He whispered to me:
Beautiful Beaklet! Black fairy! Little one!

Three poems by Radek Fridrich translated from the Czech and with an introduction by Jonathan Bolton.

Bolton photo CircumferenceFridrich photo CircumferenceAlthough his 2011 collection Krooa krooa won the Magnesia Litera for poetry, one of the Czech Republic’s major literary prizes, Radek Fridrich stands somewhat apart from the literary culture of Prague. His hometown of Děčín, on the Czech-German border, is closer to Dresden than to Prague, and his verse draws closely on its local legends and landscape – the area is well-known for its phantasmagoric sandstone rock formations, like the ones where the narrator of “Vogelbird” wanders. Fridrich’s poetry also reflects the mixed Czech-German culture that existed there for centuries, until World War II and the expulsion of Germans from Czechoslovakia. Fridrich covers this territory with great passion and energy, drawing on ballads, incantations, and folk legends (he has also published a book of folk tales collected in Děčín and its environs) to create a powerful voice that mixes the impish and the oracular.

A translator himself, Fridrich speaks German and his verse is sprinkled with German words, as well as with neologisms that mix Czech and German etymology. For his 2001 collection The Speech of the Dead, he first fashioned German poems drawing on the memories of German-speaking inhabitants of a village near Děčín, and then published them alongside Czech versions (which he called “textual variants” rather than literal translations). The “ghost” of the German language haunts much of Fridrich’s Czech verse, with effects that are not always translatable. For example, the “drop of mourning” at the end “The Old Church Path” is, in the original, kapka traurigu, “a drop of traurig” – the German adjective traurig (mournful, sad) here declined as a Czech noun, with the genitive ending -u, in a multiple displacement that will nevertheless be immediately understandable to most Czech readers. I thought it would be too clumsy to recreate this in translation, since a German word in an English poem would feel far more foreign than in the Czech original; I hoped the German names in the previous stanzas would do the work of locating this poem in a Czech-German cultural landscape. Fridrich’s verse is full of such effects – another is the title “Vogelka,” adding the Czech feminine ending –ka to the masculine German noun Vogel, “bird,” in a construction that would colloquially mean “Vogel’s wife,” but here more strongly suggests simply a nickname – “Bird” or “Birdie” – that encompasses both Czech and German roots.

Another fascinating challenge in translating Fridrich was registering his sudden shifts from the mundane to the magical, from the literal to the grotesque, from impassioned intensity to playful humor – and maintaining the careful balance among these different registers. “The Old Church Path,” once we have overcome our initial confusion and delighted in the poem’s central trick, modulates skillfully from anaesthetized beauty through slapstick to the pathos of the final (and first) stanza. A mood of confused tragedy underlies the whole; as so often in Fridrich, the effect is not to undermine feeling but to strengthen it, with the reversal of stanzas reminding us of the fragility of genuine pathos.

Fridrich ranges freely over lyric, epic, and dramatic genres. He is particularly at home in the dramatic monologue, whether prose poem or verse. But many of his dramatic monologues, like the two I have translated here, have a ballad at their core. In “Snow-Covered House,” the balladic action – a violent death, whether murder or suicide – is refracted through the eyes of a schoolgirl, who seems almost abandoned in a world of absent and surrogate parents. The poem is about her loss of innocence, but at its horrifying climax, there is a moment of simultaneous distraction and intense focus – “To this day I remember every groove and knot in the wooden door.” It’s a fine instance of aesthetic displacement that takes us out of a ballad into the more “psychological” world of the monologue, without losing the force of a balladic world where violence is drastic and sudden. In “Vogelbird,” a romance with undertones of anger and violence again reminds us of the ballad, as do traces of the supernatural; but unlike the ballad with its elemental psychology and unclear motivations, we see into the mind of the heroine and her contradictory impulses. Fridrich thereby relativizes the mysterious pathos of a ballad, but still preserves a sense of wonder and passion – he helps us see the speaker in all her confusion without letting us feel superior to her.

– Jonathan Bolton

Stará kostelní cesta

by Radek Fridrich

 

V

Víko, již tak lehce uvolněné pádem na zem,

se nahnulo na levou stranu a pak se celé sesulo.

