As I mentioned to some of you in a creative writing class,
I have a real interest in the prose poem.
And I'd like to begin my reading tonight with a prose poem
that I translated from the French poet, Max Jacob,
from a collection called The Dice Cup.
It's a poem, which is like many others in the collection,
heavily influenced by Jacob's finding World War I
a trauma which entered his psyche in profound ways.
Very much the same way that Rilke--
that Trakl, excuse me Trakl felt about World War I or Wilfred
Owen.
And he wrote a number of poems about the war
and I translated about 10 of them.
I'm going to read one before reading my own work.
This prose poem is called The War.
At night, the surrounding boulevards
are filled with snow.
The bandits are soldiers.
They attack me with laughs and sabers.
They strip me.
I run away only to fall into the hands of another band.
Is this the courtyard or a barracks?
Or one of an inn?
Nothing but sabers.
Nothing but lances.
It's snowing.
They stick me with a syringe.
It's a poison meant to kill me.
The head of a skeleton, veiled in crepe bites my finger.
The Hades of street lamps casts on the snow.
The light of my death.