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Poetry in Translation (CCXIII): Francis of ASSISI,(1181/1182, Assisi, Umbria – October 3, 1226, Assisi), Poet of UMBRIA, “Preghiera”, “Prayer”, “Rugăciune”

September 13th, 2013 · International Media, PEOPLE, Poetry, quotations, Translations

Poetry in Translation (CCXIII): Francis of ASSISI,(1181/1182, Assisi, Umbria – October 3, 1226, Assisi), Poet of UMBRIA, “Preghiera”, “Prayer”, “Rugăciune”

Francesco de Assisi

Francesco de Assisi

Preghiera
(San Francesco d’Assisi)

Oh Signore, fa di me uno strumento della tua pace
dove è odio, fa che io porti l’amore
dove è offesa, che io porti il perdono,
dove è discordia, che io porti l’unione,
dove è dubbio, che io porti la fede,
dove è errore, che io porti la verità,
dove è disperazione, che io porti la speranza,
dove è tristezza, che io porti la gioia,
dove sono le tenebre, che io porti la luce.
Maestro, fa che io non cerchi tanto
di essere consolato, quanto di consolare,
di essere compreso, quanto di comprendere,
di essere amato, quanto di amare.
Perchè è
dando, che si riceve,
perdonando, che si è perdonati,
morendo, che si resuscita a vita eterna.

Giotto Legend of St Francis

Giotto Legend of St Francis

Prayer
Saint Francis of ASSISI

Lord, make me an instrument of your peace.
Where there is hatred, let me sow love.
Where there is injury, pardon.
Where there is doubt, faith.
Where there is despair, hope.
Where there is darkness, light.
Where there is sadness, joy.

O Divine Master,
grant that I may not so much seek to be consoled, as to console;
to be understood, as to understand;
to be loved, as to love.
For it is in giving that we receive.
It is in pardoning that we are pardoned,
and it is in dying that we are born to Eternal Life.
Amen.

Assisi_San_Francesco_Basilica

Assisi_San_Francesco_Basilica

Rugăciune
Sf. Francisc din Assisi
(1181/82 – 3 Octombrie, 1226)

O, Doamne, Dumnezeule, lasă-mă să primesc pacea ta.
Acolo unde este ură, lasă-mă să pot semăna iubire.
Unde este daună, iertare.
Unde este îndoiala, credință.
Unde este disperare, speranță.
Unde este întuneric, lumină.
Unde este tristețe, bucurie.

Doamne, Dumnezeul meu,
daruieşte-mi, nu atât mângâierea, cât putința de a mângâia;
nu atât harul de a fi înțeles, cât să pot înțelege;
nu să fiu iubit, cât să pot iubi.
Căci prin dăruire de sine putem primi,
prin iertare putem fi iertați,
și prin moartea spre moarte putem afla viață veșnică.

Amin.

Versiune în limba Română
Constantin ROMAN, Londra,
© 2013, Copyright Constantin ROMAN

basilica_san_francesco_de_assisi

basilica_san_francesco_de_assisi

San Francisco de Assísi

Oh, Señor, haz de mí un instrumento de Tu Paz .
Donde hay odio, que lleve yo el Amor.
Donde haya ofensa, que lleve yo el Perdón.
Donde haya discordia, que lleve yo la Unión.
Donde haya duda, que lleve yo la Fe.
Donde haya error, que lleve yo la Verdad.
Donde haya desesperación, que lleve yo la Alegría.
Donde haya tinieblas, que lleve yo la Luz.
Oh, Maestro, haced que yo no busque tanto ser consolado, sino consolar;
Ser comprendido, sino comprender;
Ser amado, como amar.
Porque es dando, que se recibe;
Perdonando, que se es perdonado;
Muriendo, que se resucita a la Vida Eterna.
Amén.

Pietro_Lorenzetti_compianto_basilica_di_Assisi

Pietro_Lorenzetti_compianto_basilica_di_Assisi

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Poetry in Translation (CCXII): Romeo ÇOLLAKU, (b. 1973, Greece) Albanian poet, “The Piggy Bank of Time”, “Puşculiţa Timpului”

September 10th, 2013 · Diaspora, International Media, PEOPLE, Poetry, quotations, Translations, Uncategorized

Poetry in Translation (CCXII): Romeo ÇOLLAKU, (b. 1973, Greece) Albanian poet, “The Piggy Bank of Time”, “Puşculiţa Timpului”

Romeo ÇOLLAKU

Romeo ÇOLLAKU

The Piggy Bank of Time
Romeo Çollaku (b. 1973)
Albanian poet born in Greece

As twilight descends, casting black ink upon the village, and the dog’s eyes in the courtyard are like two spent oil lamps, you at the windowsill show not your elbows, nor do you bestow a glance on the plum trees or on the fences in the lane.

