Ep 155: Furious Marginalia, ft. Christopher Childers, Pt. 1
NB: Yes, I realize that my statement “Nobody ever speaks in rhyme and meter” is in fact a line of iambic pentameter.
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Some of the topics mentioned in this episode:
– The Penguin Book of Greek and Latin Lyric Verse, trans. Christopher Childers
– The Eight Stages of Translation by Robert Bly
– Robert Frost’s letter to John Bartlett regarding sentence sound (couldn’t find a great copy online)
– Sonnets to Orpheus No. 21 by Rainer Maria Rilke (see also Chris’s translation below)
– Orchard Trees, January by Richard Wilbur
– Heraclitus trans. William Johnson Cory
– Diffugere Nives/Horace iv.7, trans. A. E. Housman
– J. Kates
– The Mysteries of Caesar by Anthony Hecht
– An addendum from Chris:
I emailed XJ Kennedy and asked him if this epigram is about Bly's essay & this specific Rilke poem. He denied it, but come on, it fits too well:
TO A TRANSLATOR
You've done it: Rilke talks American
Thanks to your perseverance, at the cost
Of music, rhyme and rhythm, stanza plan--
Indeed, in your translation all is lost.
This maybe more just for curiosity--my own attempt at the sonnet, just based on Bly's essay, though your point about the oddness of the central conceit is well taken. (We missed, or maybe didn't say as obvious, that earth as a school child who is reciting the poem of spring perhaps makes a bit more sense in Sonnets to Orpheus; and the idea of song after long silence is particularly appropriate to Rilke, at least from what I remember of the story of the composition of the Duino Elegies.)
Sonnet to Orpheus 1.21
Rilke
It’s spring again, and the Earth looks
like a child who’s worked to memorize
hundreds of poems. She lived with books
a long time, and now, she takes the prize.
A difficult teacher, that old man whose
beard we liked for its shaggy white.
We’re asking her the names of the blues
and greens, and she–she gets them right!
O lucky Earth on recess, play!
You’re It, and we–we’re in pursuit
of your smiles. Joy is the winner’s wings.
See?–all she learned in her teacher’s sway,
and everything printed on each deep root
and laborious stalk–she sings, she sings!
Frequently mentioned names:
Other Ratbag Poetry Pods:
Poetry Says by Alice Allan
I Hate Matt Wall by Matt Wall
Versecraft by Elijah Blumov
Ratbag Poetics By David Jalal Motamed
Alice: Poetry Says
Brian: @BPlatzer
Cameron: CameronWTC [at] hotmail [dot] com
Matthew: sleerickets [at] gmail [dot] com
Music by ETRNL
Art by Daniel Alexander Smith
