ModPo 2013 #68 Translation and Being of Two Minds: On Bergvall's "Via"

In Filipino, translation means "pagsasalin" or to literally pour from one
vessel to another. It reminds me of "a carafe. That is a blind glass."

Read the text of Caroline Bergvall's poem, "Via," here.
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INFERNO

Inferno: Canto I

Nel mezzo del cammin di nostra vita
mi ritrovai per una selva oscura
ché la diritta via era smarrita.

- La Divina Commedia
di Dante Alighieri
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Bergvall goes through 48 translations, not privileging one over the other but just using alphabetical order to go through them. It does remind me of Stein. Repetition is difference. And also Armentrout..."abandoned/ in a story made of trees." In a dark wood, the way is lost.

This is meaningful to me because my M.A. thesis was about translation. I hypothesized that it's possible to regain a native tongue by means of translation. A re-membering of sorts. I've always been guilty of "losing" my Cebuano tongue. I was brought up in an English-speaking household. Even in my grade school we were fined for speaking Cebuano. Cebuano, for me, was street. I used it with our household help, for navigating markets, and making small talk. It was not the medium of poetry. They say that the test of first language is the language that you think in, the language with which you pray. My inner speech is English. And I can't reverse it anymore. I can only attempt to re-member.

In a way, I feel like an orphan, having unconsciously abandoned my mother tongue. My hyphothesis dealt with how my mother tongue wasn't really lost, just buried in my subconscious. And I thought that translation would make my mother tongue re-emerge. Well, I didn't really prove anything with my thesis. It got a grade of "good" (not "very good" or even "excellent") which, to me, means "good attempt." Actually, it was quite ambitious and perhaps needed more rigor in the analysis. But I still stick by that notion that translation is not a rote and passive activity (the translator largely lost and transparent in favor of the source text). It is an active engagement between cultures. It takes choice and creativity. What makes it interesting for me is that I am of two minds: an English mind and a Filipino/ Cebuano mind. I express myself best in English--the product of a colonized culture. Even in a postcolonial world (is it really postcolonial, though?) I am still speaking in a language inherited from my colonial past.

I am in a dark word, and my way is lost.
Naa ko sa ngitngit na gubat, ang akong dalan nawala. 

Brian Reeds's words echo in my head: "In other words, she is continually reasserting the fact that the world is always joined in media res, in the middle of things. The divinely ordained right way forward has been lost — but it will always remain so, and ever has been."

I am an example of the world joined in the middle of things. I am a work of cultural translation. And I am glad that there is no divinely ordained right way forward. Otherwise, I would have no choices.

Manila Did Not Drown

Manila Did Not Drown
- Manila, after August 8, 2012

This storm came nameless,
dragging at the tails of another typhoon,
filling our streets mercilessly and equitably
with muddy, debris-strewn water.

"It's only water," some people say
through their tears, clutching a bag of clothes,
a radio, holding fast to babies in plastic bins
while soldiers ferry old men and women
on their backs, as some of them form
human bridges over the floodwater
and prisoners give up their food for others.

Over the sound of rain are whistles
from rubber boats, looking for anyone to be rescued.
Over the sound of rain are collective cries
for hot rice and bottled water and blankets and breast milk
and warm hands to hold orphaned children.

No one will be left behind, not here, not now,
and those aren't just words, they are in the real
grasp of those packing cans of sardines to give away,
in the pictures of divers and mermaids smiling in the water,
in the prayers and the tears these past three days
that will not be forgotten.
We rose up with a bittersweet laugh
to forgive, begin again.

- Justine C. Tajonera


Photo from collective FB Posts

Windmills

by Justine C. Tajonera

The beach was paved
with windmills,
white and tall
stretching into
the horizon.

It was like I was
in a different world:
post-apocalyptic
Japanese anime
or Scandinavian coastline,
anywhere
but here.

Anything massive
or environmental
or a machine
that actually works
couldn't come
from
here.

Little faith,
accumulated losses,
a history of
disappointment
color these blank,
white windmills
of the North.

Like the blowing arm
of nature,
collectively unleashing
its amoral force,
circumstances threaten
to drown
my hope.

But an ember
remains.

It is slow to fan,
dragging in pace,
but it is there.
I hold out my hands
harnessing
what approaches.

Our time

will come.

(Nov. 4, 2009)
Contemplation on the windmills of Ilocos Norte