A lesson to be learned? Some thoughts about a poem by Uffe Harder

About half an hour ago I asked AI where this line of poetry came from: ‘Man kunne forestille sig solen’. It replied that it came from Årstider, a collection by Morten Søndergaard.

I replied that this was wrong, that the line did indeed come from a collection Årstider, but the line was the beginning of a poem by Uffe Harder.

AI admitted it had made a false association.

I had just translated the poem into English, so I asked AI if it could do so too.

Man kunne forestille sig solen

 

Man kunne forestille sig solen

som en stor sort sky

der langsomt bevægede sig hen over himlen

og efterlod alt mørkt bag sig

 

Man kunne også forestille sig

at skorstenen på fabrikken derovre

pludselig begyndte at ryge med hvid røg

og at rotterne kom frem fra deres huller

for at danse på asfalten.

 

 

One could imagine the sun

 

One could imagine the sun

as a large black cloud

moving slowly across the sky

and leaving everything dark behind it

 

One could also imagine

that the factory chimney over there

suddenly began to give off white smoke

and that the rats came out of their holes

to dance on the asphalt.

 

Here is what AI wrote back:

 

 My translation was identical except for writing  'and' in line 4 and the avoidance of repeating the word ‘smoke with’ in the next to last line.

 

I have tested AI many times with poems to translate. It comes up with hilarious suggestions quite often. To fail to spot the weakness of two ‘smokes’ in a poem is a typical lapse.

 

But the fact that my translation and AI’s are almost identical twins also suggests that the poem is perhaps more a chopped-up piece of prose than a poem.

N.F.S. Grundtvig: 'I al sin Glands nu straaler Solen'

 

I al sin Glands nu straaler Solen

 

I al sin Glands nu straaler Solen,

Livs-Lyset over Naadestolen,

Nu kom vor Pinselilje-Tid,

Nu har vi Sommer skær og blid,

Nu spaar os mer end Englerøst

I Jesu Navn en gylden Høst.

 

I Sommer-Nattens korte Svale

Slaar højt Fredskovens Nattergale,

Saa alt, hvad Herren kalder sit,

Maa slumre sødt og vaagne blidt,

Maa drømme sødt om Paradis,

Og vaagne til vor Herres Pris.

 

Det aander himmelsk over Støvet,

Det vifter hjemlig gjennem Løvet,

Det lufter liflig under Sky

Fra Paradis, opladt paa ny,

Og yndig risler ved vor Fod

I Engen Bæk af Livets Flod.

 

Det volder alt den Aand, som daler,

Det virker alt den Aand, som taler

Ej af sig selv, men os til Trøst,

Af Kiærlighed med Sandheds Røst,

I Ordets Navn, som her blev Kjød

Og foer til Himmels hvid og rød.

 

Opvaagner alle dybe Toner

Til Pris for Menneskets Forsoner!

Forsamles alle Tungemaal

I Takkesangens Offerskaal!

Istemmer over Herrens Bord

Nu Menighedens fulde Kor!

 

I Jesu Navn da Tungen gløder

Hos Hedninger saa vel som Jøder;

I Jesus-Navnets Offerskaal

Hensmelter alle Modersmaal;

I Jesu Navn udbryder da

Det evige Halleluja!

 

Vor Gud og Frelser uden Lige!

Da blomstrer Rosen i dit Rige,

Som Sole vi gaa op og ned

I din enbaarnes Herlighed;

Thi du for Hjertet, vi gav dig,

Gav os med ham dit Himmerig!

 

 

Now gleams the sun in all its splendour

 

Now gleams the sun in all its splendour,

o’er mercy seat life’s light to tender –

now Whitsun lily’s time is here,

now we have summer mild and clear –

will more than angel’s voice proclaim

a golden harvest in Christ’s name.        

 

In summer night’s brief coolness ringing

the forest’s nightingales are singing,

so all that God will ne’er forsake

may sweetly sleep and gently wake,

may sweetly dream of paradise

and wake their God to glorify.

 

And o’er the dust sighs heav’nly breathing,

and through the leaves wind’s gently heaving,

and ’neath the clouds a breeze that blew

from paradise is charged anew,

and in the meadow at our feet

from life’s own stream comes murmur sweet.

 

This wreaks all spirit now descending,

this speaks all spirit without ending

not of itself but – us to soothe –

of love, with voice of lasting truth,

as word made flesh that from the dead

rose up to heaven, white and red!

 

And all mankind its voice now raises

to sing its great Redeemer’s praises!

All tongues together now extol

their Lord at the communion bowl!

Over His table chants entire

the congregation’s mighty choir.

