WEBVTT 00:00:00.000 --> 00:00:04.110 align:middle line:84% Thank you very much, [? Ms. Fuller. ?] My Thanks 00:00:04.110 --> 00:00:08.910 align:middle line:84% to all of you for coming and for all of the hospitality I felt 00:00:08.910 --> 00:00:13.485 align:middle line:90% in Arizona since I came. 00:00:13.485 --> 00:00:17.790 align:middle line:90% 00:00:17.790 --> 00:00:20.080 align:middle line:84% I'm grateful for all kinds of things. 00:00:20.080 --> 00:00:25.330 align:middle line:84% And perhaps specifically for one little linguistic acquisition, 00:00:25.330 --> 00:00:27.840 align:middle line:90% which I've made here. 00:00:27.840 --> 00:00:31.650 align:middle line:84% I've been assembling over the years remarks 00:00:31.650 --> 00:00:34.050 align:middle line:84% that I somehow stumble into, which 00:00:34.050 --> 00:00:36.210 align:middle line:84% I mean as complements in which turn out 00:00:36.210 --> 00:00:38.310 align:middle line:90% to be just the opposite. 00:00:38.310 --> 00:00:41.410 align:middle line:84% And I heard a rather good one, I think, here, 00:00:41.410 --> 00:00:44.250 align:middle line:84% which I pass on not just so I can 00:00:44.250 --> 00:00:47.310 align:middle line:84% start the evening with the jokes that those unaccustomed 00:00:47.310 --> 00:00:49.200 align:middle line:90% to are supposed to. 00:00:49.200 --> 00:00:52.690 align:middle line:84% But because it is of some interest, 00:00:52.690 --> 00:00:55.950 align:middle line:84% I think, to people who care about language. 00:00:55.950 --> 00:01:01.050 align:middle line:84% I think I stumbled into the first of these. 00:01:01.050 --> 00:01:05.670 align:middle line:84% There's a great name for this-- noema, I think-- 00:01:05.670 --> 00:01:09.870 align:middle line:84% when the opposite of the intention intended as conveyed. 00:01:09.870 --> 00:01:12.450 align:middle line:84% I think the first one happened to me at the Bread Loaf 00:01:12.450 --> 00:01:17.310 align:middle line:84% Writers' Conference when as we were walking across the street 00:01:17.310 --> 00:01:23.790 align:middle line:84% to our dinner, a lady said, may I take your hand in case 00:01:23.790 --> 00:01:26.640 align:middle line:90% I break my leg. 00:01:26.640 --> 00:01:30.690 align:middle line:90% And I said, I wish you would. 00:01:30.690 --> 00:01:31.620 align:middle line:90% That's one. 00:01:31.620 --> 00:01:40.390 align:middle line:84% Or another was also at Bread Loaf on a last morning there. 00:01:40.390 --> 00:01:43.390 align:middle line:84% And that means after all of the farewell parties 00:01:43.390 --> 00:01:45.070 align:middle line:90% the night before. 00:01:45.070 --> 00:01:48.820 align:middle line:84% And that means people were not quite as perceptive as they 00:01:48.820 --> 00:01:50.230 align:middle line:90% had been other mornings. 00:01:50.230 --> 00:01:52.480 align:middle line:84% And it means people were more confused. 00:01:52.480 --> 00:01:55.810 align:middle line:84% And there was more chaos around than usual. 00:01:55.810 --> 00:01:58.810 align:middle line:84% And everybody was dashing around at breakfast saying, 00:01:58.810 --> 00:02:02.230 align:middle line:84% goodbye, see you next year, goodbye, goodbye. 00:02:02.230 --> 00:02:03.710 align:middle line:90% It was rather worrisome. 00:02:03.710 --> 00:02:06.100 align:middle line:84% And I turned to the lady next to me and said-- 00:02:06.100 --> 00:02:11.140 align:middle line:84% meaning well, and said, I don't want to say goodbye to anyone 00:02:11.140 --> 00:02:12.010 align:middle line:90% except you. 00:02:12.010 --> 00:02:21.690 align:middle line:90% 00:02:21.690 --> 00:02:24.420 align:middle line:84% The third example happened the other night right here. 00:02:24.420 --> 00:02:29.820 align:middle line:84% This is the Arizona contribution when someone in town 00:02:29.820 --> 00:02:34.410 align:middle line:84% asked me in for a drink before dinner. 00:02:34.410 --> 00:02:37.320 align:middle line:84% And the lady had been away for a couple of weeks. 