Enivrez-vous (Be Drunk): Issa's Sunday Service, #105

Baudelaire by Charles Nadar

Turn up the volume ...

Back at the job that pays the rent, I've been working on Charles Baudelaire for a monthly discussion group, 3 Poems By.  I've learned a lesson this month, which I should have realized when we did Whitman a couple of months back: a love of the poet doesn't make it any easier to prepare a session on their work, especially when condensed into 3 or 4 "representative" poems.

The challenge, however, always brings new, if hard won, insights, and so I'm grateful that I can be learning big things while working.  Baudelaire has been the hardest  lesson of all, not the least of reasons being that his works are in translation.  The decision to choose among various versions has been agonizing.

But, enough with the whining! While working I stumbled upon something I hadn't run across before. A song by the group Stereolab entitled "Enivrez-vous."

The song is a straightforward, drone-ish version of Baudelaire's famed prose poem of the same same name, which simply translates "Get Drunk (or "Be Drunk"). Here's the original, along with translation:

Il faut tre toujours ivre. Tout est l : c'est l'unique question. Pour ne pas sentir l'horrible fardeau du Temps qui brise vos paules et vous penche vers la terre, il faut vous enivrer sans trve. Mais de quoi ? De vin, de posie ou de vertu, votre guise.

Mais enivrez-vous.

Et si quelquefois, sur les marches d'un palais, sur l'herbe verte d'un foss, dans la solitude morne de votre chambre, vous vous rveillez, l'ivresse dj diminue ou disparue, demandez au vent, la vague, l'toile, l'oiseau, l'horloge, tout ce qui fuit, tout ce qui gmit, tout ce qui roule, tout ce qui chante, tout ce qui parle, demandez quelle heure il est ; et le vent, la vague, l'toile, l'oiseau, l'horloge, vous rpondront: "Il est l'heure de s'enivrer ! Pour n'tre pas les esclaves martyriss du Temps, enivrez-vous; enivrez-vous sans cesse ! De vin, de posie ou de vertu, votre guise."

Translation:

One should always be drunk. That's all that matters: that's our one imperative need. So as not to feel Time's horrible burden that breaks your shoulders and bows you down, you must get drunk without ceasing. But what with? With wine, with poetry, or with virtue, as you choose.

But get drunk.

And if, at some time, on the steps of a palace, in the green grass of a ditch, in the bleak solitude of your room, you are waking up when drunkenness has already abated, ask the wind, the wave, a star, the clock, all that which flees, all that which groans, all that which rolls, all that which sings, all that which speaks, ask them what time it is; and the wind, the wave, the star, the bird, the clock will reply: "It is time to get drunk! So that you may not be the martyred slaves of Time, get drunk, get drunk, and never pause for rest! With wine, with poetry, or with virtue, as you choose!"

Baudelaire was one of the first innovators in the prose poem form and this, though it seems rather obvious, is a good example of that form.  It has always been a popular poem of Baudelaire's, hence the following recitation by Dustin Hoffman to Jack Nicholson, with tongue firmly planted in cheek.





---------------------


Last week, a typo slipped into the featured poem at a critical juncture, for which I apologize.  It's been corrected in the original post, but here it is again for those in an anti-click through mood:

For Cavafy

   The poems are sad and short:
   love half-remembered,
   history--beautiful, closed and Greek.
   But what I like best
   is the blank three-quarters page,
   white as a statue's marble eyes- -

   a space to write or cry.

   Bruce Williams

---------------------


This week's feature poem comes from Lilliput Review, #89, originally published in 1997.  A time or two I've performed this poem in Lilliput readings and it goes over well.  Sadly, nearly everywhere on this tiny little blue ball its message remains true.

Lost in the Translation

   I'm impotent today she
   said, closed the book,
   capped her pen. You can't
   be impotent or potent, they
   laughed.  You have no penis.
   She listened, and for a long
   time, she believed them.

   Celeste Bowman

to the old woman
doing laundry, the evening
willow bows

Issa
translated by David G. Lanoue

best,
Don

PS  Get 2 free issues    Get 2 more free issues     Lillie poem archive

Send a single haiku for the Wednesday Haiku feature.  Here's how.

Go to the LitRock web site for a list of all 105 songs

Subscribe to Lilliput Review

Alan Catlin: Effects of Sunlight in the Fog

A new book has come across my desk at work by an old friend of Lilliput Review and renowned small press poet, Alan Catlin. Over the years I've published a few dozen of his poems, which is saying a lot considering my reputation for fussy. A handful of the poems that have appeared in Lilliput have dealt with the subject of art or more precisely have used it as a springboard for exploration, including poems dealing with Magritte, Hokusai, and Thomas Cole.

