What's the shortest poetry you know?

youtube.com/watch?v=6F7quI-MbzY

>inb4 bald guy memes

Seems like a poem about women.

>he doesn't mention Ungaretti, who literally invented minimalism
Well, he's well renowned for being a hack.

Seeing as there's some Ungaretti fans here, can anyone help me understand what exactly is going on in "Popolo"? Not one of his shorter ones so not quite relevant to the thread but I've never seen him discussed here before so here goes.

>Fuggí il branco solo delle palme
>e la luna
>infinita su aride notte
"Fuggí" is singular, right? So is this "the flock fled only from some palm trees and the moon"? I don't really get what that "solo" is doing there, or what's the subject and what's the object.

>La perla ebbra del dubbio
>già sommuove l'aurora e
>ai suoi piedi momentanei
>la brace
Is "la brace" a second object of "muovere" here? i.e. is the pearl moving both the aurora and the embers?

I'm translating a few Ungaretti poems to refresh my Italian, but I'm finding that there's some grammar I'm just not getting, and I'm wondering if it's because the poet is deliberately ambiguous or if I just don't know the language as well as I thought I did.

The whole poem, since I don't think it's online:

>Fuggí il branco solo delle palme
>e la luna
>infinita su aride notti

>La notte piú chiusa
>lugubre tartaruga
>annaspa

>Un colore non dura

>La perla ebbra del dubbio
>già sommuove l'aurora e
>ai suoi piedi momentanei
>la brace

>Brulicano già gridi
>d'un vento nuovo

>Alveari nascono nei monti
>di sperdute fanfare

>Tornate antichi specchi
>voi lembi celati d'acqua

>E
>mentre ormai taglienti
>i virgulti dell'alta neve orlano
>la vista consueta ai miei vecchi
>nel chiaro calmo
>s'allineano le vele

>O Patria ogni tua età
>s'è desta nel mio sangue

>Sicura avanzi e canti
>sopra un mare famelico

Fuggi' is the past form for the third person future.
It means to escape.

I know that (you mean passato remoto, right?). I'm asking what's doing the escaping - is it "il branco"? How would you translate the line?

The herd escaped, alone from the palm trees.
And the moon
Infinite (referred to the moon) over arid nights.

The night more closed
lugubrious turtle
struggles

"Un colore non dura" is very difficult to translate.
It's something like "A color doesn't last".

The inebriated pearl of doubt
disturb the aurora yet and ("sommuovere is like moving but in a violent mode")
at its momentary knees (we use feet)
the ember.

Branco means a group of animals, but someone uses it for people too

"alone from the palm trees" doesn't really make sense though. What I don't get it is where the "solo" fits in. Is it only the herd / flock that escapes from the palm trees? Or is the herd / flock only escaping the trees (i.e. not escaping something else)? Or is that a deliberate ambiguity?
I also notice you interpret the herd as escaping from the trees, but not from the moon - at least that's what your punctuation suggests. That leaves the moon as a subject without a predicate. Surely it makes more sense to read it as "the flock escaped the palm trees AND the moon"?

btw pls rate my translation. There's some poetic licence but even then I'm not sure if I totally misinterpreted some parts.

The flock fled from just a few fronds
and the moon
so oppressive on arid nights

On the most suffocating night
the languid tortoise
flounders

A colour cannot last

The drunken pearl of doubt
is already shaking out the aurora
and at its fleeting feet
it stirs the embers

Cries are already breaking out
about the new winds coming

Beehives bud in the mountains
among the lost brass bands

where you hidden bodies of water
form ancient mirrors

And
grown sharp and piercing
the shoots poke through the snows
that fringe the view my parents knew
in the clear calm
the sails approach

Oh my land, your every age
is woken in my blood

You sing secure into the future
above the famished flood

so much depends
upon

a red wheel
barrow

glazed with rain
water

beside the white
chickens.

>Is it only the herd / flock that escapes from the palm trees? Or is the herd / flock only escaping the trees (i.e. not escaping something else)?
Neither of them. "Solo" here sounds like an adjective ("alone") referred to the herd. You can also translate it "isolated", but it's more reckless.

That said, "delle palme" is not the object but the genitive case referred to the herd (in Italian it's called complement of specification).

Then, regarding the moon, in my opinion it's more like a second subject. The proposition is intentionally left nominal, without predicate. But, hey, consider it's not easy to guess even for an Italian!

That one lowercase "i" but the tittle is the poet's fingerprint.

that's ambiguos.
"solo delle palme" means alone frome the palm trees, alone of the palm trees and only of the palm trees.

e la luna -> I don't think this one is referred to the herd, literraly it is "And the moon".

the flock fled (from just a few isn't written) from (really that's of and not from and that's ambiguos) fronds (you're right palme usually means palm trees but it can means palm fronds too)
and the moon
so oppressive (that's not oppressive, that's just infinite referred to the moon) on arid nights.

