January & February 2019
Vol IV No I
Not your ordinary poetry magazine!
If good coffee (or just the concept of coffee), great books, sharp wit, and great authors excite you, we are for you!
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Poetry Translations
Better Than Starbucks is delighted to announce publication of an epic Russian poem, MTSYRI by Mikhail Lermontov, translated into English by Don Mager. See below for more information.
with Guest Editor Michael R Burch
![Michael R. Burch](https://static.wixstatic.com/media/bad125_9964732a7b7b4b439905efe43ba58271~mv2.jpg/v1/fill/w_134,h_97,al_c,q_80,usm_0.66_1.00_0.01,enc_avif,quality_auto/bad125_9964732a7b7b4b439905efe43ba58271~mv2.jpg)
Four poems by Giovanni Quessep translated by Felipe Botero Quintana and Ranald Barnicot:
From Giovanni Quessep’s first book Being is not a fable (El ser no es una fábula 1968):
The Impure Clarity
It is also in our dream that time ignites
its fable-making denial. No one ever
forgets that dying is this impure
clarity. Like the sea between doves.
Who is to be deemed guilty? (Ah hope,
the matter of invented days.)
Our dreams get lost, someone utters words,
failures, founderings: ships, for our sakes,
fly on towards legend.
All is exile, all sea, all is its depth,
its rim, its never, its time it recounts to us.
La impura claridad
También en nuestro sueño el tiempo enciende
su negación fabuladora. Nadie
olvida que morir es esta impura
claridad. Como el mar entre palomas.
¿Quién se nombra culpable? (Ah esperanza,
materia de los días inventados.)
Se nos pierden los sueños, alguien dice
palabras o hundimientos: por nosotros
vuelan los naves hacia la leyenda.
Todo es exilio y mar, todo su hondura
y orilla y nunca y tiempo que nos cuenta.
From Giovanni Quessep’s third book, Song of a Foreigner (Canto del extranjero 1976):
Reading of Omar Khayyam
A night will come on which this moon
Will search me out and will find
Me with that sleepless gaze
Which mirrors back a mortal sky
Out of a time of marvels they
Summon me to retrace my steps
Perhaps who brings this gloom to be
Or she who sleeps among violets
The insomniac knows well the story
Of that misfortune’s other blue
Ah silenced in that moon’s light
All my oblivious solitude
Words the wind has carried away
Music right on autumn’s cusp
In the mist the leaves are falling
For another tuneful of dust
Lectura de Omar Khayyam
Vendrá la noche en que esta luna
Ha de buscarme y me hallará
Con la mirada del insomne
Que refleja un cielo mortal
De algún tiempo de maravillas
Me llamarán para que vuelva
Tal vez quien hace esta penumbra
O la que duerme entre violetas
El insomne sabe la historia
Del otro azul de la desdicha
Ah de la noche de esa luna
Mi soledad calla y olvida
Palabras que se lleva el viento
Músicas a punto de otoño
En la tiniebla caen las hojas
Para otro cantico de polvo
From Giovanni Quessep’s sixth book, Death of Merlin (Muerte de Merlín 1985):
Death of Merlin
In between woods the kingdom’s at an end.
It offers nothing but dust-corroded doors.
The spell was false, the sorcerers
lie under the white hawthorn.
Nonetheless – for those with eyes
to see through frost-encrusted lids –
there is an unknown corner yielded
by the constellation, by the rose.
Here the laurel does not dwell but
in the mandrake’s blue-tinged poison,
and time preserves its dragonflies
for the dead, to gild their eyes.
Muerte de Merlín
Entre bosques el reino ha concluido.
No tiene sino puertas con herrumbre.
El sortilegio era falso, los encantadores
yacen bajo el espino blanco.
Sin embargo – para quien pueda ver
a través de sus párpados de escarcha –
existe un rincón desconocido
que brindan la constelación y la rosa.
Aquí el laurel no habita
sino el veneno azulado de la mandrágora,
y el tiempo guarda sus libélulas
para dorar los ojos de los muertos.
