Word: poem
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...dark, sunken eyes. Five women file in behind him, the five most influential women in his life, ranging from his mother to a whore with whom he forms a relationship. The women circle Poe—who collapses—and begin quietly singing adaptations of his most famous poems in unison, including “Annabelle Lee” and “Alone.” Each woman seemingly competes for Poe’s recognition as the inspiration for her respective poem. This opening scene forces the audience to recognize the pathos in Poe?...
...play continues in a similar vein, with scenes and songs based on Poe’s poetry and his difficult experiences—both romantic and maternal—with women. As each woman sequentially enters and leaves the stage, a new dimension of meaning is placed upon each poem; the muse behind the words is unveiled. The women separately represent something to Edgar, a trait of character or quality of life that he never had. Amongst many impressive performances, Joelle Kross as Virginia, Poe’s 13-year old bride and first cousin, is particularly adept at imbuing...
While Mitchell’s translations are looser and more creatively liberal, Snow’s have an interest in direct syntactical facsimile; with a more direct approach to the formulation of Rilke’s images. In “Going Blind,” a poem from “New Poems,” Rilke describes observing a woman who is ostensibly doing just that. The poem ends with a paradigmatic Rilke image—in observing her impediments, he suddenly perceives a flash of transcendent elegance. Mitchell writes, “and yet: as though, once...
This attitude perhaps provides us with a clearer image of what Rilke is doing intellectually; however this often obscures the emotional force of Rilke’s poems. In the third poem of Rilke’s sonnet sequence, “Sonnets to Orpheus,” he addresses a youth, a “Jüngling,” who presumably has been writing bad love poems. Here is Snow’s translation: “It’s [i]not[/i], youth, when you’re in love, even / if then your voice...
...judging various translations, we as readers are put in unique positions of judging, and experiencing, different versions of the same poem. All poets offer truths that are pressing and immediate, and yet often our immediate understanding of poetry happens only when the poem’s aesthetic affects us in a certain way. So, assuming translations maintain a reasonable accuracy, it really is a matter of personal preference which translation you choose. For me, Mitchell did the job. However, I believe Snow has put together a translation that will present the ideas and emotions embedded in Rilke?...