Monday, March 26, 2012

"I Was Suprised to Find Myself Out Here And Acting Like A Crow" (Seneca), Shaking the Pumpkin: Some Songs from the Society of the Mystic Animals, "total translation" by Richard Johnny John and Jerome Rothenberg, arranged by Ian Tyson

I    DIDN'T     THINK      I'D
SHAKE    THE    PUMPKIN
NOT  JUST    HERE    AND
NOW  NOT    EXACLY   TO
NITEHHHHHHHHHHHO
YAHOOONDAAAAAHEEE
YOHAAAAHEEEEYOOHO
HOHGAAHAAAAYEYHEY
YOHAAAAHEEEEYOOHO

I    DIDN'T     THINK      I'D
RIP   SOME    MEAT    OFF 
NOT  JUST    HERE    AND
NOW  NOT    EXACLY   TO
NITEHHHHHHHHHHHO
YAHOOONDAAAAAHEEE
YOHAAAAHEEEEYOOHO
HOHGAAHAAAAYEYHEY
YOHAAAAHEEEEYOOHO

8 comments:

  1. Ibid., "Two More About a Crow, in the Manner of Zukofsky:"

    (1)
    Yond cawcrow's way-out

    (2)
    Hog (yes!) swine you're mine

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  2. JR, "Total Translation: "The use of vertical lines is the only move I make without immediate reference to the Seneca version: the rest I'd feel to be programmed by elements in the original prominent enough for me to respond to in the movement from oral to visual structure. Where the song comes without vocables, I don't supply them but concentrate on the presentation of the words. Thus in two groups of "crow songs," one's a simple translation-for-meaning; the other ("in the manner of Zukofsky") puns off the Seneca sound:

    yahgagaweeyo (lit. that pretty grow) becomes "yond caw-crow's way-out"

    &

    hongyasswahyaenee (lit. that [pig]-meat's for me) becomes "Hog (yes! swing you're mine"

    while trying at the same time to let something of the meaning come through.

    A motive behind the punning was, I suppose, the desire to bring across (i.e. "translate") the feeling of the Seneca word for crow (gaga or kaga), which is at the same time an imitation of the bird's voice. In another group---three songs about the own---I pick up the vocable suggesting the animal's call & shape them into an outline of a giant owl, within which frame the poems are printed. But that's only where the mimicry of the original is strong enough to trigger an equivalent move in translation; otherwise my inclination is to *present* analogues to the full range of vocal sound, etc., but not to *represent* the poem's subject as "mere picture."

    The variety of possible moves is obviously related to the variety---semantic & aural---of the cycle itself.

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    Replies
    1. Ibid., "[Note. Behind it all there's a hidden motive too: not simply to make clear the world of the original, but to do so at some remove from the song itself: to reflect the song without the "danger" of presenting any part of it (the melody, say) exactly as given: thus to have it wile not having it, in deference to the sense of secrecy & localization that's so important to those for whom the songs are sacred & alive. So the changes resulting from translation are, in this instance, not only inevitable but desired, or, as another Seneca said to me: "We wouldn't want the songs to get so far away from us; no, the songs would be too lonely."]"

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  3. From TWELVE SONGS WELCOMING THE SOCIETY OF MYSTIC ANIMALS (1982):

    HEYETHEYEYHEYEYHEYEYHEYEYHEY
    HEYEHHEYEYHEYEYHEYEYHEYEYHEY
    HEYEEHEYEYHEYEYHEYEYHEYEYHEY
    CAWECAWYTHEECROWECOMESYATHUS
    HEYERHEYEYHEYEYHEYNYHEYEYHEY
    HEYEOHEYEYHEYEYHEYEYHEYEYHEY
    HEYEWHEYEYHEYEYHEYEYHEYEYHEY

    HEYETHEYEYHEYEYHEYEYHEYEYHEY
    HEYEHHEYEYHEYEYHEYEYHEYEYHEY
    HEYEEHEYEYHEYEYTEYEYHEYEYHEY
    CAWECAWYTHEECROWEWHOHISEHERE
    HEYERHEYEYHEYEYOEYEYHEYEYHEY
    HEYEOHEYEYHEYEYHEYEYHEYEYHEY
    HEYEWHEYEYHEYEYHEYEYHEYEYHUY

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    Replies
    1. ...BUT IF EVERYTHING'S ALRIGHT THE ONE WHO SAYS THE PRAYER TELLS THEM: I LEAVE IT UP TO YOU FOLKS AND IF YOU WANT TO HAVE A GOOD TIME, HAVE A GOOD TIME!








