Rao, Velcheru Narayana (tr.);
Twentieth Century Telugu Poetry
Oxford University Press, 2004, 345 pages
ISBN 0195670191, 9780195670196
topics: | poetry | telugu | modern | translation
A superb collection. While the translations are not always the finest, the selection seems to pick poem that say something to you.
opening page: ekasya tisThati kaver gr.ha eva kAvyam anyasya gachhati suhr.dbhavanAni yAvat nyasyad vidagdhavadaneShu padAni shasvat kasyApi san~charati vishvakulUhalIva - rAjashekhara, kAvyamImAMsA, 4.10 Some poems sit in the poet's house, others make it to a friend's door. A good poem travels the world on the lips of brilliant people, as if it has an endless wanderlust.
You're mine only when you take off all your clothes for me When you're dressed you belong to the world I'm going to shred this world into pieces one day
On the city's main street the bull stood quietly chewing its cud of memories, of past lives, eyes half-closed, motionless. The bull in the heart of the city not heeding time, the very owner of the street laughing at the pace of progress, stood like a king. Who can ask this bull to move ? See what it looks like ! Stop the car ! What's the rush ? Brother, you on the bicycle, watch out ! The bull doesn't move. Anti-industrial, pacifist, vegetarian, staunch prohibitionist on the city's main street. the bull can stand like this forever. an animal has no sense, what about man ?
I even I added a piece of wood to the fire of the world Even I gave a tear of mine to the rain of the world I offered my voice too to the rain of the world ... If I alone cease hot wind, rain, snowfalls are wasted on this earth ...
When I was young I was my father's daughter I was my younger brother's elder sister. When I grew up, when I matured, I was my father-in-law's daughter-in-law; his respected son's wife. I was my sons' mother. When I grew old, no longer menstruating I was his daughter's grandma. I am a female thing. Once every five years, in the election manifestos I am a slogan, quite fashionable.
When I see this end of the sari on my shoulder I think of chastity a log hung from my neck. It doesn't let me stand up straight It presses my chest with its hands bows me down teaches me shame and whirls around me a certain bird-like confusion It hypnotizes me telling me, 'You, you're a woman,' makes me forget I'm human It covers both my shoulders with its own hands [*] and flutters announcing 'See, see, this woman! she's chaste!' I feel like screaming, 'No, no I'm not,' but my throat doesn't open I am defeated by this sari It pulls me in like quicksand it throws me down like a whirlwind it's the blame generations have laid on me the unseen patriarchal hand This sari is the white shroud on the corpse that's me in this culture of loot and plunder If I’ve to stop being the walking dead I’ve to burn this sari first just burn this sari. [The version above is largely from The Oxford Anthology of Modern Indian Poetry tr. by V Narayana Rao and AK Ramanujan; here Rao makes several modifications: - replaces contractions such as I've or I'm or she's with I have etc. - drops some emphatic repetitions e.g. 'You,/you're a woman,' --> "you/Are" - sari on my shoulder --> over my shoulder - some added end punctuations like periods - some other changes e.g. "It pulls me in like a mire" -> quicksand - where marked with [*], changes "its hands" to "my own hands" The quicksand change is welcome and is retained, in all other respects, the D&R version seems superior and is reproduced above. In particular, "my own hands" for "its hands" devastates the meaning of the remaining stanzas, and should be avoided even if the original leans that way. VNR worked first with AK Ramanujan on this and several other poems in this anthology; therefore these changes may be later, or part of his differences with AKR. To my mind, many of these changes, e.g. "over" instead of "on" - reveal VNR's failings as an English language poet.
the wolf said he is vegetarian the tigers nodded
The train never comes You'll have to go over there Cross all seven bridges. Climb up and down. Children in tattered clothes sleeping on the bridge block your way and view. You trip and you slide into the world of snakes, like Arjuna did. Or into the hole in the big banyan tree, where the demon lives. The scary voices from the PA system frighten you. They bite you like the moaning sounds of dying patients. Your body wiggles out of the dark mouth of Rahu bending like the river. The train never comes to the place you want. What a burden, this walk! Damp memories in suitcases. Soiled childhood on the screw cap of the water jug. Sleep vanishes in the cold night -- no camp fire to warm yourself. You cross the bridges, one after the other. All alone, a mind sees anger hovering in the shadows of lamps. You wait. The signal doesn't turn green, ever. What if you swallow the poison pill from your purse and stop time! Will they build a road to where you bought the ticket? Will they return the money for the life that has stopped?
