Ginkgoes are beautiful trees. I love them since I was surprised by one in Aberdeens botanical gardens. They have perfectly elegant leaves, but the branches grow anarchically. A lot like free verse.
There are many ginkgoes in Collegetown and in the Cornell campus. There is also one in my garden at home, in Spain.
And this is dedicated to Stephanie; thank you for a beautiful day.
Along my streets, The ginkgoes spread their branches. They greet me, my friends, Elegant ladies with fans. Children throwing arms for hugs.
En estas calles mías los ginkgos extienden sus ramas. me saludan, estos amigos míos, elegantes damas con abanicos, niños que quieren abrazos.
No, it's not "I love Google". It's I google love. Let's sing the praises of Google, and its glorious incorporation into postmodern love.
Tien Tran from Cornell's MFA program in Creative Writing wrote this tiny beauty last autumn:
So I googled you. I'm not obsessed I swear.
And a bit more than a year ago, I wrote:
Feeling fresh and new. She thought she'd never need him. Now she googles his name.
Un sentimiento nuevo. Ella pensó que nunca lo necesitaría. Y ahora busca en Google el nombre de él
No, it's not autobiographical. I've no idea if Tien's poem is or not, and I don't care. The point is not whether Tien or I are stalkers, but the fact that we could be if we wanted to, and also, that two poets with drastically different cultural backgrounds wrote such similar poems.
Google is here to change the way we deal with the end of any relationship. No ex-lover will ever be really, truly, definitely over and gone, because you know that if you wanted, you could just google for him (or her). And they never have to know about it, which is the best part.
Confess. You are dying to google someone's name right now. Go ahead.
Mi amor, tan bella, No está hecha de versos. Es imperfecta. My lovely lady Is not made out of verses. And shes not perfect.
The Spanish version goes first, because I composed it first. Exceptionally, both of them scan (if Im maiming Shakespeare, I might as well do it with care).
I chew the brightness of pain with pleasure. My body is full of you now.
Mastico la luminosidad del dolor con placer. Ahora mi cuerpo está lleno de ti.
It is easier to write about desire than about its opposite. Peace of mind. Fulfilment. Happiness. There is nothing left to say after And they lived happily for ever after.
The classic Japanese haiku comes from Zen thought, and much of it takes the absence of desire as a premise. Years ago, when I had just started to write poems, the Elusive Poet (*) recited to me from memory one that was something close to I chew the brightness of plain boiled rice. I forgot the author, but I liked the synaesthesia. "Chew" corresponds to one sense and brightness to another; outside poetry, feelings arent sweet and flavours arent bright: that is synaesthesia. I thought the image was very powerful so I stole it for a haiku about fulfilment of desire, rather than its absence.
(*) The Elusive Poet talks about the fact that he writes but he hardly ever shows his work to anyone, hence the nick.
No English translation this time, since the English original of these poems don't make sense as a history. You will find a paraphrase in English at the end.
Historia de un desamor en diez haikus:
Era un nadador, Se convirtió en piraña. Fue culpa mía.
La ternura ya ha muerto. Cuerpos feroces, Puro deseo.
Nieve y cielo azul. Las rosas se han quemado. No las cuidaste.
Venga, dímelo, ¿quién te regaló todos esos anillos?
¿Me necesitas? Sí, como el tigre; Necesitas tu presa.
Eres Septiembre, La lluvia tras el calor. ¡Qué traicionero!
Memoricé tus besos. Flores fantasmas, Jarrón vacío.
Beso a escondidas. Cualquier hombre servía. Yo lo negaba.
El mundo gira. El centro hierve. Y yo soy fría.
Si te recuerdo, mi voz es tan cortante, que me hace sangrar.
It's all the woman's voice or point of view. Guilt, loveless sex, four reproaches to the man, longing after it's definitely over, promiscuity with others, loneliness, hatred. The actual break-up doesn't have a haiku all for itself; it happens between haikus 6 and 7.
She has forgotten patience, Her voice has a jagged edge. It will make her bleed.
Se ha olvidado de tener paciencia. Su voz tiene un borde de sierra. La hará sangrar.
Si te recuerdo, mi voz es tan cortante, que me hace sangrar.
I have often written poems that were very obviously about me, simply changing all pronouns to She or Us. I have noticed in Cornells literary magazines that the tendency is the opposite: whatever these poets say, I dont care if autobiographical or not, is in the first person about 80% of the time. It just doesnt work for me that way.
