Ar an lá seo 9 Iúil

	Ar an lá seo 9 Iúil, 1962, cailleadh Georges Bataille
Tá cáil dhomhanda air faoin méid a scríobh sé faoin tsúil (aiste nach féidir a chur ar fáil anseo ar eagla fonn a léite a bheith ar shúil mhaighdeanúil). In áit na súile mar sin, blaisimis d’ordóg na coise: “ Is í ordóg na coise an chuid is daonna den cholainn dhaonna, sa mhéid nach bhfuil aon chuid eile den cholainn chomh difreáilte ón gcuid chéanna sin atá ag an ápa antrapóideach (simpeansaí, goraille, órang-útan, nó giobún). An chúis atá leis sin ná go gcónaíonn an t-ápa i measc na gcrann ach go mbogann an duine thart gan breith ar ghéaga, ós crann é féin anois, i bhfocail eile, tá sé tar éis é féin a ardú san aer mar chrann, agus is áille é de thoradh a ardaithe. Anuas air sin, feidhm na coise ná bonn ceart a chur faoin éirí nó faoin seasamh sin a bhfuil an duine chomh bródúil sin as (éiríonn ordóg na coise as breith ar ghéaga agus leagtar ar an talamh í ar an leibhéal céanna leis na méara eile) . . . *** Cuireann a chos alltacht rúnda ar an duine agus sin ceann de na cúiseanna a gceiltear fad agus foirm na coise chomh mór agus is féidir. Baineann sála arda a bheag nó a mhór, ag brath ar ghnéas an chaiteora, ár n-aird ó nádúr íseal na coise ar an talamh. Lena chois sin, is minic a shamhlaítear an míshuaimhneas sin le míshuaimhneas gnéasach; tugtar sin faoi deara thar aon dream eile i measc na Síneach, an dream is mó a bhfuil lé acu leis an gclaonaíocht seo, dream a dhéanann cosa na mban a sheargadh. Níl cead ag an bhfear céile féin cosa nochta a chéile a fheiceáil agus níl sé ceart ná cuí féachaint ar chosa na mban i gcoitinne. An t-athair faoistine féin sa tSín, á chur féin in oiriúint don saobhadh seo, fiafraíonn sé den aithríoch, ‘Ar fhéachais ar chosa mná?’ Faightear an saobhadh céanna i measc na dTurcach (Turcaigh Volga, Turcaigh na hÁise Láir) atá den tuairim go bhfuil sé mímhorálta do chosa nochta a thaispeáint. Caitheann siad stocaí sa leaba.” Agus mar sin de go heireaball siar!

Octavio Paz: Níl a thuilleadh clíséanna uainn

("Less Talent, More Skin" -- a CNN headline about the Miss America pageant)
 

No More Clichés

 
Beautiful face
That like a daisy opens its petals to the sun
So do you
Open your face to me as I turn the page.

Enchanting smile
Any man would be under your spell,
Oh, beauty of a magazine.

How many poems have been written to you?
How many Dantes have written to you, Beatrice?
To your obsessive illusion
To your manufactured fantasy.

But today I won't make one more Cliché
And write this poem to you.
No, no more clichés.

This poem is dedicated to those women
Whose beauty is in their charm,
In their intelligence,
In their character,
Not in their fabricated looks.

This poem is to you women,
That like a Shahrazade wake up
Everyday with a new story to tell,
A story that sings for change
That hopes for battles:
Battles for the love of the united flesh
Battles for passions aroused by a new day
Battles for the neglected rights
Or just battles to survive one more night.

Yes, to you women in a world of pain
To you, bright star in this ever-spending universe
To you, fighter of a thousand-and-one fights
To you, friend of my heart.

From now on, my head won't look down to a magazine
Rather, it will contemplate the night
And its bright stars,
And so, no more clichés.
 

~ Octavio Paz ~
 
(Selected Poems)
 

 

Níl a thuilleadh clíséanna uainn

Aghaidh álainn
Ar nós nóinín a osclaíonn a chuid peiteal don ghrian
Osclaíonn tusa
D’aghaidh domsa agus an leathanach á chasadh agam.

