Cavafy (1863-1933) was of course one of the most important Greek modern poets. I read this short poem in an English translation by Edmund Keeley and Philip Sherrard Body, Remember Body, remember not only how much you were loved, not only the beds you lay on, but also those desires that glowed openly in eyes …
I am going to call Federico García Lorca (1898-1936) one of my favorite poets. Perhaps because I like surrealism when it is done well, or because I am as old today than he ever became, which gives some profundity to my admiration of his mighty words. I enjoy the power of longer poems like City that …
Gabriela Mistral (1889-1957), pseudonym of Lucila Godoy Alcayaga, was the first Spanish Amerian woman to win the Nobel Prize for literature (1945). I was impressed by the imagery of her poem La extranjera, that I read here in an English translation by Helene Masslo Anderson: The Stranger She speaks in her way of her savage …
Here is a pretty translation I found of a poem by Osip Mandelstam (1891 – 1938), one of Russia’s acclaimed anti-formalist (Acmeist) poets along with Akhmatova, Pasternak, Tsvetaeva. This was written in 1937: Yet to die. Unalone still. For now your pauper-friend is with you. Together you delight in the grandeur of the plains, And …
Eugenio Montale (1896-1981) is considered the greatest Italian poet since Leopardi. He won the Nobel Prize for literature in 1975. I read In the Greenhouse in a translation by Charles Wright. Here is an alternative translation (and seven other poems for good measure). In the Greenhouse The lemon bushes overflowed with the patter of mole paws, the scythe …
Jorge Luis Borges (1899-1986) must be anthologized or else… I have mixed feelings about the co-founder of postmodernist literature, who was praised, canonized and catapulted into the realm of immortality. I find his aleph a funny story and his experimental prose (eg ‘Borges and I’) were innovative at the time, but there is not much of the …
Today I read fragment number 8 from the cycle ‘Prologue’, called ‘To death’ by one of the most famous Russian poets of the twentieth century, Anna Akmatova (1889-1966) in a translation by A.S. Kline . Translations of a lot of other Akhmatova poetry is also available on his website. To Death You’ll come regardless – …
The Belgian poet Emile Verhaeren (1855-1916) was one of the most prominent poets of his day. “His Black Trilogy, Les Soirs (1888), Les Débâcles (1889), and Les Flambeaux Noirs (1889–90) explores the spiritual abandonment of a soul lost in the recesses of its own involution.” (Donald Flanell Friedman) I discovered the English translation of a …
Let’s do another Ritsos (1909-1990) poem today. I’ve read ‘Injustice’ before but felt like more Ritsos. You are looking at a translation by Edmund Keeley here, quoted (not ‘reprinted’!) from an anthology of international poetry: The Meaning of Simplicity I hide behind simple things so you’ll find me; if you don’t find me, you’ll find the …
Yannis Ritsos (1909-1990) is one of the greatest poets of the twentieth century (according to Luis Aragon, the greatest). Brilliant as his arcane, mythological works (The fourth dimension about the house of Atreus) are, critics consider his shorter poems that transform simple experiences into surrealist insights, his best work. Dicit George Economou: Ritsos “records, at times celebrates, …
Edith Södergran (1892-1923) published 5 collections of poetry. She was one of the first modernists of Swedish-language literature. Browsing her poetry, I liked this one, called ‘A life’. I read an English translation by Averill Curdy that goes as follows: A life That the stars are adamant everyone understands— but I won’t give up seeking joy …
Today my eye fell on Polish poet Anna Swir (Świrszczyńska) (1909-1984). I read the translation by Czeslaw Milosz: The Second Madrigal A night of love exquisite as a concert from old Venice played on exquisite instruments. Healthy as a buttock of a little angel. Wise as an anthill. Garish as air blown into a trumpet. Abundant …
