Duas indicações de blog

Duas indicações de blog:

http://improvisions.blogspot.com/ (do graphonótico Marcelo Kraiser e da adorável maluca Vera Lúcia Rosas)

edwardsteinhardt.blogspot.com (blog do Edward, poeta e escritor amigo de Key West e amigo do John Hemingway).

Um dos diálogos do post sobre a perda do pai que ele fez tem um diálogo mais ou menos assim:

--Pai, sabe o Ryan?

--Sei.

--Somos mais próximo do que se aceita socialmente, entende?

--Sim. Não se sinta culpado.

(...) E isso, vindo de alguém que pouco tempo antes ele tinha visto desposar uma mulher.


Lúcio chegou. Quando do inverno o tredo vento balançava o coqueiral vetusto. Ainda o recordo, pálido de medo e trêmulo de susto.

Teologia penetrália: JC,

Jesus Cristo = Gerald Thomas.

Caets (Veloso) é Judas.

Zênites.

Nadires: Giba-Glauber-Laerte Braga

Pólos: Caets/GT
X
Laerte Braga + GibaGlauber

Going Through My Father´s Things

Going Through My Father's Things

His glasses,
A half-dozen watches;
Old photographs.
My brothers get
The black-powder guns.
I choose a few things:
A clock he made,
A heron he carved,
A painting he painted.
We find old driver's licenses,
Deer tags from the 50s;
An arrowhead he found
When he was a kid.
My brother Wally gets his dog-tags.
I insist on the old wooden cigar box
My dad found in the Mojave Desert
When he was 16...
This is what happens
When you join the armory
Of widowed sons,
When a poet's father dies.

At home I am going
Through old photos
And I reach for my phone
To call my dad and say:
"Guess what I found,"
And I can't.
The entry in "Calls Received"
In my cell-phone for Friday
Still says, 'Dad';
By Tuesday he is gone.
On Friday we lay his hammer
Alongside a cedar box
Not much bigger than a book
In a hole in the ground.

Edward Steinhardt em seu blog

Steinhardt sobre a morte do pai

Uma postagem do poeta Edward Steinhardt sobre a morte do pai (a post of a poet about the death of his father).

http://edwardsteinhardt.blogspot.com/2009/08/armory-of-widowed-sons.html

Reading the post I remembered a Ferlinghetti poem:


Autobiography

I am leading a quiet life
In Mike´s Place every day
watching the champs
of the Dante Billiard Parlor
and the French pinball addicts.
I am leading a quiet life
on lower East Broadway.
I am an american.
I was an American boy.
I read the American Boy Magazine
and became a boy scout
in the suburbs

As Vozes Únicas de Edward Steinhardt

Saturday, August 2, 2008

Standing Pelican: Key West Poems & Stories, Foreword by John Hemingway, A REVIEW

For this, my second blog, I tender what may be one of the last reviews Charles Guenther ever wrote, written just a few months ago. This will complete the introduction of edward steinhardt into blogdom...



The Unique Voices of Edward Steinhardt

A Review by Charles Guenther

Many if not most writers have more than one voice—lyric, dramatic or narrative. Few have succeeded in all three, but it’s always a joy to find such an emerging talent. Edward Steinhardt is an experienced poet, editor and journalist, with just the background to write well in any voice. Standing Pelican: Key West Poems & Stories shows a talent unique in its many modulations in poetry, fiction and drama (or docu-drama).

The opening section of Standing Pelican contains a dozen poems, most with Key West settings, and all strikingly different. Steinhardt’s poetry celebrates today’s Key West in Narrative imagery and dialogue. The lines are spare, cinematic, on themes of a Tarot reader, urban bars, and Key West settings. Emotion is tempered, unlike that of modernist Wallace Stevens in whose "Farewell to Florida" (a century ago) "Key West sank downward under massive clouds," and who "hated the weathery yawl" and "the vivid blooms" of that city.

