Spanish Poetry and my Journey to Fluency

As much as I hate being stuck in the same cycle, having a daily routine is healthy. I've started a list of things that I want to do each day, and limited them in some ways so that the list is achievable and more feasible. School started this week, and with the new rhythm of a schedule, I'm settling into a new routine. I'm writing of list of things I want to do everyday, and the first thing on my list is to read one Pablo Neruda poem a day. I bought Cien sonetos de amor (100 Love Sonnets) by Pablo Neruda translated by Stephen Tapscott several months ago and I didn't start digging into until now.
I will share my favorite stanza:

Oh invádeme con tu boca abrasadora,

Indágame, si quieres, con tus ojos nocturnos,

Pero en tu nombre déjame navegar y dormir.

Invade me with your hot mouth; interrogate me

with your night-eyes, if you want—only let me

steer like a ship through your name; let me rest there. 

These words struck me, "Only let me steer like a ship through your name; let me rest there." I read them over and over, settling into their loveliness, their familiarity. Some people truly have a way with words, and it's one thing to be a poet, famous or not, and it is quite another to be a translator of poetry. 

I'm speaking from experience. 

Spanish Senior Seminar last year, I worked on several poems, translating them from Spanish into English. Spanish is a much prettier, more romantic, and lyrical language than English is, and it is tricky to maintain the rhythm and the mean. I translated poems by Venezuelan poet Elías David Curiel (1871-1924).

Curiel used archaic Spanish and some words are not widely used today, in English or Spanish. Many times I could not find any inkling of the words online and sat down with my professor who pulled out aged thick books to look up outdated definitions.

This was one of the poems I had the most fun with. Many times I took creative license to make the English lines lyrical and pretty. 

~

MAL DE LUNA

a Antonio Smith

¿No ha padecido usted nunca  de ilunación?

 He aquí una enfermedad mucho 

más peligrosa que la más terrible de las

insolaciones, según lo atestigua Guy de

Maupassant.

Blanca noche. Me enfermo de mal de luna. Un prado. Surtidores.

Estatuas. Indecisas penumbras. Temblorosas claridades.

Una niña, en su blanco peinador semi-envuelta, entre las flores,

me espera, junto a una de las marmóreas míticas deidades!

Esa desconocida, que me aguarda, a los tímidos fulgores

de las rubias estrellas en un pensil cuyas frondosidades

penumbrosas acendran perfumes de sus labios tentadores,

suda el humor divino de las divinas voluptuosidades!

Bad Moon (Moon stroke)

For Antonio Smith

Have you ever suffered from moon stroke?

I have a sickness more dangerous than the 

worst sunstroke, as witnessed by Guy of 

Maupassant.

White night. I have moon stroke. A meadow. Fountains. 

Statues. Irresolute shadows. Trembling clarities. 

A girl, half wrapped in white negligee, among flowers, 

She waits for me, next to one of the mythical marble deities!

That unknown, she awaits me, the timid glow

Of the blonde stars in the garden whose shadowy 

Canopy of trees purify the perfume of their tempting lips,

She sweats divine humor of divine voluptuousness!

Seated, beside her, upon the moss bank, among the roses 

And amid the statues,—an arbor of goddesses made of Pentelikon marble—,  

I will tell her that love is the cradle of art, of which she is they symbol. 

She will squeeze a cluster of grapes in my mouth with a kiss.

I will bite an apple: her heart. And in my memory printed

her love, my soul will be the vision of a garden full of moon!

~

Poetry is beautiful artistic expression in all languages. Incorporating into everyday the poetry of Pablo Neruda makes me happy! And furthers my journey to fluency in Spanish.