Translations:
Daniel Khalastchi and Caryl Pagel
Daniel
Khalastchi Commentary
Meditations on an emergency: If you spend time
with the poems or essays Caryl writes, you’ll see an attention to
language/sound/form that many other writers avoid. In truth, writing in this way is scary. It’s not hip. It’s not funny. It’s traditional and researched and whether or
not it’s in fashion to say so, it’s impressively moving. Caryl is a haunted, haunting, and
ambitiously risky poet, and because of these things I was honored and humbled
when KELR asked me to translate her poem, “Gyroscope.” As you will see, our poems are
dissimilarly similar. Both are
sonnets (hers traditional, mine fractured), both are driven by sound (hers by
rhyme/meter, mine by breath/caesuras), and both seem to join in a parade of
topical absurdity that may lead to more questions than answers. But that’s fine. While my translation is
more a re-imagining of Caryl’s thematic content than a line-by-line
interpretation, I urge you to look at our pieces not as a concert of battling
pop-punk garage bands, but rather as a low-fi symphony of banjos, bringing
you variations on the same disillusioned reaction to the revolving calamity
that is human experience. In the end,
writing this poem allowed me a specific sense of freedom I would not have
thought to use otherwise. It was a
pleasure to work so closely with “Gyroscope,” and I’m thankful to Caryl (and
the wonderful editors at KELR) for giving me the opportunity.
Caryl
Pagel Commentary
The poem I chose to translate, “One Stone, Three Birds,”
comes from Danny’s first book, The
Maturation of Man.
Because we
are so often readers for each other’s work, I was able to approach the poem
with new questions and a new purpose—but not without knowledge of the
manuscript it comes from, or the important political and social concerns of
the entire collection. The character in these poems in so many ways embodies
pure disaster. He is terrified, manipulated, and hunted by an overwhelming
combination of anxiety, bad economics, misinformation, bigotry, insanity,
etiquette, and disease—and he is also always in the wrong place, at the wrong
time, surrounded by wrong people, giving him bad news. And yet, because of the bizarreness of
calamity, he endures—or because he
endures, so does the ill world. Some might think the events surreal; they are
not. Turn on your radio. While translating, I had in mind a few lines from
another favorite poet, Inger Christensen, perhaps because of Danny’s tendencies toward repetition, cataloging, and
detailing events graceful, wicked, catastrophic, and mundane. The Christensen
lines follow, and they guided my translation of Danny’s work into a rough new
accidental event.
Those
in power are not evil/ but it will take
a
wonder to make them see anything beautiful
in
the foot they have standing on their table
how can it be made into a
vision/ how
*
1. Pagel to
Khalastchi
Gyroscope by Caryl Pagel
Because
I am the Gravedigger I can
no longer be the Mayor Because I
chose the plains I
won’t head for the ocean
Here we go again—around
the square My
two grey steeds
send-weight the wrong direction
& the whole world
narrows as a funnel
against another funnel
split Town-spin:
barbershop bank school (with no reversal)
Just barbershop bank school
Because I am
not the Mayor I live in
the Boneyard
Nights when we pace
back/forth before the black
angel all our souls hum
Go… They sound bored
Leaving hear: That’s how we wait—Imprisoned—
But exactly when—do Waking—listen?
Pagel to Khalastchi Translation
We climb into a hole
you’ve dug in the
lawn and
wait for the results of our
digressive
national consumption poll. Because
you
are no longer the mayor, we have
drugs and
booze and voter intimidation
confetti
prepared for a well deserved
celebration, but when we hear the emergency
cannon fire at the courthouse, it’s clear
we didn’t find
a successful way to lose. Over
the next seven hours, the towns-
people
come to our Boneyard
headquarters with
signs and shaved
genitals
to show support for your bold
elemental contrition. One by one we
help them
let down. The
barber. The banker. The
teacher, the widow, the
geriatric Olympic
water farmer on dialysis.
Regardless of how we
stand impacted, our plot is not
big enough
for the dishes or the
necessary
communal ambulance carrier.
You try to hand
out shovels, but I hold back your
eyes and the wrist of a lawyer and we
all
together watch
our sad breath gnaw
against the evening like a band of dark,
evil angels. Everyone else is sleeping when you finally
make your
announcement. Listen, you say, we
are a small
Japanese ocean running from the cops. I know, I say.
Really,
you say, we are stiff wet boards and our house
is not collapsing.
Because crowd loss. Because
empty.
Because we heard it
working three
counties
away.
Because investors. Because
marketing
plans. Because print ads,
interviews, because lights of all
colors.
Because murmur. Because
talk. Because lines around
corners, because tickets sell
out.
Because waiting. Because no
time for
practice. Because opening
night crates arrive from the
jungle. Because
chair.
Because whip. Because
tied to
the chair, because smothered with
meat.
Because I wear the
mustache and
tall leather boots. Because
nobody
screams. Because children with
smiles they
let out the lions.
Khalastchi to Pagel Translation
Event Accident: by Caryl Pagel
New acts do not
trump the old/ because
the new
untamed and cold
draw meager audience/ New
acts do not amuse at all
because they attract less
profit/ see seams
undone or
lean ragged costumes/ because
the cold meat
rancid/ rancid
is the cold meat because it is
rotting muscle/ the muscle
of the last man standing in
the last act dragged
by hands
through teeth
and tongue a tragic
accident/ surely
no old act accepts defeat
because of rumor/ because of
just loss/ the cause
a manic accident/a jump
draws awe from crowds then falls to
silence/
The new act will not trump the old
because of wheel-on-fire/ net
worth/ last minute
pressed against applause
**
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