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Wednesday, April 23, 2014

Riff on a Foreign Poem-- Chance on pour-less n-fonts liver

It's day twenty three of Napowrimo 2014, and I feel that I'm gaining momentum.  The first couple weeks I was quite literally lame, and even using the computer was tiring. While I still have a couple of days set apart  for want of words or finesse, I'm getting more into it, though, and many of the recent posts are coming more easily.Now the only thing is, will somebody please read my blog?????

Today's challenge is an exercise in exploring the sounds of words.  We are to take a poem in a foreign (to me) language, and try to mimic the original letters and the words into English sounds, without reference to a translation of meaning.  I chose a children's poem about a snowman (ok, I peeked, but did not imitate the theme), by Prevert, who is said to be a very popular French poet (and trust that one quotation of a very familiar poem is a matter of 'fair use.".  I share both the original and the riff side by side.    Here goes! (Unf. copied and pasted matter comes with its own margins, that too on its own white, rather than the green, background of my blog, truncating the ends of my 'side' of the poem, shifting them over to interpolate with the original....  If you know how to circumvent that, please let me know in a blog comment after these poems.)  (Oh, I see shrinking the font corrects the overrun line problem.  Now for the color...?)

The Original:...

1 – POEM / SONG

Chanson pour les enfants l’hiver           Chance on pour-less n-fonts liver

Dans la nuit de l’hiver                         Dan's la, new, it deliver
galope un grand homme blanc              Gallop un-grand homie, blank
c’est un bonhomme de neige                zest un-bond homie, den eggie.
avec une pipe en bois                         Ah, vex you a-pipe and boys
un grand bonhomme de neige              un-grand, un-bond homie, den eggie
poursuivi par le froid                          pours you, live e-par, lay Freud.
il arrive au village                              Ill arrive, ow village
voyant de la lumière                          Voyant de-la loomie, ere
le voilà rassuré.                                Lee voile erasure.
Dans une petite maison                     Dan's a petty mason,
il entre sans frapper                          Ill enters ants frappe', 
et pour se réchauffer                         Ate pour series chauffeur,
s’assoit sur le poêle rouge,                Sass, oh, it's surely po', well, e-rouge.
et d’un coup disparait                       Ate dun coop this parrot,
ne laissant que sa pipe                     Nay, lace ant quay saw pipe.
au milieu d’une flaque d’eau              Oh, milieu, dune flack you, dough,
ne laissant que sa pipe                     Nay, lace ant quay saw pipe,
et puis son vieux chapeau.                ate pulse, son vie you, ox chap, oh.
                  --Prevert                                                  --Franklin (me)

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