“On the Night of St. Demetrius, there is time enough for sleep and thought,” chides one of those voices which hardly whispers, and you sit there dazed for hours on end.

And, when you finally get up, you accidentally shatter a porcelain vase (a custom of old, and there is nothing you can do).

Light the lamp and study the grey coins of your childhood scattered upon the floor.

[Kumbaraja e kohës, from the volume Kumbaraja e kohës, Tirana: Ombra GVG 2004, p.7]
(From: Transcript 24 – Cotemporary Verse from Albania)

broken piggy bank

Puşculita Timpului
Romeo Çollaku (n. 1973)
Poet Albanez, născut in Grecia

În amurg, când cenuşa serii se revarsă peste sat, iar ochii câinelui păzitor apar ca doua fitiluri de lampă, pâlpâind, tu stai la fereastră, ascunzându-ţi coatele, fără să arunci vre-o privire prunilor, sau gardului de pe uliţă.

În noaptea de Sân Dumitru, vei avea destul timp să dormi şi să visezi, mă aţâţă in şoaptă glasul abea perceptibil, dar tu stai acolo, ore in şir, năucită.

Iar când, intr-un tarziu, te ridici, spargi din greşeală puşculiţa de lut (un obicei din strămoşi care nu-l poţi evita)

Atunci aprinzi lampa ca să numeri banii vechi ai copilăriei imprăştiaţi pe podea.

Versiune în limba Română
Constantin ROMAN, Londra,
© 2013, Copyright Constantin ROMAN

Romeo Çollaku Albania poet

Romeo Çollaku
Albania poet

SHORT BIO:
Romeo Çollaku was born in the southern port town of Saranda, across from the island of Corfu in neighbouring Greece. He studied Albanian language and literature at the University of Gjirokastra and now lives in Athens, Greece.

Çollaku is an author of Albanian verse of high linguistic finesse, which has appeared in three collections: Zemër virgjine (Virgin Heart), Tirana 1993; Gjithë diell e natë (All Sun and Night), Tirana 2003; and Kumbaraja e kohes (The Piggy Bank of Time), Tirana 2004. He has also published the novel Varrezat e vendlindjes (Hometown Cemetery), Tirana 2002, and Albanian translations of the poets Yannis Ritsos, Jorgos Seferis, Paul Verlaine and Stephane Mallarmé.

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Poetry in Translation (CCXI): Paul ANCEL, aka Paul CELAN, (b. 1920, Bucovina, Romania – d. 1970, Paris), ROMANIA, “Whichever stone you lift”, “Orice lespede de-ai ridica”

September 4th, 2013 · Diaspora, PEOPLE, Poetry, quotations, Translations

Poetry in Translation (CCXI): Paul ANCEL, aka Paul CELAN, (b. 1920, Bucovina, Romania – d. 1970, Paris), ROMANIA, “Whichever stone you lift”, “Orice lespede de-ai ridica”

Celan Selected Poems

Celan Selected Poems

Whichever Stone You Lift
Paul CELAN
(1920-1970)

Whichever stone you lift –
you lay bare
those who need the protection of stones:
naked,
now they renew their entwinement.
Whichever tree you fell –
you frame
the bedstead where
souls are stayed once again,
as if this aeon too
did not
tremble.
Whichever word you speak –
you owe to
destruction.

Translated by John Felstiner
From: “Prose and Poems of Paul Celan”, Norton Publishers, 2007,

Paul Celan woodcut

Paul Celan woodcut

Orice lespede ai ridica
Paul Celan
(1920-1970)

Orice lespede ai ridica
vei desveli doar
pe cei ce au nevoie de adăpostul lespezilor:
despuiaţi,
ei se strâng iarăşi împreună.
Orice arbore de-ai tăia
vei ridica, doar,
din nou, patul
sufletelor adormiţilor,
ca şi cum veşnicia
n-ar mai zvâcni.
Orice cuvânt ai rosti
îl datorezi
prigoanei.

