22 Eu caminho ao teu lado | I walk beside you

EU CAMINHO AO TEU LADO

Mesmo que não me vejas

eu caminho ao teu lado

Passos sem som

água sem música

luar a deslizar sobre as florestas

vento úmido contra paredes ruídas

Por isso temos sido o que somos:

vastos sem termos partido

infinitos sem abandonar nosso íntimo

comovidos mesmo sem encontrar as respostas

Eu teria te respondido

mas não me ouvias mais

Sentei-me perto de ti

e pus minha mão sobre a tua

Tua mão fria dentro da minha

Por trás de mim, outra tarde terminava

Nenhum de nós saberá

Te darei o que é teu

O que é meu, eu não possuo.

*

São Paulo, Bloomsday, 16 de junho de 1997

*

I WALK BESIDE YOU

Even when you don’t see me

I walk beside you

Soundless steps

musicless waters

moonlight drifting over forests

cool wind against ruined walls

This is why we are this

Vast and steady

Infinite and confident

Moving and speechless

I could have answered you

but you wouldn’t have listened to me

I sat beside you

and put my hand over your hand

Your cold hand in mine

Behind me another day was over

None of us will ever know

I’ll give you what is yours

Whatever is mine does not belong to me.

*

São Paulo, Bloomsday, June 16, 1997

NOTES ABOUT THE TRANSLATION, by Dominic Tomassetti

Lilacs

impersonal

transfigured

memoryless

cast aside

forgotten

Roots moving inside the earth

under the summer rain

No winter can take

the seeds away from its bosom

They’ll stay motionless

waiting for the spring

*

This is perfect. I think it should stay as it is. Every word in each line builds one-upon-another to the climax of spring. Anyone familiar with The Waste Land will understand your references from the death of Phlebas by Eliot to your allusion to the lilacs awaiting birth in spring, which I take to mean a rebirth of a person cast aside also. That may be reading too much into your lines but I believe it hints toward that direction.

3 July 2000

De Dominic Tomassetti (2)

My shadow strides behind my back

I don’t walk in the streets hoping to meet you again

I no longer heat the room

I cramp in the cold

lights off

without any reason to do so

I am fearless now

All I knew has been blown away

I transcross the streets

so no one will surprise me

walking down the same way

*

In this part of the poem I find two parts that stop me or slow down my reading – the contraction don’t for do not - and perfectly all right to use but how does the sense work for you?

*

“I don’t walk in the streets hoping to meet you again”

*

The sentence may be overlong or thirteen syllables. Compare eight and seven before and after this sentence and three syllables at most in the lines of the first part of your poem. I think you should be building your lines up to longer lines more slowly, the poem will read quicker just as your early efforts. There is no real rule here. It is something that you must decide is saying what you have on your mind. Again, if “don’t” is the word here then I would avoid repeating “don’t” in the third line below. My rule is not to use any single word too often in a poem or at least so close together. Does that make sense to you?

*

How about writing it like this –

*

[I no longer walk the streets hoping to meet you]

I no longer heat the room

I cramp in the cold

*

The word “again” is redundant and unnecessary because you no longer walk for that reason, and “in the” can be cut. The whole is shorter only by one syllable but seems to make a difference, nor does it affect your personal style.

*

We come to line number six in this stanza: “without any reason to do so” I suggest dropping “to do so” because you really don’t need to say the, “without any reason” is sufficient. Then we come to “transcross” which I believe, Marge mentioned before. It is not a common English word and has an unfamiliar sound to it. I am only making suggestions. Do you have or can you get a copy of (English copy) The New Roget’s Thesaurus in Dictionary Form in Brazil or a similar thesaurus?

*

In Roget’s the adverb is transverse. But I don’t think that is what you appear to be saying. It has criss-cross and recross as verbs etc.

So, let’s look:

*

My shadow strides behind my back

I no longer walk the streets hoping to meet you

I no longer heat the room

I cramp in the cold

lights off

without any reason

I am fearless now

All I knew has been blown away

I [cross] the streets

[To avoid surprise]

[On the same path]

*

I would suggest you work this last part out. Of course I don’t know how you would say it in Portuguese. In English it is too cumbersome for poetry. Thereza, if you are anything you are a poet of the right word. Think of three things, exact meaning, the connotation and the music. Your last three lines need the music of poetry and then this part is finished as far as I can tell.

