On Poetry

Poetry is useless.
Language, communication, investigation, beauty, are all crammed
into one futile thing, after all, in comparison to essential needs.
Their usefulness is extremely arbitrary, erratic, ambiguous.
i have begun to feel detached from academics, essays on literature, even writing, as I hate to see me in a flow, a flood of self-centered aesthetic jaded characters.
Then of course, I go to see a concert and the power of art is clear and self-evident, its function too, however hard it be to write about it objectively.

I think translations are avery healthy form of art, as they develop the brain, extend logic and reasonment, highten endurance and teach humbleness and carefulness, translating peppers up humour, and introduce the mind to wider plains.
it is a way of empathy with poets, battles with technical text vocabs spawning out of technical texts, a way of small details revealing truths on peoples and their tongue and their history. One kind of tranlsator only sees what she does as a job: she is the most bored by dull translation works, boring blurbs on erratic subjects, from micro-fibronizers to washing machine hand-books, from industrial structures to papermill machinery functions.
The really autistic, heartful translator can feel the poor interest in the overall text, but will also find little pearls, a few new hints, vocabs. It is a well-paid game if you like to see word roots manifesting their meaning somewhere hidden between suffixes and shifting morphemes.
It is a form of joy, yet so little is left of it: it is very lucky to translate soemthing relevant, to get to work in a field of interest, and those dull industrial washing machine handbooks still come handy at the end of the month to top up.

I see how translation is the truest ways, genuine and focused in the right approach to poetry.
The translator considers the meaning
considers the sound
considers the context
considers the target lang context
relates to the topic, to the perception, to thepatterns of rhymes.

Isn't he, then, who most thoroughly tries to perceive the corte, the center of gravity of a stanza, like Ulysses, listeining to the logic and semantic meaning of the words, but faring open-sail towards a destination where whole chunks, sentences, phrases, come up, sprout, blossom in the mind, and they all come together.
You ARE then the poet himself, you do not even need to make a GOOD translation: Once you feel the poem during the process of translating it, it does become yours, because you have asked it so many questions, its life has turned clear to you, and you have become familiar with its shades and seasons.

Isn't this what whoever loves a poem does?
trying to understand what does it say in one's own language,
and then re-speaking it and re-listening to it, only the sound this time,
forgetting what does it actually mean.

Poetry is important, and relevant, and essential, if it is seen as a practice; its relevance should be found not in the result, but in the act of making poetry.
As without making poetry, or translating it, there is no possibility for some to ever appreciate it.

Some persons possess the innate tool of sensitiveness, and although they might not ever write a single verse in their life, they understand , recognise the beauty of a poem.
But many others feel poetry is dusty, smirk at the moan of a poet on stage, at the pauses, and perhaps do not know of the latest beautiful avantgarde waves that are growing. Many are not aware of how to love a poem because noone taught them to say it aloud and feel playful, and not awed, with it.
Most people, if encouraged even slightly, will let themselves be seduced by poems, but relevantly, this will happen much more easily if listeining to a voice reading out the poem, rather than silently reading it on their own.
That brings us back to the parctice: the speech skills.

I am a rather bad reader. Leyendas de guatemala, by i think miguel angel asturias, is a 350 pages book, and the author knew it from top to end by heart, as he used to read it to his friends, and gradually leaarned it by heart himself: this was partly in order to give to the language a very fluent sound. To a chieve it, it is fundamental to be at ease with the voice.

Poetry and drama are very close kin, and are both a practice, a pleasure and a mental condition, which every human should be able to benefit from, if he wishes to. Certainly poetry and literature cultural events should be more encouraged and promoted, espaecially in Italy, and speking of the context of indipendentVSmoney struggle.
But what is being lost, is the oral familiarity, the game.

As philologists stripped Beowulf of its fabulous charme, to highlight several historical and literary features, so for poetry, the real battle worth to fight is not to make people think poetry is cool, it cdoes not have to be boring, it is still alive.

Of course.
TO READ A POEM: watching a game of chess without being explained the rules
POETRY AT SCHOOL: having to learn the rules of chess without being allowed to play it
POST-MODERN POETRY: deleting rules

the average guy still does not get it.
The effort in it must be understood, because poetry is a shy craft, and does not communicate as blatantly as a sculpture the effort of creation.

being explained the rules is just twice as long and boring.