Tvář mrtvé Theresie Kleinpeter zírala

do šedomodrého zimního nebe.

 

IV

S pěnivým hřmotem padala do jejích drobných vln

a vzápětí plula po proudu,

nabrala rychlost a narazila na kámen

vypouklý v zrcadle řeky.

 

III

Rakev se dala v nejužší části rokle do pohybu,

řítila se skalnatým tobogánem,

jela po čistém a zledovatělém sněhu

přímo do srdce nezamrzlé divé řeky Kamnitz.

 

II

Snad uklouzl Anton Dinnebier,

jenž nesl rakev vpředu vlevo, snad zakopl o zmrzlou větev

Franz Hieke a Franz Kessler s Karlem Hegenbergerem

již nestačili situaci zachránit.

 

I

Zima, smuteční procesí, mráz a pláč, ženy zahaleny

do černých plédů a kabátců, muži

v kabátech havraních, schoulení, vousatí, sehnutí,

z šedých očí občas odkápne kapka traurigu.

 

 

from Molchloch (Newttown, 2004)

The Old Church Road

by Radek Fridrich

V

The lid, already loosened by the fall to the ground,

flopped to the left and then broke off completely.

The face of the dead Theresie Kleinpeter gazed

up into the blue-gray winter sky.

 

IV 

Into its rippling waves it fell, with a frothy rumble,

and then floated off with the current.

Picking up speed, it hit a rock

bulging from the river’s mirror.

 

III

In the narrowest part of the ravine, the coffin began to move.

It rushed down the rocky slide, 

racing over the clean and icy snow

right into the heart of the Kamnitz, the wild, unfrozen river.

 

II

Maybe it was Anton Dinnebier who slipped

as he carried the coffin’s front left corner, maybe a frozen branch tripped up

Franz Hieke, and Franz Kessler and Karel Hegenberger

could not rescue the situation.

 

I

Winter, the funeral procession, frost and tears, the women draped

in black woolen scarves and jackets, the men

in raven coats, huddled, bearded, hunched,

a drop of mourning dropping, now and then, from their gray eyes.

 

 

from Molchloch (Newttown, 2004)

translated from Czech by Jonathan Bolton
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Zasněžený dům: Mluví Amalia Richter

by Radek Fridrich

Otce odvedli do války a starší bratry taky. Zima byla třeskutá, nad střechami domů se vznášely rovné stuhy dýmů, do školy jsme každý nosili jedno polínko do kamen, abychom se zahřáli. Učitel byl hodný, moc nás nemlátil, ale rákosku měl po ruce pořád. Jednou padal celé dopoledne sníh a já se vracela na oběd. Cestu k našemu domu jsem poznala jen podle zpola zavátých planěk plotu, došla jsem ke dveřím, vzala za kliku a … byly na závoru. Bouchala jsem a křičela: Mami! Otevři! Mami!

    Dodnes si pamatuji všechny rýhy a suky na dřevěných dveřích, i to, jak matku vynášeli sousedi celou od krve z domu a pokládali ji na vůz. Odnesli mě v mdlobách, hladovou a zmrzlou k tetě na noc, u ní jsem pak zůstala, dokud se otec nevrátil z fronty.

 

 

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from Nebožky / Selige (Departed Women, 2011)

Snow-covered house: Amalia Richter is speaking

by Radek Fridrich

They took my father off to the war, and my older brothers too. The winter was bitter cold, ribbons of smoke rose vertically over the roofs of the houses, each of us carried a log for the school stove to keep ourselves warm. The teacher was kind and didn’t beat us much, but he always had his cane to hand. Once it had been snowing all morning and I was coming back for lunch. I recognized the path to our house only by the rough-hewn fence posts, half covered in snow. I reached the door, pulled on the handle and … it was bolted shut. I pounded and screamed: Mama! Open up! Mama!

    To this day I remember every groove and knot in the wooden door, as well as the neighbors carrying out my mother, she was covered in blood, and placing her on the wagon. They carried me off, dazed, hungry, frozen, to spend the night at my aunt’s. I stayed with her until my father came back from the front.

