A day spent enjoying the slightly warming weather by walking through the slush. Spent looking at the hockey (nice OT gold win for Canada), U.S. gets the silver). Spent grading papers. Spent writing poetry and more Hinojosa work.
The weekend slowly ends.
Showing posts with label Jose Maria Hinojosa. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Jose Maria Hinojosa. Show all posts
Sunday, February 28, 2010
all was not lost
Worked seriously hard all evening on a new poem and a new Hinojosa translation. Did watch some of the Olympics but was very good at sticking to a plan.
Thanks to the many people who wrote about Tourist on Poetry Daily. Many thanks.
Mark
Thanks to the many people who wrote about Tourist on Poetry Daily. Many thanks.
Mark
Thursday, July 9, 2009
Some Time and No Time
The days here pass and I get caught up in writing and reading (new poems, translations, books ranging from Cabrera Infante to Chandler and Hammett), in what's going on with the Tour de France (will Lance really try and pull this off, or will be become a super domestique to Contador? With Lance 19 seconds ahead of Alberto, it's his right to see himself as team leader, something I'll bet with which Contador isn't quite happy).
Went over yesterday for lunch to Bonnie Marranca's beautiful house in Catskill, about 45 minutes away. Pasta with broccoli and sausage, two different bean salads, a nice red wine. Then the usual unfortunate shopping which meant by the time we got home there was no real time to do much more than read a little before listening to the Mets and making dinner. The surprise that the Mets won after so many days was nice after all these losses in a row (and scoring runs!).
Today was more of what I really wanted--a morning of writing, an afternoon of transcribing Hinojosa (both translations and originals). The good thing I'm discovering about typing the original poems myself is that they help me with revisions of the translations, giving me a chance to go back and look at what I've done even more carefully. We didn't do this with Poet in New York. Didn't feel the need to but that's because (I think) there were two of us working on it. Although I do consult Pablo from time to time and some of the stranger constructions (a surrealist is always hard to translate, sometimes the subject is just lost in the poem and finding it is like solving some puzzle).
After all this, Jesse and I went into Kingston to the photo place that is able to put his photos on CD. Very expensive, compared with NYC. Probably because they are the only game in town. Film costs twice as much, as does the making of the CDs. It seems like the best thing to do is not have the film developed here but wait until we get back at the end of July. Hard for anyone to have to wait that long but better than spending money that we don't really have.
At any rate, it hasn't rained yet today (though the skies seem to be darkening). I've been doing a lot of grilling, may tonight or may have do the indoor thing.
An Hinojosa poem:
Reversion
Swallows’ wings
grow from the chestnuts
and their flight is fixed
in the arbitrary game
of light and the laughter
of our guests.
Even though I maintain the shadow
set between my lips
it gave me a taste of once-flowing blood
from the sides
of ten generations
dead at Calvary.
In constant equilibrium
bodies surrounded
wove provincial dances
without an hour of rest,
holding their breath
so to not mist the fields.
The new hearts
in armor rise
and that necklace of dances
remained broken from the moment
in which I set my fingers
in the branches of the tree.
(from Orillas de la Luz)
Straaaaange.
abrazos,
Mark
Went over yesterday for lunch to Bonnie Marranca's beautiful house in Catskill, about 45 minutes away. Pasta with broccoli and sausage, two different bean salads, a nice red wine. Then the usual unfortunate shopping which meant by the time we got home there was no real time to do much more than read a little before listening to the Mets and making dinner. The surprise that the Mets won after so many days was nice after all these losses in a row (and scoring runs!).
Today was more of what I really wanted--a morning of writing, an afternoon of transcribing Hinojosa (both translations and originals). The good thing I'm discovering about typing the original poems myself is that they help me with revisions of the translations, giving me a chance to go back and look at what I've done even more carefully. We didn't do this with Poet in New York. Didn't feel the need to but that's because (I think) there were two of us working on it. Although I do consult Pablo from time to time and some of the stranger constructions (a surrealist is always hard to translate, sometimes the subject is just lost in the poem and finding it is like solving some puzzle).
