‘L’avidité de tes muqueuses cannibales’

Emilie Moorhouse’s translations of the verse of Joyce Mansour (1928-1986) in Poetry, June 2023, give full-throated voice to the satisfactions of the originals.

Take the line from “Fever your sex is a crab” that serves as my title: Lack of good judgment would make me argue for “The avidity of your man-eating membranes” over “The eagerness of your cannibalistic tissues,” which is Moorhouse’s civilized rendering.

“Muqueueses” is a hairy caterpillar of a word, a phonological jamboree oozing with vowels, glorious as French can be. I love saying “muqueuses cannibales,”talking about saying it, imagining being heard doing so.

Mansour’s language seems notably “musical” to my ear, not tinkly but savage. A pleasurable aspect of reading the poems alongside their translations is savoring their acoustic power while leaning confidently on Moorhouse for help with unfamiliar words. The bolded terms in the extract below were new to me:

Rhabdomancie
…
Puis affalée dans l’armoire près du lit
Projetez votre oméga plus une poignée de salamandres
Dans le miroir ou l’ombre se dandine
…
Taquinez ses penchants avec un blaireau de soie
Saupoudrez son phalène de sang et de suie
…
Malgré moi ma charogne fanatise avec ton vieux sexe débusqué
Qui dort.

Dowsing
…
Then sprawled in the armoire next to the bed
Project your final word along with a handful of salamanders
In the mirror where the shadow sways
…
Tease his kinks with a silk brush
Sprinkle his moth with blood and soot
…
In spite of myself my carrion fanaticizes over your ousted old cock
That sleeps

This writing seems very current though its author died over 3 decades ago. It conjures words going for a walk as Klee took line for a walk. The sensuous fact of themselves is that to which they lead, and what they share with dream is the quality of slipping capture.

What does “surreal” mean, anyway, to a lay reader of today? It’s easy to call much contemporary verse surreal insofar as it doesn’t “make sense” in the ordinary way, doesn’t correlate to realities that are objective, if that means perceptible or conceivable in an awake, reasoning state of mind. I thought perhaps that’s what Eliot meant by “objective correlative,” but a quick Wiki-dip reminded me that what he meant was too abstruse to be memorable.

About JMN

I live in Texas and devote much of my time to easel painting on an amateur basis. I stream a lot of music, mostly jazz, throughout the day. I like to read and memorize poetry.

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