 

In Jesu’s name are tongues afire,

as jews and gentiles like aspire,

in Jesu’s sacrificial bowl

all tongues now melt to form one whole,

in Jesu’s name their voices lend

to Hallelujahs without end!

 

Our God and Father, mightiest power!

Now blooms the rose in Thy great bower,

like suns do we now rise and set,

in Thy Son’s glory are we met,

since for the heart that we gave Thee

through Him Thou gav’st us heaven’s key!

Erik Lindegren: 'mannen utan väg' (1942)

the pathless man is a collection of poems by Erik Lindegren published in 1942. With its polyphonic, pictorial language, it is considered one of the most distinctive and ground-breaking collections of poetry ever published in Swedish. 

The book's forty poems constitute a union of disharmoniously shattered imagery collected in a harmonious and symmetrical form, so-called fragmented sonnets, each consisting of fourteen lines divided into seven two-line stanzas. Lindegren's intention, like a literary equivalent to Picasso's painting Guernica, was to express the powerlessness of his contemporaries during World War II. 

the pathless man was written in 1939-1940. Literary influence is noticeable from T.S. Eliot's The Wasteland, Gunnar Ekelöf's Sent på jorden and his friend Artur Lundkvist's 1930s poetry. Impressions from surrealism and Lundkvist's dissemination of the latest modernist poetry was also important. Lindegren was also strongly influenced by such surrealist visual artists as Salvador Dali and members of the Halmstad Group, as well as classical music, primarily Stravinsky and Bach, when creating the poems. 

To see the entire collection in a dual language version, go to here.

Albert Verwey: 'Maanlicht'

Maanlicht

 

O geur'ger heft zich iedre bloeme

     In maanlicht-milden middernacht,

Als ik de zoete bloeme noeme,

     Die mij des dages tegenlacht.

 

En schoon ik sterre en maanlicht roeme,

     Dat zoet'lijk slaapt op 't bloembed zacht,

De kleine, die ik mijne noeme,

     Is sterrenstraal en bloemenpracht.

 

En tot de blanke bloeme nijg ik,

     Of droom en geur ook mij omving; -

 

En tot de stille sterren stijg ik,

     En murmel mijn herinnering; -

 

En met ontloken lippen zwijg ik

In mijner minne mijmering. –

 

 

Moonlight

 

More fragrant rises every flower

     In moonlight’s gentle depths of night,

When I the flower name at this hour

     Whose daytime smile for me is bright.

 

Though star and moonlight I’m extolling

     That on its flower-bed sleeps so fine,

The small flower who by name I’m calling,

     Is radiant star and flower divine.

 

And to this gleaming flower I’m bending,

     As were both dream and scent for me;–

 

And to the silent stars ascending

     I’m murmuring my memory; –

 

With wordless open lips descending

     Into my loved one’s reverie. –

 

 

Albert Verwey: 'De zin van het rijm' (PS 57)

 

DE ZIN VAN HET RIJM

 

Geheimen heb ik vaak, en klaar, gesproken

En leg nu in dit klaarste ’t grootst geheim:

In paring en omarming van het rijm

Liggen verlangen en geluk verdoken.

 

En wordt de binding schijnbaar opgebroken,

Ge weet toch dat ik van verlangen zwijm:

Eer ge kunt spreken wordt de korte vlijm

Van de angst door nieuwe omcirkeling gewroken.

 

Een beetre vorm vonden de minnaars niet,

De dichters die de pols van ’t leven vonden

In ’t zoete klinken van hun rijmend lied.

 

Hun woorden waren 't kloppen van hun wonden

En zelfs het oopnen van een nieuw verschiet

Werd door hun kunst aan de oude kim verbonden.

 

 

THE MEANING OF RHYME

 

Often, and clearly, secrets I have uttered

And in what’s clearest I the greatest lay:

In rhymes’ embrace and coupling interplay

A longing and a bliss both lie tight-shuttered.

 

And if the tie apparently gets broken,

You know for sure that I from longing swoon:

Ere you can speak, the avenging razor wound

Of fear by fresh encirclement is woken.

 

A better form was ne’er by lovers found,

The poets who the pulse of life discovered

Within their rhyming song’s so pleasing sound.

 

Their wounds’ own pulsing did these words impart,

Even a new horizon was uncovered

And melded with the old one by their art.

