
poems by Tristan Tzara,
translated from the French by Nick Moudry
39pp. paper. staple-bound.
Cover design by Becky Rosen
Toad Press 2004, $5.00 SOLD OUT
About:
Orginally published as Vingt-cinq poèmes (Zurich: Collection Dada, 1918) with ten woodcut prints by Hans Arp. Republished as Vingt-cinq et un poèmes with the addition of “la grande complainte de mon obscurité trois” (Paris: Collection l’Age d’or, 1946).
Noah Eli Gordon (in Jacket ) calls Moudry's translation "mind-bendingly fresh".
Excerpt:
SPRINGTIME
to h arp
put the child in the vase in the depths of midnight
and the wound
a rose of winds with your beautiful fingernails
thunder in feathers see
a horrible water runs down the antelope’s legs
to suffer below have you found cows birds?
the thirst the venom of the caged peacock
the king in exile by the well’s brightness slowly mummified
in the vegetable garden
sow broken grasshoppers
plant ant hearts the salt fog a lamp drags its tail across the sky
the little sparkles of glassware in the belly of the fleeing deer
on the ends of the short black branches for a cry