I've started sketching for our little comic corpse ("our" being Claire, Lauren and John). I will put a scan here as soon as I have access to my scanner. Expect emails re: comic corpse soon. And we need a title. Most likely, we will choose it once we have made one turn.

Funny how the chord progression of Pearl Jam's "Comatose" is the same as "Spin the Black Circle" from their album Vitalogy.

***

As I am working with Mehregan on translating this poem by Esmail Kho'i, I am learning a little of Farsi as well.

So I've been reading a bit more of Kho'i's work over the weekend, mostly from his selected poems, Edges of Poetry (Blue Logos Press, 1995, trans. Ahmad Karimi-Hakkak & Michael Beard). There is the same philosophical bent we find in Ahmad Shamluu, with whom Kho'i is friend, and again, the ominous shadow of Forugh Farrokhzad (who was his friend too). For example, this poem:

From Forugh's Grave

I come home dark
from Forugh's grave.

I had never seen
             a cloud
opening up
its umbrella of sorrow
over the crowd of the lonely before
so kindly
so giving.

Must
      the sweetest lyric of togetherness
                 be wept over
in mourning?

I know death
from afar.
Yes
      but how could it be
that this endless fragrance should be no more?
 
I do not believe
I come from Forugh's grave.
It is as if that warming, mature fragrance
is still blowing
from beyond all breeze.
 
I do not believe.
I do not believe.
This cloud of crying cannot be real.

I have my reservations about working with Mehregan. For one, I don't know Farsi and I am quite unfamiliar with his work (although I am supposed to meet him this Saturday, hence no trip to Austin, to be postponed to the following week, if Scott is reading). I am of the school of translation that says that a translator should have an extensively knowledge of the work and of the original language. It would be nice if Johannes, John or cmde Chris Daniels could weight in on this issue. Moreover, I tend to be extremely meticulous in my translation work, much more than my own poetry. Mehregan tends to be very excited and likes to add footnotes.

We have so far worked on the first page of Kho'i's recent poem, "Pasdar Ahmadinejad."

پاسدار احمدی نژاد


ـ و که بود
آن که،
در سکوتِ خونفشانِ بامداد،
تیربارهای جان شکار چون ز قاه قاهِ مرگ می فتاد،
هر اسیرِ نیم کُشته ای
به تیرِ واپسینِ او
ــ پیامِ خونی ی خلاص ــ
سر به خاک می نهاد؟

ـ پاسدار احمدی نژاد !


ـ و که بود
آن که مرگ را
به خوانسرای§ میکونوس
داد داد؟

ـ پاسدار احمدی نژاد !


ـ و که بود
آن که،
با امامِِ مرگ روی مرگ پوی مرگ خوی مرگ جوی خویش،
رو به روی انقلابِ تازه روی تازه خوی تازه جوی ما
ایستاد؟

ـ پاسدار احمدی نژاد !

The original text has various indentations I could not reproduce because I am too afraid to mess with the Farsi text. Here is our translation:

Pasdar Ahmadinejad

And who was
the one who

          in the silence of bloodfountains at dawn
rained fire after the half-breathing captives
who laid their heads to the ground

                    as they heard
                              the bloody message of release
brought by the last bullet?

Pasdar Ahmadinejad!



And who was
the one who invited Death

          at the bloodinn of the Mykonos
and executed his justice?

Pasdar Ahmadinejad!



And who was
the one who

          stood with the deathfaced,  deathsmelling, deathstanding, deathseeking imam
before our fresh revolution, our fresh deed, our fresh
prospects?

Pasdar Ahmadinejad!

Mehregan and I have chosen not to translate "Pasdar," which basically means "revolutionary guard," but which can also mean "thug." It has both positive and negative connotations. If Frank Herbert can do it in Dune, why can't we?

For other untranslatable terms, I have chosen Johannes's and Pierre Joris's method on Aase Berg and Paul Celan, respectively, of creating composite words. The problem being, I might make Kho'i sound like Celan or Berg when there might not be an connection.

I don't know.

The poem itself has 7 pages, which Mehregan and I want to be done by Saturday (at least, as a first draft) . The complete poem can be seen here.