Category Archives: poetry

On a night with no inspiration

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My muse is sitting out on the back porch, drinking something and wiggling her bare toes in the cool night air. She was reading Petrarch this evening. Petrarch always makes her quiet and pensive–she hates that old Italian, and she kept murmuring, “Trovommi amor del tutto disarmato.” She smokes another cigarette, watches the sun set, gets all maudalin and teary. I noticed she was also reading an old novel–can’t figure out what that’s all about. She likes April in Texas because the weather is always all over the place, at once too hot, too cold, too dark. I tell her I’m going to write about love, but she silently dismisses me and pulls out an old notebook where she starts to scribble. “He was right. Petrarch was right. How could he live with himself?” This time I walk away. A big, huge raindrop lands on her foot, and lightning is grumbling all around. She quotes quietly, “Que ni el amor destruya la primavera intacta.” I can smell the smoke from her half-burned cigarette. A filthy habit, but she doesn’t smoke really; she lights them and lets them burn. She doesn’t as much smoke as she does burn cigarettes. “You know, you need to start a new project,” she calmly says as the dark settles across the horizon. It was always nights like this when I knew that she loved me, but then again, no. I ask, “What would Lorca have said?” Without blinking, and as cold as ice she answered, “Sucia de besos y arena, / yo me la llevé del río.” She just stared out into the night, the wind was combed by the fig tree’s empty branches, and the stars traced infinite paths in the heavens. Ni nardos ni caracolas tienen el cutis tan fino ni los cristales con luna relumbran con ese brillo.–Lorca

On a night with no inspiration

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My muse is sitting out on the back porch, drinking something and wiggling her bare toes in the cool night air. She was reading Petrarch this evening. Petrarch always makes her quiet and pensive–she hates that old Italian, and she kept murmuring, “Trovommi amor del tutto disarmato.” She smokes another cigarette, watches the sun set, gets all maudalin and teary. I noticed she was also reading an old novel–can’t figure out what that’s all about. She likes April in Texas because the weather is always all over the place, at once too hot, too cold, too dark. I tell her I’m going to write about love, but she silently dismisses me and pulls out an old notebook where she starts to scribble. “He was right. Petrarch was right. How could he live with himself?” This time I walk away. A big, huge raindrop lands on her foot, and lightning is grumbling all around. She quotes quietly, “Que ni el amor destruya la primavera intacta.” I can smell the smoke from her half-burned cigarette. A filthy habit, but she doesn’t smoke really; she lights them and lets them burn. She doesn’t as much smoke as she does burn cigarettes. “You know, you need to start a new project,” she calmly says as the dark settles across the horizon. It was always nights like this when I knew that she loved me, but then again, no. I ask, “What would Lorca have said?” Without blinking, and as cold as ice she answered, “Sucia de besos y arena, / yo me la llevé del río.” She just stared out into the night, the wind was combed by the fig tree’s empty branches, and the stars traced infinite paths in the heavens. Ni nardos ni caracolas tienen el cutis tan fino ni los cristales con luna relumbran con ese brillo.–Lorca

On bookstores

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I’m always up for going into the next bookstore. I’ve been addicted to books my whole life, but I don’t see that as a bad thing. I don’t necessarily need to be looking for any particular book. I am always content with just browsing through the novels, perusing the non-fiction, rejecting any and all self-help books (none of them work anyway). Hard cover, soft cover, trade paperbacks, I don’t particularly care as long as the whole book is there. Old, new, books are always a new adventure, even when they are old. I can read titles, leaf through random volumes, dawdle over a well-written preface, linger over an undiscovered novel that I had no idea existed at all. I am capricious, following no line of logic or organized pattern of searching. Real discovery occurs when you break-out of pre-established lines of thought or prejudice, adopting a chaotic, non-linear anti-process for discovering new titles. Bookstores, especially independent bookstores, or even better, used bookstores, are a savage jungle of titles, authors, and narratives, meta and other. Upon entering a bookstore I don’t always have an objective in mind, and I have no problem with walking out empty-handed. At this point in my life, I have enough books to serve me for a good long time, and some books need to be left behind for future reading endeavors. Yet, you never know when you might come across something new (or old) that really speaks to you. You have to be open to everything when you walk into a bookstore.

