emily dickinson

Lisa’s Literal Translations #2 – Emily Dickinson #294

/ Lisa Asanuma / Leave a comment

LiteraryTranslation

What a Literal Translation is: A word-f0r-word translation that swaps words out with literal synonyms

Why a Literal Translation: They help dissect hard-to-understand poems. Most of the time.

Emily Dickinson’s poem #294, the Original:

The Doomed – regard the Sunrise
With different Delight –
Because – when next it burns abroad
They doubt to witness it –

The Man – to die – tomorrow –
Harks for the Meadow Bird –
Because its Music stirs the Axe
That clamors for his head –

Joyful – to whom the Sunrise
Precedes Enamored – Day
Joyful – for whom the Meadow Bird
Has ought but Elegy!

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Lisa’s Literal Translation:

The Condemned – look at the Emerging of the Sun
With altering Happiness –
Because – the time soonest again it fires far away
They question to see it –

The Male Person – to expire – the day after today –
Listens for the Field Small Winged And Beaked Animal –
For The Reason That its Song moves the Bladed Hammer
That calls for his uppermost appendage –

Ecstatic – to whom the Lifting of the Sun
Comes Before Love-Smacked – AM
Ecstatic – for whom the Field Small Winged And Beaked Animal
Holds nothing but Lament for the Dead!

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This poem implies that even someone on death row might be looking forward to the new day (their death day). I’m guessing because death means freedom. I chose a Dickinson poem at random, because I just love her, even if her poems are a bit hard to understand sometimes.

If you have a poem you’d like to see me translate literally, just let me know!

April is Poetry Month!

/ Lisa Asanuma / Leave a comment

bleedys-icons-teaandbooksAnd in celebration, this month I’m going to share some poems with you. The first is Emily Dickinson (#704), because she is one of my absolute favorites, and always a treasure. If you only ever want to read through the life’s work of one poet, I recommend Dickinson a hundred times over.

No matter—now—Sweet—
But when I’m Earl—
Won’t you wish you’d spoken
To that dull Girl?

Trivial a Word—just—
Trivial—a Smile—
But won’t you wish you’d spared one
When I’m Earl?

I shan’t need it—then—
Crests—will do—
Eagles on my Buckles—
On my Belt—too—

Ermine—my familiar Gown—
Say—Sweet—then
Won’t you wish you’d smiled—just—
Me upon?

I love everything about this poem. The sass. It is a perfect example of how sassy Dickinson could be. And, I’ll admit, a poem dear to my own heart. Because I’m still working my way up to Earl, too. Aren’t we all?

Booking Through Thursday: Only Five

/ Lisa Asanuma / 2 Comments

Before we get started, two things:

1) Today is my first post at the Dojo! Go read about my love of the Pomodoro Technique!

2) This is my 100th post on this blog! Woohoo!

And now, back to today’s originally scheduled BTT question:

If you had to pick only 5 books to read ever again, what would they be and why?’

I’m not going to mention my LDS quad in this, because that’s a given and the reasons therefore should also be fairly obvious, though if I really were given only five books, this would of course be one of them, as I try to read a little every day. On to the more objectionable stuff… I’m going to make two seperate lists here:

Cheater List

1) The Complete Works of William Shakespeare – Because I want brilliance, and I want a lot of it.

2) The Complete Poems of Emily Dickinson – Because no other poet has satisfied me as much, as consistently.

3) The Complete Works of Jane Austin – (See reason for #1)

4) The Complete Works of Ray Bradbury – I’m not totally married to this, but I’ve really loved a lot of Bradbury shorts, and I think I’d need something short and diverse.

5) The Complete Harry Potter – Okay, I know this isn’t a volume yet… but you know it will be someday.

Non-Cheater List

1) Jane Eyre. I don’t know that I could ever get tired of this book. For some people it’s Pride & Prejudice, but for me it’s Jane Eyre.
2) Little Women. I start reading this almost every Christmas. I have to admit, I don’t usually read the whole thing through, but I’ve read it enough that it’s one of my oldest and sweetest friends. Even though a very big part of me still wants Jo to marry Laurie.
3) Anne of the Island. Why this one? Because this is the book where Anne rejects Gilbert and then realizes that she loves him. Ah, the tortuous angst. I love it. I am all over it.
4) Enna Burning by Shannon Hale. Again, it’s all about the long-withheld requitement of love in this one. Plus Enna is awesome. Which I like. I don’t think I’d get tired of it.
5) I Never Promised You a Rose Garden by Joanne Greenburg. This book has saved my sanity more than once. If I were say, on a desert island or something, I think I’d need literature like that. For those moments I’m not trying to feel all the fall-in-love pangs that I’m so addicted to.
If you’re stopping by for BTT, be sure to check out my Books are for Lovers post. Buy a book on Valentine’s to show your local bookstore some love!

