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John Mateer

New Years Eve

  • Autumn Is Everywhere | Translations: esdeja
  • After Returning From A Voyage Of Exploration | Translations: deslfrptsv
  • 1 The Dream | Translations: deid
  • 2 The Rock | Translations: deid
  • 3 In the Pleasure Quarter | Translations: nldeja
  • 5 Caparica - The People’s beach | Translations: ptsl
  • 7 Eduardo | Translations: ptdesv
  • 8 In The Valley Of A Thousand Hills | Translations: de
  • 9 The Scar-Tree of Wanneroo | Translations: dezh
  • 10 New Years Eve | Translations: defa
Language: english
Translations: german (Silvesterabend), persian (شب سال نو)
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New Years Eve

Behind the white gables of Perth Mosque,
around the corner from the block of flats where she used to live,

she who held my heart in her hands like an injured bird,
whose laugh tinkled like a meditation bell waking me,

down a narrow street of old workers’ cottages, in a friend’s backyard
a bearded man, whose eyes are Sumerian,

whose deep voice is calm and burning like Zoroastrian fire,
recites a classical Persian poem:

             When I am drunk I wander down the street
             unaware that I am passing the house of my beloved.

Then the poem modernized:

             I’m so drunk when I wander down the street of my beloved
             that only when I am pissing against the wall I realize it’s hers.

O were I drunk enough to lean against my ex-beloved’s door
having nothing in mind by the words of an Iranian’s poem!

© John Mateer & Publisher
From: The Diwan
Audio production: Literaturwerkstatt Berlin 2010

Translations:

Language: german

Silvesterabend

Hinter den weißen Giebeln der Moschee von Perth,
um die Ecke vom Mietshaus, in dem sie wohnte,

sie, die mein Herz wie einen verletzten Vogel in Händen hielt,
deren Lachen wie ein Meditationsglöckchen klingelte, mich weckte,

in einer Gasse mit alten Arbeiterhäusern, im Hinterhof eines Freundes,
sagt ein bärtiger Mann mit sumerischen Augen und tiefer

Stimme, ruhig und lodernd wie zoroastrisches Feuer,
ein klassisches persisches Gedicht auf:

             Wenn ich betrunken bin, gehe ich durch die Straße,
             gehe am Haus der Liebsten vorbei und merke es nicht.

Dann das Gedicht in moderner Fassung:

             Ich bin so blau, als ich durch die Straße der Liebsten gehe,
             daß ich ihre Hauswand erst sehe, als ich dagegen pisse.

Oh wär ich betrunken genug, um an der Tür meiner Ex-Geliebten
zu lehnen, mit nichts als dem Gedicht eines Iraners im Sinn!

Aus dem Englischen von Jan Wagner
Language: persian

شب سال نو

پشت گلدسته های سفید مسجد پِرت 1
حوالی جایی که او زندگی می کرد
او که قلبم را شبیه پرنده ای زخمی در دستانش گرفت
وصدای خنده هایش مثل زنگ مدیتیشن مرا از خواب بیدار کرد.

در انتهای خیابانی باریک جایی که خانه های کوچک کارگرهاست
در حیاط خلوت ِ خانهء یک دوست
مردی با ریش های بلند و چشمانی سومری
و صدایی آرام که مثل آتش زرتشت سوزان است ،
یک شعر قدیمی ِ فارسی می خواند:

" ای که از کوچه معشوقه ما می گذری
  بر حذر باش که سر می شکند دیوارش " 2

و کمی بعد شعری امروزی:

" وقت آن است که ما مست کنیم
  مست از آنسان که بریم از یاد
  حرمت کوچه معشوقه خود را
  وبشاشیم راست به دیوارش  " 3

وای من آنقدر مست بودم
که وقتی به در خانه معشوقه ام تکیه دادم
چیزی در خاطرم نمانده بود ، جز کلماتی از آن شعر فارسی !


_________

1. مرکز ایالت استرالیای غربی
2. سطری از شعر حافظ
3. سطرهایی از شعر اسماعیل خویی

ترجمه : لیلی رخشا
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John Mateer

photo © gezett.de
* 01.01.1971, Johannesburg, South Africa
lives in: Perth, Australia

John Mateer was born in Johannesburg. He spent his childhood in South Africa and Canada, and shortly before being conscripted moved with his parents and sisters to Australia. He travels frequently, often to Asia and

Europe.

When asked whether he feels he is Australian or South African, he usually

falls silent.

