River of my Eyes
O my eyes this morning wide as rivers
O waves of my eyes ready to reflect all
And this freshness under my eyelids
Amazing
Everywhere around images I see
Like a brook refreshing the isle
And like the flowing wave
Surrounding the sun bather.
—
Hector de Saint-Denys Garneau
translated by George J. Dance
from Looking and Playing in Space, 2011
River of My Eyes by George J. Dance [translation of "Riviere de mes yeux" by Hector de Saint-Denys Garnewu is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 3.0 Unported License.
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Rivière de mes yeux
Ô mes yeux ce matin grands comme des rivières
Ô l'onde de mes yeux prêts à tout refléter
Et cette fraîcheur sous mes paupières
Extraordinaire
Tout alentour des images que je vois
Comme un ruisseau rafraîchit l'île
Et comme l'onde fluente entoure
La baigneuse ensoleillée
—
Hector de Saint-Denys Garneau
de Regards et jeux dans l'éspace, 1937
[All rights reserved by the author's estate - Please do not copy]
Read more by Hector de Saint-Denys Garneau here:
Such refreshing poesie. I have not read its like since Baudelaire or Apollinaire (made sure to read the original version first). This reminds me of bygone days spent sun-worshiping full-lotus beneath the verdant fronds of beach-apple trees.
ReplyDeleteSensational!
:D
Cool. You liked Garneau, too. He is cool. He's sort of famous in Quebec, as the first writer there to use vers libre; but another guy like
ReplyDeleteScott that most of the world has never got to read. He does remind me of Baudelaire, now that you mention it; and he wouldn't if you hadn't mentioned it, because it's not any formal or stylistic similarity. It's more what the mentality that you call "anti-poetry" -- they both read as if they just wrote about whatever they wanted, the way they wanted, without worrying about the "poetical" way to do that.
I'm posting another Garneau today: his most 'famous' poem, "Bird Cage".