giselle wrote:This is a great poem, Saffron, thanks. It’s a bit sad that often we seem to hear about the great work people have done only when they pass away. This poem reminded me of creatures that have the ability to lop off bits of their body as a defense mechanism, I didn’t realize that this is called ‘autotomy (below). Also, I found out that there is a whole body of haiku poetry about the sea cucumber, I guess partly because of ‘autotomy’ and partly because it is popular Japanese cuisine!

“Autotomy (from the Greek auto = "self-" and tomy = "severing") or self amputation is the act whereby an animal severs one or more of its own appendages,[1] usually as a self-defense mechanism designed to elude a predator's grasp. The lost body part may be regenerated later.” Wikipedia

Thanks for posting the definition. Hey, if you want to listen to the radio piece I heard on Wislawa Szymborska here is the link - it's a good spot.

http://www.npr.org/2012/02/02/146281183 ... dies-at-88

Here is an excerpt about the poem Autotomy from the NPR website:

The sea cucumber can become two parts, one living, one dead. Szymborska compares this to the way in which writers have long argued that when they died, their work would live on — granting them a kind of immortality. But Szymborska is skeptical. She doesn't think anyone exists outside of time, or that writing poetry is a matter of falling on the right side of an abyss. As she puts it in the poem's conclusion:


Here the heavy heart, there non omnis moriar — (translation: I shall not wholly die)
Just three little words, like a flight's three feathers.

The abyss doesn't divide us.
The abyss surrounds us.

The ending of the poem could seem grim. After all, she's suggesting that there is, in the end, no way to cheat time. But if that's the case — if we can't continually evade death — then this is at least something we all share. It's no surprise that her poem is dedicated to the memory of one of her friends.

Is the title of the poem "Autotomy," then? On pasted-in webpage, it's "Autonomy." Is it also a translation? It appears somehow to have been written in English. But if not it's certainly a fine translation.

DWill wrote:Is the title of the poem "Autotomy," then? On pasted-in webpage, it's "Autonomy." Is it also a translation? It appears somehow to have been written in English. But if not it's certainly a fine translation.

My oops; it is Autotomy or maybe it was a mistake on the webpage I copied it from (why am I so quick to take blame?!). It was written in Polish. It definately works in English; still wish I could understand it in Polish - to see how it sounds.

Interesting point, DWill. I took the poem title as literally 'Autonomy' (with its attendant meaning) but 'autonomy' is awfully close to 'autotomy', which has a clearer meaning in the context of the poem. Strangely, 'autonomy' could also be an appropriate title in a way ... that is, referring to the 'autonomous', severed limb or whatever .. ? Strange crossover of meaning between two closely related words that are also spelled and pronounced similarly. Bit of a riddle.

Talking about excellent translations of poetry between languages, which seems an amazing feat to me because so much depends on sound and aliteration in poetry:-

Recently, it was Burn's Night and on the TV was a lovely Scots comedian who recited the address to the Haggis, which begins:

Fair fa' your honest, sonsie face,
Great chieftain o' the puddin-race!
Aboon them a' ye tak your place,
Painch, tripe, or thairm:
Weel are ye wordy of a grace
As lang's my arm.

Apparently, the Germans' translated this into their language and then back into English and for 'Great chieftain o' the puddin-race!' they had 'Great fuhrer of the sausage people!'

Penelope wrote:for 'Great chieftain o' the puddin-race!' they had 'Great fuhrer of the sausage people!'

youkrst wrote:

Penelope wrote:for 'Great chieftain o' the puddin-race!' they had 'Great fuhrer of the sausage people!'

Penelope wrote: Apparently, the Germans' translated this into their language and then back into English and for 'Great chieftain o' the puddin-race!' they had 'Great fuhrer of the sausage people!'

Penny: That is lol funny ... one can just about picture these two .. the chieftain and the fuhrer --- side by side with their puddin and sausage. I guess puddin is a fair description of haggis (not sure?) but sausage? Interesting thing about translations is that they illustrate how meaning is not just derived from words/language but from cultural context as well. So when a poem or other work is translated it is really travelling back and forth between cultural settings as well as between languages. In this case, the funnier part of this translation may result principally from the cultural shift.

I love listening to foreign tongues, even when I don't know what they are saying. I am usually able to discern from where on the globe they originate. Although I did hear a couple talking in our local co-op checkout queue a year or two ago and I was so intrigued that I had to ask them what language they were speaking and where they were from.....It was Mongolia. That language didn't sound like any other to me.

I love listening to opera in Italian, because I usually know the English translation of the arias. I once went to a cathedral in Brittany and listened to the Communion service in French...that was lovely since the words in English were so familiar to me. I do speak French fairly well, but of course the church service is in an archaic form. When we went to Crete, I spoke some of my minute smattering of schoolgirl Greek and the people fell about laughing - apparently it was ancient Greek.



I thought this was funny

Windows is Shutting Down by Clive James

The Guardian, Saturday April 30 2005


Windows is shutting down, and grammar are
On their last leg. So what am we to do?
A letter of complaint go just so far,
Proving the only one in step are you.


Better, perhaps, to simply let it goes.
A sentence have to be screwed pretty bad
Before they gets to where you doesnt knows
The meaning what it must of meant to had.


The meteor have hit. Extinction spread,
But evolution do not stop for that.
A mutant languages rise from the dead
And all them rules is suddenly old hat.


Too bad for we, us what has had so long
The best seat from the only game in town.
But there it am, and whom can say its wrong?
Those are the break. Windows is shutting down.