If you want to learn how rhymes and long and short vowels
and syllabes and alexandrines, endecasillabi, whuuf...
much quicker to write a few, to speak a few, than to study them for hours.

Oral storytelling is very important for us, as natural escapers.
technology can only be balanced by really strong narrative skills, adequate to make up for the lack of technologies hallucinogen features (audio/video, interactivity, altered identity....)

storytelling, poetry, drama, have a genetic capacity to enthrall humans one another.
it is an endogen skill, as close to buddhist practices as no other western path is.
myth-making, protection of oral traditions.

The naturally theatrical part of our selves will choose not the screen within, where images appear guided by a skillful voice; the actor within will be more and more fascinated with virtual worlds, and there is no snobbishness in my words.
Music has saved most of the genes of poetry, and still shares its soul. The great wave of self-produced music has given new life to many.

Rap, freestyling, slam-poetry, are involving and encourage to use mouth, breathing, words in a free way, releasing, in direct contact with an audience of empathic listenrs/performers. I think rap is where poetry fled and sheltered lately.

One might say there are dozens of thousands of beautiful poetic lyrics in non-rap songs. I mean to say that as rap is in nature live, based on improvisation, and as it relates best of all others genres to our present society, it is very representative and integrated that is, there is where according to me poetry preserves its primal features.

poetry should be instinctively thought as somethin you do, not something you read.
One does not need to WRITE poems: when he learns some lyrics, some verses, and speaks them heart-feltedly, whether out loud or in the back of his head, he is performing poetry.

Telamin! Telamin!

Telamin! Telamin!

O Fashioned by Zoos,

Mad as a Wolf,

Weeniest of Childe

keenest insight

king in itself

He knows no rest

His peace is a fumble

at war. He wishes to portray

dishes on a tray, flinging a staircase.

Sother: the father of nather,

how it mexes the words,

enthusing old shards,

fills - how amazing he is -

the beautiful stars

It gathers the mothers

musical tits appear on sunrise

it brothers decaders,

decoders’s dicasters

All ship it

but no one uses it, the plenty

of words decreases of world this

crisis of world’s decreases of words

it’s crisis.

When was it done in the premises’

den: so the acorns

become oaks and a cornish bell

reminds it us all.

How it mexes with the words

enthusing all shards

so gentle

gentle to walk, under a summery sky,

in the cynnamon mazes

How it mexes the words

enthusing all shards

so gentle

gentle to walk, under a summery sky,

in the cynnamon mazes

Halvhari

Sleepy Eyes

It is the promise of the mornig worded with squeezed eyes.

The promise yntaxed with squeezed eyes

It stems out of somewhere near birth

With its clustered, tensed abdominals and legs spreaded.

and urge

to assess

a sound

in time

and space,

but all of this untouched.

o seed.

now...a spill of oversweetend eyes-tea,

is it a Saxon root, whitelinen tablecloth?

Progressively people and cars

begin to buzz but still inconsistent,

as if hesitating to step.

Then a rush or a

spasm.

While these people dressed up these people were still asleep.

This neat action calling for actors,

it is the promise of the morng

to be as short as possible,

to squeeze out into daytime

the promise slamming you out

of the past

every 7 o’clock: spitting-

careless of your churning-

A rough savior, but one that I can greet:

sink I wash my face in

I must not loath.

Halvhari

Observing a Punk

Shy smiles under the surface of the walkingside,

exhaust gas,

red walls,

wet ground.

Could it all evaporate as in

An invisible caress.

Worryless of structures, he gains

the illusion of freedom, dressed-

down, sparing spits and crumbles and coins.

The means to master day by day

new knowledge cool-pressed.

Two towers of Bologna

beat, beat fast paced, unranked:

it’s a

cradle of paths:

some already sink instead, unsung and worthless,

some jest and jerk,

In front of me, he fake punk

-bolted belt-

bends over to kiss his girl.

And I can see through, through the air

Calvin Klein, Calvin Klein underwear, oh my god,

Calvin Klein underwear.

Halvhari

EMILY

A friend told me she was trying to translate this amazing song by Joanna Newsom, and I got into it too. It was great fun to translate: it is full of rare words and really elaborate images. Here's my translation.

