Remembering Seamus Heaney
Rilke: “The Apple Orchard”
Come just after the sun has gone down, watch
This deepening of green in the evening sward:
Is it not as if we'd long since garnered
And stored within ourselves a something which
From feeling and from feeling recollected,
From new hope and half-forgotten joys
And from an inner dark infused with these,
Issues in thoughts as ripe as windfalls scattered
Here under trees like trees in a Durer woodcut -
Pendent, pruned, the husbandry of years
Gravid in them until the fruit appears -
Ready to serve, replete with patience, rooted
In the knowledge that no matter how above
Measure or expectation, all must be
Harvested and yielded, when a long life willingly
Cleaves to what's willed and grows in mute
resolve.
****
Rilke: “After the Fire”
Early autumn morning hesitated,
Shying at newness, an emptiness behind
Scorched linden trees still crowding in around
The moorland house, now just one more wallstead
Where youngsters gathered up from god knows where
Hunted and yelled and ran wild in a pack.
Yet all of them fell silent when he appeared,
The son of the place, and with a long forked stick
Dragged an out-of-shape old can or kettle
From under hot, half burnt-away house-beams;
And then, like one with a doubtful tale to tell,
Turned to the others present, at great pains
To make them realize what had stood so.
For now that it was gone, it all seemed
Far stranger: more fantastical than Pharaoh.
And he was changed: a foreigner among them.
****
Stern
“in memory of Ted Hughes”
'And what was it like,' I asked him
‘Meeting Eliot?'
When he looked at you,'
He said, ‘it was like standing on a quay
Watching the prow of the “Queen Mary”
Come towards you, very slowly.’
Now it seems
I’m standing on a pierhead watching him
All the while watching me as he rows out
And a wooden end-stopped stern
Labours and shimmers and dips
Making no
real headway.
***
Out of This World
“in memory of Czeslaw Milosz”
I 'Like everybody else ...'
'Like everybody else, I bowed my head
during the consecration of the bread and wine,
lifted my eyes to the raised host and raised chalice,
believed (whatever it means) that a change occurred.
I went to the altar rails and received the mystery
on my tongue, returned to my place, shut my eyes fast,
made
an act of thanksgiving, opened my eyes and felt
time starting up again.
There was never a scene
when I had it out with myself or with another.
The loss occurred off-stage. And yet I cannot
disavow words like "thanksgiving" or "host"
or "communion bread". They have an undying
tremor and draw, like well water far down
SH interview
What is your own apology for poetry? What is poetry good for?
To
quote my friend Derek Mahon, they keep the colors new. They rinse
things
[Mi làm
phiền
ta quá. Kiếp trước mi đúng là con đỉa. Mi có lời xin lỗi như thế nào,
đối với ta? Ta đẹp ở chỗ nào?
Tôi xin trích
dẫn bạn tôi: Thơ làm sắc màu luôn tươi rói. Thơ kỳ cọ đời... ].
Remembering Seamus Heaney
SH interview
What is your own apology for poetry? What is poetry good for?
To quote my friend Derek Mahon, they keep the colors new. They rinse things[Mi làm phiền ta quá. Kiếp trước mi đúng là con đỉa. Mi có lời xin lỗi như thế nào, đối với ta? Ta đẹp ở chỗ nào?
Tôi xin trích dẫn bạn tôi: Thơ làm sắc màu luôn tươi rói. Thơ kỳ cọ đời... ].
CITY St Petersburg
I’ve only been to St Petersburg once, about ten years ago. I was interested in it because I’d been reading the poets Mandelstam and Akhmatova, both of whom lived there. It’s a city of beautiful perspectives, with a great sense of the survival of the siege [of Leningrad, 1941-44], and of course there are literary associations at every turn. There’s the so-called "Dostoyevsky area", and the Nevsky Prospect. Mandelstam wrote a poem about the Admiralty Building, and Pushkin wrote one about the bronze statue of St Peter the Great. We visited Joseph Brodsky’s apartment. We’d known him in America, and he’d written about this Soviet "room-and-a-half" where he grew up. We met a friend of his there who’d photographed him on the day of his exile. He’d made a cake, and there was vodka, and we had a little ceremony in memory of Joseph.
