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Among transcendentalists' core
beliefs is an ideal spiritual state that transcends the physical and
empirical and is only realized through the individual's intuition, rather
than through the doctrines of established religions. Intuition, supernatural
and the mystical form the basic ideas of the transcendental artist or poet.
Veronica Volkow says 'the uttermost reality is totally spiritual' and this
'transcendental spiritual' takes form in her poems:
The Magician
Who listened to the voice
of the wind,
the word that speaks,
its unceasing shout in
the mountain,
and deciphered the language of noises
Wind is deciphering the language of noises. The wind is personified and
working as the cognition: it is concerned with the communication of 'noises'.
And who is listening to the voice of the wind: is it the poet or the
unceasing shouts in the mountains. Here we have the mystical element of the
transcendental. The poet is listening to her intuition and this intuition
sees her higher power as the wind. It isn't God or a more 'tangible' being
that is speaking rather a more a transcendental one.
Another example:
The High Priestess
Night is not
observed
it is dreamt
and dreams
like the moon
are reflections -
they float here and are elsewhere.
Are you seeing the painting of Dali. The moon is a reflection, just as dreams
are. I love this: that a dream is a reflection. This idea registers not only
in my intuition but again in the transcendental intuition. A wonderful
observation that dreams are reflections of experience and all that goes with
it. And as regards to reality: we are not really 'here' as 'Night is not
observed / it is dreamt'. The dreams continue:
The Lovers
Your eyes are nights
in which the day lives,
your eyes are stones
that dream
and in a dream
world
that's not present /
Forget transcendentalism: here we have beautiful lines of poetry. 'Your eyes
are nights / in which the day lives'. And there is also the exotic and more:
Garden
There are roses in my garden that unleaf
a gaping heart in the open air.
Thus is the flower,
its nakedness is magic
and:
Farewell
Let my love
be as mute
as God
Let it be
invisible to you
and
almost as unsuspected
Love is mute as God. For the poet God cannot speak, it is mute: perhaps
deformed, its tongue ripped out by the wind. For it is the wind and aspects
of the physical world that are able to think and decipher. And unlike God's love
- which is to be demonstrated in miracles and words - love here is to be
silent 'to you' and 'invisible'. At this point I'm beginning to feel a little
uncomfortable at where my mind is being taken. Perhaps there is an element of
indoctrination but maybe not.
Lost in translation is a euphemism for so much. And its asking too
much for a mirror image of an art form that rests on intimate inclination of
the familiar 'intuitions' of native languages. But what we do get is a clear
insight and understanding of another world of words. That we get much more
than just a flavour of that world, that we come close to the original visions
and images. Images might be more worked - less repetitive, and some lines and
titles are uninspiring. The reader is too 'spoon fed' - which is a personal
taste, I'd like the reader to think a bit more - though he does think. I'd
like the occasional spanner in the spokes, if not a roadside bomb. The
translators have done a good job; and as a purely English reader and speaker
I'm not really equipped fully to do justice to these poems. In this part of
the netted globe poetry is now a fashion victim and my ear is attuned to this
- and I'm always looking for another designer product. Yet set in its own
language and fashion sense I feel this translation is incredible. Volkow
acknowledges the difference between Mexican and English poetry. The personal
is put to one side and is not central ( the English way) and this can be a
culture shock. There are fantastic metaphor combinations and breath taking
observations and internalisations. Subject matter is the world that lies out
with normal understandings and this is where we are taken.
© James McLaughlin 2010
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