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Notes
1. 1. Cohen, “Waldeen and the Americas” (see also the revised and expanded version at http://www.uhmc.sunysb.edu/surgery/waldeen.html); Delgado Martínez, Waldeen; Smith, “Waldeen”; Smith, Terpsichore’s Daughter.
2. 2. Spoken conversation with author, May 11, 1978.
3. 3. Pound, ABC of Reading, 61.
4. 4. As quoted in Delgado Martínez, Waldeen, 120.
5. 5. Waldeen said Délano had asked her to translate Neruda’s poetry before she met him, according to Smith, Terpsichore’s Daughter.
6. 6. The collection includes “Let the Rail Splitter Awake,” “The Fugitive,” “To Miguel Hernandez,” and “The Heights of Macchu Picchu,” translated by Waldeen, along with other work by Neruda translated by various translators. Bernstein et al., Let the Rail Splitter Awake and Other Poems.
7. 7. Neruda, personal communication with Waldeen, as quoted in Diego Rivera, “Waldeen,” trans. Asa Zatz from Novedades, http://www.uhmc.sunysb.edu/surgery/wald-riv.html (accessed March 10, 2013).
8. 8. Bernstein et al., Let the Rail Splitter Awake and Other Poems, 37–38.
9. 9. Ginsberg, Plutonian Ode and Other Poems, 35–38.
10. 10. Here is the Spanish of the opening stanza of “Alturas de Macchu Picchu,” followed by the translations of it made by Hays, Flores, Tarn, Felstiner, Schmitt, and Kessler:
Del aire al aire, como una red vacía,
iba yo entre las calles y la atmósfera, llegando y despidiendo,
en el advenimiento del otoño la moneda extendida
de las hojas, y entre la primavera y las espigas,
lo que el más grande amor, como dentro de un guante
que cae, nos entrega como una larga luna. (Neruda, Canto general, 25)
In and out of air, like an empty net,
I walked among streets and atmosphere, arriving and departing.
At the coming of autumn the coins of the leaves
are spread out and, between spring and the wheatears,
something greater than love, as if within a falling
glove, delivers us, like a long moon. (Hays, “The Heights of Macchu Picchu,” 112)
From air to air, like an empty net,
between the streets and the atmosphere, I arrived and bade farewell,
with the advent of autumn, to the lengthened coin
of the leaves, and, between the spring and the tassels,
to that which the greatest love, as if within a glove,
delivers us in falling like a long moon. (Flores, “Summits of Macchu Picchu,” 356)
From air to air, like an empty net,
dredging through streets and ambient atmosphere, I came
lavish, at autumn’s coronation, with the leaves’
proffer of currency and—between spring and wheat ears—
that which a boundless love, caught in a gauntlet fall,
grants us like a long-fingered moon. (Tarn, The Heights of Macchu Picchu, 3)
From the air to the air, like an empty net,
I went on through streets and thin air, arriving and leaving behind,
at autumn’s advent, the coin handed out
in the leaves, and between spring and ripe grain,
the fullness that love, as in a glove’s
fall, gives over to us like a long-drawn moon. (Felstiner, “Heights of Macchu Picchu,” 203)
From air to air, like an
empty net
I went between the streets and atmosphere, arriving and departing,
in the advent of autumn the outstretched coin
of the leaves, and between springtime and the ears of corn,
all that the greatest love, as within a falling
glove, hands us like a long moon. (Schmitt, Canto General, 29)
From air into air, like an empty net,
I wandered between the streets and the atmosphere, arriving and saying good-bye,
in the coming of autumn with its scattered coins
of leaves, and between spring and the ripe wheat,
what the greatest love, as inside a falling
glove, hands over to us like endless moonlight. (Kessler, “Heights of Machu Picchu,” 29)
11. 11. Neruda, Canto general, 25.
12. 12. Bernstein et al., Let the Rail Splitter Awake and Other Poems, 75.
13. 13. Ibid., 91.
14. 14. In 1952 (Waldeen, “Lamp in the Earth,” Canto I, sections 1, 4, and 6) and in 1954 (Waldeen, “The Conquistadores,” Canto III, sections 1–3, 7, 8, 10–12).
15. 15. Not included here are Waldeen’s unpublished section 3 of “Lamp in the Earth” (Canto I) and sections 4–6 and 13 of “The Conquistadores” (Canto III).
16. 16. Sexton, “Craft Interview,” 11–12.
17. 17. Guibert, Seven Voices, 36.
18. 18. Comparison of Waldeen’s translation of the closing stanzas of “La lluvia (Rapa-Nui)” with the original Spanish and with Anthony Kerrigan’s rendering of them shows a striking difference in the two translations that, perhaps, may derive in part from the gender difference of the translators:
Amame dormida y desnuda, que en la orilla
eres como la isla: tu amor confuso, tu amor
nombrado, escondido en la cavidad de los sueños,
es como el movimiento del mar que nos rodea.
Y cuando yo también vaya durmiéndome
en tu amor, desnudo,
deja mi mano entre tus pechos para que palpite
al mismo tiempo que tus pezones mojados en la lluvia. (Neruda, Canto general, 386)
Sleeping and naked, love me: on the shore
you are like the island: your love confused, your love
astonished, hidden in the cavity of dreams,
is like the movement of the sea around us.
And when I too begin falling asleep
in your love, naked,
leave my hand between your breasts so it can throb
along with your nipples wet with rain. (Kerrigan, “Rain [Rapa Nui],” 239)
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Notes on contributors
Jonathan Cohen
Jonathan Cohen specializes in the U.S. tradition of inter-American poetry and has published numerous studies on the English translations of Pablo Neruda’s work. His translations of contemporary Spanish-American poets are widely acclaimed. His latest book as editor is William Carlos Williams’s By Word of Mouth: Poems from the Spanish, 1916–1959 (New Directions, 2011).