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Selected Poems
During his life, Jorge Luis Borges wore many hats. He was, variously, a poet, an essayist, a short-story writer, a librarian, and, for a short time, a poultry inspector. Born in Argentina in 1899, he lived for several years in Europe before eventually returning home to Buenos Aires in the early 1920s. It was here that Borges started his career as a writer. At the age of 24, he published his first volume of poetry, and though he would go on to garner considerable acclaim as an essayist and crafter of fiction, he always considered himself first and foremost a poet. This bilingual edition of Selected Poems, edited by Alexander Coleman, gathers together 200 poems from different periods of Borges's life, including some that will be appearing in English for the first time.
Whether he was writing fiction, essays, or poetry, there were certain themes and subjects that Borges returned to time and again. His home town became a favorite topic--in his first collection, Fervor de Buenos Aires, he wrote: "My soul is in the streets / of Buenos Aires," a sentiment that remained constant throughout his life. This collection reveals other preoccupations as well--with history in all its permutations, Borges's own ancestry, and his fascination with metaphysics, mazes, mirror images, and the blurry line between parallel realities:
The celibate white cat surveys himselfThis companion volume to Andrew Hurley's new translation of Collected Fictions boasts a stellar cast of translators, including W.S. Merwin, Mark Strand, and John Updike among others. Admirers of Borges will find Selected Poems a fitting memorial to the great man; and for those have never had the pleasure of reading him before, this book is a wonderful introduction. --Alix Wilber
in the mirror's clear-eyed glass,
not suspecting that the whiteness facing him
and those gold eyes that he's not seen before
in ramblings through the house are his own likeness.
Who is to tell him the cat observing him
is only the mirror's way of dreaming?
483 pages, Paperback
First published October 1, 1971
258 people are currently reading
8120 people want to read
About the author
Jorge Luis Borges
1,588 books14.3k followersJorge Francisco Isidoro Luis Borges Acevedo was an Argentine short-story writer, essayist, poet and translator regarded as a key figure in Spanish-language and international literature. His best-known works, Ficciones (transl. Fictions) and El Aleph (transl. The Aleph), published in the 1940s, are collections of short stories exploring motifs such as dreams, labyrinths, chance, infinity, archives, mirrors, fictional writers and mythology. Borges's works have contributed to philosophical literature and the fantasy genre, and have had a major influence on the magic realist movement in 20th century Latin American literature.
Born in Buenos Aires, Borges later moved with his family to Switzerland in 1914, where he studied at the Collège de Genève. The family travelled widely in Europe, including Spain. On his return to Argentina in 1921, Borges began publishing his poems and essays in surrealist literary journals. He also worked as a librarian and public lecturer. In 1955, he was appointed director of the National Public Library and professor of English Literature at the University of Buenos Aires. He became completely blind by the age of 55. Scholars have suggested that his progressive blindness helped him to create innovative literary symbols through imagination. By the 1960s, his work was translated and published widely in the United States and Europe. Borges himself was fluent in several languages.
In 1961, he came to international attention when he received the first Formentor Prize, which he shared with Samuel Beckett. In 1971, he won the Jerusalem Prize. His international reputation was consolidated in the 1960s, aided by the growing number of English translations, the Latin American Boom, and by the success of Gabriel García Márquez's One Hundred Years of Solitude. He dedicated his final work, The Conspirators, to the city of Geneva, Switzerland. Writer and essayist J.M. Coetzee said of him: "He, more than anyone, renovated the language of fiction and thus opened the way to a remarkable generation of Spanish-American novelists."
Born in Buenos Aires, Borges later moved with his family to Switzerland in 1914, where he studied at the Collège de Genève. The family travelled widely in Europe, including Spain. On his return to Argentina in 1921, Borges began publishing his poems and essays in surrealist literary journals. He also worked as a librarian and public lecturer. In 1955, he was appointed director of the National Public Library and professor of English Literature at the University of Buenos Aires. He became completely blind by the age of 55. Scholars have suggested that his progressive blindness helped him to create innovative literary symbols through imagination. By the 1960s, his work was translated and published widely in the United States and Europe. Borges himself was fluent in several languages.
In 1961, he came to international attention when he received the first Formentor Prize, which he shared with Samuel Beckett. In 1971, he won the Jerusalem Prize. His international reputation was consolidated in the 1960s, aided by the growing number of English translations, the Latin American Boom, and by the success of Gabriel García Márquez's One Hundred Years of Solitude. He dedicated his final work, The Conspirators, to the city of Geneva, Switzerland. Writer and essayist J.M. Coetzee said of him: "He, more than anyone, renovated the language of fiction and thus opened the way to a remarkable generation of Spanish-American novelists."
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May 14, 2020
I always find it difficult to review a book, for so many thoughts keep jumping around at a time in my mind but the suitable words to express those thoughts always seem to deceiving me, and even more so difficult to review poetry, for (I feel) poetry itself is creation of refined art, it is a like something suspended in a thin air and which could be interpreted in so many ways, like a free flowing water stream which takes the color of landscapes it traverses through; nevertheless I try to write something about this amazing collection of poems by Borges and I hope it would be of some use to fellow readers. Selected Poems brings together some two hundred poems - the largest collection of Borges' poetry ever assembled in English, including many never previously translated. The brilliance of the Spanish originals is matched with luminous English versions.
Borges sees himself first as a poet and only then as the writer of the stories that have made him famous, till the time his poems have been all but unavailable in English. Fervor de Buenos Aires represents a youthful Borges more directly concerned with the specific, local and vernacular, he develops his mature themes--time, imagination, and identity--throughout. Taken together, the poems distill those concerns, which famously preoccupy him in the brief ficciones. And, like the fictions, they are almost disturbingly comprehensible. One peak of the collection is The Maker/ El hacedor , showing Borges at his most defined and refined, presenting sophisticated riffs on Arisosto, Luke and ""The Other Tiger"" with elegance and gusto.
Excerpts:
Little by little, the beautiful universe left him behind: a stubborn mist blurred the outline of his hand, the night was emptied of stars, and the ground grew beneath his feet. Everything receded and ran together. When he realized he was going blind, he cried out; Stoic modesty had yet to be invented, and hector could flee unperturbed.
Borges explored so many different themes in these poems however a few of the themes which are prominent throughout the collection are time, memory, blindness, age, God, mirrors; the poem ‘The Hourglass’ specifically explored the theme of time in both temporal and metaphorical manner- the idea that time and fate are alike is stark proof of it. Here Borges used ‘hourglass’ as symbol of cosmic time wherein the falling and rising of sand in it represents the ageing of universe/ humankind. It’s one of the most beautiful and lyrical poems of the collection.
Excerpts:
Pleasure there is in watching how the sand
Slowly slithers up and males a slope
Then, just about to fall, piles up again
With an insistence that appears quite human,
The sand of every cycle is the same
And infinite is the history of sand;
So, underlying your fortunes and your sorrows,
Yawns an invulnerable eternity.
It never stops, the spilling of the sand.
I am the one who weakens, not the glass.
The rite of falling sand is infinite
And, with the sand, our lives are leaving us.
The Argentine poet had been fascinated with idea of death and God, he has explored the theme of God in the poem ‘Chess’ wherein the idea that we all are acting on the moves by the creator or God if a chess board considered as a symbol for life, the logic of life can’t be defined as it moves by some magic- what magic really is? Something which can’t be defined by our understanding of life or something which deceives us. The existential traits about nausea towards inability to control one’s own life could be traced out in it, the angst and absurdness that one doesn’t know that one’s life is controlled by someone else- someone omnipotent- is clearly visible in the poem.
Excerpts:
Within the game itself the forms gives off
Their magic rules: Homeric castle, knight
Swift to attack, queen warlike, king decisive,
Slanted bishop, and attacking pawns.
………………………………….
They do not know it is player’s hand
That dominates and guide their destiny.
They do not know an adamantine fate
Controls their will and lays the battle plan.
……………….
God moves the player, he in turn the piece.
But what god beyond God begins the round
Of dust and time and sleep and agonies?
The fascination with Mirrors can be seen in these poems also as in case of his prose- one of the poems titled ‘Mirrors’ accentuated it, the documentary The Mirror Man captures Borges’ s childhood fascination with mirrors and mirror-like surfaces. “More than anything the boy feared another self reflected in the polished furniture and dark mirrors of the house.”
Excerpts:
I have been horrified before all mirrors
not just before the impenetrable glass,
the end and the beginning of that space
inhabited by nothing reflections,
but faced with specular water, mirroring
the other blue within its bottomless sky,
incised at time by the illusory flight
of inverted birds, or troubled by a ripple,
or face to face with the unspeaking surface
of ghostly ebony whose very hardness
reflects, as if within a dream, the whiteness
of spectral marble or a spectral rose.
The poems of ‘In Praise of Darkness’ confront encroaching blindness, old age and the possibility of ethics, reaching beyond the expectations created by Borges's mastery of the fantastic and the metaphysical. The result is poems at times as moving as Stevens's ""The Rock."
Excerpts from In Praise of Darkness- June, 1968:
The man is blind, and knows
He won’t be able to decode
The handsome volumes he is handling,
And that they will never help write
The book that will justify his life in others’ eyes;
But in the afternoon that might be gold
He smiles at his curious fate
And feels that peculiar happiness
Which comes from loved old things.
Borges, as we know, kept on losing his eyesight with age however this gradually developing inability seems to worked as blessing in disguise for him- more importantly for the world, for it seemed to have developed his imagination to manifold and might have triggered his metaphorical sensibility; the poem ‘In praise of darkness’ seems to be inspired by this and in fact seems to celebrate the blindness as the title suggests. The diminishing ability, to see outward appears to instill trend to introspect himself, to use memory like his notebook. The influence of Democritus, Emerson, Dante could be seen in the poem as the poet gradually become oblivious of his surroundings and eventually reaches his origin. The idea appears to similar to the idea of enlightenment propagated by ‘Yog’ culture and Buddhism.
Excerpts from In Praise of Darkness:
Old age (the name that others give it)
Can be the time of our greatest bliss.
The animal has died or almost died.
The man and his spirit remain.
I live among vague, luminous shapes
That are not darkness yet.
………..
My friends have no faces,
Women are what they were so many years ago,
These corners could be other corners,
There are no letters on the pages of books.
All this should frighten me,
But it is a sweetness, a return.
Of the generations of texts on earth
I will have read only a few-
The ones that I keep reading in my memory,
Reading and transforming.
……………………….
These paths were echoes and footsteps,
Women, men, death-throes, resurrections,
Days and nights,
Dreams and half wakeful dreams,
Every inmost moment of yesterday
And all the yesterdays of the world,
The Dante’s staunch sword and the Persian’s moon,
The acts of the dead
Shared love, and words,
Emerson and snow, so many things.
Now I can forget them. I can reach my center,
My algebra and my key,
My mirror.
Soon I will know who I am.
These poems seem to blur the boundary between different literary genres as rightly mentioned by Mexican poet and essayist Octavio Paz : "He cultivated three genres: the essay, the poem, and the short story. The division is arbitrary. His essays read like stories, his stories are poems; and his poems make us think, as though they were essays." As, Borges himself ‘declares’ in the prologue of In Praise of Darkness
Excerpts from prologue of In Praise of Darkness:
In these pages I believe that the forms of prose and verse coexist without discord. I might invole illustrious precedents- Boethius’De philosophiae, Chaucher’s tales, The Arabian Nights’ Entertainments, but I would prefer to declare that the differences between prose and verse are slight and that I would like this book to be read as a book of poems.
One of themes Borges explored in the poems is history, he seemed to be deeply impressed by the anthropological history of human kind, and to me his fascination seems to be very similar to idea of structural anthropology which modern anthropologist such as Claude Lévi- Strauss explore.
Excerpts from prologue of The unending Rose:
Literature starts out from poetry and can take centuries to arrive at the possibility of prose. After hour hundred years, the Anglo- Saxons left behind a poetry which was not just occasionally admirable and a prose which was scarcely explicit. The word must have been in the beginning a magic symbol, which the usury of time wore out. The mission of a poet should be to restore to the word, at least in a partial way, its primitive and now secret force. All verse should have tow obligations: to communicate a precise instance and to touch us physically, as the presence of the sea does.
Borges can sometimes be difficult and puzzling - he read vastly across the literature of different cultures, and his work is full of allusions and references to these works - but he also has a great gift for compressed, powerful expression, evoking an entire world of thought or feeling in a few beguiling lines of verse or a two-page short story. Borges uses a lot of history in this poem, not specifically Argentine culture; but French, European, Greek, etc. He also mentions Zeno, a Greek Philosopher, and Pascal, a French philosopher. Borges talks about sacrifices made to the gods, another piece of historical information. The people sacrificed things like food, animals, and even their life for the gods to be happy with them.
I highly recommend the collection right from the haunting depths of Borges’s mind.
Borges sees himself first as a poet and only then as the writer of the stories that have made him famous, till the time his poems have been all but unavailable in English. Fervor de Buenos Aires represents a youthful Borges more directly concerned with the specific, local and vernacular, he develops his mature themes--time, imagination, and identity--throughout. Taken together, the poems distill those concerns, which famously preoccupy him in the brief ficciones. And, like the fictions, they are almost disturbingly comprehensible. One peak of the collection is The Maker/ El hacedor , showing Borges at his most defined and refined, presenting sophisticated riffs on Arisosto, Luke and ""The Other Tiger"" with elegance and gusto.
Excerpts:
Little by little, the beautiful universe left him behind: a stubborn mist blurred the outline of his hand, the night was emptied of stars, and the ground grew beneath his feet. Everything receded and ran together. When he realized he was going blind, he cried out; Stoic modesty had yet to be invented, and hector could flee unperturbed.
