 |
Ken McCullough
Translating U Sam Oeur
Notes on the Poet
U SAM OEUR is a Cambodian poet,
born in 1936, who survived four years in Pol Pot's concentration camps
by feigning illiteracy and by destroying the manuscripts of his
literary work. Since he had been raised on a farm, he was able to adapt
to the brutal rigors of forced agricultural labor.
"Sam," as he is known in the U.S., grew up in
rural Svey Rieng province, studied in Phnom Penh, and was eventually
educated in the U.S., receiving a B.A. in Industrial Arts from Cal
State-Los Angeles and an M.F.A. in Poetry from the Iowa Writers
Workshop. Sam and I were classmates at Iowa from '66-'68 and had
adjacent apartments for a time. We became close friends. It was my plan
to eventually travel to Cambodia and work with Sam in translating
Cambodian folk tales into English.
Sam returned to Cambodia in '68 as soon as he
finished his degree, married, taught for a short time, then entered
light industry in several managerial positions. We corresponded until
1970 when Sam informed me that there was little point in writing
anymore as all the mail was being censored by the government. I heard
nothing from or about him until fourteen years later, when I learned
that he volunteered as a captain in the army for two years ('70-'72),
then returned to continue working his way up the managerial ladder of
Cambodian industry. He was elected a member of Parliament and was
selected as a delegate to the U.N. And he continued to write poetry.
Then, in April '75, the Khmer Rouge took over. Sam, his wife, son and
mother-in-law were herded from their home and spent the next four years
in a succession of six concentration camps. Somehow they all survived.
At one point during this period, though, Sam's wife gave birth to twins
who were strangled by midwives at the order of the camp overseer- they
were not only extra mouths to feed, but were the cause of a worker
being out of circulation. Finally, after the Vietnamese ran off the
Khmer Rouge, Sam and his family returned to Phnom Penh and he began to
work in the Ministry of Industry.
I learned of his situation when the English
Department at the University of Iowa received a letter from Sam, via an
Australian non-governmental organization, asking for a copy of his
thesis which he'd had to destroy at the outset of the Pol Pot takeover.
A secretary in the department had heard me talking about Sam in the
past (but never in the past tense), and passed on a copy of his letter.
Through the Australian connection, Sam and I
resumed our correspondence. Immediately I started trying to figure ways
of getting Sam out of Cambodia. I asked Clark Blaise, Director of the
International Writing Program at Iowa, if he could invite Sam as a
participant. When Clark began looking for backing from foundations,
however, their response in general was to balk because Sam was not yet
considered a big enough literary "fish." (Of course if he had been an
established writer, he would have been killed long ago.) Then in 1991,
a co-worker of Sam's discovered in Sam's desk a poem critical of the
Vietnamese-backed regime, which to the co-worker indicated that Sam was
involved in the pro-democracy movement in Cambodia. He turned U Sam
Oeur in.
But, although this was indeed his leaning, Sam
was not actively involved in anything organized. Nevertheless, the
Party forced him to sign a letter of resignation from his position with
the Ministry of Industry. There was a mood of desperation in his
letters to me at this time. Then, luckily, Clark was able to get the
Dashiell Hammett-Lillian Hellman Foundation Fund For Free Expression to
sponsor Sam as a participant in the program. When in September of 1992
I went to meet Sam at the airport I saw a badly-shaken but no less
radiant version of my old friend.
Initially, we did not know whether Sam could stay
in the U.S. beyond his three-month gig as a fellow in Iowa's
International Writing Program; but eventually we were able through the
English Department to get him designated as an Independent Scholar and
thereby have his visa extended. In any case, during his three months in
the program we worked furiously to translate his work (I was still
working full-time at my regular job as an academic adviser at the
university), having no inkling of how much time we had.
Sam had arrived with very little down on
paper-just a few tattered scraps, so most of what he was coming up with
was from memory. To date, we have translated about 170 pages of Sam's
poetry into English, and are circulating the poems to magazines. (A
grant from the Witter Bynner Foundation for Poetry allowed me to take
six months off from my job to work with Sam on the project.) We have a
publisher who has indicated that he wants to do a bilingual edition of
Sam's book Sacred Vows. Sam has also begun translating Whitman's "Song
of Myself" into Khmer.
