitting your forehead.”

TØGNIN OG EG af Tóroddur Poulsen

Tøgnin uttan

fyri meg

sjálvan og                    

sum eg

vakni til

eins og

ein buldrandi

býur sovnar

THE SILENCE AND I by Tóroddur Poulsen

Original language Faroese

Translated by Randi Ward

i wake

to the silence

outside myself

the way

a bustling

city falls

asleep

Kansas City at Dusk

Original poem in Faroese, and English translation published in Beloit Poetry Journal, Vol. 64, No. 4 (Summer 2014), page 10.

Haiku-like, the poem uses startling metaphorical language. It surprises us with insight. Both attributes characterize Tóroddur Poulsen’s elliptical poetry.

The old pond… by Matsuo Bashō

Original language Japanese

Translated by Robert Hass

The old pond—

a frog jumps in,

sound of water.

Furu ik eya

kawazu tobikomu

mizu no oto

 

In Japanese script:

http://www.carlsensei.com/classical/index.php/text/view/1

—“Classical Japanese Database (home, authors, translators, texts, translations, references, help, scratchpad)” 

Many copies of this poem appear online. See, for example:

http://www.bopsecrets.org/gateway/passages/basho-frog.htm

—“Matsuo Bashô: Frog Haiku (Thirty-two Translations and One Commentary),” Bureau of Public Secrets 

I doubt that I could add much to the extensive commentary that already exists about this famous poem.

I would only remark that I like the above translation best because it is accurately concise. 

Tree Frog Jumping

I live on the mountain… by Han Shan

Original language Chinese

Translated by J. P. Seaton

I live on the mountain

no one knows.

Among white clouds

eternal perfect silence.

 

In Chinese script, see HS 308:

https://www.scribd.com/document/373191259/9781501501913-the-poetry-of-hanshan-cold-mountain-shide-and-fenggan-hanshans-poems

—“(9781501501913 - The Poetry of Hanshan (Cold Mountain) Shide and Fenggan) Hanshans Poems,” Scribd, uploaded by Charlotte Mackie, June 22, 2017 

Han Shan, which literally means “Cold Mountain,” is a legendary poet of the Tang dynasty.

Translation was originally published in Han Shan, Cold Mountain Poems, edited and translated by J. P. Seaton (Boston: Shambhala Publications, 2009), page 72.

See: https://books.google.com.ph/books?redir_esc=y&id=W_0RMKJL-ZMC&q=cold+mountain#v=snippet&q=72&f=false

English translations of poems written in Chinese often have a terse visual quality. This particular translation by J. P. Seaton is incisively imagistic.

Rocks in Huangshan Mountains

Fourth post in the series:

https://poetryofgonzalinhodacosta.blogspot.com/2019/01/twenty-poems-about-silence-4-of-4.html

Pietà

PIETÀ

On the photo of Jennelyn Olaires grieving over her husband, Michael Siaron, published in The New York Times (August 3, 2016)

He is the poor man unjustly executed by the state.

She is the desolate woman of inconsolable loss.

He dies sputtering in the darkness of a silent movie.

She weeps a ceaseless cataract of tears.

He weighs less than floating dust, inutile to tip the scales held fast against him.

She sorrows over his limp remains, bludgeoned by the fist of power.

He is snapped like a cracker in several places.

She receives his broken body like a beggar.

He is expendable, a worthless ceramic fragment.

She grieves, grief is all she owns.

When the prefect summons his charge, interrogates him, leans forward in his judgment seat, and affecting consternation, grandly delivers his verdict of death, he will afterwards wash his hands of bloodguilt, roundly curse drug users as human blight unworthy of life, revel in Adolph Hitler’s bloodlust, claim that the thousands who are summarily shot dead resisted arrest, and deny that he ever gave orders to instigate genocide.

Originally published in The Penmen Review (August 31, 2018)

Jennelyn Olaires grieving over her husband, Michael Siaron

You walk along shoulders…

You walk along shoulders…

You walk along shoulders of bamboo groves,

Starlight treads in your footsteps.

You go forward with shifting seasons,

Summer ghosts are left behind.

You rise as the wind of briefest memory

Pushing shutters gently open.

You arrive, fresh rain at the door ajar,

Softly rustling dry silk.

Your spirit rests in tranquility at table,

Folding itself into a napkin.

You dwell in silence in the deepest part,

Inside there is only silence.