On bookstores

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I’m always up for going into the next bookstore. I’ve been addicted to books my whole life, but I don’t see that as a bad thing. I don’t necessarily need to be looking for any particular book. I am always content with just browsing through the novels, perusing the non-fiction, rejecting any and all self-help books (none of them work anyway). Hard cover, soft cover, trade paperbacks, I don’t particularly care as long as the whole book is there. Old, new, books are always a new adventure, even when they are old. I can read titles, leaf through random volumes, dawdle over a well-written preface, linger over an undiscovered novel that I had no idea existed at all. I am capricious, following no line of logic or organized pattern of searching. Real discovery occurs when you break-out of pre-established lines of thought or prejudice, adopting a chaotic, non-linear anti-process for discovering new titles. Bookstores, especially independent bookstores, or even better, used bookstores, are a savage jungle of titles, authors, and narratives, meta and other. Upon entering a bookstore I don’t always have an objective in mind, and I have no problem with walking out empty-handed. At this point in my life, I have enough books to serve me for a good long time, and some books need to be left behind for future reading endeavors. Yet, you never know when you might come across something new (or old) that really speaks to you. You have to be open to everything when you walk into a bookstore.

On American Pie

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You can go read the critical explanations of what Don McLean’s song, “American Pie,” is all about–Buddy Holly, Dylan, the Stones, the sixties, but I don’t think that most people think about those things today when they listen to the song. I imagine that most people think about lost loves, youth, music they loved, ideals, tragedy, religion, and a host of other associations which the broad metaphors and wide-open tropes of the song suggest. The beauty of the song does not lie in the exact meaning of each reference–the jester=Dylan–but in the voice that wants to tell a story about lost innocence and cynical experience. As adults we listen to this song, and some piece of it resonates with the things that have happened to us: a first girl friend, music, a pick-up truck, a glass of whiskey. What matters is that we listen to that voice which tells us that “for ten years, we’ve been on our own,” and we know that we are no longer young, no longer under the protection of our parents, no longer in the possession of our youthful ideals. We feel empty, rage, read too much bad news from our doorstep, seen too many widows on the nightly news. “American Pie” is about what is lost with age. This is the common experience which is shared with everyone who listens to the song. Each person fills in the blanks with the failures and losses in their own life. What makes the song special, however, what makes it stand apart from the pop music fluff of the seventies, is the song’s ability to evoke that period in everyone’s life when everything was lived so intensely, when everything was a drama, when you could still “kick off your shoes and dance,” when you still might wear a pink carnation. There is no remedy for the loss of innocence, and experience has taught us that although those high ideals we might have harbored in our youth were hot and burning, that life is a little easier to live without those preoccupations. Yet the loss of innocence is also a bitter affair when you realize how foolishly you acted, how unrealistic you were about the way the world worked, and how bitter experience can really be–“My hands were clenched in fists of rage.”