00:02:37.320 --> 00:02:43.470 align:middle line:84% And the provisions were all in a kind of garage, I guess it was. 00:02:43.470 --> 00:02:47.648 align:middle line:84% And she said, would you help me bring in this stuff. 00:02:47.648 --> 00:02:48.690 align:middle line:90% And so we went out there. 00:02:48.690 --> 00:02:50.620 align:middle line:90% And here was this large case. 00:02:50.620 --> 00:02:53.580 align:middle line:84% And I said, do you want me to bring the whole case in. 00:02:53.580 --> 00:02:55.560 align:middle line:84% And she said, yes, since you're here. 00:02:55.560 --> 00:03:01.170 align:middle line:90% 00:03:01.170 --> 00:03:04.110 align:middle line:84% What all this meant was, of course, it's heavy. 00:03:04.110 --> 00:03:07.530 align:middle line:84% And I wish you'd help me with it while someone is here. 00:03:07.530 --> 00:03:12.000 align:middle line:84% But that's the third noema, if that's indeed the word for it. 00:03:12.000 --> 00:03:15.390 align:middle line:84% People who write poetry are interested in ambiguities. 00:03:15.390 --> 00:03:21.750 align:middle line:90% And this is a kind of ambiguity. 00:03:21.750 --> 00:03:24.060 align:middle line:90% A kind of double meaning. 00:03:24.060 --> 00:03:26.003 align:middle line:84% Not exactly in the classic sense. 00:03:26.003 --> 00:03:27.420 align:middle line:84% And I don't know whether poets can 00:03:27.420 --> 00:03:33.060 align:middle line:84% aim at this figure of speech or not, maybe. 00:03:33.060 --> 00:03:36.180 align:middle line:84% I thought I'd start though after that gracious introduction 00:03:36.180 --> 00:03:38.160 align:middle line:84% and after all of this hospitality 00:03:38.160 --> 00:03:42.210 align:middle line:84% by biting the hand that feeds me. 00:03:42.210 --> 00:03:45.990 align:middle line:84% By saying what I can against poetry readings. 00:03:45.990 --> 00:03:49.200 align:middle line:84% I really don't like poetry readings at all. 00:03:49.200 --> 00:03:52.380 align:middle line:84% At least other people's poetry readings. 00:03:52.380 --> 00:03:59.040 align:middle line:84% And I think if you haven't heard the case against them, 00:03:59.040 --> 00:04:00.630 align:middle line:90% maybe you ought to. 00:04:00.630 --> 00:04:03.690 align:middle line:84% There's a good deal to be said against poetry readings 00:04:03.690 --> 00:04:06.480 align:middle line:84% besides the fact that they're intrinsically boring 00:04:06.480 --> 00:04:08.640 align:middle line:90% for everybody except the reader. 00:04:08.640 --> 00:04:12.360 align:middle line:84% Unless one's name is Dylan Thomas maybe. 00:04:12.360 --> 00:04:15.930 align:middle line:84% And that is that they misrepresent-- 00:04:15.930 --> 00:04:20.490 align:middle line:84% well, first of all, it's impossible to get a new poem 00:04:20.490 --> 00:04:22.230 align:middle line:90% on hearing it. 00:04:22.230 --> 00:04:26.370 align:middle line:84% As Jorge Guillen, the Spanish poet, said, 00:04:26.370 --> 00:04:30.270 align:middle line:84% a poem is not read until it's reread. 00:04:30.270 --> 00:04:34.110 align:middle line:84% Or you could say until it's reread and reread and reread. 00:04:34.110 --> 00:04:38.010 align:middle line:84% And good poems don't communicate on the fly. 00:04:38.010 --> 00:04:40.440 align:middle line:84% If one is reading poems you already know, 00:04:40.440 --> 00:04:44.400 align:middle line:84% perhaps it's all right to listen to the reading of the poems. 00:04:44.400 --> 00:04:46.140 align:middle line:90% It can't hurt, I suppose. 00:04:46.140 --> 00:04:50.550 align:middle line:84% But it doesn't help much to hear a new poem read. 00:04:50.550 --> 00:04:54.510 align:middle line:84% And a second caution about poetry readings 00:04:54.510 --> 00:05:00.960 align:middle line:84% is that the poem after all, is what gets embodied in words. 00:05:00.960 --> 00:05:03.180 align:middle line:90% This is all that matters. 00:05:03.180 --> 00:05:07.500 align:middle line:84% It has nothing to do with the personality of the writer. 