Thanks,Doug. Briefly (I am on a big deadline, but I like your question).
Sleeping with Sappho is similar to the Howe work (now entitled, Triggers, an
ebook from Shearsman Books). I took Ann Carson's translations of Sappho (If
Not, Winter) and turned them upside down, reversing intentions, improvising
on the tone, etc., etc. Lifting up the skirt, so to speak. It became a
wonderfully involuntary process. I could take the same poem and come up with
different solutions, and identify them as Alternates. It is the closest
thing I have done - in that surreal sense - to automatic writing - which is
another way of saying, letting go and letting an intelligence inside guide
and articulate the work. (With more time I could give a comparison the
Carson original with mine).
This is all contrary, and possibly upsetting to those who work hard at
getting the most genuine translation acquired from paying the closest
attention to the original Greek or any other language (and to Ann Carson's
good work I owe great gratitude.) (As well as to Fanny).
But I am not claiming authority as a translator as such, and,in the case of
the publication of Triggers, I did not acknowledge Fanny's work - I thought
that would just muddiy the waters. I just want folks to read the poems as
poems, and, in the Sappho case, if the work is taken as Sappho's authentic
voice or poems, what can I say.
Clearly more can be said and clearly I will never fully fathom the process..
I just appreciate the way in which Carson's Sappho has permitted the
creation of these poems which people seem to like so much.
If interested, I will look forward to remarks of others on 'this subject'!
Stephen V
Blog: http://stephenvincent.durationpress.com
& in the spirit of promotion, in addition to new Sappho pieces on my blog,
folks can go to Sleeping With Sappho (a faux ebook) at:
http://www.fauxpress.com/e/vincent/
There are also some Sappho in the current issue of Masthead.
And to Triggers at Shearsman Books:
http://www.shearsman.com/pages/books/ebooks/ebooks_home.html
> Enjoyed the snap. Vincent, but went to see the latest Sleeping with
> Sappho. Fascinating stuff. I misremember (forget) the actual
> plan/process. Not the reverse thing you did with Fannie Howe, right? I
> find it intriguing how working with these fragments has been important
> to so many. Anne Carson is translating direct I think, but you're doing
> something else, more like the transposing of Catullus into New Zealand
> by C K Stead.
>
> Way back in the late 19th century, a most Romantic Canadian poet, Bliss
> Carmen (can you believe the name?) attempted a 'translation' (with
> additions: he wanted to make each little fragment into a 'poem') of
> Sappho, but even with his highly romanticized additions, the poems are
> his strongest, sharpest, most passionate (in the true sense), works.
> Sappho rules.
>
> Doug
>
>
> Douglas Barbour
> 11655 - 72 Avenue NW
> Edmonton Ab T6G 0B9
> (780) 436 3320
>
> I can always
> go back to
> fertilization,
> kimonos, wrap-
> arounds and
> diatribes.
>
> Lorine Niedecker
>
>
>
>
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