On the most suffocated night (that's not the most suffocated night, it's a "more closed" or "more suffocating" night)
the languid tortoise (there is no article but that can be right)
flounders

A color cannot last (that's incorrect, cannot it's linked to the possibility of doing an action, Ungaretti says "non dura" that means doesn't last)

the drunken pearl of doubt
is already shaking out the aurora
and at its fleeting feet
it stirs the embert (in the poem it's write E ai suoi piedi momentanei - la brace that means "and at its fleeting feet - the ember")

Cries are already breaking out
about the new winds coming (that's one wind)

It's not bad, bro.
Just some questions though:

>so oppressive on arid nights
Why do you translate "infinita" with "oppressive"? Oppressive has a negative connotation, while "infinite" is pretty much a good quality – and very poetic, as Leopardi would say.

>The drunken pearl of doubt
"Ebbro" is more like "inebriated". "Drunken" would be perfect if you had "ubriaco" in Italian. "Ebbro" has a finer, gentler meaning.

>about the new winds coming
Why did you choose the plural for "wind"? I'm really curious

>where you hidden bodies of water
form ancient mirrors
I like these two, but why do you take off the verb? Ungaretti uses "tornate" which is the imperative of "come back", second plural person (which appears at the beginning of the following line, "voi": "you")

>above the famished flood
This sounds nice, but why "flood" instead of "sea"? "Mare" reminds me the last line from Leopardi's poem "The Infinite"

Ah, this is beginning to come together for me now. So it's maybe something like the only flock (of birds) in the trees? (Or the lonely flock, maybe?)
It's so tempting for me to read this as a flock of birds "escaping" from 1. the trees and 2. the moon, which seems to fit the idea of the night being intense or oppressive ("la luna infinita", "la notte più chiusa").

Yes, for me one of the best things about Ungaretti is the ambiguity or openness of interpretation (see "Mattina"!). It makes it a particular challenge to translate him, especially because in a translation you sometimes have to pick a single interpretation without being to preserve an ambiguity. I wouldn't even try to translate most of his stuff (Mattina again), but the last four lines came to me while reading and I thought it would be good to try doing the rest.

In my opinion the first line simply ("simply" so to speak lol) means:

The lonely flock of palm trees fled

Of course this line sucks, but that's the real meaning in my opinion. Maybe Ungaretti was trying to depict the group of trees like an isolated dark stain on a hill or something (this justifies the use of "herd" or "flock").
But, again, I could be wrong.

>It makes it a particular challenge to translate him, especially because in a translation you sometimes have to pick a single interpretation without being to preserve an ambiguity.
Indeed. Translating poetry is a great writing exercise, you get to improve your own style a lot.

The Warren

At least here,
In my burrow,
Dirt is familiar.

Thanks for the feedback, these are actually questions that made me think about why I made the choices I made, which is always a good thing.

>so oppressive on arid nights
That's interesting, I get a very claustrophobic feel from the first three stanzas that made "oppressive" seem like a natural word to use in that context. I guess I'm getting it from "la notte più chiusa". But on the other hand I've totally put words into the poet's mouth there, I should probably stick with his choice and leave it as infinite. Now that I think about it, it's entirely possible to read the first two stanzas in a far more positive light: the moon is full of possibility (infinite), the tortoise struggles not because of an oppressive heat but because that's how tortoises move, etc.

>The drunken pearl of doubt
I suppose I was still trying to fit into the darker interpretation as with the stanzas above. Inebriated seems a little high-register to me, but then maybe that fits the word choice in Italian too? I think "drunken" creates a nicer rhythm, but maybe at the cost of the mood.

>Why did you choose the plural for "wind"?
I've no idea actually, I think in my first version it was singular. Maybe I was thinking in plurals because there are multiple "cries". In my mind I suppose I've visualised one wind as being composed of many different "gusts" of wind, so conflated the singular and plural. I was a bit thrown by this line too, namely if it's people shouting about a new wind or whether the shouts are the sounds of the new wind itself - I guess that's a deliberate ambiguity too.

>where you hidden bodies of water / form ancient mirrors
I couldn't really think of an appropriate way to translate "tornate" ("reflect" doesn't quite work; the verb "mirror" would be good if it weren't for the fact that the object is "mirrors"), but actually I completely missed that it was an imperative. I thought it was indicative. Oops.

>flood/sea
Because it sounds nice, that's all. It has the nice coincidence of rhyming with "blood" while also alliterating with "famished". I know the original poem doesn't make much use of rhyme or alliteration like that, and I didn't use them consistently, but I guess I'm jumping at any chance to try and emulate the natural rhyme and alliteration/assonance of Italian as a language.

