EARISH is reprinted from a privately printed book containing my homeophonic translations of thirty poems by Paul Celan.  Homeophony = sounds like.  The implication of the title is that one listens to the original other-language poem until one hears the sounds of it as somehow one’s own.  I have played with this on and off since parodying Horace when I was in college, but worked with it seriously only in recent years. The obvious authority comes from Louis Zukofsky’s wonderful hearings of all the poems of Catullus. Yet LZ’s design included giving a more or less ‘real’ translation of the Latin texts while preserving/renewing some sense of the Latin’s sound.  My purpose (here and elsewhere, notably my workings with Hölderlin)  is quite different.  I am setting at naught whatever I may think or even know the original poem ‘means,’ and instead using just the sounds of it (as it sounds in my ears) to batter some sense into my head.  Its new meaning.    The title EARISH clearly says the name of the language we’ll be reading in the book.  But it also ‘translates’ the Celan poem “Irisch” (=Irish), one of the critical poems in any reading of Celan. (And that small poem was itself translated in many versions, mostly into English,  by many poets in Finlay’s two small volumes dedicated just to the poem.)   Note that in this online version of EARISH, the little key numbers referring to the German book and page source of each poem seem to appear before the title of the poem – but in fact they refer in every case to the preceding poem.

EARISH         THIRTY POEMS OF PAUL CELAN         TRANSLATED BY ROBERT KELLY                             MATTER BOOKS ANNANDALE   2006 for Dick Higgins,                                       in memor I am           [First version completed 23 March 2002.  Revised Winter 2005/ 2006] Translator’s Note:  In 2002 I was asked to contribute to Alec Finlay’s edition of translations by several hands of Paul Celan’s poem “Irisch.”  While working on my translation (which duly appeared in the second volume, Irish (2), Edinburgh 2002), I began to work on other dimensions of the poem, then of other Celan poems.  The present homeophonic translations are one result.  By homeophonic translation I mean:  listening to the sound of the [in this case German] poem until you can hear it as English – the result, the poem heard, no doubt ‘says’ a ‘different’ thing from the ‘original.’  Those quoted words are all questionable, more question than answer, I mean.  So here are some of my hearings of Celan poems. They are, in effect, translations into Earish.           A reference in italics at the foot of the page identifies the book in which appears the German original text here heard heading towards English:   at  =  Atemwende f  =  Fadensonnen licht =  Lichtzwang schn = Schneepart zeit = Zeitgehöft   (This edition is not for sale, and is for private distribution only.)     WILD YOU THEN NOTE SHARING FONDEST in the view’s tongue rune the shattered yards hounded a neighbor to rouse and hay run thick – thank him   Feel like it’s a war, dash here the freed of twice failed curb’s rock out tone ― go face them.                                   f 214   THE STREAKER, salt’s washer, clomb the wiser grove’s keynote in dismal gate and knickers off   Off the shudder see grass down even in anchor shot and naked as number dares (ant’s willing) red sail.                                 f 186   EARISH Give me this vague wreck heave her the corn’s teacher to die in his laugh this vague wreck heave her down laugh’s path this wreck that his story’s taken on on hurts hung more gone.                                     f 184   THE TWISTED NINE gone haggled to hill free vexed   the numb unblue sets out   the glaciermilk cart the foal vixen again dour thus swimming the seal ear her unbearable un- brandy                           f 96 SPADE.  Unswam eager fetish buys stitch the sopping foam Christ born,   off gay road fun frost spree kin hipped from womb shy noon neck,   day’s fence star flees off,  where sand rouses,   neat even so bring him the hovel there sign,   I need cup lasting, a deep unafraid walker ― coaches art one seeks there, over Him.                 f 166   DO WARS mean death thick Kant I called them weary of all it unfeels                                                   f 142 DARES OUT A SHOCKED HEADED HEARSE daring she goes feel install earring   groves shy mast forty tiles of   milk sweaters shovel.                                     f 110 ALL DYING SEAGULLS ARE BROKEN?  NAY.   Gay verse ether oak see, the brief haughty elf hoofing took her:   that the well, the hornet fern, the milk knower, when the mood she tours clock be awayed, the clock be dumb mood, weed her,   that she nicked oak then elect throne dear idiot and speak low, the dottle for a biter too for many take a long dying often.           f 80 POE KNOCKS   The unstirred bleak kite’s if a fawn-high hayrick dame fear them in den, she’ll gird a needle key fixed her n’t a Leah dish hinter seek here.                                       f 58     EYING A HIM HILL tempest lock in.  