Booking Through… Saturday?

/ Lisa Asanuma / Leave a comment

Okay, I’ve loved Booking Through Thursday since I first found out about it a couple of years ago. It’s a weekly question about reading or books that serves as a great writing prompt for blog posts.  Problem is, I always forget to do it. This year I’d really like to get used to the idea, though, and so I give you my first Booking Through Thursday prompt. Yes, I know it’s Saturday night. Give me a break.

What’s the largest, thickest, heaviest book you ever read? Was it because you had to? For pleasure? For school?

I have to admit, the thickest book I’ve ever read all the way through is probably Gone With the Wind. Mercy, even Middlemarch isn’t as long, and Middlemarch is 800+ pages. And if you’re curious, yes I read that one, too. All. The. Way.

Like many a girl before me, and probably (hopefully) many to come, I had a deep infatuation with Gone With the Wind when I was younger. It started with the movie. I’d seen it once when I was very small, but all I really remembered from it were the (amazing!) dresses and the fire. Oh, and Clark Gable. Because… he’s Clark Gable. *blushes*

When I was eleven or twelve I watched it on TV—on the WB, to be exact, back when the network still existed alone—and fell utterly in love with it. My mom would sigh and tell me how Vivian Leigh wasn’t her Scarlett O’Hara (I had to get it from somewhere, you know?) but I didn’t mind. I watched enthralled from the twins (Frank and Fred? Oh dear… someone will call me out on that if it’s wrong) fawning over Scarlett, through her dancing in mourning clothes and the Atlanta Fire (which nothing has ever compared to cinematically since, if you ask moi) to her declaration of Tomorrow being another day.

This was right before they digitally remastered the film and made all the colors brighter. I think I got that double VHS copy for Christmas that year.

And so, I read the book. Oh, that book. I remember bits of it so vividly. Rhett leaving her on the bridge… Scarlett beating her horse so that it got her to Tara, the thick, thick mist in her dream that was so much more oppressive than they were in the movie. Also, all of the extra husbands and kids that didn’t make it into the film version.

I would think about how Margaret Mitchell used the manuscript as a stabler for her kitchen table for years, something that appalled me as an already-aspiring author. How Clark Gable was afraid he couldn’t pull it off because he was a comedian. How he was actually who she pictured as Rhett Butler, which was completely amazing to me. I read the book twice, but I’d like to read it again someday… I wonder how different I’d take to it now that I’m all growed up and whatnot.

Other thick books I have read at least most of:

Middlemarch by George Eliot — As mentioned. I loved this book. It’s long and dry in some parts, yeah, but definitely a classic for a reason. You know how Jane Austen said that Anne Elliot from Persuasion was “almost too good” for her? That’s the feeling I get from Middlemarch, except in this case Dorothea is really, honestly, VERY good in every single way. Kind, pious, generous, etc. Somehow she’s not unrealistic, though. And she’s not immune to romance, either.

The Assassin’s Cloak: An Anthology of the World’s Greatest Diarists — I completely loved this book. I can’t say I’ve read every single entry, because it was for a class and I got behind a bit, but it has writing from so many amazing, brilliant and diverse people. I highly, highly recommend it.

The Norton Anthology of Poetry — I read through the first half of this (I think I actually read every poem) for a class. I wish I could have taken the second half of the class, but it was at the same time as another class I wanted to take more. I don’t know where my NAP (as I called it affectionately—though in all honesty, the content rarely made me sleepy) is at the moment, and that thought saddens me greatly, because it’s such a pretty book. I’d like to take it out and read it slowly.

The Complete Poems of Emily Dickinson — This… was also for a class. Are we seeing a pattern here? I re-read it just over a year ago, though, because that class officially made me a Dickinson lover for life. Every time I read an Emily Dickinson poem, I want to read a hundred more of them. She is that good.

A seriously thick book I want to read, which is sitting on my shelf just waiting? Jonathan Strange and Mr. Norrell. I’ve heard it described as a Harry Potter* for adults, complete with seriously awesome footnote** content, something Thursday Next novels have made me a complete geek for.

What’s the thickest book you’ve read?

*I suppose a couple of the HP books are long too, eh?

**I completely forgot this word for a good five minutes. Had to resort to Google to figure it out. Then had to head-desk.