Today, my colleague Bruce Dean Willis is qarrtsiluning—sitting with his friend and collaborator José Carlos Limeira in the darkness, waiting for Love and Light in Brazil to burst.
As I listened to them performing the poems, “Apagões” (“Blackouts”) and “Mágica” (“Enchantment”), I had significantly different impressions:
The Portuguese reading instantly built a stage in my ears. Its vigor, zeal, intransigence, accelerated pace, and abrupt breaks reminded me of an ambitious and committed politician’s speeches in a historic campaign. Moreover, I heard from time to time multiple voices, as if the speaker acted out a dialogue scene.
In contrast, the English reading sounded softer, subtler, cooler, and more introverted to me. Instead of an iron pot of boiling water (if not oil) on the stove, this version gradually developed in my mind an image of a quiet, patient, and seemingly apathetic pond stocked with reflections, mysteries, and ambiguities.
A question to all who are as blind to Chinese as I am to Portuguese: How different are your first impressions of Vic and my readings of Feng Zhi’s poetry?
Huiwen,
ReplyDeleteI've been reading your blog today (I loved your post about meeting Yevtushenko!), and was thinking about your question regarding the translations and readings of Chinese poems that you and Vic did together, and then comparing to the readings of the Portuguese poems that Bruce did. I listened to yours once more to refresh my memory and was really struck by how lyrical and passionate your own reading was. I confess that I hadn't listened as closely the first time as I had to Vic's reading in English but on hearing it again, I enjoyed yours very much, even though I couldn't understand the words aurally, instead reading the English translation as I listened. As an actor, the sound of words is so crucial for me; the metre, how the words flow, how the verse crescendos and then diminishes, building dramatic tension at times, and then (sometimes) resolving it. Reading a poem aloud is always an exciting challenge for an actor, I think; you have so few words with which to tell the story, create the image.