Borges explored so many different themes in these poems however a few of the themes which are prominent throughout the collection are time, memory, blindness, age, God, mirrors; the poem ‘The Hourglass’ specifically explored the theme of time in both temporal and metaphorical manner- the idea that time and fate are alike is stark proof of it. Here Borges used ‘hourglass’ as symbol of cosmic time wherein the falling and rising of sand in it represents the ageing of universe/ humankind. It’s one of the most beautiful and lyrical poems of the collection.
Excerpts:
Pleasure there is in watching how the sand
Slowly slithers up and males a slope
Then, just about to fall, piles up again
With an insistence that appears quite human,
The sand of every cycle is the same
And infinite is the history of sand;
So, underlying your fortunes and your sorrows,
Yawns an invulnerable eternity.
It never stops, the spilling of the sand.
I am the one who weakens, not the glass.
The rite of falling sand is infinite
And, with the sand, our lives are leaving us.
The Argentine poet had been fascinated with idea of death and God, he has explored the theme of God in the poem ‘Chess’ wherein the idea that we all are acting on the moves by the creator or God if a chess board considered as a symbol for life, the logic of life can’t be defined as it moves by some magic- what magic really is? Something which can’t be defined by our understanding of life or something which deceives us. The existential traits about nausea towards inability to control one’s own life could be traced out in it, the angst and absurdness that one doesn’t know that one’s life is controlled by someone else- someone omnipotent- is clearly visible in the poem.
Excerpts:
Within the game itself the forms gives off
Their magic rules: Homeric castle, knight
Swift to attack, queen warlike, king decisive,
Slanted bishop, and attacking pawns.
………………………………….
They do not know it is player’s hand
That dominates and guide their destiny.
They do not know an adamantine fate
Controls their will and lays the battle plan.
……………….
God moves the player, he in turn the piece.
But what god beyond God begins the round
Of dust and time and sleep and agonies?
The fascination with Mirrors can be seen in these poems also as in case of his prose- one of the poems titled ‘Mirrors’ accentuated it, the documentary The Mirror Man captures Borges’ s childhood fascination with mirrors and mirror-like surfaces. “More than anything the boy feared another self reflected in the polished furniture and dark mirrors of the house.”
Excerpts:
I have been horrified before all mirrors
not just before the impenetrable glass,
the end and the beginning of that space
inhabited by nothing reflections,
but faced with specular water, mirroring
the other blue within its bottomless sky,
incised at time by the illusory flight
of inverted birds, or troubled by a ripple,
or face to face with the unspeaking surface
of ghostly ebony whose very hardness
reflects, as if within a dream, the whiteness
of spectral marble or a spectral rose.
The poems of ‘In Praise of Darkness’ confront encroaching blindness, old age and the possibility of ethics, reaching beyond the expectations created by Borges's mastery of the fantastic and the metaphysical. The result is poems at times as moving as Stevens's ""The Rock."
Excerpts from In Praise of Darkness- June, 1968:
The man is blind, and knows
He won’t be able to decode
The handsome volumes he is handling,
And that they will never help write
The book that will justify his life in others’ eyes;
But in the afternoon that might be gold
He smiles at his curious fate
And feels that peculiar happiness
Which comes from loved old things.
Borges, as we know, kept on losing his eyesight with age however this gradually developing inability seems to worked as blessing in disguise for him- more importantly for the world, for it seemed to have developed his imagination to manifold and might have triggered his metaphorical sensibility; the poem ‘In praise of darkness’ seems to be inspired by this and in fact seems to celebrate the blindness as the title suggests. The diminishing ability, to see outward appears to instill trend to introspect himself, to use memory like his notebook. The influence of Democritus, Emerson, Dante could be seen in the poem as the poet gradually become oblivious of his surroundings and eventually reaches his origin. The idea appears to similar to the idea of enlightenment propagated by ‘Yog’ culture and Buddhism.
Excerpts from In Praise of Darkness:
Old age (the name that others give it)
Can be the time of our greatest bliss.
The animal has died or almost died.
The man and his spirit remain.
I live among vague, luminous shapes
That are not darkness yet.
………..
My friends have no faces,
Women are what they were so many years ago,
These corners could be other corners,
There are no letters on the pages of books.
All this should frighten me,
But it is a sweetness, a return.
Of the generations of texts on earth
I will have read only a few-
The ones that I keep reading in my memory,
Reading and transforming.
……………………….
These paths were echoes and footsteps,
Women, men, death-throes, resurrections,
Days and nights,
Dreams and half wakeful dreams,
Every inmost moment of yesterday
And all the yesterdays of the world,
The Dante’s staunch sword and the Persian’s moon,
The acts of the dead
Shared love, and words,
Emerson and snow, so many things.
Now I can forget them. I can reach my center,
My algebra and my key,
My mirror.
Soon I will know who I am.
These poems seem to blur the boundary between different literary genres as rightly mentioned by Mexican poet and essayist Octavio Paz : "He cultivated three genres: the essay, the poem, and the short story. The division is arbitrary. His essays read like stories, his stories are poems; and his poems make us think, as though they were essays." As, Borges himself ‘declares’ in the prologue of In Praise of Darkness
Excerpts from prologue of In Praise of Darkness:
In these pages I believe that the forms of prose and verse coexist without discord. I might invole illustrious precedents- Boethius’De philosophiae, Chaucher’s tales, The Arabian Nights’ Entertainments, but I would prefer to declare that the differences between prose and verse are slight and that I would like this book to be read as a book of poems.
One of themes Borges explored in the poems is history, he seemed to be deeply impressed by the anthropological history of human kind, and to me his fascination seems to be very similar to idea of structural anthropology which modern anthropologist such as Claude Lévi- Strauss explore.
Excerpts from prologue of The unending Rose:
Literature starts out from poetry and can take centuries to arrive at the possibility of prose. After hour hundred years, the Anglo- Saxons left behind a poetry which was not just occasionally admirable and a prose which was scarcely explicit. The word must have been in the beginning a magic symbol, which the usury of time wore out. The mission of a poet should be to restore to the word, at least in a partial way, its primitive and now secret force. All verse should have tow obligations: to communicate a precise instance and to touch us physically, as the presence of the sea does.
Borges can sometimes be difficult and puzzling - he read vastly across the literature of different cultures, and his work is full of allusions and references to these works - but he also has a great gift for compressed, powerful expression, evoking an entire world of thought or feeling in a few beguiling lines of verse or a two-page short story. Borges uses a lot of history in this poem, not specifically Argentine culture; but French, European, Greek, etc. He also mentions Zeno, a Greek Philosopher, and Pascal, a French philosopher. Borges talks about sacrifices made to the gods, another piece of historical information. The people sacrificed things like food, animals, and even their life for the gods to be happy with them.
I highly recommend the collection right from the haunting depths of Borges’s mind.
June 16, 2021
When Florencia shared a poem by Jorge Luis Borges in her review, I was inspired enough to track down more of his work. Luckily, I happened upon this lengthy compellation of poems that spanned most of his career. Never heard of the guy? Me neither, but I’m telling you, if you are at all interested in 20th century literature, you should have or should rectify it. He also wrote short stories, essays and translations, and was hugely influential, quite possibly the genesis of magic realism in Spanish literature. This book is ginormous, about 500 pages, fitting an illustrious career.
I wonder where my life is, the one that could
have been and never was, the daring one
or the one of gloomy dread, that other thing
which could as well have been the sword or shield
but never was?
from What Is Lost
A man that traveled the world, shared the first Formentor Prize with Samuel Beckett and was director of the Argentine National Public Library, he was often focused on themes of place and life paths. Labyrinths, myths, dreams and books also frequently appear, along with meditations on seeing. These are all the more poignant as I realized he was gradually losing vision until he went blind at 55.
Old age (the name that others give it)
can be the time of our greatest bliss.
The animal has died or almost died.
The man and his spirit remain.
I live among vague, luminous shapes
that are not darkness yet.
from In Praise of Darkness
He also drew on references to classical literature, which were more likely to miss me in his works, but some of them moved me nonetheless:
In my life there were always too many things.
Democritus of Abdra plucked out his eyes in order to think:
Time has been my Democritus.
from In Praise of Darkness
What I loved most about this collection is that each poem had the Spanish version on the facing page.
La vejez (tal es el nombre que los otros le dan)
puede ser el tiempo de nuestra dicha.
El animal ha muerto o casi ha muerto.
Quedan el hombre y su alma.
Vivo entre formas luminosas y vagas
que no son aún la tiniebla.
And the second:
Siempre en mi vida fueron demasiadas las cosas;
Demócrito de Abdera se arrancó los ojos para pensar:
el tiempo ha sido mi Demócrito.
There’s something really beautiful about his writing and it’s seeming simplicity in Spanish. Of course, it wasn’t long before I started wandering down the translation accuracy philosophy, and wondering about how well that works in poetry, where I feel the poets work very deliberately at word choice. On a couple of occasions after reading the original, I felt myself wondering at the translator. In this edition, there was a collection of translators, so their initials were under the translated versions.
While I attempted to do my skim-until-a-poem-noticed-me approach, I found myself stopping quite often, despite the length of the book. So much spoke to me.
When sorrow lays us low
for a second we are saved
by humble windfalls
of mindfulness or memory:
the taste of a fruit, the taste of water,
that face given back to us by a dream,
the first jasmine of November,
the endless yearning of the compass,
a book we thought was lost
Cuando nos anonada la desdicha,
durante un sequndo nos salvan
las aventuras infimas
de la atención o de las memoria:
el sabor de una fruta, el sabor del agua,
esa cara que un sueno no devuelve,
los primos jazmines de noviembre,
el anhelo infinito de la brújula,
un libro que creíamos perdido
from Shinto
It was about five hundred pages; there were so many works that it became overwhelming at times. Each section was from one of his collections and had a very short description of the book. I think I would have liked a little more context, as a Borges newbie. Arranged chronologically, I didn’t have as much understanding as to where it fell in this personal history; his awards, his brief marriage, his blindness, his career. But I’m very glad for such an introduction into an extremely interesting and moving writer.
I wonder where my life is, the one that could
have been and never was, the daring one
or the one of gloomy dread, that other thing
which could as well have been the sword or shield
but never was?
from What Is Lost
A man that traveled the world, shared the first Formentor Prize with Samuel Beckett and was director of the Argentine National Public Library, he was often focused on themes of place and life paths. Labyrinths, myths, dreams and books also frequently appear, along with meditations on seeing. These are all the more poignant as I realized he was gradually losing vision until he went blind at 55.
Old age (the name that others give it)
can be the time of our greatest bliss.
The animal has died or almost died.
The man and his spirit remain.
I live among vague, luminous shapes
that are not darkness yet.
from In Praise of Darkness
He also drew on references to classical literature, which were more likely to miss me in his works, but some of them moved me nonetheless:
In my life there were always too many things.
Democritus of Abdra plucked out his eyes in order to think:
Time has been my Democritus.
from In Praise of Darkness
What I loved most about this collection is that each poem had the Spanish version on the facing page.
La vejez (tal es el nombre que los otros le dan)
puede ser el tiempo de nuestra dicha.
El animal ha muerto o casi ha muerto.
Quedan el hombre y su alma.
Vivo entre formas luminosas y vagas
que no son aún la tiniebla.
And the second:
Siempre en mi vida fueron demasiadas las cosas;
Demócrito de Abdera se arrancó los ojos para pensar:
el tiempo ha sido mi Demócrito.
There’s something really beautiful about his writing and it’s seeming simplicity in Spanish. Of course, it wasn’t long before I started wandering down the translation accuracy philosophy, and wondering about how well that works in poetry, where I feel the poets work very deliberately at word choice. On a couple of occasions after reading the original, I felt myself wondering at the translator. In this edition, there was a collection of translators, so their initials were under the translated versions.
While I attempted to do my skim-until-a-poem-noticed-me approach, I found myself stopping quite often, despite the length of the book. So much spoke to me.
When sorrow lays us low
for a second we are saved
by humble windfalls
of mindfulness or memory:
the taste of a fruit, the taste of water,
that face given back to us by a dream,
the first jasmine of November,
the endless yearning of the compass,
a book we thought was lost
Cuando nos anonada la desdicha,
durante un sequndo nos salvan
las aventuras infimas
de la atención o de las memoria:
el sabor de una fruta, el sabor del agua,
esa cara que un sueno no devuelve,
los primos jazmines de noviembre,
el anhelo infinito de la brújula,
un libro que creíamos perdido
from Shinto
It was about five hundred pages; there were so many works that it became overwhelming at times. Each section was from one of his collections and had a very short description of the book. I think I would have liked a little more context, as a Borges newbie. Arranged chronologically, I didn’t have as much understanding as to where it fell in this personal history; his awards, his brief marriage, his blindness, his career. But I’m very glad for such an introduction into an extremely interesting and moving writer.
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May 5, 2012
‘My God, my dreamer, keep dreaming me’
Borges. I simply adore the man. Every word from his pen traces a warm euphoria through my veins. If drug dealers sold books, Borges would be what you get when you ask ‘for that dank chronic, yo’. The man restructures reality and imparts infinity with prose alone. If you are unfamiliar with this writer, please, do yourself a massive favor and pick up a copy of Ficciones or even just find the text of Garden of the Forking Paths online here. As a disclaimer, I am not responsible for cleaning up the mess when your mind bursts all over your wall when you reach the end of his stories. However, this review is not about his stories, it is about his poetry. If it was stunning how much he could convey in tiny stories, it is even more impressive the power contained in his lines of poetry. These poems, which span his entire career, are certainly worthy of 5 golden stars, yet, the translations in this collection do there best to tarnish the rating. Still, to step inside the mind of this master is to step into a magical realm of literature, knowledge and fantasy.