In Cambodia (back in the days before Pol Pot),
the traditional poets were itinerants, wandering the countryside,
bringing the news. Thus, aptly, on the cover of a chapbook of
selections from Sacred Vows, U Sam Oeur follows his name with the
title-in Khmer- "Itinerant Poet." At this point in time, the name fits
especially well, in that he has no employment and no fixed abode. Only
his writing is certain. Indeed, Sam feels that he cannot return to
Cambodia-he wants to go back but has been advised by friends close to
the situation that despite the recent "democratic" elections, it would
be suicidal for him to return until things become more stable. He is
thus thinking about applying for political asylum. Unfortunately, his
wife and son are still in Phnom Penh. But if he does not apply for
asylum, he cannot be gainfully employed in the U.S. Until the smoke
clears it seems that he must remain here, living by his wits.
Sam's ultimate ambition is to return to Phnom
Penh and start a Writers Workshop at the college level, in which
Cambodian writers can share their work and prepare themselves for
participation in the literary community within their country and
abroad. Sam is indeed durable, but his body has been through quite a
bit. He is now fifty-seven. The clock is ticking. For the time being,
however, he will continue to write and to chant his poems in exile.
And, even here in the United States, he receives death threats in the
mail. Similar to the way in which Navajo storytellers use indirection
to deliver a possibly critical message, the wandering Cambodian poets
wove recent news into their material by referring to parallel
historical or mythological situations. They did not wish to become
prophets shunned in their own land. Many of U Sam Oeur's poems are
allegorical as well-like those of the traditional poets-but others are
not, and for this he pays a price of the above-mentioned threats-three
of them, all postmarked from Long Beach, California, letting him know
there are those who regard his writings as treasonous. But, those who
know Sam at all regard him as a gentle, kind and abidingly peaceful
person.
Nevertheless, idealists are dangerous people. . .
.
Notes on the Poetry
TRADITIONAL KHMER POETRY is
usually chanted and invariably the poet accompanies himself on a
two-stringed guitar as a drone instrument. For some types of poems,
particularly laments, a wooden flute is used as accompaniment. U Sam
Oeur's poetry adheres to the tradition in that most of his poems, in
Khmer, are written in strict forms with intricate rhyme schemes, as
well as in that he chants them in dramatic fashion. The narrative
portions of poems are chanted in a flat manner similar to recitative,
while the more emotionally-charged passages are delivered in the manner
of aria. The longest section of the book-length Sacred Vows is entitled
"In the Concentration Camps;" hence, as one might assume, the
predominant emotions are grief and despair. Despite this, many of the
poems are tinged with irony and even whimsy.
It is difficult, to say the least, to translate
Khmer poetry into English and capture its unique qualities-the
languages are worlds apart. Khmer, unlike numerous other languages in
Southeast Asia, is nontonal. Most of the indigenous words are mono- and
occasionally disyllabic, while the polysyllabic words one comes across
derive generally from Sanskrit through Pali and relate to religious or
philosophical matters. Khmer words are not ideograms, although they
sometimes have characteristics of ideograms. Thus, you can't come up
with a clean and consistent scheme of translating the
word/picture/concept as you can in Chinese. Also, Khmer has no
articles, pronouns, plurals, or possessives, while there are a number
of grammatical and syntactical rules peculiar to Khmer.
The most fundamental difference, however, is that
the music of the Khmer language has no equivalents in English. When
looking for ways to transliterate the sounds of Khmer words (� la Louis
Zukofsky) one always comes up woefully short. Remember that most of
these poems are chanted, anyway-they are, in essence, song. Also, rhyme
is more prevalent in Khmer than in English. Although the rhymes in
Sam's poems are rarely forced, many traditional Khmer poets will
introduce an unaccented nonsense syllable to supply a ready-made rhyme.
This kind of device has parallels, of course, in many other languages,
including English.