His new volume, Effects of Sunlight in the Fog, published by Bright Hill Press, is literally brilliant, pun intended. Gathering these works on art together in one place (I know it isn't all of them as the ones published in Lillie, mentioned above, are not in the collection) has brought into sharp relief Alan's approach and technique; for me, it is very reminiscent of a particular style of haiku. Catlin does not give us answers so much as, with the image conjured, describe and evoke. Here is Janet McCann's take from the Bright Hill website:

"A poetic mediatation on the relationship of the artist to his Art, on the variant conditions that temper seeing; how we see and what is seen. Through consideration on works of artists a series of individual poetic images evolves. Art and poetry as one, on the page. "The spare, image-laden lines of this collection of ekphrastic poetry make it a memorable treat. Alan Catlin evokes Monet, Whistler, Bonnard, and others in skilled sketches that evoke the paintings and interpret them at once. His precise diction carves word-pictures that mirror the painting, calling forth and naming their shadows. 'Effects of Sunlight in the Fog' is a delight to read and ponder." - Janet McCann.

Poem after poem in this does exactly what she describes. I'll confess for a fondness for poetry about art and, obviously, for Alan's work in general, but I'd be lying if I didn't say that this collection as a whole took me completely, delightfully by surprise. His evocation of light alone is worth the price of the book for anyone who has ever wondered: how did that magician do that trick? Here he sketches the point where paint and lines may not go:

A Voice from the Cliffs
-– Winslow Homer, 1882

The three young
women have all

heard the same
sounds, something

ethereal from well–
beyond the cliffs,

this beach they
walk every day

carrying their wares
in hand woven

wicker baskets;
what they see is

something the wind
has suggested, some-

thing that cannot
be easily described

by words or brush
but they all know

exactly what it is
and what it means for them

Alan Catlin

The haiku element I mentioned above is in the so-perfect capturing of nature that associations are created in the mind of the reader; the whole is so much greater than its parts. Here's the poem from which the collection title comes:

Waterloo Bridge: Effects of Sunlight in the Fog
--Claude Monet, 1903

Dull blue
grey night

in the after
noon; a

blistering
ripple of

water colored
by sun;

in the mist
human shadows

formed remain
incomplete

Alan Catlin

Poem after poem explores otherness, otherness of both place and identity. Perhaps, one truth here is that they are one and the same: a thought that would not be foreign to Eastern poets and should not be for us. Another truly remarkable aspect of this collection is that one need not know or look at the original art to appreciate the poems; they are fully realized, in and of themselves. This is a book to buy and cherish as one does the precious paintings it so sparingly yet lovingly describes. It is diminutive only in size (4 x 6") and price ($8.00).

Support the small press; order this volume direct from Bright Hill. Just page down a bit from this link. I guarantee you'll enjoy it.



******************************************************************


Speaking of the other, yesterday was the birthday of the ultimate other, Charles Baudelaire. He is, frankly, one of my very favorite vices. Some of the greatest enjoyment I've gotten from his work is the reading of the myriad translations that have been done into English. Though I tend to like the work of old-schooler Wallace Fowlie, all the others seem to bring something to the table, another interesting angle. Taken altogether, the translations get closest to a realization of the actual Charles Baudelaire; reading them all evokes another ideal translation, one that only exists in the mind of the reader.

I suppose this is true for any great poet whose work has been translated many times. Baudelaire, for me, is the one that I've felt this with most powerfully. Here's one I enjoy that doesn't come from the deep shadows:




Evening Harmony

Now comes the time when quivering on its stem
Each flower exhales like a censer;
Sounds and perfumes turn in the evening air;
Melancholy waltz and languorous vertigo.

Each flower exhales like a censer;
The violin sobs like an afflicted heart;
Melancholy waltz and languorous vertigo!
The sky is as sad and and beautiful as a great altar of rest.

The violin sobs like an afflicted heart,
A tender heart, which hates the huge black void!
The sky is as sad and and beautiful as a great altar of rest.
The sun drowned in its blood as it coagulates.

A tender heart, which hates the huge black void,
Welcomes every vestige of a luminous past!
The sun drowned in its blood as it coagulates ...
Your memory shines in me like a monstrance.

