Emily Dickinson in Translation
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THE EMILY DICKINSON INTERNATIONAL SOCIETY Volume 27, Number 1 May/June 2015 “The Only News I know / Is Bulletins all Day / From Immortality.” Puuseppä, itseoppinut olin – jo aikani höyläni kanssa puuhannut kun saapui mestari Emily Dickinson in перевод Käännös Взирать он должен – лишь всего - Translation На Ширь Владения – Старик с горы Нево! Кровит Мой суд – ради Тебя! Översättning 翻译 Jag aldrig sett en hed. Jag aldrig sett havet – men vet ändå hur ljung ser ut och vad en bölja är – Jag aldrig talat med Gud, i himlen aldrig gjort visit – men vet lika säkert var den är som om jag ägt biljett – 1 | EDIS Bulletin Officers President: Martha Nell Smith Vice-President: Barbara Mossberg Secretary: Nancy Pridgen Treasurer: James C. Fraser Board Members Antoine Cazé Jonnie Guerra Eliza Richards Paul Crumbley Eleanor Heginbotham Martha Nell Smith Páraic Finnerty Suzanne Juhasz Alexandra Socarides Cindy Dickinson (Honorary Member) Barbara Mossberg Jane Wald (Honorary Member) James C. Fraser Elizabeth Petrino Marta Werner Vivian Pollak Legal Advisor: Louis N. Levine Chapter Development Chair: Nancy Pridgen Nominations Chair: Alexandra Socarides Book Review Editor: Renée Bergland Membership Chair: Elizabeth Petrino Bulletin Editor: Daniel Manheim Dickinson and the Arts Chair: Jonnie Guerra Journal Editor: Cristanne Miller Sustaining Members Mary Elizabeth K. Bernhard Jane D. Eberwein Jonnie G. Guerra Richard Brantley Robert Eberwein Barbara Mossberg Carolyn L. Cooley Judith Farr Martha Nell Smith James C. Fraser Contributing Members Antoine Cazé Eleanor Heginbotham Daniel Manheim LeeAnn Gorthey Suzanne Juhasz Ethan Tarasov Linda Healy Niels Kjaer Robin Tarasov EDIS gratefully acknowledges the generous financial contributions of these members. EDIS Bulletin (ISSN 1055-3932) is published twice yearly, May/June and November/December, by The Emily Dickinson International Society, Inc. Standard Mail non- profit postage is paid at Lexington, KY 40511. Membership in the Society is open to all persons with an interest in Emily Dickinson and her work. For further information, contact Martha Nell Smith, President, EDIS, Department of English, 2119 Tawes Hall, University of Maryland, College Park, MD, 20742, or [email protected]. Annual dues are $50.00 for regular members, $30.00 for students, $200.00 for sustaining members, $113.00 for institutional members, $100.00 for contributing members (all of whom receive the Bulletin and the Emily Dickinson Journal), or $20.00 for associate members (Bulletin only). Membership inquiries should be directed to James C. Fraser, 159 Prospect St., Apt 7, Acton, MA, 01720-3654, USA. Membership applications and changes of address should be sent to The Emily Dickinson International Society, c/o Johns Hopkins University Press, P.O. Box 19966, Baltimore, MD 21211-0966, USA. Direct changes of address to [email protected], 800-548-1784 (U.S. and Canada), or 410-516-6987; fax to 410-516-3866. Address submissions for the Bulletin to Daniel Manheim, Centre College, 600 West Walnut St., Danville, KY 40422, USA or [email protected]. Submission deadlines are March 1 (Spring issue) and September 1 (Fall issue). All articles become the property of the Bulletin. Back issues are available for $5.00 each from the editor. Copyright © 2015 by The Emily Dickinson International Society, Inc. The Bulletin is indexed in EBSCO, Humanities International Complete, and the MLA Bibliography. www.emilydickinsoninternationalsociety.org IN THIS ISSUE Features 4 Feasts for the ear 14 Poet to Poet By Emily Seelbinder The Wide and the Narrow By Amy Dryansky 20 Being Emily Dickinson Series Editor, Jonnie Guerra By MiMi Zannino 24 What’s Your Story? 22 Susan Johanknecht Joanna Dobson By Maryanne Garbowsky Series Editor, Georgiana Strickland 24 Emily Dickinson in Shanghai By Cristanne Miller and Cuihua Xu Reviews 27 American Poets in Paris 32 Review of Anne-Marie Vinde, My River Flows to By Marianne Noble Thee: Sixty Poems of Emily Dickinson Reviewed by Cynthia Hallen 28 Report from Finland By Sirkka Heiskanen-Mäkelä 35 New Publications Section Editor, Renée Bergland 30 Dickinson’s Realia By Tatiana Polezhakat 39 The Belle on Broadway By Elizabeth Petrino Series 8 Dickinson and the Arts Members’ News Better than Music By Michael Conley 41 Dickinson in Her Elements: Series Editor, Barbara Dana Annual Meeting in Amherst 11 Dickinson Scholars 43 Emily Dickinson and Lydia E. Pinkham Barton Levi St. Armand By George Monteiro By Cynthia Hallen Series Editor, Cindy MacKenzie Arthur Schopenhauer wrote that “poems cannot be translated; they can only be rewritten.” Translation creates something new, even as it registers the spirit of the primary text. Spirit – a new translation is always a rendering not of the poet’s experience but that of the translator’s experience in reading. Perception of an object costs precise that object’s loss – or its revision into the words, history, formulas of another particular idiom. In this sense, a translation may create