Versiune în limba Română
Constantin ROMAN, Londra,
© 2013, Copyright Constantin ROMAN

Paul Celan

Paul Celan

SHORT BIO:
Born in Bucovina (Northern Romania), where he spent his formative years between 1920 and 1948. With the advent of Communist dictatorship Celan lived as an uprooted, in Paris. Here another exile and fellow countryman, Emil Cioran, found him in 1959, a job as a reader in German Language and Literature at the prestigious École Normale Superieure of the University of Paris, a position the poet would hold until his death in 1970. From this last period of his exile, his poems grew shorter, more fragmented and broken in their syntax and perception. In 1960 he received the Georg Buchner Prize. During the 1960s he published more than six books of poetry and gained international fame. In addition to his own poems, he remained an active translator of works by Henri Michaux, Osip Mandelstam, Rene Char, Paul Valéry, and Fernando Pessoa. It may be isignal to say that Celan’s earliest work was written and published in Romanian, in Bucharest and only subsequently to this period he composed his poetry in German. The poet chose his nom de plume, Celan, when he published in Bucharest: this is an anagram of his real name of Ancel.
After the communist takeover in his native Romania where Celan held only briefly a position as an editor, we find him in Vienna and finally in Paris, where he settled in 1948.
All along his twenty two years of exile Celan never accepted his uprooting, which eventually led to his suicide, by drowning in the river Seine.
Paul CELAN is considered one of the greats of post-WWII European poets of German expression. Perhaps one of the most defining lines of the poets psyche are encapsulated in his “Fugue of Death” (Todesfuge) a poem which opens with the words:

“Black milk of daybreak we drink it at evening /
we drink it at midday and morning we drink it at night”

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Poetry in Translation (CCX): Jorge Luis BORGES, (24 August 1899, Buenos Aires – 14 June 1986, Geneva), ARGENTINA, “Simplicity ”, “Simplitate”

August 24th, 2013 · Diaspora, International Media, PEOPLE, Poetry, quotations, Translations, Uncategorized

Poetry in Translation (CCX): Jorge Luis BORGES, (24 August 1899, Buenos Aires – 14 June 1986, Geneva), ARGENTINA, “Simplicity ”, “Simplitate”,

gate

Simplicity
Jorge Luis Borges

It opens, the gate to the garden
with the docility of a page
that frequent devotion questions
and inside, my gaze
has no need to fix on objects
that already exist, exact, in memory.
I know the customs and souls
and that dialect of allusions
that every human gathering goes weaving.
I’ve no need to speak
nor claim false privilege;
they know me well who surround me here,
know well my afflictions and weakness.
This is to reach the highest thing,
that Heaven perhaps will grant us:
not admiration or victory
but simply to be accepted
as part of an undeniable Reality,
like stones and trees.

Translated by A. S. Kline © 2008

Man_at_the_Gate

Simplitate
Jorge Luis Borges
(1899, Buenos Aires –1986, Geneva)

Îmi deschide poarta dinspre grădină
cu îngăduinţa unui servitor
al cărui devotament este nesigur
dar odată înăuntru privirea mea
nu are nevoie să fixeze obiectele
care au rămas, precis, în memorie.
Recunosc obiceiurile și spiritul –
acel dialect al aluziilor,
acea pânză ţesută de fiecare grup.
Eu nu am nevoie să vorbesc
nici să–mi asum vre-un fals privilegiu;
cei care mă înconjoară aici, mă știu prea bine,
știu bine suferințele și slăbiciunea mea.
Aceasta este poate treapta cea mai înaltă
care Cerul poate ne va acorda:
nu să fim admirați în victorie
ci pur și simplu să fim îngăduiţi
ca parte a unei realități inconturnabile,
ca și pietrele și arborii.

Versiune în limba Română
Constantin ROMAN, Londra,
© 2013, Copyright Constantin ROMAN

SHORT BIO:
(from Wikipedia)

Jorge Luis Borges

Jorge Luis Borges

Jorge Francisco Isidoro Luis Borges (24 August 1899 – 14 June 1986), known as Jorge Luis Borges (Spanish: [ˈxorxe ˈlwis ˈborxes] About this sound audio (help·info)), was an Argentine short-story writer, essayist, poet and translator born in Buenos Aires. His work embraces the “character of unreality in all literature”. His most famous books, Ficciones (1944) and The Aleph (El Aleph in Spanish) (1949), are compilations of short stories interconnected by common themes such as dreams, labyrinths, libraries, mirrors, animals, fictional writers, philosophy, religion and God.