That was my first interpretation too, actually! I originally read "branco" as referring to the trees. But the image of a flock of birds taking flight from the trees just seemed to make more sense. In any case, I guess the important thing about the poem is that it creates all of these images, and it's up to each reader to decide which he finds most compelling.

The apparition of these faces in the crowd; Petals on a wet, black bough.

by JW Curry

Japanese poetry in general is very short, and there's a great beauty in that.

有明の
つれなくみえし
別れより

暁ばかり
うきものはなし

Ariake no
Tsurenaku mieshi
Wakare yori

Akatsuki bakari
Uki mono wa nashi

Like the morning moon,
Cold, unpitying was my love.
And since we parted,

I dislike nothing so much
As the breaking light of day.

1)
>I get a very claustrophobic feel from the first three stanzas
I get it too, especially from the second stanza (I find the first to be mainly descriptive). The problem, you see, is "infinita". I don't know if it's just the influence of Leopardi's thought (actually huge), but when an Italian reads that something is "infinite" he immediately thinks it's something beautiful. The adjective has a strong positive connotation that is hard to ignore. But it's also true that one word doesn't always change the meaning of a whole stanza in one direction, so it's up to you :)

2)
>I think "drunken" creates a nicer rhythm
Yeah, I see the problem now. "Inebriated" is almost five syllables when you pronounce it, right? While in Italian it's absolutely common, in English must be a monstrosity haha. The rhythm is important, so yeah, just go with drunken.

3)
>I guess that's a deliberate ambiguity too
Sure. I think in English both the forms work well.

4)
>I thought it was indicative
Man, haha, I didn't think about that. This is pretty funny. "Tornate" can be both imperative and indicative, but it never occurred to me that it could be indicative. Maybe it looks more like an imperative to me because in Italian you often find the imperative followed by the subject that undergoes the command (tornate... voi). But, again, it's probably intentionally ambiguous. It's interesting to notice how my thought's automatisms work, while a foreigner speaker can see far from what I see. And your translation's effort reminds me of when I translate Latin and I find myself hypothesizing every kind of interpretations, maybe misunderstanding what the author meant haha

5)
>Because it sounds nice
That's fine, I agree with you

>I guess the important thing about the poem is that it creates all of these images, and it's up to each reader to decide which he finds most compelling.
Indeed, as any other Ungaretti's poem. It's also the reason why I loved him especially when I was younger and my imagination was perhaps more prosperous than now.

lighght

That one sucks desu

That's really interesting. I don't know very much about Leopardi (although I know he was a big influence on Ungaretti), so that wasn't a connotation that occurred to me. This is why just speaking the language isn't enough to understand poetry, of course - you need to know the culture as well!

I think the only times I've even heard the word inebriated, it's been as a euphemism for drunk - and it's perfectly common to use expressions like "drunk with joy", so it doesn't necessarily imply alcohol or any potentially negative connotation.

I'm definitely leaning to the singular for wind now, mainly because I realise that much of Ungaretti's poetry (although I think not this one) was written at the Isonzo front, so the wind, singular, could be the bora. It's a nice idea even if not what he had in mind.

I think tornate is pretty clearly meant to be imperative here, and it was an oversight for me to assume it was indicative: as you say, the structure (verb first, followed by a pronoun later) definitely sets it up as a command. You're right, it is interesting how we might interpret things differently, although I think in this case it was just an oversight on my part...!
This raises an interesting point, though. I generally find foreign-language poetry more profound and pleasing to the ear than English poetry, and I think it's just because of the exoticism of reading something in a different language - to me, these words are especially beautiful because I haven't always known them, I've learned them as an adult and get fewer prior connotations from them, and so it's especially cool to see them used poetically. So I can read some poems that I don't think would be very impressive in English, but get a lot out of them just because of the exoticism of being in Italian, or German, or whatever. Like Ungaretti's "Soldati": Si sta come / d'autunno / sugli alberi / le foglie. If that was in English I'd probably be rolling my eyes, thinking it was a clichéd image, etc. But because it's not in my native language there's something captivating about it. If you know what I mean?

Comunque, grazie per l'aiuto, e per la conversazione. È una rarità avere una vera discussione su Veeky Forums :)

nah, his m with three legs does though
lighght is beautiful

cummings l(a senpai:

l(a
le
af
fa
ll
s)
one
l
iness

Ungaretti has tons of others short poems, but I think the trick of this one is to use the title as a verse. Doing so he has a three line poem in two lines only. Perfect.

"This too shall pass" I find quite *poetic* even if it's not *poetry*.

I forgot Pound's In a Station of the Metro ofc:

The apparition of these faces in the crowd;
Petals on a wet, black bough.

