Under the general editorship of the eminent Mongolian poet G. Mend-Oyoo, an important dual-language anthology of American poetry has appeared in Ulaanbaatar (Mongolian Academy of Culture and Poetry). It's called simply American Poetry and it includes selections from Whitman, Dickinson, Poe, Longfellow, Stephen Crane, Frost, Langston Hughes, Allen Ginsberg, Kenneth Koch, Joseph Brodsky, Billy Collins, and Sherman Alexie,among others. Brief introductory notes are provided by Mend-Ooyo and by former U. S. Ambassador to Mongolia Mark Minton, an enthusiastic friend of the project and a lifelong champion of Kenneth Koch in particular and the New York School in general. A team of translators worked on the texts. A second volume is in the works.
Congratulations go to Mend-Ooyo also on the appearance of a new selection of his poems in English, A Patch of White Mist, translated by Simon Wickham-Smith, who has cemented his reputation as the leading English-language translator of Mongolian verse. I hope to have more to say about the book in time but for now am simply savoring the characteristic imagery of a sky in tumult ("Snowfall tumbles like white stallions") and a landscape in motion (mountains charging like a phantom herd of cattle).
In Mongolia, Stacey and I spent time with Mend-Ooyo, an accomplished calligrapher as well as the nation's leading man of letters. After a leisurely and literary lunch he celebrated the occasion by giving us Mongolian names -- mine is Tsolmongerelt (meaning "light of the morning star") and Stacey's is Odontuya (meaning "starlight"). Mend-Ooyo's own name tranlates roughly as "Man of the Secret Code," and a woman we met is "Lucky Violet." When I wrote seven haiku for Mend-Ooyo, I incorporated some of these details and other examples of how in the Mongolian imagination images substitute for abstractions. Marriage, for example, means "linked pillows" in Mongolian.
Seven Haiku for Mend-Ooyo
Lunch on the silver
edge of the wide bridal sky
in Mongolia.
Wife starlight blossom:
honeydew of honeymoon:
two melons ripe, sweet.
Man of the secret
code of the poet: ciphers
of Mongolia.
Paired pillows, the luck
of sweet violets, horses
on hills with white hats.
In Mongolia
seven Buddhas reign at night,
rain all afternoon.
Guest and host embrace
as the dark side of the moon
is loved by the night.
Evening's first star wears
her seven jewels and shines
in Mongolia.
-- David Lehman
