A Woman Cleaning Lentils.
A lentil, a lentil, a lentil, a stone.
A lentil, a lentil, a lentil, a stone.
A green one, a black one, a green one, a black. A stone.
Suddenly a word. A lentil.
A lentil, a word, a word next to another word. A sentence.
A word, a word, a word, a nonsense speech.
Then an old song.
Then an old dream.
A life, another life, a hard life. A lentil. A life.
An easy life. A hard life. Why easy? Why hard?
Lives next to each other. A life. A word. A lentil.
A green one, a black one, a green one, a black one, pain.
A green song, a green lentil, a black one, a stone.
A lentil, a stone, a stone, a lentil.
This is by a Turkish-Armenian “poet” called Zahrad. It hardly has an heroic theme. I mean “A woman cleaning lentils” is not the Trojan War and it is not a song of valour or lost love or glory or any of the other usual subjects that have excited poets since furthest antiquity. It takes a nonentity of a theme and then goes downhill with it. It is utter drivel. It is worse than Australian stuff Mr Cats has posted here and that was dire enough.
It might have lost something in translation but I doubt it. I bet it is fucking dreadful in Armenian as well.
The only question worth asking here, is why anyone in their right mind ever bothered to translate it. It makes Benjamin Zephaniah look like Shakespeare.
I have seen worse mind. When I was Editor of our school magazine, we had in excess of 100 poems submitted by a sad little dork name of Laurence Perkins. Well giving him an E for Effort, and feeling dreadfully sorry for him, we finally published one excerable but mercifully short poem. No I can’t remember what is was called, thank god, but Ode to a lentil was well above his capacities.
Nick,
Are you sure Zahrad really is Turkish-Armenian, and not a Vogon?
Wow! My first visit to your site and my life has been instantly enriched. Honestly. Cross my heart etc…
Such a beautiful poem. Could only have dribbled from a Turkish-Armenian quill. And filed under ‘literature’ - naturally.
Yusuf Islam could be interested in setting it to music and including it in his repertoire. Have you considered sending it to him?
I will certainly be back!
“Worst”? “Ever”? That’s a bit harsh (although I’ll admit that it does have a certain Vogonic quality). Granted, it is a bit awkward (which could be a function of the translation), but at heart it’s an examination of the fundamental unfairness and, ultimately, the futility of life. There is a certain valor in a “hard life” devoted to cleaning lentils.
Didn’t you once say that your mother is an English teacher? What does she have to say about it?
/Fragments from Two Important Poems/
Sad.
Sad.
Sad.
The world is sad.
Oh how sad it is
To sad
With sad.
–Archie*, ca. 1958.
…
It is just as you say.
Have it your way.
…
The world is ugly,
And the people are sad.
–Wallace Stevens**, from “Gubbinal”
*My memory probably errs as to the exact wording…but this is the gist, and I’m pretty sure of the third stanza. :>)
**The intent is not to poke fun at Mr. Stevens, as I am a fan (especially of “Harmonium”). Actually I’m fond of “Gubbinal.” One might say, “The world is what you make of it”…although one might then counter, “How glib!” It all depends on whether or not one is feeling dyspeptic, I suspect.
***You may interpret this comment as pure stream-of-semi-consciousness. As I am still working on the first cuppa.
Sorry SD, way too late. I did the Vogon joke on Cat’s second outrageous Aussie Poetry post
Julie, you drink tea? What kind of Benedict Arnold American are you? Cuppa means exclusively a cup of tea in Britain.
Tossing and turning
Turning and tossing
The river to Nod
Is so hard in crossing
It’s torture nightly battling
Consciousness high
But my foot’s gone to sleep
So why can’t I?
RAB, thank you for yet another contribution to the English literary tradition. Your pome drupeth not in shame, as it describes a universal condition known even to us benighted colonials, and that right pithily.
:>)!
Speaking of colonials–benighted we may be, but surely we have the sense to understand that a cuppa just naturally contains java. For the brew to which you unfortunate folks have a strange addiction, the more right-thinking among us would ask for a glassa–chilled, and served over ice.
The lentil pome; an epic torture,
Performed topless.
Penned by a sister
with words fit to blister
The Sun.
Phwoar, what a scorcha!
Thank you Julie, you are obviously a lady of taste.
I love coffee, preferably strong, Kenyan High Mountain etc milk and brown sugar, but I love tea the best, also strong.
I suspect that you may never have tasted really good tea to make a comparison. I have been served tea on several continents now, and have had to ask… What is this brown fluid supposed to be again? to waiters. And I think I know why.
I was in Sri Lanka a few years ago, and there is no way you are allowed to leave until you have paid a visit to a tea plantation in the hills. Well you do the tour of the factory, get a few packets to take home and sit down to a well deserved cuppa, and delicious it verily is! But when your guide knows you’re British, they quite happily tell you that all the very best tea gets exported to Britain and India, and what gets exported to the rest of the world, including the USA, is literally the floor sweepings. I’m sure they wern’t joking, they seemed very proud to be getting away with it in fact!
RAB, perhaps the “floor sweepings” wheeze explains my own observation, which is that the better Indian and Thai restaurants here seem to be the place to go for hot tea that actually tastes good. Although I was once fortunate enough to get some really excellent Lapsang Soochong–we bought it loose out of a barrel in San Francisco’s Chinatown, in 1975. :>))!! It was wonderful, very deeply smoky…my husband and I used to say it tasted exactly like burning rubber. (Consider that poetic license, or something.) It certainly was distinctive.
Never had anything like it since. You can get it in teabags from Twining’s, but….
Speaking of Lapsang Soochong, don’t I recall that Quiller went blessed it at some point?
I was reminded somehow of “The German Guns”, that epic poem of the First World War penned by no less a genius than Private Baldrick.
I prefered John Lee Hooker’s version to Baldricks myself, formertory
http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=fvwp&NR=1&v=6gw4YPWuIoA