Poetry anthology recommendations please

[Benny Bunter]

I got a bilingual edition, so most of the more extreme-verging-on-daft composite word translation choices (by Pierre Joris) are validated when you see the German alongside the English.

 

[Benny Bunter]

Can't believe no one recommended me Peter Jay's Greek Anthology till now (bless you @craner but you took your time). It's amazing, everyone should read it. The way it's put together and the quality of the translations is so impressive. There's only a handful by Ezra Pound in there but I'm assuming all of the other translators in there were influenced by his approach, there's none of that flowery consciously 'poetical' shit in there, it's all absolutely rock hard.

Why doesn't Craner contribute more to the poetry threads?

 

[yyaldrin]

Pierre Joris/Jeremy Rothenberg are total heroes aren't they? As are all skilled dedicated translators imo, but these two have done so much and have cast the net so wide. Ended up ordering that late Celan collection even though it was quite expensive cause I trust Joris to have done a good job, and he's a good commentator/critic too, so I know the intro essay and the notes will be well worth reading.

Read some interviews with Joris where he says his approach is to go for the most literal translations possible and to hell with smoother the more target audience-orientated approach, and I think this works very well with modern Avant Garde poetry that's as mad as fuck in the original language anyway. He's got no qualms about making difficult stuff even more difficult, and I admire that. Poetry in translation is mind-expanding like nothing else if done well. Like with that Tamuzzi Poets gear I read the other day, love that stuff and I'm hardly gonna learn Arabic am I?

Sorry to bash on about it @woops but that conversation has got me thinking is all.

is this the copy of the celan book you have? if so could you check for me if it mentions who made the cover art? i can't figure out the scribble on the bottom.

 

[Benny Bunter]

is this the copy of the celan book you have? if so could you check for me if it mentions who made the cover art? i can't figure out the scribble on the bottom.

Yeah, that's the one. The art's by his wife, Gisèle Lestrange.

 

[A Liniment's Evil Work]

is she a fan of Black Metal?

 

[yyaldrin]

Yeah, that's the one. The art's by his wife, Gisèle Lestrange.

thanks! i hadn't heard of her. i'm reading now that some of her etchings and drawings served as inspiration for celan's poems. does the book contain more of her illustrations? i like this kinda stuff a lot. could you imagine them to be inspirations for the poems?

 

[woops]

there was another woman in his life, ingeborg bachmann

 

[Benny Bunter]

.

thanks! i hadn't heard of her. i'm reading now that some of her etchings and drawings served as inspiration for celan's poems. does the book contain more of her illustrations? i like this kinda stuff a lot. could you imagine them to be inspirations for the poems?

I think Celan used to name her etchings, and she provided art for a few of his poems, not sure if her work inspired his poems in any direct way or not. I do think they compliment each other somehow.
There are definitely lots of poems about her and their relationship, but very obliquely.

At one point he had a psychotic episode and threatened her, and stabbed himself through the lung with a letter opener, so they lived apart in the last few years of his life, before he threw himself in the Seine.

This is the only other thing of hers in that book, sorry, not a great photo, but anyway...