I chose a doozy of a prompt (Read Write Poetry) for my first submission. We were to take a poem in an unfamiliar foreign language OR one of our own poems translated (online) into a foreign language AND THEN transliterate it–give it meaning based on how it looks, not its true translation. I chose the second option, and translated then transliterated one of my own poems. There is a bit of profanity. I don’t intend to offend; it just suited the transliteration. I’m not completely satisfied with my result, but it was fun (and work) and there are some good bits in it. For more poetry, try Jingle‘s Thursday Poet’s Rally. My poem is a pretty good match for the prompt at One Single Impression, so I’ll be posting it there too.
Bedlam Beldame
Core no wretched note.
Tithe no kissed hand, that’s a
pink, ya fuck. I know kids at old
assume woe. Boo . . . not my Jake. Keyed up with sores. Na, you ain’t done.
I don’t know, Sue. Sucka’s no guy’s guys. Yeah you, gore-gal, are master.
It’s a no-gripe woe. He fooled no eye in the pits.
Hits you, right? It’s true.
Shriek? Gee, whoa . . . shy, she’s too shy. Yo’ cab sir.
Hot in hand could take the night,
age at any man united to a cross.
Say sure-nuff, my, my. No way. The moon must kiss.
Soon genie foot could be a knee . . . catch a tale spell.
What a shite! A sewer gone to cacophony.
Take master no bluebonnets, no calumny.
My door peak? No hint. Whoa, no shit. A near holy roll, no
shear couch, no cougar mockingbirds.
Seraph-yoke woke her shy miss.
What does she want? Coke or caring hands?
Care not. No sugar. Caring not deadens.
When ten go cruisin’ nowhere, mad guys couldn’t work Monday night.
Must a shut the key.
I’m more khaki-war zooed. You okay? Subtle . . . no coat to wash–it’s torn.
Care fo watcha been? Now in the pits, to a gin soaked name woke up.
She’s in woe.
Ah, you foot the tab, couldn’t you?
Couldn’t you Zen? What a Sugar Honey! Call mirror couldn’t give anymore.
Cut. No problem. New kiss.
wow brilliant poem, very understandable, great imagery, good rally poem
william,
Thank you for visiting and leaving a comment. I’m glad you enjoyed Bedlam Beldame. You see more in it than I do, but maybe I’m still too close to it. It was a difficult poetic exercise. Visit again whenever you like. You are most welcome.
wow. brilliant…
Brian,
Thank you for visiting and leaving a comment. I’m pleased that you liked Bedlam Beldame. It was a difficult poetic exercise, and I have grown through it. Visit again whenever you like.
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Wow! Chaos and then some. You really went after it. Nice job
moondustwriter,
Love your name! Thanks for coming by and giving Bedlam a read. I must confess, I read that poem and like it somedays, but most of the time I want to change it. I’m glad you enjoyed it. Thank you again for visiting. Please come again sometime.
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Profanity smofanity…:) Seriously, this reads to me either like a crowd of jumbled conversation or someone flipping channels late at night. I had to read through it twice to really get it. Great effort on the prompt this week.
-Nicole
Nicole,
Honestly, I have to read it through more than once to get it, and I wrote it. Thank you for your perseverance in reading and for your encouragement. Hope to see you again.
Thank you for visiting and leaving a comment.
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All right! Actually, I know a few, lesliepaints and blissbait, and jingle, too, of course.
Thank you!!!
What an amazing technical exercise you took on! Like others readers, I enjoyed reading the piece out loud. The results of the transliteration were colloquial, colorful and engaging. An inspired entry for “chaos”, self induced bedlam (an all to familiar state).
gabrielle,
Thanks again for the visit. Come again.
Thank you for visiting and commenting. It was quite the exercise. I definitely think it works better aloud. Reading aloud is one thing I often over look in my usual writing. This exercise was a great reminder of its importance. Familiar with bedlam too, are you?
Yeah, brilliant! I bet you had fun doing this!
ps…hope to read more of your poetry
first…Yousei Hime is a poem allllll by itself…soooooo beautiful. Your poem is great…and ALLLL words are colorful…just more colorful when used in the right way…although in poetry i dont think right or wrong applies. i just use all or any word i feel fits…so thanks for sharing your words…and cheers
wayne,
Flattery feels so good. Seriously, thanks for the visit and the comment. Glad you liked the poem. It was a tough exercise, but I learned from it. That makes it worth the effort. You are welcome back any time.
This is great! I love the way you capture the sense of dialogue, of spoken language.
nathan,
Thank you for visiting and the comment. This exercise was definitely out of my comfort zone, but it was fun. Hope you’ll come by again.
Thank you for your advice! Unfortunately, I cannot use the tag surfer because there is a problem and many blogs marked “mature” show up for some reason, when my tags are stuff like “Life, Fashion, etc.” My mom has to look at any person’s blog before I visit the first time, so I usually just visit friends in this circle, like you, blissbait, lesliepaints, and a few others. Thank you! I hope your students are behaving! (You’re a teacher… right?)