After all this, Jesse and I went into Kingston to the photo place that is able to put his photos on CD. Very expensive, compared with NYC. Probably because they are the only game in town. Film costs twice as much, as does the making of the CDs. It seems like the best thing to do is not have the film developed here but wait until we get back at the end of July. Hard for anyone to have to wait that long but better than spending money that we don't really have.
At any rate, it hasn't rained yet today (though the skies seem to be darkening). I've been doing a lot of grilling, may tonight or may have do the indoor thing.
An Hinojosa poem:
Reversion
Swallows’ wings
grow from the chestnuts
and their flight is fixed
in the arbitrary game
of light and the laughter
of our guests.
Even though I maintain the shadow
set between my lips
it gave me a taste of once-flowing blood
from the sides
of ten generations
dead at Calvary.
In constant equilibrium
bodies surrounded
wove provincial dances
without an hour of rest,
holding their breath
so to not mist the fields.
The new hearts
in armor rise
and that necklace of dances
remained broken from the moment
in which I set my fingers
in the branches of the tree.
(from Orillas de la Luz)
Straaaaange.
abrazos,
Mark
Thursday, July 17, 2008
Reporting from Maine (3--all the good things plus an NYU Child Study Center and Advanced Learning Lab note)
Another just right day. Slept late, then worked on Hinojosa for a good two and a half hours. I think I solved some problems by using a strategy that Pablo and I employed with Poet in New York which was to make the language as tight as possible--this seems logical for Hinojosa anyway because his syntax/language mirrors that. There's little excess, which I think is one of his strengths as a poet.
Played some with Cannonball in the yard (the famous game of stick). Katherine found Cannonball in Jesse's bed this morning, curled up the way he usually is when he sleeps with Jesse (except no Jesse, who we suppose is having a fine time at the media workshop because we haven't heard a word from him!). I think Cannonball misses Jesse some (as do we, even as we do other things).
Drove into Rockland for lunch at the Rockland Cafe which has wonderful fish cakes. Walked around and at the Farnsworth Museum, which is having a Will Barnet show, we saw in the window an Alex Katz print of Rudy Burckhardt. In the gift shop (it was too late to go to the museum) were some Fairfield Porter postcards/cards and one by Yvonne Jacquette. It was strange to see these--another part of one's life coming to the surface.
Back at the cottage, I revised a bunch of poems for Invisible, eliminated a few, and have a sense of how it can come together as a collection even as the revisions go forward. I don't want to rush things but I think it may be ready sooner than I expected. These days of just writing and reading, walking, eating, so wonderful.
Katherine drew while I revised--one of the drawings is of me on the chaise lounge on the deck working. A cover perhaps?
For dinner, grilled a steak, had potatoes and the left over Frankie corn salad. We watched the movie Vantage Point which was fun though I thought it a little too busy (maybe too many vantage points--and why does Sigourney Weaver completely disappear after the first half hour?).
NYU/ALL update: if you google "about our kids" or the nyu child study center (which will show you "about our kids") you'll get a response but if you try and get to the page, there is none! But go to the faculty and look up anyone who was part of it, say, Dana Levy, who was the clinical director who replaced Lynda Geller (no explanation ever provided for why someone with an extensive background in working with kids with Asperger's was replaced by someone whose background didn't include Asperger or Autism but did fibromyalgia, at least according to her bio on their site--an interesting decision by Harold and Glenn) and it shows that they are still part of ALL. But, surprise, click on Advanced Learning Lab on that page and you'll find, you guessed it, that there is no page for ALL. I guess someone forgot to tell the webmaster about these little things.
Saludos!
Mark
Played some with Cannonball in the yard (the famous game of stick). Katherine found Cannonball in Jesse's bed this morning, curled up the way he usually is when he sleeps with Jesse (except no Jesse, who we suppose is having a fine time at the media workshop because we haven't heard a word from him!). I think Cannonball misses Jesse some (as do we, even as we do other things).
