Tzara in a New Translation
Another chapter from the 1931 surrealist epic, APPROXIMATE MAN
Last summer, I shared chapters 1 and 3 from my translation of Tristan Tzara’s 1931 poetic epic, L’Homme approximatif. Today, I’m back at it with chapter 2, which can be found below in both in-text and screenshot versions. For those who would like to see my translations of these other chapters—as well as some background on the poet and book—you can find one post here and another here. Eventually, I intend to complete all 19 chapters, but for a novice translator like myself, it’s quite a task. Time will tell.
Although I don’t have as much supplementary material this time around, I still want to share a couple brief notes.
One echo in the French word “approximatif” is “roughly” or “vaguely.” Modifying the word “homme/man” it’s a suggestion of a humanity—“man” in the old sense, as in “mankind”— that has merely been sketched or hinted at. In the poem, sometimes this humanity is in an anguished search for completion and actualization of its true nature, but other times it goes through life not even aware of its partial, faintly sketched-in state. At the same time, there is the hint of “approximating man,” of humans forever guessing and calculating, living by the odds, by stats and data sets. Because I’m listening to a lot of billy woods right now (I’m preparing an essay on him which should be up soon!), I can’t help but think of his line, “Instead of poets you motherfuckers begat accountants!” I think that captures something of the poem’s argument, and it’s one that gets some attention in this chapter.
Also, for anyone who is coming to this poem for the first time, please note that Tzara wrote this poem without punctuation, and he creates a lot of grammatical instability and ambiguity. That is, these are not signs of my botching the translation! (lol) At the same time, the question of “fidelity” raises a couple tricky points. First, this is not being created for scholarly purposes: I am writing as a poet, first and foremost. If asked to choose, I will prefer a version that is slightly “enhanced” but exciting to one that is more faithful but dull. Second, meaning is often ambiguous in Tzara’s surrealist style, and the grammar sometimes intensifies this. Being a “faithful”translator of such ambiguities means you don’t boil it down to one meaning, and sometimes it means opening up meanings even further. And while this can invite collaborative imagination on the translator’s side, it can also put up road blocks. For instance, Tzara often writes via etymological and linguistic associations that you just can’t capture in English. You do your best, and it’s frequently a balancing act. Ultimately, I just hope the result is engrossing as a text in and of itself—that it stands on the page as a realized poem in English.
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[Note: Best viewed on desktop. Mobile breaks lines chaotically. I’ve included screenshots below for proper formatting.]
Approximate Man
Book II
the earth holds me in its anguished fist of storms nobody moves! we hear the hour escaping in a fly as it joins the day’s quest for an ending let us clench our jaws on the minutes that hold us apart * hands up! welcome to the angel who will soon fall flaking in a snow of fireflies on your heads sky sickly with so many gusts of wind we will be made to suffer an endless debt * the station is dense with shrill whistles so many wills swim in the bitter thickness that its hissing steers the gnawing flood black with foul indignation the earth’s foamy entrails the velvet surfaces to what end drinkers of hopes that we buy at the price of slow seeds adorned with the attributes of business that we drink with twitching nostrils from the horse’s trough that we chase in circles on village carousels that we smoke in the old pipe of eagles that we shepherd from the evening’s smoking roofs glimpsed in ice felt in the heart of stones at the depths of petroleum mines on beds of heavy silt in the barns where life is measured out with grain clear mosses cushion the waters seated in the sun * approximate man like me like you reader and like the rest a mass of loud flesh and echoing conscience complete in just one flake of your intention your name portable adaptable refined by the polite accents of women variable mistaken by the bliss of questioning currents approximate man moving in an almost destiny with a heart like a suitcase and a waltz for a head a fog on black ice you hide yourself from yourself huge and vacant among the landscape’s cold jewels meanwhile men sing in rounds beneath the bridges from cold blue mouths shrunk to nothing man approximate or wonderful or miserable in the gloom of virginal ages cut-rate housing the eyes ambassadors of fire that each tends and questions in the caressing fur of his ideas eyes that revive the violence of supple gods pouncing as the jaw’s springs release their laughter approximate man like me like you reader you place your hands as if to throw a ball number aglow your head filled with poetry * night’s door closed forever the fruit of beautiful limbs long cross so solemn on the breath of dew at the evening’s edge the disheveled shirt of day as the tunnel extends its accordion ribs gliding on the rope of the metro’s long arching rail and on the other side instead of the sun it may be death awaiting you in the rumor of a brilliant vortex reaching toward you with a thousand explosive arms flower man changing hands from the saleswoman to the lover and beloved changing hands without will from event to event sad parrot doors chatter and it all rushes to remove you at once kindly man merchandise with open eyes hermetically sealed cascade of rhythmic coughing projected into meridians and slabs world map stained with a mire of blood and leprosy winter mounted on its pedestal of night poor barren idiot night who draws drapes of cloud over the cold menagerie and places its hands as if to throw a ball number aglow your head filled with poetry * cupped hands offering the image to the air sleepless nightingale closing the circuit of your contentment in the sharp flash of complaint you fool yourself most secret of all you are the most distant you are pitched to the perfect tone on the astral spar gorging with incestuous allure on the steps of calvaries your jealousy bursting from the narrow simulacrum that stuffs time into the purse of your life life you can only conceive of in tests and samples while you age not knowing why the hinges of your head rust your swollen joints your pride like sodden leaves a miser clutching the door until your nails pierce the flesh the dark throat where clouds pile up where pained arrogance no longer cools itself now tending toward the deathly grasses of holocaust its delirium all around you and still the water is fresh at the conflux of your loves * the lines of your rough hands traced by an angel at your birth on your way to gifts of all earthly success the blur of your false life blotted it out and you stain all you touch you wallow in death-rattle and gold the incandescent lies all that’s left of your life just the crisis of a failed escape and yet night unmakes in its breast the knotted bells the stars the rhythmic frame of musical scaffolds thrown to the wind meanwhile men huddle together under bridges and leaf through the photo album of lukewarm evenings among the bitter buds opened by memory all around the leaden tablecloth gnash teeth to defend your piece of the world where you sleep one Saturday to the next anonymous and scorned in the ancient food of your lineage meanwhile men sing in rounds beneath the bridges and shred the nest of the meninges scraping to reveal beneath it the ripe orange of their brain * in the furies of snow may the hour burst with remorse and torture may your blood flow surge from the newest mouth of astronomy and spread into every cell of imprisoned anatomy may the minutes teeming in the bag of the lungs sow the meadows homes for the elderly terraces with row on row of billiard balls may crime bloom at last fresh and new in dense garlands along the houses fatten with blood the new adventures the harvests of future generations eagles dissolving like sugar in the mouths of years dissolving the sugar of days spent in the bowl of the sea flying from one flower to another with wings of petalled skin insects or microbes inflicting pain on the beds and seasons acids asleep dragging our carcasses like beasts of labor and pulling us closer hoisted in dream hung from the crane of the celestial port sweet sun rot without crows or worms in immaculate invincible white
'you are pitched to the perfect tone on the astral spar
gorging with incestuous allure on the steps of calvaries'
fine work