      NOTE: ‘SHAKING THE PUMPKIN’ IS JEROME ROTHENBERG’S WORKING OF SACRED CURING SONGS FROM THE SENECA INDIANS’ SOCIETY OF THE MYSTIC ANIMALS, TAKING INTO ACCOUTN ALL ELEMENTS OF THE ORIGINAL (INCLUDING THE NON-VERBAL) BUT TRANSLATING THE MELODY IN PARTICULAR INTO EQUIVALENT VISUAL PATTERNS THAT HOLD THE PAGE. THE TWELVE OPENING SONGS ARE BY THE ‘HAJASWAS’ OR LEADER OF THE EVENT; THE OTHER ARE ‘INDIVIDUAL’ SONGS FOLLOWING THE HAJASWAS’ STATEMENT: “NOW I’M DUMPING THE WHOLE BAG OF SONGS IN THE MIDDLE, AND EACH ONE OF YOU SING WHICHEVER YOU WANT.” STARTING WITH THE PERSON AT THE HAJASWAS’ RIGHT, THE PUMPKIN RATTLE THEN PASSES COUNTERCLOCKWISE AROUND THE CIRCLE EACH ONE TAKING IT IN TURN AND SINGING AT LEAST ONE SOCIETY SONG OF HIS CHOICE. ‘INDIVIDUAL SONGS’ CAN BE GROUPED IN SETS BY CONCURRENCE OF MELODY AND SIMILARITIES IN MESSAGE, BUT ON A GIVEN OCCASION THEY MAY HAPPEN IN ANY ORDER. IN THESE TRANSLATIONS RICHARD JOHNNY JOHN PROVIDED THE LITERAL TRANSLATIONS (SOMETIMES THE IDIOM AS WELL), AND JEROME ROTHENBERG REWORKED THEM INTO PAGINAL STRUCTURES. BY THIS PROCESS IT IS OUR HOPE THAT THE ORIGINALS (WHEREIN RESIDES THE POWER) REMAIN WITH THE SENECAS, WHERE THEY IN FACT BELONG

      THESE ARE MY TYPOGRAPHIC VERSIONS, OF THE FIRST TWELVE ‘OBLIGATORY’ SONGS AND A FURTHER SELECTION OF THE ONES I CHOSE FROM THE ‘INDIVIDUAL’ SECTION, OF JEROME ROTHENBERG’S ORIGINAL WORKINGS

      IAN TYSON 1975

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  4. TWO SONGS ABOUT A DEAD PERSON OR MOLE... (WHICHEVER IT WAS)

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  5. Dragomoschenko:

    In the grass a raven. A raven in the grass
    . . . . don't say in the emerald grass
    Nobody writes that way anymore

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  6. Marjorie Perloff on Craig Dworkin's Motes:

    Part 2, “Ayres,” contains a number of bird songs. Here are two “Crow” poems:



    cawking

    a flock of chalk-
    white aging birds
    flew by, coughing
    at a watching sky



    two crows over there

    there’s a crowd now’s growing
    from those fielding old seeds



    Here the first little “ayre” depends on acoustic imagery: not only is the ugly crow sound reinforced by “coughing,” but “chalk-white” suggests the homonym “caulking” for “cawking,” and thus we both hear and see these crows! What can the sky do but “watch,” the rhyme “by” / “sky” bringing this elliptical lyric full circle. The second poem uses visual punning: two crows can be stretched to make a crow-d that’s “growing,” as it is seen to be “fielding” (the baseball term, plus “belong to the field”) those old seeds...

    How does the self emerge from Dworkin’s elaborate sound games? Reading Motes, the purported “impersonality” one would expect from these riddles or epigrams is illusory: there is a particular persona who speaks, one who can’t look at or hear a word without wanting to explore its insides and study its living relationships.

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