Poet of the Month 092: SAMUEL BECKETT

 

 

SAMUEL BECKETT, c 1938

 

 

 

 

ASCENSION

 

 

through the thin partition

that day when the child

prodigal in his way

returned to his family

I hear the voice

she is moved she comments

on the football world cup

 

still too young

 

at the same time through the open window

directly from the air

dully

the gathering of the faithful 

 

blood spurted abundantly 

onto the sheets onto the scented sweetpeas onto her man

with his disgusting fingers he closed the lids

of the large green astonished eyes

 

she prowls lightly

above my airy tomb

 

 

 

[1938] 

 

 

 

Translated (very loosely) by

BR

 

 

 

See below for original French text

 

 

 

 

 

This poem, included in a letter sent to his literary agent George Reavey in June 1938, is Beckett's reflection on the death of his cousin and lover Peggy Sinclair.  Peggy was his first love and her death, at the age of twenty-two, on 3 May 1933 from the lung disease tuberculosis had a profound effect on the young, ill and then unemployed Irishman — someone still struggling to recover from the recent, equally traumatizing death of his father.  

 

Written on or around Ascension Day to commemorate the fifth anniversary of Peggy's tragic passing, Ascension was described by Seàn Lawlor and John Pilling, the editors of the 2012 Critical Edition of Beckett's Collected Poems, as 'a particularly striking, and even shocking poem.'  

 

It is certainly a poem haunted by Peggy's ghost and shows Beckett coming as close as he arguably ever did in his work to directly addressing the feelings of grief her loss inspired in him.  But there are also the 'shockingly' prosaic elements of the radio playing, the announcer giving details of the 1933 World Cup and Peggy herself commenting on them, perhaps with her dying breath.  Reference is also made to her fiancée, a German named Heiner Starcke, who may well have been there at the end to close her eyes with his 'disgusting' fingers.  (This may have been a reference to the blood that 'spurted abundantly' from her dying body and landed on Starcke's hands.)  The final lines speak of unrest, with the dead girl — or at least her memory — 'prowling' around the 'tomb' which is the room Beckett is writing in and that he views, in some sense, as being his own tomb as well.

 

 

 

 

Use the link below to visit the website of Irish playwright, novelist and poet SAMUEL BECKETT (1906-1989):

https://www.samuel-beckett.net/

 

 

 

 

 

 

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Poet of the Month 085: KAY BOYLE

 

 

Poet of the Month 056: TS ELIOT

 

 

Poet of the Month 005: FRANÇOIS VILLON

 

 

 

 

 

 

ASCENSION

 

 

à travers la mince cloison

ce jour où un enfant

prodigue à sa façon

rentra dans sa famille

j'entends la voix

elle est émue elle commente

la coupe du monde de football

 

toujours trop jeune

 

en même temps par la fenêtre ouverte

par les airs tout court

sourdement

la houle des fidèles 

son sang gicla avec abondance

sur les draps sur les pois de senteur sur son mec

de ses doigts dégôutants il ferma les paupières

sur les grands yeux verts étonnés

elle rôde légère

sur ma tombe d'air

[1938]