Poem: Translating my Poetry

Hi! Sorry, with graduation coming up, I've been preoccupied with a lot of other things. Today's blog is one of those silly trying-too-hard-to-be-clever poems. Every writer at some point attempts to write meta-poetry or a meta-story: a sonnet about sonnets or a poem about writing a poem or a short story about an author. It's really hard to pull off. There are two that I like, from Poetry 180 (a Library of Congress project sponsored by former U.S. poet laureate Billy Collins).

-
Introduction to Poetry
Billy Collins

I ask them to take a poem
and hold it up to the light
like a color slide

or press an ear against its hive.

I say drop a mouse into a poem
and watch him probe his way out,

or walk inside the poem's room
and feel the walls for a light switch.

I want them to waterski
across the surface of a poem
waving at the author's name on the shore.

But all they want to do
is tie the poem to a chair with rope
and torture a confession out of it.

They begin beating it with a hose
to find out what it really means.

-
Selecting a Reader
Ted Kooser

First, I would have her be beautiful,
and walking carefully up on my poetry
at the loneliest moment of an afternoon,
her hair still damp at the neck
from washing it. She should be wearing
a raincoat, an old one, dirty
from not having money enough for the cleaners.
She will take out her glasses, and there
in the bookstore, she will thumb
over my poems, then put the book back
up on its shelf. She will say to herself,
"For that kind of money, I can get
my raincoat cleaned." And she will.

-
Translating my Poetry

First, turn it upside down.

Fold it lengthwise and again into an accordion of words
or tear it into confetti
or stamp it into the peninsulas and inlets of a jigsaw.
Take care not to lose any stray letters.

Dump them all in a wok
or souffle the words
or let them stew.

Feed the bits to those around you:
an adjective to your mother
a preposition to your dog
a spillage of verbs to the homeless man under the newspaper tent
and a phrase or two to the editor.

Wait. Observe. Grow old.

Your hair ages and you start taking pills.
Some days, it takes you all morning to get started
and you decide to take on an apprentice.
A new generation of translators flock,
unaware that the art of translation is preparation of a feast.

At the funeral, an apprentice recites a poem about your mother.
The dog won't stop barking.
Even the man wearing the dirt-worn sleeping bag speaks with elegy.
The editor never makes it to the funeral;
whatever he ate, however it tasted, we may never know.