The standard line on me in Turkey these days is that I "improve" or "westernize" Pamuk's words. It's not always a compliment.
To read more, click here.
Saturday, September 5, 2009
For the fans of Orhan Pamuk
Perpetual Folly, an amazing litblog and reading resource, shares that 'Distant Relations', a story by Nobel Laureate Orhan Pamuk, is up at the New Yorker. This reminds me of a quote by Maureen Freely, translator of his works, 'Snow', 'Istanbul' and 'Other Colours', that appeared in Washington Post sometime ago:
To read more, click here.
To read more, click here.
Tuesday, September 1, 2009
Translated versions of Malayalam Poetry
Recently, I'd the honor of translating works of a few contemporary Malayalam poets for Muse India, thanks to Features Editor, TP Rajeevan, also a regular reviewer for The Hindu and the recipient of US- based Ledig House Writer- in- Residence Fellowship, 2008. The realization that the task'd be challenging, to say the least, didn't put a glimmer on my excitement! I was just honored to be asked...and at the very outset, made up my mind to concentrate on translatable (since some of the poems I encountered, although marvelous to read in Malayalam, lost veritable nuances in attempts to translate into English) works of emerging, relatively younger, contemporary poets, if only to make a humble assertion that poetry is very much alive and ticking in the minds of the younger generation. Media reports to the contrary, perhaps, accentuated this decision.
It goes without saying that it was a learning experience ("tricky" too, as a blogger- writer friend, Tammy Ho- Laiming, who has engaged in translating works from English to Chinese, points out), gauging levels of interpretations and shades of meanings and simultaneously, trying to preserve certain sounds(alliterations, and otherwise), to some extent.
I'm reproducing the translated versions below and intend to publish the original works too, alongside, once I receive necessary permits, as regards to copyrights. Hope you enjoy!
A fictitious tale
The play was enacted
long since. Garbs
have come off.
Audience has dispersed. Yet,
here I'm, still on the stage,
searching
for something, that
hasn't been lost.
Here,
I 'm the character and the seer.
More.
I'm the fictitious tale
that was lost, when
the two morphed, emerged
as one.
KP Chitra
That, which is reborn
A plight, equivalent
or deep as
searching
for seabirds on the desert sands.
A blind nymph
looking for red flowers
to adorn
her top knot.
Promising worlds, around
unknown scripts.
The enigma of
a half- frozen smile
still remains.
Even whence, ripples
consume water, the resplendent moon
desires to see
its reflection, in a singular form.
Journeys begin, where
roads end, mumbles
chords of a folksong.
KP Chitra
Siesta's sometimes a pleasure
It's fun to peek at the sky
Through different crannies of the house.
Amidst the darkness of slanted roofs,
peer white clouds, a piece
of the sky through the gaps,
fallen twigs and sunlight
resting on lazy leaves, spouting
an unfettered smile.
Silence that's only sometimes
shattered by an open-mouthed crow!
From the nooks of an old cot, hidden
in a dimly lit corner, the mind whispers,
"Sometimes a siesta's a pleasure."
KV Sreekala
In the night, the rusty-shield bearing trees speak
Rusty-shield bearing tree:
Oh! Rusty-shield bearing trees
that bow from the Medical College Campus to the Hostel!
Reds that fell from my tweezed out nails
morphed into your swollen flowers
that squished underneath the feet.
Night:
Dark kohl that rests beneath the eyes
as, postponed love.
Lips:
Not distinguishing colors,
not knowing deceit, just
narrowed onto sidewalk and
walked away, forgetting
to say a word
even to me.
Heart:
Cleansing red, pumping beats
to white and smashing against the sky.
And me:
A pathway at journey's end
that quelled it's breath
without a glimpse of
the old sky.
KV Sreekala
Excerpt from Sandwich-40 (a novel)
What's my mother tongue?
The desert once asked the wind.
The wind merely traced lines
on the sand, never said a word.
The desert, then
repeated the same query to
the sun, the rain and the fog.
And, to the camels
which strode majestically on
colorless sand frames.
And, to the date palms
that resembled Shoorpanakas, with
pointed nose and breasts.
It was the cactus
that replied: Your mother tongue
is the water breathing in me.
It's the moments spent, quietly
awaiting compassionate clouds
which can tickle, or tear.
Sindhu Manoharan
Extinction
A bird on the edge of extinction
Visits my garden from time to time.
The trees, it feels like, don't pay
An ounce of attention to its feeble voice.
Partners or companions,
It has ceased to have and so its voice flails unrecognized.
Still, as if to stake claim on history, it roosts
on every tree, watches all over with seamless delight; sheds
feathers for an unforeseen.
I don't know its name.
I don't know how it came to be here.
After a while, it'd stop to exist.
The voice with which it sought
to mark it's territory'll long be gone.
The view it sought to cherish'll be lost.
Slowly, slowly,
it'll start disappearing from every garden.
A Jayakrishnan
These poems have previously appeared in Muse India.
It goes without saying that it was a learning experience ("tricky" too, as a blogger- writer friend, Tammy Ho- Laiming, who has engaged in translating works from English to Chinese, points out), gauging levels of interpretations and shades of meanings and simultaneously, trying to preserve certain sounds(alliterations, and otherwise), to some extent.
I'm reproducing the translated versions below and intend to publish the original works too, alongside, once I receive necessary permits, as regards to copyrights. Hope you enjoy!
A fictitious tale
The play was enacted
long since. Garbs
have come off.
Audience has dispersed. Yet,
here I'm, still on the stage,
searching
for something, that
hasn't been lost.
Here,
I 'm the character and the seer.
More.
I'm the fictitious tale
that was lost, when
the two morphed, emerged
as one.