Miongháire aoibhinn,
Cá bhfuil an fear nach mbeadh faoi dhraíocht agat,
A spéirbhean na hirise, ó.

Cad iad na laoithe a cumadh duit?
An mó Dante a chuir peann le pár, a Bhé?
Dod’ sheachmall dúghafa
Do d’fhantaise mhonaraithe

Ach ní chuirfeadsa leis na clíséanna
Sa dán seo duitse.
Deireadh go deo le clíséanna.

Tá an dán seo tiomanta do na mná sin
Arb í an ghrástúlacht a n-áilleacht,
An mheabhair chinn,
An dea-chlú
Seachas a gcló saorga.

Daoibhse an dán seo, a mhná
A dhúisíonn gach maidin in bhur Seithearasáid daoibh
Is scéal nua agaibh le hinsint,
Scéal a chanann an claochló
Agus dúil sa chaismirt:
Caismirt ar son ghrá na colainne san aon
Caismirt ar son na bpaisean a ndúisíonn lá nua iad
Caismirt ar son na gceart gan aird
Nó caismirt díreach chun teacht as oíche eile slán.

Sea, daoibhse, a bhantracht i ndomhan péine
Duitse, réalta eolais na cruinne ata á caitheamh de shíor
Duitse, trodaí cath is míle
Duitse, a chara mo chléibh.

As seo amach ní cromtha os cionn irise a bheidh an ceann seo
Ach ag machnamh ar an oíche
Is ar na réaltaí geala,
Mar sin, deireadh go deo le clíséanna.

Ar an lá seo 8 Iúil

	Ar an lá seo 8 Iúil, 1681, cailleadh Georg Neumark

Margadh na Míol in Valparaíso: REVIEW BY LIAM CARSON

Margadh na Míol in Valparaíso/The Flea Market in Valparaíso. 

Gabriel Rosenstock, 

translations by Paddy Bushe and the poet. 

Cló Iar-Chonnacht; 

448pp; €15 pb; 

978-1-909367-74-6
 

REVIEW BY LIAM CARSON (Books Ireland, Eagrán an tSamhraidh 2014)

Sometimes one’s reading dovetails in the most curious  ways. Whilst reading Gabriel Rosenstock’s new selected poems Margadh na Míol in Valparaíso/The Flea Market in Valparaíso, I was also reading Ursula Le Guin’s Tales of Earthsea, in which wizards are shape-changers (taking on the forms of various animals, such as otters or birds); and in which magic relies on the use of  the ‘old language’. Wizards are entrusted with keeping the balance of nature, their philosophy Taoist in nature. These are the themes at the heart of Rosenstock’s poetry.

Gabriel Rosenstock is a shape-changer poet. He is both everywhere and nowhere. He has published some 170 books – travelogues, poetry, novels, collections of haiku, not to mention translations into Irish of, among others, Bob Dylan, Jack Kerouac, Rabindranath Tagore, Günter Grass, Zhang Ye, Georg Trakl and Janak Sapkota. More than any other Irish poet, Rosenstock transcends national boundaries. Pádraig de Paor has suggested that, for Rosenstock, ‘the Irish language is the quickest route out of a self-obsessed Ireland to a cosmopolitanism beyond Anglo-Irish navel-gazing’.

Rosenstock’s ceaseless output has, almost paradoxically, the effect of rendering him invisible. Just as a literary editor is wondering what do with his latest book, he or she will doubtless find another five review copies landing on the desk. But one might as well ask Rosenstock to stop breathing as to slow down his output.  What is misunderstood is the nature of Rosenstock’s literary mission. Máirín Nic Eoin has suggested that his work is best seen as an ongoing project, a vast weave of poetry that draws on all manner of sources.

Rosenstock, as is well known, is one of the Innti generation of poets that included Liam Ó Muirthile, Michael Davitt and Nuala Ní Dhomhnaill. ‘Innti’ means ‘in her’, and quite apart from any obvious sexual pun, it alludes to being ‘in language’. Or, one might suggest, ‘in the groove’. Rosenstock is very much in the groove of his chosen language, Irish. In this volume’s introduction, Cathal Ó Searcaigh notes that Rosenstock ‘has learned much from the Gaelic tradition: the clear-sighted clarity of early Irish nature poems; the exquisitely fabricated interplay of sound and rhythm, assonance and alliteration of bardic poems; the thrilling sonority, the loops and whorls of sound of 18th century love poems’.

