Afterglow—Alberto Blanco (trans. Jennifer Rathburn)

Bitter Oleander Press, as I learned when I read the most recent issue of their journal, has an interest in international poetry and side-by-side translations. This is seen once again in their publication of a side-by-side translation of the work of Mexican poet Alberto Blanco, Afterglow, translated by Jennifer Rathburn.

I find it fun to read the original of a poem next to its translation whenever I know even a little of the language. In this case I got to see some of the interesting choices that Rathburn made. A good example is “Psalm of Transfiguration”. 

En las amapolas de cobre
Cantan los pájaros ultramarinos;
En la espuela de caballero
despunta la fiebre que no cesa.
El fuego se aviva y el humo crece
como las ramas de un árbol planetario.

In copper poppies
chant ultramarine birds;
In the knight’s spur
spikes the endless fever.
Fire arouses and smoke grows
like the branches of a planetary tree.

Rathburn translates “cantan” as “chant” instead of “sing”, which fits the poem well. The original Spanish original has a sense of both possibilities, but an English translation must pick only one.

She translates “la fiebre que no cesa” as “endless fever”, but think of all the possibilities: it could have been “fever that never ends” or “fever that never ceases” or “neverending fever” or “fever without end”. It’s always a challenge to balance truth to a translation and poetic necessity; I think Rathburn does a great job in this volume.

Another interesting think to note in this poem is how sound devices, which are usually destroyed in a translation, can be spontaneously (or intentionally?) created. “Amapules de cobre” ends up as “copper poppies”, and the line “el fuego se aviva y el humo crece” results in the wonderfully alliterative/assonant sentence “fire arouses and smoke grows”. Whether by serendipity or design, it is fun, and somewhat reassuring, that the sound elements of poetry aren’t doomed upon translation.

As for the poetry? It is something like the wild hallucinatory prophetic visions of the Old Testament prophets or the Book of Revelations. The entire book is written in the present tense, and there is no sense of specific everyday life. There is nothing that happened, only things that happen, always, universally, even in cases like

The failing calf
in the corral dies.
A dazzling bull
contemplates the field.

The images spill forth as from a dream—disconnected, intense, packed with significance but without meaning. Any references to “you” or “I” are disembodied and universal as well. Either one might refer equally to the poet, the reader, or anyone else, real or imaginary. We never get to see into Alberto Blanco’s life—only into his mind, and the visions that live there.

Here Lies Lalo—Abelardo Delgado

I must admit that I was skeptical about this collection when I received it. The poet Lalo—Abelardo Delgado (1930 – 2004)—was an activist for social justice and a central figure in Chicano literature. I am ashamed to confess that I expected ranting and moaning. Instead I found a vibrant, engaging consideration of life, the universe and everything...with a Chicano twist. Though many of his poems take a uniquely Chicano perspective, Lalo ought never be pigeonholed.


Though many poems concern politics, Lalo makes political poetry beautiful because he focuses on emotion, not policy.

stupid america, hear that chicano
shouting curses on the street
he is a poet
without paper and pencil
and since he cannot write, he will explode

Political poetry is hard. The two parts of the term hardly understand each other. A poet fails when he or she tries to debate, analyze or support an argument. Elizabeth Alexander got it right at Barack Obama's inauguration:

Say it plain: that many have died for this day.
Sing the names of the dead who brought us here,
who laid the train tracks, raised the bridges,

picked the cotton and the lettuce, built
brick by brick the glittering edifices
they would then keep clean and work inside of.

But all too often political poems try to argue in verse, or more frequently, argue in prose, and are soon reduced to an editorial. Not Lalo: the fact that his poems have political implications is secondary to the fact that it captures emotion with skillful language:

stupid america, remember the chicanito
flunking math and english
he is the picasso
of your western states
but he will die
with one thousand masterpieces
hanging only from his mind

Lalo's style is a wild ride of sound and image, often mixing languages and voices. He uses rhyme in different ways in different poems, even occasionally writing in metric verse.  (In case it's not clear, the second stanza is not a translation of the first; Lalo switches languages back and forth throughout this poem.)

que te alcancen mi beso y mi abrazo
felicitando el hecho que hoy es tu día,
que en la palabra mi corazón pierda un pedazo
al dicirte, feliz cumpleanos, esposa mía.

after all these years together we have learned
to assume, without too much trouble, each other's identity
and in all these years how often i've yearned
not to take for granted the fact that you are an entity.