Tôi thăm St
Peterbug một lần, cách đây 10 năm. Tôi quan tâm tới nó, bởi là vì tôi
đọc những
nhà thơ Mandelstam và Akhmatova, cả hai sống ở đó. Đó là 1 thành phố
với những
viễn tượng đẹp, với một cảm quan/ý nghĩa lớn, về sống sót cuộc vây hãm,
khi còn
với cái tên là Leningrad, 1941-44, và, lẽ dĩ nhiên, với những hội hè,
hội ngộ,
kết giao văn chương, ở mọi ngõ ngách, bước ngoặt, ở đó. Có cái gọi là
“góc Dos”
[chắc giống “góc Sài Gòn”, “góc Hà Nội”, “góc Thảo Trường”… của TV], và “Toàn Cảnh Nevsky”. Mandelstam đã
từng đi 1 bài thơ về tòa nhà Admiralty Building, và Pushkin, một bài,
về
pho tượng đồng St Peter Đại Đế.
Chúng tôi thăm
căn phòng của Brodsky. Chúng tôi quen biết ông ở Mẽo, và ông đã từng
viết về “căn
phòng rưỡi” Xô Viết này, nơi ông lớn lên. Chúng tôi gặp 1 ông bạn của
ông ở đó,
người đã từng đi 1 pô hình, chụp ông, ngày bị nhà nước VC Liên Xô tống
đi lưu
vong.
Ông bạn này nướng 1 cái bánh, và, kèm thêm 1 chai vốc ka, chúng tôi làm
một
cái tiệc nho nhỏ, tưởng nhớ nhà thơ Joseph của chúng tôi.
Trong căn
phòng rưỡi
Joseph
Brodsky
*
K vừa đưa bài Trong Căn Phòng Rưỡi, và bài thơ Gởi Con Gái Tôi do anh dịch của
Brodsky lên a2a . Đồng thời K link vào bài phim Room and A Half, nói tiếng Nga, xem
cho vui .
Như một món quà SN .
THE ESSAYS OF JOSEPH BRODSKY
In 1986 Joseph Brodsky
published Less Than One, a
book of essays. Some of the essays were translated from the Russian,
others he wrote directly in English. In two cases the English matrix
had a symbolic importance to him: in a heartfelt homage to W H. Auden,
who did much to smooth his path for him when he quit Russia in 1972,
and whom he regarded as the greatest poet in English of the century;
and in his memoir of his parents, whom he had to leave behind in
Leningrad, and who, despite repeated petitions to the Soviet-era
authorities, were never granted permission to visit him. He chose English, he explained, to
honor them in a language of freedom.
Coetzee
Năm 1986, Brodsky cho xb một tuyển tập tiểu luận Less Than One. Một số, dịch từ tiếng Nga, số khác, ông viết thẳng bằng tiếng Anh. Trong hai trường hợp, “ma trận Anh” có 1 sự quan trọng mang tính biểu tượng đối với ông: Bài tôn vinh cảm động, dành cho nhà thơ Anh W.H. Auden, người đã làm cho cuộc bỏ nước ra đi và sống lưu vong nơi xứ người trở nên bớt nặng nề, và, với ông, là nhà thơ vĩ đại nhất của dòng thơ tiếng Anh của thế kỷ; bài viết về bố mẹ và thời gian sống cùng hai bậc sinh thành trong căn phòng rưỡi ở Moscow, thời kỳ Xô Viết, là để vinh danh bố mẹ bằng 1 thứ ngôn ngữ của tự do.
What is your own apology for poetry? What is poetry good for?
To quote my friend Derek Mahon, they keep the colours new. They rinse things..
CITY St Petersburg
I’ve only been to St Petersburg once, about ten years ago. I was interested in it because I’d been reading the poets Mandelstam and Akhmatova, both of whom lived there. It’s a city of beautiful perspectives, with a great sense of the survival of the siege [of Leningrad, 1941-44], and of course there are literary associations at every turn. There’s the so-called "Dostoyevsky area", and the Nevsky Prospect. Mandelstam wrote a poem about the Admiralty Building, and Pushkin wrote one about the bronze statue of St Peter the Great. We visited Joseph Brodsky’s apartment. We’d known him in America, and he’d written about this Soviet "room-and-a-half" where he grew up. We met a friend of his there who’d photographed him on the day of his exile. He’d made a cake, and there was vodka, and we had a little ceremony in memory of Joseph.