The meadowlark and the chim-choo-ree and the sparrow
Set to the sky in a flying spree, for the sport over the pharaoh
A little while later the Pharisees dragged comb through the meadow
Do you remember what they called up to you and me, in our window?

L'allodola dei prati, il chim-chu-rii ed il passero

Si alzarono in un gioco di voli nel cielo, per allietare il faraone

Poco dopo i Farisei passavano i prati al setaccio

Ricordi a cosa ci chiamarono, dalla nostra finestra?

There is a rusty light on the pines tonight
Sun pouring wine, lord, or marrow
Down into the bones of the birches
And the spires of the churches
Jutting out from the shadows
The yoke, and the axe, and the old smokestacks and the bale and the barrow
And everything sloped like it was dragged from a rope
In the mouth of the south below

C'è una luce di ruggine tra i pini stanotte

Il sole versa vino, Signore, o midollo

Fin nelle ossa delle betulle

E le guglie delle chiese

Si protendono oltre le ombre

Il giogo, l'ascia, le vecchie ciminiere, le balle e i carretti

E tutto scivolava come tirato da una fune

Giù nella bocca del sud

We've seen those mountains kneeling, felten and grey
We thought our very hearts would up and melt away
From that snow in the nighttime
Just going
And going
And the stirring of wind chimes
In the morning
In the morning
Helps me find my way back in
From the place where I have been

Abbiamo visto quei monti in ginocchio, di grigio feltro

Pensavamo i nostri cuori crescessero per poi scorrere via

Da quella neve nella notte

Andando

E andando

E l'onda dei rintocchi del vento

Al mattino

Al mattino

Mi aiuta a ritrovare la strada

Che porta a dove una volta andai

And, Emily - I saw you last night by the river
I dreamed you were skipping little stones across the surface of the water
Frowning at the angle where they were lost, and slipped under forever
In a mud-cloud, mica-spangled, like the sky'd been breathing on a mirror

E, Emily – ti ho visto ieri notte al fiume

Ho sognato che tiravi piccoli sassi sulla superficie dell'acqua

Accigliandoti nel punto ove si perdevano, affondando per sempre

In una nube di fango, luccicante di mica, come il respiro di un cielo su uno specchio

Anyhow - I sat by your side, by the water
You taught me the names of the stars overhead that I wrote down in my ledger
Thoough all I knew of the rote universe were those pleiades loosed in december
I promised you I‘d set them to verse so I'd always remember

Ad ogni modo, ti sedevo accanto, vicino all'acqua

Mi insegnavi il nome delle stelle lassù, che scrivevo sul gran libro
Pure se quel che sapevo dell'universo meccanico, erano quelle pleiadi in dicembre slegate

Ti promisi che ne avrei fatto versi così da ricordare per sempre

That the meteorite is a source of the light
And the meteor's just what we see
And the meteoroid is a stone that's devoid of the fire that propelled it to thee

Che il meteorite è la fonte della luce

E la meteora, solo quel che vediamo

E il meteoroide un pietra priva del fuoco che lo spinse verso di te

And the meteorite's just what causes the light
And the meteor's how it's perceived
And the meteoroid's a bone thrown from the void that lies quiet in offering to thee

E il meteorite è solo ciò che causa la luce

E la meteora è come è percepito

E il meteoroide un osso scagliato dal vuoto che quieto giace a te offerto

You came and lay a cold compress upon the mess I'm in
Threw the window wide and cried, "Amen! Amen! Amen!"
The whole world - stopped - to hear you hollering
You looked down and saw now what was happening

Venivi a stendevi un panno freddo sul disastro in cui mi trovo

Spalancavi la finestra e urlavi, “Amen! Amen! Amen!”

