I didn’t think I liked poetry. I didn’t think I liked reading it or writing it. I was always a book person – novels, some non-fiction (always history), historical fiction, horror. However, translating some poetry in MA Literary Translation is impossible to avoid. We had to translate poetry for seminars and workshops, and I am so glad I had to, otherwise I never would have.
A few weeks ago, I had never heard of Paul Celan. I know he’s probably the single most significant German-speaking poet of the 20th century, but as I said, I ‘didn’t like poetry’. But then we looked at some of his work in one of our seminars and I was hooked. It’s keening, rhythmic, desolate and also somehow charming. He uses words to beat out a funeral march for his Jewish diaspora in the wake of the Shoah.
Since Celan has long since passed, and I have about four readers anyway, here is my rendition of Celan’s ‘Die Silbe Schmerz’:
The Syllable ‘Pain’
You were there at hand:
a you, deathless,
reviving all that is I. Wordless voices
circled, empty vessels, everything
received in them, mixed
and unmixed
and mixed
again.
And numbers were
interwoven in the
uncountable. One and Thousand and what
before and behind
more prodigious than itself, smaller, ri-
pened and
back- and forward-
transformed in
the stirrings of never.
Forgotten grip
after to-be-forgotten, earth-parts, heart-parts
swam,
sank and swam. Columbus,
the time-
loose in the eye, the Mother-
flower,
murdered masts and sails. Everything rode out,
free,
adventurous,
the compass-rose faded, its petals
fell, a world-sea,
bloomed in droves and came to light, in the blacklight
of the wild compass lines. In coffins,
urns, canopic jars
the children awoke,
Jasper, Agate, Amethyst – People,
Tribes and Clans, a blind
I t m a y b e
knotted itself in
the snake-headed free-
ropes-: a
Knot
(and into- and contra- and but- and twin- and thou
-sand-knots), with which
the shrove-eyed brood
spelled out,
struck out,
scratched out,
the murdered star in the abyss.
Source Text: Die Silbe Schmerz by Paul Celan (1963)
Es gab sich Dir in die Hand:
ein Du, todlos,
an dem alles Ich zu sich kam. Es fuhren
wortfreie Stimmen rings, Leerformen, alles
ging in sie ein, gemischt
und entmischt
und wieder
gemischt.
Und Zahlen waren
mitverwoben in das
Unzählbare. Eins und Tausend und was
davor und dahinter
größer war als es selbst, kleiner, aus-
gereift und
rück- und fort-
verwandelt in
keimendes Niemals.
Vergessenes griff
nach Zu-Vergessendem, Erdteile, Herzteile
schwammen,
sanken und schwammen. Kolumbus,
die Zeit-
lose im Aug, die Mutter-
Blume,
mordete Masten und Segel. Alles fuhr aus,
frei,
entdeckerisch,
blühte die Windrose ab, blätterte
ab, ein Weltmeer
blühte zuhauf und zutag, im Schwarzlicht
der Wildsteuerstriche. In Särgen,
Urnen, Kanopen
erwachten die Kindlein
Jaspis, Achat, Amethyst – Völker,
Stämme und Sippen, ein blindes
Es sei
knüpfte sich in
die schlangenköpfigen Frei-
Taue –: ein
Knoten
(und Wider- und Gegen- und Aber- und Zwillings- und Tau-
sendknoten), an dem
die fastnachtsäugige Brut
der Mardersterne im Abgrund
buch-, buch-, buch-
stabierte, stabierte.
Anna Translates 