Transcript (English)

Issue 14/15 (Wales)

in this issue

Transcript is a
Literature
Across
Frontiers
publication

A Generation of Emerging Poets

Elin ap Hywel

Elin ap Hywel is a poet, translator and editor who works in Welsh and English. Elin's published work has been widely anthologised and translated into Czech, English, German, Italian and Japanese. Her publications include Pethau Brau (Y Lolfa, 1982). She has edited two collections of Welsh women's short stories in English for Honno, Luminous and Forlorn (1994), and Power (1998). Elin's latest book, Ffinau/Borders (Gomer 2002), a volume of original poems and translations from the Welsh, is a collaboration with fellow poet Grahame Davies.

Duwiesau

Scroll down to read Robert Minhinnick's English language translation of this poem.
Duwiesau Cymru -
duwiesau'r banadl, y deri,
blodau'r erwain,
yr esgyrn sychion,
ewinedd yn y blew -
nid y chi oedd yn camu
trwy 'mreuddwydion
flynyddoedd yn ol
yn fy ngwely hogan-ysgol,

ond man-dduwiesau llyweth
y mynd a'r dod
a gwafrai'n anwadal
drwy chwedlau Rhufain a Groeg
yn enfys am eiliad,
ac yna yn nant neu'n llwyn,
wastad rhwng dau feddwl a dwy ffurf,
yn plesio rhyw ddyn,
yn cuddio rhag rhyw dduw,
yn newid eu henwau
a'u hunain fel newid lipstic:
Echo, Eos, Psyche -
merched chweched dosbarth
yn chwerthin tu ol
i'w gwalltiau newydd-eu-golchi.

Dod i ddeall eich ffyrdd chi wnes i
yn araf, anfodlon,
yn gyndyn fel boddi cathod,
gyda phob clais a welais,
pob cusan wag,
pob modrwy yng nghledr llaw,
dod i ddeall dicter -
sawru'r gwaed ar y dwylo
a gwres y ty haearn,
clywed pengoglau plant
yn glonc yn y gwynt.

Freninesau'r gwyllt,
y lloerig, y pobl o'u coeau,
y distawrwydd anghynnes,
yr anesmwythyd mawr
ry'ch chi'n cadw cwmni heno
yn nad y newyddion,
yn stelcio drwy'r stafell
yn eich gynau sidan carpiog.

Mae blinder y blynyddoedd
yn friw dan eich llygaid
a'ch crwyn yn afalau crychion;

ond mae'r fellten a'r daran
yn drydan yng nghwmwl eich gwalltiau,
barclodiad rhyw gawres
yn gengl o amgylch eich boliau
a meillion eich dicter
gwyn yn dynn wrth eich sodlau.

Ynysoedd gwyr cedyrn sy'n dymchwel
wrth odre eich peisiau.

Goddesses

The following is Robert Minhinnick's English rendering of Elin ap Hywel's Duwiesau.
Goddesses of the past,
goddesses of the flowers
of the forgotten people,
of wolves and warriors...

You were never the goddesses
that goaded my dreams
as I lay in my teenage bed.

Instead, I prefered the ones
I might keep in an amulet or a birdcage,
piping what they've cribbed from the classics,
little rainbow-goddesses as swift as thought,
flying between some god-teacher
and some god-lover,
changing their minds
as they changed their lipstick,
that Echo-Eos-Psyche posse,
devastating in school uniform
and back-of-the-class big hair.

At first, I didn't want to know them.
Figuring out their wisdom
was like learning to drown cats.
But with every jilting kiss I've felt,
every scratch from a ring torn off,
I've learned some more of who they are,
of their blood and their bereavement
and their kitchen routines,
the cries of their neverborn out in the wind.

Those mad, those moonstruck,
those out-of-their-minds:
silence will not nourish them,
nor the rough road.
Instead, they keep company with black bulletins,
my chainsmoking queens
in their ragged silk sanctuaries,
exhaustion's mascara
in the hollows of their eyes.

And yet: there's fission in their electric hair
as they bellydance round the dead cromlechs.
And soon, across the kingdom of all those men,
a petticoat of clover will cover the ground.

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