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by Amal Al-Jubouri, translated by Rebecca Gayle Howell with Husam Qaisi

Language: Arabic
糖心传媒–辞耻苍迟谤测: Iraq
Publisher: Alice James Books

Why This Book Should Win: We’ve never had a winner from Iraq, or even from Arabic, and it’s about time.

Today’s post is from Jennifer Kronovet.

The following are some poem titles from Iraqi poet Amal Al-Junouri糖心传媒檚 fantastic book of poetry: 糖心传媒淢y Neighbor Before the Occupation,糖心传媒� 糖心传媒淢y Neighbor After the Occupation,糖心传媒� 糖心传媒淏ones Before the Occupation,糖心传媒� 糖心传媒淏ones After the Occupation,糖心传媒� 糖心传媒淧hotographs Before the Occupation,糖心传媒� 糖心传媒淧hotographs After the Occupation.糖心传媒� These titles suggest that a stark dichotomy will be illuminated, that time and war work in such a way that there is a clear before and a clear after, that the Iraq before American and British occupation is a set place distinct from a solid present. Yet, through their spoken clarity, their lyrical beauty and complexity, and their specific observational longing, the poems in this book eradicate the myth of such dichotomies. Instead, this place, Iraq, is a place of perspective, of shifting, complicated change known to us through a way of seeing that cuts through the simple. In 糖心传媒淢y Mouth Before the Occupation,糖心传媒� Al-Junouri writes that her mouth 糖心传媒渢ried to say no, but couldn糖心传媒檛 / I was afraid // Instead, my tongue led me to this curse: / protests that silenced me // then seeped from me, eternal.糖心传媒� Then

My Mouth After the Occupation:

shouts No! Fearless,
though my tongue fears arrest

I糖心传媒檓 terrified of losing truth
and look糖心传媒攊t糖心传媒檚 already gone

Exiled with God糖心传媒檚 tongues

She doesn糖心传媒檛 say no before the occupation; she does after糖心传媒攂ut still there糖心传媒檚 fear and loss, there糖心传媒檚 a way in which words still leave one behind. In Hagar Before the Occupation / Hagar After the Occupation, we see how the political writes itself on everything that is personal糖心传媒攐ne糖心传媒檚 speech and body, one糖心传媒檚 sense of freedom and of love. Rebecca Gayle Howell糖心传媒檚 translation, with Husam Qaisi, is stunning in how it creates a powerful, contemporary voice speaking to us directly with warmth and suffering, and yet also carries over the poems糖心传媒� connection to Arabic literary traditions. The language of the poems marry present and past, which is a feat of translatorly skill and innovation.

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by Uljana Wolf, translated by Susan Bernofsky

Language: German
糖心传媒–辞耻苍迟谤测: Germany
Publisher: Ugly Duckling Presse

Why This Book Should Win: Ugly Duckling is one of the most consistently interesting presses (or “presseses”?) in the world, and Susan Bernofsky one of the greatest translators ever.

Today’s post is from Erica Mena and is actually a chunk of the review she wrote of this for the Iowa Review. Click to support the Iowa Review and read her full piece.

False Friends by Uljana Wolf, translated by Susan Bernofsky, is a delightful foray into language and poetry. Even for someone who has no knowledge of German, the playful shifts between the English translation and the German hinted at behind it are enlightening: both Bernofsky and Wolf clearly delight in the slipperiness of language and sound.

Cognates and homonyms suffuse the poem, toying with seemingly straightforward sentences and twisting them around against themselves. Bernofsky sustains this density of sound against the lightness of the tone, a balance she creates through deft rhythmic and rhyming patterns. The rhythmic quality of the prose poems is striking. In much of the book, Bernofsky hits regular iambic meter, and the poems are stuffed with internal rhyme with equally surprising (because non-lineated) sentence-end rhymes. The bouncy rhythm and dense sounds drive the reader forward through sometimes nonsensical phrases, foregrounding the absurdity of language.

Many of these prose poems read as though they could be nursery rhymes for precocious, hyper-literate children:

he who has a hat has what? i ask. broad-brimmed, you say, a roof above one’s head, cornered, crushed, and most likely of felt糖心传媒攕o you’ll feel sheltered till a gust comes blustering by.

But there is exquisite darkness in the images:

still, it would be sinful, you say, not to speak of swans: six is silence, seven love, and in the end there’s a one-wing surplus. seems silly perhaps, but fairy tales save us many a swan song. so i say: consider the woodpecker’s third eyelid sliding supportively across its pupil. with its help, you can strike home any point without eyes popping from sockets. and after that first flutter of hard knocks, the silence cannot hurt you at all.

This book moves deceptively quickly, thanks to all its brilliant poetics and puns. It糖心传媒檚 worth a second, third, even a fourth read. It demands to be read out loud, in the way that good poetry does. The book is organized alphabetically (糖心传媒渁 DICHTonary of false friends true cognates and other cousins糖心传媒� reads the text on the title page). Each letter gets a short, 6颅糖心传媒�12 line block of prose full of alliteration and punning. The alphabet runs the gamut in English, then the second section of the book begins (on noticeably different paper, and printed differently, to accentuate the shift) in German. The original German poems have one obvious difference from the English: they are titled with words rather than listed under the letter of the alphabet. So 糖心传媒淎糖心传媒� is, in German, 糖心传媒渁rt / apart.糖心传媒� What especially stands out is that almost all the words in the German section that function as a title are English words糖心传媒攐r at least, cognates to English words.