00:05:07.500 --> 00:05:12.030 align:middle line:84% And if one perceives the poem through the personality 00:05:12.030 --> 00:05:15.180 align:middle line:84% of the writer, he confuses the two. 00:05:15.180 --> 00:05:19.260 align:middle line:84% I've seen some classic examples of this kind of thing. 00:05:19.260 --> 00:05:23.910 align:middle line:84% Again, in Bread Loaf one summer there was a very 00:05:23.910 --> 00:05:26.220 align:middle line:90% handsome waiter, I guess. 00:05:26.220 --> 00:05:30.120 align:middle line:84% He was a tall, bronze boy with a beautiful voice 00:05:30.120 --> 00:05:32.910 align:middle line:90% and he read his poems. 00:05:32.910 --> 00:05:35.220 align:middle line:90% And girls swoon, sort of. 00:05:35.220 --> 00:05:37.590 align:middle line:84% Well, the poems weren't any good. 00:05:37.590 --> 00:05:39.300 align:middle line:90% But how did they know? 00:05:39.300 --> 00:05:41.280 align:middle line:90% They weren't just listening. 00:05:41.280 --> 00:05:43.350 align:middle line:84% They were looking at this gorgeous figure 00:05:43.350 --> 00:05:45.780 align:middle line:84% and listening to this marvelous voice. 00:05:45.780 --> 00:05:48.810 align:middle line:84% And they didn't realize that what was coming out 00:05:48.810 --> 00:05:50.910 align:middle line:84% of this very masculine throat was 00:05:50.910 --> 00:05:54.450 align:middle line:84% a series of puny little poems that wouldn't have 00:05:54.450 --> 00:05:56.700 align:middle line:90% looked any good on the page. 00:05:56.700 --> 00:05:58.260 align:middle line:90% They weren't any good. 00:05:58.260 --> 00:06:00.150 align:middle line:84% And they were confusing the poems 00:06:00.150 --> 00:06:02.220 align:middle line:84% with the personality of the poet. 00:06:02.220 --> 00:06:05.190 align:middle line:90% Or the reverse can happen. 00:06:05.190 --> 00:06:09.570 align:middle line:84% They tell me that a few years ago, a very good English poet 00:06:09.570 --> 00:06:11.190 align:middle line:90% read at Harvard. 00:06:11.190 --> 00:06:13.380 align:middle line:84% And he was a very unimpressive man. 00:06:13.380 --> 00:06:16.350 align:middle line:84% A meek little Caspar Milquetoast sort of man. 00:06:16.350 --> 00:06:19.320 align:middle line:90% He read his poems very timidly. 00:06:19.320 --> 00:06:22.680 align:middle line:84% They weren't well received because nobody heard the poems 00:06:22.680 --> 00:06:25.110 align:middle line:84% as the poems were extremely strong 00:06:25.110 --> 00:06:26.850 align:middle line:90% and vibrant and masculine. 00:06:26.850 --> 00:06:30.360 align:middle line:84% And they're with us as long as there's an English language. 00:06:30.360 --> 00:06:32.980 align:middle line:84% But people at the reading didn't know that. 00:06:32.980 --> 00:06:35.130 align:middle line:84% And he was followed by a second reader 00:06:35.130 --> 00:06:40.660 align:middle line:84% who had dramatic training or something of that sort. 00:06:40.660 --> 00:06:42.300 align:middle line:90% And was dressed for the part. 00:06:42.300 --> 00:06:44.070 align:middle line:90% And was again, tall and bronze. 00:06:44.070 --> 00:06:45.480 align:middle line:90% And the poems weren't any good. 00:06:45.480 --> 00:06:48.240 align:middle line:90% But he got a tremendous hand. 00:06:48.240 --> 00:06:50.530 align:middle line:84% It's very, very difficult, I think, 00:06:50.530 --> 00:06:52.770 align:middle line:84% to discriminate between the person reading 00:06:52.770 --> 00:06:54.720 align:middle line:90% and the poems read. 00:06:54.720 --> 00:06:59.850 align:middle line:84% And this is why I warn you against poetry readings. 00:06:59.850 --> 00:07:04.320 align:middle line:84% And I do what I can to undermine their popularity. 