 

 

from Nebožky / Selige (Departed Women, 2011)
translated from Czech by Jonathan Bolton
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Vogelka

by Radek Fridrich

Mám orlí nos a úzký obličej

a říkají mi – Vogelka.

 

Můj manžel nic od života nechtěl,

byl hodný a němý,

ale dvě děti jsem s ním měla.

 

Courala jsem s nimi ve skalním městě.

Děti prolézaly lochy skal,

sbíraly klacíky a šnečí ulity.

Já hledala bludný koření,

avšak místo něj se zjevil on,

uhrančivý krhavec,

který zlomil mé zpustlé srdce.

 

Scházeli jsme se v noci,

když manžel spal,

a milovali se ostřicí pořezaní po celém těle.

Křičela jsem tak šíleně,

že ptáci vyplašeně poskakovali

na okolních stromech.

 

Šeptal mi:

Zobáčku! Černá vílo! Maličká!

 

Měla jsem vždy lesklou mázdru

kolem svých hnědých očí,

když jsem se s ním ráno loučila.

 

Jak to tak bývá u ohnivých znamení,

vášeň brzy vystřídala
zlost.

Jakou silou mě k sobě

připoutal?

Jakými čáry uhranul?

Jakým právem si mě

přivlastnil?

A do skal jsem už nešla.

 

Často jsem pak slyšela jeho táhlé,

kvílivé volání.

Uši si zacpávala

láskyplnou hrůzou

a ve svém těle uzamkla

zurčivý pramen,

který ve mně probudil.

 

Navěky však budu slyšet

ta šeptaná, skalnatá slova:

Zobáčku! Černá vílo! Maličká!

 

 

from Nebožky / Selige (Departed Women, 2011)

Vogelbird

by Radek Fridrich

I have an eagle’s nose and a narrow face

and they call me – Vogelbird.

 

My husband demanded nothing from life,

he was kind and mute,

but I had two children with him.

 

I wandered with them among the sandstone cliffs.

The children crawled through holes in the rocks,

gathering up sticks and snail shells.

I was looking for a Root of Bewilderment,

but he appeared instead.

His watery, bewitching eyes

broke my abandoned heart.

 

We would meet at night

while my husband slept,

and we made love, our bodies covered in cuts from the sharp sedge.

I cried out so madly

the frightened birds hopped about

in the surrounding trees.

 

He whispered to me:

Beautiful Beaklet! Black fairy! Little one!

 

A shiny glaze always

covered my brown eyes

when I parted with him in the morning.

 

As tends to happen with fiery signs,

passion soon gave way

to wrath.

With what force did he

bind me to him?

With what enchantments did he bewitch me?

By what right did he

take possession of me?

And I stopped walking among the rocks.

 

Often I would hear his drawn-out,

howling call.

I plugged up my ears

with a loving horror

and locked up in my body

the bubbling spring

he awakened in me.

 

Forever will I hear

those whispered words of stone:

Beautiful Beaklet! Black fairy! Little one!

 

 

from Nebožky / Selige (Departed Women, 2011)

 

translated from Czech by Jonathan Bolton
more>>

Outside:
The entire dead ocean, emptying itself

ZURITA-COVER-FINAL

 

Two poems from The Country of Planks / El País de Tablas by Raúl Zurita, translated by Daniel Borzutzky. Available now from Action Books. 

 

Prisión carguero Lebu

by Raúl Zurita

 

 

PRISIÓN CARGUERO LEBU

-El país de tablas-

 

 

Cristo Rey, recuerdo que era algo

así: arriba la escotilla dejaba ver

el primer morado del cielo y

alguien maldecía el ronroneo de

los generadores. Adentro, otros

cuerpos; nubes de carne tiradas

como sacos. Afuera el nombre

del barco recostado contra el alba

 

OSTENDE NOBIS DOMINE

MISERICORDIAM TUAM

 

Afuera:

Todo el océano muerto vaciándose

 

 

Y el océano se partía al medio vaciándose y los peces se 

amontonaban en la noche como cerros resecos 

 

