{"id":422,"date":"2020-08-31T08:23:10","date_gmt":"2020-08-31T06:23:10","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/sullivan.ba\/?p=422"},"modified":"2020-08-31T08:23:10","modified_gmt":"2020-08-31T06:23:10","slug":"the-utter-silence-of-the-untranslated-stars","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/sullivan.ba\/?p=422","title":{"rendered":"The Utter Silence of the Untranslated Stars"},"content":{"rendered":"

Albus McInerney edits a literary magazine.<\/em><\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/em><\/p>\n

Marianne began this week\u2019s proceedings with a bolt from the blue.<\/p>\n

\u2018I\u2019m afraid I have to tender my resignation from the committee,\u2019 she said. \u2018I\u2019ve been nominated by my party to stand as a candidate in the next elections.\u2019<\/p>\n

I didn\u2019t know Marianne had a party.<\/p>\n

Patrice was better informed. \u2018The regional assembly?\u2019 he asked.<\/p>\n

\u2018The European Parliament,\u2019 she said.<\/p>\n

Oddly, when Marianne specified her chamber of choice, I thought the viability of her candidacy somewhat enhanced \u2013 I imagine the EP as a place more at home with the theoretical than the prosaic and practical side of politics. If I have to think of her as a politician rather than a poet, then Strasbourg would be Marianne\u2019s natural home.<\/p>\n

\u2018It\u2019s a bit far off, isn\u2019t it?\u2019 Patrice asked. I thought he meant geographically, but then he added, \u2018Haven\u2019t they just had an election?\u2019<\/p>\n

\u2018Networking,\u2019 Marianne said. \u2018Building support \u2013 and I have a rival from my own party. I will have to attend to her.\u2019<\/p>\n

Marianne has always seemed to me to be the most focused of our little coterie, a woman for whom the term \u2018non-nonsense\u2019 might have been invented. Yet, \u2018attending\u2019 to her rival sounded, well, a little chilling.<\/p>\n

\u2018It will be a very great loss,\u2019 Dimitri said, and then \u2013 in case anyone was uncertain as to the professional versus the personal nature of the loss \u2013 he added, \u2018to the magazine.\u2019<\/p>\n

\u2018We will keep in touch, though,\u2019 Marianne said. She spoke crisply, but I detected an undertone of tenderness.<\/p>\n

Dimitri is a Modernist of the uncompromising variety, while Marianne\u2019s affinity with the late nineteenth-century Symbolists entails (I think most people would agree) a certain incompatibility with Modernism. Yet, these two have warmed to one another across the universe of Zoom.<\/p>\n

\u2018We should start thinking about a replacement,\u2019 Kim said, which was a bit brash since Marianne was still, metaphorically, in the room.<\/p>\n

\u2018I have one or two candidates in mind,\u2019 Patrice said.<\/p>\n

Patrice and Kim are not the most forthright of colleagues. Their swift apprehension of the main chance surprised me \u2013 I suppose you don\u2019t really know people until you\u2019ve served on a committee with them.<\/p>\n

\u2018One is a graduate student from Hubei \u2013 unconventional but academically sound,\u2019 Patrice continued<\/p>\n

\u2018When I was in Namibia last year,\u2019 Kim said, \u2018I had the great good fortune to meet an exponent of jazz verse who works with traditional rhythms\u2019<\/p>\n

\u2018Shall we each submit one or two candidates?\u2019 Dimitri asked, assuming a business-like tone. \u2018The criteria should go beyond the practice of poetry. After all, what we actually do here is a bit more humdrum.\u2019<\/p>\n

\u2018Och,\u2019 I said, \u2018It\u2019s not humdrum \u2013 though it will be less fun without Marianne!\u2019<\/p>\n

Some apt lines came into my head:<\/p>\n

For whatever we lose(like a you or a me)\u00a0 <\/em><\/p>\n

it\u2019s always ourselves we find in the sea<\/em>,\u2019 I said.<\/p>\n

\u2018Is that your own, Albus?\u2019 Patrice asked, with evident appreciation.<\/p>\n

\u2018E.E. Cummings,\u2019 I said.<\/p>\n

\u2018Well selected!\u2019 Dimitri said.<\/p>\n

Marianne spoke in a voice that seemed to me to express agreement and regret at the same time. \u2018It\u2019s by sharing a little bit of ourselves,\u2019 she said, \u2018that we can pierce The utter silence of the untranslated stars<\/em>.\u2019<\/p>\n

\u2018Cummings again?\u2019 Kim asked.<\/p>\n

\u2018Yes,\u2019 Patrice said.<\/p>\n

\u2018And the earth withers<\/em>,\u2019 Dimitri added, \u2018the moon crumbles \/ one by one \/ stars flutter into dust.<\/em>\u2019<\/p>\n

We were, no doubt, going a little over the top \u2013 it was only a matter of a colleague venturing off in a new \u2013 and rather impressive \u2013 direction. But what\u2019s the point of poetry if you don\u2019t make use of it from time to time.<\/p>\n

\u2018A bit of a Brahmin was E.E.Cummings?\u2019 Kim asked \u2013 with syntax somewhat Cummingsesque.<\/p>\n

\u2018Upper crust,\u2019 Patrice said. \u2018Radical by artistic avocation \u2013 but not a great fan of progress on other fronts.\u2019<\/p>\n

\u2018He has those lines,\u2019 Marianne said \u2018about the breaking of your soul upon my lips<\/em> \u2013 so perhaps we can forgive him many things.\u2019<\/p>\n

\u2018The breaking of your soul upon my lips,\u2019 Dimitri repeated with deepest melancholy.<\/p>\n

Dimitri, as I said, will miss Marianne.<\/p>\n

But if all goes well, the European Parliament will presently be graced by the presence of a bright and sometimes luminescent emigre from the rough and tumble of literary life \u2013 assuming her political rival is attended to in the interim.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Albus McInerney edits a literary magazine. \u00a0 Marianne began this week\u2019s proceedings with a bolt from the blue. \u2018I\u2019m afraid I have to tender my resignation from the committee,\u2019 she said. \u2018I\u2019ve been nominated by my party to stand as a candidate in the next elections.\u2019 I didn\u2019t know Marianne had a party. Patrice was […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":374,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[1],"tags":[84,82,83],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"http:\/\/sullivan.ba\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/05\/cropped-banner-K1-1.png","_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/sullivan.ba\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/422"}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/sullivan.ba\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/sullivan.ba\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/sullivan.ba\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/sullivan.ba\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=422"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"http:\/\/sullivan.ba\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/422\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":423,"href":"http:\/\/sullivan.ba\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/422\/revisions\/423"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/sullivan.ba\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/374"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/sullivan.ba\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=422"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/sullivan.ba\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=422"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/sullivan.ba\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=422"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}