Dream The End » Jüri Talvet

Jüri Talvet – Bio

tania — Sat, 05 Nov 2011 01:08:20 +0000

Jüri Talvet was born in 1945 in Estonia. He received his MA from the University of Tartu in 1972 and his PhD from St. Petersburg University in 1981. He has chaired the Estonian Association of Comparitive Literature since 1994 and is the editor of Interlitteraria, an annual international journal of comparative literature published by Tartu University Press. He has been awarded for his work a number of prizes and distinctions: Juhan Smuul Annual Prize of Literature (in essay, 1986), Juhan Liiv Poetry Prize (1997), Ivar Ivask Memorial Prize of Essay and Poetry (2002), the Order of Isabel the Catholic (for his activity in Spanish studies, 1992), the White Star Order of Estonian Republic (2001), and The Medal of Tartu (2008). With the American H.L. Hix, Talvet has edited and translated a volume of Liiv’s poetry into English.

These works were translated by H. L. Hix.

Courtesy of the poet.

Jüri Talvet is featured in Edition: Refresh!

How They Are (Translated from Estonian by H.L. Hix)

tania — Fri, 04 Nov 2011 19:35:33 +0000

HOW THEY ARE

They tear us tirelessly head to toe.
They thrust long thick needles into our hearts.
Their invisible fingers pry open our eyelids at night.

“Why do you always worry, mother?
What a worrier you are.”

They are torn from us,
made alien,
by green signals, voices
we cannot hear.
But you keep waiting for them,
in the late fall observing marsh in frost,
bearing in yourself one more of them, half your life past.

(Now it’s here: a new, small, beautiful life,
in a mad rush to liberty.)

They push us out of their way, laughing, loving.
They were children, who now suddenly are adults—
Before we ourselves
have grown up.

Exiting Summer (Translated from Estonian by H.L. Hix)

tania — Fri, 04 Nov 2011 19:34:35 +0000

EXITING SUMMER

so you feared to call a fir tree green?
to call a spring chestnut a cathedral of chandeliers?
you feared being taken for a fir needle?
for a horse chestnut?
don’t worry. it already is. you already are.

(don’t fear impossible love—even
the celts knew it—and besides
it’s the only kind)

Red Wine 2 (Translated from Estonian by H.L. Hix)

tania — Fri, 04 Nov 2011 19:33:54 +0000

RED WINE 2

Like tiny butterflies
yellow leaves float
gently down
from the mimosa

Onto the writing desk
petals that calm blood
into thought
fall from the rose

From butterfly-leaves from petals from you
who repeat yourself
as they do

bearing forth from the green stem
a species’ wisdom
as eyes and lips

generating
from dreamreality
from realitydream
a lifesteady stream

You’ll Return Tomorrow, Won’t You? (Translated from Estonian by H.L. Hix)

tania — Fri, 04 Nov 2011 19:33:08 +0000

YOU’LL RETURN TOMORROW, WON’T YOU?

The sea’s foamy lips continue to smile at Pärnu
but a fly on a coffee mug’s rim wears the face
of summer’s end. This year you will eat better
than last, you say, and next year even better.
Why then look at everything so darkly? Houses,
roads will wear a new, golden sheen, don’t you think?
The sea and Pärnu will keep smiling. Wolf, Bear,
Ash, Oak, Alder merely lend surnames to these people,
evoke memories of the forest which too soon, believe me,
will wear a golden sheen. Even before you can think:
the parachute didn’t open. Your voice, when
you said, well, come to meet the bus tomorrow,
sounded as it once did, as it always has.

Look At Me (Translated from Estonian by H.L. Hix)

tania — Fri, 04 Nov 2011 19:31:43 +0000

LOOK AT ME

look look look
until you become so sheer
that you allow swallows
to nest in your breast Touch
my tiny fingers so you can float
in the air over shades
With eyes closed balance barefoot
on the rough hemp rope
Under the palms of your hands
over the night my whispers gather:
I will never sleep again
You will never visit Africa