recent poem kopa lalang pe wawa-po'try tumtum

[Mike Cleven]

As often before, I was moved by the grey power of the inner gulfs
between the Victoria and Vancouver ferry terminals on a recent trip over
there; beautiful in sunny weather, the waters of the infra-island gulfs
and channels take on something in a squall or heavy storm.  A few of my
older English writings are about this grey world of water and islets;
when I took a stab at it this time some came out in Chinook; I'm hung up
on a word for "island" that works and the way to describe sounds and
gulfs and straits as well as islets - "tenas chuck wayhut" and "tenas
illahee" don't sound right or seem sufficient.  In another way, what's
said from within Chinook has its own particular meanings, and the
sound-structures that emerged aren't translateable, which is the case
with nearly all poetry, rhyming or not.

I'm not sure what natural spoken rhythm in Jargon would feel like, i.e.
what kind of natural meter there is that would lend itself to
natural-spoken rhyme, if rhyme is desired.  English, for example, tends
to use iambics and trochees (more the latter) and our rhyme naturally
"falls" in that direction; Icelandic poetry on the other hand places (or
can place) more emphasis on alliterative rhythms, which do not pivot on
the rhyme or a syllabic meter like iambics as in most English and
Romance poetry (the combination can be devastating when sung by a
master-poet; Ibsen's Peer Gynt is a modern representative of this
verse-art but Icelandic poetry is ever-great with it q.v.).  Rules for
haiku and sonnets in Chinook might be interesting; haiku a lot easier of
course; but sonnets implies the use of iambics and a certain meter-foot
to each line and set of couplets/quatrains.  Anyone want to take a
stab?  Sestiads are a bit easier - e.g. six words that take turns at the
end of each line of the verse; I know that doesn't sound easier but it
is; depends on how complicated you make the pattern of turns the
end-words move through.  Basic quatrains and song-forms are a _lot_
easier (the existing lore of Jargon songs - mostly anti-lum chantie - is
nearly all song-form, most of it in quatrains; and hymns are usually in
quatrains, except for Roman chant).

_Anyway_ (sorry, my background in musicology and, um, poetics was
showing), I've been waiting for more Chinook poetry as promised from
Scott Tyler, and I think a few other people threw bits out now and
then.  It's not as if Chinook poetry should or can be a great art form,
but it's an interesting way to explore the musicality and expression of
a language, and I think the act of trying to compose in another language
helps one think in that tongue, leaving one's own behind a bit in the
process to learn the other.  And it's learning to -feel- in the learned
language, learning what can be simply said; as before, if only I could
do that in English ;-)  I hope more people take stabs at writing
personal thoughts and experiences out in the Jargon, and maybe even to
the accompaniment of this or that ditty or gee-tar.  It's one of the
ways we can make the language live, for whatever idle entertainment or
other interest in it we may have.

PS Nadja's Sunbook - Nadja's Diary - was great, and I hope to see more
of it, Nadja - chako kilapi!! Naika ticky konaway mahsh klahoway pe
mamook ask chako kilapi!!  I wish more people had been encouraged to
write similar postings to get their Jargon "working" and develop its
usability and fun; if it's a basic tongue, then let's talk about basic
stuff, or at least whatever we can; documenting daily life in the Jargon
is a great way to learn, and to get others reading and using it back.

Naika kwahtah (my two bits)

Anyway, here's the poem; envision a squall between Saltspring and
Galiano north of the ferry run, and think of the tukamonuk thousand
islands and channels between there and Skagway, and all the inland
inlets and sounds limning the Hyas Saltchuck and the Hyas Hiyu Lamonti.
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Nsaika saltchuck
Uk-klie chuck
uk-tukamonuk chuck
uk-polaklie sky
uk-stick kahkwa lapel
pe uk-kilapi lamonti

[Our sea
the grey water
the maze of gulfs
and sombre skies
the velvet forests
and heaving lands/mountains]

Yaka hyas, nah!
Kopa tukamonuk island
kopa tukamonuk chuck,
chuck konaway wayhut
chuck konaway mitlite kah
enati illahee, kopa illahee

Hiyu hyas stick, pe skookum hiyu
pe konaway kah okook hyas stick
okook hyas lamonti, okook chuck illahee
okook hyas, tukamonuk hyas, chuck illahee

[It is great, nah?
on the thousand islands    {illahee seems inadequate; I'm loanwording "island")
on the thousand waters,
water all roads
water everywhere
between the land, against the land

Many great trees/forests, and great and many
and everywhere this great forest
this great mountain [range], this great land of waters]