Borges’ works have contributed to philosophical literature and also to both the fantasy and magical realism genres. The genre of magical realism reacted against the dominant realism and naturalism of the nineteenth century.] Critic Ángel Flores, the first to use the term, considers the beginning of the movement to be the release of Borges’ A Universal History of Infamy (Historia universal de la infamia in Spanish) (1935). Scholars have also suggested that Borges’s progressive blindness helped him to create innovative literary symbols through imagination. His late poems dialogue with such cultural figures as Spinoza, Camões, and Virgil.

In 1914 his family moved to Switzerland, where he studied at the Collège de Genève. The family travelled widely in Europe, including stays in Spain. On his return to Argentina in 1921, Borges began publishing his poems and essays in surrealist literary journals. He also worked as a librarian and public lecturer. In 1955 he was appointed director of the National Public Library and professor of Literature at the University of Buenos Aires. He became completely blind at the age of fifty five, and was unable to read from this point on, never learning braille. In 1961 he came to international attention when he received the first ever Prix International, sharing the award with Samuel Beckett. In 1971 he won the Jerusalem Prize. His work was translated and published widely in the United States and in Europe. Borges himself was fluent in several languages. Borges dedicated his final work, The Conspirators, to the city of Geneva, Switzerland.

His international fame was consolidated in the 1960s, aided by his works being available in English, by the “Latin American Boom” and by the success of Gabriel García Márquez’s One Hundred Years of Solitude. Writer and essayist J. M. Coetzee said of him: “He, more than anyone, renovated the language of fiction and thus opened the way to a remarkable generation of Spanish American novelists.”

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Poetry in Translation (CCIX): Branko CEGEC, (b. Croatia, 1957), CROATIA, “The sexuality of revolutions ”, “Sexualitatea revoluţiilor”,

August 21st, 2013 · International Media, PEOPLE, Poetry, quotations, Translations

Poetry in Translation (CCIX): Branko CEGEC, (b. Croatia, 1957), CROATIA, “The sexuality of revolutions ”, “Sexualitatea revoluţiilor”,

Croatia Rovin

Croatia Rovin


The sexuality of revolutions
Branko Cegec (b. 1957, Croatia)

a take of a vapid pedestal: I enter deeper into the night,
into sleep, into the ugly, into ire:
a row of amiable skeletons, dear cousins
who are no more: at the end of the road only the sad, jelly-like
girl swimmer waves back a greeting through the desert and
the grove of the earthly remains of the banal souls of slaves
from the garden of eden in the eyes,
a hour after midnight
through which rumbled years and condoms,
softness, nudity, the humidity of mortal meeting-points.

Cegec: presvlacenje-avangarde

Cegec: presvlacenje-avangarde

Sexualitatea revoluţiilor
Branko Cegec
(n. Croatia, 1957)

prvind acest piedestal banal: pătrund mai adânc în noapte,
în somn, în urât, în mânie:
un şir de schelete milostive, toate rude dragi,
răposate demult: la capătul drumului – doar silueta tristă, ştearsă,
a tinerei care înnoată, făcandu-mi semn cu mâna, prin pustiu, şi iarăşi
crângul cu rămăşiţele pământeşti ale unor robi fără nume
o oră după miezul nopții,
privind din grădina cerească,
prin care se perindă anii şi condomul
moale, gol şi umed – o convergență implacabilă.

Versiune în limba Română
de Constantin Roman, Londra,
© 2012, Copyright Constantin

SHORTR BIO:

Branko Cegec

Branko Cegec

The writer, editor, critic, anthologist, essayist and translator Branko Čegec (1957) made his poetic debut with experimental poems, and subsequently devoted himself to free verse. A highly influential editor, first of one of the most significant literary magazines in the former Yugoslavia, Quorum (1985-1989), and then in his own publishing firm, Meander, which he founded in 1992; in 1999 he was appointed the chairman of the managing board of Goranovo Proljeće, the most important poetry festival in Croatia.
(Text from: Poetry International Rotterdam)

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Poetry in Translation (CCVIII): Joaquim Maria MACHADO de ASSIS, (b. Rio de Janeiro: 1839 – 1908), BRAZIL, “A Carolina”, “Iubitei”, “To Carolina”

August 18th, 2013 · International Media, PEOPLE, Poetry, quotations, Translations

Poetry in Translation (CCVIII): Joaquim Maria MACHADO de ASSIS, (b. Rio de Janeiro: 1839 – 1908), BRAZIL, “A Carolina”, “Iubitei”, “To Carolina”


Machado de Assis

Machado de Assis

A Carolina
Machado de Assis (1839-1908)

Querida, ao pé do leito derradeiro
Em que descansas dessa longa vida,
Aqui venho e virei, pobre querida,
Trazer-te o coração do companheiro.

