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12:11 PM Posted by James Owens

A translation from the French of Francis Jammes at Language and Culture, Summer/Fall 2006

Prière pour Aller au Paradis avec les Anes

Lorsqu'il faudra aller vers vous, ô mon Dieu, faites
que ce soit par un jour où la campagne en fête
poudroiera....

Prayer for Going to Paradise with the Donkeys

When I must come to you, my God, provide
a day when the celebrating countryside
erupts in dust....

3 comments:

sam of the ten thousand things said...

Nice work on the Jammes' poem. Interesting read.

I was at Edison's tonight, and noticed that he has Tough Heaven, the new chapbook by Jack Gilbert. Have you read it?

James Owens said...

Thanks, Sam. Jammes is underappreciated, maybe because he was always distant, physically and stylistically, from the Appollonaire-Breton-Eluard Paris of the time. This poem is actually printed in France as a children's board-book. I like its jagged, political insistence on standing with the powerless.

I hadn't realized Gilbert had a new book. I'll get it. He's been necessary to me since I happened across The Great Fires a long time ago.

sam of the ten thousand things said...

Gilbert had several new poems and an interview-- post Refusing Heaven-- in a recent Paris Review. But I don't know if the poems are part of this new collection. I didn't really get a chance to look at the book closely.