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Unknown: KUSP Santa Cruz, KBDH San Ardo. Another viewer supported on KUSP by complete mailing service, direct mailing is what they do. Complete mailing service at 425-5556. Morton Marcus: Good evening, everybody. This is the Poetry

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Show and first an update on the Summit Fire: as of today at 4pm, the fire has been 50% contained at 3870 acres lost, having burned twenty residences at the same time. Residents of some evacuated areas are expected to be able to return home by

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Tuesday. Evacuees aren't expected to be allowed to return to areas closer to the summit until Wednesday or later. KUSP Summit Fire coverage continues tomorrow morning with the latest updates from Cal Fire.

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And we switch from fire and its heat to ice. And the ice is the ice of the universe and the darkness between planets and living beings. And our guests tonight, and we will be talking about her book, "The Voice of Ice," is Alta Ifland. Alta,

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welcome to the Poetry Show. Alta Ifland: Thank you, I'm glad to be here. Morton Marcus: Okay, that's very eloquent. Alta, I'm going to ask you a series of questions because this book is really a

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fascinating book. You are not from the United States? Alta Ifland: No, I came here in 1991. Morton Marcus: Okay, and where are- where are you from? Alta Ifland: Well, I was born in Romania and I lived there until

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'91. I had never left the country before because it was communism and it was pretty much impossible, especially in my situation, because I had some political problems. So I came in '91 and I lived here since then, except for a little over a year

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when I lived in France. Morton Marcus: When did you learn English? Alta Ifland: Well, it's- I basically learned it here in a serious way, although I did start when I was really young in

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fifth grade. Because at the time, we used to learn two foreign languages in school in Romania, and I started with French when I was in second grade, and then English was the second language in fifth grade. But it was done in a very- in a

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very basic way. So we basically learned the grammar, and in high school we had about one contact hour per week, which most of the time we didn't actually do because at the time the regime became very isolated and it was trying to repress any kind of

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contact with the exterior world. So foreign languages were not- well, far from being a priority, they were actually barely tolerated. So most students would just skip those classes and that was tolerated. So we almost never had our English

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class, and then in college I studied French and Romanian. And so basically, I- when I came here, I had just some basics. Morton Marcus: Okay, you wrote this book in which language -- and what we're talking about is, for those people out there, a

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beautiful book that I'm holding called, "Voice of Ice," and it is a very, very elongated book. In other words, it's- probably runs, I'd say, maybe ten inches long and five inches wide. And it's perfect for the prose poems that it takes in, it really has

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these wonderful prose poems on the page, they're just beautifully presented. Did you write this book in Romanian or in English or in French? Alta Ifland: Well, I never write in Romanian, actually.

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Morton Marcus: Uh huh. Alta Ifland: I never did. I mean, of course, I wrote in Romanian, under various circumstances, but never as a writer. I wrote this book in French, which used to be the

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language, the literary language in which I wrote until 2000, 2004. So I wrote this book in 2004, immediately after I moved to California, and at the time- so I had to stop teaching French because I was teaching French at Arizona State. And while I was

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writing it in French, my husband told me to translate it- that I should translate it into English, which at the time seemed like a very crazy idea. And he said, "Well, do it and I'll look at it and see, you know, if I can fix things." So-

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Morton Marcus: Which he could, some people may not know- I'm okay. I can't say that, I guess. But he's a very fine editor and poet himself, so, go on. Alta Ifland: And so, yeah.

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Morton Marcus: Tying my hands behind my back. Alta Ifland: Okay, so yeah, so he's a local poet and translator. So yeah, so he's the one actually who gave me the idea of writing in English, which I never had, because

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English is my third language. And being from Romania, the cultural impulse is to write in French because it's traditionally, you know, like the second language of Romanians in a way, although I never learned it at home, but it's

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culturally- it's the cultural language. Morton Marcus: It was the universal language up until maybe twenty years ago, and everyone had to learn French. I know that we didn't talk about Vasko Popa in a little while,

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when Popa came over here and found out I did not speak French, he was extremely unhappy because he really couldn't communicate with me. But when we went and saw Czeslaw Milosz who speaks Serbo-Croat, they could just fluently converse with each

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other because they both spoke French. And that, of course, is why it was the universal language. Alta Ifland: Yeah, although I would say that it stopped being that more than twenty years ago.

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Morton Marcus: More than twenty? Alta Ifland: I would say so. And even in Romania now, the new generations, they all speak English and French. So this was the generation I came from, and I wrote in French. And then,

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while actually I was still working at this book in French, I started to translate it into English. So at some point, I was basically writing the book in two languages, both French and English.

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Morton Marcus: Did you find it difficult translating it into English? Alta Ifland: At the beginning, yes, because I had never written before in English in a writerly way. So, at the beginning, I

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remember the first translations actually had to be edited in, you know, kind of a serious way by my husband, but by the time I arrived at the end of the book, he didn't have to do almost anything, like he would maybe fix a comma or something.

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Morton Marcus: It's very interesting because you really think in English. I mean, you know, I've known you for a while now and you really do think in English, you do not have to hesitate over questions or responses. The only thing that

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might get you are some idiomatic crazy American phrases, you know, which no one should learn anyway. Alta Ifland: Well, yeah, I do think in English, I never think in- well almost never think in Romanian and actually not in

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French either. I only think in French if I'm in France and in Romanian if I'm in Romania. But the way one writes in a language is actually very different than speaking the language. Morton Marcus: Tell me about that, explain it.

