Halina Poświatowska, [my neighbor,...]

[Senna Jawa]

--

my neighbor, angel,
protects mortals' dreams,
comes home late,
i hear
his soft steps on the staircase
and the shshhh... when he rolls his wings.
he stands in the wide open door in the morning:
your window was alight
long into the night
he says.


​

Halina Poświatowska
[tr. wh]

********
Enjoy,

Senna Jawa
​

 

[Guest]

Simply lovely. Thank you, SJ.

 

[wildsweetone]

--

my neighbor, angel,
protects mortals' dreams,
comes home late,
i hear
his soft steps on the staircase
and the shshhh... when he rolls his wings.
he stands in the wide open door in the morning:
your window was alight
long into the night
he says.


​

Halina Poświatowska
[tr. wh]

********
Enjoy,

Senna Jawa
​

i've read this and can't see why, but for some reason i see the 'angel' as wearing black. maybe it's the word 'mortal', or maybe it's that i don't normally associate angels as being male. i quite like the punctuation used too. i don't often see : or ... in a poem, they work here.

 

[Senna Jawa]

Tristesse and WSO, thank you for your comments. I am glad that you like Halina Poswiatowska. I encourage you and everybody to google rec.arts.poems for her poems, translated by Marek Lugowski. Marek, who is one of the top poets of the Internet era, is a superb translator. He has devoted to Poswiatowska twelve years of his life or more.

Halina Poswiatowska was another tragic poet, due to her heart condition. At one time she came to the States on a stipend. The American doctors had prolonged her life. After she got back to Poland, the Polish doctors (surgeons perhaps) messed up, and, after years of living in the constant fear of death, finally she did die in her thirties.

People have the romantic notion that a tragic condition contributes to the poet's greatness. In the case of Halina Poswiatowska this notion might be enforced. Indeed, the great majority of her poems reflect one way or another the state of her precarious balance on the edge of life and death. In addition, her husband had similar health problems and died prematurely, some years before Halina. She was a great artist, and her poetry makes a very strong impression.

And still, in my opinion, her health had limited her. Poswiatowska's poetry would be greater if she were in good health--then we would get from her her vision of the world ar large. She gave glimpses of such potential, especially during her stay in the US, which she enjoyed a lot, it was perhaps the best time in her life.

Do go to the old r.a.p. In addition to the translations, Marek was providing the insight into Poswiatowska's poetry, his remarks have a value on its own. You will also see the evolution of r.a.p. and of the interaction between poets on r.a.p. over years, before r.a.p. has degenerated, went hopelessly down the drain.

Regards,

Senna Jawa​

PS. Marek gave me an unrestricted right to copy and post anything he has written. Thus I might reproduce some of his translations and remarks, if there is enough interest (I may, but I am not promising, I am already overextending myself).

 

[wildsweetone]

i have found his translations and i'm stunned.

this woman wrote image rich poetry. every single line he translates contains an image (or several), every line feels like it has a reason to exist.

i am used to reading smoother free verse, what's it called... enjambment? it reads smoother than his translations but obviously that's because his is a translation. i can barely imagine what it must be like to read her poetry in Polish.

does he translate Poświatowska's poetry line for line, or phrase for phrase?

 

[Senna Jawa]

i have found his translations and i'm stunned.

this woman wrote image rich poetry. every single line he translates contains an image (or several), every line feels like it has a reason to exist.

i am used to reading smoother free verse, what's it called... enjambment? it reads smoother than his translations but obviously that's because his is a translation. i can barely imagine what it must be like to read her poetry in Polish.

does he translate Poświatowska's poetry line for line, or phrase for phrase?

Marek was posting two kind of translations. One kind he calls drafts (as I remember). The other are actual, artistic translations. Those, called drafts were to expose readers to Poswiatowska's poetry in a direct, raw way. Marek has always encouraged others to take his draft translations and to arrive at an artistic version. His proposition was working well for propagating Halina's poetry but I think that I was the only one on r.a.p. (outside of Marek himself) who actually ended up with a reasonable translation, and that was because in adition to Marek's draft translation I had at my disposal also the original text. I was very happy when Marek praised (in just two words) my version . Others tried but Marek explained why they had failed. That was educating, because on that occasion he has presented his view of Poswiatowska's style, voice, color, etc.

Others, outside r.a.p., have translated Poswiatowska too, and even published. I don't know if any by those others are available on the Interent.

I should also mention that Poswiatowska herself did some translating of other poets (exclusively into Polish, I think).

 

[wildsweetone]

i am reading:
The Starting Point