The novelist JM Coetzee, writing on his South African poems, states:

“Written from the rim of the far-flung South African diaspora, these poems

 photo © gezett.de
by Mateer roll back the tide of forgetting, giving us one glimpse after

another of a beloved homeland.” While the Australian critic Martin Harrison

has suggested that Mateer “is a poet who speaks towards the centre of

Australian culture.” And the Portuguese poet Manuel de Freitas, in a

review of the booklet The Travels/Viagens, sees that in the poems there

“is an “I” rightfully translated into the language, itself nomadic, of Camões,

Pessanha or Gil de Carvalho…”

Mateer’s poems have appeared in books in Australia, the UK and Austria,

and in ephemeral booklets in some of the places about which he has

written: South Africa, Australia, Japan, Sumatra, Macau and Portugal.

His most recent publications are The West: Australian Poems 1989-2009

(Fremantle Press), The Azanians (T41), Ex-White/Einmal Weiss: South

African Poems
(Sisyphus Verlag), and the forthcoming Namban/Southern

Barbarians
, poems about the Portuguese world (T41 and Giramondo).

Publications
  • Burning Swans

    [poetry]

    Fremantle: Fremantle Press, 1994

  • Anachronism

    [poetry]

    Fremantle: Fremantle Press, 1997

  • Spitting Out Seeds

    Melbourne: Anatman, 1999

  • Mister! Mister! Mister!

    Australia Centre Medan, 1999

  • Barefoot Speech

    [poetry]

    Fremantle Press, 2000

  • Loanwords

    [poetry]

    Fremantle: Fremantle Press, 2002

  • Spitting Out Seeds

    [poetry]

    Anatman, 2002

  • The Ancient Capital of Images

    Kyoto: privately published, 2003

  • Semar's Cave

    [non-fiction travelogue]

    Fremantle: Fremantle Press, 2004

  • The Brewery Site: Six Poems

    [poetry]

    Sydney: Vagabond Press, 2004

  • The Ancient Capital of Images

    [poetry]

    Fremantle: Fremantle Arts Centre Press, 2005

  • Elsewhere

    Cambridge UK: Salt Publishing, 2007

  • Southern Barbarians

    Johannesburg: The Zero Press, 2007

  • Ex-White / Einmal weiß

    South African Poems / Südafrikanische Gedichte

    [poetry] Ins Deutsche übertragen von Ludwig Roman Fleischer

    Klagenfurt: Sisyphus, 2009

  • The Language

    with Layli Rakhsha

    Perth: privately published, 2009

  • The Republic of the East

    Association of Stories Macau, 2009

  • Travels

    Lisbon: Tea for One, 2009

  • The West

    Australian Poems 1989-2009

    Fremantle: Fremantle Press, 2010

  • The Azanians

    Lisbon: Tea for One, 2010

  • Southern Barbarians

    Sydney: Giramondo, 2011

  • Unbelievers, or 'The Moor'

    Bristol: Shearsman Books, 2013

  • Unbelievers, or »The Moor«

    Sydney: Giramondo, 2013

  • Emptiness

    Asian Poems, 1998-2012

    Fremantle: Fremantle Press, 2014

  • The Quiet Slave

    A history in eight episodes

    Perth: Spaced, 2015

  • The Scar-tree / Der Narbenbaum

    Übertragen von Andreas Schachermayr

    Berlin: Hochroth, 2015

Awards
  • 2001 Victorian Premier’s Prize for Poetry

  • 2003 Centenary Medal

Links
  • 'Tea for One' blog

    Website (pt)
  • Ali Alizadeh reviews John Mateer

    Review of 'The West: Australian Poems 1989-2009' by John Mateer

    Website (en)
  • Complexity drawn from emptiness

    A review of THE ANCIENT CAPITAL OF IMAGES by John Mateer

    Website (en)
  • Fremantle Press

    Mateer's publisher in Australia

    Website (en)
  • Giramondo Publishing

    The publisher of 'Southern Barbarians'

    Website (en)
  • Interview with John Mateer

    Website (en)
  • Interview with John Mateer @ Southern Perspectives

    Website (en)
  • John Mateer reads Saigyõ's Cherry Tree (VIDEO)

    Website (en)
  • ON JOHN MATEER'S SOUTHERN BARBARIANS

    Website (en)
  • Review of John Mateer's 'The Republic of the East'

    Website (en)
  • Review of Semar's Cave in 'The Jakarta Post'

    Website (en)
  • Slope # 13 (Dec 2001)

    incl. New African Poetry, Guest edited by John Mateer

    Website (en)
  • The expert survivalist

    About Mateer's poetry collection 'Loanwords'

    Website (en)
  • Zu John Mateers Band „Ex-White / Einmal Weiß“

    Website (de)

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