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Alta Ifland: Well, of course, it goes without saying that you have to know the language really well. But I realized that what counts the most is really to train your brain to go to the deepest part of yourself in this new language. And that's very

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hard at the beginning because we are- our deepest part of ourselves is made by our native language. I mean, deep down, this is where we are. So you really have to remake yourself in a really fundamental way to go back to the grammar and to

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decompose that and to remake it again. And it's extremely hard at the beginning but it's also something- it's very liberating once you start being able to do it. Morton Marcus: So will you be writing from now on in English?

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Alta Ifland: At this point, I am writing almost only in English. Morton Marcus: Okay, and I know you've done a lot of reviews and things like that. And they have- obviously were written in English too so then-

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Alta Ifland: Yeah, but I don't like the distinction between reviews and, you know, this kind of poetic writing. Although, you know, I think you can be very, very creative when you write essays, but somehow it's not quite the same.

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Morton Marcus: Yes, I agree with you 100%. Let's get on to this book, "The Voice of Ice." Is this the first extended work that you've written? First, let's say- how about: work in poetry?

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Alta Ifland: Well, okay, this is not the first extended work I've written. I actually wrote before, a scholarly book in French because I have a PhD in French, so I had to- so it's basically my dissertation, which I published, and which is

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basically- only specialists can read it. It's written in that kind of language. Morton Marcus: As far as poetry is concerned. Alta Ifland: I never wrote real poetry, meaning lineated poetry,

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except when I was nine or ten, that was really bad. Morton Marcus: So this is your first real attempt at poetry? Alta Ifland: Oh, yes, exactly. Morton Marcus: It's rather amazing. Yeah, it's amazing. So

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we have here, for you people out there, a book of poems, actually Alta Ifland: Actually, I don't think so. I think it's being in French, and then the translations in English, though ou heard Alta say that she was riting them in English. And I

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hink that therefore that may b - though I'm certainly not lear ed in the French, but that's why the English- if this Frenc was not here, I would never e en suspect that you are not a na sold at the Capitola Book Cafe.

00:16:42.840 - 00:17:04.810

ive speaker. There the la guage is extremely precise. Tal a little bit about this book, t is book which I would recommend It is being sold at the Booksho Santa Cruz? Morton Marcus: Alright, so at the Capitola Book Cafe. I

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certainly recommend everyone that is interested in literature to go out and get it. It's got- it's beautiful to look at, a beautiful read, but it's got an extraordinary introduction by Gary Young, which really will give the reader direction. Do

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you totally subscribe to his reading of this book? Alta Ifland: Yeah, that's an interesting question. Well, when I read his introduction, well, both my husband and I said, well, this is probably the best review this book will ever get

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it. So I was extremely happy with it, of course, I think he saw very well many things in it. As far as subscribing, probably not, because there are some things there that he couldn't know, I mean, regarding the genesis of certain poems. Like,

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for example that one thing, he's talking about the search for a coherent self, and of course he refers to the fact that I come from another culture or several other cultures. And I'm not really sure that this is there, I'm not even sure that it's

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necessary to have a coherent self. But when I say I'm not sure, I really mean I'm not sure, you know, I'm really not sure. Morton Marcus: Well, it's interesting because you see, I,

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in my reading -- and please correct me, which people love to do anyway -- in my reading of this, this is not you. This is a voice, this is a mask. And it is a mask within a mask, it is a mask taking itself off, and there is a mask beneath it, and

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a mask beneath that. And somewhere, you're going to get down to the void, there's going to be nothing. And that the major concern of this book is that nothingness. It's a very existential nothingness in which the individual who met, no

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matter who the individual may be, just vanishes from the universe. And so the book in many ways, but not completely and always, is a search for what can last, if anything can. And to me, Gary calls it a quest for the self and I call it the

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deconstructing of the self, which then becomes constructed through poetry, which he says that too. Do you agree that that's what's happening, with all your concern with words and so on and things like that in here?

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Alta Ifland: Well, I wish I could disagree with you, but I think I actually agree. Yeah, well, a deconstruction of the self, yeah, I think it's probably the case. Although, there's nothing programmatic in that book. I never set out to,

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you know, to do something to deconstruct yourself or anything else. Everything that is there, it's sort of visceral, actually. But in rereading it, I realized that there are many themes there, and that what you're saying is actually true. I mean,

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but yeah, there are many masks there. But there's also something that I think is true in some- in a sort of a hidden way. Morton Marcus: You want to comment on that or do you want

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it to remain hidden? Alta Ifland: I'll comment just in a sense that relates to the way the poems were written. A lot of them were written -- mostly the short ones, not the longer ones, but the short ones

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-- I actually made them in my head. And I- many of them at night, but not always, sometimes I would just walk and make something in my head. And I just forced myself not to write it down. And I know from what I'm reading about the way other

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people write, really this was totally against, you know, what I see that other people, other ways of writing. So I forced myself not to write it down because it would seem- it seemed at the time like some kind of a betrayal of something kind of

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dark and deep, so- and also, I believe that silence is a good virtue. And I don't necessarily think that we have to put down everything that comes to our mind. So I kept it in my head for days, actually, and I would go to bed reciting or, you know,

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saying the thing in my head, and then I woke up in the morning, I try to say it again and, of course, it came out very different. I mean, something I could remember, other things I didn't. And I thought that was great because I think that you

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have to sacrifice some things to the night in some way. So I would do this for maybe two or three days, and only afterwards I put it down. Morton Marcus: There are writers who did do that. They didn't do

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it to not write it down, but they wrote in their heads. Alta Ifland: Yeah, I know. Morton Marcus: Hart Crane was one, Robert Creeley is another, the two just come to mind. Well, let's, hear some of these poems.