So, I wrote the first poem, the one in English, in the spring. No romance there, just talking about trying unsuccessfully to be calmer. To finish the Spanish haiku cycle, I again put the love component into a poem that had nothing to do with it.
The world spins around hot metal, Not around the ice crystals inside me. El mundo gira alrededor de metal al rojo, Y no alrededor de los cristales de hielo dentro de mí.
El mundo gira. El centro hierve. Y yo soy fría.
I wanted to write a poem that said something like the world doesnt spin around me. I fought with it for days. There was a song by the Spanish pop band Amaral that you could not avoid then, because it was on TV and on every radio station, and I was doing a class project with Amarals biggest fan. Amaral sucks, and I couldnt escape the raspy voice of the singer whimpering She Was Nothing Without Me. But she sang that her world was small and there were little ice crystals in her heart. I tweaked a bit her words here and there, and they fitted. Voila. No one has spotted the allusion yet, which surprises me.
I learnt your kisses by heart. The memory of flowers on an empty vase.
Me aprendí de memoria tus besos. El recuerdo de las flores en un jarrón vacío.
Memoricé tus besos. Flores fantasmas, Jarrón vacío.
Written during the same warm October as September love. An exercise on writing about feelings that I was very familiar with, but that I did not have at the moment.
This September love is warm but rainy. Your actions betray your words.
Este amor de Septiembre es cálido, pero lluvioso. Tus acciones traicionan tus palabras.
Eres Septiembre, La lluvia tras el calor. ¡Qué traicionero!
This is biographical, but not AUTObiographical. It sums up the feelings of a friend of mine for someone she used to date; she prefers the second Spanish version, I prefer the English one. Written on an unusually warm October.
Cream on my coffee. Silver on his hands. Who could give him all those rings?
Nata en mi café Plata en sus manos. ¿Quién le habrá regalado todos esos anillos?
Venga, dímelo, ¿quién te regaló todos esos anillos?
Ill tell you a secret. I knew this guy that I didnt fancy, the typical one that makes you think, yes, he IS cute, but hes just not your style. He was very suntanned (not naturally dark: tanned) and he wore chunky silver rings. His hands were my muse for a while for poems that had nothing to do with my real feelings for him. At first flirty, I had to make the second Spanish version angry to fit into the cycle.
Again: the first one is an original, the second one is the literal Spanish translation, the third one is a Spanish adaptation that scans, from a haiku cycle that tells the story of a break-up.
Blue sky, blinding snow. A lovely orchid withered Left out in the cold.
Cielo azul, nieve cegadora. Una orquídea preciosa se marchitó Cuando la dejaron a la intemperie.
Nieve y cielo azul. Las rosas se han quemado. No las cuidaste.
I have said before that the English version is the closest I have come to a poem about my teenage years. Being a teenager was no fun; bullied for two or three years and being generally ignored for the rest. One of the highlights was a skiing trip that went better than any other school activity of the previous seven years: thats were the blue sky and the snow come from. The other two lines are anachronistic, since they refer to the time that came before. The second Spanish version turns it all into a reproach for a neglectful partner that has nothing to do with the initial conception.
I was thinking of the orchid in the photo, one of Mapplethorpe masterpieces; the metaphor of woman-as-orchid is as evident as the teeth of pearl and the hair of gold, but thankfully it is not as overused.
The first one is an original, the second a literal translation and the third a less literal translation that fits the haiku pattern.
Tenderness has died. Two fierce young bodies, Stirring memory and desire (T. S. Eliot).
La ternura ha muerto. Dos cuerpos jóvenes y feroces Removiendo el recuerdo y el deseo
La ternura ya ha muerto. Cuerpos feroces, Puro deseo.
It was that little line that reconciled me with T. S. Eliot, about four or five years after my first introduction to him. It makes sense that the line came back to haunt me, since memory and desire make three quarters of my creative writing. I composed the original one, the English haiku, while I was driving to class. I had been thinking for weeks about writing a haiku around the quote. There is something in the tediousness of driving along the jammed A49 highway that switches my head off the road and on more creative things. Another reason why it took me long to write it was because my initial approach was nostalgic. I wanted to write a poem about remembering an old love when its completely over.
I think the second, shorter Spanish version is superior to the more faithful translation.
Today it's the birthday of my wonderful cousin-and-friend Irene, who saved my life once or twice. Really. I can't say she's my "best" friend because that somehow diminishes some of my other very good friends.