Drove into Rockland for lunch at the Rockland Cafe which has wonderful fish cakes. Walked around and at the Farnsworth Museum, which is having a Will Barnet show, we saw in the window an Alex Katz print of Rudy Burckhardt. In the gift shop (it was too late to go to the museum) were some Fairfield Porter postcards/cards and one by Yvonne Jacquette. It was strange to see these--another part of one's life coming to the surface.
Back at the cottage, I revised a bunch of poems for Invisible, eliminated a few, and have a sense of how it can come together as a collection even as the revisions go forward. I don't want to rush things but I think it may be ready sooner than I expected. These days of just writing and reading, walking, eating, so wonderful.
Katherine drew while I revised--one of the drawings is of me on the chaise lounge on the deck working. A cover perhaps?
For dinner, grilled a steak, had potatoes and the left over Frankie corn salad. We watched the movie Vantage Point which was fun though I thought it a little too busy (maybe too many vantage points--and why does Sigourney Weaver completely disappear after the first half hour?).
NYU/ALL update: if you google "about our kids" or the nyu child study center (which will show you "about our kids") you'll get a response but if you try and get to the page, there is none! But go to the faculty and look up anyone who was part of it, say, Dana Levy, who was the clinical director who replaced Lynda Geller (no explanation ever provided for why someone with an extensive background in working with kids with Asperger's was replaced by someone whose background didn't include Asperger or Autism but did fibromyalgia, at least according to her bio on their site--an interesting decision by Harold and Glenn) and it shows that they are still part of ALL. But, surprise, click on Advanced Learning Lab on that page and you'll find, you guessed it, that there is no page for ALL. I guess someone forgot to tell the webmaster about these little things.
Saludos!
Mark
Tuesday, July 15, 2008
Reporting from Maine
Saturday we made the 400 mile drive up to Glen Cove, ME, a little hamlet between Rockport and Rockland and just south of Camden arriving at Anne's Seaside Cottage which looks out (some tree blockage) on Clam Cove that leads out to Penobscot Bay (memories of many years spent on Great Spruce Head Island). The cottage is just right, two bedrooms, a large living room with an open kitchen and a big deck. The yard is huge, full of gardens and flowers and Cannonball runs and runs. It's a short walk to the beach, all very pretty. I think I may have also found two ponds nearby where the fishing will be good. Just haven't had the interest (yet).
After a good lunch in Camden at Cappy's (named for Cappy Quinn, of the Quinn family that has run the mail boat to GSHI for years), we dropped Jesse off on Sunday at the Maine Media Workshop (in Rockport) where he is studying black and white photography as well as how to use a darkroom. He seems to be doing well, though we haven't seen any of the work. He's living at a motel converted into a dorm, four to a room. Room-mates seem like good people.
Meanwhile, Katherine and I have been doing a little of this, little of that. Lunch in Camden yesterday where we set on a deck and looked out at the harbor.Katherine has been drawing and painting, working both indoors and on the deck. I've been writing some, a new poem, work on my arts of sport course for the fall, work on Jose Maria Hinojosa. I've printed Jesse's screenplay Cleaver and the Eye which I expect to do some work on in the next couple of days. I also want to start screening the rough draft of his Poet in New York dvd which I can do in short bunches but want to have some things to say about it before I see him (hopefully this weekend, though he may decide to stay at the dorm over the weekend--last night when we talked he said it was a possibility).
We were finally able to figure out a way for me to get the Hinojosa books from Spain: wire transfer. The whole thing was a little nutty because the books are 17 euros a piece and the postage is 21. Add the wire transfer cost and the postage and it's 39 euros and the books are only 34.
