Poetry is International!

This evening I thought I'd post a number of translations of Catfish McDaris' poems by various poets and native speakers.  Enjoy!

Catfish McDaris Poems Translated

Aida

She is always there

my only true love forever

her smile is my soul.

61 Winters

Some people live hard

and write about it. Some 

write about what they think

It is to live hard. I think it's 

easy to distinguish the phonies 

from the real thing. 

Age does not mean wisdom, 

it does mean history though. 

To write well you have to have

courage, curiosity, and tenacity.

California

Dance during summer

making love to the raindrops

farmers smile at crops.

We All Go Away Like an Echo of Sad Laughter

As I age I no longer wipe

away the tears, neither does

God, we watch the hungry

on the church steps searching

in the dirty melting snow.  

Poems Translated into Yoruba by Prince Adewale Oreshade from Nigeria

Aida

Ibe lo ma n wa ni gbogbo igba

Ololufe mi kàn soso titilai lai

Erin re ni okan mi.

61 Winters

Awon kàn ngbe igbesi aiye inira

Won de ma fi ko nipare. Awon kàn 

Si ma n ko owun ti won ro

Wipe oje igbesi aiye inira. Aba mi

Ni wipe irorun laaje lati mo iyato

Awon ofente ati awon ti oyanju.

Ojo ori otumosi oye,

Sugbon ole tumosi itan.

Latile ko dada, eyan gbodoni.

Akikanju, ojumito, ati ifarada.

California

Jo nigba orun

Somo omi ojo

Erin agbe si irugbin.

Poems Translated into Chinese by Changming Yuan from China

Aida

爱达

她总是无时不在

我唯一永恒的真爱

其笑容乃我之灵魂

61 Winters

六十一个冬季

有些人生活艰辛 

而用笔抒写。有些人

则笔耕之所思

生活必然艰辛。我想

很容易将伪善

区别于真实。

年龄并不等于智慧

但它却意味着历史。

要写出佳作就必须有

勇气、好奇心及坚韧精神。

California

加利福尼亚州

在夏日翩翩起舞

与雨滴做爱正酣

农夫对着庄稼微笑。

Poems Translated into Arabic by Ali Znaidi from Tunisia

Translated into French by Eric Dejaeger from Belgium

                                                                        Aïda

                       

                                                   Elle est toujours présente

                                                    mon seul véritable amour éternel.                   

     son sourire est mon âme.

                                                                      61 hivers

                                                     Certaines personnes ont une vie dure

                                                     et en parle dans leurs écrits. Certaines

                                                     écrivent sur ce qu'elles pensent

                                                     qu'est une vie dure. Je pense qu'il est

                                                     facile de distinguer les imposteurs

                                                     de la véritable chose.

                                                     L'âge ne signifie pas la sagesse,

                                                     il signifie vraiment l'histoire cependant.

                                                     Pour bien écrire tu dois avoir

                                                     courage, curiosité, et ténacité.

                                                                  Californie

                                                        Danse pendant l'été

                                                        faire l'amour aux gouttes de pluie

                                                        les fermiers sourient aux récoltes.

Translated into Spanish by Aida Elizabeth McDaris from Mexico

Aida

Ella siempre esta ahi

mi unico amor por la eternidad

su sonrisa es mi alma.

61 Inviernos

Algunes gentes tiener una vida dificil

y escriben acerca de ella

otros escriben lo que piensan

Tener una vida dura creo que es

facil distinguir a los

falsos de los autenticos

Edad no significa sabiduria

pero quire decir historia

para ser un buen escritor

tienes que tener, valentia,

curiosidad y tenacidad.

California

Baila en el verano

haciendo amor a las

gotas de agua

los campesinos sonrien

a sus casechas.

Translated into Bangla by Nilimesh Dutta from India

Aida

আইডা

শুধু

তোমাকেই ভালবেসেছি সারাজীবন

তোমার হাসি আমার আলো

61 Winters

৬১ টা শীত

কিছু লোক রগড়ায়

আর সেটা নিয়ে লেখে। কিছু লোক

লেখে কল্পনায়।

বেঁচে থাকবার কষ্টটা করতে হয়।

আমি খুব সহজেই সং দের

আসল জিনিসটা থেকে আলাদা করতে পারি।

বয়স মানে বোধ নয়,

ইতিহাসও নয়।

লিখতে গেলে তোমার থাকতে হবে

সাহস, কৌতুহল আর লেগে থাকা।

California

ক্যালিফোর্নিয়া

গ্রীষ্মের নাচ

বৃষ্টিফোঁটার সঙ্গে ভালোবাসা

চাষিরা ফসলের দিকে তাকিয়ে হাসছে

We All Go Away Like an Echo of Sad Laughter

As I age I no longer wipe away the tears, neither does God, we watch the hungry on the church steps searching in the dirty melting snow.  

আমরা সবাই কষ্টের হাসির একটা প্রতিধ্বনির মত চলে যাব

যত বুড়ো হচ্ছি, কান্নাগুলো আর মুছতে পারিনা, (ঈশ্বরটাও পারেনা), আমরা শুধু দেখে যাই গির্জার সিঁড়িতে নোংরা বরফ খুঁটে যায় খিদে।  

Catfish McDaris poems translated into Polish by Piotr Siwecki from Poland

Aida

She is always there

my only true love forever

her smile is my soul.

