During the pandemic, the poet Daisy Fried was living in Philadelphia with her husband who was dying of a debilitating disease. Without much help from the outside, during breaks from the caring, Daisy began to read and translate Charles Baudelaire, a poet she had never […]
Category Archives: Charles Baudelaire
Daisy Fried reads from The Year the City Emptied, translations and adaptions from Les Fleurs du Mal
During the pandemic, while taking care of her dying husband, quarantined from friends, and without much help from Medicaid, one day in the spring of 2020, Daisy Fried read a translation of Baudelaire’s “Paysage” by John Ashbery, thought to herself, “I can do better than […]
Le Léthé par Charles Baudelaire
.. Viens sur mon coeur, âme cruelle et sourde, Tigre adoré, monstre aux airs indolents; Je veux longtemps plonger mes doigts tremblants Dans l’épaisseur de ta crinière lourde; Dans tes jupons remplis de ton parfum Ensevelir ma tête endolorie, Et respirer, comme une fleur flétrie, […]
Une Charogne (The Carcass)
… ……Charles Baudelaire wrote Une Charogne to his lover, Jeanne Duval, an actress and dancer, who met him when she left Haiti for France in 1842. Whether she died sooner or lived longer than the poet is in dispute, though both would succumb to syphilis. […]
Correspondances par Charles Baudelaire
… La Nature est un temple où de vivants piliers Laissent parfois sortir de confuses paroles; L’homme y passe à travers des forêts de symboles Qui l’observent avec des regards familiers. Comme de longs échos qui de loin se confondent Dans une ténébreuse et profonde […]
Élévation par Charles Baudelaire
… … … Elevation Above the marshes, above the valleys the mountains, the woods, the clouds, the sea beyond the sun, beyond the ether beyond the limits of our starry sphere my Spirit you move me agilely like a swimmer let go in the waves […]
Bénédiction par Charles Baudelaire
… Although considered by many to be the first book of modern poetry, a lot of the poems in Les Fleurs du Mal seem over the top today, and not very modern at all. Take Benediction, the first poem in Spleen and Ideal; translating it […]
Au Lecteur
… La sottise, l’erreur, le péché, la lésine, Occupent nos esprits et travaillent nos corps, Et nous alimentons nos aimables remords, Comme les mendiants nourrissent leur vermine. Nos péchés sont têtus, nos repentirs sont lâches; Nous nous faisons payer grassement nos aveux, Et nous rentrons […]
L’Ennemi par Charles Baudelaire
… Ma jeunesse ne fut qu’un ténébreux orage, Traversé çà et là par de brillants soleils; Le tonnerre et la pluie ont fait un tel ravage, Qu’il reste en mon jardin bien peu de fruits vermeils. Voilà que j’ai touché l’automne des idées, Et qu’il […]
La Chevelure by Charles Baudelaire
… Hair, we humans love it, its smell, its texture, its sometimes electric thrill, its personality in the lovers we are drawn to, and Charles Baudelaire was no exception. His love poems are superb in this regard. Jeanne Duval was the poet’s Haitian mistress, his […]
