Tag haiku

* Williams’ other plum poem & the friday influence

José Angel Araguz Leave a comment

To a poor old woman – William Carlos Williams

munching a plum on   

the street a paper bag

of them in her hand

They taste good to her

They taste good   

to her. They taste

good to her

 

You can see it by

the way she gives herself

to the one half

sucked out in her hand

 

Comforted

a solace of ripe plums

seeming to fill the air

They taste good to her

***

This week on the Influence: William Carlos Williams.

Last Friday I spoke about my experience reading the Selected Poems of William Carlos Williams aloud and how it gave me a visceral understanding of his cadence and flavor of thinking.  “To a poor old woman” – which I refer to as “the other plum poem” – in  particular embodies some of what I was saying.

Here he takes a phrase made up of five words – They taste good to her – and not only repeats but has the whole second stanza made up of only these words.  Reading it aloud and following the line breaks, the experience of biting and biting into a plum is evoked through the repetition of these words.  It is as if he felt there were no other words suited to describe the experience.  Nothing was more evident to him than – They taste good to her.

plums, yo.

Here’s another one:

Between Walls – William Carlos Williams

the back wings
of the

hospital where
nothing

will grow lie
cinders

in which shine
the broken

pieces of a green
bottle 

Here, the attention to detail and the pacing take the reader right up to the shards of glass, right up to the gleam.

Williams is one of the great guides in poems.  I have taught his poems alongside those of haiku poets, using the juxtaposition to highlight the shared spirit between the images of Williams and the concentrated illumination of someone like Basho:

***

Awake at night —

The sound of the water jar

Cracking in the cold.

–Basho

***

Happy cracking!

J

p.s. check out my feature on the Tiger’s Eye blog: http://tigerseyepoet.blogspot.com/

* translation 2/3 on the friday influence

José Angel Araguz 2 Comments

(from Greguerias – Ramon Gomez de la Serna) *

Curious about the earth, the sky keeps opening and closing the clouds.

*

The hour differs throughout the stars.  In some it is yesterday, in others today, and in others centuries have passed.

*

He had a keyring so dusty, he looked like a fisherman of keys.

*

The socks tucked into the little shoes of the sleeping child wrinkle with his dreams.

***

This week The Friday Influence is proud to present the work of the Spanish poet Ramon Gomez de la Serna (1888-1963).

First, some reviews: “For me he is the great Spanish writer: the Writer, or rather, Writing…I also would have learned Spanish just to read him” (Octavio Paz).  “…the major figure of surrealism, in any country, has been Ramon” (Pablo Neruda). **

I share these quotes to show the range of influence Ramon (as he liked to be called)  had in his day.  Neruda’s Book of Questions (excerpts of which I translated last week) would not have been possible without the work of Ramon.  He wrote novels as well as stories and essays, but it is in his Greguerias that I feel his singular personality truly shines.

These sentences are packed with images and humor.  They take a little and expand it in the mind.  They do the work of haiku and aphorisms but with a distinct flavor.  I spoke last week of how a poet’s job is partly to see how much they can get away with.  In his Greguerias, Ramon gets (carried) away with himself.

Also, any writer who seriously writes about the stars after the Romantic period endears themselves to me.  Ramon’s work gave me permission to work out some single line poems of my own.  He has opened up to me what a sentence or two can offer lyric poetry.

I discovered his work two years ago by accident, working out my own ideas of prose poems.  His name came up in an essay and I made my way to his poems.  Seeing as he has stayed with me, I have decided to periodically sit down with his Greguerias and translate a few pages at a time.  If I get through the whole book in this manner, I’ll let you know.

Here’s a few more from Ramon:

The night lies there between blue eyelashes.

*

In autumn, the butterflies come out in the same red as the dry leaves, and the same wind sweeps up the one as the other.

*

After a while, the sound of the typewriter fills our thoughts with gravel.

*

Pinocchio opens books with his nose.

***

Happy gregueriando!

J

* translated by Jose Angel Araguz (word to vosotros!)

** quotes from Paz and Neruda found on Wikipedia (word to citations!)