Sun Into Sea

2010-07-15T17:28:00.000-07:00

Olá amigos! The second installment in this blog is work by Ruy Ventura (b. 1973), a poet from the Alto Alentejo region of Portugal. He has published several books in Portugal, including Architecture of Silence, Seven Capitals of The World, How To Leave A House and Breath Instruments. The following work is a selection from Ignition Key (2009). He has published poetry books in Spanish, organized anthologies, done translations, written many essays and has an interesting poetry blog called Estrada do Alicerce.

Here’s what Ruy has to say about his poetry:

Poetry being a counterliterature, an edifying element of a countercultural demand, the art produced by one who writes will always have an element of confrontation. First, a confrontation with language and, at the same time, an instrument of communication. Later, a permanent struggle with the society that uses this language and expels from its body all the strange and estranging presences. And in the end, an uninterrupted battle against the expressive tradition of a community.

This does not mean that poetry should be an uprooted art. A writer has roots in the land to which s/he belongs, is conscious of the presence of these roots, knows how to use them to live and braces one’s self against the storms and earthquakes of existence. Despite this, everything tears away, exposes itself, subverts—because the writer knows the distance between poetry and versification, between the marvelous and monotony, between mystery and previsibility, between rupture and continuity.

In the poems I have been writing I try to describe destroying description, to narrate destroying narration. More than a poet, I consider myself an investigator of the inversion of the material and immaterial world that surrounds me. In my opinion, poetry is not good for representing reality nor for relating (historicizing) the world-view of human beings, but just—and this is enough—to present the ruptures, gaps and the open retreats in the crust that sustains us and gives form to our animated corporeal form. Aboard a tangible/visible material or an intangible/invisible reality, I try to make my poetry a concretization of the ineffable and, simultaneously, the revelation of “spirituality” of the concrete world. To concretize the concrete or spiritualize the ineffable is to piss into the ocean, making poor and destroying art. Butchering the words of a Spanish poet, we must ally ourselves with the existent, but dead, the inexistent, but alive. Neither concrete nor abstract are properly poetry, said Vitorino Nemésio. Poetry will always be “an other “ an “I-don’t-know-what;” it will always belong to the domain of the indeterminate.

Like any other that writes, I am one who has been contaminated. I don’t speak of influences the way Bloom does, which oozes hierarchy—and, in the end, all writers create their own ancestors, as Jorge Luis Borges writes. The Brazilian poet Márcio-André says it well: “Contamination does not begin by exchanging hierarchies between a contaminator and a contaminated; in truth, both are mutually contaminated. … we can only be contaminated by something that is already in us, insofar as that is a possibility.”

Nothing exists, everything coexists. Bernardo Soares was right.

from Ignition Key / Chave de ignição

“…when one is born, there isn’t yet a traveler. Heavy tears are the first drops of Spirit. … Dispersed lights wait for the only pauses permitted, and the living kingdom, lowering to crematorium fire of the bellies, breathes into a new form.”

Maria Gabriela Llansol

from A Falcon in The Fist

trip / viagem

queimo tudo dentro deste quarto—
no lugar onde o teu corpo
parte.
o campanário permanece.
a alma renasce
com a poeira.
faz parte da serra
— a que chega, a que fica, a que
abala com o abrigo
escavado na rocha—.
a pedra recebe o teu corpo.
desaparece. apenas um rasgo
entre dois líquenes
recorda a fundura
das células.

queimo tudo—nesta casa.
os sinos pontuam o sono.
— a melodia cresce.

I burn everything in this room—
in the place where your body
splits.
the bell tower remains.
the soul is reborn
with dust.
becomes part of the mountains
—that arrives, stays,
shakes with a shelter
dug in the cliff—.
the rock receives your body.
disappears. just a tear
between two lichens
records the depth
of the cells.

I burn everything—in this house.
bells punctuate sleep.
—melody rises.

abro a porta. entro sem ver
nessa dança que divide o coração.
a terra protege-nos do frio.
desvia dos olhos essa fome
com que fomos edificando
o sangue, a alma.

cozinhamos sombras e segredos.
colocamos a cinza sobre o corpo
para acendermos o fogo e a memória.

a cinza lava essa imagem, a nossa
imagem sem cor, sem nome—
ardendo sobre as águas.

guardo neste braço a luz do dia.
sobre a pele, a noite dissolve
o mundo inteiro—sedimentos
(acumulados sobre a morte)
que dividem a voz e a tristeza.

alimento-me dessa escuridão.
tento trazer para dentro da caverna
fragmentos de pão e de paisagem.

a sombra invade-nos
quando menos esperamos.
a luz vai gravando sobre a porta
a legenda da voz que alcançámos.

que dança divide o coração?
a água atravessa a fome e o movimento.
a cinza devolve à terra
este corpo (sem cor, sem nome).

o fogo enegrece as paredes do templo.
só assim conseguimos escutar a derradeira canção—
ecoando noite e dia
nos alicerces do medo.