From Giovanni Quessep’s seventh book, A Garden and a Desert (Un jardín y un desierto 1993):
Night watch
Steps in the garden. The watcher
smites the apple tree’s bark.
and there are birds that flee, others remain
in their cages of time and silver light.
Let fables not charm me; I want to watch over
my weapons tonight or embed myself
deep in the garden and hear under my steps
the clovers that keep in the dust
the marvels of the white tower.
Under the apple tree and at my side
a woman leafs through an old book:
Demons surround, and a fountain
mirrors a deer, a Bengal tiger.
Steps come and go and they do not know
who is the watcher, who the watched.
Felipe Botero Quintana is a Colombian writer. He has translated works by Conrad, Pessoa, etc., into Spanish.
Ranald Barnicot has published poems and translations in journals. By Me, Through Me will be published by Alba Press in 2019. A Greek Verse for Ophelia (Out-spoken Press), a selection of Quessep’s poems translated by Ranald and Felipe, was published in November, 2018.
Vigilia
Pasos en el jardín. El vigilante
golpea la corteza del manzano
y hay pájaros que huyen, quedan otros
enjaulados en tiempo y luz de plata.
Fábulas no me encanten; velar quiero
mis armas esta noche o adentrarme
por el jardín y oír bajo mis pasos
los tréboles que guardan en el polvo
las maravillas de la blanca torre.
Debajo del manzano y a mi lado
una mujer hojea un viejo libro:
Demonios hay en torno y una fuente
refleja un ciervo, un tigre de Bengala.
Los pasos van y vienen y no saben
quien es el vigilante, el vigilado.
Giovanni Quessep, born 1939, is one of Colombia’s greatest poets. He has published thirteen books to date and has received numerous awards including Premio Mundial de Poesía René Char.
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Four poems by Rainer Maria Rilke translated by Susan McLean:
Piano Practice
The summer drones. The afternoon grows tired.
Breathing her clean gown’s smell distractedly,
into the credible étude she poured
her restlessness for a reality
that could arrive: tomorrow or this evening—
that maybe was there, but was just well screened.
Beyond the windows, tall and all-receiving,
she suddenly could sense the pampered grounds.
She broke off, gazed outside, folded together
her hands, and wished she had a lengthy book—
repelling all at once the jasmine’s odor
angrily. She found it made her sick.
Lady Before the Mirror
Like spices in a sleeping draft, she’s slowly
dissolving her demeanor’s weariness
into the liquid clearness of the glass,
and only then she drops her smile in wholly.
She’s waiting for the power of the liquor
to rise from it; she pours her hair down then
into the mirror, lifting her wondrous shoulder
out of her evening gown and drinking in
silently her reflection. What a lover
would guzzle drunkenly, she tastes and tests,
full of mistrust, and only waving over
her maid when, at the bottom of her mirror,
she notices the waning candles, chests
of drawers, and muddy dregs of a late hour.
A Woman’s Fate
Just as the king out on a hunt takes up
a glass to drink from, any glass whatever—
and afterward the owner of the cup
puts it away and keeps it like no other,
so maybe Fate, who’s also thirsty, raised
a woman to its mouth at times and drank,
and then a petty life, afraid she’d break,
set her apart from ever being used
inside the fussy glass display case where
its most expensive treasures are consigned
(or those, at least, considered precious then).
Like something loaned, she stood there, alien,
becoming merely old, becoming blind,
and was not precious and was never rare.
Faded
Lightly, like one who is dead,
she wears her shawl, her gloves.
A scent from her dresser instead
has replaced the fragrance she loves,
which she knew herself by early on.
She no longer inquires now about
who she is (some distant relation).
She wanders abstracted in thought,
and tends a fastidious chamber
that she keeps and orders with care,
for perhaps that same girl she remembers
may still be residing in there.
Susan McLean is professor emerita of English at Southwest Minnesota State University. Her poetry books include The Best Disguise, The Whetstone Misses the Knife, Selected Epigrams (of Martial), and one chapbook, Holding Patterns.