At times, Rosenstock imagines Irish literally speaking to him, and it is clear that the language itself is the muse. In ‘Konzipierung’ (‘Coincheap’), Irish declares its lack of faith in the word ‘coincheap’ (‘concept’), and rails against ‘Kant, Schopenhauer and Nietzsche’, telling the poet to ‘grab hold of some metaphor, a wren, let’s say, or a flea’. Or in Irish:
 

‘Tarraing meafar éigin chugat féin,
Dreoilín, abair, nó dreancaid…’

The question of the Irish language and its marginal and often despised position in Irish society inevitably surfaces in many of Rosenstock’s poems. There’s the tour-de-force of ‘Mustanbih’  (‘An Arabic word for a Bedouin who entices dogs to bark by imitating them, especially when he is lost in the desert at night trying to find a camp – perhaps his own camp. Often it’s not a dog but another lost Bedouin who answers him’):
 

Nach aisteach í teanga seo an ghadhair
ná tuigeann na gadhair féin í!
Tuigid… tuigid…ach tá bodhaire Uí Laoire orthu.

 

(‘Bizarre, isn’t it, this hound-language/that the hounds themselves can’t follow!/Follow they could… but they don’t want to hear.’)

Then there is the lovely ‘Is Tú an Ghaolainn’ (‘Irish’), in which he imagines the language as a deity:
 

Ionatsa a shlánaítear
An leathfhocal ina nath glé
Tríotsa bíonn gach seanfhocal nua

 

(‘In You the half-said thing is known/In perfect clarity/Through You every proverb is made new’)

For Rosenstock, poetry is not so much about self-expression, but rather about seeing clearly, and finding the requisite language to give form to perception. He speaks of ‘the opening of the heart’, and quotes Hazrat Inayat Khan – ‘As one can see when the eyes are open, so one can understand when the heart is open’. Openness is the theme of ‘Osclaím mo dhán’ (‘I open my poem’):
 

osclaím mo dhán do nithe geala
seo isteach oráistí, is caisearbháin,
míle fáilte
suigí síos
is beidh mé libh
 
(‘I open my poem to bright things/here come oranges, dandelions, /come in/take a seat/I’ll be right with you’)

It’s in this poem that Rosenstock also touches on another core theme – impermanence, as the poem concludes ‘osclaím mo dhán arís do nithe geala/ach níl aon ní fagtha’ (‘I open my poem again to bright things/but there’s nothing left’). His 2013 collection Sasquatch brilliantly tackles themes of loss and environmental destruction, speaking of ‘crainn ag éag ar fud na cruinne’ (‘trees, disappearing from the face of the earth’).

Margadh na Míol in Valparaíso/The Flea Market in Valparaíso is a terrific celebration of this most egoless of poets. Like an Earthsea wizard, Rosenstock is apt to take on a new persona at the drop of a hat – a cranky yeti, or the comic mystic Krishnamurphy, for example. His poems are, by turns, tender and lyrical, angry, self-deprecating, often very funny, always perfectly poised. This current selected comes with very fine translations by the poet himself and by Paddy Bushe. It should be essential reading for every poet in Ireland, all too many of whom are blind to what Irish language poets are up to. Finally, Rosenstock is all too aware that he is often dismissed as a holy fool of sorts. In ‘Agallamh’ (‘Interview’) he gleefully celebrates that fact, and the poetry within foolishness:
 

Agus conas a chuimhneofar ort, dar leat?
Mar fhile?
Mar amadán d’amadáin Dé.
Gura míle.
 
(‘And how do you expect to be remembered?/As a poet?/As a fool among God’s fools./Thanks.’)