I open the door. enter without seeing
in that dance that divides the heart.
the land protects us from the cold.
diverts from our eyes that hunger
with which we are edified
the blood, the soul.

we cook shadows and secrets.
we place ash on the body
to light fire and memory.

embers wash the image, our
image without color, without name—
burning over the waters.

I hold in this arm the light of day.
over the skin, night dissolves
the interior world—sediments
(accumulated over death)
that divide voice and sadness.

I feed on this blackness.
try to bring into the cavern
fragments of bread and countryside.

shadow invades us
when we least expect it.
light is etching over the door
an inscription of the voice we reach.

what dance divides the heart?
water crosses hunger and movement.
ash returns to land
this body (without color, without name).

fire blackens the walls of the temple.
the only way we can hear the final song—
echoing night and day
in the foundations of fear.

a serenidade acolhe-nos.
solene, a serenidade acolhe-nos—
como uma tempestade.
o mar devolve esse clamor que nos atravessa.
a noite satisfaz a cidade e o alimento.
faz-nos desaparecer em qualquer encosta virada a poente.

habitamos o espaço
reunido e multiplicando
a linguagem que preside ao desespero.

solene, apenas a ventura—
interior à luz, como a catedral
depois de uma tarde de trovoada
(ressurreição ou deslumbramento):
a mesma carne, o mesmo sopro
na respiração do inverno.

a serenidade recolhe-nos
dentro da tempestade.
reúne palavras e objectos
que ninguém lê
mas todos compreendem.

dissolve assim o arquipélago.
o mar dissolve o clamor que nos entende.
o vento abre a janela
para que possamos respirar.

serenity welcomes us.
solemn, serenity welcomes us—
like a storm.
the sea returns this clamor that crosses us.
night satisfies the city and the food.
it makes us disappear in any shelter against the dust.

we inhabit the space
reunited and multiplying
the language that presides over despair.

solemn, just the venture—
lighted interior, like a cathedral
after an afternoon of thunder
(resurrection or hallucination)
same flesh, same breath
in winter’s breathing.

serenity gathers us
inside the storm.
rejoins words and objects
that no one reads
but everyone understands.

this is how the archipelago dissolves.
clamor that understands us dissolved by the sea.
wind opens the window
so we can breathe.

a dor conhece a paisagem
nesse lugar onde uma lágrima
(esta alegria)
desce com o sangue—

procura o melhor lugar
para os objectos na inundação da alma.

não será preciso transformar em árvore
o corpo que construímos.
a raiz cresce na viagem que satisfaz o medo
na temperatura deste mapa
onde somos legenda e deserto.

a dor conhece esta paisagem.
uma nuvem desce para sul.

altera a casa—e o mundo.

pain knows the countryside
in that place where a tear
(this happiness)
drips with blood—

it looks for the best place
for the objects in the inundation of soul.

it will not need to turn into a tree
the body we’ve constructed.
the root grows in the trip that satisfies fear
in the temperature of this map
where we are inscription and desert.

pain knows the countryside.
a cloud descends southward.

it changes home—and the world.

projectamos este filme na memória.
como num vitral, a noite transfigura-nos.
acolhe-nos sem ser preciso desvendar
esta alegria (beleza ou deslumbramento).

a serra ilumina este rosto
entre o alicerce e a transcendência da fala.
alumiamos a terra
para chegarmos a essa fonte.
multiplicamos a imagem.
ao longe, as cores desaparecem.
as formas descem nos objectos
como mistério ou ansiedade.

projectaremos este filme.
entre terra e céu. o corpo cresce

como um pinhal
plantado há sete dias.

we project this film onto memory.
like stained glass, night transfigures us.
receives us without removing the blindfold
from this happiness (beauty or hallucination).

the mountains light this face
between the foundation and transcendence of speech.
we illuminate the land
to arrive at this source.
we multiply the image.
far away, colors disappear.
forms descend on objects
as mystery or anxiety.

we project this film.
between earth and sky. the body grows

like a pine forest
planted seven days ago.

2010-01-19T12:26:00.000-08:00

Olá amigos! Welcome to SUN INTO SEA, a site for occasional translations of contemporary Portuguese poetry. The first poet I'll introduce is Jorge Melícias (b. 1970), author of several books of poetry and translation. His most recent book, disrupção, is a collection of his previously published work. More translation of his work, and an essay of mine on it, can be found at Duration Press.