Contrast also Steven’s "The Idea of Order at Key West" which begins with a singing woman (the Sea) and ends almost romantically by summoning a fisherman (Ramon Hernandez). Steinhardt’s "On the Pier at Key West" sings a real man and woman who "Methodically cast/ Their blind lines into the sea."

Steinhardt excels in the short story, with eight delightful examples. In his prize-winning "A Square Green Patch of Earth," are surprising transitions in the narrative, about an elderly couple and the stark, subtle symbolism of a dark ibis. The plot is quiet in tone and flow, and beginning and end are skillfully joined together.

The next story, "Julian," has crisp images of Key West, with intense personal observation and subtle characterization. Its plot involves fresh, moving memories and affectionate relationships of mind and heart.

The next tale is set in the Hemingway House; it is totally different, with almost continuous dialogue and authentic present-day exchanges on the old and new. Still another story unwinds with fascinating contrasts in age and youth, an old man and a young boy.

"The Rooming House" resembles Tennessee Williams’ style in a series of ruminations and musings on rooming house life and characters, reminiscent of Williams’ life in St. Louis and Key West.

The next story, "Johnny Bible" has an aura of mystery, with strong suspense and character contrasts. The plot revolves around an eccentric protagonist and a long-awaited letter—and an unusual ending.

The final story, "The Trials of January Jones," is longer and more intricate. ("January" is a woman.) The leading character’s trials are numerous, credible; yet she endures a life of sadness among the customers in her diner. The revelation of her secret past life will surprise readers.

Standing Pelican closes with a strikingly original one-act play, or docu-drama—a 45-page conversation with Tennessee Williams. Here, too, Steinhardt is a consumate craftsman as an interviewer of Williams, who vacationed in Key West in his youth and bought a house there in 1949. The play is titled "A Summer Place," a setting found in a number of Williams’ works. Steinhardt provides an enlightening introduction, with a cast of ten strongly delineated characters. Steinhardt is particularly well-grounded in this work, since he lived in both Central West St. Louis and Key West where Williams spent most of his life.

Altogether Edward Steinhardt’s Standing Pelican is a thoroughly entertaining, well-written collection, highly original in its scope and style. Steinhardt "reads" much better than many, if not most writers—even (at least to this reviewer) better than Faulkner.

Fathers and Sons... And for the Remembering...

It's August now. And it's fall, at least in most places. Except for Key West where it is perpetually summer...

I am also reminded of the years. And age. And aging. And friends. And the remembering...

We have no guarantee of tomorrow. Perhaps the only guarantee is that there is a yesterday. And memories. All that is recorded and retained in the thing called the soul...

Friends enable and embolden us. The best friends make such a good difference in our lives it might even be said we become noble.

If one is lucky enough, one might be privileged to have a mentor. Or more than one.

A mentor is like another father. They are morally supportive. You always have their vote. They're behind you 150 per cent.

They also do what you do, or what you're trying to do. And they take the time to show you the ropes, or at least show you the direction in which you should go. It is a spiritual dance between the Greater and the Lessor. One bestows, the other learns.

It is a Teacher and Student arrangement. It is an old Greek way. It is a Roman way. And, given the right formula of time, place and literary ingredients, sometimes also the American way.

Charles Guenther has for me been one such friend, or Father of Letters. And fortunate for me, he sought me out.

I had had one other literary father, Howard Nemerov. He was my first influence, my first initial mentor or infrequent sounding-board.

Coming out of my teens I had promise in poetry, certainly. But the first poems were not necessarily good ones. Some, being born, could barely walk. The balance of those early poems would probably fall under the category of what Howard would later call "a very low form of literary life."

By the time my first book came out (The Painting Birds, Westphalia Press, 1988) my poems were doing better. Or rather I was getting better at my craft. Either Fr. William Barnaby Faherty or Sharon Kinney Hanson had relayed a copy of my first book to Charles Guenther. And Charles wrote me from St. Louis how he like my book and my style of writing.

