After Rilke: To Forget You Sang
by Mark Goldstein
Toronto: BookThug, 2008; ISBN 978-8-897388-21-1; $12.00 paper.

Mr. Goldstein writes from Toronto and from the pages of small presses. Having published limited-edition works through Beautiful Outlaw, he has finally ventured forth with his first full, but slender, collection, at the end of which he provides this note:

I began thinking about the sounds of words (rather than their meanings) the summer of 2001 while reading from bpNichol's whimsical translations of both Catullus and Apollinaire. It was these works that got me going, opened my mind to other possibilities. However, it was Louis Zukofsky's Catullus that asked me to put pen to paper. I'm unsure when Rilke's The Voices entered in, but it was early on. Only later did Spicer begin to help me re-arrange the furniture and the Martians have been with me ever since.

The collection opens with an introduction by Jack Spicer dated June 2008. In the event you haven't heard of Spicer, he was the inspiration behind the San Francisco Renaissance that included such poets as the late Robert Duncan and the late Robin Blaser. Spicer himself died of alcoholism in 1965. But since Spicer claimed to be guided in his poetic endeavours by the voice of the late Federico Garcia Lorca, why should we be surprised that he is reaching out from the grave to lead Goldstein into poetry? It's no wonder he begins his introduction as follows: "Honestly, I couldn't care less that Mr. Goldstein asked me to write an introduction to this book." adding that he, Spicer, has "been cut off from poetry for the last forty years."

This work may be considered to exist in five sections. There are no page numbers, and each section begins with a letter beginning "Dear Jack." Each letter, except the last, which has only one, is followed by two poems all starting "Has Lied." Keep in mind that the Lied is a German lyrical form much in favour by Goethe, Schiller and Heine, to name but three, and a favourite text to be set to music by Schubert. Each of these titles appears on its own page, with the poem itself beginning on the next one, as if stretching out the material into the appearance of value added. The question is whether the quality of material makes up for the dearth of same.

The first letter in the first group of offerings reveals Goldstein's existentialist bent. Here is the opening paragraph: "These letters are to be as easy as our poetry is difficult. There's nothing to establish, nothing to waste. It's April now. Winter is over. Almost every trace of the years that produced these poems has been obliterated. No explanations are possible, no regrets." Goldstein ends the letter on a humorous note: "I have much to ask you, so many thoughts on my mind. But they'll have to wait until my next letter as I've been running a bath while writing this, and it's ready."

We then enter the realm of the poem. The first, "Has Lied His Better," is ostensibly a translation of a Rilke poem. Louis Zukofsky, in his 'translation' of Catullus, was the originator of homolinguistic translation. bpNichol, along with Steve McCaffrey, brought homolinguistic translation to Canada. Although it is not stated outright, we assume that what we are about to encounter is the same. Given that Rilke is the substrate of this, one is reminded of George Bowering's The Kerrisdale Elegies, which was a homolinguistic translation of Rilke's The Duino Elegies, and a full-length book. Steve McCaffrey's Every Way Oakley, a homolinguistic translation of Gertrude Stein's Tender Buttons, was as slender as this volume and a poetic must-have.

The problem with After Rilke is that we are never advised which poems have had this 'homolinguisticness' applied to them. We cannot see how these 'translations' stand up against the original. What poetics, then, do we apply to assess them--as poems in their own right or as translations without the original? Both, actually, for most translations are published without the original attached, due to the expense of publishing a bilingual text. Also, any translation must be assessed in its own right, as no two languages are completely interchangeable, leaving the translator with the question of whether to retain the rhyme or the rhythm, the structure or the meaning.

On to the poems. The middle stanza of the second poem "Has Lied His Binding" is as follows:

Her hurt touch and ruckus billet each mind
and hers, too, clings as stein of stein--
favouring her in each: it's all in
lead and lead and leave.
Inner is an endless shrine and
each wise night shrieked mere mind--
hers orders mine, god damn.

Rilke's voice echoes from Goldstein's poem. The rhythm is strong, propelling us towards the end. The rhyming of 'mind' with 'mine' is weak, but the other stanzas display excellent use of assonance, particularly 'Inner is an endless shrine and.' Some may question the 'and' that ends it but this is necessary to set up the rhythm of the next. The middle line 'lead and lead and leave' is fascinating. The pronunciation of the initial 'lead' is that of the metal but the word 'leave' at the end of that line forces a re-pronunciation of the middle 'lead' so that the long 'e' of 'leave' is matched. The device of the volte, frequently used in sonnets, is very effective here.

Goldstein has added another piece to the recent--but by now well-established--tradition of homolinguistic translation. His is excellent work, with the prose and poetry working together like Cirque du Soleil acrobats. One could wish for more but one isn't about to get it--so be satisfied with this fine rendition.

John Herbert Cunningham is a Winnipeg writer. He reviews poetry in Canada for Malahat Review, Arc, Antigonish Review, Fiddlehead and The Danforth Review, in the U.S. for Quarterly Conversations, Rain Taxi, Rattle, Big Bridge and Galatea Revisits, and in Australia for Jacket.

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