Aida

Zawsze tu jest

moja jedyna na zawsze prawdziwa miłość

jej uśmiech jest moją duszą.

61 Winters

Some people live hard

and write about it. Some 

write about what they think

It is to live hard. I think it's 

easy to distinguish the phonies 

from the real thing. 

Age does not mean wisdom, 

it does mean history though. 

To write well you have to have

courage, curiosity, and tenacity.

61 zim

Niektórzy żyją ostro

i piszą o tym. Niektórzy

piszą o tym, co, ich zdaniem,

Znaczy żyć ostro. Myślę sobie, że

łatwo odróżnić ściemę

od prawdziwego życia.

Starość nie musi iść w parze z mądrością,

ale to jednak kawał historii.

Żeby dobrze pisać, potrzebujesz

odwagi, ciekawości i wytrwałości.

California

Dance during summer

making love to the raindrops

farmers smile at crops.

Kalifornia

Tańcząc latem

kochając się z kroplami deszczu

farmerzy uśmiechają się do plonów.

In addition, here is a link to Catfish's reading on Dr. Michael Anthony Ingram's BlogTalk radio show:  http://www.blogtalkradio.com/dc-poetry-project-/2015/04/16/the-power-of-poetics-welcomes-internationally-acclaimed-poet-catfish-mcdaris

Unfortunately, I could not listen to the whole show as the Shockwave on my computer crashed.

If you are online at 8 pm on Wednesday, April 29, Changming and Allen Yuan will be the next guests on The Power of Poetics.

At 8 PM Eastern Time on April 29th

Bridging Cultures featuring Guest Poets Dr. Yuan Changming and Allen Qing Yuan

In honor of World Poetry Day (March 21, 2015), the host and staff of the Power of Poetics Blogtalk Show are proud to announce that the world's most widely published poetry author, Dr. Yuan Changming and his celebrated son, Allen Qing Yuan will be the featured guest poets on the Wednesday, April 29, 2015 broadcast. The show will also feature other poets from around the globe. Renown Poet Catfish McDaris will serve as co-host of the program. Yuan Changming,an 8-time Pushcart Prize nominee, and author of 4 chapbooks, is the world's most widely published poetry author who speaks Mandarin but writes English. Since his first poem was published in mid-2005, Changming's poetry has appeared in 1019 literary publications across 32 countries, including Best Canadian Poetry (2009,12,14), BestNewPoemsOnline, London Magazine and Threepenny Review. With a PhD in English from the University of Saskatchewan, Yuan currently tutors and co-edits Poetry Pacific with his teenage poet son Allen Qing Yuan in Vancouver, British Columbia. Allen Qing Yuan, born in Vancouver in 1995, is a two time Pushcart Prize nominee and the author of Traffic Light (2013). Co-editing Poetry Pacific, Allen currently attends the University of British Columbia as a business major. Since grade 10, Allen has had poetry appearing in more than 70 literary publications across 16 countries, which include Cordite Poetry Review, Literary Review of Canada, Shampoo, and Spillway. poetrypacific.blogspot.ca 

 The FREE call-in number is (646) 716-8754. We may be physically located in Washington DC, but our love for poetry is worldwide! If there are questions, please call the DC Poetry Project Office at 202-540-0327 or email letpoetryring@gmx.com.

(by Dr. Yuan Changming) 

移民

为从你母语的豪强逻辑

逃出生天

你徘徊，再徘徊

穿越地球的长度和宽度

将你的旧我，交付于另一种语法

另一整套对你的嘴唇和笔尖

都很陌生的语法规则

从而扩展你心灵的地图

远远超出家庭和避风港

然而，在此期间，它却成为

这个所选语言一切令人费解之

悖论的殖民地，例如：

快沙流可能会很慢

拳击圈实是方形

而几内亚豚既不是猪

也不是来自几内亚

一如你和我

Immigration

To escape from the tyrannical logic
Of your mother tongue
You wandered, wandering
Through earth’s length and breadth
Subjecting your old self to another syntax
A whole set of grammatical rules
Strangely new to your lips and tips
To expand the map of your mind
Far beyond your home and haven
Yet in the meantime it becomes colonized
By all the puzzling paradoxes
Of this chosen language, for example:
Quicksand can be very slow
Boxing rings are in fact square
And a guinea pig is neither a pig
Nor is it from Guinea
Like you or me

I'll finish up with a little (international) music for you.

Mulatu Astatke begins with Tezeta (Nostalgia).  This version is on an album dating from the late 1960s/early 1970s:  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Wy-v-FgiUD8

This video is of a more recent performance in New York: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=f5HNXytisOM

This song was written by Mulatu Astatke, but it is performed by Dengue Fever: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pq6OJixIU2Y

Dengue Fever is more well known for its covers of Cambodian pop from the 1960s and 1970s: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-dsRKo6PWLA

Here is the original Cambodian pop -- Ros Sereysothea's "Flowers in the Rain": https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=A_0fxMIzFN0