Yesterday I finished reworking my translation of Paul Celan’s poem “Speechgrille |Sprachgitter,” from the eponymous 1959 volume. Let me offer it here on World Poetry Day (as \u2014 rare occasion! \u2014 a second post on the same day on Nomadics blog). I will also add my commentary which takes off from Barbara Wiedemann’s in her German edition of The Collected Poems of Paul Celan. This translation will be published by FSG in 2020 \u2014 Celan’s 100th birth- & 50th death-year in \u2014 \u00a0in my “Paul Celan \u2014 The Collected Earlier Poetry.”<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
SPEECH-GRILLE<\/p>\n
Eye-round between the bars.<\/p>\n
Flitterbug lid
\nrows upward,
\nfrees a gaze.<\/p>\n
Iris, swimmer, dreamless and dim:
\nthe heavens, heartgrey, must be near.<\/p>\n
Slanted, in the iron socket (Were I like you. Were you like me. The flagstone. On them, \n Commentary:<\/strong><\/p>\n Sprachgitter | Speech-Grille<\/p>\n Written 6. 14. (Vienna, Rennweg) \u2013 0. 18. 1957. Celan\u2019s friends Klaus and Nanni Demus whom he visited during his holidays in Austria (cf. also \u201cVoices\u201d) lived in the Rennweg, the third district of Vienna,<\/p>\n T Sprachgitter | Speech-grille] Also title of volume. Celan received a postcard dated \u201cWhitsuntide 1957\u201d (6.9.1957) from G\u00fcnther Neske with the image of the confessional screen (the Sprechgitter<\/i>) of the Saint Clare covent in Pfullingen (W\u00fcrttemberg); the text turned around Celan\u2019s intention of publishing his next book with Neske. Cf. marginal mark in Jean-Paul\u2019s Kampaner Thal<\/i>: \u201c\u2026 unter dem tiefer einsinkenden Gewitter schlugen die Nachtigallen lauter, gleichsam als lebendige Gewitterst\u00fcrmer, hinter bl\u00fchenden Sprachgittern |\u2026 under the fast approaching storm the nightingales raised their voices, as if they were living lightning stormers, behind blooming speech-grilles.\u201d (Bd. 42\/43, S. 20; my translation, as the available English translation avoids \u201cSprachgittern\u201d by translating it as \u201chedges.”) Celan told Demus that those were the two inspirations for the title. He wrote his friend Joachim Seng, \u201cI tell myself that in \u201cSprachgitter\u201d the existential, the difficulty of all speaking (to one another) and at the same time the structure of that speaking is what counts\u201d (Gedichte 643).<\/p>\n \u00a0<\/span>1-4 Eyeround between the bars. || Flitterbug lid | rows upward,, | frees a gaze] Cf. the famous poem \u201cThe Panther,\u201d from Rilke\u2019s New Poems<\/i>: \u201cHis gaze against the sweeping of the bars |has grown so weary, it can hold no more. | To him, there seem to be a thousand bars | and back behind those thousand bars no world.\u201d & further on: \u201cAn image enters then, | goes through the tensioned stillness of the limbs \u2014 | and in the heart ceases to be.\u201c (translated by Stanley Appelbaum.)<\/p>\n 6 the heavens, heartgrey, must be near.] Cf. the note to the B\u00fcchner speech: \u201cArtistry and word-art \u2014 that may have the feeling of something occidental, evening-filling, Poetry is something else; poetry, heartgrey, sublunar, heavens- and heart-grey, heart and heavens-grey breath-marbled language in time. (M p.110)<\/p>\n 7 T\u00fclle | socket] Celan had many notes from various dictionaries, plus French translations, concerning this word essentially referencing the metal holder into which one sticks a light, also \u201cLichthalter | lightholder.\u201d<\/p>\n 13 under one trade wind ] Celan\u2019s Kluge\/G\u00f6tze dictionary defines the \u201cPassat\u201d trade wind thus: \u201cThese easterly winds blowing regularly in the lower latitudes are beneficent for crossings.\u201d<\/p>\n 17 pools] the German word is \u201cLachen.\u201d Marjorie Perloff writes in \u201c\u2018Sound Scraps, Vision Scraps\u2019: Paul Celan’s Poetic Practice:\u201d \u201cLachen<\/i>, in this context, has the primary meaning of puddles or pools: two gray pools of water blot the flagstones. But Lachen <\/i>also means \u201cnotches\u201d\u2014the stones are notched with the sign of the two unknown strangers–and in the singular, the noun \u201cLachen\u201d is the common word \u201claughter\u201d\u2014in this case, a mirthless, hollow chuckle of sorts. In all three cases, the flagstones reflect the \u201cheartgray\u201d condition of the lovers: the desire for communion\u2014with hidden priest? God? and especially the \u201cyou\u201d who is his beloved\u2014has failed.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n 18, 19 Two | mouthfuls of silence.]\u00a0 <\/span>As Dennis J. Schmidt puts it, Celan\u2019s \u201c\u2019Two mouthfuls of silence\u2019\u201d (zwei \/ Mundvoll Schweigen<\/i>) . . . mark the place of the poem for Celan . . . such silence is not to be confused with mere quiet but needs to be heard as the unvocalized voice of the poem. . . . a voice estranged from language, rendering the effort to listen to language in the poem rare, demanding, and painful at once.\u201d (Dennis J. Schmidt, \u00abBlack Milk and Blue: Celan and Heidegger on Pain and Language,\u00bb in Hamacher 110-29; see p. 110.)\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Yesterday I finished reworking my translation of Paul Celan’s poem “Speechgrille |Sprachgitter,” from the eponymous 1959 volume. Let me offer it here on World Poetry Day (as \u2014 rare occasion! \u2014 a second post...<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":16427,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[91,103],"tags":[1730],"class_list":["post-16524","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-poetry","category-translation","tag-paul-celan"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/pierrejoris.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/16524","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/pierrejoris.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/pierrejoris.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pierrejoris.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pierrejoris.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=16524"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/pierrejoris.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/16524\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":16527,"href":"https:\/\/pierrejoris.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/16524\/revisions\/16527"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pierrejoris.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/16427"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/pierrejoris.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=16524"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pierrejoris.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=16524"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pierrejoris.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=16524"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
\nthe smoldering splinter.
\n<\/span>By its light-sense
\nyou guess the soul.<\/p>\n
\nDidn\u2019t we stand
\nunder one trade wind?
\nWe are strangers.)<\/p>\n
\nclose together, the two
\nheartgrey pools:
\n<\/span>two
\nmouthfuls of silence.<\/p>\n