Charles Baudelaire (tr. by Wallace Fowlie)

in scattering blossoms
holding out his bowl...
holy man

Issa
translated by David Lanoue

best,
Don

Gregory Corso, Joseph Campbell, & Robert Frost

Somehow, on February 26th the stars seem to align just so. Today is the birthday of Gregory Corso of Beat literature fame, subject of the recent documentary, Corso: The Last Beat. Well known for his grounding and homage to the classics, here's a poem from his early collection, Gasoline, that reflects that grounding:

Amnesia In Memphis

Who am I, flat beneath the shades of Isis,
This clay-skinned body, made study
By the physicians of Memphis?
Was it always my leaving the North
Snug on the back of the crocodile?
Do I remember this whorl of mummy cloth
As I stood fuming by the Nile?
O life abandoned! half-embalmed, I beat the soil!
For what I am; who I am, I cannot regain,
Nor sponge my life back with the charm of Ibis oil—
Still-omen of the dribbling Scarab!
Fate that leads me into the chamber of blue perfumes!
Is there no other worthy of prophecy
Than that Decker who decks my spinewith ostrick plumes?

No more will the scurvy Sphinx
With beggy prophets their prophecies relate—
The papyrus readers have seen the Falcon's head
Fall unto the Jackal's plate.

Gregory Corso

And one that captures a little more of the modern flavor, humor and honesty that he was known for:

I Am 25

With a love a madness for Shelley
Chatterton —Rimbaud
and the needy-yap of my youth
----------has gone from ear to ear:
------I HATE OLD POETMEN!
Especially old poetmen who retract
who consult other old poetmen
who speak their youth in whispers,
saying:—I did those then
-----------but that was then
-----------that was then—
O I would quiet old men
say to them:—I am your friend
------------------what your once were, thru me
------------------you'll be again—
Then at night in the confidence of their homes
rip out their apology-tongues
----------------and steal their poems.

Gregory Corso

Here's a taste of the documentary, in the form of a trailer:

*****************************************************************

February 26th seems to have a feel, too, for mythology; it is also the birthday of Joseph Campbell. Campbell has changed our lives and how we perceive, the dream of every poet. He looked at myth with a poet's eye, much like his mentor, Carl Jung. His Power of Myth was the summation of his life work and a translation of that into "popular" parlance for the common man. If you have never seen it, it is transformative. Most libraries have it; check it out. Here's a little excerpt of his views and directness:







*****************************************************************

Last, but by no means least, is the the master poet, Robert Frost. Often pigeonholed as the folksy, backwoods farmer/poet of "Stopped by the Snowy Woods" and "The Road Not Taken" fame, there is a thick streak of darkness that runs through his work and life which is apparent to those who delve beyond the most famous poems. In fact, I'd argue a shadow of that darkness pervades even these two famous pieces. Frost will be the subject of future discussion of the 3 Poems By group I co-moderate at the library; I'm thinking of using the following as one of the three poems:

Acquainted With the Night

I have been one acquainted with the night.
I have walked out in rain --and back in rain.
I have outwalked the furthest city light.

I have looked down the saddest city lane.
I have passed by the watchman on his beat
And dropped my eyes, unwilling to explain.

I have stood still and stopped the sound of feet
When far away an interrupted cry
Came over houses from another street,

But not to call me back or say good-bye;
And further still at an unearthly height
One luminary clock against the sky

Proclaimed the time was neither wrong nor right.
I have been one acquainted with the night.

Robert Frost

This is a powerful poem that bears up with many repeated readings. One of the first things that occurred to me was, damn, sounds like Baudelaire. In a good way. The combination of "dropped my eyes unwilling to explain" and "the time was neither wrong nor rights" goes right to the core of things.

Sort of like what might have happened after you chose one of those two roads.

also consenting
to my loneliness...
frost on the window

Issa
translated by David Lanoue

best,
Don

Jack Micheline's "Manifesto"

(Note: an incomplete version of this post went out this morning. My apologies.)

Earlier this week, stuck home with a bad cold and no voice, I sat down with a pile of books I've been going through: two by James Wright, an R. H. Blyth, the "new" translation of Anna Karenina, Paintings in Proust, Rommel Drives on Deep Into Egypt by Richard Brautigan, and Outlaw of the Lowest Planet by Jack Micheline.

Yes, I was feeling miserable, but what a way to go.

I read the Tolstoy in chunks, slept, ate soup, picked up some poetry, read more Tolstoy etc. It was a plan.

In between some incidents of high Russian soap opera, I picked up the Micheline book and this fell out:

Click on the image to read

What a treat! What starts out as a manifesto, dips into Beat history, than personal history, and ends up as one hell of a wacked publisher's blurb written by the wild man poet himself. I loved it.

