Litmag Roundup

Refresh yourself on the last batch of picks here.

New poems:

• In the annual Fiction Issue, The Atlantic includes a poem, By The Sea, from my old poetry teacher, Maura Stanton. Check out her most recent collection, Immortal Sofa.
• The issue has a lot of poetry worth reading. A few more: Jane Hirshfield – The Conversation, Grace Schulman – Antiques Fair, Carl Dennis – Friendly.
• Christina Hutchins has Into Your Pocket featured in The Missouri Review.
• Barry Goldensohn writes after Breughel in AGNI.
• After this poem in Slate about an encounter with a student, I think Erika Meitner’s next course at Virginia Tech to fill up immediately. HarperCollins is releasing her second book, Ideal Cities, as part of the National Poetry Series later this year (preorder a copy here).
• Michael Shally-Jensen’s The Black Stones, first prize for the Literal Latte Poetry Award.

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Litmag Roundup

• The Missouri Review publishes a series of “Dream Poems” by Richard Bausch.
• Joanna Klink talks poetry in Jubilat.  Looking forward to her next collection, Raptus, which Penguin is releasing this May (preorder a copy).
• Rae Armantrout in Poetry.
• Robert Bly in the APR, “Nirmala’s Music.”
• Bly is hitting the magazines hard this month.
• Poetry Northwest announces its newest issue with a poem by Rick Barot. He is the author of Want: Poems– a book worth a few readings.
• After this week’s premiere of Treme on HBO, I like to imagine John Goodman reciting this poem.  Fady Joudah in Callaloo – behind a wall for subscribers and libraries.
• Atlanta Review has the most bizarrely charming web presence.  I’m not even sure this is the entirety of Michael Lee Phillips’ prize-winning poem, but it’s still a solid narrative piece.
• Adam Zagajewski, translated from Polish by Clare Cavanagh, in Five Points.

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Found in the Folio: Catullus

The work of Gaius Valerius Catullus (ca. 84 BC – ca. 54 BC) survived the dark ages in a single manuscript.  After having been left unread for nearly 700 years, the poems were found beneath a bushel around the year 1300 in Catullus’ hometown of Verona.  That manuscript soon disappeared as well, but not before scholars copied it at least twice. Catullus rubbed shoulders with now legendary Romans – Cicero, Caesar, Pompey – but one storm or housefire might easily have wiped all except a few fragments of his work from history.

Catullus’ poems have alternately been censored and admired since their rediscovery. Critics have cited vulgarity and shocking directness (a line in Catullus 16, for example, has been called “one of the filthiest expressions ever written in Latin – or in any other language, for that matter.” To be sure, that’s a bit of hyperbole). Champions, though, have praised Catullus for the same qualities, instead called clarity and emotional honesty.

Catullus, therefore, seemed an appropriate choice for Folio Found’s first selection.  His critics have not yet had a chance to destroy his art, but centuries of neglect neglect nearly did. By reading and posting the works of Catullus and other poets, I hope to provoke some discussion. Most of the work of searching through darkened monasteries and remote villas is complete. My task is just to enjoy the poems.

Catullus 14b, trans. Charles Martin

If any of you happen to be future
readers of these trivial absurdities
and find that you can touch us without bristling

Si qui forte mearum ineptiarum
lectores eritis manusque vestras
non horrebitis admovere nobis.

Catullus 5, trans. G.P. Goold

Let us live, my Lesbia, and love,
and value at one penny all
the talk of stern old men.
Suns can set and rise again:
we, when once our brief light has set,
must sleep one never-ending night.
Give me a thousand kisses, then a hundred,
then a second thousand, then a second hundred,
then yet another thousand, then a hundred.
Then, when we have made up many thousands,
we will wreck the count, lest we know it
or any devil have power to cast an evil eye upon us
when he knows the total of our kisses.