But even in his free verse, sound and rhyme play an important role. Lalo often likes rhyming couplets at the beginning and end of poems; sometimes he combines English and Spanish to do this. Occasionally a rhyme requires some awkward syntax, but usually the rhymes leap naturally, spontaneously, from the page. Alliteration, too—just the beauty and fun of language—are sometimes an element:

to scunner and not to hate,
to scupper and keep the taste,
to hide under the thick scurf
of scurrile life that yearning
to scurry itself leaps out
and is able to see its own scut,
obsolete as old scutage.

Here Lies Lalo is a great collection and tribute. Much of the publicity surrounding Lalo and this book focuses on his activism for social justice. I want to emphasize that his poetry is more than that. “Preguntas Pesadas”, for instance, sets aside ethnicity, nationality and discontent to peer deep into human questions. Here, the motifs of sleep, questions and definitions, and the tender concern for another, remind me of Jorge Luis Borges.

for some strange reason i cannot explain
i woke from my usual unperturbed sleep...again,
trying to define you...
          a bottle...that's it, one with no bottom
so that many can pour themselves into
but none can be contained within.
[…]
that glass
          from which the bottle is made
is very sensitive
          very sensuous
and desirable
and it can accommodate
all
   and all can rub themselves
into the sides
               and the sides are warm
but nonetheless
made of glass.

Rediscovering Langston Hughes

I have rediscovered Langston Hughes. I had read his famous poems—“I, Too” and “A Negro Speaks of Rivers” and “Harlem”—and even taught them in class. I appreciated his poems and his loose, jazzy interpretation of rhyme and meter—playing with it instead of abandoning it like so many Modernists did. But based on my limited selection, I found him unsubtle and a bit preachy.


I take it all back, I swear.

Thumbing through an anthology, I came across “Old Walt” without realizing it was Hughes’:

Old Walt Whitman
Went finding and seeking,
Finding less than sought
Seeking more than found,
Every detail minding
Of the seeking or the finding.

Pleasured equally
In seeking as in finding,
Each detail minding,
Old Walt went seeking
And finding.

I liked it; I liked how it played with rhyme and repetition, enjoying itself but not taking itself to seriously, not droning. It almost had the feel of a triolet—maybe a jazz triolet. Then I saw it was by Langston Hughes, and, surprised, began to read other poems of his I had never read before.

One thing that I enjoy are his little sketches of Harlem life. Hughes often writes in the voice of a character or includes dialogue.

Put on yo’ red silk stockings,
Black gal.
Go out an’ let de white boys
Look at yo’ legs.
[…]

He plays his authorial cards close to his chest. We aren’t told what to think—only what to see and hear. He keeps his rhyme and meter loose and incorporates it subtlety and effortlessly into the scenarios he paints:

[…]
Copper's whistle!
Patrol bell!
Arrest.

Precinct Station.
Iron cell.
Headlines in press:

MAN THREATENS LANDLORD
TENANT HELD NO BAIL
JUDGE GIVES NEGRO 90 DAYS IN COUNTY JAIL

And part of his playing with language extends to letting you finish lines in your head, or switching them suddenly. I’ve seen this used as a petty gag in some light verse, but look at this:

Dream Boogie

Good morning, daddy!
Ain't you heard
The boogie-woogie rumble
Of a dream deferred?
Listen closely:
You'll hear their feet
Beating out and beating out a—

You think
It's a happy beat?

Listen to it closely:
Ain’t you heard
something underneath
like a—

What did I say?

Sure,
I'm happy!
Take it away!
Hey, pop!
Re-bop!
Mop!
Y-e-a-h!

The interplay between two voices, what is said and left unsaid, the way he sets up the unspoken lines, the ambiguity… I love it. Though the mop confuses me.

One more poem now. I can’t believe I had never read this one.

Frederick Douglass: 1817-1895


Douglass was someone who,
Had he walked with wary foot
And frightened tread,
From very indecision
Might be dead,
Might have lost his soul,
But instead decided to be bold
And capture every street,
On which he set his feet,
To route each path
Toward freedom’s goal,
To make each highway
Choose his compass’ choice
To all the world cried,
Hear my voice!…
Oh, to be a beast, a bird,
Anything but a slave! he said.

Who would be free
Themselves must strike
The first blow, he said.

He died in 1895.

He is not dead.

What I love about it most is the building energy that lands with a resounding crash on the last lines. For that ending to work, for those last four words to resonate like they do, requires a perfect convergence of sound and ideas. This just goes to show that the success of a poem lies in its sound, even when we read it silently. A “prose poem” is no kind of poem at all, and when free verse works, it works because it nevertheless uses sound skillfully, as skillfully as a jazz player, though following no set pattern, uses pitch, rhythm, intonation and phrasing. Langston Hughes does jazz with words, with perfect blend of intellect and emotion.