The following is a translation of the Rose Auslander poem by Mike Rose.Into Life
Only in the motherhood of grief
Does the fullness of experience stream into me.
She feeds me for a long, bleary time
With black milk and heavy wormwood wine.
Within her body I grow like a child
Shrouded in night-song and shadow spaces
Until my woes are ripe and sighted
And the womb expels me from the dream.
And all the paths plunge towards me
each takes me into its otherness
And evenings attend, great with golden stillness
As angels about my transfigured pain.
This is an informal translation and Mike makes the following comment:I've been fairly direct rather than poetic in the translation, and two lines still bother me. 'Mutterinnigkeit' (l.1) is one of those German words that means 20 different things - could be translated as motherly intimacy, being-within-motherness, motherhood or something else... 'Sehend' in l.7 could be 'seeing' but I think there's also the implication of 'visible', so I went for 'sighted' to try to catch both.JaimeOn Feb 14, 2018, at 2:20 PM, Luke <[log in to unmask]> wrote:LukeThat would be great!Cheers,On 14 February 2018 at 17:05, Jaime Robles <[log in to unmask]> wrote:Continuing the below: By that I meant an unpublished translation … one done for the moment for the purposes of understanding.______________________________QS: Let’s return to poetics.JR: When did we leave?—From the conversation between Quinta Slef and Joan Retallack, The Poethical WagerOn Feb 14, 2018, at 8:58 AM, Jaime Robles <[log in to unmask]> wrote:Luke, When you first wrote about this I thought you were looking for a translation, so I asked a friend to do one. He has gotten back to me with a translation and a caveat about a few of the words. Did you want a translation? Or were you looking for commentary only? Let me know….______________________________QS: Let’s return to poetics.JR: When did we leave?—From the conversation between Quinta Slef and Joan Retallack, The Poethical WagerOn Feb 13, 2018, at 1:02 PM, Luke <[log in to unmask]> wrote:Lukewho'd have thought!best,On 13 February 2018 at 20:55, GILES GOODLAND <[log in to unmask]> wrote:Royal Festival Hall, South Bank
From: Luke <[log in to unmask]>
To: [log in to unmask]
Sent: Tuesday, 13 February 2018, 20:53
Subject: Re: 'Black milk of daybreak'
Lukewhat is an 'rfh'thanks,On 13 February 2018 at 09:39, Patrick McManus <[log in to unmask]> wrote:Hi Luke can poetry library help ? at rfh London
On 13/02/2018 00:15, Luke wrote:
Sorry that's obviously just the first stanza, I took this screengrab from Dichtung wider Dicthung, by Jean Bollack
<image.png>
On 13 February 2018 at 00:10, Luke <[log in to unmask]> wrote:
LukeCheers,I was surprised that no-one seems to have translated this reference to black milk into English. I believe it's where Celan took it from Rose Ausländer .I'm just going to run it through google translate then, if no-one wants to!
Ins LebenNur aus der Trauer Mutterinnigkeit
strömt mir das Vollmaß des Erlebens ein.
Sie spiest mich eine lange, trübe Zeit
mit schwarzer Milch und schwerem Wermutwein
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