What we've done in these poems is to give the
reader a fairly literal translation while attempting to capture the
spirit of the poems and get as close to the sound, rhythm and meter of
the poems as possible. On occasion we've had to shift the position of a
line or phrase to maintain the flow of the poem; hence, a reader fluent
in Khmer will not find exact one-to-one correspondence. There's
certainly nothing innovative about this approach. I've always admired
Kenneth Rexroth's translations from Chinese and, after reading many
other translations of the same poems, have felt that his come closest
to capturing the power and intent of the originals. It is this group of
translations I have attempted to use as a touchstone, although we're
working with different languages and cultures.
These poems appearing in Artful Dodge
represent three distinctly different contexts in the life of U Sam
Oeur. "Sacred Vows" is set during the third of Sam's four years in Pol
Pot concentration camps; "Searching for Dad" is set a few months after
the Vietnamese "liberated" the Cambodians from the Khmer Rouge; and
"Dream after Composing the Appeal" is set in 1994, after Sam had been
living in exile in the U.S. for about eighteen months. The first two
poems represent atrocities recollected in relative tranquility, in that
Sam did not attempt to write them down until recently, while "Dream"
was written the morning after the experience.
A few terms in the poems warrant explanation. In
"Sacred Vows," the term "Red-eyes" refers to the Pol Pot clique. They
acquired red eyes from eating human livers and swallowing human bile,
especially from freshly-killed virgins. Their usual method of obtaining
a liver was by axing an unsuspecting girl from behind, then tearing the
liver from the body and braising it slightly over an open fire. This
was believed to bring immortality. U Sam Oeur claims that he can, to
this day, spot these men because their eyes have stayed the same color.
Several of them are in high positions within the newly-elected
government.
In that same poem, "Angkar" is the term the Khmer
Rouge used to refer to their collective organization as well as to an
individual overseeing a concentration camp. Then, in the
"Pronouncement" section of the poem, the Parabhava Sutta to which Sam
refers is a Buddhist scripture whose translation would be roughly "The
Twelve Causes of a Man's Downfall," while the Boddhi Tree symbolizes
Buddha and the Sugar Palm represents Cambodia.
In "Searching for Dad," the specific ideologies
Sam intends to implicate are Maoism and Meanism. Meanism is the
philosophy of the Indochinese Communist Party, passed down from Ho Chi
Minh. Achar Mean, for whom it was named, was appointed Secretary
General of the Party in 1951. He died in Hanoi in 1972. Incidentally,
the "dad" in the poem is not Sam's father but his father-in-law-in
Khmer, "dad" is used generically.
In the title of "Dream after Composing. . . ,"
Sam mentions the Cambodian League for Freedom and Democracy. This
organization came into being in 1973, with Sam as Secretary General,
and went dormant in '75 at the outset of the Pol Pot regime. Sam has
been trying since his arrival to revive the organization among
expatriates here in the U.S. and to reestablish its link with the World
League for Freedom and Democracy. The gist of Sam's appeal was that his
fellow Cambodians see through the smokescreen of the "democratic"
election of 1993 and to recognize it as a travesty.
Also, a few words about the forms of the Khmer
originals-"Sacred Vows" is written in the "crow-hopping" form, which
consists of seven-line, four-word stanzas, and a tightly-woven rhyme
scheme of end rhymes which are linked with internal rhymes. This is the
form in which laments are almost always written. "Searching for Dad" is
written in four-line, eight-word stanzas-a more discursive form, though
even this form has a weave of rhymes similar to the "crow-hopping"
form. In "Dream After Composing the Appeal of the Cambodian League for
Freedom and Democracy" Sam abandons the tradition and writes in free
verse-what's the point, after all, of being traditional when everything
militates against that tradition.
And, after all, there is no traditional Cambodian
form for the nightmare, anyway.--Iowa City, June 20, 1994
U Sam Oeur
Sacred Vows
for
Michael Dennis Browne
I. Kapok Plantation
May 1978
I was assigned, one among seven,
to clear the land, 500 acres worth;
to transform it into the site
for a kapok plantation: mid-May '78
One afternoon, on a scorching day,
the Red-Eyes sat in a circle in the shade.
Their leader proclaimed: "This season, Angkar
will start more intensive work
to finish ahead of schedule.
And after harvest, in the cold months,
Angkar will wipe out all useless people,
and leave the seed of fifteen families for each cooperative-
we will consider this the model."