*

so no one will surprise me

walking down the same way

[To avoid surprise]

[On the same path]

*

3 July 2000

*

Your heart peeps in silence

beating slowly while the afternoon lingers

as we don’t expect anything to happen in half an hour

Whatever happens will be new

And whatever remains will have survived

*

The word peeps was brought to your attention by Marge and I have to agree. It is not the right word. Try “moves” in silence. You may try an analogous word for the heart – waits? Heaves would seem like heavy breathing! Pumps sounds more like fire trucks! Drop “as” from the text. That is all you need to do here.

*

Your heart [ ] in silence

beating slowly while the afternoon lingers

we don’t expect anything to happen in half an hour

Whatever happens will be new

And whatever remains will have survived

*

I must get some sleep it is late. I will send part of this off to you soon.

3 July 2000

De Dominic Tomassetti (3)

The pearls were your eyes, see

how they slide on the humid cloth

Every time you see me

will be as first

Nothing compares to this moment

Nothing will ever be the same

*

You should fear death by water

The water comes and takes you

You’ll see your body dissolve

and you’ll be part of the ocean

watering so many flowers

carelessly filling so many pots

You should fear the water

as your fifth element

The enemy inside of you

*

Multitudes walk in circle

and I feel easy as I see you by the window

looking at them as they go by

Everything moves under our unbelieving eyes

as our faces were molded

by the salt of the ebb tide

You look different now

Like a stranger

before death masks

*

Multitudes walk in [circle]

Multitudes walk in circles

*

In the American language circle should read “circles” – going round and round.

Next, using “by” twice one word is right above the other and the lines would probably read better as

*

and I feel easy as I see you [by] the window

looking at them as they go [by]

*

and I feel easy as I see you near the window

looking at them as they go by

*

4 July 2000

De Dominic Tomassetti (4)

City

what reality could create you

in your dead mother’s open

womb?

The city lying under the blazing sun

under the mist of transformation

Metalinguistic metamorphosis

A hell of dust and resentment

*

I think this is good. I am wondering about the placement of womb alone like the word City. If you are emphasizing the word it works OK. It reads well and has much in power relating a city with that of a dead mother’s womb and the blazing sun.

*

I understand that the free verse (vers libre) style of writing can be both an easy and a difficult way of writing, yet we must always be conscious of the form we use. Everything must appear consistent throughout because a sudden departure may call more attention to the form than is needed.

4 July 2000

De Dominic Tomassetti (5)

They played chess

as the broken pieces were laid

on the board

The queen called on the king

[and]the nightingale flew [singing]

through the [open] desert

She leaned over him

and whispered in his ear:

“Listen, dearest

Be my friend and I’ll be your slave.”

The silence [flung] backwards

and the shadows hid under the marble seats

[Steps groveled] and bore the dead with them

All has been done and nothing is known

The words melted again

crossing crisp[ing] glances

and [searching] moving hands

under the immovable mantle

*

I think you should drop a few words here to avoid wordiness yet still be simple and direct. Also clarity – who are “They” who played chess? The king and queen? And who whispered into the king’s ear, the queen or the nightingale? These may be apparent to you the writer but the reader needs a bit more explanation. Desert is usually understood to be barren, wide open space. Avoid the redundant (repetitive) word. The silence flew backwards would be better usage.

*

“Steps groveled and bore the dead with them” – at first it might seem right to say that steps grovel but in reality, they do not. How would you say this differently? Figures of speech are imaginative expressions but they should be pleasing to the sense or they will not work. A simile or metaphor that is too vague fails. Percy Bysshe Shelley, the great English poet wrote, “Like an embodied joy whose race is just begun.” As Jane Shaw Whitfield pointed out in her book The Poet’s Manual and Rhyming Dictionary [Thomas Y. Crowell & Co, NY 1965], “What is an embodied joy? What kind of race could possibly be meant?

