[Wgcp-whc] minutes for Freitas discussion; next session 10/22

[Richard Deming]

Dear Friends and Fellow Poeticians,



I am writing to report on last week’s session, but first I wanted to  
remind everyone that our next session will be next Friday, Oct 22 from  
3-5 in rm 116 of the Whitney Humanities Center.  We will be discussing  
the work of C.D. Wright.  Specifically we’ll be focusing our  
discussion of Wright’s 2008 collection (her most recent, though a new  
one is due next month) Rising, Falling, Hovering. We distributed  
copies at our last session, but just a few are left and can be found  
in our mailbox in the main office of the Whitney Humanities Center.  
Wright will then join us to discuss her work on November 5.  This will  
be a rare opportunity to discuss poetry with one of America’s most  
acclaimed poets.





Here’s Wright’s official bio:

C.D. Wright, one of America’s most compelling and idiosyncratic poets,  
was born and raised in the Ozark Mountains of Arkansas. She is a  
radically restless writer, a composer of hybrid works such as Deepstep  
Come Shining and distilled lyric collections such as Tremble. Every  
title takes her further inside her subjects and extends the means and  
measure of her reach. Wright is concerned with a density of language,  
setting up a chain reaction using the least amount of verbal material.
She has published a dozen collections, most recently, Rising, Falling,  
Hovering (2008). In 2007 Like Something Flying Backwards, New and  
Selected Poems was published in England. Her collaboration with  
photographer Deborah Luster, One Big Self: Prisoners of Louisiana was  
awarded the Dorothea Lange-Paul Taylor Prize; and a text edition was  
also released in 2007. Steal Away was on the international shortlist  
of the Griffin Trust Award. String Light won the 1992 Poetry Center  
book Award and Rising, Falling, Hovering won the 2009 International  
Griffin Prize for Poetry.

Wright is a recipient of a Macarthur Fellowship, a Lannan Literary  
Award, the Robert Creeley Award, and is a member of the American  
Academy of Arts and Sciences. She is the Israel J. Kapstein Professor  
at Brown University and lives outside of Providence with her husband,  
poet Forrest Gander.
  Here is a link to a NYTimes review of Rising, Falling, Hovering

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/06/22/books/review/Brouwer-t.html



Here is a link to an interview with Wright by friend of WGCP, Kent  
Johnson

http://www.english.illinois.edu/maps/poets/s_z/cdwright/johnson.htm



Here is a longer review of Wright’s three most recent books by John  
Cotter

http://www.openlettersmonthly.com/january-2009-cd-wright/





And two links to Wright reading at the Beinecke in 2004.  The first  
link is to Nancy Kuhl’s introduction.

http://media.sas.upenn.edu/pennsound/authors/Wright-CD/Yale-Reading/Wright-CD_01_Introduction_Beinecke-Library_Yale_2-3-04.mp3



http://media.sas.upenn.edu/pennsound/authors/Wright-CD/Yale-Reading/Wright-CD_02_Complete-Reading_Beinecke-Library_Yale_2-3-04.mp3



And breaking news—C.D. Wright has just been nominated for the National  
Book Award!



***********









On Friday, October 8th, Hilary Kaplan led a discussion of the work of  
the contemporary Brazilian poet Angelica Freitas.  Our discussion was  
centered on Rilke Shake, the poet’s first collection, which Hilary has  
been translating into English.  The conversation ranged from specifics  
about Freitas and her work to more general thinking about the process  
of translation and how one best serves that activity.  For instance,  
the question was asked, does one strive to create a fairly precise  
representation at least to the letter of the poem (in terms or form  
and connect) or does one strive to preserve the spirit of the original  
poem, even if that means introducing new elements or elements from the  
target cultural milieu rather than the original context?