Not unlike his short fiction, Borges fills his poems with ethereal visions of winding labyrinths, notions of infinity, dreams, the sadistic and mystical nature of mirrors, and endless allusions to literature ranging from the famous Greek stories, James Joyce, Walt Whitman, and spreading to the most esoteric myths he could conjure up. Huge armies clash and fall, kings are murdered in the dark, Pythagoras ponders, mirrors come alive while the moon muses the passage of time; these poems feel larger than life and as monumental as reading Homer for the first time. Time, death, and the fabric of reality are the major themes that run through these epic stanzas. Even after a quick flip through the book, the reader will notice Borges has something he really wants to tell you: ‘You are going to die’. These thoughts of death hang on his head like a heavy crown and permeate a vast majority of the poems.
‘To The One Who Is Reading Me’
You are invulnerable. Have they not granted you,
those powers that preordain your destiny,
the certainty of dust? Is not your time
as irreversible as that same river
where Heraclitus, mirrored, saw the symbol
of fleeting life? A marble slab awaits you
which you will not read – on it, already written,
the date, the city, the epitaph.
Other men too are only dreams of time,
Not indestructible bronze or burnished gold;
The universe is, like you, a Proteus.
Dark, you will enter the darkness that awaits you,
Doomed to the limits of your traveled time.
Know that in some sense you are already dead.
Through many of these poems, Borges shows us the frailty of our life, drawing out the infinite length time occupies to juxtapose it with our ephemeral existence. He reminds us ‘your matter is time, its unchecked and unreckoned/Passing. You are each solitary second’ while we collect and surround ourselves with lifeless belongings that ‘will endure beyond our vanishing and will never know that we have gone’. He even embraces his own death, yet offers up a hopeful sentiment acknowledging that even when he too enters the realm of shadows, that his words will remain. He will ‘assemble the great rumble of the epic and carve out my own place’, and we will keep him alive eternal through these words.
‘Through this indolent
arrangement of measured words I speak to you.
Remember Borges, your friend, who swam in you.
Be present to my lips in my last moment.’
Not all is dark and dreary however .It is clear through his poems that to him there is nothing greater than to create a lasting work of words, and hopefully he found peace and acceptance of death through this. ‘My fortune or misfortune does not matter. I am the poet.’ Most of this collection is uplifting and wildly inventive. His patterns of logic will send your mind spinning. Mirrors and dreams are toyed with often, and at the end I will include an excellent example of this. He also spends much time speaking lovingly of books and of Buenos Aires.
The major issues with this collection are the translations. Granted, there are 13 different translators at work here and some are much better than others. This does lend to a very uneven feel, and also it seems a shame that the better translators have the fewest number of poems. One aspect I really enjoyed of this collection was that it included the poem in its original language across from the translation. It may serve as a disclaimer for the translation, but it does not forgive the liberties that are taken with the poem. I never like when translators force a rhyme scheme, it really is not needed. Here, not only do they freely alter the structure and meaning to force a rhyme, but they don’t even use the same rhyme scheme as Borges! Borges will offer beautiful stanzas following a pattern such as ABBC CDDA while the translator gives us ABCB DEFE. What is the point in giving a cheap rhyme that insults the integrity of not only the prose, but the original flow? Plus, the words and order will be changed dramatically to fit this cheap rhyme and it all comes out as a farce. Especially because I can see right on the other page what he was really saying, so it almost feels like I am being lied right to my face. This is a perfect example of what my dear Goodreads friend Richard insightfully referred to as ‘he triumph of hope over experience’, (one of the many excellent quotes from him, there are several that future scholars should embrace, which make this site such a useful resource). They fail in my eyes. Also, the translation to the collection The Maker in this collection is different than those included in Collected Fictions put out by the same publisher. This is nice, as it offers a different view and flow, but I found the Collected Fictions to appeal more to my taste.
For example, in CF as translated by Andrew Hurley, the final line of Ragnorok (one of my favorite Borges lines) reads: ‘We drew heavy revolvers (suddenly in the dream there were revolvers) and exultantly killed the gods.’
As by Kenneth Krabbenhoft: ‘We drew our heavy pistols (in the dream, they just appeared) and cheerfully put the gods to death.’
In the collection Labyrinths: ‘We took out our heavy revolvers (all of a sudden there were revolvers in the dream) and joyfully killed the Gods.’
I suppose, as with any translated work, you should shop around and see which works best for you.
This collection of poetry shows Borges as a master of language. Despite some translation issues (at least you can see the original and hopefully know enough Spanish to get by), this is a truly mind blowing collection. I highly recommend it, and please enjoy your stay in the labyrinth of Borges’ mind.
3.5/5
Remorse
I have committed the worst of sins
One can commit. I have not been
Happy. Let the glaciers of oblivion
Take and engulf me, mercilessly.
My parents bore me for the risky
And the beautiful game of life,
For earth, water, air and fire.
I failed them, I was not happy.
Their youthful hope for me unfulfilled.
I applied my mind to the symmetric
Arguments of art, its web of trivia.
They willed me bravery. I was not brave.
It never leaves me. Always at my side,
That shadow of a melancholy man.
The Art of Poetry
To gaze at a river made of time and water
And remember Time is another river.
To know we stray like a river
and our faces vanish like water.
To feel that waking is another dream
that dreams of not dreaming and that the death
we fear in our bones is the death
that every night we call a dream.
To see in every day and year a symbol
of all the days of man and his years,
and convert the outrage of the years
into a music, a sound, and a symbol.
To see in death a dream, in the sunset
a golden sadness--such is poetry,
humble and immortal, poetry,
returning, like dawn and the sunset.
Sometimes at evening there's a face
that sees us from the deeps of a mirror.
Art must be that sort of mirror,
disclosing to each of us his face.
They say Ulysses, wearied of wonders,
wept with love on seeing Ithaca,
humble and green. Art is that Ithaca,
a green eternity, not wonders.
Art is endless like a river flowing,
passing, yet remaining, a mirror to the same
inconstant Heraclitus, who is the same
and yet another, like the river flowing.
The Suicide
Not a single star will be left in the night.
The night will not be left.
I will die and, with me,
the weight of the intolerable universe.
I shall erase the pyramids, the medallions,
the continents and faces.
I shall erase the accumulated past.
I shall make dust of history, dust of dust.
Now I am looking on the final sunset.
I am hearing the last bird.
I bequeath nothingness to no one.
History of the Night
Throughout the course of the generations
men constructed the night.
At first she was blindness;
thorns raking bare feet,
fear of wolves.
We shall never know who forged the word
for the interval of shadow
dividing the two twilights;
we shall never know in what age it came to mean
the starry hours.
Others created the myth.
They made her the mother of the unruffled Fates
that spin our destiny,
they sacrificed black ewes to her, and the cock
who crows his own death.
The Chaldeans assigned to her twelve houses;
to Zeno, infinite words.
She took shape from Latin hexameters
and the terror of Pascal.
Luis de Leon saw in her the homeland
of his stricken soul.
Now we feel her to be inexhaustible
like an ancient wine
and no one can gaze on her without vertigo
and time has charged her with eternity.
And to think that she wouldn't exist
except for those fragile instruments, the eyes.
Limits
Of these streets that deepen the sunset,
There must be one (but which) that I’ve walked
Already one last time, indifferently
And without knowing it, submitting
To One who sets up omnipotent laws
And a secret and a rigid measure
For the shadows, the dreams, and forms
That work the warp and weft of this life.
If all things have a limit and a value
A last time nothing more and oblivion
Who can say to whom in this house
Unknowingly, we have said goodbye?
Already through the grey glass night ebbs
And among the stack of books that throws
A broken shadow on the unlit table,
There must be one I will never read.
In the South there’s more than one worn gate
With its masonry urns and prickly pear
Where my entrance is forbidden
As it were within a lithograph.
Forever there’s a door you have closed,
And a mirror that waits for you in vain;
The crossroad seems wide open to you
And there a four-faced Janus watches.
There is, amongst your memories, one
That has now been lost irreparably;
You’ll not be seen to visit that well
Under white sun or yellow moon.
Elegy For a Park
The labyrinth is lost. Lost too
all those lines of eucalyptus,
the summer awnings and the vigil
of the incessant mirror, repeating
the expression of every human face,
everything fleeting. The stopped
clock, the tangled honeysuckle,
the arbour, the frivolous statues,
the other side of evening, the trills,
the mirador and the idle fountain
are things of the past. Of the past?
If there’s no beginning, no ending,
and if what awaits us is an endless
sum of white days and black nights,
we are already the past we become.
We are time, the indivisible river,
are Uxmal, Carthage and the ruined
walls of the Romans and the lost
park that these lines commemorate.
Borges. I simply adore the man. Every word from his pen traces a warm euphoria through my veins. If drug dealers sold books, Borges would be what you get when you ask ‘for that dank chronic, yo’. The man restructures reality and imparts infinity with prose alone. If you are unfamiliar with this writer, please, do yourself a massive favor and pick up a copy of Ficciones or even just find the text of Garden of the Forking Paths online here. As a disclaimer, I am not responsible for cleaning up the mess when your mind bursts all over your wall when you reach the end of his stories. However, this review is not about his stories, it is about his poetry. If it was stunning how much he could convey in tiny stories, it is even more impressive the power contained in his lines of poetry. These poems, which span his entire career, are certainly worthy of 5 golden stars, yet, the translations in this collection do there best to tarnish the rating. Still, to step inside the mind of this master is to step into a magical realm of literature, knowledge and fantasy.
Not unlike his short fiction, Borges fills his poems with ethereal visions of winding labyrinths, notions of infinity, dreams, the sadistic and mystical nature of mirrors, and endless allusions to literature ranging from the famous Greek stories, James Joyce, Walt Whitman, and spreading to the most esoteric myths he could conjure up. Huge armies clash and fall, kings are murdered in the dark, Pythagoras ponders, mirrors come alive while the moon muses the passage of time; these poems feel larger than life and as monumental as reading Homer for the first time. Time, death, and the fabric of reality are the major themes that run through these epic stanzas. Even after a quick flip through the book, the reader will notice Borges has something he really wants to tell you: ‘You are going to die’. These thoughts of death hang on his head like a heavy crown and permeate a vast majority of the poems.
‘To The One Who Is Reading Me’
You are invulnerable. Have they not granted you,
those powers that preordain your destiny,
the certainty of dust? Is not your time
as irreversible as that same river
where Heraclitus, mirrored, saw the symbol
of fleeting life? A marble slab awaits you
which you will not read – on it, already written,
the date, the city, the epitaph.
Other men too are only dreams of time,
Not indestructible bronze or burnished gold;
The universe is, like you, a Proteus.
Dark, you will enter the darkness that awaits you,
Doomed to the limits of your traveled time.
Know that in some sense you are already dead.
Through many of these poems, Borges shows us the frailty of our life, drawing out the infinite length time occupies to juxtapose it with our ephemeral existence. He reminds us ‘your matter is time, its unchecked and unreckoned/Passing. You are each solitary second’ while we collect and surround ourselves with lifeless belongings that ‘will endure beyond our vanishing and will never know that we have gone’. He even embraces his own death, yet offers up a hopeful sentiment acknowledging that even when he too enters the realm of shadows, that his words will remain. He will ‘assemble the great rumble of the epic and carve out my own place’, and we will keep him alive eternal through these words.
‘Through this indolent
arrangement of measured words I speak to you.
Remember Borges, your friend, who swam in you.
Be present to my lips in my last moment.’
Not all is dark and dreary however .It is clear through his poems that to him there is nothing greater than to create a lasting work of words, and hopefully he found peace and acceptance of death through this. ‘My fortune or misfortune does not matter. I am the poet.’ Most of this collection is uplifting and wildly inventive. His patterns of logic will send your mind spinning. Mirrors and dreams are toyed with often, and at the end I will include an excellent example of this. He also spends much time speaking lovingly of books and of Buenos Aires.
The major issues with this collection are the translations. Granted, there are 13 different translators at work here and some are much better than others. This does lend to a very uneven feel, and also it seems a shame that the better translators have the fewest number of poems. One aspect I really enjoyed of this collection was that it included the poem in its original language across from the translation. It may serve as a disclaimer for the translation, but it does not forgive the liberties that are taken with the poem. I never like when translators force a rhyme scheme, it really is not needed. Here, not only do they freely alter the structure and meaning to force a rhyme, but they don’t even use the same rhyme scheme as Borges! Borges will offer beautiful stanzas following a pattern such as ABBC CDDA while the translator gives us ABCB DEFE. What is the point in giving a cheap rhyme that insults the integrity of not only the prose, but the original flow? Plus, the words and order will be changed dramatically to fit this cheap rhyme and it all comes out as a farce. Especially because I can see right on the other page what he was really saying, so it almost feels like I am being lied right to my face. This is a perfect example of what my dear Goodreads friend Richard insightfully referred to as ‘he triumph of hope over experience’, (one of the many excellent quotes from him, there are several that future scholars should embrace, which make this site such a useful resource). They fail in my eyes. Also, the translation to the collection The Maker in this collection is different than those included in Collected Fictions put out by the same publisher. This is nice, as it offers a different view and flow, but I found the Collected Fictions to appeal more to my taste.
For example, in CF as translated by Andrew Hurley, the final line of Ragnorok (one of my favorite Borges lines) reads: ‘We drew heavy revolvers (suddenly in the dream there were revolvers) and exultantly killed the gods.’
As by Kenneth Krabbenhoft: ‘We drew our heavy pistols (in the dream, they just appeared) and cheerfully put the gods to death.’
In the collection Labyrinths: ‘We took out our heavy revolvers (all of a sudden there were revolvers in the dream) and joyfully killed the Gods.’
I suppose, as with any translated work, you should shop around and see which works best for you.
