Modern European Poetry

by Willis Barnstone

Here is the most inclusive collection of modern European poetry ever published [in 1966 that is] in America. It contains poems by every important European poet, including Nobel Prize-winners Pasternak, Quasimodo, Seferis and Aleixandre. It also contains striking works by the brilliant new voices in European poetry, and a special section on important Latin American poetry. Each poet is represented by an unusually large selection of his works. English translations from the French, German, Greek, Italian, Russian and Spanish.

This is the one anthology you keep right beside the bed, the desk, the cuisinart--wherever it is handiest when you want to know what modern European poetry is like--poetry in English, translated by poets! And now . . . you can say, . . . "What? You didn't know Borges wrote poems? Look, listen, this is what they're like!"

--Richard Howard

"A superb collection of modern European poetry in which virtually every major modern voice is represented. Offered in translation by many of our finest English-language poets, the broad range of the best poetry of this century is spread before us. Modern European Poetry is a model of what an anthology should be."

--Breon Mitchell

"The best anthology of its kind available anywhere. The translations are superior, and the representation of poets generous."

--International Poetry Forum

Genres: Poetry, Anthologies

640 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 1966

About the author

Willis Barnstone is an American poet, memoirist, translator, Hispanist, and comparatist. He has translated the Ancient Greek poets and the complete fragments of the pre-Socratic philosopher Heraclitus. He is also a New Testament and Gnostic scholar.

Reviews

[Meredith is a hot mess · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is an out of print gem I found on archive.org: https://archive.org/details/moderneur...

There's almost always a rather long waiting list, but it was well worth the wait. This anthology is massive - over 600 pages long. It's truly a remarkable anthology that took six years to put together, eight editors, and dozens of translators. Two weeks wasn't enough for me to fully absorb all of the poetry. I'll be purchasing a used copy from Amazon to reread. I enjoyed reading Willis Barnstone's thoughts on translation in the introduction. My favorite quotes from the intro:

W. B's thoughts on literalness:

To say further that the poem should not “read as translation” seems in a way to be denying the dark deed. But by this we mean that the poem in translation should read as a good poem in English. As soon as awkward compromises of misguided literalness are made, the translator is unfaithful to the quality of the original.

His comparison of linguistics to other art forms and disciplines:

The linguistic obstacles that separate peoples are so forbidding that most of us accept a nationalistic approach to literature and restrict our interests vertically to one people and one linguistic tradition. The sciences, however, and the nonverbal arts–music, dance, the plastic arts–are not fragmented into small islands. A student of biology or violin or sculpture would never think of limiting himself to works in his own language; yet in belles-lettres, where the literatures of different nations are just as incestuously interrelated, every traditional barrier is present to prevent us from leaving our verbal ghettos.

The way out of this verbal labyrinth is to follow the example of those in other arts and sciences, and speak simply of modern poetry, as one speaks of modern music or modern painting, and assume in this title the work of any poet without regard to language, who comes within range of our interest. To do this, we must act, as do our friends in other fields, as if the matter of language were no great problem. We may either read poems in their original idiom or circumvent the language barrier by turning to good translations.


Full introduction:

This is an anthology of modern poetry translated from six languages of Europe and Spanish America. It includes those poets who in time and spirit are part of the twentieth century. Poetry from these particular languages was chosen simply because from our spot on the globe this poetry is better known and has made a stronger impact upon us. But a companion volume might contain poetry of great interest from any number of languages–Dutch, Swedish, Bengali, Japanese.

The linguistic obstacles that separate peoples are so forbidding that most of us accept a nationalistic approach to literature and restrict our interests vertically to one people and one linguistic tradition. The sciences, however, and the nonverbal arts–music, dance, the plastic arts–are not fragmented into small islands. A student of biology or violin or sculpture would never think of limiting himself to works in his own language; yet in belles-lettres, where the literatures of different nations are just as incestuously interrelated, every traditional barrier is present to prevent us from leaving our verbal ghettos. To rectify this problem, the orderly French invented a discipline to justify a more universal approach to literature: Littérature Comparée. But even here we are burdened with new restrictions, for the comparatists feel compelled to compare. So, while the biologist, musician or sculptor need not hold himself to comparative biology, comparative music, or comparative sculpture, the man of letters again finds himself forced to approach literature with a new set of rules. To speak of world literature will not solve his problem either: no sane musician would wish to carry the burden of world music.

