Un Etranger Dans La Ville. (Translation) . Poem by Michael Walker

Un Etranger Dans La Ville. (Translation) .

J'ai marche partout dans le Jardin Zoologique et le parc.
Je me suis assis sur une pierre.
Je souhaitais continuellement avoir une petite amie
Qui serait a moi seul-
Mais je n'avais pas une,
Non pas une du tout.


J'ai demande a ma patronne si j'avais des privileges.
Ma patronne a dit, Non!
J'ai dit, Il ne fait aucune difference quand meme,
Parce que je ne suis le beau be personne.
Personne du tout-
Je ne suis le beau de personne.

Bien entendu, je ne suis qu'un etranger
Dans cetteville ancienne et etrange-
Mais apres que
j'aie ete ici un temps
Je saurai me debrouiller.
Oui je saurai
Me debrouiller.

-'Stranger in Town.' Langston Hughes.'The Collected Poems of Langston Hughes', p.359. (Poems 1941-1950) .

Un Etranger Dans La Ville. (Translation) .
POET'S NOTES ABOUT THE POEM
He is a stranger in a new town, always a difficult time at first. He is lonely and has no girlfriend, although he wishes he had one. He walks alone around the zoo and a park. He has a room in a boarding house and his landlady says that he has no privileges. He knows that he is a stranger in this old town, but after he has been there a while, he will know his way around. This is a good cameo of a lonely man in a new town, who is trying to get to know people.
The poem reminds me somewhat of Albert Camus' novel 'L'Etranger', which is about the same theme, though on a much bigger scale.
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