This collection of poetry shows Borges as a master of language. Despite some translation issues (at least you can see the original and hopefully know enough Spanish to get by), this is a truly mind blowing collection. I highly recommend it, and please enjoy your stay in the labyrinth of Borges’ mind.
3.5/5
Remorse
I have committed the worst of sins
One can commit. I have not been
Happy. Let the glaciers of oblivion
Take and engulf me, mercilessly.
My parents bore me for the risky
And the beautiful game of life,
For earth, water, air and fire.
I failed them, I was not happy.
Their youthful hope for me unfulfilled.
I applied my mind to the symmetric
Arguments of art, its web of trivia.
They willed me bravery. I was not brave.
It never leaves me. Always at my side,
That shadow of a melancholy man.
The Art of Poetry
To gaze at a river made of time and water
And remember Time is another river.
To know we stray like a river
and our faces vanish like water.
To feel that waking is another dream
that dreams of not dreaming and that the death
we fear in our bones is the death
that every night we call a dream.
To see in every day and year a symbol
of all the days of man and his years,
and convert the outrage of the years
into a music, a sound, and a symbol.
To see in death a dream, in the sunset
a golden sadness--such is poetry,
humble and immortal, poetry,
returning, like dawn and the sunset.
Sometimes at evening there's a face
that sees us from the deeps of a mirror.
Art must be that sort of mirror,
disclosing to each of us his face.
They say Ulysses, wearied of wonders,
wept with love on seeing Ithaca,
humble and green. Art is that Ithaca,
a green eternity, not wonders.
Art is endless like a river flowing,
passing, yet remaining, a mirror to the same
inconstant Heraclitus, who is the same
and yet another, like the river flowing.
The Suicide
Not a single star will be left in the night.
The night will not be left.
I will die and, with me,
the weight of the intolerable universe.
I shall erase the pyramids, the medallions,
the continents and faces.
I shall erase the accumulated past.
I shall make dust of history, dust of dust.
Now I am looking on the final sunset.
I am hearing the last bird.
I bequeath nothingness to no one.
History of the Night
Throughout the course of the generations
men constructed the night.
At first she was blindness;
thorns raking bare feet,
fear of wolves.
We shall never know who forged the word
for the interval of shadow
dividing the two twilights;
we shall never know in what age it came to mean
the starry hours.
Others created the myth.
They made her the mother of the unruffled Fates
that spin our destiny,
they sacrificed black ewes to her, and the cock
who crows his own death.
The Chaldeans assigned to her twelve houses;
to Zeno, infinite words.
She took shape from Latin hexameters
and the terror of Pascal.
Luis de Leon saw in her the homeland
of his stricken soul.
Now we feel her to be inexhaustible
like an ancient wine
and no one can gaze on her without vertigo
and time has charged her with eternity.
And to think that she wouldn't exist
except for those fragile instruments, the eyes.
Limits
Of these streets that deepen the sunset,
There must be one (but which) that I’ve walked
Already one last time, indifferently
And without knowing it, submitting
To One who sets up omnipotent laws
And a secret and a rigid measure
For the shadows, the dreams, and forms
That work the warp and weft of this life.
If all things have a limit and a value
A last time nothing more and oblivion
Who can say to whom in this house
Unknowingly, we have said goodbye?
Already through the grey glass night ebbs
And among the stack of books that throws
A broken shadow on the unlit table,
There must be one I will never read.
In the South there’s more than one worn gate
With its masonry urns and prickly pear
Where my entrance is forbidden
As it were within a lithograph.
Forever there’s a door you have closed,
And a mirror that waits for you in vain;
The crossroad seems wide open to you
And there a four-faced Janus watches.
There is, amongst your memories, one
That has now been lost irreparably;
You’ll not be seen to visit that well
Under white sun or yellow moon.
Elegy For a Park
The labyrinth is lost. Lost too
all those lines of eucalyptus,
the summer awnings and the vigil
of the incessant mirror, repeating
the expression of every human face,
everything fleeting. The stopped
clock, the tangled honeysuckle,
the arbour, the frivolous statues,
the other side of evening, the trills,
the mirador and the idle fountain
are things of the past. Of the past?
If there’s no beginning, no ending,
and if what awaits us is an endless
sum of white days and black nights,
we are already the past we become.
We are time, the indivisible river,
are Uxmal, Carthage and the ruined
walls of the Romans and the lost
park that these lines commemorate.
February 8, 2017
God has created nights well-populated
with dreams, crowded with mirror images,
so that man may feel that he is nothing more
than vain reflection. That's what frightens us.
Was it Dr. Johnson who marveled over Montaigne, how could he know what I had been thinking? It doesn't matter, it could have been Walter Benjamin pondering Spinoza on both of those frontiers. History is mute, amused sufficiently with bumps and reversals. Plagues and witch hunts pass the time. It could also have been Boris Johnson, weighing what he had assisted, not worrying about Whitman or Chekhov. Not really worrying at all.
with dreams, crowded with mirror images,
so that man may feel that he is nothing more
than vain reflection. That's what frightens us.
Was it Dr. Johnson who marveled over Montaigne, how could he know what I had been thinking? It doesn't matter, it could have been Walter Benjamin pondering Spinoza on both of those frontiers. History is mute, amused sufficiently with bumps and reversals. Plagues and witch hunts pass the time. It could also have been Boris Johnson, weighing what he had assisted, not worrying about Whitman or Chekhov. Not really worrying at all.
September 21, 2016
I am posting this, and giving it three stars primarily because of my anger and frustration at his estate and relevant publishers for refusing to let the incredible translations done by Barnes and Mezey be published.
If you do not know the story you can read more here https://www.borges.pitt.edu/sites/def...
This, for example, is a translation I love deeply and is far superior to that in this collection:
Rain
Evening, a sudden clearing of the mist,
For now a fine, soft rain is freshening.
It falls and it did fall. Rain is a thing
That no doubt always happens in the past.
Hearing it fall, the senses will be led
Back to a blessèd time that first disclosed
To the child a flower that was called the rose
And an extraordinary color, red.
These drops that blind our panes to the world outside
Will brighten the black grapes on a certain trellis
Out in the far, lost suburbs of the town
Where a courtyard was. The rain coming down
Brings back the voice, the longed-for voice,
Of my father, who has come home, who has not died.
If you do not know the story you can read more here https://www.borges.pitt.edu/sites/def...
This, for example, is a translation I love deeply and is far superior to that in this collection:
Rain
Evening, a sudden clearing of the mist,
For now a fine, soft rain is freshening.
It falls and it did fall. Rain is a thing
That no doubt always happens in the past.
Hearing it fall, the senses will be led
Back to a blessèd time that first disclosed
To the child a flower that was called the rose
And an extraordinary color, red.
These drops that blind our panes to the world outside
Will brighten the black grapes on a certain trellis
Out in the far, lost suburbs of the town
Where a courtyard was. The rain coming down
Brings back the voice, the longed-for voice,
Of my father, who has come home, who has not died.
November 28, 2007
the just
a man who cultivates his garden, as voltaire wished.
he who is grateful for the existence of music.
he who takes pleasure in tracing an etymology.
two workmen playing, in a cafe in the south, a silent game of chess.
the potter, contemplating a color and a form.
the typographer who sets this page well, though it may not please him.
a woman and a man, who read the last tercets of a certain canto.
he who strokes a sleeping animal.
he who justifies, or wishes to, a wrong done him.
he who is grateful for the existence of stevenson.
he who prefers others to be right.
those people, unaware, are saving the world.
a man who cultivates his garden, as voltaire wished.
he who is grateful for the existence of music.
he who takes pleasure in tracing an etymology.
two workmen playing, in a cafe in the south, a silent game of chess.
the potter, contemplating a color and a form.
the typographer who sets this page well, though it may not please him.
a woman and a man, who read the last tercets of a certain canto.
he who strokes a sleeping animal.
he who justifies, or wishes to, a wrong done him.
he who is grateful for the existence of stevenson.
he who prefers others to be right.
those people, unaware, are saving the world.
Read
February 19, 2021Remorse For Any Death
" Free of memory and of hope,
limitless, abstract, almost future,
the dead man is not a dead man :
he is death.
Like the God of the mystics,
of Whom anything that could be
said must be denied,
the dead one, alien everywhere,
is but the ruin and absence of the
world.
We rob him of everything,
we leave him not so much as a color or syllabe :
here, the courtyard which his eyes no longer see,
there, the sidewalk where his hope
lay in wait.
Even what we are thinking,
he could be thinking,
we have divvied up like thieves
the booty of nights and days. "
" Free of memory and of hope,
limitless, abstract, almost future,
the dead man is not a dead man :
he is death.
Like the God of the mystics,
of Whom anything that could be
said must be denied,
the dead one, alien everywhere,
is but the ruin and absence of the
world.
We rob him of everything,
we leave him not so much as a color or syllabe :
here, the courtyard which his eyes no longer see,
there, the sidewalk where his hope
lay in wait.
Even what we are thinking,
he could be thinking,
we have divvied up like thieves
the booty of nights and days. "
August 23, 2021
Borges' words feel like an ethereal, alternative universe that I want to escape to. Easiest 5 stars I've ever given.
August 14, 2017
This hefty collection draws from fourteen cycles of Borges' poetry, spanning over 60 years; so I'm expecting to be reading it for a while. The plan is to review sections as I go along...
Fervor de Buenos Aires: 5/5
These poems are intimate, mystical, and exquisitely beautiful. If Neruda's preferred time is twilight, Borges' is 4:00am, outside on the streets of Buenos Aires, when "those who are dreaming the world are few / and only the ones who have been up all night retain, / ashen and barely outlined, / the image of the streets / that later others will define."
At the time of my writing this, I feel a particular affinity for "Amanecer" (Break of Day), but that's choosing a favourite from among favourites.
Luna de enfrente: 3/5
In retrospect, Borges called these poems "rather ostentatious, public." Perhaps this is accurate, perhaps it isn't; although it is true that I didn't connect as strongly with these poems as I did with Fervor de Buenos Aires. Yet keep in mind that Borges' weaker work is still better than 98% (approx.) of poetry out there, so take his assessment, as well as my own, with a grain of salt...
Cuaderno San Martín (San Martin Copybook): 3/5
"Regarding the exercises in this book, it is obvious that they aspire to an intellectual poetry," writes the author. Notice the key-word here: exercises. "Fundación mítica de Buenos Aires" (The Mythical Founding of Buenos Aires) is interesting on a rather theoretical (or intellectual) level, although it lacks an emotional 'punch'; whereas the mysterious resonance of "La noche que en el sur lo velaron" (Deathwatch on the Southside)—Borges' self-proclaimed "first authentic poem"—is perhaps offset by a slight awkwardness, even self-consciousness, of style. Both of these faults also affect, to different degrees, the other two less memorable poems in this collection.
El hacedor (The Maker): 5/5
Unlike anything I've ever read before. Magical and bizarre; deep and, quite often, cerebral—but never unpleasantly self-conscious. The titular poem made my hackles stand on end—an effect that hasn't diminished over the course of several readings. And having access to the Spanish text, here, is very helpful—in the translations, you don't get a feel for Borges' tight meters and rhymes. Borges himself writes that "of all the books I have delivered to the printer, none, in think, is as personal as this unruly jumble." Personally, I found Fervor de Buenos Aires far more intimate. But the longer I sit on this one, the closer I get to understanding the reasons behind Borges' claim.
Initial highlights: "El hacedor" (The Maker), "Una rosa amarilla" (A Yellow Rose), "Ragnarök," "Borges y yo" (Borges and I), "Poema de los dones" (Poem of Gifts), "El otro tigre" (The Other Tiger), the scathing theological critique that is "Lucas, XXIII," "Adrogué," "Arte poética," and the series of poems called simply "Museo" (Museum)—in particular, the wonderful "Del rigor en la ciencia" (On Scientific Rigor).
El otro, el mismo (The Self and the Other): 4/5
Borges writes that
Indeed, many of its themes appear over and over again—time and history, mysticism, death, the profound mystery of another's soul and so forth. As do particular cosas, both concrete and abstract: mirrors, dreams, labyrinths, dust, stars...
Borges admits a "predictable monotony," which is unduly harsh. But I won't deny that it's hard to view the work in terms of a coherent whole. My own strategy was to simply let my mind drift over the individual poems, perhaps drawn in by one, perhaps passing over another (and subsequently, in the former instances, struggling through the original Spanish text). I don't think Borges would have objected. And the pieces that attracted and resonated with me—"Composición escrita en un ejemplar de la gesta de Beowulf" (Poem Written in a Copy of Beowulf), "1964" and "El forastero" (The Stranger), to name a few—are among the most powerful I've ever read.
Para las seis cuerdas (For Six Strings): 3/5
A short collection of elegies, invoking and remembering and reconstructing the heroes (and villains) of Latin America's past. Naturally, these poems exist within a very specific cultural and geographical context; and as a foreigner, I found them rather difficult to fully appreciate. I may need to research some of these men before attempting a re-read.
And briefly, I'd like to mention that the translations here are truly remarkable. At the cost of some literalness, the English versions actually match the Spanish in terms of (general) rhyme schemes. Of course, this raises the following question: to what extent do these count as legitimate translations, as opposed to derivative works in their own right? Compare, for instance, the following stanzas:
Translating "brillo" as "youthful vigor" allows a rhyme to be formed with dagger, but how accurate is it semantically? And would a more literal translation be preferable to one that preserves the poet's form? At the very least, it's clear that the English versions don't entirely disclose the poetic world of Borges, but offer only a shadow of its glory.
