#against mastery

[speakyetpause]

Against Mastery

— Brionne Janae

give me no seat at the table let no trembling hands lay food on my plate

let me lord over no one and nothing not the dog curled up in my bed

not the land nor children who wander through my care         let me learn from the babies

and be always laughing at my ignorance only humble discovery       give me

and keep my eyes on the pattern of birds’ wings breaking the blue overhead           let me face

the ones I harm with open palms and let love be the method and measure of my worth

keep my heart with my people and the coal glowing beneath my feet

let me run and run and run and run and let the flame of my torch never go out

I am here with you to burn the house down

keep me to this          cut me down before you let me lose my way

[knargavin]

Johannes Göransson on the deformation zone that is translation

One frequently heard standard for translation is that the translation should read as it would read to a speaker in the native country. But this criterion makes it seem as if the readers in the original country are all the same, all with the same interpretations and reading approaches. Further, it makes it seem like poems are always written for the most educated (which tends to mean richest, most privileged) readers … [But, poetry] may be written for and by immigrants and emigrants, for and by weirdos, for and by readers with strange or unusual reading habits, for and by people who read via transnational contexts, for and by people who have no desire or ability to ‘master’ the poem.

From Transgressive Circulation: Essays on Translation (Noemi Press, 2018)