Saturday, 5 June 2010

Reverdy: Slates


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File:Slate Macro 1.JPG



Sur chaque ardoise
...................qui glissait du toit
................................on
.........................avait écrit
....................................un poème




La gouttière est bordée de diamants
.............................. les oiseaux les boivent
File:St Fagans Tannery 7.jpg
On each slate
..............that slipped from the roof
....................someone
..................had written
..............................a poem




The gutter's lined with diamonds
.......................the birds sip them





File:Egon Schiele 019.jpg




Pierre Reverdy: "Sur chaque ardoise..." from Les Ardoises du Toit (1918), trans. TC

A piece of slate: photo by Jon Zander, 2007
Slate roof, Tannery, St. Fagans (Wales National Museum, Cardiff): photo by Zureks, 2007
Windows: Egon Schiele, 1914 (Österreichische Galerie, Wien)

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10 comments:

  1. Curtis Roberts5 June 2010 at 04:32

    This wonderful Reverdy poem lived on the page in Trans/Versions, but nothing like this, which is a beautiful tribute to Reverdy, the birds (who really deserve a tribute today and something more meaningful than an apology) and the slate roofs they adore.

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  2. TC5 June 2010 at 05:12

    Thanks so much, Curtis, for surviving that last post and getting this one. Never tempted to take that getting it for granted. This was definitely for the birds, like they say.

    Persuading the lineation to sail and glide a bit was key to the project, Blogger does not like to sail and glide.

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  3. aditya5 June 2010 at 06:49

    Tom

    A gem or should I say diamond, of a poem.

    There is never a moment of silence. There is always a bird in the air.

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  4. Issa's Untidy Hut5 June 2010 at 06:50

    Excellent use of the Egon Schiele with this fine translation. I love his landscapes and city/town scapes, as well as the more traditionally revered erotic/grotesque work. His fascination with hands is spellbinding, as with so many artists.

    Thanks.

    I am currently relishing Trans/Versions ...

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  5. STEPHEN RATCLIFFE5 June 2010 at 07:47

    Tom & Curtis,

    Yes the birds, the birds deserve a tribute today -- and make their own (too) as anyone who's listening knows (hears). Birds sipping diamond poems (your beautiful translation of Reverdy's beautiful poem) is a welcome turn from those oil-soaked brown pelicans that came before them (in the composition) or after them for us readers. . . .

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  6. TC5 June 2010 at 07:53

    Aditya, Don, Steve,

    Very many thanks for the thoughts.

    Don, Schiele always stops me in my tracks.

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  7. human being6 June 2010 at 05:06

    ah... Tom... feel this can be the decription of your house...

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  8. human being6 June 2010 at 05:07

    *description

    sorry!

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  9. TC6 June 2010 at 07:42

    hb,

    If only!

    (Our roof pieces and eaves are indeed falling away in chunks, but so far none of the chunks have poems written on them...)

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  10. human being6 June 2010 at 10:44

    :)

    i meant this virtual house you have here... with poems written all over it... and we... your readers... are those birds coming to sip the gems...

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