Moving Poems

Another of Josep Porcar’s videopoems for the Catalan literary site Blocs de Lletres. Stevens’ poem is now in the public domain, so here’s the text:

The Snow Man

One must have a mind of winter
To regard the frost and the boughs
Of the pine-trees crusted with snow;

And have been cold a long time
To behold the junipers shagged with ice,
The spruces rough in the distant glitter

Of the January sun; and not to think
Of any misery in the sound of the wind,
In the sound of a few leaves,

Which is the sound of the land
Full of the same wind
That is blowing in the same bare place

For the listener, who listens in the snow,
and, nothing himself, beholds
Nothing that is not there and the nothing that is.

A poem by Portugal’s greatest living poet, Eugénio de Andrade. This was uploaded by Bloqs de Lletres, so I’m assuming the video is by Josep Porcar, as their others are.

Here’s an English translation by Alexis Levitin:

URGENTLY

It’s urgent — love.
It’s urgent — a boat upon the sea.

It’s urgent to destroy certain words,
hate, solitude, and cruelty,
some moanings,
many swords.

It’s urgent to invent a joyfulness,
multiply kisses and cornfields,
discover roses and rivers
and glistening mornings — it’s urgent.

Silence and an impure light fall upon
our shoulders till they ache.
It’s urgent — love, it’s urgent
to endure.

(from Forbidden Words)

Anne Sexton poem with Catalan subtitles from Blocs des Lletres. The recitation is by the poet.

Louise Bogan reads her poem in this montage by Josep Porcar for the Catalan website Blocs de Lletres. Porcar took the footage from another film on Vimeo: Mary, written and directed by Mel Eslyn. For the text of the poem, see here.

This video really adds to my appreciation of the William Blake poem. I’m not sure who put it together, but it’s one of a number of video poems from the Catalan literature site Blocs de Lletres (whence the Catalan subtitles).