There have been a few really interesting 'translations' of the Elegies
lately, but I confess to also really liking George Bowering's
'life-translation,' his 1984 _Kerrisdale Elegies_, in which he creates a
poem out of his own life & Rilke's great poem. No angels, but friends, &,
given Bowering's life-long engagement with the game, the acrobats become
baseball players! It's a terrific sequence, but unless it somehow got to a
library near you, very hard to find now...
But it is, somewhat, a bit like Hugh Tolhurst's 'unfaithful translations'
of Catullus (or CK Stead's), & I confess to really enjoying these kinds of
versions...
Douglas Barbour
Department of English
University of Alberta
Edmonton Alberta Canada T6G 2E5
(h) [780] 436 3320 (b) [780] 492 0521
http://www.ualberta.ca/~dbarbour/dbhome.htm
surely when they fell
it was into grace
bpNichol
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