Posté le 14 octobre 2014 - par therhythmofwords
Branch library
Hi !
This week I choose to offer you a poem by Edward Hirsch. This American author was born in 1950 in Chicago. Until now, he wrote eight poetry books. He received numerous prices for his poems. His volume « Wild gratitude » won the award in 1987. About him, J.Lahiri said : « The trademarks of his poems are (…) to isolate and preserve those details of our existence so often overlooked, so easily forgotten, so essential to our souls. »
In Branch Library, E.Hirsch tells a memory. He writes his discovery of literature as a teenager. In the library, he turned student into bird. I choose this poem because I enjoy the way the student is described. It is a joyful scene. I imagine the boy with a beak and bird feathers on arms. He goes from bookcases to bookcases. E.Hirsch looks at himself as a teenager from outside. If the young Hirsch had guessed he would become such a famous poet, he would have been surprised.
The poet makes the reader see ordinary life in an imaginative way. Before, we can be more watchful of extraordinary readers in libraries. Or else, we could be more imaginative about ordinary readers in libraries.
Branch library
I wish I could find that skinny, long-beaked boy
who perched in the branches of the old branch library.
He spent the Sabbath flying between the wobbly stacks
and the flimsy wooden tables on the second floor,
pecking at nuts, nesting in broken spines, scratching
notes under his own corner patch of sky.
I'd give anything to find that birdy boy again
bursting out into the dusky blue afternoon
with his satchel of scrawls and scribbles,
radiating heat, singing with joy.
« Branch Library », from Special Orders by Edward Hirsch, copyright © 2003 by Edward Hirsch
Some words translations :
a library : une bibliothèque
long-beaked : au long bec
the Sabbath : le Sabat
wobbly : chancelant
a stack : une pile
a satchel : une sacoche
to scrawl/to scribble : gribouiller
to radiate : irradier
A reading by the E.Hirsch could be heard at this adress : http://www.poetryfoundation.org/poem/179467.
If you listen to the record, you will probably well understand rhymes.
If you listen to the record, you will probably well understand rhymes.
Have a nice day !
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18 octobre 2014
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#11 a dit:
We can see than English poems are difficult to read because they use unusual words and the sentences structures aren’t instinctive. But I congratulate you for your translations work which help us to better understand.
(if it’s possible)
I would like to read in next posts, poems with rhymes and elaborated structure (« alexandrins », « octosyllabes »…) to see the difference with french poems .
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21 octobre 2014
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therhythmofwords a dit:
I will post easier poems soon.
Concerning english versification, I believe that unfortunately what you said don’t exist because it’s a system of foot and meter.