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Kendel Hippolyte

All this is language

  • 1 All this is language | Translations: de
  • 2 11:55 | Translations: de
  • 3 Coda | Translations: de
  • 4 Conjugations – 4: Nox Irae | Translations: de
  • 5 Mack 1 – McWanting | Translations: de
  • 6 Fascioners of Progress | Translations: de
  • 7 Journal fragments in a time of hazard | Translations: de
Language: english
Translations: german (All dies ist Sprache)
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All this is language

(for Ayodele and Idara)

This, all this, is language:
a sullen mob of rain distant and murmuring,
wind whispering low rumour in the bushes,
clear shout of light over the hill.
The earth is utterance:
hosanna! is the scattering of pigeons,
hallelujah! stands the tree in the noon hour,
selah, the psalmody of waves in the late afternoon.
Branches like epileptic prophets in the wind
gibber wild questions at blue silence
and the taciturn ground, in sudden joyful places
cries: chrysanthemum! rose! bougainvillaea!
i listen, half-remembering....

The river, talking often in its sleep
a long sentence, an incantation
of silver and white feeling tumbling too quick for thought ...
damn, the river makes no sense at times
but words are like that
especially when spoken, like wind and water words.
So lately i trust the rocks especially;
they write their messages.
They intend, like all the ancient poets,
their words should take the weathering
of time, stay true as epitaphs.
Awed by that vocabulary – of things themselves –
i am illiterate, dumb before them.

This morning now, raw wind tearing away leaves,
the sky unscrolls
that puzzling calligraphy of clouds again.
i shake my head, turn to
the rugged cuneiform of dry-river stones,
quick script of wind on grass,
blackbirds printed on blue morning -
all, everything, like ciphers in a code,
hieroglyphic messages i used to know....

On days like this
i try to read the earth-poem
but a scrawl of haze, a smoke
from something charred, but smouldering
sneers over the landscape.
Singed, the young grass twinges
memory, the scent of childhood insidiously accurate
rises acridly and stings.
On days like this my eyes run
and everything is blurred


© Kendel Hippolyte

© Kendel Hippolyte
Audio production: Haus für Poesie / 2018

Translations:

Language: german

All dies ist Sprache

(für Ayodele und Idara)

Dies, all dies, ist Sprache:
ein düstrer Regenmob von fernher murmelnd,
Wind, sein tiefes Wispern von Gerüchten in den Büschen,
klarer Ruf des Lichts über den Hügel.
Die Erde ist Äußerung:
hosianna! ist das Aufscheuchen der Tauben,
hallelujah! ragt der Baum in die Mittagsstunde,
selah, die Wellen-Psalmodie am späten Nachmittag.
Zweige im Wind wie epileptische Propheten
Wilde Fragen in die blaue Stille schnatternd
und der wortkarge Boden, an jähen frohen Plätzen,
ruft er: Chrysanthemen! Rose! Bougainvainvillea!
ich lausche, halb-besonnen....

Der Fluss, einen langen Satz spricht er
oft in seinem Schlaf, einen Zauberspruch
aus silbrigem und weißem Spüren, das dem Sinn davonstürzt …
verdammt, der Fluss ergibt zuweilen keinen Sinn,
aber so sind Worte,
vor allem wenn wie Wind- und Wasserworte ausgesprochen.
Jüngst vertraute ich daher vor allem den Felsen;
sie schreiben ihre Nachricht nieder.
Wie die alten Dichter wünschen sie,
dass ihre Worte in der Witterung der Zeit
bestehen, wahrhaftig wie Epitaphe.
Voll Ehrfurcht von diesem Vokabular – der Sachen selbst -
bin ich Analphabet, vor ihnen stumm.

Jetzt, an diesem Morgen, reißen rohe Winde Blätter ab,
der Himmel entrollt wieder
diese vertrackte Kalligraphie der Wolken.
Ich schüttele meinen Kopf, wende mich
der rauen Keilschrift von Steinen im leeren Flussbett zu,
der flinken Handschrift des Windes im Gras,
Amseln, dem blauen Morgen aufgedruckt -
allem und alles, wie Ziffern in einem Code,
Hieroglyphen, die ich einst gekannt ….

An Tagen wie diesem
versuche ich das Poem der Erde zu lesen
doch eine Dunstkritzelei, Rauch von
etwas, das schon verkohlt noch schwelt
feixt über der Landschaft.
Versengt, stechende Erinnerung
des jungen Gras‘, der Kindheitsduft, hinterlistig und genau,
steigt auf, ist scharf und sticht.
An Tagen wie diesem tränen meine Augen
und alles ist verwischt.

Übersetzung von Monika Rinck
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Kendel Hippolyte

photo © gezett.de
* 09.01.1952, St. Lucia, Saint Lucia
lives in: St. Lucia, Saint Lucia

Kendel Hippolyte (b. 1952 in Castries, the capital of St. Lucia) studied at the University of the West Indies in Jamaica. He worked as a teacher at St. Mary’s College in Vigie, Castries and at Sir Arthur Lewis College in Mourne. He is an active dramaturge and director with the Lighthouse Theatre Company, which he co-founded, and for which he has written eight plays. His best-known play, Drum Maker, uses idiomatic Caribbean language and explores the political context of the indigenous culture. In his poetry he works in traditional forms such as the sonnet or the villanelle as well as free verse and in forms influenced by rap and reggae.
He has published five volumes of verse and several collections marked by a free, modernist style.
His current focus is on using his skills as a writer and dramatist to raise public awareness and contribute to active solutions to critical social and political topics such as climate change.

 photo © private
Publications
  • Island in the Sun, Side Two…

    1980

  • Bearings

    1986

  • The Labyrinth

    1993

  • Birthright

    Peepal Tree Press, 1997

  • Night Vision

    TriQuarterly Books / Northwestern University Press, 2005

  • Fault Lines

    Peepal Tree Press, 2012

Awards
  • 2000 St. Lucia Medal of Merit (Gold)

  • 2013 OCM Bocas Prize for Caribbean Literature for Fault Lines.

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