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Let's begin at the beginning, which, again, and I'm sure this is what started Gary right off, the first poem is called, "Birth," and the last poem is called, "Death." So it might not have been programmatic but what was going on inside you, you

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know, probably was dictating its own structure, though, it might not have been chronological when it came out. So anyway, this is- we're talking with Alta Ifland, and I've been taking this huge preamble so that you'd get to know her out there, and you'd be

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prepared for these wonderful poems about the self beyond ego. And this is, if I may also say, a very, very European book, the literature and the approach. We can mention writers from Eastern Europe and Western Europe in the 20th century, and even the 19th

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who pursue this exploration in the same- in many of the same ways, and it's not American, you know. So it has great, great sense of different people. Alta Ifland: No, but it just really- it's interesting to say

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because actually, I don't think I ever read while in Romania any book that was similar to this. I mean, I don't- yeah, I don't really remember- I don't even think that the- Morton Marcus: Did you read people like Blaga and other

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Romanian writers? Alta Ifland: Yeah. Morton Marcus: Oh, there you see. But they're part of this. Alta Ifland: Well, I think-

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Morton Marcus: Again, Paris is the light that radiates throughout all of Europe and what was going on, you know. Alta Ifland: Well, I'm sure there must be some kind of a sensibility that comes from there. But aesthetically, I

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don't really think like it relates to- well, but maybe, you know, I mean, sometimes you're the person who- I mean, the writers cannot really see what's going on there, so I don't know. Morton Marcus: Okay, anyway, why don't we read, "Birth?" And I

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don't know, maybe sometimes during the show we'll read one of these in French, see what it sounds like then. But why don't we start off with the first poem? Alta Ifland: BIRTH

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I was born in a lapse of time, my hand clinging to a dandelion, my feet gripping a vine leaf, my nose on my back, an eye on my ankle. The moon cast its dead pale rays, sprinkling the mortals' dreams with a layer of spice. My mother wasn't present

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at my birth, or maybe she was there and her pain of being torn apart still throbs in my veins. The nose on my back is reflected in a strange way in the eye on my ankle. Morton Marcus: And though that sounds very surrealistic --

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though, what surrealism means really is not that -- the imagery is very much dreamlike imagery, we begin- we are presented immediately with one of the major images of the book, which is the eye, the all-seeing eye that will penetrate any veil

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or any misrepresentation. So let's go on and read poems that you like and think are important, please. It's interesting that the next one is called, "The First Line," and really does talk about poetry so that the second- the second poem

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immediately starts to pursue the idea of the poem, you know, giving voice to really retrieve and make the the self stay in this world. Alta Ifland: Actually, this poem, "First Line," was the

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first poem from this collection and it's different from all th others in the sense that I thin I wrote it a year before I wrot the rest of the book but decided to put it there somehow because I thought it belonge there

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Morton Marcus: And if I may say so, sometimes we write poems a year, ten years, fifteen years ahead of time and do not understand what it's doing there because we're not ready, psychically, something's going on inside us. And we catch up

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with that and suddenly, explosion, you know, we realize where it came from. Alta Ifland: So, should I read this one? Morton Marcus: Yes, please.

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Alta Ifland: Okay: FIRST LINE I wish I could write a first line that belonged to no one, and would be the exact opposite of the desire to write that gave

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birth to it. A deadly frozen breath with a blow through its bowels, sealing with a burning touch each word's face and imprinting on it the grimace of a newborn who comes into daylight as if into darkness. All the terror of what is

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dragged into being will explode in these faces, which will then recede terrified by the vertigo of being, like a snail's fearful horns. I will be all at once the snail's horn, the hand reaching toward it, and the newborn stopped halfway in the mother's

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womb. I will also be the mother's body, dead at the moment when the newborn meets the first ray of light. Morton Marcus: It's got some great images and it's got great writing in it too. I mean, it's great writing in English. Please

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choose, you know, poems that you would want to read. It will just be- you know, we'll keep going so we got plenty of time. Alta Ifland: Okay, I'll read one that I think somehow represents something essential about the book. It's called, "My

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Language," it's page- Morton Marcus: 49, right? Alta Ifland: Yes. MY LANGUAGE

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My language lies buried in the center of the earth. When night comes, dreams open time's gate and the black ravens with rustling wings take off, leaving behind the long leaden sleep. Language's guardians, mute mommies draped in shrouds, float

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at the four cardinal points, their faces stiff, lips crimson, eyes painted blue. At dawn, they sink back into memory's cracks. My language doesn't belong to me. All that belongs to me is a long flowery absence, at whose edges roses are growing

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alongside my legs, encircling them, climbing and covering my body like a tomb. Deep in the absence my language unearths its words of fog, dead like me, and holds them for an instant above the tomb then lets them fall like petals.

