lost in self-translation

james stevens fowler

jet owls fan me verses
ween marvels of jests
jewels of even smarts
men saw fevers jostle

nothing (and danger too?)

Nothing

"Nothing that is not there and the nothing that is" Wallace Stevens

I shah that nontheist dragon
in the tent tonight

attention to highroad has
thing tenth thinnest

hath ninth hottest hinting
hesitant danger too

just saying

to say this is just

"This is just to say" William Carlos Williams

this is just
to say

I jots thus
I stays

tis joust is
hasty

a joy sits
its shut

beckett beckons /// title-shot

I've begun playing with the title of one of Beckett's french poems. This poses some further questions...as I will be translating the letters from french into english as well as from english into english. does any potential lingering of unity travel across languages? do we care? here's what i've stumbled through so far (ie not far yet)

Samuel Beckett
que ferais-je sans ce monde (what would I do without this world)



(the first is assembled from the french letter count; the second from the english count)


join cere safe semen squad


--------


wow I shit dull wood it thud hot war

ODE// owed to emily

Tell All

"Tell all the truth but tell it slant" Emily Dickinson
(isnrbaahhuueeellllllltttttttt)

trust that bell
tall hell tune tilt

et trill but lull
thus talent attle

latent letters that
hull tell built

bull shutter lall
tenth thill tattle

[Each couplet contains the same exact same letters in count as the quote referenced]


Tell All(stock version)

"Tell all the truth but tell it slant" Emily Dickinson

i
s
n
r
b
aa
hh
uu
eee
lllllll
tttttttt

quiverlance

By Any Other Name

"A rose by any other name would smell as sweet" William Shakespeare
(duhbrrwwnnttyymmooolllaaaasssseeeeee)

a lude horny sass yet a
bow worn lamest melee

a bull mood seen ween
wary a holy street mass

less loose mutters been
warm whole any a day

[Each couplet contains the same exact same letters in count as the quote referenced]

first off

this was my first translation. the original line is my own.

each following couplet features the same letters in count as the italicized line. the final couplet was further broken - just cause - poetic effect.

and then great flashes of air

and then great
flashes of air

near flagrant
head of thesis

farside gathers
half one tan

aft handle her
a reason
a gift

|F'in-Oulipo|Foulipo|Foolipo|

I am about to babble in vague fashion.

This is the home of my latest oulipo fussing.

I've been writing poems from a sole sentence.

Previously, I've written a verbose line or two and
then rearranged the order of the words to further
describe some moment, the emphasis having been the
words themselves.

This time, I'll be looking at a shorter line with
which I will rearrange the letters into separate words,
the emphasis here being the letters. At this point, I'm
only starting, and as such, am not to worried about
"making overt sense". I am curious to see what comes of
"sense" as this all progresses though.

Too, I am thinking of doing tributes to some poets by
constructing a poem from the letters of some quote I enjoy
or don't enjoy. Maybe it won't be so much a tribute but
slander (kidding).

More immediately, my concerns float suspiciously around
the way re-worked wordage sounds - how by reconstructing
a line we may lose the meter or meaning of the initial
formation but gain a better appreciation to the sound and
smooth sense originally utilized by cluttering other space
with all those same letters. I leave one eye trained out
of focus though, left to spy what else comes from assembling
yet again language.

In the end, these will all be queer translations of a sort.
Thus, the title of this blog: In Rant At Loss
...did you catch that?

...Examples Soon Coming...