The Dark Side of the Week1
The Fragrance of Lampposts
Too many brooms in this room No room to sweep the floor Tzling Tzling Tzling Complained the overhanging hollow copper pipes A head had brushed against them A right eye scraped A security video camera lens Colors trespassed the outlines The bristles of the brooms blossomed A dog was lying on its back in front of my door A lady disappeared behind a lamppost The dog was struggling like a ladybug To get back on its numerous Wriggling chaotic legs The lady walked on with that lamppost In her hand and picked a few More as she walked by I landed the tip of my little finger on the ground The dog climbed it up But slipped and fell on its back again Its paws were feebly rotating in the air Like the blades of a broken propeller The woman buried her nose Into the bunch of lampposts And smelled the blinding lights She looked happy Faceless The street plunged into darkness I lay on my back next to the struggling dog A flock of woodpeckers flew over us Into the room of the blooming brooms
Black Paper2
Poetry is dead I killed it Read the email I received from a group of Familiar American poets I love it when they poke post-post-modern fun At grandiose notions of the past Zeus cleaved them into inferior males and females When the superior androgynes tried to kill Him After Nietzsche pronounced God dead The latter drove him insane Without producing any proof of The fact of His own existence Poets killing poetry Subconscious claim to be Überpoets? We are nihilistic thoughts Occurring in non-existent God's brain Supersonic fighters Shoot themselves down By accelerating to top speed And into the asses of their own fired missiles War shatters to pieces Peace is a collage made of those smithereens My love has the shape not of heart But fractured lines Poetry is dead They say If poetry is dead I am a necrophile
A Picture is Worth a Thousand Words
This poem is now worth zero point five percent of a picture This poem is now worth one point seven percent of a picture This poem is now worth two point nine percent of a picture This poem is now worth four point one percent of a picture This poem is now worth five point three percent of a picture This poem is now worth six point five percent of a picture This poem is now worth seven point seven percent of a picture This poem is now worth eight point nine percent of a picture This poem is now worth ten point one percent of a picture This poem is now worth eleven point three percent of a picture This poem is now worth twelve point five percent of a picture This poem is now worth thirteen point seven percent of a picture This poem is now worth fourteen point nine percent of a picture This poem is now worth sixteen point one percent of a picture This poem is now worth seventeen point three percent of a picture This poem is now worth eighteen point five percent of a picture This poem is 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percent of a picture This poem is now worth thirty-nine point seven percent of a picture This poem is now worth fourty-one percent of a picture This poem is now worth fourty-two point one percent of a picture This poem is now worth fourty-three point four percent of a picture This poem is now worth fourty-four point seven percent of a picture This poem is now worth fourty-six percent of a picture This poem is now worth fourty-seven point one percent of a picture This poem is now worth forty-eight point four percent of a picture This poem is now worth forty-nine point seven percent of a picture This poem is now worth fifty-one percent of a picture This poem is now worth fifty-two point one percent of a picture This poem is now worth fifty-three point four percent of a picture This poem is now worth fifty-four point seven percent of a picture This poem is now worth fifty-six percent of a picture This poem is now worth fifty-seven point one percent of a picture This poem is now worth fifty-eight point four percent of a picture This poem is now worth fifty-nine point seven percent of a picture This poem is now worth sixty-one percent of a picture This poem is now worth sixty-two point one percent of a picture This poem is now worth sixty-three point four percent of a picture This poem is now worth sixty-four point seven percent of a picture This poem is now worth sixty-six percent of a picture This poem is now worth sixty-seven point one percent of a picture This poem is now worth sixty-eight point four percent of a picture This poem is now worth sixty-nine point seven percent of a picture This poem is now worth seventy-one percent of a picture This poem is now worth seventy-two point one percent of a picture This poem is now worth seventy-three point four percent of a picture This poem is now worth seventy-four point seven percent of a picture This poem is now worth seventy-six percent of a picture This poem is now worth seventy-seven point one percent of a picture This poem is now worth seventy-eight point four percent of a picture This poem is now worth seventy-nine point seven percent of a picture This poem is now worth eighty-one percent of a picture This poem is now worth eighty-two point one percent of a picture This poem is now worth eighty-three point four percent of a picture This poem is now worth eighty-four point seven percent of a picture This poem is now worth eighty-six percent of a picture This poem is now worth eighty-seven point one percent of a picture This poem is now worth eighty-eight point four percent of a picture This poem is now worth eighty-nine point seven percent of a picture This poem is now worth ninety-one percent of a picture This poem is now worth ninety-two point one percent of a picture This poem is now worth ninety-three point four percent of a picture This poem is now worth ninety-four point seven percent of a picture This poem is now worth ninety-six percent of a picture This poem is now worth ninety-seven point one percent of a picture This poem is now worth ninety-eight point four percent of a picture This poem is now worth ninety-nine point seven percent of a picture This poem is now worth more than a picture
I write in Armenian and in English. I translate my own works into these languages and Russian. I start translating my writings while they are still in progress, because translation is an important tool for my creative process. I draw inspiration and ideas from the peculiarities of grammatical logic, the etymological pool, and the phonetic power of each of these languages as I write the next stanza, next line, or next word. Thus, translating various parts of a poem at various stages of the writing process invariably alters its course. Though language can be perceived as clothing for a poem, I tailor not only a language to a poem, but also vice versa.
Upon completion of a poem, I make sure it is represented in each language as accurately as a literary translation may possibly be, just shy of Nabokov’s extreme approach “the clumsiest of literal translation is a thousand times more useful than prettiest of paraphrase”—and, at the same time, steering clear of the other extreme method mentioned by Edward FitzGerald—“the live Dog better than the dead Lion.”3
Karén Karslyan
Notes
- This entire collection consists of a couple dozen pairs of poems, where every second poem is the dream of the preceding one. Thus, “The Fragrance of Lampposts” is the dream of “The Dark Side of the Week,” and “A Picture Is Worth a Thousand Words” is the dream of “Black Paper.” ⮭
- During WWII, a Soviet official letter announcing a soldier's death had black margins. In Armenia, such letters were dubbed as “black paper.” ⮭
- As quoted by Sachin Ketkar in “Literary Translation: Recent Theoretical Developments.” ⮭