Tacy,
I don’t teach right now. I’m an at-home mom with to academically lazy boys. I have to stay on them constantly just to keep them eligible for their sports. Ugh. Glad you’re a good student! Hug your mom!
I understand. If you want, I can recommend sites and your mother can approve/disapprove of them. There are several poetry sites in my blogroll that should be ok. Let me know if you’d like a list to start with, and I’ll put one together.
Your poem rocks. I love the rhythm and energy in the lines. Read Write Poem is great. I love Dana’s work and prompts. This one is especially interesting. I’ll have to give it a try. I like how you do your own translation.
Cousin Julie,
So glad you like it. I didn’t translate my poem to Japanese myself. My Japanese is rudimentary. I used an online translator. I’m not certain of how accurately it was translated, but the whole writing exercise was fun. Do give it a try! I recommend choosing German, Spanish, French, or Italian–something you don’t know, but might have a better chance of “making sense.” Let me know how it turns out.
Your welcome, and thank YOU! I think I would have quit wordpress by now if it weren’t for you. For a little while there on my blog, only you and a few occasional visitors came. Now there are so many more wonderful people coming! Thank YOU so much. I can’t thank you enough!!!
Tacy,
You are most welcome. I’ve found that if you visit other blogs and leave a comment, most bloggers will return the visit at least once. Use your Tag Surfer feature to find blogs you really like. Then use your Blog Surfer to follow them. Your story is really good. I’m enjoying reading it. Keep up the good work.
Interesting way you translated then re-translated it , I will have to try this and see how my own poetry comes out.
What languages did you use?
It was a little confusing; I had to re-read to find the flow.
Still, I found it somewhat musical in a beat nick way:
“Hot in hand could take the night,
age at any man united to a cross.”
Gerardine Baugh
http://gerardinebaugh.wordpress.com/
gbaugh,
Thank you for your visit and comment. I thing the translate/re-translate option were in the original instructions. Leave it to me to choose something that requires more work. I used Japanese. It certainly made the transliteration harder. Sorry for the confusion. I felt the same way when writing it; it was a tricky exercise. I made content/word changes away from original transliteration in the final draft, trying to pull themes and images together. I was reluctant to make too many changes because that seemed like I would be ignoring the exercise. It is probably better read out loud, especially having such a conversational style. There are parts I like, and much I don’t. I think it’s redeemable. Thanks again for your visit and honest, helpful comments.
profanity, eh? tsk. tsk. (cough) i’m kinda partial to profanity when it provides that perfect release. it just says what needs saying sometimes. but it’s difficult to make it work in poetry. and you did that well here. this is quite a tumble of words, of images and of impressions. a very provocative piece in general. it refuses to be pinned down and yet…its in the grit of the earth. i like!
Cuz,
Nice to know you think the colorful language works in the poem. I like your analogy “grit of the earth.” Someone suggested it worked better for them out loud. I bet it does. Thanks for reading it and leaving me encouragement.
This work is an eclectic collaboration of slang. Like the urban dictionary in poetic form.
Hi Nekochan!
It does have a lot of slang, right? I’m gaining more confidence in the poem as nice comments come in, but overall, I still don’t like it very much. That’s probably because I’m used to more control over the words and content. It was a fun exercise though.
This poem gave me the sense of listening in on a conversation a woman is having amongst her various selves. I like the fact that kisses run through this poem, and that it ends with one. Congratulations to you, Yousei, for making such a vibrant poem from such a tough prompt. It seems to me you picked the harder of the options they gave, too. I don’t know whether I’d be able to transliterate my own poem without ending up saying what I’d said in the first place. Powerful work. So different from your lovely haiku.
MadelineD,
Thank you for visiting and commenting. Please come by any time.
Good catch on the internal conversations. I had the same impression when I was writing it. The “kiss” throughout the poem seemed to be one of the few things that united it. They help it, and the ending is my favorite part. I translated my poem to Japanese, so it was unlikely to look anything like my original poem. That made it more difficult than using a Romance language. I’ll probably stick with haiku mostly.
Sometimes, in writing, profanity just fits the mold. This is one of those times! Usually I am not a big fan of cussing, especially in literature, but this really does complete the poem. I imagine two men, having a conversation. Don’t worry, you’re not being rude to anyone. That’s when cussing bothers me, when people cuss AT people. I hear a lot of that stuff every day at school. It’s a shame that kids cuss. It’s tacky when eleven year olds cuss, it really is. But you know, you’re writing about adults. So, you know. It’s just part of the poem.
Other than that, i love this poem! You really are a natural writer. Rock on!
Tacy,
You are such a delight. You have really encouraged me. Thank you, my young friend.
HI Yousei;
I could see some chaos in your poem, and the poem itself seems to be written in chaos and yeah, I smiled, I laughed on some or most lines.
And what type is it? Quite an invention dear!
Great!