00:07:04.320 --> 00:07:06.660 align:middle line:90% I give them now and then. 00:07:06.660 --> 00:07:09.420 align:middle line:90% And that I think should do it. 00:07:09.420 --> 00:07:10.620 align:middle line:90% But I really wish-- 00:07:10.620 --> 00:07:15.660 align:middle line:90% 00:07:15.660 --> 00:07:18.660 align:middle line:84% There was a review recently in The London Times 00:07:18.660 --> 00:07:20.870 align:middle line:84% literary supplement of a new book 00:07:20.870 --> 00:07:25.190 align:middle line:84% by Philip Larkin, who's a very good English poet, I think. 00:07:25.190 --> 00:07:32.720 align:middle line:84% And it said, Mr. Larkin has refused almost all invitations 00:07:32.720 --> 00:07:39.350 align:middle line:84% to judge, recite, review, lecture, pontificate, 00:07:39.350 --> 00:07:40.910 align:middle line:90% be interviewed. 00:07:40.910 --> 00:07:46.670 align:middle line:84% And has continued to produce his rare and fine poems. 00:07:46.670 --> 00:07:48.350 align:middle line:84% This is really what we should do. 00:07:48.350 --> 00:07:51.290 align:middle line:84% And what one wants to say to a number of young poets 00:07:51.290 --> 00:07:55.520 align:middle line:84% who are interested in lecture tours, beware of the poets 00:07:55.520 --> 00:07:58.230 align:middle line:84% who read a lot, I can tell you that. 00:07:58.230 --> 00:08:01.220 align:middle line:84% But what one wants to say to the young people interested in this 00:08:01.220 --> 00:08:04.190 align:middle line:90% is, go home and shut up. 00:08:04.190 --> 00:08:06.710 align:middle line:90% Go home and get to work. 00:08:06.710 --> 00:08:07.970 align:middle line:90% Be like Frost. 00:08:07.970 --> 00:08:11.840 align:middle line:84% Work for 20 years without paying any attention to publication 00:08:11.840 --> 00:08:15.620 align:middle line:84% and making this or that magazine or getting on this 00:08:15.620 --> 00:08:18.260 align:middle line:90% or that lecture schedule. 00:08:18.260 --> 00:08:21.170 align:middle line:84% This is the admirable thing to do. 00:08:21.170 --> 00:08:22.855 align:middle line:84% And when one has enough character, 00:08:22.855 --> 00:08:23.730 align:middle line:90% this is what he does. 00:08:23.730 --> 00:08:25.130 align:middle line:90% He stays home. 00:08:25.130 --> 00:08:31.580 align:middle line:84% But I like Tucson and people in Tucson. 00:08:31.580 --> 00:08:36.320 align:middle line:84% I wish though I could say with Alexander Pope. 00:08:36.320 --> 00:08:39.140 align:middle line:84% "I ne'er with wits or witlings pass'd 00:08:39.140 --> 00:08:44.870 align:middle line:84% my days to spread about the itch of verse and praise. 00:08:44.870 --> 00:08:48.950 align:middle line:84% Nor like a puppy daggled through the town 00:08:48.950 --> 00:08:53.610 align:middle line:84% to fetch and carry sing-song up and down," 00:08:53.610 --> 00:08:55.070 align:middle line:90% which is what the readers do. 00:08:55.070 --> 00:09:00.920 align:middle line:84% Well, I guess I'm going to fetch and carry a little sing-song. 00:09:00.920 --> 00:09:04.550 align:middle line:84% I hope because I rather felt this is one poetry 00:09:04.550 --> 00:09:05.870 align:middle line:90% reading I shouldn't miss. 00:09:05.870 --> 00:09:10.010 align:middle line:90% 00:09:10.010 --> 00:09:10.805 align:middle line:90% So here it is. 00:09:10.805 --> 00:09:13.970 align:middle line:90% 00:09:13.970 --> 00:09:18.050 align:middle line:84% My favorite remark about a poetry reading, I think, 00:09:18.050 --> 00:09:22.790 align:middle line:84% is what a listener is supposed to have said to one poet 00:09:22.790 --> 00:09:24.560 align:middle line:90% after his reading. 00:09:24.560 --> 00:09:29.360 align:middle line:84% A young man came up and said, sir, that last poem, 00:09:29.360 --> 00:09:33.800 align:middle line:84% was that a real poem or did you make that up? 00:09:33.800 --> 00:09:45.840 align:middle line:84% And I thought I might start with a few real poems 00:09:45.840 --> 00:09:48.030 align:middle line:90% that I didn't make up. 00:09:48.030 --> 00:09:51.900 align:middle line:84% A couple of translations that is, truthfully 00:09:51.900 --> 00:09:54.060 align:middle line:90% from Saint John of the Cross. 