music, or images, or performance: in all me- dia it gives form to someone’s encounter with the original object. Translation may finally be about refusing boundaries, whether between languages, countries, media, or creating minds, repairing divisions. The Editorial Assistant for this issue was Sara Loy. Dickinson poems are reprinted by permission of the publishers and the Trustees of Amherst College from the following volumes: The Poems of Emily Dickinson, Thomas H. Johnson, ed., Cambridge, Mass.: The Belknap Press of Harvard University Press, Copyright © 1951, 1955, 1979, 1983 by the President and Fellows of Harvard College; The Poems of Emily Dickinson: Variorum Edition, Ralph W. Franklin, ed., Cambridge, Mass.: The Belknap Press of Harvard University Press, Copyright © 1998 by the President and Fellows of Harvard College; The Poems of Emily Dickinson: Reading Edition, Ralph W. Franklin, ed., Cambridge, Mass.: The Belknap Press of Harvard University Press, Copyright © 1998, 1999 by the President and Fellows of Harvard College; The Complete Poems of Emily Dickinson, Thomas H. Johnson, ed., Copyright © 1929, 1935 by Mar- tha Dickinson Bianchi, Copyright © renewed 1957, 1963 by Mary L. Hampson: Little Brown and Co., Boston. Dickinson letters are reprinted by permission of the publishers from The Letters of Emily Dickinson, Thomas H. Johnson, ed., Cambridge, Mass.: The Belknap Press of Harvard University Press, Copyright © 1958, 1986 by the President and Fellows of Harvard College; 1914, 1924, 1932, 1942 by Martha Dickinson Bianchi; 1952 by Alfred Leete Hampson; 1960 by Mary L. Hampson. 3 | EDIS Bulletin Feasts for the Ear: Songs by Alice Parker By Emily Seelbinder DIS members may recall a sometimes following, and occasionally Eremarkable event that concluded joining in perfectly placed moments of the Society’s celebration of its twentieth unison. The music enhances the text, anniversary in August 2008: a concert of giving it meaning and purpose. Each poems by Emily Dickinson set to music part also has a “rhythmic vitality” by Alice Parker. The Da Camera Singers, that energizes the singers and their under the direction of the composer, performance. opened with a swirling consideration of the elements, “I think that the Root That delightful interplay of melody of the Wind is Water – ” (Fr1295), then and rhythm is what caught my ear in plashed into “A soft Sea washed around Three Seas, a 1989 commission for the House” (Fr1199). “Dirks of Melody” the Holton-Arms School in Bethesda, marked “One Joy of so much anguish” Maryland. The suite opens with two (Fr1450) before we were swept up in Alice Parker celebrated her 89th birthday in December. short descending patterns doubled on “The divine intoxication” of “Exaltation flute and piano before the chorus enters: is the going” (Fr143). of Melodious Accord and Parker in 2001. “There is a solitude of space / A solitude of Before our host, Margaret Freeman, could sea / A solitude of death” (Fr1696). As the Two more songs, “‘Unto me?’ I do not make proper introductions, I snatched off singers evoke each solitude, the soprano know you – ” (Fr825) and “Whether my headphones and leapt up, blurting out line lingers in recitative, then slowly my bark went down at sea – ” (Fr33), what was foremost in my mind: “I LOVE rises, while the alto line holds steady, plumbed the depths of searching, longing, the alto part in this!” The Freemans’ then gradually falls, creating a profound redemption, and loss. Then we soared dog skittered sideways and gave me a distance when they reach the word death. heavenward with three songs from Parker’s wary look. Parker smiled broadly and The first of the three songs in the suite, suite An Exultation of Birds: “Of Being extended her hand. During a career now Parker writes in notes for the recording is a Bird” (Fr462), “Sang from the Heart, spanning almost seven decades, Parker has by Melodious Accord, “journeys to the Sire,” (Fr1083), and “Beauty crowds me encountered this sort of enthusiasm a lot, center of the mind” (Angels). It certainly till I die” (Fr1687). especially from altos. (If you want to know took me there. I wanted nothing more in why, check out one of the many renditions that moment than to join in the singing of This sumptuous four-course feast was but of the “Alto’s Lament” currently posted that text. a small sampling of the seven suites Parker on YouTube.) “Thank you,” she said. “I’ve had then composed based on Dickinson always believed that everyone should have “I love singing her music,” Wyrick says, texts. She has since added two more something good to sing.” “especially the arrangements of early Dickinson suites to her list. I recently had American hymnody she set for Robert a chance to sit down with her to discuss Something good for everyone to sing is a Shaw. The intricacies of melody woven her career and the poet to whom she has signature feature of Parker’s work. Ginger with illustrative rhythms bring life and returned again and again for musical Wyrick, a choral conductor who has worked understanding to these texts.