14. Emily Dickinson’s a Pisser: Talking to Poet-Translator Paul Legault

You live in Brooklyn, right?
I live in Crown Heights, moved to Brooklyn three years ago after grad school, started working at the Academy of American Poets when I got here, launched a small Brooklyn press focused on radical translation called Telephone Books. And I like it here.

Why Emily Dickinson?

For any American poet, Emily Dickinson is sort of a monolith. There’s no way around/over/under—you have to go through it. To me, translating Dickinson seemed as inevitable as a contemporary musician covering Bob Dylan. Because her ideas are distinctly modern. And though the hymnal form’s a little dated, Dickinson understood how time works, i.e. #326:

Heaven is so 1861.

Or, as she writes in #379:

I wish I were simpler. I also wish I were more edible.

Mehr

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Die beiden hier „zitierten“ Gedichte von Emily Dickinson:

326

I cannot dance upon my Toes --
No Man instructed me --
But oftentimes, among my mind,
A Glee possesseth me,

That had I Ballet knowledge --
Would put itself abroad
In Pirouette to blanch a Troupe --
Or lay a Prima, mad,

And though I had no Gown of Gauze --
No Ringlet, to my Hair,
Nor hopped to Audiences -- like Birds,
One Claw upon the Air,

Nor tossed my shape in Eider Balls,
Nor rolled on wheels of snow
Till I was out of sight, in sound,
The House encore me so --

Nor any know I know the Art
I mention -- easy -- Here --
Nor any Placard boast me --
It's full as Opera --

379

Rehearsal to Ourselves
Of a Withdrawn Delight --
Affords a Bliss like Murder --
Omnipotent -- Acute --

We will not drop the Dirk --
Because We love the Wound
The Dirk Commemorate -- Itself
Remind Us that we died.

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