Pulsa-lhe aquele afeto verdadeiro
Que, a despeito de toda a humana lida,
Fez a nossa existência apetecida
E num recanto pôs um mundo inteiro.

Trago-te flores,—restos arrancados
Da terra que nos viu passar unidos
E ora mortos nos deixa e separados.

Que eu, se tenho nos olhos malferidos
Pensamentos de vida formulados,
São pensamentos idos e vividos.

book machado

Iubitei
Machado de Assis (1839-1908),
Rio de Janeiro, Brazilia

Iubito, în genunchi, la patul tău,
Unde îţi odihneşti o viaţă-ntreagă,
De-a pururi, langă tine, fiinţă dragă,
Eu sufletu-mi îţi pun la căpătâi.

Cu dor adânc, vibrând necontenit,
Mi-ai luminat cărarea vieţii toată,
Facând din cas-un cuib prea-fericit.

Ţi-aduc ofranda florilor culese
Pe drumul ce-am purces, noi amândoi,
Lăsând în urmă gânduri ne’nţelese.

Iar dacă-n ochii lacrimilor toate,
Mereu adastă visuri din trecut,
Eu le-am trăit, dar astăzi sunt departe.

Versiune în limba Română
de Constantin Roman, Londra,
© 2012, Copyright Constantin Roman

machado note

To Carolina

My sweet, here at the foot of your last bed
In which you’re resting now from your long life,
I’ve come and always will, poor dearest wife,
To bring you the companion’s heart you wed.

It pulses from affection tried and true
And which, despite all human drudgery,
Had made our life’s existence ecstasy
And brought our home a world for me and you.

I bring you flowers, remnants plucked now faded
From earth that saw us jointly walk this way
And now has left us dead and separated.

If l, within my wounded eyes today
Still carry thoughts of life I´d formulated,
Those thoughts once lived, but now they’ve gone away.

English translation by Frederic G. William

From: “POETS OF BRAZIL – A Bilingual Selection” – New York: Luso Brazilian Books,
Brigham Young University Studies, Provo, Utah, USA;
Editora da Universidade Feral da Bahia, Salvador, Brasil.

Machado de Assis SHORT BIO:
Joaquim Maria Machado de Assis was born in the young nation’s capital, the royal court city of Rio de Janeiro, on june 21,1839. Regarded as the premier literary figure of Brazil, he was the son of Carolina Xavier de Novais a Portuguese washerwoman from São Miguel, Azores, and a mulatto house-painter father. Not only did Machado have poverty to contend with while growing up, but he also suffered a lifetime of myopia, epilepsy, and shyness. He made up for his meagre formal education by working as a printer’s apprentice, first typesetting, then proofreading, and finally composing and publishing his own work. Enthralled with books, especially novels, Machado learned Latin from a caring priest and French from a baker in exchange for running errands for them. He was married, in 1869, to Carolina Xavier de Novais, a Portuguese, and although they had no children, they lived happily together and were ever devoted to one another until her death in 1904.

Machado began his writing career during the romantic era, producing a large literary corpus that includes such genres as theatre, translation, criticism, and poetry (four volumes). But he is best known for his crônicas (newspaper columns), short stories, and novels (nine altogether). Especially important are the last five (written during the realist period), where, with subtle irony, lie explores the mediocrity found among some members of the upper middle classes who, while enjoying all the benefits of health, wealth, and education contributed nothing to society.

Machado de Assis rose to high office in the Ministry of Transportation and was honoured as the first president of the Brazilian Academy of Letters, an office he held until his death in 1908.

