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Poetry
Poetry – Poetry in motion and the sense of poetry go together. There are expressions which let the poet know immediately this poem is made. And while poets come from all walks of life, there are those who depart but never arrive. An example of this is Cavafy's poem in which he bids farewell to Alexandria. It touches something general for many are forced to depart and then in search in vain of a new home. Cavafy was ingenious in pointing out, no longer just one Ithaca, but many Ithacas await one when it comes to return home.
This variation of Homer's Odyssey reminds of earlier forms of poetry, including those of Sappho which Elytis translated from ancient into modern Greek. Likewise there is a debate going on which poems need a translation, which ones not. Freed from the need of translation, poems are understood in the immediacy of the words they use. Ritsos used stones and iron bars to describe his prison.
Many poems have been lost over time, many more the ability to bring about through a poetic form a novel way to tell a story. But Homer gave like no one else confidence. Moreover his poem takes on the form of a story being told over many evenings beside the fire. It was intended to give people a measure of time. For what time is needed for a change over from a hunting to an agricultural society. Since new skills are needed, if if to survive at all, that also has to be told. Homer shows what it values it has to listen to proper advice.
James Joyce in his Ulysses picked up on that theme of a key figure wandering about before able to return home. But instead of the many years it took Odyssey to return to Ithaca, the main character in Joyce's novel wandered around Dublin within 24 hours. Out of it has sprung the Joyce economy, implying not only the university chairs which were devoted to studies of Ulysses, but also the heritage trail set up in Dublin became an attraction for visitors.
Not every poem is made use of in the same way. But then not every poem is really read and understood as to what insights into life it can convey.
One of the most outstanding poems in post war Germany was written by Hagelstange. It is called 'die Verschütteten' or 'the buried ones'. Six men, soldiers at war, discover a bunker filled with a lot of food and wine, but just when they struck literally gold despite a war going on, a bomb explodes near the entrance to the bunker. Subsequently they are trapped under ground and forced to survive as time passes by unknowingly. Of the six only two survive while the fifth dies immediately like miners do once brought back to light after having spend too much time under ground. Significantly the buried did not realize the war had ended and that things had moved on since then.
Dealing with the present as an ongoing change means poetry is hard at work to keep up the memory track. Freud said that it is only possible if one steps out of the system determining once consciousness and into the feelings as they come up. This would create a memory track. Likewise a poet follows memories by entering unknown rooms to take a look to see what is to be taken before leaving that room again.
The poetess Katerina Anghela Rooke 1 says that every good poem is based on pain.
Today some believe in short messages and take to the Haiku form as if there is a heightened need to convey something very brief and serene like in advertisement. While poems are a good way to bring across a message, they have difficulties with tensions in society preventing convincing expressions. Quite different is, however, the rural orientated poetry of Seamus Heaney who remembers his father farming when compared to the urban poetry of Brendan Kennelly. The latter shows in his epic poem 'Judas' that the most difficult thing to unlearn is learned hatred. 2
But why is poetry so important, even though it has been denied since Plato till Hegel as being a source of truth? Poets live more than any other artist in the present. Likewise their poetry in translations create simultaneous moments of mutual understanding and more important base their feelings on appreciation as to what the other poets have to say.
Poetry creates the first base for knowledge since human feelings are being expressed. Out of them evolve philosophy and knowledge but this unity of poetry and philosophy is nearly forgotten.
Freud spoke about the poet growing up amongst women as long as maternalism rules while the men fight for ruler-ship; then one day, one of these men seizes upon a poem and creates out of it the myth of power with which he installs himself and paternalism becomes the rule. For this reason Virgil linked poetry to the myth of the Roman Empire to remind people what to do at a certain time. He predicated if people no longer know how to tame horses and when to cut the olive trees, then the empire will crumble.
Still, poetry does not seem to play an important role in the artistic and cultural programmes of ECoC cities. One exception has been Cork when ECoC in 2005. 3 As part of the official artistic programme, they promoted translation of poetry by finding people in the city's population who spoke the language of that particular poet. It was so successful, that the Irish Arts Council awarded in the following year more money to continue this 'poetry in translation'. When it was the turn of Vilnius to be European Capital of Culture in 2009, Haiku poems were collected to see how people view their city in terms of its place in Europe and its culture. 4 Marseille 2013 supported the already existing and well known Poetry Centre aiming to connect especially poets of the Mediterranean. 5
Still, all these efforts are minute compared to the money being spend on mega events and projects, so that the contribution of poetry to the making of a cultural synthesis goes unnoticed even though poetic contributions are of utmost importance. They combine thoughts, emotions and experiences.
As for the Lit Hub which Valletta 2018 had originally in mind, it will be interesting to see if stronger arguments can be found in support of a translation centre for literature and poetry, and this with the further going aim to connect Europe to the Mediterranean cultures.
Translation from and into lesser spoken languages is an invaluable activity in need of more support since this cultural diversity expressed through a variety of unknown languages is at great risk. Likewise it is a contention of the Irish poets that the English language due to its dominant role in the world is treating Gaelic language as if wishing to impose an apartheid. Irish poets feel a tremendous pain and does drive many into frenzy. But the role of the poet in Ireland has not really changed so much. Besides the preacher the bard is well known and can even at times help set the urban agenda.
There is the network of World Poetry Movement connecting poetry festivals in the world which can be tapped into. In Berlin, there is 'lyric online'. Its archives contains poets reading their poems in original languages with translations into different languages of the original poem made available as well.
The value of poetry needs to be recognized. It contributes to humanity.
One little poem by Traudel Beichler can say it all:
Worte
meine Fallschirme
mit Euch
springe ich ab
wer Euch öffnet
schwebt
“Words
my parachute
with you I jump down
he who opens them
floats.”
It matters even more so to realize that poetry is a search for the human voice so often not heard since we tend to speak but in a masked way to hide our true feelings. Here the work by Savinna Yannatou (1954) made an remarkable example of the voices in European poetry.
Hatto Fischer
Athens July 2014
Footnotes:
4Haiku in Vilnius 2009 http://culturelive.vilnius.lt/en/Ambassadors/ambassadors-haiku/
5http://ecoc.poieinkaiprattein.org/european-capital-of-culture/Marseille-2013/centre-international-de-poesie-marseille/
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