Vivamus mea Lesbia, atque amemus,
rumoresque senum severiorum
omnes unius aestimemus assis!
soles occidere et redire possunt:
nobis cum semel occidit brevis lux,
nox est perpetua una dormienda.
da mi basia mille, deinde centum,
dein mille altera, dein secunda centum,
deinde usque altera mille, deinde centum.
dein, cum milia multa fecerimus,
conturbabimus illa, ne sciamus,
aut ne quis malus invidere possit,
cum tantum sciat esse basiorum.

Catullus 96, trans. Kenneth Quinn

If one result, Calvus, of our sorrowing is this
that we bring some comfort or pleasure to unanswering grave
by that sense of longing we have when, thinking of them
we loved, our tears start for friendships lost long ago;
then surely the grief Quintilia feels at death too soon
is less than the joy she feels that you love her still.

Si quicquam mutis gratum acceptumque sepulcris
accidere a nostro, Calve, dolore potest,
quo desiderio veteres renovamus amores
atque olim missas flemus amicitias,
certe non tanto mors immatura dolori est
Quintiliae, quantum gaudet amore tuo.

Catullus 2, trans. G.P. Goold

O sparrow that are my sweetheart’s pet,
with whom she likes to play, whom to hold in her lap,
to whose pecking to offer her finger-tips
and provoke you to bite sharply
whenever it pleases her, bright-eyes with longing for me,
to engage in some endearing frolic
so that, I fancy, when her fierce passion subsides,
it may prove a diversion for her pain:
to be able to play with you, as does your mistress,
and allay the sad cares of my heart.

Passer, deliciae meae puellae,
quicum ludere, quem in sinu tenere,
cui primum digitum dare appetenti
et acris solet incitare morsus,
cum desiderio meo nitenti
carum nescio quid lubet iocari
et solaciolum sui doloris,
credo ut tum gravis acquiescat ardor:
tecum ludere sicut ipsa possem
et tristis animi levare curas!

Catullus 83, trans. G.P. Goold

Lesbia curses me roundly in front of her husband:
this gives the idiot the greatest pleasure.
Fool, don’t you realize? If ignoring me she said nothing,
she would be cured: as it is, her reviling me proves
not only that I am in her mind, but, much more to the point,
that she is angry. That is, is aflame and so must speak.

Lesbia mi praesente uiro mala plurima dicit:
haec illi fatuo maxima laetitia est.
Mule, nihil sentis? Si nostri oblita taceret,
sana esset: nunc quod gannit et obloquitur,
non solum meminit, sed, quae multo acrior est res,
irata est. Hoc est, uritur et loquitur.

Catullus 85, trans. G.P. Goold

I hate and love. Why I do so, perhaps you ask?
I know not, but I feel it, and am in torment.

Odi et amo. Quare id faciam, fortasse requiris.
nescio, sed fieri sentio et excrucior.

Catullus 50, trans. G.P. Goold

Yesterday, Licinius, with nothing to do
we had much sport on your tablets,
having agreed to enjoy ourselves:
each of us writing pretty verses
took his pleasure now in this metre, now in that
exchanging sallies amid jesting and drinking.
And then I came away from this so excited
by your wit and pleasantry, Licinius,
that neither could food satisfy my poor body
nor sleep veil my eyes in peace,
but with uncontrollable delirium I tossed
all over the bed, longing to see the dawn,
that with you I might talk, that with you I might be.
But when my limbs were worn out with fatigue
and lay half-dead upon the bed,
I composed this poem for you, my dear friend,
that from it you might learn my suffering.
Now beware of being haughty and of scorning
my entreaty, I beg you, bosom pal,
lest Nemesis claim a penalty from you.
She’s an impetuous goddess: beware of offending her.