00:09:54.060 --> 00:09:57.270 align:middle line:84% And I don't suppose I have to say again 00:09:57.270 --> 00:09:59.460 align:middle line:84% since I've been saying often lately 00:09:59.460 --> 00:10:02.850 align:middle line:90% that poetry is untranslatable. 00:10:02.850 --> 00:10:05.280 align:middle line:84% And that as Robert Frost said, poetry 00:10:05.280 --> 00:10:08.970 align:middle line:90% is what is lost in translation. 00:10:08.970 --> 00:10:14.460 align:middle line:84% Poetry is what is lost in translation because poetry 00:10:14.460 --> 00:10:17.130 align:middle line:84% is poetry because of a particularly 00:10:17.130 --> 00:10:21.180 align:middle line:84% intimate connection between what is said and the way it said. 00:10:21.180 --> 00:10:24.420 align:middle line:90% And what is said is not poetry. 00:10:24.420 --> 00:10:29.370 align:middle line:84% And many translators just give us what is said, 00:10:29.370 --> 00:10:31.890 align:middle line:84% which is not the poem at all, of course. 00:10:31.890 --> 00:10:33.660 align:middle line:90% And is a little bit like-- 00:10:33.660 --> 00:10:36.600 align:middle line:84% as I said, I guess this morning, a little bit like judging 00:10:36.600 --> 00:10:38.370 align:middle line:90% a beauty contest by X-rays. 00:10:38.370 --> 00:10:45.530 align:middle line:90% 00:10:45.530 --> 00:10:49.460 align:middle line:84% Well, what do you do when you're translating a poem? 00:10:49.460 --> 00:10:54.710 align:middle line:84% One thing you can do is what [? Vaali ?] called something 00:10:54.710 --> 00:10:58.520 align:middle line:84% like the technique of equivalent effect. 00:10:58.520 --> 00:11:01.070 align:middle line:84% That is don't try to give the thought of the poem. 00:11:01.070 --> 00:11:05.750 align:middle line:84% Try to recreate something which in your language 00:11:05.750 --> 00:11:09.350 align:middle line:84% has what you take to be the effect the original had 00:11:09.350 --> 00:11:10.880 align:middle line:90% in its language. 00:11:10.880 --> 00:11:14.660 align:middle line:84% In that way, the readers know what kind of poet the poet is. 00:11:14.660 --> 00:11:17.750 align:middle line:84% If they heard the thought, they have no idea what kind of poet 00:11:17.750 --> 00:11:19.160 align:middle line:90% he is. 00:11:19.160 --> 00:11:23.060 align:middle line:84% And this is what I tried to do with the poems of St 00:11:23.060 --> 00:11:24.050 align:middle line:90% John of the Cross. 00:11:24.050 --> 00:11:26.300 align:middle line:90% I can't say I did it. 00:11:26.300 --> 00:11:30.470 align:middle line:84% I can't say tonight that my reading of any 00:11:30.470 --> 00:11:34.760 align:middle line:84% of the poems I read constitutes any particular approval 00:11:34.760 --> 00:11:36.240 align:middle line:90% of these poems. 00:11:36.240 --> 00:11:40.370 align:middle line:84% Just the only ones I have to read. 00:11:40.370 --> 00:11:43.550 align:middle line:84% But this is what I was trying to do in this translation. 00:11:43.550 --> 00:11:45.110 align:middle line:84% And when you do this, what you do 00:11:45.110 --> 00:11:48.350 align:middle line:84% is take the thought of the original poem. 00:11:48.350 --> 00:11:51.740 align:middle line:84% You try to find out what kind of diction it was. 00:11:51.740 --> 00:11:54.410 align:middle line:84% And you can only do this by having 00:11:54.410 --> 00:11:56.300 align:middle line:84% spoken the language since you were 00:11:56.300 --> 00:11:58.610 align:middle line:90% a child, the other language. 00:11:58.610 --> 00:12:03.680 align:middle line:84% Or else having that most useful of scholarly tools 00:12:03.680 --> 00:12:07.670 align:middle line:84% and translation, a friendly native. 00:12:07.670 --> 00:12:09.920 align:middle line:84% And you talk to this person and say, 00:12:09.920 --> 00:12:11.930 align:middle line:90% not what does this word mean. 00:12:11.930 --> 00:12:14.270 align:middle line:84% That doesn't matter so much in the poetry. 