Wring out the Poet
How very strange are the writings of Boris Pasternak. I hadn't realised just how strange until I began to read Ronald Hingley's biography. Here's his translation from Spring:
Poetic Art! Become a sponge,
Sucker festooned. I'll spread you
Mid gluey foliage on green
Garden's bench's sodden plank.
Sprout florid ruffs and farthingales,
Ingest yon clouds and canyons.
And nightly, poetry, I'll wring you out
For thirsty paper's good.
It's strange in the Stallworthy and France translation, which I'd forgotten, but not so far out as this. For long having only known Doctor Zhivago I didn't understand the enthusiasm of Frank O'Hara and Co for Pasternak; it didn't quite fit, somehow. It's obvious now. And the Martian poetry of Craig Raine: Pasternak in an Oxbridge accent?
Poetic Art! Become a sponge,
Sucker festooned. I'll spread you
Mid gluey foliage on green
Garden's bench's sodden plank.
Sprout florid ruffs and farthingales,
Ingest yon clouds and canyons.
And nightly, poetry, I'll wring you out
For thirsty paper's good.
It's strange in the Stallworthy and France translation, which I'd forgotten, but not so far out as this. For long having only known Doctor Zhivago I didn't understand the enthusiasm of Frank O'Hara and Co for Pasternak; it didn't quite fit, somehow. It's obvious now. And the Martian poetry of Craig Raine: Pasternak in an Oxbridge accent?
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