English term
Bull Dog Bend
candid. They know what's in your hand.
I look down. My hands dangle open and empty
in the harsh yellow light. Strange men,
familiar, laugh and curse in the kitchen, whiskey,
ending over cards. Or is it something held down
on the table? Someone says: Bull Dog Bend.
Someone says: The place of the father in the home.
A woman's voice: Those women who've never held
a little baby in their arms. In the old window,
a shadow. Two hands, brick and mortar, seal
the house, my children somewhere inside. The youngest
has lost his baby fat, navel flattened, last
of my stomach's nourishing.
| 4 +5 | name of place in Alabama |
Yvonne Gallagher
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PRO (1): Yvonne Gallagher
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Responses
Ireland
right word, right place. everytime
Native in: English (Variants: Irish, UK, US, Canadian) 
Works in: French to English, Spanish to English, English, and 1 more.
name of place in Alabama
https://minniebrucepratt.net/about/
https://www.bluetoad.com/publication/?i=37829&article_id=388...
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Note added at 6 days (2023-04-20 08:57:21 GMT) Post-grading
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Thanks for letting me know
Guesswork can be dangerous
Voting this as Pro as I had to look it up
| Thanks, I thought about this and found that they both connected to Alabama, but as I see the place called Bulldog Bend and not Bull Dog Bend and I hesitated because it seems weird why she would write it wrong. I also thought maybe it has some connection with the poker. The whole poem is about the situation where the poet lost her custody over her two sons because she came out as a lesbian at 70s. |
| agree |
Kourosh Fallah
: Agreed.However, considering the context, it might also refer to a train accident happened there // https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NQJIozhHvIU // or the canoeing experience in the canoeing park// https://www.facebook.com/bulldogbend/ //PS: see discussion
21 mins
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Thanks. "Considering the context" Why?
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| agree |
philgoddard
: Bulldog. The asker should have Googled this.
1 hr
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yep
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| agree |
Tony M
: Yes, it would not be safe or desirable to seek to translate the meaning on a word-by-word basis, and presumably this was an isolated fragment overhead by the writer with no further context, so a reader of the translation needs to be in the same situation
1 hr
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exactly. Thanks
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| agree |
Andrew Paul Kennett
: Yes could well be. From the text, there seems to be multiple conversations. So this could be a bribe of a conversation over heard amongst others.
2 hrs
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"bribe" of a conversation?
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| neutral |
Christopher Schröder
: Yes but why is it mentioned? See discussion...
23 hrs
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Conjecture
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| agree |
Anastasia Kalantzi
5 days
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Thanks:-)
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Discussion
I know this seems far-fetched, but if we look/read carefully, the other two sentences after this are referring to lesbians or their situations in stereotypical and deregatory terms.
Again, may be overthinking it, so I am just bringing this up as extra input for the asker to consider.
https://www.google.com/books/edition/Bearing_Life/U5bcW5AbmY...
Also, considering the 'parallel structures' and 'balance' in literature, it seems plausible that answers are of similar nature. This is not a wild guess.
The asker has asked about the possible meaning of the phrase, and I just provided documented possibilities. If this is for a translation, the non-American readers would probably have no idea about that place or related concepts. IN THAT CASE, The best practice could be to provide information in a footnote, explicitly saying (the translator's comment).
Have a nice day.
up to the reader to do their own research and decide what the whole thing means, for them
This comes from a book "Bearing Life: Women's Writings on Childlessness"
Someone says: The place of the father in the home.
A woman's voice: Those women who've never held
a little baby in their arms."
The answers seem (to me) to be related or somehow of similar nature. The other ones are not the names of places.