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Ghostspeaking: Heteronyms and the Translation of Poetry

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Ghostspeaking: Heteronyms and the Translation of Poetry Ghostspeaking: Heteronyms and the Translation of Poetry Peter Anthony Boyle Doctor of Creative Arts 2017 Western Sydney University Acknowledgements I would like to thank Professor Chris Andrews for his patient, insightful, generous and encouraging support throughout the research and writing process. His willingness to read carefully though many drafts and make helpful suggestions has been invaluable in the completion of this project. Special thanks are also due to the Writing and Society Research Centre at Western Sydney University. The Centre's friendly collegiate atmosphere and stimulating discussions and seminars were of great value in developing my ideas. My special thanks are due to Professor Ivor Indyk for his support. I would also like to thank the always helpful Research Support staff, Melinda Jewell and Suzanne Gapps, for their assistance in many administrative matters. Western Sydney University provided generous financial assistance to enable me to attend the 2016 Festival de Poesía Amada Libertad in El Salvador. I would like to acknowledge and thank the organisers of this Festival and of other Festivals I have attended over several years: the Medellín Poetry Festival (1997), the Festival franco-anglais de poésie (1999), the Caracas Poetry Festival (2005), the Struga International Poetry Festival (2009), the Poetry Festival of Granada Nicaragua (2013) and the Trois Rivières Festival (2013). Through the exposure to new writing and the personal contacts and exchanges they offer, these festivals have greatly furthered my development as a poet and a translator. My attendance at several of these festivals was made possible by assistance from the Australia Council of the Arts. I would like to acknowledge the valuable contributions of many in the poetry community: Luke Fischer and Dalia Nassar in whose Poetry Salon several of the poems in Ghostspeaking were first presented to the public; Judith Beveridge, David Brooks, M.T.C. Cronin and Stuart Cooke for their close reading of many of my poems over the years; Michael Brennan at Vagabond Press who published my two heteronymous works Apocrypha (2009) and Ghostspeaking (2016) as well as two books of translations of Argentine and Uruguyan poets in 2017. Special thanks are owed to José Kozer who in a spirit of the greatest generosity has made the translation of his work possible. More detailed acknowledgement of my debt to José Kozer is made in the Translator's Acknowledgements but here I would particularly like to thank José and Gaudalupe for their generous hospitality in inviting me to stay with them for a few days at Hallandale Beach in 2013. I would also like to thank Tony Fraser of Shearsman Press for his championing of Kozer's work in the English-speaking world, including the publication of two previous books of my translations, Anima and Tokonoma. It was also in Shearsman magazine in 2006 that I first encountered the full force of Kozer's poetry in Mark Weiss' fine translations. My thanks are also due to the New South Wales Ministry of the Arts for the encouragement and support provided by two generous awards: the New South Wales Premier's Translation Prize (2013) and the Kenneth Slessor Prize for poetry (2017). I would like to thank above all my partner Deborah Rose for her patient help and encouragement over the several years that I have been working on this thesis. Statement of Authentication The work presented in this thesis is, to the best of my knowledge and belief, original except as acknowledged in the text. I hereby declare that I have not submitted this material, either in full or in part, for a degree at this or any other institution. ................................. ........................... (Signature) i TABLE OF CONTENTS Abstract vii EXEGESIS: Heteronyms and the Translation of Poetry 1 Chapter One: Bending poetic traditions: heteronyms and the translation of poetry Introduction 2 Not pseudonyms or dramatic monologues, not hoaxes, parodies or pastiche: the novelty of heteronyms 4 Heteronymous poetry as a distinct way of writing 10 Heteronymous poetry and translation 12 Fusion, dispersal and expanding the culture: heteronymous poetry and the “born translated” 18 The varied benefits of fiction and expanding the “I”: different strands in the heteronym tradition 21 The heteronymous world of Fernando Pessoa 26 Chapter Two: Heteronyms and fusion poetry: the work of Edmond Jabès and Juan Gelman 39 Edmond Jabès and Le livre des questions 40 Juan Gelman and Los poemas de Sidney West 62 ii Chapter Three: Translating poetry into poetry: the challenges of writing in another's voice 75 Conclusion 116 GHOSTSPEAKING Note to the Selections from Ghostspeaking 120 RICARDO XAVIER BOUSOÑO Biographical Note 121 Selected Poems House arrest in São Paulo 122 