Anyway, the poetry. These are all the poems I've written that are directly inspired by her. The gossipy note for those who need it: number 1 is one of my earliest, I sat with the idea of writing about Irene, but didn't know exactly how. When we were children, she was blondish, I was dark, and we liked to play with dolls together until we were way too old for them. The "forbidden" bit was that we were supposed to entertain her little brother, but keeping him out was part of the fun. I know, I know, the result looks like lesbian erotica. Which isn't a bad thing necessarily. Number 2 is a simple description of what happened when she came to visit me in Aberdeen, one month of may in which snow fell from a clear sky. Number 3 is another simple description of me locking myself out of the mountain refuge where ten of us wer spending a weekend.
1 Brunette and blonde hide. No longer children. Forbidden games are always best.
Una morena y una rubia. Ya no son niñas. Los juegos prohibidos siempre son mejores.
2 Snow melts in the air. Under her coat, she shivers. Seagulls around us.
La nieve se funde en el aire. Bajo su abrigo, ella tirita. Gaviotas a nuestro alrededor.
3 Alone, out at dawn. The icy wind wraps me up While my friends sleep.
Salgo sola, al amanecer. El viento gélido me envuelve Mientras mis amigos duermen.
1 Love is a bad poet and sleepless, writing haiku about your shoulders.
El amor es un mal poeta e insomne, que escribe haiku sobre tus hombros.
2 Love is a bad poet. Unconvinced? Come closer, I will show you why.
El amor es un mal poeta. ¿no te lo crees? Acércate más y te enseño por qué.
3 Love is a bad poet who turns your hair into words. Never trust a poet.
El amor es un mal poeta que convierte tu pelo en palabras. Nunca te fíes de un poeta.
4 Love is a bad poet. It never edits a draft, Unlike resentment.
El amor es un mal poeta Nunca corrige sus borradores, al contrario que el resentimiento.
Insomnia is a wonderful poetic theme. There is so much to say about it. I cant remember any names right now, but I think theres a handful of Spanish classic poems about sleeplessness.
I actually wrote the first three poems during a sleepless night. The fourth came a couple of days later; I have more than ten haiku cycles and this is the closest Ive come to have the idea of a cycle before grouping the poems. On the other occasions, I have picked here and there for enough poems on the same theme to get a cycle together, sometimes composing only one or two to fit the others. It is also my only composition with a refrain so far.
This cycle is the more mature, restrained, mysterious older sister of Heart on a tray: another refusal to shove my feelings down the readers throat (we already have Bécquer to make us sick with his self-indulgence, so no need for the rest of us to make the paper dirty with tears and snot).
About two years ago, I wanted to send a haiku cycle to a contest but they only accepted submissions much longer that what I had managed to write in Spanish until that moment, long enough to become a book. It didnt matter, because that forced me to lose my fear of composing poetry in my first language. I had to start by trimming stuff out of the translations of poems in English (thats always a good rule: when in doubt, simplify). I ended up with a break-up story of sorts, but not a stoy with a beginning and an end. Something like a catalogue of feelings related to a break-up.
Since I started from my poems in English, these poems have three versions: the original English one, the first Spanish translation, which is very faithful to the original content, and the Spanish version that tries to fit into the syllabic pattern of haikus, so the content is no longer so faithful. I'm going to post each threesome individually, and in the hope that the series is interesting for readers who dont understand Spanish, I will go beyond the usual this is not autobiographical disclaimer and explain a bit about how each poem came to be.
Rose became snow became naked branches. Swimmers turned into monsters.
Rosa se convirtió en nieve se convirtió en ramas desnudas. Nadadores que se volvieron monstruos.
Era un nadador, Se convirtió en piraña. Fue culpa mía.
It was hard to put all I wanted into one poem. This one is autobiographical, for a change. I lived for a year in a house that had a lovely plot of orange roses when I moved into it in September. The snow that fell in winter looked pretty for a short while (this was Aberdeen, where it snows often but it melts quickly). For many depressing months, the bushes were black and leafless. They looked dead. The succession of a burst of beauty followed by something still good but more discreet, followed by misery, was exactly what was going on in my life at the time.
So I wrote another micro-story. The third one. And like the other two, it is a break-up, so I have a story of loss and longing, a story of hate, and a story of bittersweet redemption. Estoy empezado a cogerle gustillo a esto de escribir sobre romper parejas. Here you have it:
Contigo aprendí que pasada una cantidad de velas encendidas, no importa cuántas más haya en una habitación porque la penumbra no va a resultar más luminosa. Mi amor para ti era un cuarto lleno de velas: daba igual cuánto me esforzase, porque siempre necesitarías más luz. ¿Verdad que fue una suerte que me diese cuenta antes de consumirme del todo?
