·:[ Stephen Vincent ]:·
• • • • •

“Walking Theory” has been recently interviewing my 88 year old mom or, as somebody suggested I call these, “Revelations on the Edge.” My mother, a politician most of her life, took vigorous joy in delivering speeches to government and organizational assemblies, including, her family. I hear these pieces as kinds of parting speeches for which I am most grateful:

Walking Theory #89

“Escape the Gym”

Her T-Shirt, she walks by

Real fast, barely an eye to my eye.

*

“How you doing, Mom?”

“I guess I’m surviving. And that’s about it.”

“You always were a survivor.”

“Yes. I am a tough old bird…All these deaths

you know, I am sure it’s true that some of them

just want to escape.”

“Why do you think they want to escape?”

“Oh, I think there’s just too many people

and too many problems. That’s what I think.”

*
“What’s your project now?”

“My project –the one that makes me money –

is a book for a Library. But I am also writing.”

“Well, don’t stop. Once you stop it’s hard to

start. I took a class and the man told me

not to stop. He said he would publish anything

I wrote. But I had three little kids.

Sometimes life just goes like that.”

“Wasn’t Pa a good writer?”

“Yes, but it was mother who was the best.

In those days nobody thought to preserve it.”

*

“Do you miss Chris?”

“All the time.”

“I don’t think he knew where to fit.”

“He had so much intelligence and imagination.”

“He did not know how to ask for help.”

“He did. When he did, his voice was so plaintiff.

But Daddy could not hear him. I kept telling Dad

To take Chris out and talk to him. But

He never did. It was not his generation.

Now everybody talks to everybody.”

*

Lord, give my mother a shawl

Across her shoulders, when she crosses:

Make it white with a thin thread of red

Sewn close on the edge of each border.

Walking Theory #90

“I feel so sorry for young people today,
They grow up with loose ropes.
At least you and your brothers are interested
in my family and my mother’s family.
But these kids, these young people today,
seem to have nothing. Loose ropes
and no connection to much of anything.”

“Does your friend Lucretia ever call you?”

“No and I don’t expect she will. The people
who were my friends are not so much
anymore. They have become so egocentric.
Even if it’s at odds with the truth of things
whatever happened they want to make it their own.
That is, whatever might be the right memory,
they bend it to make it in accord with their own interests,
not what actually happened.”

“Do you still feel like taking action on things?”

“I think it’s over. I don’t have the energy
I used to have to bring to things.
I guess I would say I’m kind of
useless.”

“But don’t you think you can be a good witness
and take pleasure in what you see?”

“Oh, I don’t disagree with that. I’m a pretty cheery person unless I
get my dander up. I don’t want you to think I’m a sad sack.”

*

18.Alt

Maggie (the wet, peach lip)
Does not
Quiet a story

But for
A young woman
Hair fallen
Still asleep.

19.
]
]going
]before sacrifice
]eliminates
]
]to wait
]to acknowledge
]emptiness
]
]before
]from within
]ashes

20.
]
]misfortune
]
]bad judgment
]misread north star
]an emptiness
]
]soldiers at sea
]stillborn
]adrift
]boots
]
]
]harbor
]empty containers
]then
]
]Master
]
]
]no ease
]broken water
]
]
]

21.

]
]
]charitable
]flush
]
]fresh skin, youth
]open
]quick
]
]
]repellant
]without song
]flowerless
]
Crimson bougainvillea beyond the garden
]rarely
]

In case this is a new visit to this site, Sleeping With Sappho, an ebook of a manuscript in progress, can found and read at: http://www.fauxpress.com/e.
These are some new pieces in the series:

6.

not
]

]
]
]
]

Stop [
invisible [
]
does not

her bare throat [
]
]no gold
]
]no

7.

]Diana is afraid
]to make the command
]
]pride broken
]an elder now
]without mercy
]

8.

]
]
]not you, Regina
]
]

9.

]rejects
]not one
]starved
]
]longing
]
]
]

12.