 

 

Translated in collaboration with Albert Hagenaars

Poetic Synapses 57

 

Gustaf Münch-Petersen: 'det susar i skogen'

 

det susar i skogen

(till Edith Södergran)

 

en droppe i skogen vill forma allt i sin bild -

en droppe i skogen

fann sig själv sannare än allt -

skogens droppe fattade lyran,

större än världen -:

detta endast är ett öde,

att finna sig själv skönast,

sannast,

renast –

 

allt vill jag forma i min bild -

allt skall

vara det härligaste av allt -

högre, högre hänger lyran,

större än världen -

darra, o värld, för ditt öde –

 

darra, o värld -

skapelsen kommer -

en droppe i skogen blev sannare än allt –

 

 

the forest is murmuring

(to Edith Södergran)

 

a droplet in the forest wishes to form everything in its image –

a droplet in the forest

found itself truer than everything 

the forest’s droplet grasped the lyre,

greater than the world –:

this alone is a destiny,

to find oneself most beautiful

truest,

purest –

 

i wish to form everything in my image

everything is to

be the most glorious of everything –

higher, higher hangs the lyre,

larger than the world –

tremble, o world, at your destiny –

 

tremble, o world –

creation is coming –

– a droplet in the forest becomes truer than everything –

 

 

Jean de la Fontaine: 'Le loup et l'agneau'

Gustave Doré

Le loup et l’agneau

 

La raison du plus fort est toujours la meilleure:

Nous l’allons montrer tout à l’heure.

 

Un Agneau se désaltérait

Dans le courant d’une onde pure.

Un Loup survient à jeun qui cherchait aventure,

Et que la faim en ces lieux attirait.

Qui te rend si hardi de troubler mon breuvage?

Dit cet animal plein de rage:

Tu seras châtié de ta témérité.

– Sire, répond l’Agneau, que votre Majesté

Ne se mette pas en colère;

Mais plutôt qu’elle considère

Que je me vas désaltérant

Dans le courant,

Plus de vingt pas au-dessous d’Elle,

Et que par conséquent, en aucune façon,

Je ne puis troubler sa boisson.

– Tu la troubles, reprit cette bête cruelle,

Et je sais que de moi tu médis l’an passé.

– Comment l’aurais-je fait si je n’étais pas né?

Reprit l’Agneau, je tette encor ma mère.

– Si ce n’est toi, c’est donc ton frère.

– Je n’en ai point.

– C’est donc quelqu’un des tiens:

Car vous ne m’épargnez guère,

Vous, vos bergers, et vos chiens.

On me l’a dit: il faut que je me venge.

Là-dessus, au fond des forêts

Le Loup l’emporte, et puis le mange,

Sans autre forme de procès.

 

 

The wolf and the lamb

 

The reasoning of those in power is always best:

As with our tale we now attest.

 

A lamb was quenching its keen thirst

In waters of a sparkling brook.

A roaming famished Wolf draws near with eager look

By hunger to such spots well-nigh coerced.

What has emboldened you to disregard my claim?

This beast exclaims, with rage aflame:

You shall be punished for your gross temerity.

– Sire, the Lamb answers him, let not your Majesty

Become incensed in any way;

Instead consider that my stay

When drinking of the water here 

Won’t interfere

with yours if twenty paces down,

since it in consequence, will never, in no wise,

Your Majesty antagonise.

– It does just that, this cruel beast answers with a frown,

I also know last year you said bad things of me.

– Since I was not yet born, how could this ever be?

The Lamb replies, I am a suckling still.

– If not, your brother fits the bill.

–None such have I.

– Well then, some other link:

The likes of you all wish me ill 

You, your shepherds, dogs that slink.

The time, folk say, to seek revenge is now.

The Wolf then disappears from view,

In forest depths the Lamb devours:

And does so without more ado.

 

 

zkg 2

 

ZKG 2

 

the blackbird chirps and

trills away

he improvises

every day

 

or so it seems though

it may be

he shapes his song to

fit his tree

 

and seamlessly the

two then merge

and fill the space where

they converge

 

Gustaf Münch-Petersen: 'morgon'

 

morgon

 

varifrån kommer det,

att vi, utan allt,

fattiga på allt,

kunna drömma allt -?

- framtiden är redan lagd,

fjärran vilar hon

sövd av våra drömmar –

 

 

morning

 

how can it be

that we, lacking everything,

short of everything,

can dream everything–?

– the future is already laid down,

far off it is resting

sedated by our dreams –

Eldrid Lunden: 'Tomheit'

 

Tomheit

 

Tomheit

er noe vi berre kan snakke om

frå ein stad utanfor tomheita

Tomheit finst ikkje

i naturleg

tilstand

I atmosfæren vil tomrommet

øyeblikkeleg

invaderast av det som ligg omkring

Syns vi dette høyrest abstrakt ut

kan vi opprette eit tomrom

på plenen og sjå

kva som skjer

 

 

Emptiness

 

Emptiness

is something we only can talk about

from a place outside emptiness

Emptiness does not exist

in a natural

state

In the atmosphere the empty space will

immediately

be invaded by what lies around it

If this seems highly abstract to us

we can set up an empty space

on the lawn and see

what happens