Al Gallo
August 23, 2011
Jerome
Rothenberg is a famous American poet, translator and academic, born in
New York and his writings have been translated to many languages
including Spanish, Portuguese, French, Swedish and Dutch.
Joaquim Roglan has published
an interesting interview that reveals Rothenberg's intense passion for
poetry.
Asked if he likes to be listed as one of the greatest living poets he
said that it's not for him to say, but that he has been active for
many years and that he has participated in various literary movements,
while many poets of his generation have died. David Antin, Robert
Kelly, Jean Pierre Faye, Michel Deguy, Heriberto Yepes and Gary Snyder
are those who remain alive.
Of those who have died he remembers Robert Duncan, Jackson Mac Low,
Pierre Jean Jouve, Octavio Paz and Federico García Lorca, who was among
the first he read in Spanish. He translated García Lorca in Suites and
Other Variations. He still reads García Lorca's poems often and uses
his vocabulary. And Dante, especially Dante. Dante never has to be
forgotten.
With respect to being called a multicultural or multiethnic poet
Rothenberg says that it sounds good, as he is in connection with
international poetry, which as well as the world itself has globalized
through the Internet, allowing the exchange of ideas and styles.
We began to talk about counterculture, he says, during the fifties and
sixties, but poetry in essence is already a form of anti-establishment
counterculture, a resistance against the ways we used to communicate.
This meant to go against the established norms and even to clash with
the political ideology.
He has seen substantial changes throughout his life, some for the
better and some for the worse. The counterculture changed the
behaviour, the interaction between men and women and the ideas about
sexuality and the relationships between races and cultures. Part of the
resistance during the sixties was to go against segregation, racism and
religious fanaticism, ideals that are still prevalent.
These days, however, there is a resurgence of fear of other ethnic
groups and cultures. Rothenberg says he would like all of this to be
gone forever, but it reappears in a setback of something that had been
achieved. At the beginning of the XXI century people are still killed
for religious reasons, there is racism in Europe and the United States
and it manifests itself violently. Poetry attempts to go further, but
the resistance brings another type of counter resistance. That is why
for some the counterculture has existed and still exists, while others
don't accept it.
With respect to translation Jerome Rothenberg says he has different
ideas because there are different ways to translate. With American oral
traditions and American Indian music he has found new forms of
translation and creation. In the anthology Shaking the Pumpkin he
created new poems based on Indian translations.
There are lots of things that unite people in the present world and
other things that divide them. Internet provides a way to communicate
without barriers or borders, but at the same time we find the most
vicious insults and racist ideas against some groups. Neither Internet
nor the real world display one thing without its opposite. Both live
together in time, though this is just the beginning of another era of
communication; fifteen years ago we didn't even know what Internet was
all about.
In response to Roglan's question of why human beings make art,
Rothenberg says that these are ways to celebrate or commemorate
something, so music, art, language arts and a rhythmic language as a
way of storytelling were created. Probably the beginning of everything
was a very simple rhythm and body movement later changed it. This is
why we have hundreds of languages as well as ways of linguistic
expression.
With reference to his good health and sense of humour Rothenberg says
that it is part of his nature. Humour is a desire and a way to avoid
the temptation of taking oneself too seriously. In Indian cultures,
there are some figures that play clowns in the ceremonies and joke
about the most sacred things. That is a function of artists and poets.
Even Plato in his book The Republic forced the poets to leave the city
because they laughed at the gods and the sacred.
Al Gallo is the Editor of Translation Reference. Google: Google+
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