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Tin Ear
Rimbaud (who did nothave a tin ear) It’s statements like this that drive me nuts—at least when I’m in a certain mood: The poem [Paul Schmidt’s translation of Rimbaud’s “Le Bateau ivre”] starts with I drifted on a river I could not control. In the other of my most favorite translations, Samuel Beckett begins with Downstream on impassive rivers suddenly. Two magnificent and very different first lines, but rhythmically not that far apart. The statement is by Norma Cole, a widely-published poet and academic who teaches at the University of San Francisco.Read More
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Friday Notebook 2.17.12 (Updated)
I ran across a blurb this week that I want to share. The author of the book being praised (or half-praised, or faint-praised), let me hasten to say, is not at fault; the publisher, though, might want to consider whether a statement of support consisting of nothing but two different colors of smoke does the book justice.Read More