*

crossing crisp[ing] glances

and [searching] moving hands

under the immovable mantle

This last part is a bit too cryptic. It is hard to understand.

crossing crisp[ing] glances

and [searching] moving hands

[searched] under the immovable mantle

*

You could also leave out crisp or crisping altogether here.

4 July 2000

De Dominic Tomassetti (6)

Talk to me

I need you to talk to me

Stay here

don’t doubt it

I’ll be your [ ] friend

I won’t leave you

Talk to me

I will never go away

*

Another possibility may be to delete this complete stanza. Are you a teenage girl? It has too much young girl talk to it. Pleading for romance!

4 July 2000

De Dominic Tomassetti (7)

The wind whispers under the door[s].

All the doors in the house are closed

[and] I have nothing to remember.

Is there anything to remember?

[Anything I remember

will still be part of my soul.

And this soul will only be mine

when there’s nothing left

to remember.]

*

Did you notice that you are using punctuation here, while before this you avoided it [periods] in your lines? They seem too dramatically different this far into your poem. The remembrance/memory lines need clarification. I suggest rewriting the last five lines entirely.

4 July 2000

De Dominic Tomassetti (8)

What shall we do tomorrow?

What shall we do

from now on?

All days are alike

and we won’t know anything at all

We’ll think we are still the same

and we won’t know what to do

while tied to the same swinging tree

We play chess

while no one knocks at the door

*

Thereza, I think that I am beginning to see what you are doing with this sequence of poems. I hope that I am not pulling your poem apart but showing you that you now need to step outside your initial feelings of why you were writing these words. It is you who must put this series together as all poets who strive for the best.

*

Keep in mind several things as I have mentioned, rhythm, the most basic element of verse, your line and stanza forms, the meter or flow of your words, and how the lines look to the eye. Avoid wordiness. You did positively splendid in the first part of your poem: “Lilacs/ impersonal/transfigured/memoryless…” everything flows along neatly, there is no noticeable effort in reading. The metaphors are just right. As you go along things begin to break up because, I think, it is difficult to sustain the muse that our mind puts us in. This is where the craft or skill of the poet comes to play – the hard part. The easy part was the initial outbreak of song telling the world your story. You have written your story; everything is now diction, tone and style.

*

In my own poetry, I find it a rare occurrence to write anything just once perfectly. I am not sure the best poets ever wrote anything long that did not need reworked. That would be a miracle of mind uncommon to humankind. Another thing that I like about your work is that you do not seem to need vulgarisms, the use of words in bad taste to write your thoughts.

*

Many contemporary American poets and others have fallen (this is my personal opinion) to using offensive, four-letter words because they seem to believe that it makes them appear strong or clever users of language. I think that they fail to understand language. First, many of these poets often talk about not offending someone-or-other, while deliberately using words which they know will offend anyway. It may appear that this is following the current trends in language but what would happen if tastes change, as they do sometimes away from the present usage? Many poets and writers may find themselves out of favor. I think that they think that this is not possible anymore. Everything is possible.

*

If you want to be considered a great poet, Thereza, write greatly. If you want only to be a good poet write well. If your desire is to be remembered with the best poets who have ever written never write small-minded poetry. Your poems need not be perfect, few great poems are, but they must come from the outstanding heart, one that rises above everything else and says, “Here I am, read me!”

*

The true reader will not remember small, inconsequential faults. He or she will be glad your work did not pass them by. I think true poetry is a gift from God. Whether or not the poet recognizes it or not. Whether they acknowledge the presence of God in the world or deny that presence poetry is still a gift. We only work at it a little to find ourselves within it. No small mind can ever be a great poet. History is too big and broad and swallows everything up much too quickly.

*

I am going to end here for now and give you a chance to consider the things I wrote thus far.

*

This is a holiday in America, the Fourth of July. I must turn some attention toward my family. My wife Brenda is not as interested in literary pursuits as I am. But she is the best companion otherwise. We live in Southeastern Pennsylvania where she was raised. I was raised in Ohio. I was born in Scotland and lived in Ireland as a little boy.

