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A Saint Julian Press Book Review
by Ron Starbuck
by Ron Starbuck
The poetry of José Manual Cardona, Birnam Wood / El Bosque de Birnam, masterfully translated by his daughter poet Hélène Cardona, is a literary gift to the mythopoetic world of literature. I know from the experience of editing the prose work of my own father after his death, how emotionally fulfilling and healing such as a creative endeavor is for the human psyche. And how it is an act of love and honor to the heritage they leave behind as a gift.
The stories and works of our parentage, the creative mythology of their lives, when they are compelling works add significance to the story of humanity. Their stories need to be shared. They illuminate the past, ground us in the present, and prepare us for the future. And encourage us to envision something more, unseen, and invisible.
The stories and mythology we come know and value through poetry, become truer than true. The narratives grow stronger and more certain inside us as we mature in knowledge and wisdom. Poetry in this form offers us a lesson in wisdom, as well as an inward change that brings our psyche closer to a greater mystery dwelling within creation. In truth, these are stories we have known forever and forgotten. These are the stories of humankind going back to the beginning or to our own beginning.
Hélène Cardona’s translation of her father’s work is exquisite in its poetic language. It is high art that draws the reader fully into the story, the myth, the narrative, and the transformation. Read. Listen. Hear the sound of each word and verse as it echoes through your being. I regard and relish the craft in these final verses from “Ode to a Young Mariner – To my brother Manuel”.
You know how the sea smells of life
how at times she spits a ferocious foam,
how she wails wild and rises
like an atavistic being, a primitive creature,
We all carry death within written in furrows
like a name traced by the keel
of your boat in the sea. We are all sailors
of a sleeping bride with round breasts.
I don’t want to depart for the land,
to spout like a eucalyptus branch
my eyes blinded by grass.
Wait for me, brother, when you anchor
your vessel in the sea you’ve loved.
No need to depart so alone, mariner
brother of a seaman gripped
by the earth’s open jaws.
Try to imagine that this story is your story, and this is your brother. It changes everything you know, your whole perspective on the poem. As it starts to enter the bones and cells of your body, as you begin to breathe in the sea. This is what Cardona’s translation of her father’s work does, it transports us and offers us a pauper’s path towards transformation in its natural humility, given as a gift in a spirit of humility.
And yet, it is rich in wisdom and in a vocabulary that enriches us. It complements the places within that we hold open and empty, waiting to be filled by the infinite potential of all things within creation. We can see and feel this clearly in each poem and verse. And we are reminded that we only have to step forward one step at a time to arrive there, as in these, her father’s words.
“We arrived and the miracle happened.”
Birnam Wood engages the reader in an ascending exploration of the world and the self together. As human beings, we are bound and brought closer to one other through the mythic tales we know and create anew. These stories flow through humankind across all our philosophies, literature, and faiths. José Manuel Cardona, and his daughter Hélène Cardona, take us on a literary voyage of a classic hero’s journey. One where we become the maritime pilot navigating a ship at sea through its depths and currents. Go, go, go, said the seaman: for it is a journey worthy of your time and the distant lands you’ll come to know.
The stories and works of our parentage, the creative mythology of their lives, when they are compelling works add significance to the story of humanity. Their stories need to be shared. They illuminate the past, ground us in the present, and prepare us for the future. And encourage us to envision something more, unseen, and invisible.
The stories and mythology we come know and value through poetry, become truer than true. The narratives grow stronger and more certain inside us as we mature in knowledge and wisdom. Poetry in this form offers us a lesson in wisdom, as well as an inward change that brings our psyche closer to a greater mystery dwelling within creation. In truth, these are stories we have known forever and forgotten. These are the stories of humankind going back to the beginning or to our own beginning.
Hélène Cardona’s translation of her father’s work is exquisite in its poetic language. It is high art that draws the reader fully into the story, the myth, the narrative, and the transformation. Read. Listen. Hear the sound of each word and verse as it echoes through your being. I regard and relish the craft in these final verses from “Ode to a Young Mariner – To my brother Manuel”.
You know how the sea smells of life
how at times she spits a ferocious foam,
how she wails wild and rises
like an atavistic being, a primitive creature,
We all carry death within written in furrows
like a name traced by the keel
of your boat in the sea. We are all sailors
of a sleeping bride with round breasts.
I don’t want to depart for the land,
to spout like a eucalyptus branch
my eyes blinded by grass.
Wait for me, brother, when you anchor
your vessel in the sea you’ve loved.
No need to depart so alone, mariner
brother of a seaman gripped
by the earth’s open jaws.
Try to imagine that this story is your story, and this is your brother. It changes everything you know, your whole perspective on the poem. As it starts to enter the bones and cells of your body, as you begin to breathe in the sea. This is what Cardona’s translation of her father’s work does, it transports us and offers us a pauper’s path towards transformation in its natural humility, given as a gift in a spirit of humility.
And yet, it is rich in wisdom and in a vocabulary that enriches us. It complements the places within that we hold open and empty, waiting to be filled by the infinite potential of all things within creation. We can see and feel this clearly in each poem and verse. And we are reminded that we only have to step forward one step at a time to arrive there, as in these, her father’s words.
“We arrived and the miracle happened.”
Birnam Wood engages the reader in an ascending exploration of the world and the self together. As human beings, we are bound and brought closer to one other through the mythic tales we know and create anew. These stories flow through humankind across all our philosophies, literature, and faiths. José Manuel Cardona, and his daughter Hélène Cardona, take us on a literary voyage of a classic hero’s journey. One where we become the maritime pilot navigating a ship at sea through its depths and currents. Go, go, go, said the seaman: for it is a journey worthy of your time and the distant lands you’ll come to know.
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Birnam Wood: El Bosque de Birnam
(English and Spanish Edition) By José Manuel Cardona (Author), Hélène Cardona (Translator) Paperback: 96 pages Publisher: Salmon Poetry; Bilingual edition (July 27, 2018) Language: English, Spanish ISBN-10: 1912561182 ISBN-13: 978-1912561186 |
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Hélène Cardona is a poet, literary translator and actor, the recipient of numerous awards and honors including a Hemingway Grant and the Best Book and International Book Awards. Her books include three poetry collections, most recently Life in Suspension and Dreaming My Animal Selves (both from Salmon Poetry); and four translations: Beyond Elsewhere (Gabriel Arnou-Laujeac, White Pine Press), Ce que nous portons (Dorianne Laux, Éditions du Cygne), Birnam Wood (José Manuel Cardona, Salmon Poetry) and Walt Whitman’s Civil War Writings for WhitmanWeb. Junimea Editions published a Romanian translation of Dreaming My Animal Selves in 2016. Hélène's work has also been translated into 16 languages. She holds an MA in American Literature from the Sorbonne, received fellowships from the Goethe-Institut and Universidad Internacional de Andalucía, worked as a translator for the Canadian Embassy in Paris, and taught at Hamilton College and Loyola Marymount University. Publications include World Literature Today, Washington Square Review, Poetry International, Hayden’s Ferry Review, Asymptote, The London Magazine, Dublin Review of Books, The Warwick Review, Waxwing, The Brooklyn Rail, Los Angeles Review, Colorado Review, and The Irish Literary Times among many.
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Hélène Cardona
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As an Amazon Associate — Saint Julian Press, Inc. may earn funds from any qualifying purchases.
This arrangement does help to sustain the press and allow us to publish more books by more authors.