The way out of this verbal labyrinth is to follow the example of those in other arts and sciences, and speak simply of modern poetry, as one speaks of modern music or modern painting, and assume in this title the work of any poet without regard to language, who comes within range of our interest. To do this, we must act, as do our friends in other fields, as if the matter of language were no great problem. We may either read poems in their original idiom or circumvent the language barrier by turning to good translations. The aim of this present anthology of modern poetry is to provide just such excellent translations into English verse for readers interested–not necessarily in national, comparative, or world poetry–but simply in modern poetry.

With this in mind, let us turn to the difficult subject of translation (which for the sake of bringing us this far we have had to think of as no great problem). As soon as we begin to look carefully at matters of verse translation, we find many approaches, a whirlpool of doctrines, and a sea of complaints. Yet for all this, there has been, especially in recent years, much good verse translation and some agreement is that good translation does not depend simply on how well the translator knows the original language. One must assume that the work to be translated is thoroughly understood; thus a full understanding then depend on the translator’s own skill in English. He must recreate poetry when he translates; he must be a poet at the moment of translation, which dos not mean that he need be a poet outside his duties as translator. Often he is a poet, however, and in this anthology we have been fortunate in having poems rendered into English by many of the very best poets now writing in the English language.

To say further that the poem should not “read as translation” seems in a way to be denying the dark deed. But by this we mean that the poem in translation should read as a good poem in English. As soon as awkward compromises of misguided literalness are made, the translator is unfaithful to the quality of the original. The original poem, we may assume, is a good one if we wish to translate it, and this standard of excellence is the only acceptable standard for the poem when recreated in English. There may, of course, be many good poems in the original tongue which do not lend themselves to translation. These poems should be left in their native phonemes. The poems must work in English if they are to be presented to a reader.

In this anthology we have tried to be both representative of individual poets and of important literary movements, but we have rejected all poems, whatever their intrinsic or historical importance, if when translated they do not read as excellent poems in English. So it is hoped that this very large anthology from six languages, with all its inevitable omissions and failures,* will be simply a diverse collection of good modern poetry.

W. B.

*The most serious and painful omission is that of the Greek poet from Alexandria, Constantine Cavafy, who, for reasons of copyright, could not be included.

Fave poets from this anthology: Miguel Hernández, Jules Supervielle, Paul Eluard, & Gottfried Benn

The rest is simply a list of poems I like, not a full list of the poetry in this anthology.


French Poetry

•Jules Supervielle


The Grief of the Dead p.17 t. by Patricia Terry

Lost among the footsteps and ruins of stars
And drawn into the gulf which devours the sky,
I can hear the breathing of stars on the march
In the depths of my, alas, eternal heart
I have come here from Earth with all my human freight

Of panic-stricken hopes and abrupt memories –
What use in the sky is a heart which carries on
As if still under the sun, and can’t learn how to die.
Have you seen my eyes wandering in this place
Where the near and far alike refuse all shore;
Blind and without a can or strength or faith,
I seek a body, the one I had before.
If only I could keep from avid space
The memories prowling still around my home,
The faces dear to me, and, like a terrace,
Reason from which I overlooked myself.
Let me save at least this vacillating treasure
Like a long-haired dog who grips between his jaws
His little one almost dead, and fights the seafoam.
But closer now the foam of the abyss. . .
The universe around me utters a cruel sigh,
And the deep gorge of the sky rises.
Since all rejects me here, and even dream,
What could this realm, empty of land, promise?

Ah! even in death I have trouble sleeping,
I want to make forever a bit of now;
I’m still too green to be part of nothingness,
Off key among the cosmic harmonies.
How can I renounce those memories
When so much invisible luggage on my mind
Keeps me busier now than when I traveled,
And I float on death instead of sinking down.
Four planks of wood held me under the ground,
But the cemetery still let in the sky.
On the world, now an immense raft, my soul
Goes back and forth, but never quite in balance.
All rises once again when does the tombstone,
A hundred doves are freed by our first glance
I had only my length in wood to call my own;
Beyond is splendor in the trees alone.