Hesterno, Licini, die otiosi
multum lusimus in meis tabellis,
ut convenerat esse delicatos:
scribens versiculos uterque nostrum
ludebat numero modo hoc modo illoc,
reddens mutua per iocum atque vinum.
Atque illinc abii tuo lepore
incensus, Licini, facetiisque,
ut nec me miserum cibus iuvaret
nec somnus tegeret quiete ocellos,
sed toto indomitus furore lecto
versarer, cupiens videre lucem,
ut tecum loquerer simulque ut essem.
At defessa labore membra postquam
semimortua lectulo iacebant,
hoc, iucunde, tibi poema feci,
ex quo perspiceres meum dolorem.
Nunc audax cave sis, precesque nostras,
oramus, cave despuas, ocelle,
ne poenas Nemesis reposcat a te.
Est vemens dea: laedere hanc caveto.

Catullus 101, trans. G.P. Goold

After travel over many a land and over many a sea
I have come, brother, for these sad funeral rites,
to present you with death’s last tribute
and speak to your unanswering ashes, though speak in vain,
seeing that fate has robbed me of your living self,
alas, poor brother, so cruelly stolen from me.
But now, naught else availing, take these gifts, which
ancient custom prescribes, a forlorn tribute to the dead;
take them moistened with a brother’s many tears,
and for all time, brother, hail and farewell!

Multas per gentes et multa per aequora vectus
advenio has miseras, frater, ad inferias,
ut te postremo donarem munere mortis
et mutam nequiquam alloquerer cinerem.
quandoquidem fortuna mihi tete abstulit ipsum,
heu miser indigne frater adempte mihi,
nunc tamen interea haec prisco quae more parentum
tradita sunt tristi munere ad inferias,
accipe fraterno multum manantia fletu,
atque in perpetuum, frater, ave atque vale.

Catullus 40, trans. G.P. Goold

What infatuation, lovesick Ravidus,
drives you headlong into my lampoons?
What god invoked by you in an evil hour
makes haste to start the frantic duel?
Is it because you want to be on people’s lips?
What are you after? Do you desire to be known,
no matter how? So you shall be, since you’ve chosen
to love my loved one and be pilloried for ever.

Quaenam te mala mens, miselle Ravide,
agit praecipitem in meos iambos?
Quis deus tibi non bene advocatus
vecordem parat excitare rixam?
An ut pervenias in ora vulgi?
Quis vis? Qualubet esse notus optas?
Eris, quandoquidem meos amores
cum longa voluisti amare poena.

Sources for More Catullus

The majority of the cited translations come from G.P. Goold’s 1983 Catullus, the best version of the poet I’ve seen in English. Originally published in the UK by Duckworth, the book is out-of-print.  Goold, editor of the Loeb Classical Library at the time of his death, is ultra-literalist while retaining a sense of poetic effect. For a solid translation that is readily available, Charles Martin’s Catullus works well.

In 1995, Goold brought out a revised edition of the famously bowdlerized 1924 Loeb Catullus. As with all Loebs, the side-by-side translation is authoritative, literal, and in prose. If you remember any Latin from school, I’d recommend the Loeb with additional commentary (Daniel Garrison’s Student’s Catullus is how I first read the poet. Quinn’s Commentary is helpful as well, especially for its bibliography).

Wheeler’s Catullus and The Traditions of Ancient Poetry is still a trustworthy and enjoyable guide to the poet’s life and work. Martin’s 1992 work is a well-written introduction to Catullus intended for general readers and poetry enthusiasts.

Litmag Roundup

• Todd Boss with “It Is Enough to Enter” in Poetry.
• Natasha Trethewey goes fishing in the New England Review. Her most recent collection is the highly recommended Native Guard.
• Jynne Dilling Martin throws the first fish back (Ploughshares).
• Ricardo Pau-Llosa in the Kenyon Review, “Nicodemus Man.“
• Sensing a nautical theme this week – Sarah Cohen as “Scylla and Charybdis” (Threepenny Review).
• In New American Writing, a longer poem by Mahmoud Darwish, “Counterpoint, for Edward Said.” Trans., Fady Joudah.  It is difficult to read this poem and not be reminded of Adonis’ “Grave for New York.”

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