But we began by discussing how it was that Hilary came to be  
translating the work. She described the amount of freedom or least  
flexibility she feels translating a poem close to the beginning of her  
career rather than a figure who has become a vested cultural  
authority.  The fact that Freitas was a kind of peer and the fact that  
she was young, queer, plugged into both literary as well as pop  
culture meant that Hilary could hear the work by way of a shared cross- 
cultural zeitgeist, one made up by a form of cosmopolitan and  
heterogeneous frames of reference.  Freitas’s publisher is Cosacnaify,  
whose list is comprised mainly of young, contemporary Brazilian  
poets.  Among these poets is Ricardo Domeneck, with whom Freitas edits  
the journals Hilda (http://hildamagazine.com/home.html) and Modo de  
Usar (http://revistamododeusar.blogspot.com/).



The covers of the books produced by Cosacnaify/ 7 Letras—black with a  
sticker indicating the author and title—create a visual association  
amongst the different writers. This doesn’t indicate a movement or  
“school” per se, but it does help indicate a set of elective affinities.







In looking at a handful of books, one sees the recurrence of Gertrude  
Stein in epigraphs, quotations, and allusions.  The presence of Stein  
indicates a move beyond cultural and national provincialisms, even as  
Freitas’s distinction emphasizes her regional background.



The permeability and instability of culture and language, rather than  
some fealty to the universality of national and cultural identity  
informs her work.

Freitas herself translates from French, Italian, American, and  
Spanish, and these different sites of reference make themselves felt  
in the work in the range of her allusions, from Rilke to Stein.   
Despite the high cultural context much of the tone and diction of  
Freitas’s work indicates the mark of her upbringing in the South of  
Brazil.  While this indicates a kind of irreverence, her attitude is  
also shaped by her proximity to the Argentine border.  Her upbringing  
drew upon Portuguese as well as Spanish influences and foundations,  
which gives the background for her tendency to create a polyvalent work.



Again and again we saw in the poems that Freitas seeks to explode  
norms and expectations largely by way of her allusions, her irony, and  
her humor. These point to Freitas’s irreverent reverence.  The way  
that she pokes fun at writers such as Stein, Pound, Rilke, and others  
illuminates her—and her contemporaries’—desire to note their genealogy  
not only by the invocations but by the way they treat that genealogy.  
It becomes something chosen rather than simply inherited.



The issue of cultural translation was raised specifically because  
Freitas’s work is both ironic and humorous.  It is hard enough being  
funny and the challenge of bringing humor from one language and  
culture to another is daunting to be sure. Of course there is no  
formula for deciding this, but Hilary noted that the fact that she and  
Freitas are share many things because of their age and thus  
generational well of associations, experiences, information, and so  
forth make it somewhat easier to navigate the humor divide.   
Interestingly, this caused us to discuss the moments in translation  
where the activity depends less on direct exchange and something like  
the felt experience of the poems.  This felt sense allows a translator  
a certain band of possibilities in order to recreate an experience in  
the new language.  Thus, whereas in Portuguese a poem might have  
extremely subtle allusions to relatively obscure Brazilian poetry, the  
American version might employ words that are apt to turn those  
allusions into ones that Americans would be more apt to catch because  
they would be informed by the translator’s own sense of her milieu.



Clearly, Freitas is a fascinating poet with a deft sense of humor that  
both challenges traditional while establishing a form of playful  
homage that fashions connections to previous generations.  She  
becomes, then, a figure of international, transhistorical irony.  All  
agreed that Hilary not only elegantly contextualized Freitas in terms  
of contemporary Brazilian poetry, but also showed how this poet’s work  
raises questions about tone, diction, and cultural identity.  Hilary’s  
comments perceptively laid the groundwork for a conversation of a  
translator’s responsibilities and burdens.  In fat, the discussion was  
so engaging it went into extra innings.  Although our usual stopping  
time was called sharply at 5, most everyone stayed at the table  
discussing the work for another 30 minutes.  Our thanks to Hilary for  
her contributions and for bringing this compelling poet to our  
attention.



So, once again, we meet next week on Friday from 3-5.



Thus,

Richard Deming, Coordinator.
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