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I love the uprise of a texture (1)

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← Octets Octets (I) ~ I love the uprise of a texture…
written by Osip Mandelstam 		I love the uprise of a texture (2) →
PD (1)
From Moscow Notebooks. See also Poems. Translated from Russian by Dmitri Smirnov. In Russian: Люблю появление ткани 1.


I.


I love the uprise of a texture,
To see after two, three or some
Air gasps, when there will be a gesture,
And deep straightening breath then will come.
5 And space, like a child, half awoken
Chalks arcs with the sail of the yacht, —
The shapes so untied and unbroken, —
And plays, never knowing its cot.


November 1933, Moscow. July 1935, Voronezh
(Translated 20 June 2007, St Albans)

Notes

This poem was written in November 1933 – July 1935 (Moscow – Voronezh) opens the cycle of "Eight-Line Poems" ("Octets"). "First two "octets" with the same first stanza speak about the appearance of a poem. In the first one, the appearance of written in verse lines becomes similar to the understanding of space or to freedom of a movement in space. This is as if discovery of the world through the verses "the sailing arcs of a regatta", – they correspond in the initial version (if this it is possible to name version) in "arc expansion", which is the rhythmical side of poem. In the essence, in first "octet" there is as if comparison of the rhythmical side of line or stanza with the rhythm of sail panels. The second "octet" (written earlier), gives the description of the onset of verses, which sound in the mumbling, prompted by inner voice, and where rhythm appeares ("arc expansion")." Nadezhda Mandelstam. Memoirs, Book 3 (in Russian). "Tissue" – sometimes translated as "cloth" ("I love how the cloth appears" – Richard and Elizabeth McKane) or "sails" ("I love the suddenness of sails" – David McDuff). But it also suppose to be a "tissue of poem". Translated from Russian by Dmitri Smirnov. See the source: Eight-Line Poems

Previous version of translation:

I


 
I love the uprise of a texture,
When after two or three
Or perhaps four gasps
It comes, the straight deep breath.
5 And by the sailing arcs of a regatta,
Drawing the open shapes,
The space being only half-awake plays
Like a child, never used to knowing the crib.


November 1933, Moscow. July 1935, Voronezh
(Translated 1989, Moscow. October 2006, St Albans)


© Dmitri Smirnov, translation. Can be reproduced if non-commercial.

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