Elogio de la sombra (In Praise of Darkness): 3/5
I find that Borges' poetry books read something like diaries: tangles of thoughts, images and their echoes, all bound up by the thread of common authorship. In many ways, Elogio de la sombra is a continuation of that one poem that he has been writing since El hacedor, with its preoccupation with time, history, memory and otherness. Yet Borges is no longer a young man, which means that Elogio de la sombra also reveals a new obsession: the unfathomableness of death (see, for instance, the remarkable "His End and His Beginning"—also included in Borges’ Fictions). An eclectic but intimate collection, a chronicle of one man's anxieties in the face of the profoundest of unknowns.
Highlights: "Cambridge," "Junio, 1968" and "His End and His Beginning." For best results, use alongside El hacedor and El otro, el mismo.
El oro de los tigres (The Gold of the Tigers): 3/5
Despite several flashes of el oro poético (e.g., "El Centinela" [The Watcher]), this collection, taken as a whole, failed to draw me in. One possible explanation: when he wrote these poems, Borges had already surpassed his allotted threescore years and ten. He was, so to speak, a man living on borrowed time. And unsurprisingly, the themes of death and oblivion figure prominently in his writing.
But here lies the problem: unlike Borges circa 1972, I am not an old man, which means that I often found it difficult to relate to the hopes, dreams and fears contained within these intimate pieces. Of course, one might argue that to convey the unconveyable is the hallmark of artistic genius, in which case my experience as a reader could be indicative of some authorial flaw. An enticing theory, no doubt; but I'm not sure I buy it.
Yet as it stands, my present sentiment is that while El oro de los tigres certainly possesses poetic merit, it fails to rank amongst Borges' more essential works—although perhaps I'll change my mind once I too have reached the "far extreme of weary years"...
La rosa profunda (The Unending Rose): 4/5
All of these collections are beginning to blur together... But there are some great pieces here: "Browning resuelve per poeta," "El suicida," "Soy" and so forth. Reminds me of El otro, el mismo. At least the atoms are the same: mirrors, dreams, time, ancestors, selves...
La moneda de hierro (The Iron Coin): 3/5
In the prologue to this collection, Borges writes:
How very true. Comprised of a scant twelve poems, La moneda de hierro nonetheless continues the poem-cycle that Borges began some fifteen or so years earlier. That is to say, all the usual characters—laberintos, espejos, etc.—make their due appearances.
Still, La moneda... finds Borges especially attentive to his various influences. Hence, we have poems dedicated to Melville and Láinez, among others. And I was particularly impressed with "A mi padre," which describes the death of Borges' staunchly materialist father:
Really, quite touching stuff.
Historia de la noche (The History of the Night): 4/5
Maybe this method of reading—lurching along in broken Spanish—is exactly how one ought to approach a poet like Borges. I mean, his vocabulary tends to be restricted, his syntax simple. Yet simplicity and familiarity can act as a disguise, blinding the reader to the resonances and histories that lurk beneath the words. Nevertheless, by reading slowly and even a little painfully, maybe we can give each palabra its proper due...
Borges wrote Historia de la noche when he was 78 years old. But far from constituting the "senilia" of a declining artist, it's nearly as strong as anything else he'd ever set to paper. The title piece in particular finds the author excising his remarkable talent for combining the intensely personal with one of those one of those "ah-ha!"-type plot twists. For a writer who was so famously enamoured by the passage of time, it's perhaps a little strange that his font of talent seemed to be eternal.
Fervor de Buenos Aires: 5/5
These poems are intimate, mystical, and exquisitely beautiful. If Neruda's preferred time is twilight, Borges' is 4:00am, outside on the streets of Buenos Aires, when "those who are dreaming the world are few / and only the ones who have been up all night retain, / ashen and barely outlined, / the image of the streets / that later others will define."
At the time of my writing this, I feel a particular affinity for "Amanecer" (Break of Day), but that's choosing a favourite from among favourites.
Luna de enfrente: 3/5
In retrospect, Borges called these poems "rather ostentatious, public." Perhaps this is accurate, perhaps it isn't; although it is true that I didn't connect as strongly with these poems as I did with Fervor de Buenos Aires. Yet keep in mind that Borges' weaker work is still better than 98% (approx.) of poetry out there, so take his assessment, as well as my own, with a grain of salt...
Cuaderno San Martín (San Martin Copybook): 3/5
"Regarding the exercises in this book, it is obvious that they aspire to an intellectual poetry," writes the author. Notice the key-word here: exercises. "Fundación mítica de Buenos Aires" (The Mythical Founding of Buenos Aires) is interesting on a rather theoretical (or intellectual) level, although it lacks an emotional 'punch'; whereas the mysterious resonance of "La noche que en el sur lo velaron" (Deathwatch on the Southside)—Borges' self-proclaimed "first authentic poem"—is perhaps offset by a slight awkwardness, even self-consciousness, of style. Both of these faults also affect, to different degrees, the other two less memorable poems in this collection.
El hacedor (The Maker): 5/5
Unlike anything I've ever read before. Magical and bizarre; deep and, quite often, cerebral—but never unpleasantly self-conscious. The titular poem made my hackles stand on end—an effect that hasn't diminished over the course of several readings. And having access to the Spanish text, here, is very helpful—in the translations, you don't get a feel for Borges' tight meters and rhymes. Borges himself writes that "of all the books I have delivered to the printer, none, in think, is as personal as this unruly jumble." Personally, I found Fervor de Buenos Aires far more intimate. But the longer I sit on this one, the closer I get to understanding the reasons behind Borges' claim.
Initial highlights: "El hacedor" (The Maker), "Una rosa amarilla" (A Yellow Rose), "Ragnarök," "Borges y yo" (Borges and I), "Poema de los dones" (Poem of Gifts), "El otro tigre" (The Other Tiger), the scathing theological critique that is "Lucas, XXIII," "Adrogué," "Arte poética," and the series of poems called simply "Museo" (Museum)—in particular, the wonderful "Del rigor en la ciencia" (On Scientific Rigor).
El otro, el mismo (The Self and the Other): 4/5
Borges writes that
[t]his book is but a compilation. Each poem wrote itself, responding to different moods and moments and not designed to make up a book. Hence, there might be noted a predictable monotony, repetition of words and perhaps even whole lines.
Indeed, many of its themes appear over and over again—time and history, mysticism, death, the profound mystery of another's soul and so forth. As do particular cosas, both concrete and abstract: mirrors, dreams, labyrinths, dust, stars...
Borges admits a "predictable monotony," which is unduly harsh. But I won't deny that it's hard to view the work in terms of a coherent whole. My own strategy was to simply let my mind drift over the individual poems, perhaps drawn in by one, perhaps passing over another (and subsequently, in the former instances, struggling through the original Spanish text). I don't think Borges would have objected. And the pieces that attracted and resonated with me—"Composición escrita en un ejemplar de la gesta de Beowulf" (Poem Written in a Copy of Beowulf), "1964" and "El forastero" (The Stranger), to name a few—are among the most powerful I've ever read.
Para las seis cuerdas (For Six Strings): 3/5
A short collection of elegies, invoking and remembering and reconstructing the heroes (and villains) of Latin America's past. Naturally, these poems exist within a very specific cultural and geographical context; and as a foreigner, I found them rather difficult to fully appreciate. I may need to research some of these men before attempting a re-read.
And briefly, I'd like to mention that the translations here are truly remarkable. At the cost of some literalness, the English versions actually match the Spanish in terms of (general) rhyme schemes. Of course, this raises the following question: to what extent do these count as legitimate translations, as opposed to derivative works in their own right? Compare, for instance, the following stanzas:
El bigote un poco gris
Pero en los ojos brillo
Y cerca del corazón
El bultito del cuchillo.
The mustache graying at the ends,
But in the eyes a youthful vigor,
And, kept forever near the heart,
The little bundle of the dagger.
Translating "brillo" as "youthful vigor" allows a rhyme to be formed with dagger, but how accurate is it semantically? And would a more literal translation be preferable to one that preserves the poet's form? At the very least, it's clear that the English versions don't entirely disclose the poetic world of Borges, but offer only a shadow of its glory.
Elogio de la sombra (In Praise of Darkness): 3/5
I find that Borges' poetry books read something like diaries: tangles of thoughts, images and their echoes, all bound up by the thread of common authorship. In many ways, Elogio de la sombra is a continuation of that one poem that he has been writing since El hacedor, with its preoccupation with time, history, memory and otherness. Yet Borges is no longer a young man, which means that Elogio de la sombra also reveals a new obsession: the unfathomableness of death (see, for instance, the remarkable "His End and His Beginning"—also included in Borges’ Fictions). An eclectic but intimate collection, a chronicle of one man's anxieties in the face of the profoundest of unknowns.
Highlights: "Cambridge," "Junio, 1968" and "His End and His Beginning." For best results, use alongside El hacedor and El otro, el mismo.
El oro de los tigres (The Gold of the Tigers): 3/5
Despite several flashes of el oro poético (e.g., "El Centinela" [The Watcher]), this collection, taken as a whole, failed to draw me in. One possible explanation: when he wrote these poems, Borges had already surpassed his allotted threescore years and ten. He was, so to speak, a man living on borrowed time. And unsurprisingly, the themes of death and oblivion figure prominently in his writing.
But here lies the problem: unlike Borges circa 1972, I am not an old man, which means that I often found it difficult to relate to the hopes, dreams and fears contained within these intimate pieces. Of course, one might argue that to convey the unconveyable is the hallmark of artistic genius, in which case my experience as a reader could be indicative of some authorial flaw. An enticing theory, no doubt; but I'm not sure I buy it.
Yet as it stands, my present sentiment is that while El oro de los tigres certainly possesses poetic merit, it fails to rank amongst Borges' more essential works—although perhaps I'll change my mind once I too have reached the "far extreme of weary years"...
La rosa profunda (The Unending Rose): 4/5
All of these collections are beginning to blur together... But there are some great pieces here: "Browning resuelve per poeta," "El suicida," "Soy" and so forth. Reminds me of El otro, el mismo. At least the atoms are the same: mirrors, dreams, time, ancestors, selves...
La moneda de hierro (The Iron Coin): 3/5
In the prologue to this collection, Borges writes:
I will no longer be judged by the text itself but rather by the vague but still sufficiently precise image that people have of me.
How very true. Comprised of a scant twelve poems, La moneda de hierro nonetheless continues the poem-cycle that Borges began some fifteen or so years earlier. That is to say, all the usual characters—laberintos, espejos, etc.—make their due appearances.
Still, La moneda... finds Borges especially attentive to his various influences. Hence, we have poems dedicated to Melville and Láinez, among others. And I was particularly impressed with "A mi padre," which describes the death of Borges' staunchly materialist father:
Te hemos visto morir sonriente y ciego.
Nada esperabas ver del otro lado[.]
(We saw you die smiling and also blind,
Expecting nothing on the other side.)
Really, quite touching stuff.
Historia de la noche (The History of the Night): 4/5
Maybe this method of reading—lurching along in broken Spanish—is exactly how one ought to approach a poet like Borges. I mean, his vocabulary tends to be restricted, his syntax simple. Yet simplicity and familiarity can act as a disguise, blinding the reader to the resonances and histories that lurk beneath the words. Nevertheless, by reading slowly and even a little painfully, maybe we can give each palabra its proper due...
Borges wrote Historia de la noche when he was 78 years old. But far from constituting the "senilia" of a declining artist, it's nearly as strong as anything else he'd ever set to paper. The title piece in particular finds the author excising his remarkable talent for combining the intensely personal with one of those one of those "ah-ha!"-type plot twists. For a writer who was so famously enamoured by the passage of time, it's perhaps a little strange that his font of talent seemed to be eternal.
July 13, 2016
Sobre os poemas não opino, já que desconfio não ter entendido grande coisa da maioria deles.
Já os contos são divinais, souberam a pouco!
ARTE POÉTICA
«Olhar o rio que é de tempo e água
E recordar que o tempo é outro rio,
Saber que nos perdemos como o rio
E que os rostos passam como a água.
Sentir que a vigília é outro sono
Que sonha não sonhar e que a morte
Que teme a nossa carne é essa morte
De cada noite, que se chama sono.
Ver no dia ou até no ano um símbolo
Quer dos dias do homem quer dos anos,
Converter a perseguição dos anos
Numa música, um rumor e um símbolo,
Ver só na morte o sono, no ocaso
Um triste ouro, assim é a poesia
Que é imortal e pobre. A poesia
volta como a aurora e o ocaso.
Às vezes, certas tardes uma cara
Olha-nos do mais fundo dum espelho;
A arte deve ser como esse espelho
Que nos revela a nossa própria cara.
Contam que Ulisses, farto de prodígios
Chorou de amor ao divisar sua Ítaca
Verde e humilde. A arte é esta Ítaca
De verde eternidade, e não prodígios.
Também é como o rio interminável
Que passa e fica e é cristal de um mesmo
Heráclito inconstante, que é o mesmo
E é outro, como o rio interminável.»
Já os contos são divinais, souberam a pouco!
ARTE POÉTICA
«Olhar o rio que é de tempo e água
E recordar que o tempo é outro rio,
Saber que nos perdemos como o rio
E que os rostos passam como a água.
Sentir que a vigília é outro sono
Que sonha não sonhar e que a morte
Que teme a nossa carne é essa morte
De cada noite, que se chama sono.
Ver no dia ou até no ano um símbolo
Quer dos dias do homem quer dos anos,
Converter a perseguição dos anos
Numa música, um rumor e um símbolo,
Ver só na morte o sono, no ocaso
Um triste ouro, assim é a poesia
Que é imortal e pobre. A poesia
volta como a aurora e o ocaso.
Às vezes, certas tardes uma cara
Olha-nos do mais fundo dum espelho;
A arte deve ser como esse espelho
Que nos revela a nossa própria cara.
Contam que Ulisses, farto de prodígios
Chorou de amor ao divisar sua Ítaca
Verde e humilde. A arte é esta Ítaca
De verde eternidade, e não prodígios.