]
]
]
]thoughtless
]her sandals
]
]double-knotted
]
]

15A and 15B

]damned
]
]
]
the things she offered
]
]bad luck on the mountain
]

Elizabeth, may you find her sweet
And be modest – do not mention me
How you did not come back
Whether or not I am bitter.

In response to reading Sleeping With Sappho, Jean Vengua wrote me the kindest response:

… it’s like being in a hotel room and listening with my ear to the bedroom wall, and hearing time pass between lovers on the other side, and hearing conversations, and I laugh, or wonder, and sometimes the wall becomes limestone, and sometimes air, with nothing between the reader and the fragment of a voice receding.

Would I like to have this on a book jacket! Thank you, Jean!

Jean, a writer in her own right, keeps a constantly intriguing website, OKIR, that I recommend, as well:
http://okir.blogspot.com/

If you are new to this site and want to read Sleeping With Sappho, go to:

http://www.fauxpress.com/e/vincent/

In case anyone missed the various announcments,
Sleeping With Sappho, my first ever e-book, can found and read at:

http://www.fauxpress.com/e

Some discussion and samples from the book are on previous postings
down below.

Enjoy and though to my knowledge Sappho cannot be currrently contacted,
I will be delighted to take your responses and messages!

Stephen Vincent
steph484@pacbell.net

Anny Balladini asked me how I went about making the Sappho ‘translations’ with the following question - which is followed by my response:

“I have this question to ask you, how were these
> fragments born?
> You acknowledge If Not, Winter, translaed by Anne Carson,
> is this a free re-elaboration, and up to what point is it free? Could you
> give an example with the original version?
> I am very interested, thanks, anny

Thanks, Anny, for the appreciation & query! I call this kind of translation, “antonymical” (which microsoft spellchecker says does not exist as a word), but what I mean is that the pieces are built on an oppositional strategy. Each word, phrase - or even the tone - elicits the possibility of its own opposite or, if not that, a parallel discourse with similar but different objects in the poem, etc. In the case of Sappho, I used Ann Carson’s translations in her If Not, Winter (Fragments of Sappho) volume.

Now, if you are not lost yet - which I’d probably be! - I can give an example from the poem (the one that I put in the plug) and Carson’s”
(It’s #63 her book; 63.AltB in mine). My trans is preceeded by “>”

> White dream
> You come in a stream
dream of black
you come roaming and when sleep

> Asleep, little devil, no pain
> You would adhere lightning to water
sweet god, terrible from pain
to hold the strength separate
>
> The blessings shower and curl my hair,
> Your hair and the hair of God’s witness
but I expect not to share
nothing of the blessed ones
>
> You are no toy, nor am I:
> Hear the oars paddling.
for I would not be like this
toys

But my it happen to me
All

As you see here, I did not keep perfect to either her word count or number of line, but cut my poem short to meet the needs of making my own poem complete I guess that’s one of the points where your question about “Freedom” comes into the making process. Interestingly - I think - having forgot I had done this poem once, I re-did it and came up with what is in my book as 63.Alt.A. Which goes:

Lie down
On an alabaster pillow

Little devil, take my
Pleasure blended as a pearl

I will give you
Into a bed of small gods

Tiny features in their faces

Dimples and seizure.

**
So, oppositionally speaking, I am not only turning Carson’s words upside down, but also the voice’s attitude and tone. Yes, I suspect the process is mischievous (devilish!), or, maybe deeper than that, where I am trying to make poems that cut to a deeper level than the Carson (or, at least, arrive at a correspondingly deep level). An agit- prop form of translation? I don’t know. Yesterday, I described the process as ‘reverential hijacking’ - one that I have used in the works of Fanny Howe and Louis Zukofsky, as well. These, including Carson, are all obvious very strong poets and I really enjoy how they feed amd provoke the work. If I can use the basketball metaphor (of which I used to spend hours a day practicing and competing) doing translations like this are like a wonderful one-on-one game - where the moves of a player with the ball are shadowed (or matched) by the guarding, shots respond to shots, skillfully, imaginatively and as variously as possible. This particular match having the additional element of not only being in response to Ann Carson’s work, but across history in response to Sappho’s greek, as well. Every great work - I believe - opens such a dialog.