You Disappear p.19 t. by Patricia Terry

•Paul Eluard *


We Have Made the Darkness Ours p.32 t. by George Reavey *

We have made the darkness ours I hold your hand and lie awake
I sustain you with all my strength
The star of your powers I grave upon a rock
Deep furrow where the goodness of your body will bear fruit
And to myself I murmur your hidden name your public voice
I laugh still at the haughty woman
You treat like a sorry beggar
At the madmen you respect and the simple folk in whom you revel
And in my head that softly blends with yours and with the night
I marvel at the strange semblance you assume
A strange woman that resembles you that resembles all I love
And is always new

Of No Age p.33 t. by Patricia Terry *

We are close now
In the forests
Follow the street of morning
Go up the steps of the mist

We are close now
The Earth’s heart is beating faster

Another day to bring into the world

The sky will be growing larger
We were tired
Of living in sleep’s ruins
In the low shadow of rest
Of fatigue of relaxing

The Earth will assume the shape of our living bodies
We will force ourselves on the wind
The sun the night will pass into our eyes
And never change them

Our sure space our pure air will suffice
To close the hiatus habit wedged in time
We shall enter upon a trackless memory
Together we shall speak a sensitive language.

O my opposite brothers who keep within your eyes
Pervasive night and its horror
Where did I leave you behind
With your heavy hands in the slow lazy oil
Of acts gone by
With so little hope that death is justified
O my lost brothers As for me I’m going toward life I look like a man
To prove that the world is custom-made for me

And I’m not alone
A thousand images multiply my light
A thousand similar glances sooth the flesh
It’s the bird the child the rock the plain
Becoming one with us
The gold laughs to find itself out of the depths
Water and fire go nude for just one season
The brow of the universe bears no eclipse.

Hands to our hands familiar
Lips as one with our lips
With the first warmth of flowers
And the quickening blood allied
The prism is breathing with us
Abundant dawn
On the tips of the grasses queen
On the summits of moss on the crest of the snows
Of waves of astonished sands
Of lingering childhoods
Far beyond all the caves
Beyond ourselves

•Jacques Prévert

Quicksands p.49 t. by Andrew Sinclair

•Robert Sabatier

Festival of the Moon p.83 t. by Patricia Terry

•Yves Bonnefoy

The Wind is Quiet p.93 t. by Jackson Mathews

The wind is quiet, lord of the oldest keening,
Shall I be the last to arm myself for the dead?
Already the fire is memory only and ashes
And sound of a wing folded, and sound of a face dead

Are you willing to love only iron of the grey water
When the angel of your night will come to close the harbor
And shed in the motionless water of the harbor
The last flickers of light caught in the dead wing?

Oh, suffer at least from my hard word,
And for you I shall conquer sleep and death,
For you I shall hail to the breaking tree
The flame that will be the ship and the harbor.

For you I shall raise the fire of no place nor hour,
A wind seeking the fire, the tree tops of the dead wood,
The horizon of a voice where the stars are falling
And the moon meddling in the disorder of the dead.

The Iron Bridge p.94 t. by Jackson Mathews

German Poetry p.95

•Gottfried Benn *Amazing introduction on p.134

Thalassal Regression p.135 t. Edgar Lohner and Cid Corman
Ah, The Distant Land p.145 t. Edgar Lohner and Cid Corman
Fragments p.146 t. Vernon Watkins


•Karl Krolow p.155

Love Poem p.156 t. Jerome Rothenberg

Flesh painted with the chalk of sleeplessness,
Painted white with the death of time, which
Is dying at this hour.
Painted with mortar that crumbles on your face,
Painted with night-watches,
The sound of caresses full in the ear,
Of whistles on street corners,
Of minutes that move with the tread of cats in the jungle
Between three and four in the morning.

I don't see you any longer
You don't exist any longer.
You have fallen among the savage cats
Who claw at your temples, your breasts, your hands -
The murderous minutes of this night.