On American Pie

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You can go read the critical explanations of what Don McLean’s song, “American Pie,” is all about–Buddy Holly, Dylan, the Stones, the sixties, but I don’t think that most people think about those things today when they listen to the song. I imagine that most people think about lost loves, youth, music they loved, ideals, tragedy, religion, and a host of other associations which the broad metaphors and wide-open tropes of the song suggest. The beauty of the song does not lie in the exact meaning of each reference–the jester=Dylan–but in the voice that wants to tell a story about lost innocence and cynical experience. As adults we listen to this song, and some piece of it resonates with the things that have happened to us: a first girl friend, music, a pick-up truck, a glass of whiskey. What matters is that we listen to that voice which tells us that “for ten years, we’ve been on our own,” and we know that we are no longer young, no longer under the protection of our parents, no longer in the possession of our youthful ideals. We feel empty, rage, read too much bad news from our doorstep, seen too many widows on the nightly news. “American Pie” is about what is lost with age. This is the common experience which is shared with everyone who listens to the song. Each person fills in the blanks with the failures and losses in their own life. What makes the song special, however, what makes it stand apart from the pop music fluff of the seventies, is the song’s ability to evoke that period in everyone’s life when everything was lived so intensely, when everything was a drama, when you could still “kick off your shoes and dance,” when you still might wear a pink carnation. There is no remedy for the loss of innocence, and experience has taught us that although those high ideals we might have harbored in our youth were hot and burning, that life is a little easier to live without those preoccupations. Yet the loss of innocence is also a bitter affair when you realize how foolishly you acted, how unrealistic you were about the way the world worked, and how bitter experience can really be–“My hands were clenched in fists of rage.”

On translating

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Translating by definition is falsification and, ultimately, betrayal. Languages are not parallel so all translation is marked by what is lost, not by what is gained. All translators know this because it is their job to understand, interpret, and compromise as they switch a text or discourse from one language to another. There is no such thing as a literal translation, and all bilingual people understand this chasm between languages that cannot be bridged by translating. Translation is about changing a text is such a way that it might be understandable to people who don’t speak the original language. All translation is about loss. As I look at an English translation of Dante’s Inferno, I can only lament the loss of rhythm, sound, and rhyme. We get the “gist” of what Dante is saying about sin and shame, ego and pride, but his art as a poet is lost forever: Nel mezzo del cammin di nostra vita / mi ritrovai per una selva oscura, / ché la diritta via era smarrita. Translating and translation are about the translator turning a blind eye to the myriad and multiple meanings that cling to the original words and sacrificing the author’s creativity and originality so that the text might be accessible to others who fall outside the circle of the author’s language. Yet, translators prevail, get hired, and they do their jobs with little shame or humility. Translations are as ubiquitous as taxes and death. Could it be, all along, that translation is the world’s oldest profession? The problem, of course, is not translation, but the multiple languages the people of the world speak, that Tower of Babel from which we are doomed to inhabit forever. Yet, I am not in favor of making one language a required, dogmatic official language. The more common norm is for people to live in multilingual societies. Even today there are many areas of the world where people speak two, three, or even four languages according to the demands of the social situation. Being multilingual does not solve the problem of translation but it does eliminate the need for translation. If a person speaks Italian, reads Italian, then anything they experience in that language is self-explanatory even if the person’s first language might be German or French. Translation only occurs if the original language is a barrier to understanding the text, or conversation, or song. The only way to approach translation is to assume failure before you even start, and by assuming failure, the translator can only produce a new text which was inspired by the original. In a sense all texts are failed translations of other texts, and there exists no ur-text or Q manuscript which might have been original. Misreading, misunderstandings, ambiguity, mistakes, lacunae, accidents, double-entendre, obscurity, complexity, prejudice, bias, and misinterpretation all plague the translator who cannot avoid or evade his/her own human condition as imperfect translator. In the end, all translators must recognize their failure, ignore the imperfection of their work, and move forward to the next sentence with the understanding that failure is the best they can do. In a larger sense, this is the existential question of the human condition–translator as failure.

