Notes to the Name and Its Translation, and: Let There Be
- Notes to the Name and Its Translation, and: Let There Be
Notes to the Name and Its Translation
Cintia Santana’s work has appeared in Beloit Poetry Journal, The Missouri Review, RHINO, and elsewhere.
Footnotes
1. The graffito suggests that the correct pronunciation was either lost or deliberately avoided.
2. The hammer of high wind. The editors recommend this usage in reading aloud, but others may wish to follow their own custom (e.g. tea cup clatter; rhythm of the rails; ring tone rising).
3. Historically, translations into English allude to a miniature person said to exist in the mind, with some exceptions, notably “Reading Whitman in the Grass.”
4. This rendering, on doubtful grounds, introduces an overly male emphasis through its constant use of “He.” Compare with “You are the alpha and the asshole. The f’d up aleph.”
5. “Too bad! Too bad!” (Ger.)
6. Some explanation is in order.
7. Not the palm but the shadow of the palm.
8. Every hair of thine. The euphemism has fallen out of modern usage.
9. That is, an ideal mirror, lossless.
10. Orb of the eye. Dark water. Perhaps a joke.
11. Useful in this regard is Hart Crane’s statement: “The street car device is the most concrete symbol I could find.”
12. The fever underneath the hand.
13. Here, a loud knock on the roof at night. A later folio indicates the single tolling of a bell.
14. Perpetual motion (Latin).
15. “So I go to the stranger’s body and bend. I split my lip on the bone of his cheek and lick the salt from the spoon of his back. The day breaks behind his shoulder by shades. I sleep then and sleep and wake with him to eat” (Selected Letters, p. 28).
16. “You can learn more from the shadow than from the object itself” (Military Counter Surveillance Manual, Chapter 5, Lesson XXIII).
17. Blinded and thereby granted the gift of prophecy.
18. Triangular insert in the seam of a garment. Allows expansion.
19. Originally, a summer house. Here, by extension, the nationalist movement, and even the whole façade of the temporal world. May also suggest: needle and points on a compass; godwit, knot, rail, and ruff; open pleasure-boats decorated with large artificial swans that circulate on a pond during summer months; the high-heeled boot worn by Greek tragic actors as well as the “sock” or light shoe worn in comedies; the mariposa plum, a many-colored meadow; goat path; rainspout, flip-flops in the rain; the forked root of the mandrake; the hum in the mouth; the sweet cane.
20. All the while, the body, breathing.
21. Backlit.
22. In an interview, Del Berg, the last living volunteer to fight as part of the Abraham Lincoln Brigade states, “It bothers me a little that at ninety-nine I might die any minute because I have a lot of other things I want to do!”
23. The extant fragment reads, “What I miss most about fishing is reading the water.” [End Page 116]
Let There Be
light you said. And there was light. And there was lack.Let there be life you said. And it was lush with loss.
Let there be lion and there was lion. And there was lamb.Let lion and lamb be divided. Luna moth from moon. And it was so.
Let there be laughter you said. And there was laughter. Lap and lick.Loin and purr. Lip. Loop. Leash—there was law. There was lynch. Látigo. Luftwaffe.
Land and labor. Lather and lathe. Leave, longing, lesson. Yes, there was lesson, too.And lesser. And least. Loam and leaf. Load, ligature, and lie. Yes, there was lie.
Lapse. And lake. Luck and leap. Little by little. Letter by letter. And it was late. And there was bloom. [End Page 117]