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Morton Marcus: Okay, now you said that was an important poem in the book, can you tell us why? Alta Ifland: Well, because it is my language. Well, it- I think- I mean, I don't really want to explain the poem but I will say

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this that writing- Well, this book was written in two languages which are both foreign languages for me, because French, although I learned it a lot earlier than English, is a foreign language for me. I never spoke it at home, I learned it

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in school, and I got to the point where I could write pretty much almost like a French person. I mean, it was my native- almost my native language for several years. But I don't feel it as if it were my language, both French and

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English, I feel them as, you know, like languages that I live in, but there is a distance there. I mean, I will never feel them in the way that a French person or an American person feels these languages. So I don't feel that I belong, or

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that these languages belong to me. Which is really a very different way of relating to language when you are a writer because most writers, even if they don't think about it, they are the language, there is a total adherence, you know, to

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the language they write in. Morton Marcus: So this poem is literally saying what it's saying. But also, of course, the way I take so much of this book, it's metaphorical.

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Alta Ifland: Well, I think you made a great point. I think most of these poems -- if not all of them, actually -- although they sound really surreal, they are pretty lit- when I wrote them, they were pretty literal. I mean, I felt what I wrote. I

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made them literal, I meant them literally, although, you know, they are also sort of surreal. Morton Marcus: I mean, because there are scenes in here, very Kafka-like scenes that I'm thinking just of the time you

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hit the burial, for example. And then there's the lepers, you know, these are- I mean, these are not literal. Alta Ifland: Yeah, well, obviously. Yeah, these are more like fantasies, but they were fantasies that, you know, that

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or images that obsessed me and, you know, that I lived with. Morton Marcus: Okay, great. Let's have one or two more. I mean, we got plenty to go, but then we're going to take a break, so-

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Alta Ifland: Okay, so one more that is my choice? Morton Marcus: Oh, yes. In fact, you know, all of these can be your choice. I hate to- Alta Ifland: Okay, well, I think I'll read one that I've actually

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never read in public before because I, you know, I had quite a few readings and for some reason, I never chose this one. And, really, this is, "Her Home," page 47. HER HOME

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There once was a young woman who, in order to get home, had to go down a long spiral staircase with black marble stairs, so narrow that to do it she was forced to stand sideways, while on the walls infinite eyes with long lashes

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trembled like butterflies touched by night's chill, letting heavy tears beaming with light stream down between them. At the foot of the stairs, the space opened onto a dark damp cave with three old women in the center, all dressed in black,

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each holding keys between her teeth. They were the mothers of the earth. When the woman reached them, they looked at her spitefully, shaking their heads so she could hear the crystal-like sound of the keys she couldn't have. They said,

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"You'll never be at home. Never." Then they swallowed the keys in a single gulp, and the keys could be heard falling into the depths of their blossoming emptiness. They striped off the young woman's clothes and peeled her skin off like a film and

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threw it into the darkness. "Look," they said, "even your skin isn't yours." Then they began to drink her blood and finally, satiated, let her in peace. The young woman, undecided for an instant, didn't know what to do or where to go.

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She glued back some pieces of her skin and got ready to leave. But at the last moment, pulled her heart out and threw it at the old witches, now turned into barking bitches. Each time she went home, the same thing happened, again and again.

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Morton Marcus: And that is one of the other kinds of poems in here which are fairy tales or parables. And I could see this as a very strong dream that you had. Alta Ifland: Yes and no, I mean, knowing this is that I never

00:35:00.750 - 00:35:17.670

actually had this dream as a dream. But- and fairy tale in the sense that it is inspired by some fairy tale motives, motives like the mothers of the earth. I mean, they are very- in Romanian folklore there are lots of similar images of sort of a

00:35:17.670 - 00:35:36.840

matriarchal figure, which is, by the way, a bad figure in Romanian fairytales. The mother is fearful and scary, yes. So that kind of figure, I think, appears in a way, in one way or another here. Well, and of course, although I don't want to

00:35:36.840 - 00:35:53.580

go too deep into it, but of course, when you say, mother, the imagery of your own mother is always somewhere there. So it's all in here but then, of course, the image of the home, I mean, it's also related to a certain relationship I have.

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Morton Marcus: Gary calls a lot of your imagery, I'm trying to find it here. Okay- Alta Ifland: Where he talks about the body image? Morton Marcus: Well, when he talks about the- they're

00:36:16.640 - 00:36:32.450

psychologically- he said something, it's just perfectly phrased. But this is like the deep psychological imagery that's coming out. And though there are a lot of archetypes in that last, you know, piece that you read, still, obviously, this

00:36:32.450 - 00:36:51.560

is the sense of a young woman now confronting older women. You've got the arcs- the Romanian archetype of where an old woman and her mother stands and the rejection of the young woman, which in many of these poems, the speaker, whoever they

00:36:51.560 - 00:37:08.030

may be -- I'm not going to say it's you because to me, it's the speaker -- in many ways is rejecting the self and rejecting easy answers. And just digging farther and farther into yourself, trying to find the true self who is there, and most