Meanwhile the Hinojosa poems do make me a little nuts. There are all these wonderful lines and images and then he adds one which in Spanish makes perfect sense but in English just becomes strange and even bad (a wonderful poem about the amazon and the andes ends with the question why he wears no loincloth!). It's a challenge, too, because there are times he seems to be fooling around with syntax that looks simple but is really complicated and all meaning gets messed up. Since he is caught up in the surreal the question of meaning is blurred anyway, but still...
Mid-afternoon. Clearly time for lunch. More later.
Saludos!
Mark
After a good lunch in Camden at Cappy's (named for Cappy Quinn, of the Quinn family that has run the mail boat to GSHI for years), we dropped Jesse off on Sunday at the Maine Media Workshop (in Rockport) where he is studying black and white photography as well as how to use a darkroom. He seems to be doing well, though we haven't seen any of the work. He's living at a motel converted into a dorm, four to a room. Room-mates seem like good people.
Meanwhile, Katherine and I have been doing a little of this, little of that. Lunch in Camden yesterday where we set on a deck and looked out at the harbor.Katherine has been drawing and painting, working both indoors and on the deck. I've been writing some, a new poem, work on my arts of sport course for the fall, work on Jose Maria Hinojosa. I've printed Jesse's screenplay Cleaver and the Eye which I expect to do some work on in the next couple of days. I also want to start screening the rough draft of his Poet in New York dvd which I can do in short bunches but want to have some things to say about it before I see him (hopefully this weekend, though he may decide to stay at the dorm over the weekend--last night when we talked he said it was a possibility).
We were finally able to figure out a way for me to get the Hinojosa books from Spain: wire transfer. The whole thing was a little nutty because the books are 17 euros a piece and the postage is 21. Add the wire transfer cost and the postage and it's 39 euros and the books are only 34.
Meanwhile the Hinojosa poems do make me a little nuts. There are all these wonderful lines and images and then he adds one which in Spanish makes perfect sense but in English just becomes strange and even bad (a wonderful poem about the amazon and the andes ends with the question why he wears no loincloth!). It's a challenge, too, because there are times he seems to be fooling around with syntax that looks simple but is really complicated and all meaning gets messed up. Since he is caught up in the surreal the question of meaning is blurred anyway, but still...
Mid-afternoon. Clearly time for lunch. More later.
Saludos!
Mark
Saturday, July 5, 2008
In the country and happy
July 4th weekend in Bridgehampton. Have done a ton of work--on my own poems (only three poems left in the old moleskin!), on Hinojosa (nine first draft translations), and wrote about 1500 words of a review of a Garcia Lorca book I'm doing for Performing Arts Journal. I think I need to cut it a little and the deadline is soon but I like how the piece looks. It's a very good book by Maria M. Delgado. One of the strengths, I think, is her discussion of Garcia Lorca's impossible theater. Although she doesn't make this argument, I do think it helps to refute critics who see the surreal nature of Poet in New York as an aberration. These plays, written during and after the period of Poet in New York are very much in the spirit of the surreal that informs that book. She also does a very good job, in general, of describing the plays, the various productions both during his lifetime and after his murder. It's a book I recommend and I'll post when the issue of PAJ appears.
Also, a nice long talk with Pablo today about the problems we encountered in translation (the question had somehow come up) and we came up with three. One is the question of meaning: when Garcia Lorca is at his most surreal the critical question of what does the poet mean by this is practically unanswerable. The second is the issue of biography. The poet of Poet in NY is not Garcia Lorca but a construct who looks like Garcia Lorca and experiences New York much in the same way Garcia Lorca does and is changed by it much the way Garcia Lorca was. But it is not autobiographical (for example, Garcia Lorca goes to Vermont and upstate NY before he begins his studies at Columbia; he visits Coney Island in December but describes the place as though mid-summer). The third is the Whitman poem, which shows how nuanced and eccentric Garcia Lorca was about his own homosexuality and what I think is a desire to claim Whitman not as a homosexual poet but as an American poet (in the same way that Garcia Lorca, finally beginning to come to terms with his own sexuality, wanted to be claimed as a Spanish poet).