Remembering Seamus Heaney
THE GUTTURAL MUSE
Late summer,
and at midnight
I smelt the
heat of the day:
At my window
over the hotel car park
I breathed
the muddied night airs off the lake
And watched
a young crowd leave the discotheque.
Their voices
rose up thick and comforting
As oily
bubbles the feeding tench sent up
That evening
at dusk-the slimy tench
Once called
the doctor fish because his slime
Was said to
heal the wounds of fish that touched it.
A girl in a
white dress
Was being
courted out among the cars:
As her voice
swarmed and puddled into laughs
I felt like
some old pike all badged with sores
Wanting to
swim in touch with soft-mouthed life.
-Seamus
Heaney
(1939-2013)
The New Yorker, Sept 9, 2013
SCAFFOLDING
Masons, when
they start upon a building,
Are careful
to test out the scaffolding;
Make sure
that planks won't slip at busy points,
Secure all
ladders, tighten bolted joints.
And yet all
this comes down when the job's done
Showing off
walls. of sure and solid stone.
So if, my
dear, there sometimes seem to be
Old bridges
breaking between you and me
Never fear.
We may let the scaffolds fall
Confident
that we have built our wall.
Làm nhà
Tặng bạn, như một lời tạ lỗi
Những người
thợ khi xây một căn nhà
Thường đắn
đo từng khung cây làm giàn giáo
Sao cho giàn
đừng bung
Ở những nơi
bộn bề công chuyện
Chắt chiu từng
cây thang
Ngại
ngùng từng mối nối
Tất cả bỏ
đi, khi việc xong
Tường đá lộ
ra, uy nghi, sừng sững
Bạn thân ơi,
đôi khi có vẻ
Những cây cầu
ngày xưa gẫy đổ giữa chúng ta
Tâm đắc một điều
Ngôi nhà của chúng ta đã làm xong
Note: Tập thơ, thấy ghi
mua ngày 17.01.96. Tìm mãi mới thấy.
Bài thơ trên,
lời tặng, tạ lỗi... liên quan tới cô bạn phù dâu ngày nào. GCC
DIGGING
Between my
finger and my thumb
The squat
pen rests; snug as a gun.
Under my
window, a clean rasping sound
When the
spade sinks into gravelly ground:
My father,
digging. I look down
Till his
straining rump among the flower beds
Bends low,
comes up twenty years away
Stooping in
rhythm through potato drills
Where he was
digging.
The coarse
boot nestled on the lug, the shaft
Against the
inside knee was levered firmly.
He rooted
out tall tops, buried the bright edge deep
To scatter
new potatoes that we picked
Loving their
cool hardness in our hands.
By God, the
old man could handle a spade.
Just like
his old man.
My
grandfather cut more turf in a day
Than any
other man on Toner's bog.
Once I
carried him milk in a bottle
Corked
sloppily with paper. He straightened up
To drink it,
then fell to right away
Nicking
and
slicing neatly, heaving sods
Over his
shoulder, going down and down
For the good
turf. Digging.
The cold
smell of potato mould, the squelch and slap
Of soggy
peat, the curt cuts of an edge
Through
living roots awaken in my head.
But I've no
spade to follow men like them.
Between my
finger and my thumb
The squat
pen rests.
I'll dig
with it.
Remembering Seamus Heaney
A shy soul
WHEN Seamus
Heaney began writing poetry, during his years studying to be a
schoolteacher in
the 1960s, he used the pen-name “Incertus”, meaning “uncertain”. Later,
he
would describe himself as “a shy soul fretting and all that”. As an
older man
with an illustrious career behind him his gentle voice could still be
mistaken
for shyness. When I saw him give a lecture at Cambridge University on
the
importance of peaty bogs in his work he stood tall yet slightly stooped
over a
lectern, quietly capturing the audience's attention with his
self-deprecating
dry humour.