KP Chitra
That, which is reborn
A plight, equivalent
or deep as
searching
for seabirds on the desert sands.
A blind nymph
looking for red flowers
to adorn
her top knot.
Promising worlds, around
unknown scripts.
The enigma of
a half- frozen smile
still remains.
Even whence, ripples
consume water, the resplendent moon
desires to see
its reflection, in a singular form.
Journeys begin, where
roads end, mumbles
chords of a folksong.
KP Chitra
Siesta's sometimes a pleasure
It's fun to peek at the sky
Through different crannies of the house.
Amidst the darkness of slanted roofs,
peer white clouds, a piece
of the sky through the gaps,
fallen twigs and sunlight
resting on lazy leaves, spouting
an unfettered smile.
Silence that's only sometimes
shattered by an open-mouthed crow!
From the nooks of an old cot, hidden
in a dimly lit corner, the mind whispers,
"Sometimes a siesta's a pleasure."
KV Sreekala
In the night, the rusty-shield bearing trees speak
Rusty-shield bearing tree:
Oh! Rusty-shield bearing trees
that bow from the Medical College Campus to the Hostel!
Reds that fell from my tweezed out nails
morphed into your swollen flowers
that squished underneath the feet.
Night:
Dark kohl that rests beneath the eyes
as, postponed love.
Lips:
Not distinguishing colors,
not knowing deceit, just
narrowed onto sidewalk and
walked away, forgetting
to say a word
even to me.
Heart:
Cleansing red, pumping beats
to white and smashing against the sky.
And me:
A pathway at journey's end
that quelled it's breath
without a glimpse of
the old sky.
KV Sreekala
Excerpt from Sandwich-40 (a novel)
What's my mother tongue?
The desert once asked the wind.
The wind merely traced lines
on the sand, never said a word.
The desert, then
repeated the same query to
the sun, the rain and the fog.
And, to the camels
which strode majestically on
colorless sand frames.
And, to the date palms
that resembled Shoorpanakas, with
pointed nose and breasts.
It was the cactus
that replied: Your mother tongue
is the water breathing in me.
It's the moments spent, quietly
awaiting compassionate clouds
which can tickle, or tear.
Sindhu Manoharan
Extinction
A bird on the edge of extinction
Visits my garden from time to time.
The trees, it feels like, don't pay
An ounce of attention to its feeble voice.
Partners or companions,
It has ceased to have and so its voice flails unrecognized.
Still, as if to stake claim on history, it roosts
on every tree, watches all over with seamless delight; sheds
feathers for an unforeseen.
I don't know its name.
I don't know how it came to be here.
After a while, it'd stop to exist.
The voice with which it sought
to mark it's territory'll long be gone.
The view it sought to cherish'll be lost.
Slowly, slowly,
it'll start disappearing from every garden.
A Jayakrishnan
These poems have previously appeared in Muse India.
Tuesday, August 25, 2009
Contemplation is over!
I'd been aching for a new look for a while...Something pleasant, easy on the eyes, and yet, not too whitishly (okay, I made this word up) plain...I found this template and am quite happy with it. I messed around a bit with the quills, realigned my pawnails a bit and put in some new colors, a new picture in the header space- this one I'd clicked at the latest Arts festival held in Chicago and viola, the look is set! I did add a few more dandelions to feast on (Didi Menendez's art blog and Paintings by Nevin Hirik)...and am looking forward to binge...and prob'ly dip in some ink, too!
Tuesday, August 18, 2009
Two poems in Asian Cha
Thought I'd share this... Two of my new poems, Factory Girls and ganesha speaks, have been published in Asian Cha, a beautiful space I hop onto very, very often!
Saturday, August 8, 2009
Wonder what the lady's thinking...
This photo was taken during the Turkish festival held in Chicago downtown in the month of July. I wonder whether that's a Turkish pipe on the very elegant teapoy...Any ideas?
Friday, July 17, 2009
Does confusion make things 'clearer?
"Until you are willing to be confused about what you already know, what you know will never become wider, bigger or deeper." --Milton Erikson, an American psychiatrist and writer, apparently referring to the "Confusion Technique" used in hypnosis.
Monday, July 6, 2009
Is poetry inconsequential?
Organic life beneath the shoreless waves
Was born and nurs'd in ocean's pearly caves;
First forms minute, unseen by spheric glass,
Move on the mud, or pierce the watery mass;
These, as successive generations bloom,
New powers acquire and larger limbs assume;
Whence countless groups of vegetation spring,
And breathing realms of fin and feet and wing.
Excerpt, The Temple of Nature, Erasmus Darwin, grandfather of Charles Darwin.
A physician by profession and one of the earliest thinkers and proponents of evolution theories, namely, "The inheritance of acquired characteristics", Erasmus Darwin never got credit for his revolutionary ideas, presumably because of his medium of expression, which was poetry! Verses came easily to him and he preferred discussing evolution in long form. His known works of poetry're Zoonomia and The Temple of Nature.
Source: Darwin and Evolution, Kristan Lawson
Was born and nurs'd in ocean's pearly caves;
First forms minute, unseen by spheric glass,
Move on the mud, or pierce the watery mass;
These, as successive generations bloom,
New powers acquire and larger limbs assume;
Whence countless groups of vegetation spring,
And breathing realms of fin and feet and wing.
Excerpt, The Temple of Nature, Erasmus Darwin, grandfather of Charles Darwin.
A physician by profession and one of the earliest thinkers and proponents of evolution theories, namely, "The inheritance of acquired characteristics", Erasmus Darwin never got credit for his revolutionary ideas, presumably because of his medium of expression, which was poetry! Verses came easily to him and he preferred discussing evolution in long form. His known works of poetry're Zoonomia and The Temple of Nature.
Source: Darwin and Evolution, Kristan Lawson
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