Amity,
Lol, the poem is filled with chaos, right? There is no particular type, outside of free verse. Glad you liked it. Thanks for visiting and commenting.
love the energy in this piece. it is non-stop. i like it.
what profanity?.
Thats called everyday language.
imagine how many times i swear in a busy service at work.
but you did right to warn.
As some people wont appreciate it.
.
As for the poem.
i loved it.
And bedlam is so fitting
Kokot,
So glad you liked it. Every new comment makes me feel a bit better about the poem. I really appreciate your visit and encouragement. Here’s to clouds in the bomb’s smoke.
O’kay. I think I understand how you did this. I don’t think the purpose was to come up with a clear picture of what it was about. But, crazy as I am, I am getting a conversation out of this. I read it aloud four times. It sounds like a conversation. I’m getting a street lingo out of it like how I imagine people talk when they come from another country and mingle their language with ours. I like it. I like it alot.
Hi Leslie,
I’m really glad you like it.
I so agree with you. It felt like conversation to me too. I bet it works better out loud than in my head. I like the slang. It was such a crazy mix, I had to title it, in part, Bedlam.
The poem has a fierce energy and very much its own voice. Sound is such an important element in verse and sometimes ‘good sound’ renders meaning the lesser priority.
I’m a little taken aback at the squeamishness expressed about profanity. We’re poets, for crying out loud. The world and its ways, sacred and profane, constitute our territory and its words are our currency. Is a painter going to decide against the use of black on a canvas because of its associations with death?
Dick,
Thank you so much for your visit and encouraging comment. It is a relief to know so many people feel this poem works on some levels. It definitely has energy. That I always felt.
As far as profanity goes, even though black is my favorite color, I prefer to avoid profanity unless the poem demands it. As a former teacher, my ears were glutted with wildly experimental cursing. As a parent, I remind my boys that if they HAVE to insult, be creative instead of redundant of the world’s vocabulary. Simply, I agree with you about profanity as a true part of the poet’s lexicon. My use of it has been limited as a teacher/parent/haiku poet. Outside of those roles, I can see “damns” and “hells” and all kinds of hues on a free verse canvas. Thanks for suggesting a broader palette.
If not for the language
…
joyislife,
I know. I don’t like profanity. To me it shows a lack of creativity and a deep lack of respect for one’s listener. Trying to use the sounds of one language to create English words led to this poem. The poem (Dad) I translated to do this exercise is very different from today’s creation. I’d be honored if you would return and read that one. Thank you for visiting, reading, and commenting.
Bedlam is always a bit crazy, is it not? An interesting take on the prompt – I can’t imagine translating one of my own poems without it coming out the same way. Nice work.
Tumblewords,
Thank you for the visit and comment. Glad to know someone else feels the way I do about this exercise. It probably would have been a little easier if I’d translated to a Romance language instead of Japanese.
If this was difficult for you, that doesn’t come across. It seems pretty sure-footed to me. The cadences are nice and strong.
barbara_y,
Thank you for visiting and commenting. Much thanks for the encouragement. Some children one worries about no matter what. Glad you have faith in this one. Please visit again any time.
More vulgarity than I expected.
I’d love to see step-by-step the process; not that you have to go through it all, but I imagine it was fun to go from the original to Language X to this, since it seems so far from your usual style. I especially like the last line.
Joseph,
Lol. I was surprised too. My philosophy on profanity (unless severely provoked, then it flies out the window) is use creativity instead of the crude crutches.
The process was fun, but it was difficult because I wasn’t at all sure I was doing it right. About halfway through, I decided there probably wasn’t a hard, fast “doing it right” and did it the way I wanted.
I like the last line too. There are other bits I like, but the ending is the best to me.
I was really looking forward to what you had to say about it. Thank you very much for reading and commenting on it.
I agree with you — “Bedlam” is a great title (or part of the title). I think this poem is candid in that yes, it’s true, a lot of the characters in some foreign languages look to me like disguised curse words.
poetryaboutart,
Thank you for visiting, reading, and commenting. This exercise felt awkward, from a writing perspective. I’m not sure if I’ll try it again. I am glad I gave it a shot. Thankfully, this is one mess I needn’t clean up . . . much.
Wait, I am confused. How did you do this? Translate your poem into another language, then….
mother sparrow,
I was too. Ok. What I did was take one of my poems (Dad) and go to Google Translate. I had the site translate my poem from English to Japanese (probably not the best choice, but … oh well). Then, I looked at the Japanese as if it were a new poem. I just used the sounds and spelling of the Japanese words (in romaji) to suggest English words. After I had came up with bunch of English words, I looked for images I could polish and connections I could make. This was hard. Because it was such a crazy poem, I thought Bedlam was an appropriate name. Does this explanation make more sense? Hope you liked it a little. I’m just happy to have attempted it.
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hello,
thank you for the joyful efforts
and beautiful heart in writing this post…
I am thrilled to have your post in as updated piece…
cheer,
jingle,
My pleasure. Hope you like the poem. It’s a bit crazy.