Company comes through the window:
Summer with young crickets and black cries
From the steaming water.
I turn around to the wall
With its shadowplay of obscene pictures, pythagorean symbols,
tokens of your absence.

And the death of time comes up to my bed,
And I hear how he buries the final minute
In the gulf of an eternity
To which you don't belong.

Words p.157 t. Ingo Seidler
Walk p.158 t. Herman Salinger
Poems Against Death p.158 t. Herman Salinger

•Paul Celan p.162

Eye of Time p.163 t. Herman Salinger
Life Cyce p.165 t. Jerome Rothenberg
The Tankards p.166 t. Ingo Seidler

•Heinz Piontek p.167

Wind's Bride p.168 t. Emery George
Merlin's Travels p.168

•Ingeborg Bachmann * p.173

The Respite p.174 t. Michael Hamburger
Message p.174
Fog Land p.175 t. Janice Orion
To the Sun p.176 t. Michael Hamburger
Curriculum Vitae p.177

Greek Poetry p.187


Italian Poetry p.269

•Giuseppe Ungaretti

You Were Broken p.291
First Song p. 293

•Eugenio Montale p.298 *

Iris p.308 translated by Sonia Raiziss and Alfredo de Palchi *

you have eyes for nothing, and have no
yesterdays no tomorrows;

•Leonardo Sinisgalli p.324

Russian Poetry p.371

•Vladimir Mayakovsky p.394

Past One O'Clock . . . *Found in Mayakovsky's pocket after he shot himself.

•Yevgeny Yevtushenko p.443

There's Something I Often Notice p.445
Conversation...p.449

Spanish Poetry p.466

•Antonio Machado

Naked is the Earth p.474
And He was the Devil of my Dreams p. 475
Summer Night p.475

•Miguel Hernández p.587 *

Elegy for Ramón Sijé p.591 t.Edwin Honig

[Kris Kipling]

One of those that's hard to find much information about, so here it is:

"The most inclusive collection of modern poetry ever published in America." "Six years in the making." "Including works by Nobel Prize-winners Pasternak, Quasimodo, and Seferis" to which one should add, since the book's publication in 1966, Elytis, Aleixandre, Jiminez, Montale, Neruda, and Paz (despite the latter couple's dubious designation as "European"). Strangely, St. John Perse is absent - copyright issues? The languages are: French, Italian, Spanish, Russian, German, Greek. Some fine names here: Supervielle, Eluard, Char, Michaux, Aragon, Reverdy, Apollinaire, Desnos, Follain, Rilke, Trakl, Benn, Brecht, Celan, Bachmann, Grass, Sikelianos, Kazantzakis, Gatsos, Saba, Ungaretti, Pavese, Mayakovsky, Akhmatova, Mandelstam, Machado, Vallejo, Lorca, Alberti, Hernandez, Guillen, Huidobro. Later anthologies would fill the gap of this one (for example, Michael Hamburger's "East German Poetry" and "Modern German Poetry 1910-1975," Daniel Weissbort's "Poetry of Survival," the Penguin "Modern European Poets" series, etc), but this is a pretty good primer. Translators include Robert Lowell, Samuel Beckett, Richard Wilbur, Michael Hamburger, W. S. Merwin, Thomas Merton.

[Mark Dickson · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is one of my favorite poetry collections. I return to it every year in spite of my copy decaying into wood pulp dust.

[Jake Metcalfe · Rating 5 out of 5]

Small and compact yet utterly life enhancing. I picked up an old, yellowed copy in Hay-on-Wye book shop and it now comes everywhere with me. I've become acquainted with the works of certain poets I may never otherwise have come across, like Jean Follain and Odysseus Elytis, for instance, whose poems and approaches to poetry I have simply come to completely adore. There's immense riches to be found here, lines that glitter, delight on every page. The range is fantastic and the translations are for the most part pretty excellent it seems to me.

[J. Lopez · Rating 4 out of 5]

A compact introduction to some of Europe's most engaging poets. Some of my favorites were Rainer Maria Rilke(German), Federico Garcia Lorca (Spain),Vladamir Mayakovsky(Russian)and Robert Desnos(French).