Tutto il mondo – si fermò – per udire il tuo grido

Guardasti giù e ora vedesti cosa stava accadendo

The lines are fading in my kingdom
(Though I have never known the way to border them in)
So the muddy mouths of baboons and sows and the grouse and the horse and the hen
Grope at the gate of the looming lake that was once a tidy pen
And the mail is late and the great estates are not lit from within

Le linee svaniscono nel mio regno

(anche se mai trovai modo di farle restare)

E allora le bocche fangose dei babbuini e delle scrofe e la pernice e il cavallo e la gallina

Vanno a tentoni al cancello di quel lago oscuro che fu una volta un recinto curato

E la posta è in ritardo e non ci sono luci da dentro le grandi magioni

The talk in town's becoming downright sickening

Le chiacchiere in paese sono diventate ripugnanti

In due time we will see the far butte lit by a flare
I've seen your bravery, and I will follow you there
And row through the nighttime
Gone healthy
Gone healthy all of a sudden
In search of the midwife
Who could help me
Who could help me
Help me find my way back in
There are worries where I've been

Verrà il tempo, vedremo accendersi una fiamma sul poggio

Ho visto il tuo coraggio, e ti seguirò là

Remerò nella notte

Sarò in salute

In salute tutto a un tratto

Cercando la balia

Che mi aiuti

Che mi aiuti

Mi aiuti a ritrovare la strada

Che porta a dove una volta andai

Say, say, say in the lee of the bay; don't be bothered
Leave your troubles here where the tugboats shear the water from the water
(Flanked by furrows, curling back, like a match held up to a newspaper)
Emily, they'll follow your lead by the letter
And I make this claim, and I'm not ashamed to say I know you better
What they've seen is just a beam of your sun that banishes winter

Dimmi, dimmi, dimmi qui al riparo della baia, non preoccuparti

Lascia qui le pene, dove i rimorchi tagliano come forbici l'acqua dall'acqua

(I solchi sui fianchi si arrotolano come carta vicina a un fiammifero)

Emily, ti obbediranno alla lettera

E io qui giuro, e non provo vergogna nel dire che ti conosco meglio

Che quel che hanno visto è solo un raggio del tuo sole che scaccia l'inverno

Let us go! Though we know it's a hopeless endeavor
The ties that bind, they are barbed and spined and hold us close forever
Though there is nothing would help me come to grips with a sky that is gaping and yawning
There is a song I woke with on my lips as you sailed your great ship towards the morning

Andiamo! Anche se è uno sforzo disperato

I lacci che legano, sono irti e spinosi, e ci tengono per sempre vicini

Anche se niente mi aiuterà a venire alle prese con un cielo che si apre e sbadiglia

Mi sono svegliata con una canzone sulle labbra mentre salpavi sulla grande nave

Verso il mattino

Come on home, the poppies are all grown knee-deep by now
Blossoms all have fallen, and the pollen ruins the plow
Peonies nod in the breeze and while they wetly bow
With hydrocephalitic listlessness ants mop up-a their brow

Torna a casa, i papaveri arriveranno alle ginocchia ormai

I fiori sono caduti, il polline rovina l'aratro

Le peonie ondeggiano nella brezza e mentre si inchinano umide

Con incuranza idrocefalica, le formiche asciugano loro le ciglia

And everything with wings is restless, aimless, drunk and dour
The butterflies and birds collide at hot, ungodly hours
And my clay-colored motherlessness rangily reclines
Come on home, now! All my bones are dolorous with vines

E tutto ciò che ha ali è senza posa, senza meta, ebbro e mogio

Le farfalle e gli uccelli si scontrano in ore calde e inique

E il mio colore terreo e senza madre ampio si distende

Pa pointed out to me, for the hundredth time tonight
The way the ladle leads to a dirt-red bullet of light
Squint skyward and listen
Loving him, we move within his borders
Just asterisms in the stars' set order

Pa, per la centesima volta stasera,

Ha indicato la direzione dal mestolo verso un bossolo di luce rosso-terra

Strizza gli occhi e ascolta

Amandolo, ci muoviamo entro i suoi confini

Solo asterismi nell'ordine fisso delle stelle

We could stand for a century
Staring
With our heads cocked
In the broad daylight at this thing
Joy
Landlocked
In bodies that don't keep
Dumbstruck with the sweetness of being
Until we don't be told
Take this
Eat this

Potremmo restare così per cento anni

Fissando

Con la testa piegata

Questa cosa in pieno giorno

Gioia

Senza sbocco

In corpi rimasti

Senza parole per la dolcezza dell'essere

Fino a che non venga loro detto

Prendi questo

Mangia questo

Told
The meteorite is the source of the light
And the meteor's just what we see
And the meteoroid is a stone that's devoid of the fire that propelled it to thee

