Stadler Center Writers Series

Poetry in Translation:
A Panel & Bilingual Reading of Poetry
by Yves Bonnefoy* & Tomás Harris

with Emily Grosholz and Daniel Shapiro


Tuesday, October 2, 2012
Panel on Literary Translation
4 p.m. Willard Smith Library, Vaughan Literature Building

Bilingual Poetry Reading
7 p.m. Bucknell Hall

 

 

Tomás Harris has published seven books of poetry and a collection of stories in his native Chile. A native of La Serena, Chile, he has taught at the University of Concepción and the University Finis Terrae, where he is currently an instructor. He is a researcher at the National Library of Chile and an assistant editor of the magazine Mapocho. Harris was awarded the Casa de las Americas Prize in 1997 for his book Crónicas maravillosas.

Yves Bonnefoy is often described as the greatest French post-war poet. Trained as a philosopher, he is also an essayist, literary critic, and art historian. In 1981, he succeeded Roland Barthes at the Collège de France in Paris. He is the author of ten books of poetry, most recently L'heure présente, as well as numerous works on art, history and poetry. His many honors include, most recently, Canada's Griffin Poetry Prize (2011). * Please note: Bonnefoy will not be in attendance.

Daniel Shapiro's translation of Harris's Cipango was published by Bucknell University Press in 2010. Shapiro serves as Director of Literature at the Americas Society in New York and as editor of the Society's journal Review: Literature and Arts of the Americas. During his tenure there, he has presented and published hundreds of writers from throughout the Americas. His poems, translations, and prose have been published widely.

Emily Grosholz's translation of Bonnefoy's The Beginning and End of Snow will appear from Bucknell University Press in 2012. Grosholz is Liberal Arts Research Professor of Philosophy at the Pennsylvania State University, and a member of the research group "Rehsels / Sphere" at the University of Paris Denis Diderot. She is the author of six books of poetry (including Leaves / Feuilles with Farhad Ostovani) and an advisory editor for the Hudson Review.

 

This reading is co-sponsored by Bucknell University Press


 

Yves Bonnefoy

Flocons,

 

Bévues sans conséquences de la lumière.

L'une suit l'autre et d'autres encore, comme si

Comprendre ne comptait plus, rire advantage.

Et Aristote le disait bien,

Quelque part dans sa Poétique qu'on lit si mal,

C'est la transparence qui vaut,

Dans des phrases qui soient comme une rumeur

d'abeilles, comme une eau claire.

 

Yves Bonnefoy
translated by Emily Grosholz

Snowflakes,

 

Inconsequential mistakes of light.

One follows on another, on others still, as if

Understanding no longer counted, only laughter.

And Aristotle said it well,

Somewhere in the Poetics that we read so poorly,

Transparence is what matters,

In sentences that should be like the rumor

of bees, or like clear water

 

 

Tomás Harris

Zonas de Peligro

 

Asf como largas y angostas fajas de barro.

Asf como largas y angostas fajas de noche.

Asf como largas y angostas fajas de musgo rojo

sobre Ia piel.

 

Las zonas de peligro son ininteligibles. 0 las

prefigura un rojo disco de metal,

símbolo de un sol mohoso al fondo de una calle desmembrada, meado por los perros.

 

Las zonas de peligro son inevitables; te rodean

el cuerpo en silencio,

el silencio te Iamen Ia oreja,

en secreto te revuelven el ojo,

sin el menor ruido te besan el culo

y los escasos letreros de neón ocultan su única identidad;

CAMPOS DE EXTERMINIO.

Tomás Harris,
translated by Daniel Shapiro

Danger Zones

 

Just like long and narrow strips of mud

Just like long and narrow strips of night

Just like long and narrow strips of red moss

on the skin.

 

The danger zones are unintelligible. Or

they're prefigured by a red metal disk,

symbol of a moldy sun pissed on by dogs,

at the end of a dismembered street.

 

The danger zones are inevitable; they surround

your body in silence,

in silence they lick your ear,

in secret they stir your eyes,

without the least sound they kiss your ass

and meager neon signs hide their true identity:

EXTERMINATION CAMPS.