Zenith Richard - Education by Stone: Selected Poems

Education by Stone Selected Poems Joo Cabral de Melo Neto Translated by Richard Zenith archipelago books Copyright 2005 Archipelago Books First Edition All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form without the prior written permission of the publisher. Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Cabral de Melo Neto, Joo, 19201999 [Poems. English & Portuguese. Selections] Education by stone : selected poems / by Joo Cabral de Melo Neto ; translated from the Portuguese by Richard Zenith. p. cm. cm.

Includes bibliographical references. ISBN 978-1-9357-4455-9 I. Zenith, Richard. II. Title. PQ9697.M463A285 2005 869.142 dc22200402075 Archipelago Books 239 West 12th Street, 3c New York, NY 10014 www.archipelagobooks.org Distributed by Consortium Book Sales and Distribution 1045 Westgate Drive St.

Paul, MN 55114 www.cbsd.com Education by Stone: Selected Poems of Joo Cabral de Melo Neto Copyright The Estate of Joo Cabral All rights reserved English Translation of the Work 2005 Richard Zenith Jacket art: Untitled, 1959. Mark Rothko Copyright 2004 Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York/ADAGP, Paris Coll. Kate Rothko Prizel Book Design by David Bullen Design Printed by The Stinehour Press, Lunenburg, Vermont This publication is made possible with public funds from the New York State Council on the Arts, a State agency.

Joo Cabral de Melo Netos poetry was at its strongest between 1950 and 1980, and the selection presented here is weighted accordingly. His last book, Sevilha Andando, was published in 1989. Joo Cabral said he imagined writing poems that could only be read silently, and he claimed to be incapable of writing poetry without seeing the words on the page.

In fact he quit writing it after he went blind, in the 1990s, and he described himself to reporters as an ex-writer. Rather than offering excerpts from the authors various long narrative poems, two such poems are presented in their entirety. Elizabeth Bishops translation of sections from Morte e Vida Severina [The Death and Life of a Severino] are included in her The Complete Poems (Farrar, Straus & Giroux, 1969) and in Joo Cabrals Selected Poetry, 19371990 (Wesleyan, 1994). The Afterword examines Joo Cabrals poetics and discusses a number of the poems translated here. Lest readers imagine that some words were accidentally left out, let it be noted that a few poems The Dog without Feathers, Weaving the Morning and Banks and Cathedrals are examples employ syntactical ellipses, a device that I have usually tried to replicate in the translation. Ten of the translations in this volume were first published, with some significant differences, in the Wesleyan Selected.

Others were published in Paris Review, Grand Street, The Atlantic, Partisan, The New England Review, Chicago Review, and World Literature Today. Much of the Afterword was adapted from an article on Joo Cabral de Melo Neto published in Latin American Writers, Supplement I, Scribners, 2002. Readers may refer to that article for a fuller treatment of the poet and his work, as well as a bibliography.

I thank the National Endowment for the Humanities for supporting this project with a translation grant in 1985. I also thank the Endowment for its patience. The John Anson Kittredge Educational Fund kindly provided a supplementary grant.

It was David Haberly who encouraged me to do an entire book and to apply for funding. Dora Feiguin, Elizabeth Marques, Manuela Rocha and Marcia Rodrigues graciously clarified difficult passages. Several people who provided practical help or moral support are no longer with us: Frank MacShane, Haroldo de Campos, and the poet himself, Joo Cabral de Melo Neto, who said he hated to see translations of his poetry into languages he knew. He tolerated me anyway. R.Z.

Theres a man dreaming on a beach, another who never remembers dates. Theres a man dreaming on a beach, another who never remembers dates.

Theres a man running away from a tree, another missing his boat or his hat. Theres a man whos a soldier, another who acts like an airplane, another who keeps forgetting his time his mystery his fear of the word veil. And theres yet another who, stretched out like a ship, fell asleep.

jardins enfurecidos, pensamentos palavras sortilgio sob uma lua contemplada; jardins de minha ausncia imensa e vegetal; jardins de um cu viciosamente freqentado: onde o mistrio maior do sol da luz da sade? O raging gardens, thoughts words sorcery under a contemplated moon, O gardens of my vast vegetable absence, gardens of an enchanting, addictive sky: where is the larger mystery of light the sun health? As vozes lquidas do poema convidam ao crime ao revlver. Falam para mim de ilhas que mesmo os sonhos no alcanam. O livro aberto nos joelhos o vento nos cabelos olho o mar.

Os acontecimentos de gua pem-se a se repetir na memria.

The poems liquid voices lure me to crime to a revolver. They tell me of islands not even dreams can reach. With open book on my knees and wind in my hair I look at the sea. What happens in water starts repeating in memory. A bailarina feita de borracha e pssaro dana no pavimento anterior do sonho.

A trs horas de sono, mais alm dos sonhos, nas secretas cmaras que a morte revela. Entre monstros feitos a tinta de escrever, a bailarina feita de borracha e pssaro. Da diria e lenta borracha que mastigo. Do inseto ou pssaro que no sei caar.

The dancer made of rubber and bird dances on the floor before the dream. Three hours into sleep, beyond all dreams, in the secret chambers which death reveals.

Among monsters made with writing ink, the dancer made of rubber and bird. Of the slow and daily eraser I chew. Of the insect or bird I cannot catch.

A luz, o sol, o ar livre envolvem o sonho do engenheiro. O engenheiro sonha coisas claras: superfcies, tnis, um copo de gua. (Em certas tardes ns subamos ao edifcio. (Em certas tardes ns subamos ao edifcio.

A cidade diria, como um jornal que todos liam, ganhava um pulmo de cimento e vidro.) A gua, o vento, a claridade, de um lado o rio, no alto as nuvens, situavam na natureza o edifcio crescendo de suas foras simples.

Light, sun and the open air surround the dream of the engineer. The engineer dreams clear things: surfaces, tennis, a glass of water. A pencil, a T-square, paper; designs, projects, numbers. The engineer sees the world just as it is, without any veils. (On certain days we went up the building.

The daily city, like a daily paper read by all, was gaining a lung of cement and glass.) The water, the wind, the brightness, the river on one side and the clouds on high made a place in nature for the building, growing by its own simple strength.

O jornal dobrado sobre a mesa simples; a toalha limpa, a loua branca e fresca como o po. A laranja verde: tua paisagem sempre, teu ar livre, sol de tuas praias; clara e fresca como o po. A faca que aparou teu lpis gasto; teu primeiro livro cuja capa branca e fresca como o po. E o verso nascido de tua manh viva, de teu sonho extinto, ainda leve, quente e fresco como o po. The folded newspaper on the simple table; the tablecloth clean, the dishes white and fresh like bread.

The green-skinned orange: your unfailing landscape, your open air, the sun of your beaches: bright and fresh like bread. The knife that sharpened your spent pencil; your first book whose cover is white and fresh like bread. And the verse born of your living morning, of your finished dream: still warm, light and fresh like bread.

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