And the book itself - Outlaw of the Lowest Planet - I enjoyed very much, overall for me much better than River of Wine, his most often cited work. The poems here come from three different decades yet have a cohesive feel, Micheline's voice never wavering over the years. Over at Outlaw Poetry, there is an article by another small press icon, Todd Moore, on Micheline, entitled chasing jack micheline's shadow that is worth a look.

Here's a couple of poems from Outlaw of the Lowest Planet that give a good feel for Jack's work.





Beauty is everywhere Baudelaire

Beauty is everywhere Baudelaire
Even a worm is Beautiful
The thread of a beggar's dress
The red eye of a drunkard
on a rainy night
Chasing the red haired girl
Baudelaire across the sky
Your raggy paints
Laughing in the rain
Beauty is everywhere Baudelaire







A Look Back at My Youth

A highway crosses the playground of my childhood
the shoemaker is still on Archer Street
the druggist
the same faces inhabit the wilderness of the Bronx
its superstitions
its narrow minds
the synagogue of old hebrews
the church of black cloth Catholoics
its Irish sons with yellow ties
the football field is still there
night descends over the houses
Willy the mad Russian where are you
Tullo carrying ten men over the goal line
lost junky after the cheers died away
wild Murray where are you
Joey Cohen pimples on your face where are you
Little Abie do you laugh that loud anymore I wonder
voices of the children playing in the park
the boat house is deserted
the grass is still green in October
night is descending over the Bronx
the wilderness is but a memory
The Ritz movie is long gone
the whores have all moved away
It is time to gon on
time moves so quickly
My mother still prays nightly
I used to play hooky and go to Bronx Park
and look at the lovers in the grass
the leaves are brown and green now
water flows down the fall of the Bronx River

------------------Spring 1959








River St. Poem

Out on the walk
by the Louisiana shore
the early morning light meets the darkness
the waves roll in slow but sure
one star
one red floating light
one freighter from Tampico
one barge
one riverboat
one bridge
one radio tower
the waves consistent with the tide
one slogan painted on a wall
"Be Yourself Forever"
Algiers, Savannah, Tampa, Santiago, Havana,
the do shakes its shaggy tail
the human condition remained the same
nothing really changes but the drone of engines
Mindanao, Monterrey, Madagascar,
-----------------------Montego, Montana, Montezuma
the dark freighter crawls into port
4 monks statue-like on River Street
A green light flashing
The sky turning black to pink to red
Evers to Tinker to Chance
A triple play
One solitary bird saluting the universe
the sky grey to white
the early morning smoke rising
the dark freighter crawls into port
the hooker walks on

----------------7-11-87, New Orleans, LA




These are poems to be heard, to be read aloud, to be chanted. They are poems of wonder and beauty and horror, all encompassing and spontaneous, poems of a tradition but not in it.

These are Jack Micheline poems.

It seems that Outlaw of the Lowest Planet is still available from the original Zeitgeist Press. Toggle down about halfway on the page (or hit control "f" and search "planet") to see the listing.



best,
Don

Bastille Day, Judy Collins, Baudelaire, James Merrill and All That

Every Bastille Day, the first thing I do is put on the album (or tape or, today, cd) In My Life by Judy Collins that contains the song "Marat/Sade" from the Peter Weiss play "The Persecution and Assassination of Marat as Performed by the Inmates of the Asylum of Charenton Under the Direction of the Marquis de Sade" or, as it is more succinctly known, "Marat/Sade." Here's the lyric, composed and written by Adrian Mitchell and Richard Peaslee, that perfectly captures the hope, pain, and ultimate failure of all political folly. It resonated throughout the 60's when it was first produced, simultaneously prophetic and mirroring the true insanity that one felt living through those marvelous, horrible times.

Did I say hope? Yeah, hope.

Via snail mail, correspondent Charles L. suggested some insightful connections (or, at least, synaptic crackling) between Stéphane Mallarmé's "Le Tombeau de Charles Baudelaire (The Tomb of Charles Baudelaire)" and David Chorlton's "Paginnini," which was previously posted here. So, here's the Mallarmé for comparison. He takes the connections even further with James Merrill's "Lorelei:"

Lorelei

The stones of kin and friend
Stretch off into a trembling, sweatlike haze.

They many not after all be stepping-stones
But you have followed them. Each strands you, then

Does not. Not yet. Not here.
Is it a crossing? Is there no way back?


Soft gleams lap the base of the one behind you
On which a black girl sings and combs her hair.