00:37:08.030 - 00:37:33.240

of the time not finding it. But Gary also says that you're on a quest, and I believe that is so. Any comments about that? Alta Ifland: Well, if Gary says- I mean- Well, we are all on some kind of a quest. Yeah, I don't want to get too much into the

00:37:33.240 - 00:37:54.690

idea of the quest because in a way, it's something that is said about most books. And, of course, at some level, it's about a quest, but in a way that any serious book is, but I couldn't say exactly in what way. As I said, I wrote these

00:37:54.690 - 00:38:11.580

poems in a very visceral way and that's why I'm saying that although they are, you know, fantasies or surreal, because I wrote them in that, you know, in that way, coming from a sort of a dark night of the soul, then, I think- And that's a

00:38:11.580 - 00:38:23.780

psychological truth about human beings, that those kind of things express you in a very deep way, even in a way that you may not be able to understand. Morton Marcus: Right, but they almost become- they are symbolic

00:38:23.780 - 00:38:39.120

in themselves. Alta Ifland: Well they are, because they work with mythology and archetypes which are embedded in my mind. A lot from Eastern European folk tales, I think. I mean if there is a

00:38:39.120 - 00:38:52.620

literature from Romania that has influenced me deeply that's it, the folk tales and fairy tales. Morton Marcus: Can you read one more very short poem, and then we are already late for the break.

00:38:53.130 - 00:39:19.520

Alta Ifland: Oh, okay. INK SHADOWS, 111 Shadows of violet ink are sitting in my table with a crown of hot iron on their trembling heads. They are helping

00:39:19.520 - 00:39:36.410

themselves, tearing apart the roasted meat with their long nails like those of the living dead, and their crowns are melting and spilling into their royal dishes. Such nobility mixed with such a touching digestive spectacle brings to my

00:39:36.410 - 00:39:53.900

eyes a few tears soon dissolved in the common sauce. We are watching each other, the shadows and I, with mild suspicion and are wondering which of us really exists, they or myself. Morton Marcus: And we are talking with Alta Ifland who is

00:39:53.900 - 00:41:42.680

reading from her book, "Voice of Ice." We will return after a short musical interlude. "Talk of the Bay" is your source for interviews about local arts and public affairs as well as the national issues that hit

00:41:42.680 - 00:42:05.780

home here on the Central Coast. The "Talk of the Bay" team brings you in depth analysis and discussion, including art studio on the performing arts calendar, Monday through Friday from 10 to 11am on Central Coast Public Radio KUSP. And stay tuned for

00:42:05.780 - 00:42:26.300

"From the Bookshelf," which will follow the Poetry Show at nine o'clock. We are talking with Alta Ifland whose book came out actually last fall called, "Voice of Ice," and we have been talking

00:42:26.300 - 00:42:46.310

about the fact that the book really deals with identity, and I'm seeing the book from a very symbolic, metaphorical level. And Alta is saying that no, it was very visceral and first came out in I guess a very literal way. Was that what I call your

00:42:46.310 - 00:43:02.690

visceral? You know, so it was- I mean, it was actually you and what you were going through and just what was coming into your head and into your soul. Alta Ifland: Yeah, well, when I talked about the way I created

00:43:02.930 - 00:43:22.250

those poems, I said that I made them in my head and then after two days or so I wrote them down. But once I wrote them down, I didn't make almost any corrections. The only corrections I made were actually corrections of translation

00:43:22.250 - 00:43:43.550

because- So I would write it in French with no revisions, then I would translate it into Englishm, then my husband would take a look at it and maybe change one word or, you know, a preposition or something. And in rereading the English, sometimes

00:43:43.640 - 00:43:58.970

I would realize that I would go back to the French and change things in the French according to the English because when I translated it into English, it was never a literal translation, it was always more of a recreation. I was unfaithful to

00:43:58.970 - 00:44:17.090

the original in the translation. Morton Marcus: I would like to again read some more of these. You did, "Her Home," but some of these are really sort of great horror stories. And I'm thinking of a piece called, "The Lepers,"

00:44:17.450 - 00:44:30.700

which is on page 79. Alta Ifland: Okay, I'll read it. THE LEPERS The train stopped in the middle of the field under the open

00:44:30.700 - 00:44:49.750

starry sky. All the windows were frozen and the whole train was sunk in darkness with no lights. The passengers coiled under wooden blankets- woolen blankets, avoiding opening their mouths so no drop of life would escape from their lips. No one

00:44:49.780 - 00:45:07.030

asked any question. The warm breath coming out of the mouths made strange shapes of wide steam spotting the darkness here and there. They remained like this for about two hours until midnight. If one could have interrogated those who looked at

00:45:07.030 - 00:45:21.250

their watch at that moment, one could have learned that it was at midnight that the hummed murmur could be heard. It was a mixture of whispers impossible to make out in the most varied tones growing louder and louder like the roaring of a wave

00:45:21.250 - 00:45:38.410

approaching the shore. The lepers, thought one of those who had looked at his watch a moment ago, and the blood stopped in his veins. Outside bathed in the milky waves of the moon, there were bodies of men and women in rags, barely covered, each one

00:45:38.410 - 00:45:53.830

missing some limb or part of the body -- a hand, a leg, fingers, the nose and ear -- all missing their teeth, with crab faces and dribbling mouths, some crawling on the ground, others walking with a springy step, all humming, all hurrying toward the