I stared at the sky.
I murmured
"O, Almighty One!
Do you hear the proclamations of these monsters?"
II. Pronouncement
October 1978
I knew I could never escape. I remembered
what the Great Spirit had told me: in time of danger
I should burn incense and invoke Sakadevaraja, the King of Angels,
to save the lives of my countrymen and women.
Under the light of the full moon, while
guarding the rice paddy fields from marauding beasts,
I burned 21 sticks of incense I'd made from kapok leaves
and set them in a termite mound.
Then, three times, I recited:
"Namo tassa Bhagavato
Arahato Samma Sambuddhassa"*
Then I pronounced my Sacred Vows:
"Oh God in His Highest Form
the King of Angels |
|
higher than the Universe,
all the Great-Grandmother |
|
Deities, |
| my Mother and Father |
|
from the Heavenly Island |
| I
pray to all of you. |
Great-Grandfather Raja
all the local deities,
deities of the six directions, |
|
Great-Grandfather Suos,
King of the Sacred Cobras,
deities of the mountains and seas, |
| bless
these benedictions. |
|
May the Boddhi Tree be free to grow.
May the Sugar Palm be free from blame.
May the supernatural devils be banished from Cambodia.
May Peace be restored
to the people of this land. |
On the night of the full moon, October '78
the moon shone brightly over the jungle
where the cold north wind
swept the rice paddy fragrance
through the silent midnight.
And from the top of a termite mound
the smokes of incense curl,
soaring to Heaven,
carrying my Sacred Vows to the Almighty
as the moon revolves westward.
(Translated from the Khmer by Ken
McCullough)
*Translator's Note: "Namo tassa Bhagavato Arahato
Samma Sambuddhassa" could be translated as "Praise be to Him, the
Blessed One, the Fully-Enlightened One."
U Sam Oeur
Dream After Composing the
Appeal of the Cambodian League for Freedom and Democracy
for
Rose Rutherford
I am swimming across a wide river
when swords start falling from the trees
They must be swords left by the Japanese
I pick up several to save as collector's items
but the blades are rusty with deep nicks
They must have been used to butcher many Cambodians
whose tormented spirits may still inhabit the swords
I decide not to take souvenirs
And now I must cross another river
The ferry has just pulled away from the shore
Two little men run after the ferry
calling it back for me to no avail
A young boy falls in the quagmire of filth
the mud and hundreds of putrid chicken carcasses
As he sinks I rush to grasp his hair
too late. Too late. He disappears
in the foul mess as I just stand there. . .
(Translated from the Khmer by Ken
McCullough)
U Sam Oeur
Searching for Dad
March 1979
for
Lorraine Ciancio
When I left, dad sat on his bed,
wanting to go through his shakes in private.
With no food or water, dad lived on Buddha
while his body became covered with sores.
He refused to leave. He wanted to meditate.
Pol Pot separated me from my Teacher.
When I return, I find he is gone.
Dad, what miseries did you suffer?
In '75, it was ashrams everywhere.
Old men and women who were fed up
with reincarnating into this life of pitfalls
sought ways to reach Nirvana.
Now, in '79, I see only aquatic bushes.
I break into a cold sweat. I get dizzy;
No matter what the ideology du jour,
there is always the same lament.
Oh trees in whose roots the fish spawn,
in the dry season of '75, my dad was still here.
He was alive under the sanctuary of worship.
Now in what grave does his skeleton lie?
He was a builder, followed the precepts, gave alms.
He built temples, chateaux, palaces, stupas.
Yet Pol Pot killed him.
Annihilated his genius without regret.
O grasses, your grandson begs you-
if the grandfather grasses know
the whereabouts of my father's grave,
I shall shave my head in thanks.
O grass of thickets, grass
of sticking burrs, where is
the skeleton concealed?
Tell-and I shall ask no more of you.
*
The horizon is like the hem of a mosquito net,
pelican feet
like duck feet. We've been living in misery
because of our king, eclipsed because ladies adore diamonds,
our forest turned to deserts out of ignorance.
Oh, God! Why Cambodia?
(Translated from the Khmer by Ken
McCullough)
Return to Making
Introductions
|
|