There may be much more anyone can say about these - my “inside” position as a maker puts a limit on how much I can either say or see. Indeed the poems are full of references to persons in my own immediate world of other poets, lovers, friends, and other protagonists. Yet the work is about the work and not about person(s) in particular.

Apart from acknowleging the Carson translations (which I like) as a propelling source, I most of all want the poems to stand on their own, as well as give a new and perhaps different angle of vision on the Sapphic legend.

I will shut-up now and not further cloud anyones responses to the work on its own!

Anny’s website - to which I recommend a visit - is:
http://annyballardini.blogspot.com

As some know, for the last couple of years, I have been ‘translating’ Sappho
into a work called, Sleeping with Sappho. In fact,, I have posted a few of the ‘in progress’ works on this blog:

White dream
You come in a stream

Asleep, little devil, no pain
You would adhere lightning to water

The blessings shower and curl my hair,
Your hair and the hair of God’s witness

You are no toy, nor am I:
Hear the oars paddling.

Jack Kimball’s faux, an e-book publisher, has now published the entire work on its site:

http://www.fauxpress.com/e/vincent/

Enjoy yourself, and Sappho, too!

Walking Theory #88

“Since we live in the Spirit

Let’s keep step in the Spirit”

God’s vacancy is not an option:

A thin film of warm sweat

At swim in Three Persons

Among the Palms & Churches

Moving graceful & sweetly

Here – step by step - along Dolores.

*
from Sleeping with Sappho

130.

Hatred, arm breaker (never over) fucks me:
Infinite sour drunk just won’t go home.

*

How does anyone write two poems like this in the same day?
Fortunately they can stand alone (“Get to your rooms”) in
separate manuscripts.

“Escape the Gym”

Her T-Shirt, she walks by

Real fast, barely an eye to my eye.

*
“How you doing, Mom?”

“I guess I’m surviving. And that’s about it.”

“You always were a survivor.”

“Yes. I am a tough old bird…All these deaths

you know, I am sure it’s true that some of them

just want to escape.”

“Why do you think they want to escape?”

“Oh, I think there’s just too many people

and too many problems. That’s what I think.”

*

“What’s your project now?”

“My project –the one that makes me money –

is a book for a Library. But I am also writing.”

“Well, don’t stop. Once you stop it’s hard to start.

I took a class and the man told me not to stop.

He said he would publish anything I wrote.

But I had three little young ones.

Sometimes life just goes like that.

Just don’t stop.”

“Wasn’t Pa a good writer?”

“Yes, but it was mother who was the best.

In those days nobody thought to preserve it.”

*

“Do you miss Chris?”

“All the time.”

“I don’t think he knew where to fit.”

“He had so much intelligence and imagination.”

“He did not know how to ask for help.”

“He did. When he did, his voice was so plaintiff.

I kept telling Daddy to take Chris out

and talk to him. But he never did.

It was not his generation.

Now everybody talks to everybody.”

*

Lord, give my mother a shawl

Across her shoulders, when she crosses:

Make it white with a thin thread of red

Sewn close on the edge of each border.

All weekend preparing what’s become a large manuscript, Sleeping With Sappho.
A publisher that has an e-book series is now considering a selection.

It’s been a while since I have had the opportunity to flesh out a full manuscript - to drop the stuff that does not work and to shape the rest into some sense of completion. I had forgotten how electric that process can be. Perhaps that feeling is more on target when working with poems. The ear gets totally heightened - the attention riveted to making sure everything is ‘on pitch.’ When it works - the poems in sequence - rubbing into or against each other - it’s amazing. Like either being on a perfect drug where every rain drop splashes exquisitely or playing that rare game of basketball where - in the middle of a streak, every shot you take goes in a beautiful arc over the defender and cuts the net without touching the rim.
One hopes for a reader that gets it, gets ‘on’, too!
Please don’t remind me, I still have an editor to face!

Sappho: 101.

A belt
The brass buckle
Fresh and newly shiny
I sent by friend
To you in the north.