Chellapilla Venkata Sastri 3 Dasu Sriramulu 4 The Mother Tongue Gurajada Apparao 5 The Comet, Gold, Enough Rayaprolu Subbarao 13 Chained, Waiting Devulapalli Krishna Sastri 14 The Palanquin Wanderer, Her Eyes In Search of Krishna A Wish Abburi Ramakrishna Rao 22 The Farmer's Song New Capital A Longing Viswanatha Satyanarayana 24 The Blind Beggar Your Chariot You and I, The Beginning Song of Krishna Kodali Subbarao 36 A Shower of Gold Kodali Anjaneyulu 42 Radha Adivi Bapiraju 43 Steps Nanduri Subbarao 46 He Didn't Come Back Blow Out the Lamp, You in My Dream My Love Is this All Duvvuri Ramireddy 50 Tryst Nori Narasimha Sastri 51 Defeated Jashuva 52 I Was One of Them The Bat Messenger Kavikondala Venkata Rao 56 You on My Mind Workers in Love A Letter They Lie Hidden Chavali Bangaramma 60 Hibiscus on the Lake The Hill Full Moon in December My Brother Pingali Lakshmikantam and Katuri Venkateswara Rao 65 On the Farm The Stuff of Poetry Pathabhi 70 Sita Moon in China Bazaar, Whore An Autobiography Sri Sri 75 The Difference Really? The Other Shore Don't A Bitter Poem The Vedantist Ah! The Wheels of Jagannatha Call of Poetry Song of Victory 89 Some People Laugh Some People Cry Bull in the City Myth of Myself Srirangam Narayana-babu 96 A Blade of Grass Let's Go to Hell Sex Everywhere Sound of Silence Clear Throat Sishtla Uma-maheswara Rao 108 Memories Kaloji 110 We Should Remember Tenneti Suri Here Comes God Devarakonda Balagangadhara Tilak 112 War Dead A Prayer Police Report, You Are Not Here But Your Song Is, The Night It Rained Life Ajanta 121 Dateline Hyderabad Sleep Me on the Wall The Streets One Sound Varada and Arudra 129 This is About Us Arudra 134 Death of Man Bairagi 138 Give Me Confidence Who Is Awake in the Dead of Night? Ismail 141 The Buried Poem You Squandered Stars A Suggestion Poetry Seen from an Island in Godavari The Wall Parrots in the Tree Donkeys in Anantapur van Gogh's Ear Sivudu 147 Warrior Bhaskar! Nagnamuni 149 Wooden Horse Bhairavayya 166 Raped Poem Vegunta Mohana Prasad 168 Hades Empty Stupidity First Blood Liberation Smile 173 Nothing Happened Siva Reddy 175 We'll Destroy Generations We Write Nirasana Kavulu 178 Me? New Year? Forces of Production Revati Devi 181 A Birth A Burial of Burning Love G'bye, Going Out of Town Invocation Sleepers No Break Non-fiction Cold Meat Distance This Night The Voice God This World Poor Thing Jayaprabha 193 Signature, The Lost Poem He Was a Monarch Brilliant as the Sun Eight-petalled Lotus Fog in My Heart Burn This Sari 199 That's the Secret Love That Minute Gaze Never All Me The Train Never Comes 206 Kondepudi Nirmala 208 Rained Out Birds Love the Net Mahe Jabeen 211 An Act of Caution A Love Poem I Remember, Physical Geography Live Walls Ideal Wife, Intimate Relationships Fall Tripuraneni Srinivas 220 A Lost Memory Khadar Mohiuddin 221 Birthmark Afsar 228 Prayer Shajahana 230 Qatts-e Qazah Satish Chandar 232 A Child is Born The Fifth Note A Birth Postponed Madduri Nageshbabu 240 What Do I Want? Prasen, Vamsikrishna and Juluru Gaurisankar 242 The State, Gaddar, and Us Machiraju Savithri 249 Black and White Notes 251 Afterword: Twentieth Century Telugu Poetry: A Very Brief History 289 differently titled edition: Velcheru Narayana Rao (ed); Hibiscus on the lake: twentieth-century Telugu poetry from India Univ of Wisconsin Press, 2003, 330 pages ISBN 0299177041, 9780299177041 +POETRY TELUGU TRANSLATION ANTHOLOGY see also: 1. Poem at the Right Moment Remembered Verses from Premodern South India Rao, Velcheru Narayana & David Shulman (ISBN: 0520208498 / 0-520-20849-8)