Noga's Creative Endeavors:

I've kept away from the blog for so long that I forgot my password. So I tried the usual combination I use almost everywhere else and it worked. Wow. What a long memory these things have. I mean, they forget nothing! Like my mother... She can still admonish me for something I did when I was 9 years old.

I'm toying with the idea of changing the name of my blog. I have not been too political in my posts here and I feel such a name is just too pretentious and undeserved. Maybe I'll cut the "centrist" and remain only "contentious" which may serve as an indicator of a personality trait and no more.

I'm getting ready for a conference where I'll be giving and receving some of my favourite wisdoms in literary translation. I'm so excited I could pop. I'll post a precis of the paper I intend to read.

And here are two poems I translated. I have yet to make up my mind which I will read during a Declamacion session:

La Soleá / Federico Garcia Lorca

Vestida con mantos negros
piensa que el mundo es chiquito
y el corazón es inmenso.

Vestida con mantos negros.

Piensa que el suspiro tierno
y el grito, desaparecen
en la corriente del viento.

Vestida con mantos negros.

Se dejó el balcón abierto
y el alba por el balcón
desembocó todo el cielo. ˇ

Ay yayayayay,

que vestida con mantos negros!

And here's my translation:

The Soleá

In her black robes
She thinks the world is tiny
and the heart is immense.

In her black robes

she thinks the softest whimper
and the fiercest wail
in the swirl of wind evanesce

In her black robes

she left the balcony open
and the resplendent dawn sky
through the balcony cascaded

Ay yayayayay

In her black robes

Here's a famous Hebrew poem:

A walk to Caesaria/ by Hannah Senesh

אלי, אלי, שלא יגמר לעולם
החול והים
רישרוש של המים
ברק השמים
תפילת האדם

And my translation:

O God, My Own God
this must never end
the sea, the sand,
the soft whisper of lapping waves
the splendour of the skies
A prayer of Mankind