Jerome Rothenberg

Poems and poetics

Heinrich Heine: Two poems, after the French transcreations by Gerard de Nerval

H. Heine (1797 – 1856) on cover of Die Jugend, 1906
H. Heine (1797– 1856) on cover of Die Jugend, 1906

[To be noted: the high credit that Heine gave to Gerard de Nerval for his French prose versions after the German rhymed verses, much as Goethe found Nerval’s prose transcreations of Faust its perfect translation.] 

The Castaway 

Longing & love!  

It’s all broken: I’m lying here sprawled on the shore, deserted & naked, a corpse that the sea has spit up with contempt.  

Diane Rothenberg: 'On the Insanity of Cornplanter' (part one)

One of the recognized problems in research, any kind of research, is the repetition of a single original finding or opinion by other, later researchers as if those others had arrived at the finding or opinion independently.  This, then, may result in an extensive bibliography of secondary sources for a position that, in fact, has only a single source.  Obviously there is no problem with building on the work of others, but there isa problem if the original source was flawed.

Outsider poems, a mini-anthology in progress (54): 'Incantation for Jaguar Macaw Madness'

Translation from Mayan by Dennis Tedlock

FOR THE DESIRE THIS MADNESS BRINGS:

 

George Quasha: From 'Speaking Animate' (preverbs) with a note on the poetics of preverbs

G. Quasha: Axial Drawing – Dakini Series 2012
G. Quasha: Axial Drawing – Dakini Series 2012

1                                              words under pressure bleed original sense

 

The trouble with paradise is you never want to be away from home.


I make what calls me out.
All gone before you know it.

Aaron McCollough: 'Four Preliminary Notes' & 'A Stray Note' from 'Underlight'

[Reprinted from Underlight, published 2012 by Ugly Duckling Presse]

 

     In Contact with the Ground (Personal Sun) 

 

I needed to match our feelings, mine and the other living things.

 

May I tell you how this became deadly without polluting you.

 

I reached out for the dog that lay on the downed wire that led to

     the lightning.

 

I put the wrong things in my body till my skin extended to harder

     surfaces. Canals.

 

Practiced the sacrifice. Bought a gun.