Übung am Klavier
Rainer Maria Rilke
Der Sommer summt. Der Nachmittag macht müde;
sie atmete verwirrt ihr frisches Kleid
und legte in die triftige Etüde
die Ungeduld nach einer Wirklichkeit,
die kommen konnte: morgen, heute abend —,
die vielleicht da war, die man nur verbarg;
und vor den Fenstern, hoch und alles habend,
empfand sie plötzlich den verwöhnten Park.
Da brach sie ab; schaute hinaus, verschränkte
die Hände; wünschte sich ein langes Buch—
und schob auf einmal den Jasmingeruch
erzürnt zurück. Sie fand, daß er sie kränkte.
Dame vor dem Spiegel
Rainer Maria Rilke
Wie in einem Schlaftrunk Spezerein
löst sie leise in dem flüssigklaren
Spiegel ihr ermüdetes Gebaren;
und sie tut ihr Lächeln ganz hinein.
Und sie wartet, daß die Flüssigkeit
davon steigt; dann gießt sie ihre Haare
in den Spiegel und, die wunderbare
Schulter hebend aus dem Abendkleid,
trinkt sie still aus ihrem Bild. Sie trinkt,
was ein Liebender im Taumel tränke,
prüfend, voller Mißtraun; und sie winkt
erst der Zofe, wenn sie auf dem Grunde
ihres Spiegels Lichter findet, Schränke
und das Trübe einer späten Stunde.
Ein Frauen-Schicksal
Rainer Maria Rilke
So wie der König auf der Jagd ein Glas
ergreift, daraus zu trinken, irgendeines,—
und wie hernach der welcher es besaß
es fortstellt und verwahrt als wär es keines:
so hob vielleicht das Schicksal, durstig auch,
bisweilen Eine an den Mund und trank,
die dann ein kleines Leben, viel zu bang
sie zu zerbrechen, abseits vom Gebrauch
hinstellte in die ängstliche Vitrine,
in welcher seine Kostbarkeiten sind
(oder die Dinge, die für kostbar gelten).
Da stand sie fremd wie eine Fortgeliehne
und wurde einfach alt und wurde blind
und war nicht kostbar und war niemals selten.
Eine Welke
Rainer Maria Rilke
Leicht, wie nach ihrem Tode,
trägt sie die Handschuh, das Tuch.
Ein Duft aus ihrer Kommode
verdrängte den lieben Geruch,
an dem sie sich früher erkannte.
Jetzt fragte sie lange nicht, wer
sie sei (: eine ferne Verwandte),
und geht in Gedanken umher
und sorgt für ein ängstliches Zimmer,
das sie ordnet und schont,
weil es vielleicht noch immer
dasselbe Mädchen bewohnt.
Rainer Maria Rilke (1875-1926) was a Bohemian-Austrian poet and novelist, widely recognized as one of the most lyrically intense German-language poets.
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Better Than Starbucks is delighted to announce publication of an epic Russian poem,
MTSYRI by Mikhail Lermontov
translated into English by Don Mager.
Early publication discount of 40% on purchases from Lulu. Click on the cover image to order your copy.
Mikhail Yuryevich Lermontov (1814-1841) died in a senseless duel at age 27. Unique to 19th century Russian writers he produced seminal masterpieces in all three major genres: prose fiction, A Hero of Our Time, drama Masquerade, and poetry (narratives and short lyrics). With the death of Pushkin, in 1837, at age 23, Lermontov assumed the role of successor, with his widely disseminated, although unpublished, eulogy “Death of a Poet,” and quickly was acclaimed the second greatest Russian poet. Besides the short lyrics, Lermontov excelled in poemy—the Russian name for long narrative or reflective poems, first developed fully by Pushkin. Two of these are judged landmark masterpieces: Mtsyri (Мцыри), and The Demon (Демон). Except for The Demon, much of his poetry is not well known to English readers.
Mtsyri is one of Lermontov’s many works set in Georgia. It is celebrated for its eloquent depiction of the Caucasus Mountains and Georgian landscape. Mtsyri’s battle with the leopard is similar to a popular Georgian folk legend and there are at least fourteen versions of the folksong “Young Man and a Tiger.”
— Don Mager