Também é como o rio interminável
Que passa e fica e é cristal de um mesmo
Heráclito inconstante, que é o mesmo
E é outro, como o rio interminável.»
September 14, 2012
Ars Poetica
To look at the river made of time and water
And remember that time is another river,
To know that we are lost like the river
And that faces dissolve like water.
To be aware that waking dreams it is not asleep
While it is another dream, and that the death
That our flesh goes in fear of is that death
Which comes every night and is called sleep.
To see in the day or in the year a symbol
Of the days of man and of his years,
To transmute the outrage of the years
into a music, a murmur of voices, and a symbol,
To see in death sleep, and in the sunset
A sad gold - such is poetry,
Which is immortal and poor. Poetry
Returns like the dawn and the sunset.
At times in the evenings a face
Looks at us out of the depths of the mirror;
Art should be like that mirror
Which reveals to us our own face.
They say that Ulysses, sated with marvels,
Wept tears of love at the sight of his ithaca.
Green and humble. Art is that Ithaca
Of green eternity, not of marvels.
It is also like the river with no end
That flows and remains and is the mirror of one same
Inconstant Heraclitus, who is the same
And is another, like the river with no end.
J.L. Borges
To look at the river made of time and water
And remember that time is another river,
To know that we are lost like the river
And that faces dissolve like water.
To be aware that waking dreams it is not asleep
While it is another dream, and that the death
That our flesh goes in fear of is that death
Which comes every night and is called sleep.
To see in the day or in the year a symbol
Of the days of man and of his years,
To transmute the outrage of the years
into a music, a murmur of voices, and a symbol,
To see in death sleep, and in the sunset
A sad gold - such is poetry,
Which is immortal and poor. Poetry
Returns like the dawn and the sunset.
At times in the evenings a face
Looks at us out of the depths of the mirror;
Art should be like that mirror
Which reveals to us our own face.
They say that Ulysses, sated with marvels,
Wept tears of love at the sight of his ithaca.
Green and humble. Art is that Ithaca
Of green eternity, not of marvels.
It is also like the river with no end
That flows and remains and is the mirror of one same
Inconstant Heraclitus, who is the same
And is another, like the river with no end.
J.L. Borges
February 25, 2010
Borges poetry is written with the same fierce intelligence, austere passion, and Escheresque creativity with which he fashions his brilliant fictions and essays; and the same cerebral steeliness that occasionally mars his stories rarely shows to the same effect here. This bilingual edition is a treasure chest, a compendium of the life's work in verse by perhaps South America's best poet after Neruda. The Spanish originals are absolutely magnificent - rich and fluid, with all the latin-sired nobility so inherent in the widespread romance tongue - while the English translations, wisely abandoning rhyme for the most part, do a more than admirable job of capturing the icy fire with which Borges was lit by his muse.
Strange that there are dreams, that there are mirrors.
Strange that the ordinary, worn-out ways
of every day encompass the imagined
and endless universe woven by reflections.
God (I've begun to think) implants a promise
in all that insubstantial architecture
that makes light out of the impervious surface
of glass, and makes the shadow out of dreams.
God has created nights well-populated
with dreams, crowded with mirror images
so that man my feel that he is nothing more
than vain reflection. That's what frightens us.
Strange that there are dreams, that there are mirrors.
Strange that the ordinary, worn-out ways
of every day encompass the imagined
and endless universe woven by reflections.
God (I've begun to think) implants a promise
in all that insubstantial architecture
that makes light out of the impervious surface
of glass, and makes the shadow out of dreams.
God has created nights well-populated
with dreams, crowded with mirror images
so that man my feel that he is nothing more
than vain reflection. That's what frightens us.
July 26, 2023
Patio
With evening
the two or three colors of the patio grew weary.
Tonight, the moon's bright circle
does not dominate outer space.
Patio, heaven's watercourse.
The patio is the slope
down which the sky flows into the house.
Serenely
eternity waits at the crossway of the stars.
It is lovely to live in the dark friendliness
of covered entrance way, arbor, and wellhead.
With evening
the two or three colors of the patio grew weary.
Tonight, the moon's bright circle
does not dominate outer space.
Patio, heaven's watercourse.
The patio is the slope
down which the sky flows into the house.
Serenely
eternity waits at the crossway of the stars.
It is lovely to live in the dark friendliness
of covered entrance way, arbor, and wellhead.
December 19, 2014
Depois dos jogadores se terem ido,
Depois do tempo os ter consumido,
Decerto não terá cessado o rito.
No oriente incendiou-se esta guerra
Cujo anfiteatro é hoje a terra.
Como o outro, este jogo é infinito.
(Xadrez, Jorge Luís Borges)
Depois do tempo os ter consumido,
Decerto não terá cessado o rito.
No oriente incendiou-se esta guerra
Cujo anfiteatro é hoje a terra.
Como o outro, este jogo é infinito.
(Xadrez, Jorge Luís Borges)
March 16, 2015
Se va al carajo este viejo. Què hermoso es leer una Obra Completa de un Autor, es una experiencia ùnica opino. Hay mucha belleza en este libro.
June 2, 2021
Metaphysics, mythology, Argentina, bibliophilia, blindness, love, death.
Thematically diverse and obscure. There are some great poems in here, though I believe his fiction is stronger.
3.5 stars
Thematically diverse and obscure. There are some great poems in here, though I believe his fiction is stronger.
3.5 stars
Want to read
November 4, 2015 Shinto
When misfortune confounds us
in an instant we are saved
by the humblest actions
of memory or attention:
the taste of fruit, the taste of water,
that face returned to us in dream,
the first jasmine flowers of November,
the infinite yearning of the compass,
a book we thought forever lost,
the pulsing of a hexameter,
the little key that opens a house,
the smell of sandalwood or library,
the ancient name of a street,
the colourations of a map,
an unforeseen etymology,
the smoothness of a filed fingernail,
the date that we were searching for,
counting the twelve dark bell-strokes,
a sudden physical pain.
Eight million the deities of Shinto
who travel the earth, secretly.
Those modest divinities touch us,
touch us, and pass on by.
Things
My walking-stick, small change, key-ring,
The docile lock and the belated
Notes my few days left will grant
No time to read, the cards, the table,
A book, in its pages, that pressed
Violet, the leavings of an afternoon
Doubtless unforgettable, forgotten,
The reddened mirror facing to the west
Where burns illusory dawn. Many things,
Files, sills, atlases, wine-glasses, nails,
Which serve us, like unspeaking
slaves,
So blind and so mysteriously secret!
They’ll long outlast our oblivion;
And never know that we are gone.
Limits
Already through the grey glass night ebbs
And among the stack of books that throws
A broken shadow on the unlit table,
There must be one I will never read
When misfortune confounds us
in an instant we are saved
by the humblest actions
of memory or attention:
the taste of fruit, the taste of water,
that face returned to us in dream,
the first jasmine flowers of November,
the infinite yearning of the compass,
a book we thought forever lost,
the pulsing of a hexameter,
the little key that opens a house,
the smell of sandalwood or library,
the ancient name of a street,
the colourations of a map,
an unforeseen etymology,
the smoothness of a filed fingernail,
the date that we were searching for,
counting the twelve dark bell-strokes,
a sudden physical pain.
Eight million the deities of Shinto
who travel the earth, secretly.
Those modest divinities touch us,
touch us, and pass on by.
Things
My walking-stick, small change, key-ring,
The docile lock and the belated
Notes my few days left will grant
No time to read, the cards, the table,
A book, in its pages, that pressed
Violet, the leavings of an afternoon
Doubtless unforgettable, forgotten,
The reddened mirror facing to the west
Where burns illusory dawn. Many things,
Files, sills, atlases, wine-glasses, nails,
Which serve us, like unspeaking
slaves,
So blind and so mysteriously secret!
They’ll long outlast our oblivion;
And never know that we are gone.
Limits
Already through the grey glass night ebbs
And among the stack of books that throws
A broken shadow on the unlit table,
There must be one I will never read
April 21, 2014
Interesting to read this after 10 years. Clearly I was just a little concerned by death.
I'm going to compare this to When Harry Met Sally (yeah, it's weird):
Harry: ...Do you ever think about death?
Sally: Yes.
Harry: Sure you do, a fleeting thought that jumps in and out of the transient of your mind. I spend hours, I spend days...
Sally: And you think that makes you a better person.
Harry: Look, when the shit comes down I'm gonna be prepared and you're not that's all I'm saying.
'Nuff said.
I'm going to compare this to When Harry Met Sally (yeah, it's weird):
Harry: ...Do you ever think about death?
Sally: Yes.
Harry: Sure you do, a fleeting thought that jumps in and out of the transient of your mind. I spend hours, I spend days...
Sally: And you think that makes you a better person.
Harry: Look, when the shit comes down I'm gonna be prepared and you're not that's all I'm saying.
'Nuff said.
Read
December 21, 2015ثمة بيت لفرلين لن أتذكره مرة اخرى
ثمة شارع جانبي محرم علي ان امشي فيه
ثمة مرآة عكست صورتي لآخر مرة ولن تعكسها مرة اخرى
ثمة باب أغلقته لآخر مرة ولن أغلقه بعد ذلك أبدا
من بين الكتب في مكتبتي ها انا انظر اليها
ثمة كتب لن افتحها أبدا مرة اخرى
في الصيف القادم سأكون قد اكملت الخمسين:
الموت يغزوني، باستمرار.
كتاب طبعا جميل في البداية حوارات معه والباقي قصائد مختارة
في موضوع المترجم صحيح انني تأخرت كثيرا باكتشافه لكني سعيد
شكرًا حسن حلمي
ثمة شارع جانبي محرم علي ان امشي فيه
ثمة مرآة عكست صورتي لآخر مرة ولن تعكسها مرة اخرى
ثمة باب أغلقته لآخر مرة ولن أغلقه بعد ذلك أبدا
من بين الكتب في مكتبتي ها انا انظر اليها
ثمة كتب لن افتحها أبدا مرة اخرى
في الصيف القادم سأكون قد اكملت الخمسين:
الموت يغزوني، باستمرار.
كتاب طبعا جميل في البداية حوارات معه والباقي قصائد مختارة
في موضوع المترجم صحيح انني تأخرت كثيرا باكتشافه لكني سعيد
شكرًا حسن حلمي
April 5, 2015
There is among all your memories one
Which has now been lost beyond recall.
You will not be seen going down to that fountain
Neither by white sun nor by yellow moon.
You will never recapture what the Persian
Said in his language woven with birds and roses,
When, in the sunset, before the light disperses,
You wish to give words to unforgettable things.
Which has now been lost beyond recall.
You will not be seen going down to that fountain
Neither by white sun nor by yellow moon.
You will never recapture what the Persian
Said in his language woven with birds and roses,
When, in the sunset, before the light disperses,
You wish to give words to unforgettable things.
Want to read
July 5, 2013
July 27, 2023
El silencio del pájaro dormido,
El arco del zanguán, la humedad
—esas cosas, acaso, son el poema.
The silence of the sleeping bird,
The arch of the entrance, the damp
—these things, perhaps, are the poem.
I cannot use my words to talk about the pure miracle who is Borges.
El arco del zanguán, la humedad
—esas cosas, acaso, son el poema.
The silence of the sleeping bird,
The arch of the entrance, the damp
—these things, perhaps, are the poem.
I cannot use my words to talk about the pure miracle who is Borges.
October 7, 2020
Part of a 2020 Pandemic Project: using poets' repetitions to make something i'm now calling repoesy.
++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
if you also didn't know ...
Hengist
Manuel Flores
falling-ice land
Touch Us
Christ on the cross mirrored days you dawn.
Hengist wanted men, the palace, the dagger.
Manuel Flores leafed through the vanished park.
I am: the other tiger that sparkles
and wanes, falling-ice land, things, dreams, no-one.
You save me. And still the night things grow.
++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
if you also didn't know ...
Hengist
Manuel Flores
falling-ice land
+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
if you wanna make your own...
+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
save me|
Hengist wants men|
the palace|
the dagger|
Manuel Flores|
leafed through|
the vanished park|
Christ on the cross|
mirrors|
Iceland|
falling|
i am|
things|
No One|
dreams|
the other
tiger|
the night|
that|
sparkles and wanes|
and still|
things|
you|
grow|
touch us|
days|
you|
dawn|
September 21, 2009
A very nice selection of the poetry of Borges with both Spanish texts and translations by a variety of translators, the book includes the poet's prologues, inscriptions, and epilogues to the various volumes from which the selections came. It's all here, labyrinths, tigers, knives and swords, mirrors, dreams, death, blindness, libraries, books, Saxons, Norse mythology, Homer, Virgil, Dante, Cervantes, Milton, Poe, the Bible, and Buenos Aires, and all transformed by the genius of Borges into sublime poetry. Among the many I liked were "The Just," "Alexandria, A.D. 641," and "The Limit." In "Fragments from an Apocryphal Gospel," I found a line quoted by Alberto Manguel: "41. Nothing is built on stone, everything on sand, but our duty is to build as if sand were stone . . ." This is a book to read before sleep as a catalyst for big dreams.
January 30, 2009
Jorge Luis Borges me encanta en sus poemas jjenos de emociones e sensibilidad,nos lleva al profundo del corazon!
September 6, 2012
"أن تحدق في نهر من الزمان والماء،
وتتذكر أن الزمان نهر آخر.
أن تحيل إساءة السنين
نغمًا وصوتًا.
ذهبي هو الفن، متواضع وأبدي،
متواتر كالفجر.
"
وتتذكر أن الزمان نهر آخر.
أن تحيل إساءة السنين
نغمًا وصوتًا.
ذهبي هو الفن، متواضع وأبدي،
متواتر كالفجر.