That was the beginning of an incredible 20 year period of collaborative projects, correspondence and friendship. Charles, in the choosing, had chosen a poet who was eager to learn, to become better at versifying. After all, in the symbiotic dance between Teacher and Student, it's always about one thing (especially if it's about choosing a mentor); learning from someone who is a heck of a lot smarter than you are. After all, you want to achieve or become what they are, or do what they do.

Last month, right before this—the August of our year—Charles died. And a great grief came upon me, one in which I had not been visited with since Howard died in 1991. The depth of grief in this case was so great, it defies explanation. I think this quality of sadness can only be understood by other writers or artists, for they alone know the intrinsic strands of soul that bind one artist to another. Especially if such knowledge has been imparted or exchanged in the mentor/student dynamic...

My sadness is compounded by the fact that Charles died before I, as publisher, was unable to get his last book (Guardian of Grief: Poems of Giacomo Leopardi) into his hands before the cancer, so quickly announced, would also expeditiously overtake him.

It is equally amazing (knowing now in retrospect) what a difference of 15 or 30 days can be. In just a week or two Charles' latest book will be available to the public, a remarkable offering of some of the best poems by the Italian poet Giacomo Leopardi.

In characteristic Guenther style, Charles says in his introduction to his book of translations, "I hope they (the poems) may bring a renewed interest in, and appreciation of, Leopardi, his life, his times and his work."

Again, it was about a master teacher, critic, reviewer, poet and translator sharing his enthusiasm for the printed word. It was about being so enthused about something so subtely incredible (knowledge) that Charles dared not hide it under a bushel basket. Because he couldn't. And wouldn't...

Tangibly, I will miss our monthly correspondence, his counsel (to me, an avowed workaholic): "Pace yourself, don't work too hard," and his frequent praise. Most of all, I will miss our friendship. And for his care, his wisdom and perfect craftsmanship. And for his example...

* * *

Special tribute remarks submitted to the St. Louis Post-Dispatch, at that newspaper's kind request:

Texto de Edward Steinhardt sobre um poeta americano

turday, July 26, 2008

Charles Guenther, an American poet

A great American poet and translator, Charles Guenther, has passed away. A good friend of mine, Ed Steinhardt, knew Charles well and wrote his obituary, which I’m posting below. I never met Charles, but as a writer and a translator myself I cannot feel anything but profound admiration for his many accomplishments.

Le mie condoglianze alla sua famiglia e a quelli che erano i suoi amici.




Poetry’s Prince of Poets, Charles Guenther, dies at 88

"It is the work, not the prize or the honor,
that matters most. The work endures."
—Charles Guenther

Charles Guenther, 88, who moved in the circles of E.E. Cummings, Marianne Moore, Howard Nemerov, Ezra Pound and many others, died Thursday in St. Louis of cancer. He is survived by his wife Esther, three children, five grandchildren and four great-grandchildren.
His only son, Charles Guenther Jr., told the St. Louis Post-Dispatch Friday that "Poetry and his family were his life." Richard Wilbur said Friday that "he had my esteem and admiration."

Guenther, a renowned American translator, poet and critic, was the author of some 10 books, including Moving the Seasons, Phrase/Paraphrase, The Hippopotamus: Selected Translations 1945-1985, The Complete Love Sonnets of Garcilaso de la Vega and the recent Three Faces of Autumn: A Charles Guenther Retrospective.

The St. Louis-born Guenther worked tirelessly to bring foreign poetry into the English language, while at the same time creating original work such as "Missouri Woods," "Snow Country" and "Union Station." He was also well-known for his personal encouragement of new and emerging writers, and was a frequent correspondent.

He was a prolific translator, almost unequaled in his field. The nation of Italy in 1973 bestowed upon Guenther its highest award, (Order of Merit of the Italian Republic, rank of Knight Commander) for his many translations of Italian poetry into English and his "long and valuable work permeating two cultures."

Other awards included election to the Academie d’Alsace, a several decades run as Regional (Midwest) Vice-president of the American Poetry Society (succeeding John G. Neihardt) and the 2002 Emmanuel Robles International Award in Poetry.

