On Sun, 28 Nov 99 18:33:27 +1100, you wrote:
>Do you know the work in Estonian? Or presumably you know of other books
>in English? Just curious to know where your sense of precision comes
>from. I can see where the translation might have blurred the clarities.
- well, "know" wd be too strong an expression (my lack of language
skills is not something I'm proud of)... I've met her, so am aware of
her concision and lightness of speech, and have one of her books in
Estonian, and as is so often the case w/ translations, the translation
has more words than the original, in an attempt, I guess, to achieve
more literal accuracy. Osistm.
>Kaplinski doesn't make me think of Snyder at all, although I suppose he
>should.
- Yep, that was quite a sweeping statement from me... I guess I get
the snyder bit from the earlier vols, which Sam Hamill (original
publisher of Kaplinski) contributed to the translation of, and then in
one sense it's pretty superficial:
ANT TRAIL
on a
poplar's
gnarled
trunk
memory
small light
in the damp
cloud
then
between
two worlds
you lose
direction
what pulls
you upward
is it
your weight
what pulls
you down
is it
your wings
not yet grown
yet growing
(From The Same Sea In Us All, trans "The Author and Sam Hamill" 1985 /
1990). I guess the specifically scored plain-speech observational
buddhism leads me to Snyder, but obviously there's much else going on
too.
The Wandering Border (trans "The Author with Sam Hamill and Riina
Tamm" 1987 / 1992) still shows a lot of that - uh - "Hamill effect",
which I enjoy muchly, but Through The Forest (trans "Hildi Hawkins"
1996) - obviously a very different book anyway, moves - to me - away
from such concision towards a very different - more formal - syntax,
osistm. I enjoy this too...
Indrek, out there in Tallinn, tell me if I'm way off the mark here!
RC
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