Ar an lá seo 7 Iúil

	Ar an lá seo 7 Iúil, 1956, cailleadh Gottfried Benn.
Schöne Jugend Der Mund eines Mädchens, das lange im Schilf gelegen hatte, sah so angeknabbert aus. Als man die Brust aufbrach, war die Speiseröhre so löcherig. Schließlich in einer Laube unter dem Zwerchfell fand man ein Nest von jungen Ratten. Ein kleines Schwesterchen lag tot. Die andern lebten von Leber und Niere, tranken das kalte Blut und hatten hier eine schöne Jugend verlebt. Und schön und schnell kam auch ihr Tod: Man warf sie allesamt ins Wasser. Ach, wie die kleinen Schnauzen quietschten! Óige Bhreá Béal an ghearrchaile, is fada ina luí sa ghiolcach í, nach creimthe a bhí. Tar éis dúinn an chabhail a bhriseadh, bhí an t-éasafagas chomh pollta le criathar. Sa deireadh i gcluanóg faoin scairt thángthas ar nead francach óg. Bhí deirfiúirín díobh chomh marbh le hart. An chuid eile de na francaigh beo ar ae is ar dhuán, an fhuil fhuar á hól acu agus sult á bhaint acu as a n-óige bhreá. Agus is breá tapa, leis, mar a tháinig an bás chucu. Caitheadh san uisce iad go léir. Uch, an ghíog a lig na smuit bheaga sin!

Ar an lá seo 6 Iúil

	Ar an lá seo 6 Iúil, 1971, cailleadh Louis Armstrong
Ó nach breá é an saol Feicim glas na gcrann Deirge na rós Is iad faoi bhláth Duitse is domhs’ Agus deirim liom féin Ó nach breá é an saol. Feicim gorm na spéir’ Is néalta bán’ Is gile an lae An oíche faoi scáth Agus deirim liom féin Ó nach breá é an saol. Dathanna ’n bhogha cheatha Is gleoite iad sa spéir. Is aghaidheanna na ndaoine Na sluaite sin go léir Is iad ag croitheadh láimh’ Á rá, Conas tá tú?’ Sé tá ’cu á rá: ’S tú mo rún! An báibín ag gol, Ag fás go teann ’Foghlaim níos mó Ná mar ’tá im’ cheann Agus deirim liom féin Ó nach breá é an saol. Sea, deirim liom féin Ó nach breá é an saol. Ó yé.

Bob Marley - Ár

Go dtí go mbeidh an dearcadh go bhfuil cine amháin in uachtar
is cin' eile
thíos in íochtar
i ndeireadh thiar
is go deo na ndeor
gan aon chreidiúint
agus tréigthe -
gach aon áit beidh ár -
deirim ár.


Go dtí nach mbeidh a thuilleadh
céad ghrád is dara grád i measc na náisiún trí chéile
agus an dath atá ar chraiceann
a bheith ar aon tábhacht leis an dath atá ar do shúile -
deirim ár.

Go dtí go mbeidh ár gcearta daonna
 ar fáil go cothrom is do chách
is cuma cé thú féin -
beidh 'na ár.

Go dtí an lá sin
aisling na síochána
saoránacht an domhain
an mhoráltacht idirnáisiúnt' i réim
ní bheidh ann ach aisling bhaoth i mbéal na gaoithe sin an méid
aisling gan a lá
gach aon áit anois ár - ár.

Agus go dtí go mbeidh na réimis anuaisle sin
 agus an t-ansmacht in Angóla
 in Mósaimbíc
an Afraic Theas
an chos ar bolg
curtha ó mhaith
scriosta go hiomlán -

bhuel, gach ait beidh an t-ár-
deirim ár

Ár san oirthear
 ár san iarthar
ár ó thuaidh
ár ó dheas -
ár - ár -
ráflaí faoi ár
go dtí an lá sin
beidh Mór-Roinn na hAfraice
gan síocháin
troidfidh an tAfracach - dar linn is riachtanas é -
is beidh an bua againn
is muinín againn as
as an mbua sin.

An mhaith in aghaidh an oilc
maith in aghaidh an oilc, yé
maith in aghaidh an oilc,
maith in aghaidh an oilc, yé!
maith in aghaidh an oilc -
maith in aghaidh an oilc, yé!