Tres Poemes

Translating Juan Ramon Jimenez’s poem “Fruita de mi Flor”/“Fruit of my Flower” began some years ago when I read the poem aloud to my partner, Tevis, one afternoon after lunch, sitting opposite each other in the living room, each of us sitting in one of her armchairs upholstered in gold-colored cloth, which is truly somewhat felicitous for reading a poem by Jimenez. It is one of the most spiritually accomplished of any poem I’ve read, and is among Jimenez’s best poems. However, Jimenez has written several astonishing poems regarding “higher consciousness,” so what is the difference?

There is a difference between spirituality and higher consciousness—Jimenez particularly writes memorably of both. What makes the most difference, in my mind, is that Jimenez lends “higher consciousness” to his poems, such as “Fruita,” which then makes them more integral and not just only poems regarding spirituality, especially since spirituality sometimes can certainly lack any sense of “higher consciousness.” Jimenez knew this and his practice and craft was exacting, passionate, and refined.
 
I had not thought I would translate my favorite poems by my favorite Spanish poets. I came of age in an era, as a bookseller, when translation blossomed into a golden age. As a social bookseller, I placed books in readers’ hands; now as a translator my calling is to redirect readers’ attention to poems that are immemorial and worth seeing and hearing in new translations aimed at being in harmony with the original voice of an author such as Jimenez.
 
Robert Bly was an inspired translator and someone whom I found early direction from by reading his translations of Jimenez. This then led to my rereading some of the work other translators had done, including and especially Bly who, despite introducing so many worthy poets to so many readers, in my observation also takes such liberal interpretations of his own, which I believe do disservice to the poets he translates, especially Jimenez, whose purity of form, content, integrity of image, and precision in what is elemental and sublime require a non-egoic interpretation.
 
My translating became not only a practice but an ardor, and I pursued it with zeal. What has happened to me, further and more deeply, is that I have come to appreciate the nuances in the texts I have translated. Jimenez’s sense of order in the disorder of the world, is expressed by his predilection for perfection of image, sound, and word, as seen in such poems as “Momentary Return,” “The Ship Enters, Opaque and Dark,” and “Dawn Outside the City.”
 
Another example is Federico García Lorca’s deep roots in the “guitar” and in Duende, the mysterious dark creative force which predicates some, if not much, of Spanish poetry and song, and his nearly inimitable penchant for fairy tale. All of that is heard in his rhythms and in his sense of song, rooted in the deep image. But we must remember that Lorca was influenced by Jimenez, the master, who was Lorca’s elder.
 
May the translations I’ve made be as rewarding to any reader as they have been for me in making them. May they imbue you with the appreciation of what it means to be fully alive.