One of the great pleasures of reading, but even more, of listening to poetry, or music, especially opera, is the sudden jeweled surprise that flashes against a background of all we are accustomed to. So it happened to me at the annual American Literary Translators Association [ALTA] conference near Dallas Texas.

Jim Hoggard read a poem of his in the pantoum form, a style of verse from Malaysia, apparently brought to the west by Victor Hugo. The rules for the pantoum are that it is written in quatrains whose lines should sustain the basic meter, though it doesn’t have to be a slave to a metronome. Now goes the fun. Lines 2 & 4 of the first stanza become lines 1 & 3 of the second stanza, and lines 2 & 4 of the second stanza become lines 1 & 3 of the third stanza. And so on as long as one wants to go. Then as we get to the final stanza, we realize that the only lines that have so far not been repeated are lines 1 & 3 of the first stanza. And in the final stanza those lines become 2 & 4, only in reverse order, with line 3 of the first stanza becoming line 2 of the final stanza, and line 1 of the first stanza becoming line 4 of the final stanza. That’s the classic form. Here is Jim’s “Rite of Confession.”

A RITE OF CONFESSION

Because the wind here blows insistently
we should be prepared for reversals
We should know how to read the world
in mysteries of rock and cloud and sea

We should be prepared for reversals
and not forget how threatening weather can be
in mysteries of rock and cloud and sea
We need to relearn how rough the world can be

and not forget how threatening weather can be
We should stop getting lost in ourselves
We need to recall how rough the world can be
when we look at it blindly or indifferently

We should stop getting lost in ourselves
We should know how to read the world
yet we look at it blindly or indifferently
Listen: the wind here blows insistently

–James Hoggard

Jim is a friend of many years. We have both translated from the Spanish, though he more from the Americas and I from Spain. In addition he has published several volumes of poetry and fiction. This poem concludes Wearing The River: New Poems, which won the PEN Southwest Poetry Award for 2007, published by Wings Press. Other Hoggard work can be found at Pecan Grove Press and Texas A&M Press

For more about ALTA you could visit a blog run by some of the members.