"To The Reader" by Charles Baudelaire trans. Robert Lowell (poetry reading)

[dxwar]

traduttore traditore

nothing to do with the original

[ImGoingToBeAnMD]

I think this poem is very modest.

[SpokenVerse]

"Modest" has a few different meanings. It wasn't considered decorous in its day but it wasn't offensive enough by itself to get the book banned. However some of the other poems in Les Fleurs du Mal are still considered indecorous or immodest.

[Arcomatik]

@SpokenVerse This one was considered against the church, others poems with too much sex. At (french) school, if I remember well (this is 20 years old memories), "Ainsi qu'un débauché pauvre qui baise et mange / Le sein martyrisé d'une antique catin," refers to Adam and Eve. The old orange=eden's apple=eve's breast. He critiized the church for punishing the knowledge and praise Hermes Trismegiste and Lucifer (etymology is "the one who brings the ligth") for that.

That couldn't be said in 1865 :)

[alizee2010]

I'm a bit confused by the description. How should "Marquis de Sade" be pronounced?

[SpokenVerse]

I added a link to the notes - hear it in French.

[alizee2010]

merci beaucoup

[rappamarfil]

this poem is one base plant and payload dirt for ratoons ( great poets steal from others ) placed in the substrate of The Wasteland . I did not thieve but i do peculate the other tenth remainder of the other ninth tenths of the law .

[rappamarfil]

Is this segue apt ?

Seems as if in this Bawdy lair the cycles are like Inferno's vicious circles . The speaker is screwing tighter and tighter like he got screwed up himself with infernal flotsam coming to the surface as he uproots the persistent existential malaise (20th century poems were still irrelevant then ) and eschews boredom we lecteura scandal too: boredom is just the reverse side of fascination: both depend on being outside rather than inside a situation, and one leads to the other.

[alizee2010]

My favorite book; never read this translation(rather McGowan's) AND your reading gives it such a suiting voice.

I wish I could voice and breath a poem like you do.

[rappamarfil]

young man carbuncular of the perfunctory kiss

[SpokenVerse]

I like your comments but you should keep them relevant to the poem. Perhaps this would be better on The Fire Sermon...

[rappamarfil]

what one wants is unrestrained passion , fire by fire

my previous comment in question blurs the corrosives and obscene of the poem. Listening to The Wasteland in parts is primitive ritual-like, incantatory and symmetries occur, cisterns , circles rats so many piss ants in step in London fog toward chain-smokes yearning for the guillotine , sadistic . Madness is tonic and invigorating . It makes the sane more sane . The only ones who are unable to profit by it are the insane .

[rappamarfil]

Stetson , Stetson , you who were with me at the ships of Mylae ... " citte fourmillante "

[rappamarfil]

Mathew Dante Mighty Grain of Salt O' Connor ... the "Dr." of Nightwood might classify you performance as spurting slowly , like a hog pisses , by fits and starts , pooling into the quicksand caesura of the ending ... Merde! Thank you for this .

[solarisqs]

Deliciously packed with loathing

[souljaEXVOTO]

Bravo!

[medicinesocks]

ugh. fantastic. what a writer, what a translation. thanks for this excellent reading.

[TheWisemonkey8]

Loved this Tom! Great reading... 'Lice' what a word... it seem to burrow into ones mind. As always, kind and warm regards to you and yours.