Guenther began writing poetry at age 15 while a student at Kirkwood High School in Missouri. In high school he began translating French and then Italian poetry, looking up the words in a dictionary and writing the definitions in the margins. "It’s hard to say why I started," Guenther recalled in 2006. "In a great poem, there is something magic, a haunting spirit. It’s so rare that you keep looking for it."

At age 17 he began work as a copy boy for the St. Louis Star-Times. By adulthood (and the emergence of World War II) Guenther had earned a college degree and went to work for what would become the Aeronautical Chart and Information Center in St. Louis. His translation duties there, while "not as interesting as translating poetry," were critical to the war effort and later flight safety.

Even though Guenther had vowed that he would stop translating by age 25, he wryly admitted he "never did stop." Evenings and weekends he began a relentless enterprise of translation, largely translating from "raw text" or work that had as of yet not been translated into English.

"In 1940, for instance," Guenther recalled, "I read that Superveille was considered the ‘greatest living French poet.’ "I wrote him for permission to translate ‘Les Amis inconnus.’ When he told me I had done a "polishing job" on his poems, I was elated. But I soon realized that one doesn’t "polish" Supervielle; his strength is in his simplicity."

Other luminaries who would become friends included Ezra Pound, who Guenther met in 1951. After sending one of his translations to Pound (while Pound was incarcerated at St. Elizabeth’s Hospital) Guenther received back, "almost immediately, a postcard with this scrawled message, ‘I don’t write letters; I receive them.’ It was the start of a lively correspondence with this fascinating, obstinate poet who had put new vigor into American Literature."

By 1953 Guenther was putting his own vigor into something new: that of reviewing books for The St. Louis Post-Dispatch. "When that first review appeared," Guenther later recalled, "I considered reviewing a ‘civic honor. I still do."

Guenther’s reviews became a virtual Who’s Who of American Literature. Names such as Stafford, Jarrell, Lowell, Hughes, Van Duyn, Cummings and Eliot graced his newsprint. There were other names, too, like Pablo Neruda, Jean Wahl and Salvatore Quasimodo.

Guenther’s work as reviewer also dove-tailed with his own work as poet and translator. "The Post-Dispatch gave Guenther a wider readership than many poets have," said Jane Henderson, that paper’s book editor. By 2003, with his retirement from the Post-Dispatch, Guenther had amassed an unparalleled half-century of reviews.

Even in retirement, Guenther maintained a tireless regimen of work and an occasional review. His last book, Guardian of Grief, (selected translations of the 19th century Italian poet Giacomo Leopardi) will be released in August. In characteristic Guenther-style, he expressed in his introduction to Guardian of Grief his ardent hope that "the poems may bring a renewed interest in, and appreciation of, Leopardi, his life, his times and his work."

"Past and present and future are not disjoined but joined," Walt Whitman wrote. "The greatest poet forms the consistence of what is to be from what has been and is. He drags the dead out of their coffins and stands them again on their feet."

For the work of poets he translated, living or dead, Guenther bestowed a certain element of immortality. "My own pratice," said Guenther, "When translating early poets is to place them in their own time, with a hint of antiquity, avoiding the grossly archaic language of their contemporaries." He summed up the process as, "My purpose is to make a poem from a poem."

A poem by Jose Agustin Goytisolo (entitled "The Difficult Poem"), which Guenther translated and is the last selection in The Hippopatamus, (1986) seems to sum-up the translation process.

The poem is inside
and doesn’t want to get out.

It pounds in my head
and doesn’t want to get out.

I shout, I tremble,
and it doesn’t want to get out.

I call it by name
and it doesn’t want to get out.

Later down the street
it stands before me.



Edward Steinhardt

Traduzindo esse último poema, de Goytisolo, que é fascinante:


O Poema Difícil

O poema adentro
Não quer sair cá fora

Ele pesa na minha cuca
E não quer sair cá fora


Eu grito, trêmulo,
Mas ele não quer sair cá fora.


Eu o chamo pelo nome,
Mas ele não quer sair cá fora.


Mais tarde, na rua,
Ei-lo diante de mim.