Prospero
Một linh hồn cả thẹn
Nobel
prize-winning Northern Irish poet died this morning in a Dublin
hospital after
a short illness
Làm nhà
Tặng bạn, như một lời tạ lỗi
Những người
thợ khi xây một căn nhà
Thường đắn
đo từng khung cây làm giàn giáo
Sao cho giàn
đừng bung
Ở những nơi
bộn bề công chuyện
Chắt chiu từng
cây thang
Ngại
ngùng từng mối nối
Tất cả bỏ
đi, khi việc xong
Tường đá lộ
ra, uy nghi, sừng sững
Bạn thân ơi,
đôi khi có vẻ
Những cây cầu
ngày xưa gẫy đổ giữa chúng ta
Đừng sợ. Hãy
để cho khung rêu rụng xuống
Tâm đắc một
điều
Ngôi nhà của
chúng ta đã làm xong
Books, arts and culture
Remembering Seamus Heaney
A shy soul
WHEN Seamus Heaney began writing poetry, during his years studying to be a schoolteacher in the 1960s, he used the pen-name “Incertus”, meaning “uncertain”. Later, he would describe himself as “a shy soul fretting and all that”. As an older man with an illustrious career behind him his gentle voice could still be mistaken for shyness. When I saw him give a lecture at Cambridge University on the importance of peaty bogs in his work he stood tall yet slightly stooped over a lectern, quietly capturing the audience's attention with his self-deprecating dry humour.
Yet there is little that is hesitant in his poems. “Between my finger and my thumb / The squat pen rests; snug as a gun.” So opens “Digging”, the first poem in “Death of a Naturalist” (1966), his first, dazzling collection. The poem would go on to be studied in schools and endlessly quoted in articles about Heaney, who won the Nobel prize in literature in 1995. Rightly so—in 31 lines Heaney confidently captures the mixture of lyrical observation and matter-of-factness that went on to characterise his work.
Heaney's language is spare and to the point, yet his poems are full with texture. He later wrote that “Digging” was the first poem “where I thought my feelings had got into words, or to put it more accurately, where I thought my feel had got into words.” It was this knack for conveying “the feel” of a thing that marks Heaney out as one of the major poets of the 20th century.
Born in 1939 in County Derry in Northern Ireland Heaney grew up in a rural farmstead, his family crammed into three rooms. As he described it in his Nobel prize speech: “It was an intimate, physical, creaturely existence in which the night sounds of the horse in the stable beyond one bedroom wall mingled with the sounds of adult conversation from the kitchen beyond the other”. The beauty of the Irish landscape recurs throughout his work. He watches his father till the earth and observes potato diggers stopping for their lunch-break. But life is not romanticised. Everyday harsh realities are turned into lyric poetry—farmers drown kittens and dead turkeys are slapped upon the cold marble slabs of a table.
Over 12 collections of poems this rustic upbringing is never far away. But the collection that made his name, “North” (1975) touches on another aspect of contemporary Ireland that has rarely been so well articulated. Describing the sectarian conflict of the 1970s and 1980s, poems such as “Whatever You Say Say Nothing” capture the impossibility of putting such violence into words: “The famous / Northern reticence, the tight gag of place / And times”. “Smoke-signals are loud-mouthed compared with us”, he writes. Few wrote so well and with such nuance about the Northern Irish Troubles.
Along with his poetry, Heaney was also an excellent translator (having studied Latin and Anglo-Saxon at Queen’s University in Belfast). His translation of the Anglo-Saxon poem “Beowulf” in 1995 brought it to a new audience, as did his 2009 version of the little-known, but brilliant medieval Scots poem by Robert Henryson, “The Testament of Cresseid”. His translations of Greek plays, such as “The Burial at Thebes” (adapted from Sophocles’s “Antigone”) and “The Cure at Troy” (a version of Sophocles's “Philoctetes”) subtly interwove differing voices, bridging the gap between poetry and plays. And as a lecturer at Harvard and Oxford (where he was Professor of Poetry from 1989 to 1994) he was a brilliant teacher. His criticism sparkles with the combination of plain speaking and acute observation so familiar in his poems.
Last year I heard Heaney speak again in London. Older, and slightly more frail, his muscular poems still shone out in the darkness of an auditorium. From his last collection, “Human Chain” (2010), he read a poem written in memory of his friend David Hammond. It begins: “The door was open and the house was dark / Wherefore I called his name, although I knew / The answer this time would be silence”. Although death has now silenced Heaney, his voice will live on.
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