Sunday, June 03, 2007

Curse poems

David Lehman's "Curse" reminded me that I have been meaning to ask people to send me curse poems (titles, links, whole poems).

I first thought of this because of Martin Espada's "For the Jim Crow Mexican Restaurant" (which is on-line here, but you have to go to the end of the page to find it). I also like Glyn Maxwell's "Curse on a Child," and my friend Geoff Brock pointed me to Cynthia Huntington's "Curse One" and "Curse Two: The Naming," while Espada himself mentioned Pablo Neruda's "General Franco in Hell."

Others?

*

Whatever your father says you'll oppose
and believe you're acting on principle.

(David Lehman, "Curse")
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3 comments:

mrjumbo said...

One of the oldest, outside of old religious literature and national epics, is this from Martial:

Non amo te, Sabidi, nec possum dicere quare;
Hoc tantum possum dicere, non amo te.

Most famously translated (substituting Dr. Fell for Sabidus):

I do not love thee, Dr. Fell;
The reason why I cannot tell--
But this I know, and know full well:
I do not love thee, Dr. Fell.

Wikipedia tells a story about this translation that sounds too perfect to be true, but it's worthy of the rhyme.

5:30 PM
Andrew Shields said...

I could not find the Wikipedia story you are referring to; can you post the link or email it to me?

9:41 PM
Andrew Shields said...

My friend Van sent me this one:

http://oldpoetry.com/opoem/62927-James-Stephens-The-Glass-Of-Beer-

10:52 PM

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