Very short poems you like

Benny Bunter

Well-known member
@sufi you know anything about any of these guys? Read a few things recently that I really liked.

THE TAMMUZI POETS
Yusuf al-Khal
Badr Shakir al-Sayyab
Adonis
Muhammad al-Maghut
Unsi al-Hajj

I think Adonis might be the most famous one?
 

Benny Bunter

Well-known member
That's one of Paul Celan's very last poems shortly before he threw himself into the Seine.

Heaviest, most profound fart poem you're ever likely to read.
 

Benny Bunter

Well-known member
All his later stuff is like this, sequences of short poems. I could bombard this thread with them but it would cheapen them I think. It's hard enough to make any sense out of them outside the context of the books as a whole (and all the translation notes).
 

Benny Bunter

Well-known member
I don't know all the technical terms unfortunately. In one of the the poems he even uses the pronoun 'I' as a verb, he was very adventurous in that way
 

Benny Bunter

Well-known member
Some of the compounds are archaic words that fell out of use hundreds of years ago and can only be found in the Grimm's Etymological dictionary, and some he just made up himself, but are combinations that would be unique in German, as far as I understand it. Pierre Joris goes for the most literal translation possible, I think there are more flowery English sounding ones out there, but his translations are quite harsh and jarring
 

Benny Bunter

Well-known member
I love the ambitiousness of reinventing an entire language, which was pretty much what his project was.

The influence be had on Prynne is really clear after reading celan, especially the early Prynne stuff. Abstract but at the same time concrete, very philosophical, digging deep into etymology.

Celan's never ever fun in the same way Prynne can be though, cos once you read about his life there's always this heavy thing that's always looming over everything.
 

Benny Bunter

Well-known member
O TO BE A DRAGON

If I, like Solomon,...
could have my wish--
my wish... O to be a dragon,
a symbol of the power of Heaven --of silkworm
size or immense; at times invisible.
Felicitous phenomenon!
 

woops

is not like other people
O TO BE A DRAGON

If I, like Solomon,...
could have my wish--
my wish... O to be a dragon,
a symbol of the power of Heaven --of silkworm
size or immense; at times invisible.
Felicitous phenomenon!
i assume this is a translation from a language where the last line sounds better
 
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