"
November 9, 2014
لا أحب الشعر المترجم بالعادة لكن أعجبتني هنا بعض القصائد، واختيار القصائد كان موفقا حيث المواضيع مختلفة ولم يختَر قصائد ذات معاني مكررة
March 8, 2024
I mean it's Borges so I don't know what I could possibly add to what has already been said many times over except if you wanna get fucked up take a shot every time he writes about mirrors.
February 25, 2016
مراجعة سريعة و انطباعات خاطفة حول ترجمات عربية لنصوص شعرية و نثرية للأرجنتيني خورخيه بورخيس.. هل تضيع بعض تأثيرات النص في الترجمة الوسيطة فتنتقص من متعة قراءته؟
"الجمجمة باطنا، السر، القلب المنفطر،
مسالك الدم التي لا أراها أبدا،
العالم السفلي، عالم الأحلام، بروثيوس ذاك،
قفا العتق، الأحشاء، الهيكل العظمي.
أنا كل تلك الأشياء، المذهل أنني
أنا أيضا ذاكرة السيف
وذاكرة شمس متفردة هاوية،
تتحول لونا ذهبيا فرماديا، فعدما.
أنا ذاك الذي من المرفأ يرقب
السفن إذ تقترب. وأنا الكتب المتضائلة،
النقوش النادرة تآكلت بمرور الزمن،
أنا من يحسد الألى هلكوا.
والأغرب أن تكون الشخص الذي ينسج
كلمات كهذه، في غرفة ما، في بيت ما."
ترجمة الشعر العالمي الى العربية مهمة جداً، و ما حاضرنا الذي تأثّر بالتكنولوجيا التي شوشّت عالم الشعر إلاّ بعامل يزيدها ضرورة، و اقتبس هنا عدنان ياسين:
" إنّ حاجة بعض الشعراء الشباب اليوم إلى الاقتراب من الشعريات العالمية عبر آلية الترجمة الأدبية تبقى ماسَّة، في زمن صار الكثير من شعرائه يكتفون بالفيسبوك وبما تتيحه لوغاريتمات الترجمة الآلية في مجرّته من معانٍ تقريبية وصياغاتٍ ملتبسة لا تغذّي سوى ضحالة نصوصهم. شعراء متهافتون على النشر وعلى ما يستتبعه من تربيت إلكتروني على الحيطان، متناسين أن مجرّة الشعر أوسع وأكثر رحابة من شبكة زرقاء تسبح في مدار افتراضي. "
لكن يبقى أن تكون هذه الترجمات الناقلة للغة العربية قادرة على صياغة المعنى و نقل الصور الشاعرية بوفاء لمقاصد الشاعر و لفرادة لغته الشعرية و تمايزها..
إن عبارات لبورخيس من مثل "أن تحول إساءة السنين نغمًا وصوتًا.." و "ذهبي هو الفن، متواضع وأبديّ، متواتر كالفجر" قد لا تخرّبها ترجمة وسيطة، تحتفظ بقدرتها على إطلاق الاشارات الذهنية التي تثيرها الصور الشعرية في ذهن المتلقي فتثير فيه انفعالات تغذّي متعة التفاعل مع النص. لكن ليس بالتخييل وحده يحيا النص الشعري، هذا حينما تنجح الترجمة بنقله، بخاصة حينما لا تحرّره من أفخاخ النقل الحرفي و قيد المعنى و الصياغة، بما يتآلف مع مقاصد الشاعر، فتفسد مفاعيله و قدرته على الإيحاء و المحاكاة والارشاد الى الصور و تضيع خاصيته الإبداعية. الصعوبة تكمن أيضاً بالوفاء لشيفرة النص التي هي خصوصية تفرّده و قوته و تمايز روحيّته.
لعلّي أبالغ، إذ المفارقة تكمن في أن الذنب لا ينحصر بالمترجم الوسيط بين الكاتب و القارئ-المتلقي. فقد قرأت نصوص ترجمها عيسى مخلوف، انطوان جوكي؛ سعيد الغانمي؛ رفعت عطفة.. بعضها تكاد أن تكون "غوغلية"، أخرى استحسنتها كانت لعدنان المبارك، الأرجح أنها الأكثر تداولاً، و أخيراً هذه للدكتور حسن حلمي، و هي، برأيي الشخصي جيدة و متينة غالباً، متوسطة أحياناً..
الشعر لغة أدبية تعبيرية منفردة، من مقوّماته الجمالية الفانتستيك و العمق الفلسفي التجريدي و الرمزية و التخييل و الايحائية و الأسلوب المتفرّد و موسيقى الكلمة الخ..
كما أن شخصية (Psyche)
الشاعر و مكنوناتها و تجاربها جزء أساسي يحتكم بشعره. فلهذا النص جانب شخصي، متصل بالواقع، يحاكي يوميات الشاعر، محاورته لمجتمعه و آرائه السياسية و الفلسفية و العلمية و هواجسه و معايشته للتاريخ و لكيفية تعامله معه. فيتلازم الشعر مع واقعه الذي يفرض عليه تأثيرات و ردود فعل و لقاءات يتأثر بها، و مُثُل و أفكار تتسلل الى النص أو حتى تكون منطلقاً لها، ليسبح النص في فضاء تجاربه الحسية أو العاطفية الخ.. الشعر تعبير بلاغي لتفاصيل عادية، مشتركة، جماعية، و لخواطر شخصية، تأملّية، تمزج بين الواقع و المتخيّل و الغائب، تقارن بينهما او تجمعها ...
في هذا الإطار، الذنب متشارك في عدم إدراكي لجماليات النص. رغم اطلاعي الواسع و الوثيق بمؤلفات و نظريات أساسية في الانتاج البورخيسي (كيركيجارد، نيتشه، ڤرلان، موروا، بيكيت الخ..) الا أنه و في المقابل نظراً لعدم اطلاعي الكافي على جوانب حياته و محطات من تاريخ القارة اللاتينية الحديث بل و الأدب الأرجنتيني إجمالاً، فلم التمس الدلالات و الاشارات و المستنسخات التناصية و الاستعارات بمجملها، بل قل أغلبها. على أن دقائق بحث ويكيباديّ كانت كافية لاستدرك سطور و مجازات لم أفهم أبعادها ففاتني مقصد الشاعر: ك"الرابط بين شجرة النسب الشخصي والتاريخ الأرجنتيني" و التلميح " إلى موت الكولونيل فرنسيسكو» في «قصيدة حدسية»، الحلم («ألونسو كويخانو يحلم»)، مدينة بوينيس آيريس في «كل البوارح، حلم» الخ..
لذا أنصح بشدة الإحاطة بمقاصد بورخيس و التمعّن بقراءة متمهّلة بعالمه للإستمتاع بشعره و ادراك عمقه.
استعرضت سابقاً باقتضاب اقتباسات تتمحور حول وظائف و نواقص و علل ترجمة الشعر العالمي، شعر الألماني راينر ريلكه بالعربية نموذجاً، و هو مضمار صار حاضراً شبه هزلي لطفرة بدور النشر اللقيطة و مترجمين عرب بالجملة هم إهانة و استهزاء بديونتولجيا تلك المهنة السامية، حالهم حال ديمقراطيتنا و "تقدمية" مجتمعاتنا التعيسة المنهكة..
عن سوء ترجمة إرث مايا كوفسكي العظيم من الانجليزية الى العربية، مثلاً، أحيل الى هذا المقال، الى ذهب الى حد عنونته صراحةً ب"اغتيال ماياكوڤسكي"
http://mabda-alamal.blogspot.com/2010...
في مقال نقدي طويل للشاعر المكسيكي "خوسيه باتشيكو" عن أحكام الشعر الحديث و التصنيفات العامة، برأيه، لمستويات التذوق (عبارة غير علمية لم أجد حقيقة قرينتها بالعربية) و قدرة التقييم و الفهم المعاصر لدى القارئ، يقول باتشيكو أن " القصيدة الحديثة لا تولد جرْياً على مقياس عَروضيّ وإنما وفق آنيّة نَفَسِ كاتبها، إحساسه الإيقاعي، وقفته النبضية (..) وما إعجابهم بالقصيدة الحديثة سوى نتيجة قراءة في مرحلة الحضانة، كما يقول أودن، حيث عدم القدرة على التمييز بين الذوق والحكم. هناك ثلاثة أنواع من القراء: القارئ الوزّان الذي يقرأ القصيدة بذهنيّة بوليسيّة تترصد أيّ كسر أو خلل وزني ليحكم على القصيدة بالموت: بأنّها ليست قصيدة وإنّما شعر فاسد. وثانيا، القارئ الذي يقرأ كثيراً الشعر المترجم لما يزخر به من دهشة، وقوة الصور، والتجاور اللامعقول بين كلمة وأخرى، سطر وآخر؛ وبالتالي هو من أنصار قصيدة النثر العربية ولا تهمّه إذا كانت القصيدة موزونة أو غير موزونة؛ أمّا القارئ الثالث فهو الذي لا يقرأ إلا ليتصوَّر نفسَه في القصيدة باحثا عن مشابهات عاطفيّة، سياسيّة، والرواسب الشعورية بينه وبينها"..
اشعر بانتماء للفريق الثاني لأني من أتباع التضاد الخالق للسريالية و الزخم الكلامي و الفانتازي و الميتافيزيقي المخالط للواقع حتى يملئه بالفوضى و الحيرة فيلتبس على الحواس و المنطق، تزخر بها تركيبة الشعر الحديث، اي النص الذي لا يهدأ فلا يتردّد بالجمع ما بين العذوبة و التدليلية القاتمة و السوداوية و التناقض و التهكّم المؤكسِد الكاسر للصورة الكلاسيكية و المهذبة (اجتماعياً) و التقليدية..
على أني لدى قراءة بورخيس، لم تلمسني بعض نصوصه و لم تبلغني صورها و إيحائات عباراته بما أملت استمداده منها.. افتقدت متعة تتبّع تلك الرمزية و انسيابية و بساطة تركيباته المجازية الذكية في رواياته القصيرة. حينما لا يتمّ تعريب المصطلحات في قوالبها الظرفيّة و الرمزية بدقة تبهت و تذبل، تستحيل الترجمة العربية حياكة لشذرات غير متناسقة، بصور مفكّكة مفتقدة للترابط فيما بينها..
"الجمجمة باطنا، السر، القلب المنفطر،
مسالك الدم التي لا أراها أبدا،
العالم السفلي، عالم الأحلام، بروثيوس ذاك،
قفا العتق، الأحشاء، الهيكل العظمي.
أنا كل تلك الأشياء، المذهل أنني
أنا أيضا ذاكرة السيف
وذاكرة شمس متفردة هاوية،
تتحول لونا ذهبيا فرماديا، فعدما.
أنا ذاك الذي من المرفأ يرقب
السفن إذ تقترب. وأنا الكتب المتضائلة،
النقوش النادرة تآكلت بمرور الزمن،
أنا من يحسد الألى هلكوا.
والأغرب أن تكون الشخص الذي ينسج
كلمات كهذه، في غرفة ما، في بيت ما."
ترجمة الشعر العالمي الى العربية مهمة جداً، و ما حاضرنا الذي تأثّر بالتكنولوجيا التي شوشّت عالم الشعر إلاّ بعامل يزيدها ضرورة، و اقتبس هنا عدنان ياسين:
" إنّ حاجة بعض الشعراء الشباب اليوم إلى الاقتراب من الشعريات العالمية عبر آلية الترجمة الأدبية تبقى ماسَّة، في زمن صار الكثير من شعرائه يكتفون بالفيسبوك وبما تتيحه لوغاريتمات الترجمة الآلية في مجرّته من معانٍ تقريبية وصياغاتٍ ملتبسة لا تغذّي سوى ضحالة نصوصهم. شعراء متهافتون على النشر وعلى ما يستتبعه من تربيت إلكتروني على الحيطان، متناسين أن مجرّة الشعر أوسع وأكثر رحابة من شبكة زرقاء تسبح في مدار افتراضي. "
لكن يبقى أن تكون هذه الترجمات الناقلة للغة العربية قادرة على صياغة المعنى و نقل الصور الشاعرية بوفاء لمقاصد الشاعر و لفرادة لغته الشعرية و تمايزها..
إن عبارات لبورخيس من مثل "أن تحول إساءة السنين نغمًا وصوتًا.." و "ذهبي هو الفن، متواضع وأبديّ، متواتر كالفجر" قد لا تخرّبها ترجمة وسيطة، تحتفظ بقدرتها على إطلاق الاشارات الذهنية التي تثيرها الصور الشعرية في ذهن المتلقي فتثير فيه انفعالات تغذّي متعة التفاعل مع النص. لكن ليس بالتخييل وحده يحيا النص الشعري، هذا حينما تنجح الترجمة بنقله، بخاصة حينما لا تحرّره من أفخاخ النقل الحرفي و قيد المعنى و الصياغة، بما يتآلف مع مقاصد الشاعر، فتفسد مفاعيله و قدرته على الإيحاء و المحاكاة والارشاد الى الصور و تضيع خاصيته الإبداعية. الصعوبة تكمن أيضاً بالوفاء لشيفرة النص التي هي خصوصية تفرّده و قوته و تمايز روحيّته.
لعلّي أبالغ، إذ المفارقة تكمن في أن الذنب لا ينحصر بالمترجم الوسيط بين الكاتب و القارئ-المتلقي. فقد قرأت نصوص ترجمها عيسى مخلوف، انطوان جوكي؛ سعيد الغانمي؛ رفعت عطفة.. بعضها تكاد أن تكون "غوغلية"، أخرى استحسنتها كانت لعدنان المبارك، الأرجح أنها الأكثر تداولاً، و أخيراً هذه للدكتور حسن حلمي، و هي، برأيي الشخصي جيدة و متينة غالباً، متوسطة أحياناً..