00:12:14.270 --> 00:12:16.520 align:middle line:90% But when would you use it. 00:12:16.520 --> 00:12:19.040 align:middle line:90% 00:12:19.040 --> 00:12:22.280 align:middle line:84% What has been its history in your language. 00:12:22.280 --> 00:12:24.920 align:middle line:84% Is it a formal word or an informal word. 00:12:24.920 --> 00:12:26.420 align:middle line:90% Would a child use it? 00:12:26.420 --> 00:12:28.700 align:middle line:84% You have to get the tone of the word. 00:12:28.700 --> 00:12:31.310 align:middle line:84% And no dictionary will give you that. 00:12:31.310 --> 00:12:33.680 align:middle line:84% If you don't do this in translating, 00:12:33.680 --> 00:12:40.700 align:middle line:84% you make all kinds of boners Recent translation of Octavio 00:12:40.700 --> 00:12:44.450 align:middle line:84% Paz, they tell me has hundreds of plane boners 00:12:44.450 --> 00:12:48.050 align:middle line:84% in it because the translator looking 00:12:48.050 --> 00:12:52.130 align:middle line:84% at the Spanish word "hombro," which means shoulder, 00:12:52.130 --> 00:12:55.730 align:middle line:84% thinks she's looking at "hombre," which means man. 00:12:55.730 --> 00:12:57.290 align:middle line:90% That's a boner. 00:12:57.290 --> 00:12:58.760 align:middle line:90% It's not taking a liberty. 00:12:58.760 --> 00:13:00.800 align:middle line:90% It's a plain boner. 00:13:00.800 --> 00:13:05.330 align:middle line:84% And ignorance is always ugliness, it seems to me. 00:13:05.330 --> 00:13:08.580 align:middle line:84% And a great many translators are ignorant. 00:13:08.580 --> 00:13:10.940 align:middle line:84% I don't think anybody who doesn't 00:13:10.940 --> 00:13:14.420 align:middle line:84% know a language very well or know this friendly native ought 00:13:14.420 --> 00:13:15.830 align:middle line:90% to translate it. 00:13:15.830 --> 00:13:20.555 align:middle line:84% And young poets are translating all over the place as you know. 00:13:20.555 --> 00:13:23.540 align:middle line:84% One is translating from the Scandinavian 00:13:23.540 --> 00:13:27.110 align:middle line:84% because he lived a year in Sweden or somewhere. 00:13:27.110 --> 00:13:29.780 align:middle line:84% A man in Swedish at Harvard tells me 00:13:29.780 --> 00:13:32.480 align:middle line:84% the book has hundreds of simple mistakes 00:13:32.480 --> 00:13:33.980 align:middle line:90% that anybody should know. 00:13:33.980 --> 00:13:37.310 align:middle line:84% Clearly this translator was arrogant. 00:13:37.310 --> 00:13:40.950 align:middle line:84% It never occurred to him to check up on little things. 00:13:40.950 --> 00:13:45.140 align:middle line:90% This I think is pretty bad. 00:13:45.140 --> 00:13:48.470 align:middle line:84% There are some famous boners in the history of translation. 00:13:48.470 --> 00:13:51.830 align:middle line:84% One of my favorites is the story of the Spaniard 00:13:51.830 --> 00:13:53.930 align:middle line:84% who was translating Emily Dickinson 00:13:53.930 --> 00:13:56.990 align:middle line:84% and came across the line, I never saw moor. 00:13:56.990 --> 00:14:01.490 align:middle line:90% 00:14:01.490 --> 00:14:07.490 align:middle line:84% Well, I don't have to even finish this story. 00:14:07.490 --> 00:14:12.470 align:middle line:84% The Spaniard knew very well what a war was. 00:14:12.470 --> 00:14:14.630 align:middle line:90% He'd read Spanish history. 00:14:14.630 --> 00:14:18.920 align:middle line:84% But he had all kinds of trouble with the rest of the poem, 00:14:18.920 --> 00:14:21.590 align:middle line:90% trying to make it make sense. 00:14:21.590 --> 00:14:29.870 align:middle line:84% Or another good example is the Italian translation 00:14:29.870 --> 00:14:35.090 align:middle line:84% I saw of a poem by Kenneth Patchen, which has the line 00:14:35.090 --> 00:14:38.660 align:middle line:84% and a girl says, why don't you come up and see me tonight, 00:14:38.660 --> 00:14:39.905 align:middle line:90% I've got nothing on. 00:14:39.905 --> 00:14:43.130 align:middle line:90% 00:14:43.130 --> 00:14:47.420 align:middle line:84% The Italian didn't know that idiom. 