plasmapop

[plasmapop]

Hi! I’ve been thinking about your translation of Catullus 51 with signal flags since I first saw it, months ago. It’s so good. Would it be chill if I painted it?

hi! of course!!! that would be so much more than chill. it would be epic and swagful and if you do then please can i see it!!!

[plasmapop]

cheeky preview of my translation (‘catullus 51 translated via words cut out from a new scientist article on sleep. and also heracleitus is there’) in @kallistoi’s fundraising zine!

all proceeds go to operation olive branch, a grassroots organization that collates and amplifies fundraisers for gazans in need. oob also collaborates with palestinian community partners in direct aid initiatives, such as the construction of a humanitarian encampment in gaza to provide food, shelter, water, medical treatment, electricity, wifi, and other necessities to 300 individuals. funds from this zine will be donated specifically to support this encampment initiative, which you can read more about here.

get the zine here!!! :-)

and the heracleitus fragment in question (from ‘the sleep of reason: sleep and the philosophical soul in ancient greece’ by victoria wohl):

this is about translation and especially translation through time. to me.

[plasmapop]

03/04/23 • experiment with parataxis / beetle facts of dubious veracity / help! there’s private language in my beetles / who would put a poem back together if it exploded

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28/04/24 • catullus 51 translated via the international code of signals

BC 1 Can you communicate with the aircraft? NE 5 You should proceed with great caution; hostile vessel sighted NH 1 Are you clear of all danger? EA Have you sighted or heard of a vessel in distress?  ZL Your signal has been received but not understood. QF I cannot go ahead MBP Onset was sudden.  PG 2 I am dazzled by your searchlight. Extinguish it or lift it. [IB 4 The extent of the damage is still unknown.]  MHB Tongue is dry. YS I am unable to communicate… DV 1 I am adrift. MBE The whole body is affected. IX Fire is gaining.  FD 1 My position is indicated by rockets or flares. PG I do not see any light. EP I have lost sight of you. MY 2 It is dangerous to proceed on present course. AE 1 I wish to abandon my vessel, but have not the means. GC 2 I have searched area of accident but have found no trace of derelict or survivors

[plasmapop]

01/04/23 • trying to tidy my desk + getting distracted by leftover words + recycling them into Something

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18/03/23 • text cut from the exhibition leaflet from olafur eliasson: nel tuo tempo

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26/05/20 • tiny little catullus 50 attempt

remember, friend, our yesterday. our lazy words written in play, when we agreed we’d waste away resting in restless ease.

remember all the lines we wrote— the metre stuttered in my throat— you laughed. i memorised its note but couldn’t write it down.

and now i’m gone and you’re not here. all the world’s wit won’t bring you near and thoughts of you don’t disappear, not even in my dreams.

(as if I dream that much. at night i toss and turn and still the light illuminates your absence: bright and aching next to me.)

[plasmapop]

25/02/19 • love poem but it's about translation theory. translation theory but it's in the form of a love poem. or something!

faithful

“The gendered metaphor of the "faithful" translation, whose worth is always secondary to that of a male-authored original…” —Emily Wilson

there are sounds breathed into the dark and there is something that lies behind them. i want to be as close as i can get.

all night i cling to the lines of you, the space where i imagine your body turning in its sheets and pulling our symmetry apart. absent love,

our conversations are one-sided now. you leave me voicemails, your name repeated over and over, and i stand in the kitchen

echoing the things i wish you’d say. i didn’t understand when you made those animal mouth-sounds, your crouched body

-language as i tried to domesticate you. i could barely get you inside the house—you just stood there. i said i wanted an imitation

of intimacy at least; you said—i put words in your mouth. i pretend i know what your accent would be when

you don’t say anything at all. i obsess. we’ve never met. i would become you if i could.

the clock ticks. i stand fixed. you go looking for someone who speaks your language. we were never on the same page, but

my words come not from love but from belief: dear, i will stay faithful to you,

whoever i think you are.

[plasmapop]

18/11/18 • if i don’t rearrange leftover magazine cuttings into silly little catullus 51 translations before i clear them away i’ll explode and die

[plasmapop]

HI HELLO sorry for flooding your notifs by liking all your poems, i used to do a lot of cut-and-paste writing/art but stopped for a while cuz i couldnt get Inspired™️ and now my brain is just ravenously hoovering up your work like MMM YES IDEAS INSPIRATION DELICIOUS. anyway i love your poems, sorry for the spam likes, hope ur having a nice day

hi hello and you absolutely do not have to be sorry i love when people spam likes because im like. Wow You Are Actually Reading My Poems <3 this ask made my day! thank you! i hope your inspiration takes you somewhere fun!

[plasmapop]

hello. tiny question. hypothetical chapbook of literally just translations of catullus 51. how would we (you. people who like my poems sometimes) feel. about that. ?

[plasmapop]

01/11/22 • catullus 51 via sappho 16 via new scientist issue 3397

Some say aircraft and helicopters and some say telescopes and batteries and some say fuels and flight technologies are the most lovely thing on this dark Earth,

but I say it is the aim of holding you skin-to-skin, human-to-human, text-to-text, without any reflection of a god written between us.

this isn't the real issue. you smile, and your mirror image in history looks away, and I watch and lose focus and all communication systems fail—

(I have been running out of the words for this story for the past 2000 years.)

We need surgery to repair a broken silence. We need pulses of electricity, coursing through bone and muscle and skin. to replace the malfunctioning solar panels of my eyes.

and I remember. I would rather see you again than all the emergency luminescence of a major spacefaring nation, burning through the future like jet fuel.

[plasmapop]

01/11/22 • epic lacuna of The Rest Of The Poem Is Missing Because I Ran Out Of Glue :/

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14/02/18 • old poem

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04/08/22

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if theoretically someone were to do a cat 51 inspired by your cat 51s and your cutout poetry style would you want to be tagged in it to see it

theoretically that would be SO cool and i would love to see it please holy shit

[plasmapop]

04/05/22 • text cut out from the information sheet for the cursus honorum exhibit at the capitoline museum / photo by my mother :-)