الشعر لغة أدبية تعبيرية منفردة، من مقوّماته الجمالية الفانتستيك و العمق الفلسفي التجريدي و الرمزية و التخييل و الايحائية و الأسلوب المتفرّد و موسيقى الكلمة الخ..
كما أن شخصية (Psyche)
الشاعر و مكنوناتها و تجاربها جزء أساسي يحتكم بشعره. فلهذا النص جانب شخصي، متصل بالواقع، يحاكي يوميات الشاعر، محاورته لمجتمعه و آرائه السياسية و الفلسفية و العلمية و هواجسه و معايشته للتاريخ و لكيفية تعامله معه. فيتلازم الشعر مع واقعه الذي يفرض عليه تأثيرات و ردود فعل و لقاءات يتأثر بها، و مُثُل و أفكار تتسلل الى النص أو حتى تكون منطلقاً لها، ليسبح النص في فضاء تجاربه الحسية أو العاطفية الخ.. الشعر تعبير بلاغي لتفاصيل عادية، مشتركة، جماعية، و لخواطر شخصية، تأملّية، تمزج بين الواقع و المتخيّل و الغائب، تقارن بينهما او تجمعها ...
في هذا الإطار، الذنب متشارك في عدم إدراكي لجماليات النص. رغم اطلاعي الواسع و الوثيق بمؤلفات و نظريات أساسية في الانتاج البورخيسي (كيركيجارد، نيتشه، ڤرلان، موروا، بيكيت الخ..) الا أنه و في المقابل نظراً لعدم اطلاعي الكافي على جوانب حياته و محطات من تاريخ القارة اللاتينية الحديث بل و الأدب الأرجنتيني إجمالاً، فلم التمس الدلالات و الاشارات و المستنسخات التناصية و الاستعارات بمجملها، بل قل أغلبها. على أن دقائق بحث ويكيباديّ كانت كافية لاستدرك سطور و مجازات لم أفهم أبعادها ففاتني مقصد الشاعر: ك"الرابط بين شجرة النسب الشخصي والتاريخ الأرجنتيني" و التلميح " إلى موت الكولونيل فرنسيسكو» في «قصيدة حدسية»، الحلم («ألونسو كويخانو يحلم»)، مدينة بوينيس آيريس في «كل البوارح، حلم» الخ..
لذا أنصح بشدة الإحاطة بمقاصد بورخيس و التمعّن بقراءة متمهّلة بعالمه للإستمتاع بشعره و ادراك عمقه.
استعرضت سابقاً باقتضاب اقتباسات تتمحور حول وظائف و نواقص و علل ترجمة الشعر العالمي، شعر الألماني راينر ريلكه بالعربية نموذجاً، و هو مضمار صار حاضراً شبه هزلي لطفرة بدور النشر اللقيطة و مترجمين عرب بالجملة هم إهانة و استهزاء بديونتولجيا تلك المهنة السامية، حالهم حال ديمقراطيتنا و "تقدمية" مجتمعاتنا التعيسة المنهكة..
عن سوء ترجمة إرث مايا كوفسكي العظيم من الانجليزية الى العربية، مثلاً، أحيل الى هذا المقال، الى ذهب الى حد عنونته صراحةً ب"اغتيال ماياكوڤسكي"
http://mabda-alamal.blogspot.com/2010...
في مقال نقدي طويل للشاعر المكسيكي "خوسيه باتشيكو" عن أحكام الشعر الحديث و التصنيفات العامة، برأيه، لمستويات التذوق (عبارة غير علمية لم أجد حقيقة قرينتها بالعربية) و قدرة التقييم و الفهم المعاصر لدى القارئ، يقول باتشيكو أن " القصيدة الحديثة لا تولد جرْياً على مقياس عَروضيّ وإنما وفق آنيّة نَفَسِ كاتبها، إحساسه الإيقاعي، وقفته النبضية (..) وما إعجابهم بالقصيدة الحديثة سوى نتيجة قراءة في مرحلة الحضانة، كما يقول أودن، حيث عدم القدرة على التمييز بين الذوق والحكم. هناك ثلاثة أنواع من القراء: القارئ الوزّان الذي يقرأ القصيدة بذهنيّة بوليسيّة تترصد أيّ كسر أو خلل وزني ليحكم على القصيدة بالموت: بأنّها ليست قصيدة وإنّما شعر فاسد. وثانيا، القارئ الذي يقرأ كثيراً الشعر المترجم لما يزخر به من دهشة، وقوة الصور، والتجاور اللامعقول بين كلمة وأخرى، سطر وآخر؛ وبالتالي هو من أنصار قصيدة النثر العربية ولا تهمّه إذا كانت القصيدة موزونة أو غير موزونة؛ أمّا القارئ الثالث فهو الذي لا يقرأ إلا ليتصوَّر نفسَه في القصيدة باحثا عن مشابهات عاطفيّة، سياسيّة، والرواسب الشعورية بينه وبينها"..
اشعر بانتماء للفريق الثاني لأني من أتباع التضاد الخالق للسريالية و الزخم الكلامي و الفانتازي و الميتافيزيقي المخالط للواقع حتى يملئه بالفوضى و الحيرة فيلتبس على الحواس و المنطق، تزخر بها تركيبة الشعر الحديث، اي النص الذي لا يهدأ فلا يتردّد بالجمع ما بين العذوبة و التدليلية القاتمة و السوداوية و التناقض و التهكّم المؤكسِد الكاسر للصورة الكلاسيكية و المهذبة (اجتماعياً) و التقليدية..
على أني لدى قراءة بورخيس، لم تلمسني بعض نصوصه و لم تبلغني صورها و إيحائات عباراته بما أملت استمداده منها.. افتقدت متعة تتبّع تلك الرمزية و انسيابية و بساطة تركيباته المجازية الذكية في رواياته القصيرة. حينما لا يتمّ تعريب المصطلحات في قوالبها الظرفيّة و الرمزية بدقة تبهت و تذبل، تستحيل الترجمة العربية حياكة لشذرات غير متناسقة، بصور مفكّكة مفتقدة للترابط فيما بينها..
January 4, 2010
Somewhere in this large, uneven volume of bilingual facing pages, Borges writes: "there is no poet, however mediocre, who has not written the best line in literature, but also the most miserable ones. Beauty is not the privilege of a few illustrious names. It would be rare if this book did not contain one single secret line worthy of staying with you to the end." And he's right. Most of the work here isn't memorable— of 200+ poems, only a few have that vertiginous, shocking effect that his best short stories possess. That may be because three-quarters of the poems in the book were written when he was past 60— and by then he had become self-conscious of his fame, justifiably angry with his blindness, and mournfully nostalgic for a lost Buenos Aires of street thugs and cowboys.
But for the true Borges fan, there are many more than one memorable line. It'll be different for each of you, but here are my three favorite selections. Each is short, to the point, and haunting:
The Suicide
Not a star will remain in the night.
The night itself will not remain.
I will die and with me the sum
Of the intolerable universe.
I’ll erase the pyramids, the coins,
The continents and all the faces.
I’ll erase the accumulated past.
I’ll make dust of history, dust of dust.
Now I gaze at the last sunset.
I am listening to the last bird.
I bequeath nothingness to no-one.
Limits (this is Anthony Kerrigan's translation, which I think is a little better than the one in the book:)
There is a line of Verlaine I shall not recall again,
There is a nearby street forbidden to my step,
There is a mirror that has seen me for the last time,
There is a door I have shut until the end of the world.
Among the books in my library (I have them before me)
There are some I shall never reopen.
This summer I complete my fiftieth year:
Death reduces me incessantly.
Parable of the Palace
That day the Yellow Emperor showed his palace to the poet. Little by little, step by step, they left behind, in long procession, the first westward-facing terraces which, like the jagged hemicycles of an almost unbounded amphitheater, stepped down into a paradise, a garden whose metal mirrors and intertwined hedges of juniper were a prefiguration of the labyrinth. Cheerfully they lost themselves in it—at first as though condescending to a game, but then not without some uneasiness, because its straight allées suffered from a very gentle but continuous curvature, so the secretly the avenues were circles. Around midnight, observation of the planets and the opportune sacrifice of a tortoise allowed them to escape the bonds of that region that seemed enchanted, though not to free themselves from that sense of being lost that accompanied them to the end. They wandered next through antechambers and courtyards and libraries, and then through a hexagonal room with a water clock, and one morning, from a tower, they made out a man of stone, whom later they lost sight of forever. In canoes hewn from sandalwood, they crossed many gleaming rivers—or perhaps a single river many times. The imperial entourage would pass and people would fall to their knees and bow their heads to the ground, but one day the courtiers came to an island where one man did not do this, for he had never seen the Celestial Son before, and the executioner had to decapitate him. The eyes of the emperor and poet looked with indifference on black tresses and black dances and golden masks; the real merged and mingled with the dreamed—or the real, rather, was one of the shapes the dream took. It seemed impossible that the earth should be anything but gardens, fountains, architectures, and forms of splendor. Every hundred steps a tower cut the air; to the eye, their color was identical, but the first of them was yellow and the last was scarlet; that was how delicate the gradations were and how long the series.
It was at the foot of the penultimate tower that the poet (who had appeared untouched by the spectacles which all the others had so greatly marveled at) recited the brief composition that we link indissolubly to his name today, the words which, as the most elegant historians never cease repeating, garnered the poet immortality and death. The text has been lost; there are those who believe that it consisted of but a single line; others, of a single word.
What we do know—however incredible it may be—is that within the poem lay the entire enormous palace, whole and to the least detail, with every venerable porcelain it contained and every scene on every porcelain, all the lights and shadows of its twilights, and every forlorn or happy moment of the glorious dynasties of mortals, gods, and dragons that had lived within it through all its endless past. Everyone fell silent; then the emperor spoke: "You have stolen my palace!" he cried, and the executioner's iron scythe mowed down the poet's life.
Others tell the story differently. The world cannot contain two things that are identical; no sooner, they say, had the poet uttered his poem than the palace disappeared, as though in a puff of smoke, wiped from the face of the earth by the final syllable.
Such legends, of course, are simply literary fictions. The poet was the emperor's slave and died a slave; his composition fell into oblivion because it merited oblivion, and his descendants still seek, though they shall never find, the word for the universe.
But for the true Borges fan, there are many more than one memorable line. It'll be different for each of you, but here are my three favorite selections. Each is short, to the point, and haunting:
The Suicide
Not a star will remain in the night.
The night itself will not remain.
I will die and with me the sum
Of the intolerable universe.
I’ll erase the pyramids, the coins,
The continents and all the faces.
I’ll erase the accumulated past.
I’ll make dust of history, dust of dust.
Now I gaze at the last sunset.
I am listening to the last bird.
I bequeath nothingness to no-one.
Limits (this is Anthony Kerrigan's translation, which I think is a little better than the one in the book:)
There is a line of Verlaine I shall not recall again,
There is a nearby street forbidden to my step,
There is a mirror that has seen me for the last time,
There is a door I have shut until the end of the world.
Among the books in my library (I have them before me)
There are some I shall never reopen.
This summer I complete my fiftieth year:
Death reduces me incessantly.
Parable of the Palace
That day the Yellow Emperor showed his palace to the poet. Little by little, step by step, they left behind, in long procession, the first westward-facing terraces which, like the jagged hemicycles of an almost unbounded amphitheater, stepped down into a paradise, a garden whose metal mirrors and intertwined hedges of juniper were a prefiguration of the labyrinth. Cheerfully they lost themselves in it—at first as though condescending to a game, but then not without some uneasiness, because its straight allées suffered from a very gentle but continuous curvature, so the secretly the avenues were circles. Around midnight, observation of the planets and the opportune sacrifice of a tortoise allowed them to escape the bonds of that region that seemed enchanted, though not to free themselves from that sense of being lost that accompanied them to the end. They wandered next through antechambers and courtyards and libraries, and then through a hexagonal room with a water clock, and one morning, from a tower, they made out a man of stone, whom later they lost sight of forever. In canoes hewn from sandalwood, they crossed many gleaming rivers—or perhaps a single river many times. The imperial entourage would pass and people would fall to their knees and bow their heads to the ground, but one day the courtiers came to an island where one man did not do this, for he had never seen the Celestial Son before, and the executioner had to decapitate him. The eyes of the emperor and poet looked with indifference on black tresses and black dances and golden masks; the real merged and mingled with the dreamed—or the real, rather, was one of the shapes the dream took. It seemed impossible that the earth should be anything but gardens, fountains, architectures, and forms of splendor. Every hundred steps a tower cut the air; to the eye, their color was identical, but the first of them was yellow and the last was scarlet; that was how delicate the gradations were and how long the series.
It was at the foot of the penultimate tower that the poet (who had appeared untouched by the spectacles which all the others had so greatly marveled at) recited the brief composition that we link indissolubly to his name today, the words which, as the most elegant historians never cease repeating, garnered the poet immortality and death. The text has been lost; there are those who believe that it consisted of but a single line; others, of a single word.
What we do know—however incredible it may be—is that within the poem lay the entire enormous palace, whole and to the least detail, with every venerable porcelain it contained and every scene on every porcelain, all the lights and shadows of its twilights, and every forlorn or happy moment of the glorious dynasties of mortals, gods, and dragons that had lived within it through all its endless past. Everyone fell silent; then the emperor spoke: "You have stolen my palace!" he cried, and the executioner's iron scythe mowed down the poet's life.
Others tell the story differently. The world cannot contain two things that are identical; no sooner, they say, had the poet uttered his poem than the palace disappeared, as though in a puff of smoke, wiped from the face of the earth by the final syllable.
Such legends, of course, are simply literary fictions. The poet was the emperor's slave and died a slave; his composition fell into oblivion because it merited oblivion, and his descendants still seek, though they shall never find, the word for the universe.
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