You taught me that after a certain amount of lit candles, it doesnt matter if you add any more because the light is not going to be any stronger. My love was to you like a room full of candles: no amount of effort on my part would ever be enough. Wasnt it lucky that I realised before I was burnt out?
I thought I had more poems with questions on them, but theres just fivenull. It is just a coincidence that they are all love poems (well, love: jealousy, loneliness, contempt, arrogance, and insecurity). It is probably not a coincidence that two of them are tankas: haikus have to go straight to the point and they dont have time to ask questions!
Cream on my coffee. Silver on his hands. Who could give him all those rings?
Nata en mi café Plata en sus manos. ¿Quién le habrá regalado todos esos anillos?
Sofas at right angles. You sit on the other one, Were drawing an L. L for leather, love, or lust. Maybe for lonely, instead?
Sofás en ángulo recto. Te sientas en el otro, Y formamos una L. Nos une el cuero, el amor y la lujuria, O tal vez la soledad.
He has everything. The women describe his smile, Remember his name. But, who loves someone who eats Alone in a public place?
Lo tiene todo, Las mujeres describen su sonrisa Y se acuerdan de su nombre. Pero, ¿quién quiere a alguien que come Solo en un lugar público?
How can we know the dancer from the dance? Do I dance better if you watch?
¿Cómo distinguir el baile de la bailarina? ¿Bailo mejor cuando me miras?
Killed by your beauty, Little tag hanging from my lips: Coffee or something?
Tu belleza me ha matado. Una etiquetita cuelga ahora de mis labios, Y dice ¿Quedamos para tomar café, o algo?
Five months ago, when this blog had a different location and an fussy, ugly template, I made this list of things I wanted to write poems about:
1. a haiku about flying over olive tree groves. The familiarity of landscapes from a plane.
2. a haiku about winter that is very sunny, very cold, very green. The coldest makes the light brighter.
3. A poem (is this idea too big for a haiku?) or even a short story: do we want to stay friends after having broken up without hard feelings?
This last idea intimidates me because I haven´t written half-decent prose since June 2004, and I haven´t written decent prose with a plot in a year or a bit more. In my experience, even having a complete plot from beginning to end doesn't mean I can write the story. Patience, patience, it will come back, it has to come back.
It scares me a bit to realise I'm still not writing prose. Since then, I have written four microstories, and bits and pieces that don't get anywhere, just wee little sketches. I've written nothing on the first idea although I'm sure that when my plane lands on Spain in July I should be in the right mood for it. I had forgotten about the second idea, which shows that it wasn't interesting enough.
And I have one haiku for the third one, showing that no, it was not too big.
Like frozen flowers (paralysed beauty), the friendship of ex-lovers.
Como flores congeladas (belleza paralizada), la amistad de antiguos amantes.
Snowdrops on the ground, White lilies on pots: Will you live forty-two months?
Azahar en la rama, nardos en un jarrón: ¿vais a vivir cuarenta y dos meses?
This is mi first poem on the classic collige, virgo, rosas topic (a variation on Carpe Diem: pick up the roses before its too late). It is a good example of how translation needs to take liberties sometimes. The first flower is the first of spring and it grows in the streets. The second flower smells really sweet. Both are white. But the American version gets American flowers and the Seville version gets Seville flowers.
And it's dedicated to MP,with thanks for the friendship, the patience, the rides, the CD's, and of course, the daffodils.
Here it is, my elegy to Spanish tortilla de patatas. An elegy is not just a poem for death,but a melancholy meditation.
Para una niña, la tortilla es la cena, comida caliente y barata, tres personas y mucha mayonesa. La niña crece y la tortilla es camping, bocadillos enormes, dos personas, el deseo de un beso. Se deja de ser niña, y la tortilla es recuerdo, querer volver a casa, una mujer sola que habla por teléfono.
For a little girl, frittatas mean dinner. Cheap homemade food, three people, lots of mayonnaise. For a bigger girl frittatas mean picnics, big, thick sandwiches, two people, the longing for a kiss. No longer a girl and frittatas are a memory, homesickness, one woman alone talking on the phone.
Again: the first one is an original, the second one is the literal Spanish translation, the third one is a Spanish adaptation that scans, from a haiku cycle that tells the story of a break-up.