trans. Anne Carson
trans. Anne Carson
Winner of the 2004 Tupelo Press prize, a notable collection, with a machine that goes ping.
A collection of poetry—particularly a selected or a collected—rarely has the narrative drive of fiction. There's no reason that it should. It's a different animal, after all. Every so often, though, one comes across a book of poetry that does pull one along just as joyfully, just as relentlessly, as does a well-told story. Durs Grünbein's Ashes for Breakfast is one of those, perhaps in part thanks to Grünbein's gift for a consistently conversational tone infused with worldly cynicism, humor, and learning lightly-worn. All of this is certainly on display in his ode to the city of my birth (can you guess what city it is?): "To be truly happy here, you need a dentist. 'Such a dazzling smile . . .' / Because happiness is the first duty of every citizen. / Whoever is happy, is unstoppable. Nothing so cheers the loser / as the successful sparklers." He can also be heartbreaking, though, as in an ode to the city of his birth, Dresden: "Nothing veiled anymore, history, / the hot, dusty wind that eradicates, / and I care. And in the name of what happened there / one gives up the Vermeer (burned) / and the Bach (disappeared). / Was it worth it? That whole cities, / from which the death transports rolled / became wastelands on Lethe's banks." That there is no easy answer to this question augments the poem's simple power. I can't judge the fidelity of Michael Hofmann's translations, but the versions he has given of Grünbein's work certainly read well. His introduction, too, is a lively reflection on the translator's art. Don't skip it.
Reading Federico García Lorca reminds one that surrealism, in poetry, doesn't have to be facile, that stanzas like: "La muchacha de lágrimas / se bañaba entre llamas / y el ruiseñor lloraba / con las allas quemadas," can elicit and deserve reactions more heartfelt than "wow, that's weird." In W.S. Merwin's translation the passage above is: "The girl of tears / bathed among flames / and the nightingale wept / with charred wings." Like most of the renderings (by a variety of translators) in this edition it seems to me well-done, and was certainly helpful to me as I puzzled my way through the Spanish on the left-hand pages, enjoying García Lorca's music, even as the meaning, at times—before a quick glance over at the right-hand page—eluded me.