00:45:53.830 - 00:46:10.750

train. In less than an hour, the train was emptied. The lepers had dragged out the passengers who had in vain begged in tears offering the money, jewelry, and other ridiculous objects that had caused the mocking laughter of the lepers. They had dragged

00:46:10.750 - 00:46:26.860

them by the hand or by the hair and taken them to the place where no one came from. And the train was now empty, phantom-like. It is a train which they say disappeared without a trace into the mountains but which showed up

00:46:26.890 - 00:46:41.560

when no one expected it in the villages it had once run through. And then the windows shined with light and the lepers' laughs competed with a clinking of glasses, and the music flowing in waves, and some people supposedly gone forever,

00:46:42.040 - 00:47:06.250

or spotted and recognized, then the train would vanish and it wouldn't be heard of again for months and years, until a new Well, I think this is a perfect example of the, you know, surreal aspect of the poem. But actually, even this poem hides

00:47:06.250 - 00:47:26.110

some kind of a literal meaning, which of course I guess it's nly obvious for me, and that is the fact that the spirit- My experience were trained in communist Romania, which I mean- well, you went to Eastern Europe, but I'm not sure. I

00:47:23.230 - 00:47:31.000

apperition. don't remember exactly what years. Were you there during communism? Morton Marcus: I was there, yeah. I was in Yugoslavia during

00:47:31.900 - 00:47:47.350

the post-Tito years, but they were the Milosevic years. Alta Ifland: Okay, yeah, so I'm not sure exactly what it was like. But in Romania during communism -- and Romania was at some point the poorest country in the communist block -- I had

00:47:47.350 - 00:48:03.430

many experiences in trains that would, you know, at winter, they would be so cold that there were people dying in them. And they would sometimes stop for hours in the middle of the field, and they would take off many hours later. I mean, they were hard-

00:48:03.460 - 00:48:23.190

they were like horror stories. So in some visceral way, even this surreal poem comes from those experiences. Morton Marcus: Well, and then some of these poems definitely- Let's see, I'm going to find it now. They definitely harken back

00:48:23.190 - 00:48:36.160

to this- to a very, very clear East European world and I- which one am I thinking of here? You imagine your grandparents faces- Alta Ifland: Oh, yeah. Morton Marcus: Faces, I'm sure that-

00:48:36.160 - 00:48:43.360

Alta Ifland: So I just opened it there. I think it's, "I." Morton Marcus: Yeah, that sounds right. Alta Ifland: Page 35? Morton Marcus: Oh, was it just 35?

00:48:46.270 - 00:49:01.060

Alta Ifland: If that's what you're thinking of. Morton Marcus: 33, 37, okay. Yeah, okay. Yeah, yeah. Alta Ifland: Okay. Morton Marcus: If you could read that, it's great.

00:49:01.720 - 00:49:18.110

Alta Ifland: I When I look at these photos of old Balkan peasants with their somber, tough gaze, first thrown on their shoulders, tanned faces furrowed by wrinkles, straight bodies as if wrapped in the

00:49:18.110 - 00:49:37.880

smoke of time going by. I find myself letting out a cry of surprise like the tourist I have become. What faces and what beautiful coats, like saying "exotic." And from the depths of the never ending past, my grandparents' faces resurface,

00:49:38.420 - 00:49:53.170

brown and sharp-featured like mute tree bark. And I know they are still there inside me but ever receding, unreal, untouchable. Who is I? Morton Marcus: That's one of my favorite poems in the book,

00:49:53.170 - 00:49:59.610

believe it or not, as simple as it is. Alta Ifland: Oh, really? Morton Marcus: It's just beautifully done. Alta Ifland: I sent it to many magazines, nobody wanted it.

00:50:00.300 - 00:50:12.040

Morton Marcus: Really? Alta Ifland: Yeah. Morton Marcus: Well, I should have been the editor. You never can figure out what they're going to want. Anyway, continue

00:50:14.410 - 00:50:31.450

to things like, "The Feast and urials," that I would like you o read before, but read some of he shorter ones. Alta Ifland: All right. Okay, I'll read a short one: MY DOUBLE'S DOUBLE, which is- it's page 37.

00:50:34.930 - 00:50:51.010

Morton Marcus: Like everyone else, I have a double. It wanders the streets, hands in its pockets making faces at passers by. And when I stop to talk to someone, to say hello and exchange little smiles, it turns up behind me, face

00:50:51.010 - 00:51:13.030

hideously contorted and throws itself at my interlocutor's throat, sinking its fangs in. Then it leaks his chops and the blood trickles drop by drop into its dreams. My double is my negation. It does what I don't do, it lives for me. And if my

00:51:13.030 - 00:51:35.730

double had its double too, would its double be me, then? I don't know but I know that I is but the doubtful and unlikely shadow of my double. See, I mean that that goes so much farther than let's say

00:51:35.790 - 00:51:50.580

Borges does when he says you know, there is the other Borges who is just our opposite, but you just keep, you know, probing and probing and probing, going deeper and deeper. Alta Ifland: Yeah, I'm really fascinated with the image of the

00:51:50.580 - 00:52:02.250

double. I mean, in literature in general, but not just in literature, Dostoevsky also had- Morton Marcus: Oh, [unindentified] and Gogol. Alta Ifland: And Gogol, too, yeah.