Here's what Jorge has to say about his poetry:

As Roland Barthes reminds us “writing is not an instrument of communication, it is not an open road where only one linguistic intention travels.” In this sense, a writer’s choice of a certain tone or form (and, in choosing, the writer distinguishes himself to the same extent that he commits) will be, forcedly, a choice of conscience and not of efficiency. Before whatever one admits or excludes, style will inscribe itself, always, in the sphere of liberty, though, in a larger sense, this same style can turn into both a grandeur and a prison of writing. Jean-Luc Nancy in his essay "Resistance de la Poésie" tells us that poetry “makes in difficulty.” From this perspective he speaks not of an access to meaning but of an access of meaning. More than a dialectical process this moment will always be a solitary victory. One can no longer look for, whatever the cost, an access point to meaning but must accept it as an invasive and totalizing presence, without any cession or reprieve. The paradox resides, in my poetry, in uniting to this suffusion of meaning a growing demand for rigor, even if all exactitude will remain approximate. Like one who, stubbornly, erects dams in the blood, tightening the siege more and more upon the impossibility of saying.

For me beauty is inextricably linked with violence. A burst violence, trussed, as latent as it is recidivist. I don’t think much of beauty in its passive eloquence, all of its animation stolen, like a finished product. I think, sincerely, that the poem is not the territory of ethics or of redemption. And this pedagogical character, almost salvationist, of writing is something that I do not understand. I assume, in my poetry, this pure negativity. And I think that only through the reiteration of horror is some reprieve from guilt possible.

I want every poem to be a gift of pure violence. But a violence veiled by the square, as if only angularly would it be possible to foreshorten horror. A butchery without blood, an ablation so exact that nothing would extravasate.

Ten Poems

Jorge Melícias

Trabalho a crueldade
pelo lado da exuberância.
Como instigando a carne
à veranação das goivas.

I work cruelty
with exuberance.
Like instigating flesh
to the vernation of gouges.

Elas são por dentro da ideia
uma efabulação ignívaga: as dragas.
Progridem nas aluviões
como cirros insanes.
Trabalham no sangue a alegoria.

They are inside the idea
a fire-eaten fiction: the dregs.
They progress in the alluvium
like insane tendrils.
They work allegory into the blood.

A chacina é uma indução
à espera do seu tempo.
Sobre esse propósito
estableço-me unívoco.
E onde cães e homens
disputam a carniça
à lisura dos ossos
inscrevo a consolação.

The slaughter is an induction
waiting for its time.
Upon that purpose
I establish myself univocal.
And where dogs and men
fight over the meat
down to the smoothness of bone
I write consolation.

1.

Sobre a imposição dos abismos
encimarei os gárrulos.
Erguer-me-ei das jugulares
como a pura dicção do medo.

Above the imposition of abysses
I will surmount the babblers
and rise from the jugulars
like a pure expression of fear.

2.

Descerei das canas
para a rasura da redenção.
No dorso o relâmpago
como uma carena blasfémica.
E um amor profundo pela impiedade.

I will climb down the reeds
to the erasure of redemption.
On the back of lightning
like a blasphemous keel.
And a profound love of impiety.

3.

Caminharei entre os homens
com um punção virado ao medo.
As meninges
recrudescendo nas navalhas
como um apostema.
Todo o metal sitiado
pela injunção das ínguas.

I will travel among men
like a puncture turned to fear.
The meninges
recrudesce on the knives
like an abscess.
All metal is besieged
by the bidding of the bubboes.

Um pulmão sulfúrico
extraído à elisão do ar.
Ateado desde o âmnio
como uma degenerescência vital.
Os estames
disseminando-se na refracção,
reduzindo a fluidez
à consumação do atrito.

A sulfuric lung
extracted to the elision of air.
Inflamed to the amnion
like a vital degeneration.
The stamen
disseminate themselves in the refraction,
reducing fluidity
to the consummation of attrition.

Reconduzo o medo
à minuciosa obstinação
de um ângulo.
E onde a febre tange
a esquadria
radicarei a chacina.

I lead fear back
to the minute obstinacy
of an angle.
And where fever touches
the square
I will root the slaughter.

Adestramos na carne
os estrepes do horror.
E pela elocução do medo
inferimos da consolação:

so o ferro
remirá em si a ferida.

In the flesh we train
the thorns of horror.
And by the elocution of fear
we infer the consolation:

only the iron
gazes at itself in the wound.

Vi os campos inçados pela improbidade.
Os justos como plainas alucinadas
sobre a incontrição
das esquírolas.
E o desespero
era uma forma de beatitude.

I saw fields crowded by dishonesty.
The just with planes hallucinated
above the unrepentance
of splinters.
And despair
was a form of beatitude.

translation Brian Strang