tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7723694470723601010.post5923969470061419323..comments2024-01-01T17:31:59.391-06:00Comments on Poems Found in Translation: Boris Pasternak: Hamlet (From Russian)A.Z. Foremanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07178150009150360184noreply@blogger.comBlogger4125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7723694470723601010.post-31472521236446867172012-10-16T18:55:25.801-05:002012-10-16T18:55:25.801-05:00Thank you. It always makes me glad to know my work...Thank you. It always makes me glad to know my work is of value to people. Incidentally, I do have (very few) readers in Saudi Arabia and the gulf. The Firewall of China blocks my site because I post classical chinese texts using not the simplified characters sanctioned by the PRC but the traditional characters employed by users in Taiwan. As for North Korea, most north koreans don't even know what the internet is. Scott Fisher, who is one of the few Americans who speak Korean well and have travelled in North Korea, and author of the travelogue "Journey Into Kimland", writes:<br /><br /><br />"The Internet was basically a giant mystery to the North Koreans I met. Some of them had at least heard the word, but they didn't really seem to have a handle on exactly what it was. Even Mr. Baek, who'd once traveled outside the country to China, didn't quite<br />have a grasp of what exactly e-mail and the Internet really were."A.Z. Foremanhttp://www.poemsintranslation.blogspot.comnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7723694470723601010.post-80824630914111449212012-10-16T18:54:51.032-05:002012-10-16T18:54:51.032-05:00I look forward to your weekly emails, and I have l...I look forward to your weekly emails, and I have learned much from them. Fantastic work you are doing. I wonder how many countries you email to? It would be very interesting to know, since poetry has such a beautiful and pure subversive power to transform and lift up -- I can't help wondering if you have any readers in repressive places like Saudi, Bahrain, and UAE etc, places that do not allow much to surface from other cultures. ( I won't add North Korea to that list, because, ghastly and nauseating as it most surely is, they will allow space for beautiful Chinese poetry there, I am sure of that).<br />Thanks for sharing such a beautiful, insightful Pasternak work today -- it reminds me of the 'prophetic' passages in Walter Benjamin's 'Theses on the Philosophy of History', and I quote, "The past carries with it a temporal index by which it is referred to redemption. <br />There is a secret agreement between past generations and the present one. Our <br />coming was expected on earth. Like every generation that preceded us, we have <br />been endowed with a weak Messianic power, a power to which the past has a claim. <br />That claim cannot be settled cheaply. Historical materialists are aware of that."Joenoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7723694470723601010.post-83880550009690693212012-10-10T20:46:14.015-05:002012-10-10T20:46:14.015-05:00"The buzz has faded"...HAH. Yeah, that&#..."The buzz has faded"...HAH. Yeah, that's the thing about smoking weed, the buzz just never lasts as long as you want.A.Z. Foremanhttp://www.poemsintranslation.blogspot.comnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7723694470723601010.post-31774846702476765832012-05-04T11:32:05.615-05:002012-05-04T11:32:05.615-05:00The buzz has faded,
I've lifted on the stage.
...The buzz has faded,<br />I've lifted on the stage.<br />Leaned to curtain, I try to catch in echo -<br />What else will happen to this age<br /><br />In front of me the gloom of night is spreading<br />With thousands lorgnettes in every hand.<br />If only it is possible, oh, heaven<br />Make me avoid a fate like that!<br /><br />I love your plot, Good Lord, which is so stubborn<br />And I agree to play my part, no doubt.<br />But now you reveal some other drama<br />So this is time you have to count me out.<br /><br />But schedule is approved, there is no chance to sidestep<br />The end of way. I'm standing here alone.<br />All of the world have drowned in lies' shadows.<br />To get along the life is not like walk through meadows.Chernischovainoreply@blogger.com