Translingual Collage/title> </head> <body background="images/tad-back.jpg"> <h1><font face="verdana">Translingual Collage </font></h1> <p><span style="font-size:24px;">By Patti Marshock</span></p> <table align="center" border="8" cellpadding="15" width="80%"> <tbody> <tr> <td> <p><font face="verdana"><em>"Writing poetry is not a way of saying what one already has the words for, but a way of saying what one didn't know one knew.” </em></font><br /> </p> <p><font face="verdana"><em>Marvin Bell </em></font></p> <p><br /> <font face="verdana">Everyone who writes has had those frustrating moments of laying fugitive first words on a blank page. Despite Mallarme's admonition to Descartes, some poems do begin with ideas. So, the idea is there, running back and forth, but the words are hidden under it. No matter how you coax it, tease it, threaten it, that one line that would let the poem issue forth doesn't let you touch it. I've started poems with gibberish just to have something on the page. I've started new poems under the lines of old ones. I've tried it all, found lines, borrowed lines, and still, somedays, they'll just sit and stare back at me. </font></p> <p><br /> <font face="verdana">In the past couple of months, I've had some success with jump-starting the process by creating translingual collage poems. I've actually come up with a couple of new works that I like. This is a type of transformation poem which borrows the work of another poet or writer. Not with the idea of using the writers words or his intent as my own, but with the purpose of finding one phrase or word that has an aesthetic promise. Once in a while, I'm lucky and a whole poem runs into my hands. But usually, I take the words or phrases and build around them, shuffling them to meet an idea of my own. All poets do this. It makes sense, but my new-found process comes in when the pivotal phrase you need won't materialize. </font></p> <p><br /> <font face="verdana">I'm not sure what made me think it would ever work in the first place. I suppose like many of my poetic endeavors, I considered it a game. A friend, poet and teacher, Tad Richards, had translated one of my poems into French. He had also parlayed the work of another of our writers' group into German. I was struck by how well I liked the look of it. Just prior to this, I had been working on transformation poems, taking a poem's intent a step further with new words. However, when I began the translingual collage projects that really wasn't what I had intended to do. The whole thing was a bit serendipitious. </font></p> <p><br /> <font face="verdana">Playing with an online translator, I took one of Richards's poems and translated it into French. When it came out, I wasn't pleased with it; so clicking the back button, I re-translated into English. And what I put in wasn't what came out. The sum and substance of the original work was markedly changed by all this cyber-travel. Intent was lost, the patterns of speech were altered. The poem was no longer the poem it had been. Also, with the translator I had used (www.freetranslation.com) the form of the poem was also lost, since it returned to me in paragraph form. Here's the original poem by Richards: </font></p> <blockquote> <p><font face="verdana">STRANGER <br /> <br /> One night a woman sleeps <br /> with a stranger <br /> they've made love <br /> and she's watched his head <br /> slide from his neck's locked hinge <br /> <br /> his mouth go limp <br /> his breathing <br /> disconnect from hers <br /> entered his privacy <br /> on one elbow <br /> <br /> she's watched his <br /> chest go in and out <br /> memorized a face he <br /> won't even show <br /> to himself <br /> <br /> then curled into him <br /> his arm across her breast <br /> when they wake up <br /> not strangers <br /> they make love again <br /> <br /> but that's almost beside <br /> the point which is <br /> the next night <br /> wakeful next to him <br /> her husband's the stranger</font></p> </blockquote> <p><font face="verdana"> <br /> <br /> This is written in Richards' innovative 5/4 form. But when it come back from cyber-translation, it had lost the remarkable shape. At this point, I knew I really wasn't working with "Strangers" any longer. Curiosity got the best of me and I went a little further. The French version and the back-snap translation follow: </font></p> <p><br /> <font face="verdana"><em>Une nuit qu'une femme dort avec un étranger qu'ils a fait aime et elle est regardée sa tête glisse de son cou a a verrouillé le gond sa bouche va boite son respire débranche du sien a est entré son intimité sur un coude elle est regardée sa poitrine va dans et hors a appris par coeur un le fait face à ne montrera pas même à se alors la boucle dans lui son arme à travers elle le sein quand ils ne se réveillent pas d'étranger qu'ils font aiment encore mais qu'est presque hors de propos qui est le wakeful de nuit prochain à côté de lui elle mari est l'étranger </em><br /> <br /> A night that a woman sleeps with a foreigner that they did like and she is looked at his head slips of his neck has locked the gond his mouth goes drunk his breathe of his has entered his intimacy on an elbow she is looked at his chest goes in and out memorized a the face will not show even to itself in him his weapon through she the breast when they do not awaken themselves any foreigner that they do like again but that is almost outside matters that the wakeful of harmed next next to him she husband is the foreigner </font></p> <p><br /> <font face="verdana">An idea bounced in: If this is what happened with English to French and back, what would happen if I took the "not so literal translation" and bastardized it once again? I did. This time it was German. Looked interesting, but I don't know any German. So back to English. This is what happened: </font></p> <p><br /> <font face="verdana"><em>Eine Nacht haben der eine Frau mit einem Ausländer den sie gemocht schläft und sie wird seinem Kopf Rutschen seines Halses den gond sein Mund betrunken seiner débranche von seinem seine Vertrautheit auf einen Ellenbogen sie seine Brust in angeschaut haben verschlossen geht atmet hat eingetragen wird angeschaut geht und aus memorized wird