Poetry Forum

"That for which we find words is something already dead in our hearts" - Friedrich Nietzsche

That for which we find words
is miscarried in the womb of the mind,
is something already dead in our hearts.

I shuffle ancient husks for thoughts,
the hollow walnut shells which pass for
that for which we find words.

Has Zarathustra come down from his mountain?
Is Babel’s long shadow still lengthening?
Is something already dead in our hearts?

I stutter a shrunken song and have lost
my way in language’s labyrinth, where Ariadne’s thread
is that for which we find words.

Burn the great libraries to ashes!
The cross we mark on the foreheads of the voiceless
is something already dead in our hearts.

Poets must languish in perpetual Lent;
poems shrivel and fall from the trees;
that for which we find words
is already dead in our hearts.

FFS!

The last stanza works so well, love the quote. The absence of end rhyme usually goes with this form so had to re-adjust the expectation. My suggestion would be to read this aloud and then see if the lines read smoothly.

That for which we find words
is miscarried in the womb of the mind,
is something already dead in our hearts.

I shuffle ancient husks for thoughts,
the hollow walnut shells which pass for - this 'for' reads clumsily into the 3rd line
that for which we find words.

Has Zarathustra come down from his mountain?
Is Babel’s long shadow still lengthening?
Is something already dead in our hearts?

I stutter a shrunken song and have lost
my way in language’s labyrinth, where Aridane’s thread
is that for which we find words.

Burn the great libraries to ashes!
The cross we mark on the foreheads of the voiceless
is something already dead in our hearts.

Ports must languish in perpetual Lent;
poems shrivel and fall from the trees;
that for which we find words
is already dead in our hearts.

This is one of Harold Bloom's favourite quotes. I thought I'd trace it back to its source, and I found an alternative translation - We have already gone beyond whatever we have words for - which seems (to me, at least) to be a more accurate rendering of the original Wofür wir Worte haben, darüber sind wir auch schon hinaus.

Interesting, anyway. I thought.

Ah, the poem? I'm not sure the form does you any favours. Applying it to the Nietzsche gives it a sort of stilted effect, and the string of rhetorical questions - and the exclamation! - only heighten that impression.

I think it's definitely a thought worth investigating, but perhaps a more conversational, less declamatory tone might work better?

That's for you to decide, of course, Herr D.

And that must be poets, not ports? Or is it ports?

Cheers

David

I like the tone, actually, it sounds very Zarathustra-esque...


This reminds me of something Faulkner says in Light in August:

"Memory believes before knowing remembers. Believes longer than recollects, longer than knowing even wonders."

Aridane = Ariadne?

"That for which we find words is something already dead in our hearts" - Friedrich Nietzsche

I have to say, Dill, that as soon as I read that quote I thought "Really? What a load of nonsense!"
David's rendition seems to make more sense, although I can't speak for the translation as I don't even have schoolboy
German.

I thought
I... have lost
my way in language’s labyrinth, where Ariadne’s thread
is that for which we find words.
- was an interesting image but it doesn't seem to tie in with the quote. It wouldn't take much of a tweak, though, to get it to agree with David's alternative.

The form IMHO is acting as a poetic strait-jacket, but you're obviously trying to extend yourself - all I can say is
"Rather you than me"

Geoff

If only Nietzsche had followed the logic of his stricture.
"hollow walnut shells which pass for that for which we find words" I thought that repetition of "for" was ungainly.
I think you could easily lose that third verse.

ha ha,

Brain V Dillingworth

An intellectual battle, like footlights v the crap Oxford equivalent...

Now I'm not saying who's who...but titling a poem "Nietzsche" sheeesh...

Happy days
MmmK