So being in the country is more than just writing. There are flowers everywhere. It's swimming (fun with Jesse yesterday playing some kind of water football),playing catch with Jesse (who nearly took my head off with a 65 mile an hour fastball the other day) and watching Wimbledon (bravo Williams sisters), the Mets, eating good food, having good conversation with Katherine, Jesse and Karen. Katherine was working on a pretty little water color of the yard. Jesse has been working a lot on his screenplays. Karen plays piano and since our room where I work is above the piano room it's really nice when she practices. Of course, Cannonball loves it here, being able to run around the yard, chasing frisbees and sticks. Somewhere there were 4th of July fireworks but we didn't see them (nor, I admit, was I wearing my American flag pin). The weather could be nicer. Sag Harbor (where we went for lunch today) could be less crowded but on the whole, all satisfying. Mahi mahi on the grill tonight for dinner, corn, potatoes, maybe some pre-dinner mojitos (the mint is overflowing).
Hope everyone has had a wonderful weekend. We return Monday to Brooklyn where I hope to be as productive. We leave the following Saturday for Maine for a few weeks where I hope to take all these drafts I've been working on and make something happen.
Saludos!
Mark
Also, a nice long talk with Pablo today about the problems we encountered in translation (the question had somehow come up) and we came up with three. One is the question of meaning: when Garcia Lorca is at his most surreal the critical question of what does the poet mean by this is practically unanswerable. The second is the issue of biography. The poet of Poet in NY is not Garcia Lorca but a construct who looks like Garcia Lorca and experiences New York much in the same way Garcia Lorca does and is changed by it much the way Garcia Lorca was. But it is not autobiographical (for example, Garcia Lorca goes to Vermont and upstate NY before he begins his studies at Columbia; he visits Coney Island in December but describes the place as though mid-summer). The third is the Whitman poem, which shows how nuanced and eccentric Garcia Lorca was about his own homosexuality and what I think is a desire to claim Whitman not as a homosexual poet but as an American poet (in the same way that Garcia Lorca, finally beginning to come to terms with his own sexuality, wanted to be claimed as a Spanish poet).
So being in the country is more than just writing. There are flowers everywhere. It's swimming (fun with Jesse yesterday playing some kind of water football),playing catch with Jesse (who nearly took my head off with a 65 mile an hour fastball the other day) and watching Wimbledon (bravo Williams sisters), the Mets, eating good food, having good conversation with Katherine, Jesse and Karen. Katherine was working on a pretty little water color of the yard. Jesse has been working a lot on his screenplays. Karen plays piano and since our room where I work is above the piano room it's really nice when she practices. Of course, Cannonball loves it here, being able to run around the yard, chasing frisbees and sticks. Somewhere there were 4th of July fireworks but we didn't see them (nor, I admit, was I wearing my American flag pin). The weather could be nicer. Sag Harbor (where we went for lunch today) could be less crowded but on the whole, all satisfying. Mahi mahi on the grill tonight for dinner, corn, potatoes, maybe some pre-dinner mojitos (the mint is overflowing).
Hope everyone has had a wonderful weekend. We return Monday to Brooklyn where I hope to be as productive. We leave the following Saturday for Maine for a few weeks where I hope to take all these drafts I've been working on and make something happen.
Saludos!
Mark
Saturday, June 14, 2008
An interesting week (maybe)
My week has been spent trying to get hold of the work of Jose Maria Hinojosa, the wonderful surrealist poet of the Generation of 27 who has somehow been erased because his politics fell on the wrong side (he was against the Republic, for the fascists, or at least the monarchists, and he was killed three days after Lorca--no one suggests a direct connection but the coincidence is an interesting one), He is, however, an amazing poet, publishing his last book in 1931 (he is killed in 36) and was close to Bunuel, Lorca, Dali, etc and his books are exceptionally difficult to find (out of print in Spain, never translated in the US). Fortunately Yale has a copy of his Poesias Completas which I have borrowedon an inter-library loan and have begun translating. They are quite good (his poems, we'll have to see about my translations, some of his language is killer).