Awful

didn't say it was good. just said it was short

I don't think concrete poetry is what op meant anyway.

i

DEAD BABY SHOES

I know what you mean. The last part of your post made me want to read more English poetry and even learn some new languages, because you're right: the exoticism of a different language is captivating. At first you read the originals with the concern to understand the content, but then comes the best part when you try to grasp the author's way of thinking and sensibility.

Prego, è stato un piacere per me :)

what about hemmingway's

For sale: Baby shoes. Never worn.

i like the spike milligan one about the tortoise eating lettuce:

One cannot get enough
Of this delicious stuff

And the days are not full enough
And the nights are not full enough
And life slips by like a field mouse
Not shaking the grass.

also Pound

the shortest poem i've heard was "the spring in her step turned to fall", for the life of me I cant remember who wrote it

plsdont

do you think it's a sad poem?

>the spring in her step turned to fall

that was cute

the hemingway thing? my point was that it's not a poem.

no I mean the poem you posted. the user up here thinks it's cute, in my opinion it's sad as fuck

yeah i guess youre right - it is a short story.
it's still worth an honorable mention though

ye, i agree with you. if you look at it from the angle of spring meaning the season and fall meaning the season, it's sad af.

from what other angle can you look at it?

the angle that she tried to walk and then fell, which you can see as being humorous. i think youre supposed to look at it from both angles, this one first which makes you go "aww" and then from the seasons angle which makes you go "oh".

got it, thank you

Pls, stop sendg msgs2ths
no, i am not linda,
I hv not slept w/yr sis,
+i wd nvr call any1's ma a slag.
Gd luk w/viag.
Luv, yr wrong no. xxx

came here to post this

eating alone
my alphabet soup
speaks to me

-brenda s duster

Odi et amo. quare id faciam fortasse requiris? nescio, sed fieri sentio et excrucior

But this is four lines and too many syllables. Op mentioned a poem of two lines only, that's why I mentioned In a Station of the Metro.

If you go for four lines, then there are plenty.

Ognuno sta solo sul cuor della terra
trafitto da un raggio di Sole:
ed è subito sera.

– Salvatore Quasimodo

(anyone willing to translate it?)

give me a quick rundown on this

Three lines. Please, there are plenty of three lines poems.

Post only poems with one or two lines. Nothing more.

it's light + ght
really nothing special imo
the interpretation is up to you

I just wrote this right now:

Die Hoehle:
Die Schlange kommt hierin

Can you guess what it's about?

nah, I was talking about the repercussion, the history etc. no the poem itself

>et l'unique cordeau des trompettes marines

This is not even a poem, Guillaume. Go to bed, it's time to sleep.

OuLiPo has poems like:

>Fenouil.

Or:

>T.

You won't find anything shorter than this.

POURQUOI J'ÉCRIS ?

Parce que...

- Blaise Cendrars.

L'abeille
Emerge

- Eugène Guillevic.

I'm finding a lot of nice short poems, thanks OP.

Le Serpent

Trop long.

Jules Renard

Since this is now a Ungaretti thread:

>Si sta come d'autunno sugli alberi le foglie.
>Here we are like leaves from trees in Autumn

He wrote this while fighting in the WWI. It's a shame that English is such an ugly language, there is no way to portray the emblematic timeless aspect of his poem.

>One stands like of autumn on the trees the leaves

My Italian isn't good enough for poetry. Poetic word order fucks me up every time.

When translating poetry from romance languages the dummy pronoun is always dreadful.

"Si sta" is a verbal form not included in the English language. It would be like a third person, neutral gender, no indication on the number, that trascends that third person itself, and assumimg a universal connotation.

Also your wording is a bit on the nose, especially your word placement. Certain poems should simply not be translated, I just wanted to give an idea of the meaning of that one to Veeky Forums.

I gather that si is like the french on, and can mean we. I tend to read it as the english impersonal you/one, and forget that.

But I have no feel for romance languages. I'm just some asshole trying to self teach.

We is a pretty big compromise. It's not technical,y wrong, but it's not poetically right either.

Sure:
Kalter Bauer im Winter

>perfect alexandrin
>form consistent with imagery without being cheesy like calligrammes
>easy to remember

how is it not a poem? because it doesn't have an internal rhyme? lmao

Same for Latin

t.

so much depends
upon

a red wheel
barrow

glazed with rain
water

beside the white
chickens.

He used "solo" not to say "only" but it means "alone"

I think "brace" is what remains under his feet, so it isn't a second object but a subject with the verb omitted

Everyone stands alone at the heart of the world,
pierced by a ray of sunlight,
and suddenly it’s evening.

Deep in earth my love is lying
And I must weep alone