The Generosity of the Poem (Edvard Kocbek)

21st of March is the World Poetry Day. For its occasion, I've decided to post a poem by the 20th century Slovenian poet Edvard Kocbek, entitled Darežljivost pesmi or Generosity of the Poem (in my own modest translation).

Generosity of the Poem

In all times, poets have been compelled

to act as solemn chroniclers,

to seize with specific words

fateful human events worthy of remembrance,

so that the young and the old might learn them

by heart and sing them in times of sorrow,

for the glory and precept of all generations. And

yet, poets have always turned excited,

mixing their sacred duty towards history

with an unbound lust for a primary game.

They have written their poems like the

snow and the rain carry out their duty in nature,

like the diligent sower sows the

plowed fields in autumn and reaps them in summer.

Right now, I feel a special generosity.

It is nourished by everything that was

and that has remained in human veneration,

that which transcends my memory, connecting me with

everything that lives in community and in imagination.

Now I sense as never before that

a poem is the concentrated force of all human

capacities, and that its exemplariness

lies in the transcendence of language.

Darežljivost pesmi

V vseh časih so naročali pesnikom,

naj kot slovesni zgodovinoslovci

skušajo s posebnimi besedami uloviti

spomina vredne usodne človeške dogodke,

da bi se jih stari in mladi naučili

na pamet in jih prepevali za žalost,

v slavo in poduk vsem rodovom. In

glejte, pesniki so se vselej razigrali

in svojo sveto dolžnost do zgodovine

povezali z nezadržno slo po prvinski igri.

Napisali so pesmi kakor dež in sneg

opravita svojo dolžnost v naravi

in kakor marljivi sejavec poseje

zorane njive jeseni in jih poleti požanje.

V tem hipu čutim posebno darežljivost.

Hranjena je iz vsega, kar je bilo

in kar je ostalo v človekovem čaščenju

in presega moj spomin in se spaja z vsem,

kar živi z občestvom in domišljijo.

Zdaj čutim, kakor tega še nisem, da je

pesem strnjena sila vseh človekovih

sposobnosti in da je njena vzornost

v presežnosti jezika.