00:52:02.250 - 00:52:09.840

Morton Marcus: I mean, they're just great, great works, you know? Alta Ifland: Yeah, I love Gogol. Morton Marcus: Keep reading.

00:52:10.530 - 00:52:21.200

Alta Ifland: Okay. Morton Marcus: We've done a lot of talks so I want people to get a sense of the book, which is, by the way, on sale at the Capitola Book Cafe and it is called, "The Voice of Ice." And

00:52:21.200 - 00:52:39.050

the author, who is here in the studio with us, is Alta Ifland. But I will tell you right now, talking about doubles, Alta Ifland is not her real name. So we are playing games within games within games, identities within identities, and I am

00:52:39.050 - 00:52:56.930

forbidden on the pain of fangs being sunk into my throat to say your real name. Alta Ifland: [Laughs] Alright, looks like the mask is taken half off. All right, okay, so I think I'll read one, which was

00:52:56.930 - 00:53:18.960

among the first I've written in this book. "Shredded Shadow," at page 21. SHREDDED SHADOW My shadow and I were walking up a long, steep slope with no end

00:53:18.960 - 00:53:38.820

in sight. A cold fine rain started falling, and soaked I asked my shadow, which was still dry, to stop. Then my shadow grew furious and threw herself at me, tearing me to shreds, and each shread that fell on the ground turned into a red fleshy

00:53:38.820 - 00:53:58.350

star, like a four-legged crab, crawling zigzag up the wet path. And when nothing was left of my body, the crab constellation lined up behind my shadow, which kept on tirelessly. And again, the clouds gathered above the path and heavy drops polished

00:53:58.350 - 00:54:14.580

the star crabs, and their voices rose in a single sound begging my shadow to stop, but she kept on. Then the star crabs threw themselves on her and tore her to pieces and took her shreds and carried them up to the summit where the sun lives.

00:54:15.930 - 00:54:33.020

"Here, we've brought you the shadow's remains," they said, and the sun took the remains and then cast its rays on the star crabs and they melted without a trace. Morton Marcus: Well, there's that probing as you go from one

00:54:33.800 - 00:54:56.480

identity to another to another, and every each one of them gets destroyed, and finally the sun, which creates and destroys everything, certainly in this solar system is all powerful. And we've got other shadow poems and in the book also. But now

00:54:56.480 - 00:55:15.890

you imagine yourself on page 83, so here we are on a quest or not on a quest, but certainly probing for some sense of yourself. And then suddenly you give us the picture that finally you'll have of yourself, and it's not a picture of Perseus or

00:55:16.220 - 00:55:31.370

Medea. Read them, please. Alta Ifland: Okay, well, I'll read it, but this poem actually really needs to be read in French also, and I have to explain something about it, about the translation.

00:55:31.400 - 00:55:42.300

Morton Marcus: So can you do both? Alta Ifland: Yeah. So, I guess I'll start with English so, you know, people know what I'm talking about. A LOUSE

00:55:44.490 - 00:56:03.810

I know I am but a louse lingering in corners and scrolling little louse stories meant to rot in the depths of the eye. I trot and bounce like an idiot louse, a louse with glasses. Rust covers my stories, and I say "yes, yes, yes" to

00:56:03.810 - 00:56:21.450

every kick in my bottom, a stunned louse. I trot, although not routinely, ashes gathering in my throat and no trace of a story at the bottom of my blue closed eye. I lick the master's boots and broken pots, and ask for forgiveness for being so

00:56:21.450 - 00:56:43.080

little, they can't stop crushing me, and not a drop of blood falls when they do it. I am but a lame louse let loose. Morton Marcus: And again, Gary says that's, you know, a very unheroic view of yourself. But in many ways, it is one of the

00:56:43.080 - 00:57:00.780

seminal poems in the volume because it does show you writing. And it does show, you know, that again the concern here is that writing is the way to- well, maybe in this world of yours nothing really makes a difference. I mean, we're all

00:57:00.780 - 00:57:21.900

just going to disintegrate, and the character and characters do continually, I think. But it certainly is a way to spend the time until we disintegrate and so you come back to words and you come back to writing itself. Please go on, and again, I'm

00:57:21.900 - 00:57:31.880

saying I'm happy to hear any one that you want to- Alta Ifland: Well, I think I'll read the French for this. Morton Marcus: Oh, that's right. We said we'd do. I'm sorry. Alta Ifland: And explain- just to give people an idea of the

00:57:31.880 - 00:58:26.000

question of translation and the problems of translation. I'll have to explain something, so okay, the French: [In French] So the question here, the big question for the translation was

00:58:26.000 - 00:58:50.600

the last line which in English says, "I am but a lame louse let loose." The French is totally different. The French literally means, "I am but a dry louse," and then the last word is an adjective which can mean "naked" or it can mean "deprived of

00:58:50.750 - 00:59:08.360

anything," like naked in a figurative sense, like poor. But it's also a word play with the word "pou" because, "de pou," is made of the prefix "de," the letters from the word "pou" which is louse, and then a suffix so it could also mean,

00:59:08.390 - 00:59:29.120

unlouse, so I'm a louse unloused. In French it actually sounds pretty good. But I just, of course, I couldn't translate it into English so I thought I have to find a completely different, you know, play with the sound and with the meaning

00:59:29.120 - 00:59:46.070

here. So the English is- it's completely fine but, "the lame louse let loose," it's- so it's just something that I did with some of the poems when I encountered difficulties in translation, I just recreated the poem in English.