Arm enter knocked it them or it.   The lid’s slack reflex averring the hip begone tomorrow’s two for null.                                   f 118 EDGE LOCKED, edge locked.   When weary at semester’s veering blond cats going we to malls allowing gone to Paris, eye no outgone glued long   though arctic is a steer came again sprung and under crooned emit on his sighing horn or under tease to his tease to.                                 f 174 OFF ENDS, in harm’s boor, kine unend lick her shoe reaming ― a neem cow in the cloister been debts why blue ticker to saying, to summon to some wake shore.                                         at 168 HERB Linda shone height: oak the Amish kite stays full of oaken― door in a trinket, wash the buildings away half heaving them wake, then she came in, door in her lashed what oak dished out the sprocket Fortnum’s with a guest too, the dewy sheen leaves, we ten tense wires wore the outs louder hair best and sighed and needs.                               at 120 STAY IN him, shatter this wonder moss in the loft   firm emend and needs staying. On her can’t fur thick align.   Myth all in woe’s door, in room hot oak own a sparkler.                               at78 WOE? In them, locker mass in the knot.   Imagining all under Sheba in lonesomest uproar, in wise hide his shucked knee.   Was her nod alone? neigh in thinky bornstone shattering to summon ― or came sick deeper in winter, fly.                             at 194 WAGES IN SHATTERING BREAK die on hand.   House the fear finger fork he wheel it mere then first eye inert and say again.                                         at 68   EAR IN AFTER, for gambled her deepen.   Wearish ― ―   Noon you, wearish the ― woeing a blowgunner? ― ash it rousing, ease vista thick tube gliding, like tender growing rich meat deem thick doors waxen tensile her under suit virgin build under men gone soggy and flaccid and dank rice unlike bite her.                   at 216 ASH IN GLORY hinder thine inner shuddered work not eaten hand and on dry vague.   Pontiff’s is iced malts: here, eye in drop fen of them or drunken one ruder blade, deep in first eye nor then swore rushed us off.   (Off the sink wrecked an atom’s isle, damn all’s higher all’s over. twitching why shimmer’s coat wearing the blank tottering mind to us, her off clomb, groovish mission dish and in dish.)   Ash in glory hinder like dry vague hands in.   at 176 HIM ASKING hide a fall seek to go bet each dish off dense incense they give al- legiance shadowing us to myth-leaked tongue.                                           schn 108 SHH! LEWDER, a smart slog her nicked in his gazes, air whoosh dear the sending of her hymn wise and down even.                                           schn 112 CALL CROCUS, in hell worth an eye stick brief griped as form door to endow door hair, unspoiled bar,   Spring stuff a lecturing dear to the Delhi design hill of tines, a flock also sick here rose,   in the found graven start seek the mould out.                       schn 148 FOR MINE whether like tin destiny combed the hand to stay, myth dare to dear heave hers oak forest,   eye in clearing hold seek a vista sight in Christ, and each soak humans why,   monk’s mall frolic steers the hymnal uncertain share being for us.                     zeit 164 EYE ON STEEPLE FOLD her in linden rage and kestrel:   a sphere dying gazing, eye grows us, white evil done wrenching, dizzy us seeing.                                           zeit 186 EACH DRINK WINE out’s why glazers unsuck her on the coy knee’s seizure Vienna on bend her,   got gift the steam gavel off as eye on the climbing erect one,   owes the low stream mill failed underdied.                             zeit 188 UNLICKED AT they came, he did each in deer or swarm,   fly Garuda art the known one ― see, be far on the engine,   eye in seeking spoke, horn, balled each sore wetter feeling in forced.                             zeit 196 WORD’S AXLE by dense of dancing: gate to suitor, she leads each on, by fair shall all of them earth lick,   each here, a fear faring eye him melts you vex, dust blows to be wiser, faun over her, on unsure word sailing long,   it’s why sun’s a gift herd to you, why, on each eye know― you want?                     zeit 198 BACK ON summer, neckings the hooks are full on finger and on light stroll fear in, then eye an un- flickering word’s deer   back on my stair.                                   licht 18 BILE’S WARMER heaving us   grace breaker myth, tilling ax tenon thief land―   in sail flow or do myth-dirty evil name building half noon.                                   licht 24 TREAD MEANING of dying, linking Monday, Saturn.   Share bone for sea gull the unloaf banning doored drowsing   Ace missed yet the hour can, bleak sighing fear eye naked right— go born.                                   licht 10   ANGER IMPELLED by faun gone from eye on the lass: greened and shore up, shore up and greened.   In this laugh’s wretched gain, o eye mill.                                             licht 14