23 oct 2007

"In any of the three following poems fill in each of the blanks with any number of words you wish (including none) attempting to make a complete and satisfactory poem. Do not alter any of the existing words or punctuation or increase the number of lines."

(The Collected Books of Jack Spicer 356)

The second poem Spicer provides for this excercise is his own translation of Lorca's "Juan Ramón Jiménez," the first poem included of After Lorca, with some of the words left out :

In ............ endlessness
Snow, ............ salt
He lost his ............ .

The color white. He walks
Over a ............ carpet made
............ .

Without eyes or thumbs
He suffers ............
But the............ quiver

In the ............ endlessness
How............a wound
His ............ left.

Snow, ............ salt ............
In the ............ endlessness


Give it a try.

8 comentarios:

Whimsy dijo...

Jonathan: Did you see the Garcia Lorca translations in APR? What did you think of them?

J

Jonathan dijo...

You mean the ones about a year ago? Summer of 06? Nothing bad, but I'm so sick of THIS side of Lorca being promoted.

Whimsy dijo...

No, it just arrived yesterday at my house, so must be the current issue.

Jonathan dijo...

Are they by Mark Statman? I should be getting my review copy soon and I'll let you know what I think. (All of you.)

Mark Statman dijo...

Yes, the Lorca translations in the new APR are mine and Pablo's

brian (baj) salchert dijo...

I do have the 1953 New Directions paperbook:
The Selected Poems of
Federico Garcia Lorca
,
but I've decided not to search it.
I have read Spicer's book,
but I do not remember his words.
So, this will be horrid, but
here are my blank-spaces words:
that
sea
eyes
-
red
black
-
days
nights
-
white
ragged
memory
-
sea vacancy
white

Judy Roitman dijo...

Fill in all the blanks with one word.

E.g.: love.

Another one that works: death (maybe with a few modifications of form)

And semi-alternations of breath and air work too, e.g. (In air endlessness/Snow, breathe salt/He lost his breath...)

Jesse dijo...

I'm with Julie Carter. Unless.. no, I won't say it. I'm totally with those feelings.