translation of GĂŒnter Grass & response poem
by Allie Marini
Fleisch
by GĂŒnter Grass
Rohes faules tiefgefroren gekocht.
Es soll der Wolf (woanders der Geier)
anfangs das Feuer verwaltet haben.
In allen Mythen war listig die Köchin:
in nasser Tasche hat sie drei StĂŒckchen Glut,
wÀhrend die Wölfe schliefen (die Geier
umwölkt waren) bei sich verborgen.
Sie hat das Feuer vom Himmel gestohlen.
Nicht mehr mit langen ZĂ€hnen gegen die Faser.
Den Nachgeschmack Aas nicht vorschmecken mehr.
Sanft rief das tote Holz, wollte brennen.
Erst versammelt (weil Feuer sammelt)
zĂŒndeten PlĂ€ne, knisterte der Gedanke,
sprangen Funke und Namen fĂŒr roh und gekocht.
Als Leber schrumpfte ĂŒber der Glut,
Eberköpfe in Lehm gebacken,
als Fische gereiht am grĂŒnen Ast
oder gefĂŒllte DĂ€rme in Asche gebettet,
als Speck auf erhitzten Steinen zischte
und gerĂŒhrtes Blut Kuchen wurde,
siegte das Feuer ĂŒber das Rohe,
sprachen wir mĂ€nnlich ĂŒber Geschmack,
verriet uns der Rauch,
trÀumten wir von Metall,
begann (als Ahnung) Geschichte.
Meat
translation by Allie Marini
Raw rotten frozen cooked.
It has been said that it was the Wolf (though elsewhere, the Vulture)
who was the first keeper of fire.
All the myths agree that she was a cunning cook:
while the Wolves slept (and the Vultures
remained in the clouds) she secreted
three coals, still smoldering, in her pink pouch.
She stole fire from the Heavens.
No more tearing tendon and sinew with elongated canine teeth.
No more bracing for the aftertaste of carrion meat.
How delicate, the call of dead wood, longing to burn.
At first, we gathered together (because fire gathers people together)
plans were set alight, thoughts crackled,
sparks ignited, as well as the names for raw and cooked.
As liver sizzled over the cook-fire
so were boarâs heads set to bake in clay,
then fish, strung up on a sapling green branch.
Or intestines, stuffed and buried in the hot ashes,
when bacon was fried on heated stones
and blood was stirred into pudding,
that was when fire claimed victory from the raw,
and we men learned to speak the language of flavor.
It was the smoke that bore testimony,
we dreamed of metal,
and so began the (premonition) of history.
This is how I came to be a footnote in my own story:
Long before Eve
and her indiscretion with the apple, there was me.
Back then, wolves were gods and lived in the clouds,
like raptors. They were the keepers of the flame.
I didnât steal fireâthe Wolf promised it to me.
I just knew he was lying.
Men are so predictable. Especially gods.
Even as he panted down against my back and nipped at my ear
I knew he planned to eat me
after he spilled his seed.
So I waited until he slept, and took
less than heâd promisedâjust three small coalsâhidden in my cunt.
The one place I knew heâd never bother to look
having already taken what he wanted.
No more gagging down rotten meat;
no more picking strings of tendon from my teeth.
And all that kindling we gathered,
bundles of branches and heaps of dry leaves,
just begging to burn.
But hereâs where I paid the price.
I gathered my husbands together, to show them
the bounty Iâd brought home to share.
Trusting them was my fatal flaw. So predictable.
Fire didnât quiet their bellies. It only made them hungrierâ
for ideas, for language, for words to describe their dinner.
Raw and cooked were sparks unleashing a wildfire.
While I busied myself learning fire and its uses,
how liver shrinks,
how a boars head should simmer slow in a clay vessel,
how fish cooks quicker than it takes for a sapling skewer to scorch,
how stuffed sweetbreads need nothing more than a cover of hot ash,
how bacon crisps over a bed of hot stones,
how even blood can be whisked into a pudding,
that was when the Wolf got even with me for what Iâd taken.
Eve should have paid attention, learned from my mistake.
The kitchen and the birthing room are where all who follow us pay penance.
Fire and apples fuel insatiable hungers in menâso predictable!âfor religion,
for language, for politics, for metal and tools and bricks.
An apple and three hot coals were all it took
to hand them the means of writing history.
These poems are dedicated to the memory of Dr. Glenn R. Cuomo, Professor of German Studies 1992-2017, New College of Florida, with whom the translator first began work on this project in 1997. Fishily on love & poetry, indeed.
Allie Marini is a cross-genre Southern writer. In addition to her work on the page, Allie was a 2017 Oakland Poetry Slam team member & writes poetry, fiction, essays, performing in the Bay Area, where as a native Floridian, she is always cold. Find her online.
GĂŒnter Grass (1927-2015) was a German poet, novelist, playwright, sculptor, and printmaker who, with his first novel The Tin Drum (1959) became the literary spokesman for the German generation that grew up in the Nazi era and survived the war. In 1999 he was awarded the Nobel Prize for Literature. âMeatâ is from his groundbreaking 1977 novel The Flounder, which contains a hidden manuscript of poetry in the text that has not been translated into English since its debut translation by Ralph Manheim.