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Alice Notley

Remember What I Came Here to Do to This World Very Little Actually

  • 1 Remember What I Came Here to Do
    to This World Very Little Actually
    | Translations: de
  • 2 Lady Poverty | Translations: de
  • 3 From In the Pines | Translations: de
  • 4 IN THE CIRCUIT | Translations: de
  • 5 The Secret | Translations: de
  • 6 [I stand here in whose eyes]
  • 7 [Woman with antlers]
  • 8 [Like a scratchy record]
  • 9 Millions of us
Language: english
Translations: german (Warum kam ich überhaupt auf diese Welt
ich hatte sehr wenig zu tun, oder)
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Remember What I Came Here to Do
to This World Very Little Actually

I came here so that the
I came to be equal in surprise to
I came empty-handed before being dried
I am a poisonous epoch
I was at four a shape of love and reason
I was at fifteen capable of heinous pity
I'm not so foolish as to
I think at 34 that I know who the best poets are
I saw your footage of what you said was the age
I meet 6000 men and 15 women on the way to
I thought we would have more influence on
I perform no generous act '84
I put self back in the genie bottle for the fad
I, and did I ever love
I, loving truth more than myself, am abased by
I was poor but never poor enough
I have as much authority to speak as
I was against all war and loved mostly soldiers
I have no identity I recognize except in myself
I go in there it's the page of a book I rip it
I am infidel to country
I, guilty always through speaking, inhale
I, that year, hating the species, thought of myself as inhuman
I think the imagination is more real than
I, I said, presume we're all fully responsible for
I once visited their great graves that was years ago
I measured that year in sequence of vivid dreams of it
I was once the shaman of a death
I keep trying to be honest in this glittering wind
I find you difficult like as not
I saw it and I said
I will never be complete without the
I caressed him too clumsily
I borrow someone else's form what else is a body

© Alice Notley
From: Mysteries of Small Houses
Penguin Group US, 1998
ISBN: 978-1-4406-2125-3
Audio production: Literaturwerkstatt Berlin 2014
Categories: poems on poetics, memory, identity (personal)

Translations:

Language: german

Warum kam ich überhaupt auf diese Welt
ich hatte sehr wenig zu tun, oder

Ich kam hierher damit die
Ich kam, ihnen staunend zu gleichen
Ich kam mit leeren Händen trocken nicht
Ich bin eine toxische Epoche
Ich war mit vier ein Bündel Liebe und Vernunft
Ich war mit fünfzehn ruchlosen Mitleids mächtig
Ich bin nicht so trottelig dass ich
Ich glaub mit 34 weiß ich wer die besten Dichter
Ich sah dein Video von dem du meintest es sei unsere Zeit
Ich traf 6000 Männer und 15 Frauen auf dem Weg zu
Ich hoffte, wir könnten mehr Einfluß haben auf
Ich vollbringe '84 keine große Tat
Ich schick mein Ich wieder in eine Dschinnflasche für die Disco
Ich, und hab ich je geliebt
Ich, die Wahrheit mehr liebend als mich selbst, gedemütigt von
Ich war arm jedoch nie arm genug
Ich habe genauso viel Recht zu sprechen wie
Ich war immer gegen Krieg und liebte meist Soldaten
Ich erkenne keine Identität an oder in mir allein
Ich geh da rein die Seite eines Buchs ich reiß sie aus
Ich bin dem Land nie treu
Ich, wie eh und je durch Sprechen schuldig, atme ein
Ich hasste die Menschheit, damals, hielt mich für unmenschlich
Ich denke, die Fantasie ist wirklicher als
Ich, sagte ich, vermute, wir sind alle verantwortlich für
Ich besuchte ihre prächtigen Gräber, Jahre her
Ich maß dieses Jahr in lebhaften Träumen, da ich es träumte
Ich war damals die Schamanin eines Todes
Ich versuche doch, in diesem Glitzerwind anständig zu bleiben
Ich finde dich schwierig als ob nicht
Ich sah es und ich sagte
Ich werde nie vollkommen sein ohne
Ich liebkoste ihn immer zu lumpig
Ich borgte mir die Form eines anderen was anders ist ein Körper

Aus dem Englischen von Uljana Wolf
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Alice Notley

photo © Alice Notley
* 08.09.1945, Bisbee, United States
lives in: Paris, France

Alice Notley has published over thirty books of poetry, including (most recently) Culture of One and Songs and Stories of the Ghouls, and the chapbook Secret I D.  With her sons Anselm and Edmund Berrigan, she edited both The Collected Poems of Ted Berrigan and The Selected Poems of Ted Berrigan.  Notley has received many awards including the Academy of American Poets’ Lenore Marshall Prize, the Poetry Society of America’s Shelley Award, the Griffin Prize, two NEA Grants, and the Los Angeles Times Book Award for Poetry. She lives and writes in Paris, France.

 photo © Alice Notley
Publications
  • 165 Meeting House Lane

    1971

  • Phoebe Light

    1973

  • Incidentals in the Day World

    1973

  • For Frank O'Hara's Birthday

    1976

  • Alice Ordered to Be Made

    1976

  • A Diamond Necklace

    1977

  • Songs for the Unborn Second Baby

    1979

  • Dr. Williams' Heiresses

    1980

  • When I Was Alive

    1980

  • How Spring Comes

    1980

  • Waltzing Matilda

    1981

  • Tell Me Again

    1982

  • Sorrento

    1984

  • Margaret & Dusty

    Poems

    Coffee House Press, 1985

  • Parts of a Wedding

    1986

  • At Night the States

    1988

  • From a Work in Progress

    1988

  • Homer's Art

    1990

  • To Say You

    1993

  • Selected Poems of Alice Notley

    1993

  • Close to Me and Closer...

    (The Language of Heaven) and Desamere

    1995

  • The Descent of Alette

    Penguin, 1996

  • Mysteries of Small Houses

    Penguin, 1998

  • Disobedience

    Penguin, 2001

  • From the Beginning

    2004

  • Coming After

    2005

  • Alma, or the Dead Women

    2006

  • In the Pines

    Penguin, 2007

  • Grave of Light

    New and Selected Poems, 1970-2005

    Wesleyan University Press, 2008

  • Reason and Other Women

    Chax Press, 2010

  • Culture of One

    Penguin, 2011

  • Songs and Stories of the Ghouls

    Wesleyan University Press, 2011

Prizes
  • 1988 Los Angeles Times Book Prize

  • 2007 Lenore Marshall Poetry Prize

  • 2015 Ruth Lilly Poetry Prize

Links
  • Alice Notley @ PennSound

    archive of sound & video recordings

    Website
  • Alice Notley @ Poetry Foundation

    biographical essay, many poems & audio recordings as well

    Website

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