Out of ideas

It’s National Poetry Day here in Blighty. I am, of course, caught completely unprepared, on the hop, and devoid of any fresh effusions of my own to thrust eagerly at you all. In fact, it is Thursday evening, and National Poetry Day is very nearly over, and I haven’t so much as read a smigeonette of a versicle all day long, let alone prepared musings on this year’s theme of ‘Identity’. It’s jolly hard to muse at work when your beloved colleagues are discussing Zinédine Zidane in tones of indecorous enthusiasm [But you digress - Ed].

On the way home in the drizzle, darkening skies, and misted bus windows, I did however permit myself a quick mope on Autumn, decidedly here and declining to be mellow. The first poem that I ever learnt by heart, back in the Other Country where I grew up and where learning by rote was still ‘in’, was on Autumn. I was six years old. We were all instructed to learn a particular poem by heart, one written by a Nineteenth Century Nobel prize-winner of whom the Italians are inordinately proud, Giosué Carducci. Is it me or is that an odd choice of pedagogic tool for children who can’t quite spell their own names yet? But I can still visualize the school text-book, and the cheerful picture of candyfloss trees in shades of copper and gold on the same page. I clearly remember not understanding above half the words, and loathing my teacher, who only the day before had caught me picking my nose and had dragged me round every class in the school to expose me to every other pupil as the vile little bogey-ferret I clearly was. To said other pupils’ credit, they did not take an uncharitable advantage of this humiliation, they had plenty to be going on with as it was, foreigner, unnaturally tall, stupid unpronouncable names all three of them spelt with letters that didn’t exist in the Italian alphabet, disconcerting ability to read with my mouth closed…

[But, as I said, you digress. Massively. Stop it at once or I shall hire a violin]

Nevertheless and despite and possibly because of all this, I memorised the blasted poem. I was never asked to stand up and recite in in class, probably just as well, as I was the only one who had it word perfect, and I would have thus elegantly signed my own death warrant. And the next year, my little sister memorised it, and we used to chant it together as we walked home from school. Lord knows why, again, neither of us understood above half the words. Eventually, by osmosis, we knew what it meant. And I still chant it to myself while walking on cold and drizzly days.

[Oh, I am this close to resigning. Along with Dorothy Parker I say: 'Tonstant Weader fwowed up.' Tiddly pom.]

Here is the poem. I couldn’t find a nice smooth translation by a professional, so I append my own horrible one.

San Martino

La nebbia agli irti colli
Piovigginando sale,
E sotto il maestrale
Urla e biancheggia il mar;

Ma per le vie del borgo
Dal ribollir de’ tini
Va l’aspro odor de i vini
L’anime a rallegrar.

Gira su’ ceppi accesi
Lo spiedo scoppiettando:
Sta il cacciator fischiando
Su l’uscio a rimirar

Tra le rossastre nubi
Stormi d’uccelli neri,
Com’ esuli pensieri,
Nel vespero migrar.

The mist clings to the steep hills,/ Drizzling salt,/ While under the Mistral/ The sea howls and foams.//But in the streets of the town,/ From the seething of the vats/ Goes the harsh smell of the wines/ To cheer the soul.//It turns on burning kindling/ The crackling spit/ The hunter, whistling stands/ At the doorway to watch//Among the reddish clouds,/ Flocks of black birds,/ Like exiled thoughts,/ Migrating into the sunset.

I beg of you do not tell me the translation sucks. I know it does. It’s nearly midnight, of course it sucks. But it’s better than babelfish’s version.

Here is another little ’started purely as a technical exercise’ poem. It is an experiment in syllabic verse, where the line-lengths are dictated solely by syllable length, with no care or concern whatsoever for rhythm, accent, or rhyme. In English it’s quite hard to do without it disintegrating into prose because the language IS so naturally accented (yes, it is. The French need special signs on accented words because they DON’T usually accentuate words. We áccent blóody éverything and thére’d be nó énd of confúsion if we áll went Gerárd Mánley Hópkins and stárted stícking díacrítics ín éverywhére).

Where was I? Oh yes, syllabic verse. Like haiku, only you can invent your own syllabic pattern, and don’t have to concentrate carefully to get appropriate seasonal words in (not that English-speakers bother). The following has alternating lines of seven and five syllables, and lots of seasonal words and internal rhymes, and did I mention Gerard Manley Hopkins? Well, the man is insidious, I tell you, and you end up attempting to spring along without slack syllables whether you meant to or not.

But I thought it turned out quite well.

Scent of Weather

Scent of weather, wet dust lost
under hedges where
little cup-nests rest wedged while
crowded rain comes down

In a rush and spatters them
under clustered sticks,
and coal-tits fuss new feathers
fledged while leaves rust down.