Home » Poems » T Wignesan » Translation of Eric Mottram's a Faithful Private - 2 With Commentary By T Wignesan

Translation of Eric Mottram's a Faithful Private - 2 With Commentary By T Wignesan

Transl. of Eric Mottram’s A Faithful Private - 2 with a Clive Bush comment on Mottram's poetry Excerpt from an article, “From space to caves in the heart recreating the collective world in Eric Mottram’s poetry” by Clive Bush, Director of American Studies, King’s College, University of London in The Journal of Comparative Poietics, Vol. I, Nos. 2 & 3 (Paris), 1990/1991, p. 61. Founder-Editor: T. Wignesan. “As Mottram points out in his article on Michael McClure, “ecology” is a major problem for both capitalist and communist societies.47 Everywhere in Mottram’s poetry is an appalling sense of anguish at the wastage and repressive cruelties of both major powers and their allies in our time. In Interrogation Rooms (1982) where the vision is very dark, Spinoza’s dictum “there cannot be too much joy; it is always good: melancholy is always bad,”48 is a hard-won and always unstable conviction. The existential anguish and sense of political betrayal felt by anyone of sensibility in the late twentieth century (and certainly acutely in post-Imperial, Thatcherite Britain) is never ignored: “the cultural scene can never be divided and it is always political and economic.”49 A Burroughsian vision of virus, sexual invasion, cancerous deterioration, hi-tec manipulations, malign control-fantasies, the deadening energies of mass media, and enactments lead Mottram to Artaud’s cry quoted in The Legal Poems (1986): do not make me do evil to myself since God has already committed every filthiness.50” Un fantassin loyal - 2 le sang de vieilles bobines d’actualités des films entachait dans des chambres d’induction de la tribu mais en soutenant la robe en tant que don appelée l’invitation alors puis-je passer à travers dites aux étoiles “en haut” sans (dire) “qui s’en sort” asseyez-vous à la table ronde sur la dernière étage vers les étoiles ouvertes et entourées des modèles dans leur imitation abandonnez-vous les morts calcifiées continuez afin de pouvoir passer à travers pour manger des nouvelles branches par le biais des chambres d’oreilles entendez une scène d’odeur en couleurs goûtez le matin du printemps les chansons d’oiseaux trouvez-vous que cet écriture soit placée sous l’emprise d’une charme ayant mangé la vieille femme elle s’est émergée de sa peau altérée ses pores de pigment et ses follicules ont une masque d’aliments vieille déesse homme nouveau fontaine (c) T. Wignesan - Paris, 2017

Post Comments

Poetrysoup is an environment of encouragement and growth so only provide specific positive comments that indicate what you appreciate about the poem.

Please Login to post a comment

A comment has not been posted for this poem. Encourage a poet by being the first to comment.