00:14:47.420 --> 00:14:49.580 align:middle line:90% That was a real boner. 00:14:49.580 --> 00:14:52.280 align:middle line:84% And history of translations, I suppose, 00:14:52.280 --> 00:14:54.770 align:middle line:90% are full of remarks of-- 00:14:54.770 --> 00:14:57.020 align:middle line:84% I don't say there aren't any boners here. 00:14:57.020 --> 00:14:59.030 align:middle line:84% I do say there are lots of liberties 00:14:59.030 --> 00:15:02.600 align:middle line:84% that what this translator tried to do 00:15:02.600 --> 00:15:04.920 align:middle line:84% is take the thought, the diction. 00:15:04.920 --> 00:15:06.590 align:middle line:84% And it was this matter of diction 00:15:06.590 --> 00:15:10.550 align:middle line:84% that has distracted me for a while. 00:15:10.550 --> 00:15:13.460 align:middle line:90% The diction, the rhythm. 00:15:13.460 --> 00:15:15.590 align:middle line:84% You'll find lots of poets who will tell you 00:15:15.590 --> 00:15:20.120 align:middle line:84% the rhythm is more important than the thought. 00:15:20.120 --> 00:15:22.220 align:middle line:90% As far as a poem goes, that is. 00:15:22.220 --> 00:15:24.740 align:middle line:84% If it doesn't have a rhythm, it's just not a poem. 00:15:24.740 --> 00:15:27.590 align:middle line:84% Whereas if it doesn't have a thought, maybe it is. 00:15:27.590 --> 00:15:29.960 align:middle line:90% Anyway, maybe it is. 00:15:29.960 --> 00:15:32.030 align:middle line:90% The rhythm, the stanza form. 00:15:32.030 --> 00:15:34.700 align:middle line:84% I think what you do is take all of these things 00:15:34.700 --> 00:15:37.760 align:middle line:84% and then try to write a new poem incorporating as many 00:15:37.760 --> 00:15:38.930 align:middle line:90% as you can. 00:15:38.930 --> 00:15:40.790 align:middle line:84% And knowing perfectly well you're 00:15:40.790 --> 00:15:43.670 align:middle line:90% not going to get all of them. 00:15:43.670 --> 00:15:45.650 align:middle line:90% You know you're not. 00:15:45.650 --> 00:15:52.370 align:middle line:84% Translation is a kind of lost cause in a way. 00:15:52.370 --> 00:15:56.300 align:middle line:84% But here is a translation of one of St John's poems. 00:15:56.300 --> 00:15:58.610 align:middle line:90% The poem about the dark night. 00:15:58.610 --> 00:16:00.210 align:middle line:90% I think it's mimeographed. 00:16:00.210 --> 00:16:01.730 align:middle line:90% I don't know what page though. 00:16:01.730 --> 00:16:05.205 align:middle line:90% 00:16:05.205 --> 00:16:05.705 align:middle line:90% Six. 00:16:05.705 --> 00:16:08.900 align:middle line:90% 00:16:08.900 --> 00:16:11.780 align:middle line:84% I was surprised to find out that St John of the Cross 00:16:11.780 --> 00:16:14.900 align:middle line:84% is one of the greatest poets in Spanish. 00:16:14.900 --> 00:16:17.840 align:middle line:84% I thought that he was a famous mystic referred to 00:16:17.840 --> 00:16:21.350 align:middle line:90% by TS Eliot and a few others. 00:16:21.350 --> 00:16:25.590 align:middle line:84% But no, Spaniards know him as a very great poet. 00:16:25.590 --> 00:16:27.980 align:middle line:84% One of the greatest in their language. 00:16:27.980 --> 00:16:31.790 align:middle line:84% Many critics would say the greatest for a few poems. 00:16:31.790 --> 00:16:35.480 align:middle line:84% One critic has said that the highest points in St John 00:16:35.480 --> 00:16:39.110 align:middle line:84% are the highest points reached by poetry in any of the romance 00:16:39.110 --> 00:16:40.430 align:middle line:90% languages. 00:16:40.430 --> 00:16:44.420 align:middle line:84% But this is only for a few poems. 00:16:44.420 --> 00:16:47.060 align:middle line:90% Why is he good? 00:16:47.060 --> 00:16:50.480 align:middle line:90% Well, this is a religious poem. 00:16:50.480 --> 00:16:53.780 align:middle line:84% Religious poems are terribly hard to write 00:16:53.780 --> 00:16:58.130 align:middle line:84% as TS Eliot says because few people are really religious, 00:16:58.130 --> 00:16:59.960 align:middle line:90% passionately religious. 