It's she who some day (when your stone is in place)
Will see that much further into the golden vagueness

Forever about to clear. Love with his chisel
Deepens the lines begun upon your face.

The Mallarmé is a bit of a muddle for me; I read three translations of this and couldn't really put it all together, but I've never really connected with his work. The link is to Anthony Kline's translation and I felt it was the clearest. After 5 or 6 readings, I think the Merrill is outstanding and feel the Chorlton and Mallarmé helped me appreciate it more (oh, yeah, there's some irony there and I've got to say it may touch upon the essence of what poetry really is or can be). Thanks, Charles.

All in all, though, it just feels like Monsieur Baudelaire should have the last word on this:

The Flask

So I, when vanished from man's memory
Deep in some dark and somber chest I lie,
An empty flagon they have cast aside,
Broken and soiled, the dust upon my pride,
Will be your shroud, beloved pestilence!
The witness of your might and virulence,
Sweet poison mixed by angels; bitter cup
Of life and death my heart has drunken up!

Finally, over the weekend I spent a bit of time updating the back issue archive at the Lilliput homepage. There are now sample poems from over 50 issues located there. I've created a section of link backs to the blog (and its former incarnation, Beneath Cherry Blossoms) so the samples in postings may now all be found in one place indexed by issue number.

With all this heady Mallarmé, Baudelaire, and Merrill, it's time to clear the cobwebs. Let's end with The Hut's laconically precise proprietor:

today again
death draws nearer...
the wildflowers

Issa translated by David Lanoue

best,
Don


PS. Looking back at Beneath Cherry Blossoms as I did over the weekend, I realized that July 17th will be the 1 year anniversary of the combined Lilliput blogs. Party time!

Baudelaire (& Thoreau) for a Lazy Monday Afternoon

Here's a little something for a lazy Monday afternoon:

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

The Sky
Where'er he be, on water or on land,
---Under pale suns or climes that flames enfold;
One of Christ's own, or of Cythera's band,
---Shadowy beggar or Croesus rich with gold;

Citizen, peasant, student, tramp; whate'er
---His little brain may be, alive or dead;
Man knows the fear of mystery everywhere,
---And peeps, with trembling glances, overhead.

The heaven above! A strangling cavern wall;
The lighted ceiling of a music hall
Where every actor treads a bloody soil ―

The hermit's hope; the terror of the sot;
The sky: the black lid of the mighty pot
---Where the vast human generations boil!

---------------------------------------translated by James Huneker

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------


In addition to Mr. B's usual take on all things mundane, check out Magnapoets Japanese Form: there is some real high quality short work being done there. I've put a permanent link along the sidebar under blogs.

If you always wanted to see nature through the eyes of Henry David Thoreau and just haven't found the time, check out the May 18th posting on The Blog of Henry David Thoreau; it perfectly captures what's happening just outside many of our windows right now.

And if you don't believe me, just get out there and look!

best,
Don

National Poetry Month and the Nature of Argument

As part of the celebration known as National Poetry Month, I think it's time to let the poems speak for themselves. So here are a few of my favorite poets, in no particular order. Reading a poem or two by each of them should help combat the persistent rumor that poetry is dead. Or will it? Of course, not many people know who Bruce Wexler is, but if Martin Amis says it's dead, who can argue? Or, really, who would want to?

William Wordsworth

Louise Glück

Issa

Mary Oliver

Gerald Stern

Amy Lowell

Allen Ginsberg

Audre Lorde

e.e. cummings

Langston Hughes

Sharon Olds

Yehuda Amichai

Emily Dickinson

Walt Whitman

Han-shan

James Wright

Charles Baudelaire - in sidebar

Li Po

Anne Sexton

D. H. Lawrence

Franz Wright

Cover by Bob Zark

Since starting a Lilliput blog back in July 2007, samples of most issues from #100 through #150 have been posted, with the exception of some broadside issues it would be a disservice to excerpt. Beginning with this posting, we're going to step into the way back machine and begin posting poems from #99 (October 1998) down. Here's a couple of tiny gems from #99:




I'm getting old now
I think I'll marry
the rain
and settle down

Albert Huffstickler

poetry
the flowering morning
broken away.

John J. McDonald

An Imitation of Hsü Kan (171-218 A.D.)
4.
Since you, sir, went away,
my tiny trellis shakes with grief.
Red Chinese poppies you planted last fall
grow like tears --- immeasurable.

Linda Joan Zeiser

Before the ride ends she wants to go again

Patrick Sweeney

Have I ever mentioned how much I love the one line poem? Till next week,

Don