Alice Oswald is the winner of the 2013 Popescu Prize for her poetry book Memorial, an excavation of Homer's Iliad published by Faber. Organised by the Poetry Society, the Corneliu M Popescu Prize is given biennially to a collection of poetry translated into English from another European language.
Judged in 2013 by Karen Leeder and David Wheatley, they said of the winning book: "Oswald has turned Homer into a contemporary war poet, taking an audacious concept -- the trimming down of the Iliad to its death scenes -- and imbuing the results with compelling formal necessity. Memorial answers to its Greek original yet stands as an autonomous and deeply moving work of art."
The first to die was PROTESILAUS
A focused man who hurried to darkness
With forty black ships leaving the land behind
Men sailed with him from those flower‐lit cliffs
Where the grass gives growth to everything
Pyrasus Iton Pteleus Antron
He died in mid‐air jumping to be first ashore
There was his house half‐built
His wife rushed out clawing her face
Podarcus his altogether less impressive brother
Took over command but that was long ago
He’s been in the black earth now for thousands of years
Like a wind‐murmur
Begins a rumour of waves
One long note getting louder
The water breathes a deep sigh
Like a land‐ripple
When the west wind runs through a field
Wishing and searching
Nothing to be found
The corn‐stalks shake their green heads
Like a wind‐murmur
Begins a rumour of waves
One long note getting louder
The water breathes a deep sigh
Like a land‐ripple
When the west wind runs through a field
Wishing and searching
Nothing to be found
The corn‐stalks shake their green heads
Protesilaus, translated and recited by Alice Oswald.
No comments:
Post a Comment