On translating

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Translating by definition is falsification and, ultimately, betrayal. Languages are not parallel so all translation is marked by what is lost, not by what is gained. All translators know this because it is their job to understand, interpret, and compromise as they switch a text or discourse from one language to another. There is no such thing as a literal translation, and all bilingual people understand this chasm between languages that cannot be bridged by translating. Translation is about changing a text is such a way that it might be understandable to people who don’t speak the original language. All translation is about loss. As I look at an English translation of Dante’s Inferno, I can only lament the loss of rhythm, sound, and rhyme. We get the “gist” of what Dante is saying about sin and shame, ego and pride, but his art as a poet is lost forever: Nel mezzo del cammin di nostra vita / mi ritrovai per una selva oscura, / ché la diritta via era smarrita. Translating and translation are about the translator turning a blind eye to the myriad and multiple meanings that cling to the original words and sacrificing the author’s creativity and originality so that the text might be accessible to others who fall outside the circle of the author’s language. Yet, translators prevail, get hired, and they do their jobs with little shame or humility. Translations are as ubiquitous as taxes and death. Could it be, all along, that translation is the world’s oldest profession? The problem, of course, is not translation, but the multiple languages the people of the world speak, that Tower of Babel from which we are doomed to inhabit forever. Yet, I am not in favor of making one language a required, dogmatic official language. The more common norm is for people to live in multilingual societies. Even today there are many areas of the world where people speak two, three, or even four languages according to the demands of the social situation. Being multilingual does not solve the problem of translation but it does eliminate the need for translation. If a person speaks Italian, reads Italian, then anything they experience in that language is self-explanatory even if the person’s first language might be German or French. Translation only occurs if the original language is a barrier to understanding the text, or conversation, or song. The only way to approach translation is to assume failure before you even start, and by assuming failure, the translator can only produce a new text which was inspired by the original. In a sense all texts are failed translations of other texts, and there exists no ur-text or Q manuscript which might have been original. Misreading, misunderstandings, ambiguity, mistakes, lacunae, accidents, double-entendre, obscurity, complexity, prejudice, bias, and misinterpretation all plague the translator who cannot avoid or evade his/her own human condition as imperfect translator. In the end, all translators must recognize their failure, ignore the imperfection of their work, and move forward to the next sentence with the understanding that failure is the best they can do. In a larger sense, this is the existential question of the human condition–translator as failure.

On (not) thinking

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For some, thinking is way over-rated, but for many, thinking is what keeps us (out) of trouble. The problem with thinking is clear: the thinker must constantly be examining the moral and ethical problems that assault them on daily, if not hourly, basis. One must always weigh the pro’s and con’s of any particular decision and not blindly follow the orders of those who would make you act badly. This last sentence seems simple enough and most people who agree with it, but following its tenant, that all actions have moral and ethical implications in a wider world, is more difficult than that. How often have we made a stupid mistake, said something foolish, done something idiotic, and said, “What was I thinking?!” You cut yourself will cooking because you were too lazy to get the appropriate knife. The answer to that particular question only too often is, “I wasn’t thinking at all.” This is the problem: thinking takes work, so it necessarily violates my number one rule about human beings: we are lazy to the core. We would rather lie on the sofa eating potato chips and drinking beer and watch reruns of “Friends” than do any actual work of any kind–of any kind at all. Often, it is easier to let others do our thinking for us, but this is problematic for a couple of reasons not the least of which is the question of self-interest, and we don’t ask ourselves a basic question: why does this person want me to adopt their position on any given position? Are my interests exactly the same as the person who is trying to persuade me? More often than not, the answer is “no,” but for many people the work of thinking is just too unbearable, to difficult to do, too complicated. I am often amazed by people who claim to follow a political party without really understanding all of the tenants that such a party might adopt. Yet, this is just a small part of the not thinking problem. Most problems that people face on a daily basis are usually much more complex than they think. In fact, most problems–abortion, immigration, tax reform, gay rights, large government, religious freedom, death penalty, gun rights, free speech–are extremely complex, have multiple sides to each argument, cannot be simplified or reduced in a way that makes them understandable or simple. Complexity, then, is what makes thinking so difficult. Some people resort to a maniqueistic or reductive method of viewing the world which divides everything into a black and white, this is wrong, this okay, world, but the problem with that is that very few ethical problems are that simple. The moment you decide to think about something, you assume an ethical responsibility for it, which forces you to become a part of the solution, which is perhaps a good thing. What thinking will do for you is help create a series of cognitive dissonances that will make your life that much tougher. You will be forced to look at real problems, such as childhood hunger in classrooms, and wonder why our politicians live so high on the hog, but they cannot solve the problem of hungry children. Thinking may also lead you to think that this is a problem that must be solved some other way, leaving politicians out of the loop. Of course, you could also adopt a laissez faire attitude about thinking and turn on the television to watch mindless reruns of mindless shows that would have been better off never having been made in the first place. Thinking is always a choice, an uncomfortable one, but a choice. You can let the talking heads on television fill your mind with hate and venom toward your fellow man, or you might read a book, write a poem, sing a new song, design a new piece of cloth, bake cookies, paint a picture, build a new piece of furniture, plant a garden, clean out the garage, fix a broken switch, or do anything that requires a modicum of thinking. If you think, critically is helpful, and don’t let yourself fall into a passive vegetative state of non-thinking, you may not be happier, but you will be more active in whatever you do. Thinking is not for the weak of heart, or for the followers, but everyone can do it.