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Poetry in Translation (CCVII): Manuel Álvarez Torneiro, (b. 1932, La Coruña), GALICIA, SPAIN, “On The Matter of Adagio, In Tribute to Tomaso Albinoni”, “Adagio, Tribut lui Tomaso Albinoni”

August 16th, 2013 · International Media, PEOPLE, Poetry, quotations, Translations

Poetry in Translation (CCVII): Manuel Álvarez Torneiro, (b. 1932, La Coruña), GALICIA, SPAIN, “On The Matter of Adagio, In Tribute to Tomaso Albinoni”, “Adagio, Tribut lui Tomaso Albinoni”

Tomaso Albinoni

Tomaso Albinoni

Manuel Álvarez Torneiro
(b.1932, La Coruña, Galicia)
On The Matter Of Adagio
In tribute to Tomaso Albinoni

The hour arborescent in the shelter of evening.
That voluptuous taffeta of sense.
And life,
which binds severe moments.
A lit blade of grass touches the tremulous flesh,
elaborates the happy flowering of what’s lost.
Nothing is shipwrecked definitively.
The viola turns into sheer silk.
Great scars receive their oils.

Adagio Albinoni

Adagio Albinoni


Adagio
Tribut lui Tomaso Albinoni
Manuel Álvarez Torneiro
(b.1932, La Coruña, Galicia)

Clipă arborescentă la adăpost de seară.
Tafta voluptoasă de înţelesuri.
Și de viaţă, încercată de timpuri grele.
Un fir de iarbă atinge trupul zvâcnind
Bucuros să reînvie floarea pierdută
Sfidând o catastrofă sigură.
Arcuşul devine mătase pură.
Cicatrici adânci primesc balsamul lor.

(Rendered in Romanian by Constantin ROMAN, London,
© 2013 Copyright Constantin ROMAN)


SHORT BIO:

Manuel Alvarez TORNEIRO

Manuel Alvarez TORNEIRO

Manuel Álvarez Torneiro, nado na Coruña o 7 de xullo de 1932, é un xornalista e poeta galego. Cursou estudos na Escola Superior de Altos Estudos Mercantís da Coruña. Despois de desempeñar varios traballos entrou a traballar en La Voz de Galicia. Foi un dos fundadores do grupo poético Amanecer nos anos 1950 na Coruña. Foi nomeado membro de honra da Asociación de Escritores en Lingua Galega en 2011.

Manuel Álvarez Torneiro (b. Coruña 1932): is a Galician poet and journalist, who publishes both in Castilian and Galician languages. An Economics graduate from his native city, Torneiro worked for the “Voice of Galicia” and is a founder of the poetic circle Amanecer. In 2011 he was elected an honorary member of the Association of Galician Authors.

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Poetry in Translation (CCVI): Inga Ravna EIRA (b. 1948), SAMILAND / LAPLAND /LAPONIA/ NORWAY, “The Gods ”, “Zeii”, “Gudene”, “Ipmilat“

August 16th, 2013 · International Media, PEOPLE, Poetry, quotations, Translations

Poetry in Translation (CCVI): Inga Ravna EIRA (b. 1948), SAMILAND / LAPLAND /LAPONIA/ NORWAY, “The Gods ”, “Zeii”, “Gudene”, “Ipmilat“

INGA RAVNA EIRA

INGA RAVNA EIRA

The Gods
Inga Ravna EIRA (b. 1948)

The Gods turned the soil
hid the gold under the stones
but the strangers found it
The spirits and the underworld people fled
hid in the mountain
but were nevertheless disturbed
How dare they
challenge gods and spirits

(English translation by Kari Wattne)
* * * * * * * *

Spirits hid in the Mountains

Spirits hid in the Mountains

Zeii
Inga Ravna EIRA (n. 1948)

Zeii au arat pământul
şi au ascuns aurul sub pietre
dar străinii l-au aflat.
Spiritele și oamenii vieţii de apoi au fugit
să se ascundă în munţi
dar au fost, totuși, găsiţi.
Oare, cum îndrăznesc, ei,
să supere zeii și spiritele?

(Rendered in Romanian by Constantin ROMAN, London,
© 2013 Copyright Constantin ROMAN)

* * * * * * *

images

Gudene
Inga Ravna EIRA (b. 1948)

Gudene vendte om jorda
gjemte gullet under steinene
men de fremmede fant det

Åndene og huldrene flyktet
gjemte seg i fjellene
men likevel blei de plaget

Hvordan tør de
utfordre guder og ånder

(Norwegian translation by Inga Ravna Eira and Kari Wattne)

****

Ipmilat
Inga Ravna EIRA (b. 1948)

Ipmilat jorgaledje eatnama
cihke golli gedggiid vuollái
muhto gal apmasat gávdne dan

Hálddit ja gufihttarat báhtaredje
ciekádedje váriid sisa
muhto gal dat lihkká vourjjahalle

Mo dustet
hástalit ipmiliid ja vuoinnaid.