00:16:59.960 --> 00:17:02.420 align:middle line:84% And of those who are passionately religious, 00:17:02.420 --> 00:17:05.450 align:middle line:90% few are also good poets. 00:17:05.450 --> 00:17:08.630 align:middle line:84% Most people, he says, in religious poems 00:17:08.630 --> 00:17:12.829 align:middle line:84% don't say how they feel but how they think they ought to feel. 00:17:12.829 --> 00:17:15.740 align:middle line:90% What is proper to feel. 00:17:15.740 --> 00:17:19.310 align:middle line:84% Well St John was passionate and a great poet too. 00:17:19.310 --> 00:17:22.730 align:middle line:84% And these are perhaps as great as any religious poems are. 00:17:22.730 --> 00:17:26.089 align:middle line:84% And they're great for one thing because they don't insist 00:17:26.089 --> 00:17:28.560 align:middle line:90% on being religious at all. 00:17:28.560 --> 00:17:31.730 align:middle line:84% In fact, Spanish girls have told me that when they were young 00:17:31.730 --> 00:17:33.290 align:middle line:84% they read these poems and thought 00:17:33.290 --> 00:17:36.200 align:middle line:90% they were human love poems. 00:17:36.200 --> 00:17:38.990 align:middle line:84% And I'd like to say that this is what they would have 00:17:38.990 --> 00:17:45.710 align:middle line:84% to sound like if they're good poems because what can one 00:17:45.710 --> 00:17:48.570 align:middle line:90% say in terms of the senses. 00:17:48.570 --> 00:17:52.520 align:middle line:84% And I think one point that one has to insist on about poetry 00:17:52.520 --> 00:17:55.850 align:middle line:84% is that it's a very sensuous kind of thing. 00:17:55.850 --> 00:17:57.890 align:middle line:90% Really very primitive. 00:17:57.890 --> 00:18:01.220 align:middle line:84% And that people who write intellectual poetry aren't 00:18:01.220 --> 00:18:04.640 align:middle line:84% writing poetry at all because poetry 00:18:04.640 --> 00:18:07.730 align:middle line:84% is a kind of expression of the whole man. 00:18:07.730 --> 00:18:09.230 align:middle line:90% It's physiologic. 00:18:09.230 --> 00:18:12.230 align:middle line:84% A really sort of a vulgar thing, poetry. 00:18:12.230 --> 00:18:14.450 align:middle line:90% Instead of a highbrow thing. 00:18:14.450 --> 00:18:18.680 align:middle line:84% Which is why Garcia Lorca said the poet is 00:18:18.680 --> 00:18:22.040 align:middle line:90% a professor of the five senses. 00:18:22.040 --> 00:18:24.140 align:middle line:84% If he isn't that he isn't a poet. 00:18:24.140 --> 00:18:27.080 align:middle line:84% This is his field, the five senses. 00:18:27.080 --> 00:18:30.290 align:middle line:84% And if one is going to write poems about God, 00:18:30.290 --> 00:18:34.790 align:middle line:84% one has to write them in terms of the senses in some way. 00:18:34.790 --> 00:18:37.790 align:middle line:84% And St John of the Cross looked for the best image 00:18:37.790 --> 00:18:42.710 align:middle line:84% we have for divine love and found it in human love 00:18:42.710 --> 00:18:45.440 align:middle line:90% as the Song of Songs did. 00:18:45.440 --> 00:18:50.000 align:middle line:84% Human love, he felt, is the best and most exciting thing we know 00:18:50.000 --> 00:18:53.130 align:middle line:84% and the kind of experiences we have. 00:18:53.130 --> 00:18:55.400 align:middle line:84% And so he writes this whole poem as 00:18:55.400 --> 00:18:57.950 align:middle line:90% if it were a human love poem. 00:18:57.950 --> 00:19:00.240 align:middle line:84% And there's no place in the poem, I think, 00:19:00.240 --> 00:19:03.730 align:middle line:84% where you can say it isn't a human love poem. 00:19:03.730 --> 00:19:06.090 align:middle line:84% And if there were any place like this, 00:19:06.090 --> 00:19:08.880 align:middle line:84% it would be a poorer poem, I think. 00:19:08.880 --> 00:19:12.470 align:middle line:84% It's meaningful on the two levels.