Male Poets

Song of the Absent Rower

We present this work in honor of the poet’s 175th birthday.

Candelario Obeso
Colombian
1849 – 1884

 

To Mr. Rufino Cuervo and Mr. Miguel A. Caro

How sad the night is
Tonight, the night is so sad
A sky without a single star
Row on, row on!

For the black woman of my soul,
I soak in sweat
As I toil away at sea,
What will she do? What will she do?

Will she sigh in woe
For her beloved zambo
Will she even remember me…
Weep on, weep on!

Women are like everything
In this wretched land;
With art fish are hauled out
From the sea, out from the sea!

With art iron is molten,
The mapaná snake is tamed;
Sorrows faithful and firm
They are no more, they are no more!

How dark the night is tonight,
Tonight how dark is the night,
It is as dark as absence.
Row on, row on!

Translation by Stephanos Stephanides

Sénac still present

We present this work in honor of the poet’s 90th birthday.

Tahar Djaout
Algerian
1934 – 1993

 

This rust inside me
the sun revives.

Obsessional smell
of the wave
on my eye

Terrace
where interminably a
telluric laughter unfurls

Laughter of an Algerian girl
(Jean, look
how the suns commingle
and the praying wave
caresses the stirrups

Fissures — butterfly elytra —
in the acrobat azure

And marrying the sea
—immense—
your wheat field beard

Translation by Pierre Joris

We Go to the Country

Taleb Amoli
Persian
1585 – 1657

 

We go to the country to welcome the sorrow of the country, because we are deprived of our feet, we go with our heads

We have gone this way a hundred times and we are going once again, we are going to welcome Sagar.

Since it is not possible to walk, we turn to Dostnameh and go with the wings of a pigeon

Now, fresh anxiety is falling on my hair, a breeze is blowing, my leaves are falling from Shiraz.

Eisham’s lips sing to every age, but Shionam’s tongue pours a thousand praises every time

I have a heart that says salt in the embrace of the ointment for its sore wounds and yawns after yawns.

I wonder if the patterns of our patience will come true, that the love of this plan will pour immeasurably.

Dying Man With Mirror

We present this work in honor of the poet’s 95th birthday.

Heiner Müller
German
1929 – 1995

 

Pushkin dying
Of his duel wound
Asked for a mirror
And a bowl of millet porridge
LIKE A MONKEY he said
Spooning into the mirror
As far as we know we will
Not see each other again We do not need
To fool ourselves any more Probably
Nothing new will happen but there will be Probably
Nothing Whatever that may be
Even the leap into the mirror would not bring
Us closer to each other Glass clinks
The way women scream

Translation by Carl Weber

The Horse and the Mule

John Huddlstone Wynne
Welsh
1743 – 1788

 

The pampered steed, of swiftness proud,
Pranced o’er the plains, and neighed aloud.
A Mule he met, of sober pace,
And straight defied her to a race.
Long she declined to try the course;
How could she match in speed the horse?
At length, while pawing side by side,
A precipice the Mule espied,
And in her turn the Horse defied.
Near to its foot there stood a tree,
Which both agreed the goal should be.
Hasty rushed on the bounding steed,
And slowly sees the Mule proceed:
He sees, he scorns; but as they bend
From the rough mountain to descend,
He finds his boasted swiftness vain,
For footing here he can’t maintain.
The steady Mule the toil abides,
And skillful down the hill she slides,
Reaching the goal, well pleased to find
The vaunting Horse creep slow behind;
Who, tumbling from the mountain’s brow,
Came battered to the vale below;
Too late convinced, by what had passed,
That ” slow and sure goes far at last”.

Normally Speaking

We present this work in honor of the poet’s 70th birthday.

Dennis O’Driscoll
Irish
1954 – 2012

 

To assume everything has meaning.
To return at evening
feeling you have earned a rest
and put your feet up
before a glowing TV set and fire.
To have your favorite shows.
To be married to a local
whom your parents absolutely adore.
To be satisfied with what you have,
the neighbors, the current hemline
the dual immersion, the goverment doing its best.
To keep to an average size
and buy clothes off the rack.
To bear the kind of face
that can be made-up to prettines.
To head contentedly for work
knowing how bored you’d be at home.
To book holidays to where bodies blend,
tanned like sandgrains.
To be given to little excesses,
Christmas hangovers, spike high heels,
chocolate éclair binges, lightened hair.
To postpone children until the house’s extension
can be afforded and the car paid off.
To see the world through double glazing
and find nothing wrong.
To expect to go on living like this
and to look straight forward. No regret.
To get up each day neither in wonder nor in fear,
meeting people on the bus you recognize
and who accept you, without question, for what you are.

Oblivion

We present this work in honor of the poet’s 125th birthday.

Ibrahim Nagi
Egyptian
1898 – 1953

 

At last the cure, I bid farewell to pain,
and welcome with a smile the days to come.
Oblivion comes to me a kingly guest,
with hands compassionate and blessed steps.
My guest comes strongly on,
folding the distances, the dark unknown.
Proffering a cup that takes away
old pain, and banishes all regrets.
So drain it to the dregs and have no fear-
For long you have suffered, your thirst your only drink.
Oblivion now envelops me, and I
thank God for its overwhelming flood,
Surrendering to the waves which engulf me,
happy to embrace a void without memories.

At Evergreen Cemetery

We present this work in honor of the poet’s 105th birthday.

Al Purdy
Canadian
1918 – 2000

 

The still grey face and withered body:
without resistance winter enters in,
as if she were a stone or fallen tree,
her temperature the same as the landscape’s –
How she would have complained about that,
the indignity of finally being without heat,
an insult from the particular god she believed in,
and worse than the fall that killed her –
Now a thought flies into the cemetery
from Vancouver, another from Edmonton,
– and fade in the January day like fireflies.
I suppose relatives are a little slower
getting the evening meal because of that –
perhaps late for next day’s appointments,
the tight schedule of seconds overturned,
everything set a little back or ahead,
the junctures of time moving and still:
settling finally into a new pattern,
by which lovers, hurrying towards each other
on streetcorners, do not fail to meet –
Myself, having the sense of something going
on without my knowledge, changes taking place
that I should be concerned with,
sit motionless in the black car behind the hearse,
waiting to re-enter a different world.

Old Trees

We present this work in honor of the 105th anniversary of the poet’s death.

Olavo Bilac
Brazilian
1865 – 1918

 

Look at these old trees, more lovely these
Than younger trees, more friendly too by far:
More beautiful the older that they are,
Victorious over age and stormy seas …

The beasts, the insects, man, under the tree
Have lived, and been from toil and hunger free;
And in its higher branches safe and sound
Incessant songs of birds and love are found.

Our youth now lost, my friend, let’s not bemoan!
Let’s laugh as we grow old! Let us grow old
As do the trees, so nobly, strong and bold

Enjoy the glorious kindness we have sown,
And succor in our branches those who seek,
The shade and comfort offered to the weak!

Translation by Frederic G. William