(Sami original poem by Inga Ravna Eira, b. 1948)

reinsdyr_full_full

SHORT NOTE:
Sami is the language of the people who inhabit the region they call Sapmi. This includes large parts of northern Scandinavia, from Norway to north western Russia, though the majority of the fifty thousand or so who define themselves as Sami (formerly known as Lapps or Finns) live in Norway. Traditionally their life is one of seasonal migration in close-knit groups as hunters and reindeer herders. The Sami language, which has several markedly different dialects, belongs to the Finno-Ugric branch of the Uralic family of languages. Assimilation policies, however, meant that for many years the use of the indigenous language was widely prohibited, and teachers were given bonuses for the number of children they made to stop speaking Sami. Nonetheless there remains an ancient tradition of oral literature in Sami, adapted to written form since the mid-nineteenth century. Yoik poetry—yoik being the Sami form of musical expression—has served for centuries to confirm social identity and literary and musical forms have long been used to articulate resistance against colonisation. Since the 1970s Sami literature has undergone a revival, though its position is far from secure. There are still many Sami who have never been educated in their own language.
Source: http://arts.brunel.ac.uk/gate/entertext/1_3_pdfs/eira.pdf

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Poetry in Translation (CCV): Giorgos SEFERIS (1900 – 1971), GREECE, “Just a little more ”, “Un pic mai mult”

August 12th, 2013 · International Media, PEOPLE, Poetry, quotations, Translations

Poetry in Translation (CCV): Giorgos SEFERIS (1900 – 1971),
GREECE, “Just a little more ”, “Un pic mai mult”

George Seferis

George Seferis

Just a little more
Giorgos SEFERIS (1900 – 1971)

Just a little more
And we shall see the almond trees in blossom
The marbles shining in the sun
The sea, the curling waves.
Just a little more
Let us rise just a little higher.

Seferis: Collected Poems

Seferis: Collected Poems

Un pic mai mult
Giorgos SEFERIS (1900 – 1971)

Un pic mai mult
Şi o să vedem pomii înfloriţi,
Marmura sclipind în soare,
Marea şi valurile spumegând.
Un pic mai mult
Lăsaţi-ne să ne ridicăm puţin mai sus.

(Rendered in Romanian by Constantin ROMAN, London,
© 2013 Copyright Constantin ROMAN)

Seferis in London

Seferis in London

SHORT BIO:
Seferis’s wide travels provide the backdrop and colour for much of his writing, which is filled with the themes of alienation, wandering, and death. Seferis’s early poetry consists of Strophe (Turning Point), 1931, a group of rhymed Lyrics strongly influenced by the Symbolists, and E Sterna (The Cistern), 1932, conveying an image of man’s most deeply felt being which lies hidden from, and ignored by, the everyday world. His mature poetry, in which one senses an awareness of the presence of the past and particularly of Greece’s great past as related to her present, begins with Mythistorema (Mythistorema), 1935, a series of twenty-four short poems which translate the Odyssean myths into modern idiom. In addition to poetry, Seferis has published a book of essays, Dokimes (Essays), 1962, translations of works by T.S. Eliot, and a collection of translations from American, English, and French poets entitled Antigrafes (Copies), 1965. Seferis’s collected poems (1924-1955) have appeared both in a Greek edition (Athens, 1965) and in an American one with translations en face (Princeton, 1967).

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Poetry in Translation (CCIV): Eleftherios IOANNOU, CYPRUS, “The coin”, “Un leu”

August 12th, 2013 · International Media, Poetry, quotations, Translations

Poetry in Translation (CCIV): Eleftherios IOANNOU, CYPRUS, “The coin”, “Un leu”

coin

coin

The coin
Eleftherios IOANNOU (Cyprus)

Many ignore you.
What’s a dime for a tip?
But I was cold and alone
in the street.
When I bend to pick you up.

village-street

Un leu
Eleftherios IOANNOU (Cipru)

Mulţi te sfidează:
Ce-i un leu pentru un bacşiş?
Dar mie mi-era frig şi eram singur
pe stradă
Când m-am aplecat să te iau.

(Rendered in Romanian by Constantin ROMAN, London,
© 2013 Copyright Constantin ROMAN)

cyprus map

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