On (not) thinking

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For some, thinking is way over-rated, but for many, thinking is what keeps us (out) of trouble. The problem with thinking is clear: the thinker must constantly be examining the moral and ethical problems that assault them on daily, if not hourly, basis. One must always weigh the pro’s and con’s of any particular decision and not blindly follow the orders of those who would make you act badly. This last sentence seems simple enough and most people who agree with it, but following its tenant, that all actions have moral and ethical implications in a wider world, is more difficult than that. How often have we made a stupid mistake, said something foolish, done something idiotic, and said, “What was I thinking?!” You cut yourself will cooking because you were too lazy to get the appropriate knife. The answer to that particular question only too often is, “I wasn’t thinking at all.” This is the problem: thinking takes work, so it necessarily violates my number one rule about human beings: we are lazy to the core. We would rather lie on the sofa eating potato chips and drinking beer and watch reruns of “Friends” than do any actual work of any kind–of any kind at all. Often, it is easier to let others do our thinking for us, but this is problematic for a couple of reasons not the least of which is the question of self-interest, and we don’t ask ourselves a basic question: why does this person want me to adopt their position on any given position? Are my interests exactly the same as the person who is trying to persuade me? More often than not, the answer is “no,” but for many people the work of thinking is just too unbearable, to difficult to do, too complicated. I am often amazed by people who claim to follow a political party without really understanding all of the tenants that such a party might adopt. Yet, this is just a small part of the not thinking problem. Most problems that people face on a daily basis are usually much more complex than they think. In fact, most problems–abortion, immigration, tax reform, gay rights, large government, religious freedom, death penalty, gun rights, free speech–are extremely complex, have multiple sides to each argument, cannot be simplified or reduced in a way that makes them understandable or simple. Complexity, then, is what makes thinking so difficult. Some people resort to a maniqueistic or reductive method of viewing the world which divides everything into a black and white, this is wrong, this okay, world, but the problem with that is that very few ethical problems are that simple. The moment you decide to think about something, you assume an ethical responsibility for it, which forces you to become a part of the solution, which is perhaps a good thing. What thinking will do for you is help create a series of cognitive dissonances that will make your life that much tougher. You will be forced to look at real problems, such as childhood hunger in classrooms, and wonder why our politicians live so high on the hog, but they cannot solve the problem of hungry children. Thinking may also lead you to think that this is a problem that must be solved some other way, leaving politicians out of the loop. Of course, you could also adopt a laissez faire attitude about thinking and turn on the television to watch mindless reruns of mindless shows that would have been better off never having been made in the first place. Thinking is always a choice, an uncomfortable one, but a choice. You can let the talking heads on television fill your mind with hate and venom toward your fellow man, or you might read a book, write a poem, sing a new song, design a new piece of cloth, bake cookies, paint a picture, build a new piece of furniture, plant a garden, clean out the garage, fix a broken switch, or do anything that requires a modicum of thinking. If you think, critically is helpful, and don’t let yourself fall into a passive vegetative state of non-thinking, you may not be happier, but you will be more active in whatever you do. Thinking is not for the weak of heart, or for the followers, but everyone can do it.