And the meteorite's just what causes the light
And the meteor's how it's perceived
And the meteoroid's a bone thrown from the void that lies quiet in offering to thee

Dicevi che

Il meteorite è la fonte della luce

E la meteora, solo quel che vediamo

E il meteoroide un pietra priva del fuoco che lo spinse verso di te

E il meteorite è solo ciò che causa la luce

E la meteora è come è percepito

E il meteoroide un osso scagliato dal vuoto che quieto giace a te offerto

Eaten

(4 Apr 2008, 12:56)

he been browsing far longer he should have
he been swarmed by instant shots, flooded by
a thick water like resin sticking so hard, choked

he been struggling to not think superhuman
endorsing higher, truest compassion acceptance,
which the correct definiton of will, of aware,
yes all was plunged deep

and he been browsing, he been browsing asterisks
with things and fiddled in puddles with a stick
and watched the shapes as they morphed.

Halvhari

Seeing cooking

(10 Jan 2008, 20:40)

She stirred in the bowl
a number of thoughts
- todo's, washing, deadlines, dates -
with the close-ups of springs.

The close-ups of springs did come from
a bygone March, it was blurred sights
of bedsheets and skin, stretched on bones.

While the bowl got sticky, and the ladle warm,
she mixed plastic instants
with a number of words
- her mother was asking, the phone was beeping-

The phone was beeping as a call to live
dismissed, yet there, wouldn't you know now

How to mix it too,

the close-ups of springs
and the care of thoughts
not finding no more
a place to grow?

As they modestly receed
the cream gets thick
the taste gets sweet,
you're free.

Halvhari

You are my X

(9 Jan 2008, 17:39)

You are my X. Am I your Y?

Dreaming Exeter, green like Wyoming

I exceed in words, you wipe your tears
While I curl your locks

Ex means from,
Y is also wife, white.

Wider than one, fields left fallow.

Halvhari

Admit

(7 Jan 2008, 14:28)

Admit
that the scarce voices far
away in the kitchen,
of friends, mutual smiling witnesses
of friends restoring the standards of behaviour,

Admit
that the voices calling once seemingly magical
of moments, clicking fantasies,
the faces wrapped in the winters
the first sophomore winters
the shoulders shaking in
the dead of the night of crowds careless
in the summers

Admit
that the thousand times thousand thoughts
in daze, in booze, meant and winced

Admit.

Halvhari

Er....I don't actually like very much this one nor Doppio

Few Pages

(5 Jan 2008, 06:17)

few pages left, pages read while still dark
waiting for the teapot's steam puffs

few pages left growing warmer,
sleep, sleep, sleep little pages,

few pages soaked in few sounds, small things to grow out
of these days.

early as quiet night-scurriers, pages wait and be seen.

these few pages served slow, theirs is the dawn's
welcoming winter, as it checks for a green dot,
it'd witness someone's there, but no, little pages, know
it's still dark.

rolling a cigarette: the teapot's calling
for me to pour more in my cup,
the six o'clock update, the green dot that's not there,
it's only plunged into those pages, peace,
a few left to this night's becoming light,
As a chanceful falling of vest-string, revealing
skins stripped, bare light unseen's there.

as noon will speak, we'll be almost there already,
back in those cover days, when
under was game, under a covenant of silence
we'll be back in the long sleep, little pages,
bear on once more, by the time it's dawn again
someone's call, steam out of teacups,
and be read again, but sleep, now, know
it's still dark.

Halvhari

Purposes, tea-time, SEO

4 Jan 2008, 08:57

Excellent morning teatimes:
one and a thousand night, some few pages

then, war, then,
the horrid discovery
of wrong metatags,
the hammering of SEO,
this wearing game -
and not one man to call,
in this forlorn trench:

the grey icons stating solitude,
left alone in the anger of crumbling ranking.

Halvhari

echo

(3 Jan 2008, 21:19)

in far Morocco
there are no mindful things
as the shift takes its proud stance

in far Morocco
dreams are woven otherwise perhaps
echoes and smells do too.

Halvhari

Riddle - What is it

(22 Dec 2007, 05:02)

bleached scorched and thrown
follows the gaze as it rolls
it flashes and pumps
it stumbles and parts
it crushes and starts.

Halvhari