*

Brenda and I have four children; Mark Anthony is 19 and recently graduated from high school. Penn Anthony is 16. He is a blackbelt in karate. Lee Anthony is 13 and likes bikes and being young. Maria Antoinette turned 9 last month. Her love is horses. We all hope she can have one some day. Her friend has a pony.

*

I want to thank you for your confidence in my ability as small as it is, to review your poetry. It’s an honor and a privilege.

*

I will write more soon,

Dominic Tomassetti

4 July 2000

De Jerrie Hurd

Lace the infinite in the vastness you inhabit.

You’ll be what you’ve always been:

unceasing.

Nice,

Jerrie Hurd

May 2002

De Claudio Willer

Acho que agora você está utilizando umas sutilezas do inglês, não está mais com cara de português traduzido.

Claudio Willer

maio 2002

De Rich Forster

p.s. Thanks for YOUR poems, by the way.

Rich Forster

May 2002

De Joaquin Munoz

I have cherished every word that you have sent.

Thanks for everything, your words uplift the spirit.

Joaquin Muñoz

April 2002

De Astrid Cabral

Querida Thereza, hoje reli teu poema e me emocionei. De associação a associação fui a Tomás Antônio Gonzaga, Drummond, Fernando Mendes Viana e fiquei pensando nesse tesouro da poesia que os poetas vão acumulando com suas vozes novas dizendo as velhas coisas eternas. O beijo da

Astrid Cabral

junho 2002

De Don Grusin

I love this latest phrase as it applies to music and the search for “here and now” – so time runs between the margins of a waking day – nice. And your inscription poem... music is the poetry of sound... Musical and I’ll get to it sometime.

Don Grusin

June 2002

Biographical data

Thereza Christina Rocque da Motta was born in São Paulo, in 1957. Poet, attorney, publisher and translator. Worked as chief researcher for the Brazilian Guinness Book of Records in 1992. Published Sun Dial (Relógio de Sol, 1980), Rice Paper (Papel Arroz, 1981), Tares & Wheat (Joio & trigo, 1982), Sands (Areal, 1995), Sabbath (1998), Dawn (Alba, 2001), Chiaroscuro – Poems in the dark (2002) and the poem-poster Tenth Moon (Décima Lua, 1983). Has translated novels and also poems by Anne Morrow Lindbergh, John Keats, W. B. Yeats and Lord Byron. Among her unreleased books are Odysseus and Pandora’s Book, Lazuli, Love and Wings, Flamingo View, Spree, Pairs, Let’s, Shell to the Sea (translated poems) and Columbus. Lives in Rio, where organizes and takes part of poem readings in bookstores, theaters and cafés. Took part of the II International Meeting of Women Writers, in Rosário, Argentina, in August, 2000 and the 54th Conference on World Affairs, at the University of Colorado, at Boulder, CO., USA, in April, 2002. Founded Ibis Libris in 2000.

Dados biográficos

Thereza Christina Rocque da Motta, nascida em São Paulo, em 1957, é poeta, advogada, editora e tradutora. Trabalhou como chefe de pesquisa da primeira edição brasileira do Guinness – O Livro dos Recordes, publicado pela Editora Três, em 1992. Publicou Relógio de Sol (1980), Papel Arroz (1981), Joio & trigo (1982), Areal (1995), Sabbath (1998), Alba (2001), Chiaroscuro – Poems in the dark (2002) e o pôster-poema Décima lua (1983). Traduziu romances e também poemas de Anne Morrow Lindbergh, John Keats, W.B. Yeats e Lord Byron. Entre seus livros inéditos estão: Odysseus e O Livro de Pandora, Lázuli, Amor e Asa, Olhar Flamingo, Folias, Pares, Let’s, Shell to the Sea e Colombo. Vive no Rio, onde participa de leituras de poemas em livrarias, teatros e cafés. Organiza o Ponte de Versos, junto com Ricardo Ruiz e Gilson Maurity, desde setembro de 2000. Participou do 2o Encontro Internacional de Escritoras, em Rosário, Argentina, em agosto de 2000 e da 54a Conferência sobre Assuntos Mundiais, na Universidade do Colorado, em Boulder, Colorado, EUA, em abril de 2002. Fundou a Ibis Libris em 2000.