Anna Bloom returns

I think it was in 2014 I did my own translation of Kurt Schwitters' poem Anna Blume. I posted about it on the Policy Police blog because that was the locus of my arty stuff back then. I also thought that I should do some illustrations, and had a go at some drypoints, but they didn't really work out. So the project has been lurking among the fluff in my back pocket since then.

It's Open Studios time again and I was looking for something to do, so I decided to revisit it. I can't remember how much I may have tweaked the poem, do here's the text again:

ANNA BLOOM Kurt Schwitters

O you, beloved of my twenty-seven senses, I love you! - Thee thy thou you, I you, you me. - We?

This doesn't belong here (by the way).

Who are you undocumented damsel? You are - - are you? People say, you would - - let them talk, they don't know how the church tower stands.

You wear your hat on your feet and walk on your hands, on your hands you walk.

O, your red dress, sawn with white pleats.

I love Anna Bloom red, I love you red! - Thee thy thou you, I you, you me. - We?

This belongs in the cold embers (by the way).

Red bloom, red Anna Bloom, how can people talk so?

Prize question: 

1. Anna Bloom has a bird.
2. Anna Bloom is red.
3. What colour is the bird?

Blue is the colour of your yellow hair.

Red is the cooing of your green bird.

You simple girl in everyday clothes, you dear green creature, I love you! - Thee thy thou you, I you, you me. - We?

This belongs in the ashcan (by the way).

Anna Bloom! Anna, a-n-n-a, I trickle your name. Your name drips like soft tallow.

Do you know, Anna, do you know yet?

One can read you from behind, and you, you fairest of them all, you are from behind as you are from the front: “a-n-n-a”.

Tallow trickles caressingly over my back.

Anna Bloom, you dripping creature, I love you!

I'm still quite pleased with the translation - it seems to have survived nine years in my pocket so seems worth trying. We've just had the first 4 days of Open Studios and I've got a couple of prints done, but I've been too knackered to post about them here, so they all come in a bunch, like buses.

PS 10th July 2023. Just revised my translation again. I substitute the word creature for animal. It seems to fit better with the love thing. It was brought to mind by my very occasional remembering of the song, "No, John, No". "On yonder hill there stands a creature..."

PPS 31 July. Finally replaced "clothes" with "dress" - there is enough of an implication of clothes in dress. And dress makes more sense vis-a-vis pleats. I think so anyway.