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poetry in action #44
from EXERCISES 1950-1960 by Yannis Ritsos
Translated by Spring Ulmer
Exercises 1950-1960 is now available for preorder from Ugly Duckling Presse or Asterism Books, and will be out in May 2025.
Translator’s Note
Written after being tortured and detained as a political prisoner, the poems in Ritsos’ Exercises 1950-1960 are not filled with bitterness, but rather with amazement—at a solitary leaf, an etched glass, or the color of light. Alongside such tenderness, of course, the nation state stretches out in the sun, teeth bared. What to say about the human condition? Not long after completing these poems, Ritsos was again imprisoned.
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EVERY WINTER
After the rain, the snails went out for a walk.
Other snails stayed under small hills full of soft soil.
They went out and the women with their baskets went out to
gather the snails.
The weather’s turning. It is windy. Winter has arrived.
Not even a snail’s shell nor the soil has a roof.
The rain comes in through all the forgotten, old holes.
ΚΑΘΕ ΦΟΡΑ ΠΟΥ ΧΕΙΜΩΝΙΑΖΕΙ
Ὕστερ’ ἀπ’ τὴ ϐροχη ϐγῆκαν τὰ σαλιγκάρια περίπατο.
Ἄλλα σαλιγκάρια ἀπομείνανε κάτω ἀπὸ μικροὺς λόφους φουφουλιαστὸ
χῶμα.
Βγῆκαν κ’ οἱ γυναῖκες μὲ τὰ καλάθια τους νὰ μαζέψουν σαλιγκάρια.
Ὁ καιρὸς χαλάει. Βάζει ἄνεμο. Φτάνει ὁ χειμώνας.
Μήτε καὶ τὸ καϐούκι τοῦ σαλιγκαριοῦ, μήτε τὸ χῶμα εἶναι μιὰ στέγη.
Ἡ ϐροχὴ μπαίνει ἀπ’ ὅλες τὶς παλιές, λησμονημένες τρύπες.
///
DESCENT
They came down from the mountain at dusk.
They didn’t measure the distance up or down.
The peak was wooded and light-filled. Then night fell.
Upon their return, they remembered nothing.
Inside their sweaty palms were withered flowers—
so many miles they had carried them, taking such precautions,
only to throw them out now, just a few steps from home.
ΚΑΘΟΔΟΣ
Κατέϐηκαν ἀπ’ τὸ ϐουνὸ μὲ τὸ σούρουπο.
Τὸ δρόμο δὲν τὸν μέτρησαν οὔτε ἀνεϐαίνοντας οὔτε κατεϐαίνοντας.
Τὸ ὕψος εἶταν κατάφυτο, κατάφωτο. Ὥσπου ϐράδιασε.
Ὅταν γύρισαν, δὲ θυμήθηκαν τίποτα.
Μέσα στὶς ἱδρωμένες τους παλάμες, εἶχαν κιόλας μαραθεῖ τὰ λουλούδια—
τόσο δρόμο νὰ τὰ μεταφέρουνε, μὲ τόσες προφυλάξεις,
καὶ τὰ πετάξανε ἕνα ϐῆμα ἀκριϐῶς πρὶν ἀπ’ τὸ σπίτι τους.
///
EVENING
Two women are walking up the mountain. They’re tired.
One holds an old oil lamp. Dusk dissolves.
It’s getting dark in the middle of the forest. The wind
won’t leave the lamp lit. Put your hand—she said,
in front of that star, so the wind won’t blow it out.
It’s not just for you. The two women rise alone in the night.
ΒΡΑΔΙΝΟ
Δυὸ γυναῖκες ἀνηφορίζουν στὸ ϐουνό. Κουρασμένες.
Ἡ μιὰ κρατάει ἕνα παλιὸ λαδοφάναρο. Τὸ δείλι ἔχει σϐήσει.
Θὰ νυχτωθοῦν καταμεσὶς στὸ δάσος. Ὁ ἄνεμος
δὲ θ’ ἀφήσει ν’ ἀνάψουν τὸ φανάρι. Βάλε τὸ χέρι σου—εἶπε—
μπροστὰ σ’ ἐκεῖνο τ’ ἄστρο, μὴ τὸ σϐήσει ὁ ἀγέρας.
Ὄχι μόνο γιὰ σένα. Οἱ δυὸ γυναῖκες ἀνεϐαίνουν μόνες μὲς στὴ νύχτα.
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Yannis Ritsos (1909-90) was the author of more than 100 poetry collections and was nominated multiple times for the Nobel Prize.
Spring Ulmer, a 2020 NEA Translation Fellow and a 2016 Willis Barnstone Translation Prize winner, is also the author of Benjamin’s Spectacles (selected by Sonia Sanchez for Kore Press’s 2007 First Book Award), The Age of Virtual Reproduction, Bestiality of the Involved, and the forthcoming Phantom Number: An Abecedarium for April (selected by Diane Seuss as the winner of Tupelo Press’s 2022 Dorset Prize).