00:59:51.610 - 01:00:06.550

Morton Marcus: We are just about to run out of time. I can't believe it. Could you read maybe two more short poems that really are important to you from the book, or poems that you just like, because some of these are like gorgeous lyrics, like, "The

01:00:06.580 - 01:00:13.780

Ice Skaters," are gorgeous lyric. Alta Ifland: Oh, it's just so interesting that you mentioned that- Morton Marcus: Why?

01:00:13.870 - 01:00:29.200

Alta Ifland: Because I think you're the first person that likes it, except me. It's also- it happens to be one of my favorite poems. Morton Marcus: It's gorgeous. Show them out there. Let's show

01:00:29.200 - 01:00:37.060

what it sounds like. Alta Ifland: Because somehow most people- people that read the manuscript before have suggested that I drop it. Morton Marcus: Really?

01:00:37.780 - 01:00:50.470

Alta Ifland: And it's- this is another poem of a translation problem and I have to say the French is better. Some of these poems are better in English here, but in this case, I think the French is better. But, you know, the players who liked it

01:00:50.470 - 01:01:07.660

in English too, I'm glad. Morton Marcus: Well, okay, we've got our wonderful sound engineer, Laura West here, and we are now going to put it to Laura West. What do you think of the poem that my guest is-

01:01:11.500 - 01:01:23.990

Alta Ifland: Okay, so I'll- okay, I'll read it in English, I guess: THE ICE SKATER The ice skater shields the dancer shedding her secrets, her

01:01:23.990 - 01:01:39.920

gestures on this side of movement tremble like tears at the edge of falling, always at the edge. They hold themselves back with a quiet passion restrained in the power of what they could say if they let themselves go. Caught in ice,

01:01:40.010 - 01:02:00.080

but not captive. Free in the frozen tremor of what could be a song of line made body and a body made sign. From the ice skater's body, the gestures fly in burly split- in pearly sprays and the mirror under her feet returns no image. Again and

01:02:00.080 - 01:02:13.520

again, her slender body stands as the ice under her feet breaks in myriad meridians. She is not just grace, she is the dancer frozen in a gesture. Morton Marcus: That's gorgeous. I mean, I'm sorry, what do you

01:02:13.520 - 01:02:23.630

think, Laura? Laura West: I really like it. It's definitely very different from the other ones you've written, so maybe that's why they would want to take it out of the manuscript. It reminds me

01:02:23.630 - 01:02:37.850

of, like, white light, you know, instead of darkness. It's nothing like any of the other ones you read but personally- I think the other one that you said that you really liked, the really short one, I think I have a tie between that one and this

01:02:37.850 - 01:02:50.960

one of everything you just read. And this is, like, I haven't read your book at all, so I'm completely virgin to it but- Morton Marcus: And then let me say that she has read a lot of poems that have to do with ice, with freezing because they- and

01:02:50.960 - 01:03:01.340

that is a recurrent image that goes through the whole book. But I think it's gorgeous. You know, we only have around a minute or two. Why don't you read it in French since you said you loved it and that will be your farewell?

01:03:01.420 - 01:03:32.720

Alta Ifland: Okay: LA PATINEUR [In French} Morton Marcus: Well, I've got to say one thing. I was looking for

01:03:35.180 - 01:04:09.530

-- of course it sounds much more beautiful in French -- but what I was looking for was the rhythm of the sentences and they are the same. And that's one of the things about this poem that I love you know, "caught in ice but not captive," and things

01:04:09.530 - 01:04:27.710

like that. So, if I could hear the English there, though, of course, the gorgeousness of the vowels was really wonderful in the French. Alta, thanks so much for being here. We've been talking to Alta Ifland, her book is, "Voice of Ice," on sale at

01:04:27.740 - 01:04:40.010

the Capitola Book Cafe; I urge you to go out and get it. She is a unique poet who I think we'll be hearing much more of. This is Mort Marcus and I will be seeing you in a month or so. Alta Ifland: Thank you, Mort.

01:05:26.870 - 01:05:40.700

Gary Shapiro: Broadcasting in HD radio at 88.9 FM, this is Central Coast Public Radio KUSP Santa Cruz, and KBDH San Ardo. Hey, everybody. I'm Gary Shapiro and it's time for "From the Bookshelf."

01:05:46.550 - 01:05:58.760

Once upon a time, there was a great big elephant and his name was Jumbo. And they didn't name him Jumbo because he was a great big elephant but rather we used the word jumbo to describe things that are big because this big elephant was named Jumbo.

01:05:58.970 - 01:06:12.620

And tonight, Paul Chambers is my guest and he has just written a marvelous, tiny little volume about a great big elephant and it's called, "Jumbo." This being the true story of the greatest elephant in the world. Paul Chambers' previous books

01:06:12.620 - 01:06:20.670

include, "A Sheltered Life: the Unexpected History of the Giant Tortoise." Paul Chambers, welcome to From the Bookshelf. Paul Chambers: Thank you. Thank you very much.