Re: Bird Cage / Hector de Saint-Denys Garneau

[Will Dockery]

On Thursday, April 23, 2015 at 7:00:35 PM UTC-4, George J. Dance wrote:
>
> The best of The Penny Blog, for National Poetry Month:
> Bird Cage, by Hector de Saint-Denys Garneau
>
> I am a bird cage
> A bone cage
> With a bird
>
> The bird in my bone cage
> Is death making its nest
>
> When nothing is happening
> I hear its wings ruffling
>
> And when I've laughed a lot
> If I suddenly stop
>
> I hear it chirping
> Deep down
> Like a tiny alarm
>
> It is a bird held captive
> Death in my bone cage
>
> Wouldn't it like to fly away
> Is it you who makes it stay
> Or is it me
> I can't say
>
> It cannot leave until
> Having eaten all
> My heart
> The blood source
> With the life inside
>
> It will have my soul in its beak.
>
> http://gdancesbetty.blogspot.ca/2010/03/bird-cage-hector-de-saint-denys-garneau.html

Okay, so I think it is indeed Hector who got the translations.

"Hector de Saint-Denys Garneau (1912-1943) is considered the first modernist
poet in Quebec. His poetry feeds on landscapes of his country in order to
connect the poet to the universal themes of the unknown and death. The poems
show the duality of the man through the look that the child-poet takes on
distressing images: birds that escape, forest fires, images exacerbated by
the opaque transparency of poetic language..."

https://www.poetryinvoice.com/node/2050

===================================================

I had mostly forgotten this one...

[W.Dockery]

Another basically obscure poet, given a chance for a new audience, thanks again, George.

🙂

[Zod]

Quite fascinating poetry, I thank....

[W-Dockery]

This poem continues to make me think of Robin Williams, an actor I still miss.

[George J. Dance]

I believe he's well-known in Quebec, where he's considered their first
modernist poet. There are several different printings of his one book
and of his collected poems offered for sale online. I think he's taught
in high school there.

I don't think he's well known in English Canada, from my own experience,
though an English translation of his book -- by John Glassco, not mine
-- did win the Governor-General's Award back in the '70s.

(I dropped aapc from the header, btw, because I don't want to have to
read another trashed thread. I'll read and reply here instead.)

> 🙂

[W-Dockery]

Good information, thanks.

[W.Dockery]

You can read more about the poet on the thread at rec.arts.poems.

[Victor H.]

It was one of his better movies...:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kO0kWTR_7tQ

[George J. Dance]

It's something we've run into before, the last time with Jim Senetto's
cento of Pink Floyd titles - the danger of a reference overwhelming the
poem. In this case the reference is purely accidental; it's a literal
translation of Garneau's title (exactly the one Google Translate gives),
and he chose that title and conceit back in the '30s. I can't change it.

[George J. Dance]

Here's something interesting I thought of on rereading the poem today. A
lot of people have liked it ( even those who've accused me of
plagiarizing it :) Slythera was one I remember.

The last two stanzas are powerful. One reason I think they are is
because they use two words one doesn't find that often in modern English
poetry: The penultimate stanza uses "heart" and the last, 1-line, stanza
uses "soul". Those used to be powerful words to use in English poetry,
too, but they were so powerful that everyone tried to use them; so they
got banned as "cliches." But they work just as strongly in an English
translation, even stronger because anglophone readers don't see them
anymore -- they're no longer cliches to the present generation, but
something novel.

[W.Dockery]

Yes, I know, while the title of the 1996 Robin Williams film is a translation of the title of the 1973 French play his film was based on, "La Cage aux Folles":

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/La_Cage_aux_Folles_(film)