I recently broke down and bought a Blackberry and now wonder what I ever did without it. One of my favorite things to do on the busride home is to go through my Google Reader and read my subscriptions to all the literary and poetry feeds, I never had much time to do more than scan.
This was in today's feed from Poetry Daily and I was completely taken aback by the sumptious, evocative language. It's from the Portuguese and luckily I can read in Portuguese as well as Spanish and I have to say that the translation captures the cadence of the original beautifully. They do include the link to the original poem if you want to take a stab at it.
Someone opens an orange in silence by Herberto Helder translated from the Portuguese by Alexis Levitin
Someone opens an orange in silence, at the entrance
to fabled nights.
He plunges his thumbs down to where the orange
is rapidly thinking, where it grows, annihilates itself, and then
is born again. Someone is peeling a pear, eating
a bunch of grapes, devoting himself
to fruit. And I fashion a sharp-witted song
so as to understand.
I lean over busy hands, mouths,
tongues that devour their way through attention.
I would like to know how the fable of the nights
grows like this. How silence
swells, or is transformed with things. I write
a song in order to be intelligent about fruit
on the tongue, through subtle channels, unto
a dark emotion.
Read the rest of this poem here.
The round-up is at The Book Mine Set. Thanks for hosting John!
I split this into 2 posts, because I had so much tagging to do, Blogger couldn't handle it. Ah well.
River Secrets by Shannon Hale
In this sequel to
The Goose Girl and
Enna Burning, we return to Bayern. Just because the war is over, doesn't mean there is peace between Bayern and Tira. Isi's going to the Tiran capital on a peace mission and Enna is as well.
But really, this is Razo's book. He's always considered himself rather useless because of his small size, so he's more than surprised when he's asked to be part of the elite band of soldiers accompanying them. He's going to be a spy.
Once in Tira, someone is burning people and Enna is being blamed. It's up to Razo to figure out who's framing his friend and trying to restart the war.
I am always surprised by Hale's amazing skill to paint an entire landscape, people and culture perfectly in a mere few sentences. Her lyrical language and voice is back and this latest installment, while shorter, is just as strong as her earlier works.
Forever in Blue: The Fourth Summer of the Sisterhood Ann Brashares
The girls are apart this summer, each spread to her far corner of the globe. The plot is less compelling than the previous volumes, but Brashares really hits some truths right on the head. The girls changed in college. I have big problem with books that follow their characters to college and they stay exactly the same. College changes you. You lose yourself and find yourself and that's a big part of it! Also, the way Tibby reacts to her pregnancy scare was more true and real than anything I've seen in print. I think she's milked all she can out of this series, but this final volume, where it won't be the favorite of younger fans, just might be the favorite of the grown-ups who like the series, for it's unflinching realism.
Adrian Mole And the Weapons of Mass Destruction by Sue Townsend
(full disclosure: I just found out this existed.)
Adrian is a poxy, neurotic, and hilarious as ever. Glenn's in the army. William's in Nigeria with JoJo and Adrian's back living with his parents and working at a used book store. He buys a loft apartment with a convenience check from his credit card that sends him into a debt spiral that only Adrian could ignore. Somehow (this is Adrian) he's been talked into marrying a manipulative hypochondriac, even though he's in love with her sister.
Oh, and there's a war going on! Could Blair be mistaken about the weapons? And if so, how will Adrian get his Cypriot holiday deposit back.
Oh Adrian, we missed you. Glad to have you back.
Okay, must you brag? Portuguese and Spanish? *Sigh* If it's Latin (of the dead variety), I'm there.
Thanks for sharing this one is marvelous.
Ooooh dead Latin?! I'm officially jealous. Thanks for visiting.
I don't know how to put what I think about this poem into words. The poem defies being taken apart, which is what the poet is trying to say about love, I think.
I went to the original Portugese to read the last line and say it out loud. (I don't speak Portugese, so I was guessing.) But it was beautiful.
Sara - I know exactly what you mean about how it defies being taken apart. I just fell in love with it and now must go find all poems by this fantastic poet. I so love the way it opens with this fantastic sentence - Someone opens an orange in silence, at the entrance
to fabled nights.
Oh! It just sends shivers and makes me think all kinds of wondrous things about fabled nights, stories, dreams and well just all that is marvelous and hopeful.
Thank you for visiting.
"I write
a song in order to be intelligent about fruit
on the tongue, through subtle channels, unto
a dark emotion.
For love also gathers rinds
and the movement of the fingers "
Beautiful!! Thanks for introducing us to a new-to-me poet.