Aura of the poem 129 From a traveller’s notebook 130 Freiheit 132 An ordinary day in Uzbekistan 133 Ricardo Xavier Bousoño: An Interview 135 ANTONIO ALMEIDA Biographical Note 140 Selected Poems Waiting 141 The second word of infinity’s other name overheard by a young woman crossing the intersection of Maldonado and Paraguay 143 Thoughts in a café 144 On my forty-second birthday I take the bus to work 145 Rain at dawn 146 The time of weeping 147 iii Excerpts from Antonio Almeida’s Sketch for a biography 149 How I came to meet Antonio Almeida: Rome airport, March 1981 155 MARIA ZAFARELLI STREGA 156 My attempts to find Maria Zafarelli Strega 157 The Card Collection 160 Selected Poems From the Notebooks of Maria Zafarelli Strega 165 Asphixia 167 At the grandparents 168 In the end 169 LAZLO THALASSA 170 Lazlo Thalassa: a biographical note 171 Selected poems from El Señor L’Amoroso and Other Strangers 173 The entrance of L’Amoroso at the Grand Concourse for Skeletons 174 Prince Myshkin, falling into deep samadhi by the stabbed body of Natasha Filipovna, awakes on a sidewalk in Mexico City 178 FEDERICO SILVA 182 Federico Silva – a Biographic Note 183 Introduction to Selected Poems by Federico Silva 184 Selected Poems The well 186 The translator’s eyesight 188 Jeunes filles au jardin 189 The long drive to the end of the sky 190 THE MONTAIGNE POET 192 The Montaigne Poet: An Introduction 193 iv Selected Poems and Micro-essays On falls: by way of a preface 194 Of blindness and God’s immediacy 195 Of parents and children 196 On first words best words 197 On the eternal nature of fresh beginnings 199 Of books and silence 200 ANTONIETA VILLANUEVA Antonieta Villanueva: An Introduction 203 No voy a escribir mis memorias/ I am not going to write my memoirs 205 ERNESTO RAY Ernesto Ray: a brief biographic note 224 Excerpt from “Ballad of the Drowned Lovers” 226 Selected Poems from A Cloak for Pauline Of spells 227 Discovered in a rock pool 229 Arnica Artemisia 231 Iris 233 Meditation 235 My lover’s shoes (this morning) 236 Excerpts from a letter by Ernesto Ray written six months before his death 237 Hammerblows (final unpublished poem) 240 GASTON BOUSQUIN 245 Gaston Bousquin: a personal account (excerpts) 246 Selected Poems v Gaston Bousquin visits Olga Orozco in her Buenos Aires apartment, late summer 1980. 249 The Mass of the West Wind 252 Restaurant on stilts, Orinoco river, August 1985 253 To Alejandra Pizarnik 254 Uncle René on his seventy-ninth birthday recounts his blessings 255 Evening, Scotland Island 257 RICARDO XAVIER BOUSOÑO (ADDITIONAL TRANSLATION) 258 Threads 260 Acknowledgements 276 TRANSLATIONS OF POEMS BY JOSÉ KOZER 277 Translator's Acknowledgements 278 Poems from Índole (2012) Wherein it is seen how, when all’s said and done, it comes out a draw 279 Wherein it is seen how the navy officer does not reveal his secret life to us 283 Wherein it is seen how buried always inside me is a Jew 287 Where it is seen how everything has its solution 291 Wherein we see what gets written listening to Gorecki while reading Mandelstam 294 Wherein it’s seen how, even for someone Chinese, it’s impossible to understand writing 297 Wherein it’s seen how happiness is achieved with a little imagination 300 Wherein it is seen how the sleeper verifies the elements that in the end make up his dream 304 vi Wherein it is seen how the dreamer discovers that his is the best of all possible worlds 307 Wherein it is seen how, as Eduardo Espina says, it’s all in the mind 310 Devastation 314 Acta 317 Poems from Carece de causa (2004) Retributions 320 Things near at hand 323 Harvesting 326 Traces, of the inscribed 328 Last night’s lamp 335 Union 339 Portrait of DK at 76 years of age 341 The tailor’s requiem 349 The figure of the primogenitor in his place 354 The Gift 357 Echoes 360 Rotation 363 Gift, of clay 368 The conifers in the north are perpetual plants 373 BIBLIOGRAPHY 375 vii Abstract This thesis is composed of two parts: an exegesis, which examines the relationships between heteronymous poetry and the translation of poetry, and a creative component consisting of a book of heteronymous poetry Ghostspeaking and the translation of two books by Cuban poet José Kozer – Índole and Carece de causa. The exegesis opens by noting how heteronymous poetry has appealed especially to translators and has often taken the form of pseudo-translation. It is argued that heteronymous poetry and the translation of poetry largely spring from their creator’s desire to introduce styles and aesthetic approaches from outside a given language and poetic community. Both practices rely on a poet’s ability to write in different voices, placing themselves at the service of other poets real or imagined. The argument is developed first by examining the work of Fernando Pessoa, instigator of the modern heteronym tradition, and later through analysis of Edmond Jabès’ Le livre des questions and Juan Gelman’s Los poemas de Sidney West.
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