You sleep illumined by the guardian moon,
Windless, the stilling doom.

The Sleeping Gypsy (1897) by Henri Rousseau

Tres Figuras y Letras

TRES FIGURAS Y LETRAS

Comfort Woman, Roxas Boulevard, Manila

Naked, you were raped. Clothed,

You are memorialized.

Pyeonghwaui Sonyeosang, Japanese Embassy, Seoul

You sit, waiting for a nation to acknowledge

Their crimes against humanity.

Memorial to Comfort Women, St. Mary’s Square, San Francisco

Words outspoken ennoble you whom

Brutality and lust has shamed.

Originally published in vox poetica (September 5, 2018)

Pyeonghwaui Sonyeosang, Japanese Embassy, Seoul, South Korea

Three Poems about Solitude – Analysis and Commentary

ODE ON SOLITUDE by Alexander Pope

 

Happy the man, whose wish and care

A few paternal acres bound,

Content to breathe his native air

In his own ground.

 

Whose herds with milk, whose fields with bread,

Whose flocks supply him with attire,

Whose trees in summer yield him shade,

In winter fire.

 

Blest, who can unconcernedly find

Hours, days, and years slide soft away,

In health of body, peace of mind,

Quiet by day,

 

Sound sleep by night; study and ease,

Together mixed; sweet recreation;

And innocence, which most does please,

With meditation.

 

Thus let me live, unseen, unknown,

Thus unlamented let me die;

Steal from the world, and not a stone

Tell where I lie.

 

—Alexander Pope, “Ode on Solitude,” Poetry Foundation

This remarkable poem by Alexander Pope has worn well with time. Its description of an idyllic, pastoral existence still speaks to the present day. Ostensibly, the longing for a peaceful, solitary life untroubled by want, away from society and close to nature, enlivened by study, has deep roots in the human spirit.

The last stanza is intriguing because it expresses the desire to die unknown and forgotten, a sentiment that goes against the grain of human yearning for immortality. The closing statement is possibly inspired by the speaker’s wish for the peace that converges with hiddenness.

 

THE SOLITUDE OF NIGHT by Li Po

Translated by Shigeyoshi Obata

 

It was at a wine party—

I lay in a drowse, knowing it not.

The blown flowers fell and filled my lap.

When I arose, still drunken,

The birds had all gone to their nests,

And there remained but few of my comrades.

I went along the river—alone in the moonlight.

 

See: https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poems/52535/the-solitude-of-night 

 

—Li Bai, transl. by Shigeyoshi Obata, “The Solitude of Night,” Poetry Foundation

One of the charms of ancient poetry is its power to transport us to a distant time and place, offering us an experience of the unfamiliar and exotic that makes our visit well worthwhile. In this poem we are carried off to 8th century Tang China, our host a whimsical, tippling man of letters. The poem displays some of the hallmarks of the inimitable Li Po—vignettes about the pleasures of wine and the allures of nature, limned with a simple, direct gaze and an endearing eye for memorable details.

SOLITUDE by Lia Purpura

 

No one home.

Snow packing

the morning in.

Much white

nothing filling up.

A V of birds

pulling

the silence

until some dog

across the street

barks, and breaks

what I call my peace.

What a luxury

annoyance is.

It bites off

and keeps

just enough of

what I think

I want to be endless.

See: https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poems/58825/solitude-56d23d8a6bbce 

—Lia Purpura, “Solitude,” Poetry Foundation

In this selection of some of my favorite poems, I wanted to include at least one contemporary piece. This poem was published in 2015.

One virtue of Lia Purpura’s poem is incisive imagery—“much white nothing filling up,” “a V of birds pulling the silence.” Another is keen paradox—“what a luxury annoyance is.” The latent punch line is that annoyance is hardly luxury. It is a bane, a dog that bites off just enough of your peace to basically destroy it.

Lia Purpura has garnered multiple honors and awards:

https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poets/lia-purpura  

—“Lia Purpura,” Poetry Foundation

Solitude (2008) by Horacio Cardozo

Sententiae

“Under a tyranny the law is misused as an instrument of injustice, persecution, repression, and oppression.”

“Correctly construed, the rule of law protects and upholds human rights and our God-given freedoms.”

“Genuine democracy, which subsists in the democratic values and principles internalized by the people, is subverted when criminal leaders controvert the laws embodying the people’s deepest aspirations for freedom from tyranny.”

Marcos declares martial law, September 23, 1972