A Different Stripe

Monday Multimedia: Paul Auster reads Kabir

The PEN American Center has posted audio of Paul Auster reading two poems by Kabir, translated by Arvind Krishna Mehrotra's. The poems were originally published in PEN America 11: Make Believe. We've recently collected these poems (in slightly different versions), and many others, in Songs of Kabir.

Speaking of translation and the Pen American Center—don't forget that their annual world literature festival, PEN World Voices, kicks off today.

Paul Auster reads Kabir

 

And what was yesterday a little mucus,
tomorrow will be a mummy or ashes.
—Marcus Aurelius, Meditations, IV. 48

Birth is scented with death.
—Bhartrihari (c. 5th century), v. 197,
trans. Barbara Stoler Miller

Friend,
You had one life,
And you blew it.

From sticky spunk
To human shape,
You spent ten months
In your mother’s womb,
Blocked off from the world
Into which you fell
The minute you were born.
A child once,
You’re an old man now.
What has happened has happened.
Crying won’t help
When death already
Has you by the balls.
It’s counting your breaths,
Waiting.

This world, says Kabir,
Is a gambling den.
You can’t be too careful.

KG 60

 

It’s a mess,
But you’re there
To sort it out.

Cock of the walk,
In great shape,
Keeping the best
Company:
That’s me.

Listen, says Kabir,
I have a prayer to make.
I’m handcuffed to death.
Throw me the key.

KG 44

"A Farewell to Tobacco"—from W.H. Auden's Book of Light Verse

Scent to match thy rich perfume
Chemic art did ne'er presume;
Through her quaint alembic strain,
None so sovereign to the brain:
Nature, that did in thee excel,
Framed again no second smell.
Roses, violets, but toys
For the smaller sort of boys
Or for greener damsels meant;
Thou art the only manly scent.

—from "A Farewell to Tobacco" by Charles Lamb
collected in W.H. Auden's Book of Light Verse

 

"Except that it robs you of who you are, / What can you say about speech?," a poem by Kabir

The most recent issue of The New York Review of Books offers a preview of Arvind Krishna Mehrotra's translations of selected Kabir poems.

Except that it robs you of who you are,
What can you say about speech?
Inconceivable to live without
And impossible to live with,
[continue]

Seven additional poems from this volume appear in the March 2011 edition of Poetry magazine. You can read them at the Poetry Foundation's website.

Songs of Kabir
preface by Wendy Doniger
selected and translated from the Hindi by
Arvind Krishna Mehrotra

cover image by Dayanita Singh, from Dream Villa

 

 

 

 

Today's pro-book message, in the form of a poem

Here is a charming bit of verse, found in the beginning of Yasushi Inoue's Tun-huang. The poem helps give us a feel for the ethos of the Song dynasty (the setting of this historical novel), in which erudition was highly valued. Of course, the hero of Tun-huang sleeps through the test he is meant to take, diverting his life-plan along a path of adventure, heroism, and literary stewardship. What's more, the bibliomania of the poem's author, Emperor Chen Tsung, apparently caused the downfall of his dynasty. According to one source: "By 1020 the emperor was insane and his power had passed to eunuchs." 

No need to acquire rich lands to increase the family's wealth,
For in books are a thousand measures of millet.
No need to build mansions in which to dwell in peace,
For in books are abodes of gold.
Complain not that you have no attendants when you leave         your home,
For in books are horses in numbers beyond reckoning.
No need to lament the dearth of fair maidens when you marry,
For in books are maidens with countenances of jade.
You who would realize your aspirations,
Use the light from your window to recite the     Six Classics.

A Poem by Hungarian Writer Tibor Déry

In getting together our edition of Tibor Déry's (that's Déry Tibor to you Magyarphiles) novel Niki we came across some poems of his, published in the short-lived Dokumentum, a journal he helped edit. After dropping some not-so-subtle hints to poet and translator George Szirtes (who has written the introduction to Niki) that it would be wonderful to read the poetry in English, he graciously had a go at translating one or two. We should mention that the poems would not have been found had they not been digitized by the New York Public Library.

MY GOLDFISH

born into sunlight
they swam around her silent
one spring night they entered my heart

the well of resurrection!
their golden ferries glittered through my breast
look at them dancing!
years march on monotonous in the garden greenhouse
here and there a face leans towards me
and sheds its tears

feed my goldfish
the wind moans outside
day’s leaden back casts its shadow across us
days pass
who will unearth time’s infinite gifts from my body?

in the dust of the street…
there sprawl the lost nights
gilded wooden statues of beggars march along the boulevard
everywhere darkness
the stars above them: the purple-scaled highway of my fish

George Szirtes webpage and blog


Niki: The Story of a Dog
Tibor Déry