Y el tajo del mar se hacía cada vez más hondo y la noche 

se iba pariendo para adentro como un pez que se traga a 

sí mismo   sí: como peces tragándose

 

Como marejadas tragándose   cuando arrastrados por la 

resaca vimos el país de tablas venírsenos encima   Son 

las resacas de la noche: grita mi compañero mirando las  

pesqueras como ciudades    Somos la pesca   le replican 

los prisioneros   mutilados de piernas y brazos   como 

montañas de peces contorneándose en la asfixiada noche

 

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Cargo Ship Lebu Prison

by Raúl Zurita

 

 

CARGO SHIP LEBU PRISON

-The country of planks-

 

 

Christ the king, I remember it was

something like that:  the sky’s first 

purple could be seen through the  

hatchway and someone cursed

the purring of the generators. 

Inside,  other bodies; clouds of flesh

scattered like sacs.  Outside the name 

of the ship leaned against the dawn

 

OSTENDE NOBIS DOMINE

MISERICORDIAM TUAM

 

Outside:

The entire dead ocean, emptying itself 

 

 

And the ocean parted in the middle emptying itself and the fish

piled up in the night like dried up hills

 

And the open wound of the sea each moment deepened and the 

night was birthing inwards like a fish that swallows itself    yes:

like fish swallowing themselves

 

Like sea swells swallowing themselves    when we were dragged by 

the undertow we saw the country of planks come on top 

of us   They are the undertows of the night:  my compañero 

screams as he looks out at the fishing boats that are like cities      

We are the catch reply the prisoners   legs and arms mutilated   

like mountains of fish twisting in the asphyxiated night  

translated from Spanish by Daniel Borzutzky
more>>

Prisión carguero Maipo

by Raúl Zurita

 

 

PRISIÓN CARGUERO MAIPO

-Empalizados farellones-

 

 

El bramido del inmenso Pacífico

resonaba como si quisiera decir

algo mientras que más abajo,

amontonados como sacos en la

bodega del buque carguero Maipo,

yo abrazaba el dolor de un otro y

aún me parecía sentir los pájaros

sobrevolando la playa. Sí, yo oí

al otro en las rocas y la arena

muerta caía sobre ellas como

tus ojos jamás vistos cubriéndolas

 

- Bahía de Valparaíso/

  1973. Prisiones

 

 

Y así seguía el descenso   encallado entre sus muertos el 

carguero Maipo reaparecerá en el desierto 

 

Y al lado los mismos farellones rugientes del mar   uno 

frente al otro   altos   tempestuosos   mostrando arriba la 

angosta franja del cielo 

 

Cuando todo el frente de la muerte entró en el mar como 

un continente en las furiosas aguas   Son las mareas 

golpeando los empalizados farellones de Chile   repiten 

los prisioneros del Maipo mirándolas   Los cargamos 

replica la escuadra de tablas arrastrándolos entre los 

acantilados del Pacifico   nudosos   ciegos   llevándoselos

 

Maipo Cargo Ship Prison

by Raúl Zurita

 

 

MAIPO CARGO SHIP PRISON

-Palisaded crests-

 

 

The bellowing of the immense Pacific 

resonated as if it wanted to say 

something while further down we were

piled on top of each other like sacs

in the bodega of the Maipo cargo ship.

I embraced the pain of an other and

I thought I still sensed the birds flying 

over the beach.  Yes, I heard the other in 

the rocks and dead sand fell over them 

like your unseen eyes covering them  

 

Valparaiso Bay/

1973. Prisons

 

 

That’s how the descent continued    shipwrecked between  

its dead the Maipo cargo ship will reappear in the desert 

 

And next to it those same roaring crests of the sea    one

in front of the other    tall    tempestuous    revealing  

above the narrow strip of the sky

 

When all of death’s front entered the sea like a continent 

in the furious waters    They are the tides pounding the 

palisaded crests of Chile    repeat the prisoners of the

Maipo as they look at them    We carried them replied

the plank squadrons dragging them between the cliffs

of the Pacific    knotted    blind     taking them away 

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translated from Spanish by Daniel Borzutzky
more>>
 
 Cover design by Andrew Shuta.