| |
|
Wow.
The thing is: this is a piece that already exists in Portuguese, I just tried to translate it to the best of my knowledge into English - hence the awkwardness of some passages(which sometimes I don't even think is inherently a bad thing).
--I'm not sure about elsewhere, but in the U.S., the word is spelled saxophone.
Thank you very much. It just slipped past me.
Slits of ripped smoke in the sky the band. -- This sentence doesn't make grammatical sense.
I know, but it's supposed to be that way. I'm still thinking through this part, to see if it has it's own value. This is more of a concretist approach to poetry writing (I don't know about literary movements in U.S., but there are some very interesting stuff being done in Brazil for some time already in the concretist movement, which would be considered "nonsense" by the canon. I don't know how to talk about this experience to you. But believe me, it's exactly as I intended it to be. POETRY=NEW.
(...)The forever-blue of the sky. --Typo? No need for the capitalization on this line. I always capitalize in the beginning of each line. It's just my thing, and it doesn't mean each new line is a new sentence. Always follow the punctuation marks. (again, a freer approach to poetry-writing. There are no rules that cannot be bent if the reason is good enough. Jose Saramago ALWAYS writes his dialogues like this:
"Then Joseph said, Mother, where did father go, He went to search for a place to sleep, Is he coming back today, Well, I don't know, Mother, why all this noise, I'm trying to sleep, and this was Marcus, who was still feeling sick, Are you better, brother,Yes, I am, Go to sleep both of you, said Mary, for she was tired...". All in a continuing line, separated by commas. It takes a while to get use to. But... you know, if the writer feels he has to write in a certain way...
Blue splinters. --As a sentence fragment, this does nothing to enhance the piece. Drop the period. It also is very choppy on it's own line. You might want to think about "Blue splinters fall / like tired parakeets / and are left behind." Or maybe "Blue splinters fall like tired parakeets / and are left behind." I'm not really sure. I don't claim to be an expert on line breaks, but as you have it, it's not working.
The line "Blue splinters" is supposed to be a splinter. What you notice as "not working" is the splinter hurting the poem's flesh. It irritates, it makes the reading process more difficult... It's a splinter.
There's a train crossing the plains, --"there is a train..." flows better to me, instead of the contraction.
You're right. I'm gonna fix this one.
And with it travel their hopes. --word order seems a little forced here. Instead maybe: "There is a train crossing the plains, / and their hopes travel with it." Do you want me to draw attention to the passive voice here with "there is a train"? You could write this more effectively, I think.
Righ again. It's poor, sort of clumsy. I'll change it according to your suggestion.
The dancers shake like coins,
The dancers are happy coins --The second line in this stanza, I would altogether drop. The repetition of "the dancers" here is not as strong as the repetition earlier in this piece.
Aww... I', really fond of this repetition, man  . I guess it's one of those things that work better in a certain language...
In the pockets of a beggar touched by wine. --"touched by wine" is weak. You can better communicate that this man has been drinking.
Yeah, this is kind of poor... I'll come to this part later and see what I can do...
They're 50-cents ghosts of the Savoy, of Minton's. --"50-cent"--not plural. Also, I suggest spelling out fifty.
Thanks!
Towers collapse with a swing of the hips --need a full-stop.
Or a comma. I'll change this one.
Serpents are crushed under heels. --passive voice. I'm not saying that passive voice is always bad, just that it's often not so good.
I'll think about this.
The country's purpose is to grow.
The marquees smile in the middle of democracy, --maybe a colon here, instead of a comma.
Ditto.
State of glory all over the nation!
The sax player sleeps in the Autumn. --seasons are typically not capitalized
Thanks!
We know that he sleeps as we know of a garden that's just there.
In the Spring he wakes up, melliferous, --No such word as “melliferous” as far as I have seen.
"Melliferous" [L. mellifer; mel, mellis, honey + ferre to bear.] means "Forming or bearing honey", "Producing honey". It does exist.
And drags Ganesha in a dance.
(How bellows the sax player!)
And the dance spreads as an ancient wave
In a photography of a beach,
Well-behaved inside the compact picture.
And each obstacle
Dances uncontrollably,
And each obstacle laughs and is demolished.
The notes are electrical wolfpacks, nervous
They take the highways all of a sudden!
The ghosts at the Savoy bounce in the walls as if receiving shocks.
It´s the signal for the old ballrooms
To start vomiting ghosts in a convulsion like a shriek.
We can't even know for sure
Where the dance ends and where the tracheotomy begins. --Jade, this entire stanza is incredibly pompous in tone and it becomes very ugly at the end. The diction, the sound—very ugly. If that was your intention, well, bravo. But this needs some serious work, far more work than the rest of your piece, if it wasn’t.
Re:Sound: I'll re-read it carefully and try to find synoyms or new ways to structure the phrases to make it more beautiful.
Re:Pomposity: Please ould you elaborate? I'm at a loss in this one.
The sax player is not responsible for his acts.
He is the conduit man, he's just a subway map.
The sax player has sub-levels and access routes.
He is the between-the-three-and-the-four,
The piston, or a row of them,
Or a wheel, or a collision,
Or maybe just the possibility, for now.
The sax player inhabits the Pneumatic Machine.
He is a rip in the tissue,
An hemorrhage vibrating in the Universe's trachea. --“Universe’s trachea” is a very awkward phrase.
I'm waiting eagerly to hear your suggestion here. I *have* to talk about the Universe's trachea.
I'll bet you're a better writer in your native language, though. Do you take on writing poetry in English for the challenge? I'm curious.
No, not for the challenge. I'm not writing it in English, just trying to translate a finished piece in Portuguese into English. I guess if I can translate poetry from one language to another, I'll be able to translate pretty much *anything*. It's sort of an exercise, really.
Cheers, man, thanks for the tips, thoughts and hints. I'll sweat over this one for some more time, then make the necessary amendments. |
|
|