There are English quotes and phrases peppered throughout the German section as well. In 糖心传媒渂ad / bald / bet-t / brief糖心传媒� Wolf writes, 糖心传媒渟tattdessen morgens zu berg (take a bet?) und nachts out of bed (siehe ad).糖心传媒� The corresponding line in Bernofsky糖心传媒檚 English reads, 糖心传媒渟tanding on end instead (fake a bet?) and at night out of hand (see the ad).糖心传媒� Bernofsky takes the English embedded in the German and re-appropriates it to fit the rhythmic and sonic requirements of her line. 糖心传媒淔ake a bet糖心传媒� is similar enough to 糖心传媒渢ake a bet糖心传媒� at least in terms of sound, but it means something stranger, more open-ended. The same goes for 糖心传媒渁t night out of hand糖心传媒� rather than 糖心传媒渙ut of bed.糖心传媒� The English that Wolf originally used would have made clear sense as a phrase in Bernofsky糖心传媒檚 translation (though to a German reader in the original may have been somewhat more unclear). Bernofsky tweaks the phrases with inspiration to unsettle the poems. The project of the book is to toy with language and meaning, with things that sound similar and even the same across languages but mean strange, funny, unusual, and odd things. This is the joy of cognates, as any language learner will tell you糖心传媒攖he surprise they can bring to the familiar. By defamiliarizing these phrases, Bernofsky brilliantly constructs an unfamiliar reading experience in English.

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“engulf 糖心传媒� enkindle”: by Anja Utler, translated by Kurt Beals

Language: German
糖心传媒–辞耻苍迟谤测: Germany
Publisher: Burning Deck Press

Why This Book Should Win: Burning Deck! Rosemarie and Keith Waldrop have done more for “experimental” international poetry in translation than anyone. They deserve to be honored.

Today’s post is from Erica Mena.

engulf 糖心传媒� enkindle is a stunning book of poetry. It literally stunned me into absolute submission; it is the book of poetry I糖心传媒檇 been wanting to read for years. It糖心传媒檚 a small volume, and I read it in one sitting, faster than I normally read poetry, because I couldn糖心传媒檛 slow down. The language sunk its hooks into me and pulled me through the book, like rafting down rapids. If some of this sounds violent, that糖心传媒檚 no mistake 糖心传媒� the book is full of sensual violence, done to the body of language and the body in the poem.

want now: you 糖心传媒� drive into me
want to push to the edge, hang, you
haul all my: shale, scrape
it off from: the head, from the shoulders
to rootstock throat gravel: you split me
give me 糖心传媒� as if severed 糖心传媒� sharp
countours 糖心传媒� fangs wolffian ridge
questions too 糖心传媒� will i? 糖心传媒�
i 糖心传媒� take you to me
                                 balances I

The stacatto lines, broken by strange punctuation, expose themselves as duplicitious; the punctuation is superfluous, and yet it糖心传媒檚 not. It糖心传媒檚 a violation of the line, of the rules of grammar, but it forces a rhythm on the almost unwilling reader. It糖心传媒檚 pleasurable and distressing simultaneously, mimetic of the poems. The I in the poem submits to the violence of the you, while exerting her own controlled violence over the reader, and the poem and ultimately her poetic body.

Like most “experimental” texts this work demands more of its reader, a different set of tools and strategies. It is a text that has been splayed wide open, disgorging multiple readings. This extract from the second poem could be read as describing what the poetry itself is doing:

     II

糖心传媒� percieve:     just at the opencuts: set free
furrow 糖心传媒�          to stand, sense, to drift now am: pitching to you
                        through the: fissures [. . .]

[The bracketed ellipsis is mine.] Pay attention to the slippery shifts of meaning across and through the punctuation, the way caesura is inserted into the lines and creates tension with the phrases that follow the colons. Feel the tension that is created by the speeding up and slowing down of the lines, the gaps in meaning and thwarted grammatical expectations (the missing subject for 糖心传媒渁m糖心传媒� for example).

This is poetry that demands several readings, at least one of which must be aloud. When I teach poetry, I always ask that the students read the poems out loud, as well as to themselves, and if I suspect they have not done it we do it together. Great poetry creates sonic space on the page, and visual space in the voice, and the movement between these opens up new meanings. Traditionally, this happens behind the semantic content of the poem, but Beals糖心传媒檚 rendering of Utler糖心传媒檚 poetry prioritizes its lyric qualities. In engulf 糖心传媒� enkindle, the poems hinge on sound and silence, on rhythm and breaking, with meaning following.

XI

finally, startled from sleep, find:
the larynx deseeded is
hollowed: hands palpate,
it: fumbling, feathered, from
ribcage entwine themselves
deeper into the: reed swallow: light,
gurgling, darkly well, dimly
they: keel towards hulls towards hollows
weave: cavities, gorges of
stalks of fingers of (..)
so to speak: towards the bittern 糖心传媒� neting place,
in the singing reed so it糖心传媒檚 called 糖心传媒� grow
entangled as 糖心传媒� flotsam and jetsam 糖心传媒� stitched
up to the: glottis rustling
almost trembling i hear you again: say
song you say song 糖心传媒� what is: song

Kurt Beals is a genius. I can糖心传媒檛 imagine how these translations could have come to be otherwise. He may have been working at an advantage; Germanic languages share many rhythm and sound paterns, two of the most impressive features of this translation. Still, the strangeness of these poems, which demand so much of the reader, must have demaned even more of Beals. To create this kind of complexity in translation is nothing short of stunning, an acheivment compounded by the shifting registers and pacing of the language.

This is an uncompromising work of brilliance on both Utler and Beals糖心传媒� parts. It糖心传媒檚 sharp and sexy, challenging and riviting and absolutely relentless. This is the poetry I糖心传媒檝e been waiting my whole life for.