Part of the project, of course, has entailed getting the permission of the family to allow me to publish the Spanish versions (my plan is a bilingual edition). After several phone calls to Spain (at three and four o'clock in the morning, talk about messing up one's sleep cycles) I tracked down a fellow who thought he could help me. He gave me his e-mail address and I spent two days trying to e-mail him, to no avail. All e-mails sent from my earthlink and newschool accounts came back saying the message was undeliverable. Then Jesse had the idea that the problem was the server (brilliant Jesse) so yesterday I sent the e-mail from my gmail account (statmanm@gmail.com). No error message so I assume it worked though I've yet to get a response. Since I sent this in the early afternoon on Friday, I'm assuming it was the end of the work week. Which means if I hear it won't be until Monday. Will keep all informed.
And yes, I do seem to maintain 3 e-mail accounts: statmanm@earthlink.net, statmanm@newschoool.edu, and statmanm@gmail.com. Write to any and I get them since all are forwarded every which way.
On an interesting a note, someone attempted to impersonate me, calling the Community Bookstore in Park Slope, claiming it was me and that I was in Pennsylvania and needed money wired immediately because my car had been impounded and I couldn't even get to my wallet and would the bookstore (where I recently read and like to buy books) please wire the money to an address in California. Right. Of course, everyone caught on to the scam (especially considering I was in my study in Brooklyn working on some new poems and I could see my car out the window). Just one more thing, though, to fill up the time. I think the real tip-off came when the person claiming to be me reminded the folks at the store that I'd recently read there with Paul Medina (a mistake made by Time Out New York in one of their web listings). Since Pablo hadn't even made the reading, well...
Meanwhile Jesse has made a very good initial trailer for the Poet in NY documentary and it should be on his website soon. Perhaps he can inform us of when it will be available?
Entonces, saludos y abrazos a todos--tomorrow some poems for the page.
Part of the project, of course, has entailed getting the permission of the family to allow me to publish the Spanish versions (my plan is a bilingual edition). After several phone calls to Spain (at three and four o'clock in the morning, talk about messing up one's sleep cycles) I tracked down a fellow who thought he could help me. He gave me his e-mail address and I spent two days trying to e-mail him, to no avail. All e-mails sent from my earthlink and newschool accounts came back saying the message was undeliverable. Then Jesse had the idea that the problem was the server (brilliant Jesse) so yesterday I sent the e-mail from my gmail account (statmanm@gmail.com). No error message so I assume it worked though I've yet to get a response. Since I sent this in the early afternoon on Friday, I'm assuming it was the end of the work week. Which means if I hear it won't be until Monday. Will keep all informed.
And yes, I do seem to maintain 3 e-mail accounts: statmanm@earthlink.net, statmanm@newschoool.edu, and statmanm@gmail.com. Write to any and I get them since all are forwarded every which way.
On an interesting a note, someone attempted to impersonate me, calling the Community Bookstore in Park Slope, claiming it was me and that I was in Pennsylvania and needed money wired immediately because my car had been impounded and I couldn't even get to my wallet and would the bookstore (where I recently read and like to buy books) please wire the money to an address in California. Right. Of course, everyone caught on to the scam (especially considering I was in my study in Brooklyn working on some new poems and I could see my car out the window). Just one more thing, though, to fill up the time. I think the real tip-off came when the person claiming to be me reminded the folks at the store that I'd recently read there with Paul Medina (a mistake made by Time Out New York in one of their web listings). Since Pablo hadn't even made the reading, well...
Meanwhile Jesse has made a very good initial trailer for the Poet in NY documentary and it should be on his website soon. Perhaps he can inform us of when it will be available?
Entonces, saludos y abrazos a todos--tomorrow some poems for the page.
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