ein das Gesicht sogar zu itselfin ihn seine Waffe durch sie die Brust zeigen nichtSie erwecken sich irgendein Ausländer den sie wieder nicht mögen aber das ist fast außerhalb Materien, daß der wakeful von geschadet nächst neben ihm sie Ehemann der Ausländer ist </em></font></p> <p><br /> <font face="verdana">The woman one with a foreigner liked sleeps a night that it and will be regarded locked go breathes registered is regarded go it its head landslide of its neck the gond mouth drunk its gone away of its its intimacy on an elbow it its breast in and becomes out of memorized a the face even itselfin it its weapon through itnichtSie do not appear awake again likes to be damaged is the breast any foreigner that it however that almost superficial, that the wakeful of next next to it it husband of the foreigners </font></p> <p><br /> <font face="verdana">At this point, I was seeing some of Richards' poem still surviving, but a new story was coming through. And it was my story. One of the things I believe about poetry is that, whether I am a reader or a writer, poems become autobiographical. Not in the sense that these things have happened to me in reality , but that I can place my internal self in the situation. So, in anything I write, parts of me are in that work. My intention and my game changed. I wanted to write my own poem using some of these words. </font></p> <p><br /> <font face="verdana">The next phase of the process was the gathering of the words or phrases that would go into my own poem. Since I use the computer to write and it involves cutting and pasting words found onto a new page, I refer to this method of writing as "collage." A collage is made by borrowing, reshaping and adding a little original twist to common objects. As a form of visual art, collage and assemblage have been practiced by artists such Picasso, Stankiewicz and Samaras. Eclectic bits of this and that are joined to make a sculpture with a meaning unlike like any of its original parts. I had used this as a method of writing and recording moments in time before. Taking bits of conversations, memos, notes and using them verbatim to make a poem. Found lines are a staple of the writer, but, this time, I had semi-created the found lines. </font></p> <p><br /> <font face="verdana">I started to pick out the words and phrases that "felt right." There was really no pattern as to where to start or finish. The words and phrases were just pulled out on the basis of what my ear heard in them. The order was random. Nothing at this point was definite, so I was fine with the disjointed look of the lines. I failed to save my original theft of words but I offer the following as an example of collaging: </font></p> <p><br /> <font face="verdana">sleeps a night <br /> damaged is the breast <br /> wakeful of next <br /> memorized a the face <br /> intimacy on an elbow <br /> its weapon <br /> almost superficial <br /> husband of the foreigners <br /> neck the gond mouth drunk <br /> do not appear awake <br /> registered is regarded <br /> locked go breathes <br /> becomes out of memorized </font></p> <p><br /> <font face="verdana">The Richards' poem may still be there, but if it is, it's been trampled. Now was my chance to steal the lines and write my own poem. This is the work of poets; to smooth or roughen the edges of words and sounds to which we lend to our voices. To take the gifts of vowels and consonants and let them speak for us. What I did next, I can't really explain, but you know what it was. If you write creatively, you do. I turned the phrases around. I pushed them here and there. Hopefully, as Billy Collins recommends, I held them to the light. A poem formed from these words and from somewhere in the middle of me. Kate McQaude, one of Tad Richards' students wrote on an online workshop bulletin board, "we all think the truth but it's different when we actually speak it," which makes a lot of sense for a poet. Because our thoughts go directly from our insides to the page where someone else can find the truth as they see it. These words just happened to be available for the truth I was thinking. It's incredible when that happens. The finished poem I came up with is here: </font><br /> </p> <blockquote> <p><font face="verdana"><strong>some sleep </strong><br />               <em>it no longer belongs to her</em> <br /> <br /> On a night when some sleep <br /> she begins to review <br /> old strategies <br /> aware that her husband <br /> lying still beside her <br /> has gone away alone <br /> <br /> the foreigner <br /> takes the inside space <br /> gets too close <br /> rises with her chest <br /> grows larger as she breathes <br /> <br /> his mouth goes to her throat <br /> her bones, her stomach <br /> if she turns now <br /> to hold herself with an elbow <br /> he won't be remembered <br /> <br /> he'll be replaced by a fiscal report <br />         with semi-blank pages <br /> by all the Yeats she can't recall <br />         and her own end-stopped lines <br /> by her daughter on a school bus <br />         crossing flooded desert washes <br /> by the car's timing belt <br />         slipping in rush hour traffic <br /> the barely superficial <br /> like the breast under her <br /> with its new density <br /> joined to foreigners </font></p> </blockquote> <p></p> <blockquote> <p><br /> <font face="verdana">So that's the process. Borrow someone's words, or even use your own, translate them, clone the translation once or twice, pick out the words that call to you, and shuffle them into a new poem. When I showed this to Professor Richards, he recognized his own poem in this one, despite the fact that there are really few similarities. When you do this, you have to beware of sticking to closely to the original. The purpose of the translingual collage is to put something on a page that will help with that initial anxiety of finding words. <br /> What you do with the words, and what they will become, depends on your own ideas, aesthetic and talent. <br /> <br /> </font></p> <p><font face="verdana"><em>(Note: Marshock wrote "some sleep" after having recently been diagnosed with breast cancer.)</em><br /> </font></p> </blockquote> </td> </tr> </tbody> </table> </body> </html>