i'm trying to write about this translation of Dino Campana's Orphic Songs
by i.l. solomon not being fluent in italian and not being a translator, but
a constant reader of translations, and having studied italian, i definitely
believe in reading the original language out loud in however poor a
pronounciation, because meaning pops from the sounding writely or wrongly,
Berrigan and Zukofsky translate by sound leaving the morpheme to swim in
the subconscious to work like a drunken worm and poets like Campana and
Neruda or Lorca can write in a simple or vernacular that makes heightened
feelings from rhythms. But I'm finding these translations in general too
literal and not rapturous as Campana's own lingo is reputed. I'm not
interested in slagging a 98 year old translator but i think the rapture
might come more readily from a translator in their 20's, or even 40-'s I
see that Charles Wright has also done a translation i ought to read that
before telling you to give a pass to this very sensuous book (production
wise)City Lights, reissue of a thirty year old translation, maybe it's
Ferlinghetti paying some dues to the community he grew up in and the
neighbourhood he continues to get wealthy in (Columbus). one thing i will
report about this translation that irks me somewhat is, for grammars sake,
he'll (occasionally) transpose the ultimate line with the penultimate;
negating the weight of the finality, the last word lingering on the tongue
and the tympanum the position of the word as final serving in my ear like
epiphany triggers not blind! meaning.

but restrain your impetuousity, take deep breaths, some of us go away for
weekends, some of us read a hundred and five messages at a tear, some of us
engage in that old fashioned cogitation, and find it hard to think too
quickly when old friends are dying like this weekend I was at the extended
family memorial for charles watts his ashes there in an urn. Robin Blaser
spoke and read and read a poem of Charles from his sole publication, bread
& wine,
Goh Poh Seng read, Bob Rose read, George Bowering appeared looking grey
(the opposite of merry) the opposite of light he probably had to leave i
missed speaking to him, Dorothy Trujillo Lusk, Lisa Robertson,
Pirsilla Groves, Marya Hindmarch, Renee Rodin, Jan___, Peter Magnani,
Peter and Patti Huse, Ralph Maude's darling her name slips my mind but her
beauty is seered in my reptile brain, bryant knox, ted byrne, susan clark,
peter and meredith quartermain, melissa wolsak, all taking one's thoughts
far from e-mail as grandchildren do and animals needs.
anybody else reading this City Lights translation of Campana, it's a side
by side original and translation, which is always my preference, i might
have three translations on the shelf, one for the quality of the
translation, one for the original text, and another for the
apparatus(notes, intros, essays)

billy little
4 song st.
nowhere, b.c. V0R1Z0

Yeah, I stole from
                   the treasury
of human folly
I spent it all on you, baby...

don't mention it

Duncan McNaughton




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