In today’s pubtalk I would like to talk about the translation of poetry. Some of you (like me) know poems in a second (or first language) and for others you might read poems in translation.
A few weeks ago we restarted the Pubtalk that will be focused more on reading poetry than writing poetry. Last time we talked about Constructive Feedback, and this week it’s time to talk about the translation of poetry.
Obviously a part of the poem will alwasy be lost in translation… but some type of poetry will always translate quite well, but often a poem can only be translated by a poet. As a matter of fact many famous poets have worked in part as translators.
Obviously coming from Sweden I will give an example of a poet who originally wrote in Swedish, Tomas Tranströmer and his poem:
AFTER A DEATH
Once there was a shock
that left behind a long, shimmering comet tail.
It keeps us inside. It makes the TV pictures snowy.
It settles in cold drops on the telephone wires.
One can still go slowly on skis in the winter sun
through brush where a few leaves hang on.
They resemble pages torn from old telephone directories.
Names swallowed by the cold.
It is still beautiful to feel the heart beat
but often the shadow seems more real than the body.
The samurai looks insignificant
beside his armour of black dragon scales.
This poem is translated by Robert Bly and I think it was done in deep collaboration with Tranströmer. To me the fact that this translates well is the way the poet has created metaphors that works as well in English as they do in Swedish. However I think there is always something lost that I feel when I read the original version in Swedish.
You can listen to him reading his poem here:
A translated poem I love to read a lot is Pablo Neruda, his sonnets especially is among the best thing in poetry, but given my reading experience reading Tranströmer, I do expect that they would be even better in Spanish.
So what do you think make a poem translatable?
Have you ever tried translating a poem?
What are your favorite translated poems?
What can never be translated in a poem?
dVerse 
Welcome all… I look forward to hear from you on what you think of translated poetry… how close is it really to the original… how much of the poem is the language that doesn’t translate at all… ??? I am curious…
Good evening, Björn and all dVerse poets around the world.
I read and have written poetry in German, and have translated poems from German to English. I agree that often a part of a poem can be lost in translation but I think that also depends on how the poem is interpreted by the translator. There are some words and phrases that may not have an equivalent in another language, so it is up to the translator to convey the meaning efficiently.
I do believe, however, that if you write poetry and dream in a language other than your first language, then you should be able to translate poetry and convey its meaning well.
Also, if you have read previous translations, they may affect how you see a poem.
I think your point of having written poetry yourself is very valid… the words are different and I agree that things like wordplay etc. would be missed… other things might translate very well, and maybe becomes even stronger in a translated poem.
But I’m curious how one does with things like meter and rhyme… should it be ignored or should we force ourselves into those constrictions as well.
I don’t think we should force meter and rhyme when translating. There is always a choice to be made: whether one should sacrifice the intricacies of language and meaning for structure and form is up to the individual translator. It also depends on the current trends in poetry and whether we are translating classical or modern poetry. There is a school for translators at the Norwich Writing Centre and I believe they have had similar discussions.
I think I agree… on the other hand, we wouldn’t have Shakespeare in Swedish or any other language… and sometimes we end up with something entirely different..
An example of a poem well know in Swedish is “Ring out wild bells” by Tennyson that is read in Swedish translation (or interpretation) every new year… It might be even more famous in Swedish than in English I think.
I think something close to the original meter and rhyme, if any, should be added to the translation if the translator/poet is able to do so.
However, some meters may have to be modified so they sound melodic in the new language.
I’m thinking of the Rubaiyat of Omar Khayyam which Edward Fitzgerald translated well because of the rhyme used in the translated version. I don’t know what the original sounded like nor what it originally meant. The translation is beautiful as a new poem.
Good thoughts frank. What exactly is the meter and rhyme actually doing in the original? Will it do that in the translation? Or are you ending up with a new poem? I think the new poem idea is valid, but calling it a translation might be weak.
I admire poets like you who can write in English, even though it is your second language. I believe that there are some words or emotions that are lost in translation or can not be that accurately captured. The Spanish verses of Neruda is more passionate and goes down to the core, though the English verses are just as superb. For me, writing in English is a formal language, while writing in my native tongue has a deeper connection. Translated poems though make us appreciate poems of other poets whose words we could not understand or have access too if it was not translated. Being exposed to their work is a blessing. Thanks Bjorn for this enlightening topic.
Thank you Grace… we both write in our second language and I think it’s a way to capture some emotions… I find it intriguing that Neruda is even more passionate in Spanish, as I think his poems are among the most passionate I have read in English…
Listening to Tomas reading his poem and reading the translation at the same time was amazing. It was interesting that the rhythm of Swedish is quite similar to the rhythm of English. If I’d been listening from another room I would wonder if it was someone reading English that I wasn’t quite catching. Listening to French, or Mandarin, or Thai is quite different. I know there are a few “bilingual” dVerse poets – I’ve often wondered if they write different poems in their different languages? Maybe the poems have different personalities? Maybe it’s easier (or harder?) to write love poems in your mother tongue? I’m interested to read Grace’s comments above. I can imagine a second language could be freeing, or constraining.
It seems like translating the sense of a poem would be relatively easier, but that it would be much harder to convey the sound of a poem, and the additional layers of meaning that the sound of a poem conveys.
I can only talk for myself, as I have almost never tried writing poetry in Swedish… I do struggle a bit sometimes when I write in English, but on the other hand there is a sense of verfremdung that can be quite freeing as you say…
I have tried once or twice to write a poem in Swedish first and then translating, and strangely enough it came out with an entirely different voice…
I have also once tried translating a poem from a fellow poet to Swedish and then recording it… sometimes I think we could grow our poetic toolbox by translating poetry.
I suppose the act of translation involves really reading a poem in a very intense way, and then almost re-writing it in a new language, so it probably does grow the poetic tool box. I can’t believe that you don’t write in Swedish – that’s really interesting. I’m feeling almost disabled because I only really have one language!
Ha.. maybe because I started writing poetry late, and started out just to become more skilled in English… I think I could write in Swedish as well, but I don’t have any readers in Swedish.
I know there are words and phrases that translate “oddly” in Japanese. Some of the one words in Japanese translate to a sentence in English. And the Japanese concepts, culture, etc. must also be taken into consideration, not just the literal word translations
You are right… and in our western culture we still share so much in common, but maybe we have a similar challenge when reading Persian poetry…
Interestingly i read an article about Tranströmer and how some of his poetry has been used in Japan to renew their own poetry… so maybe in today’s world we will have all these influences that create totally new ways of writing.
Over a decade ago I tried learning Chinese, because my in-laws are Chinese. The goal was to translate some of the Tang poems. These are four line, 20-syllable (character) poems that rhyme and have their own meter which I could not hear. I used an iambic meter and added a few syllables. Here is one of the very few I finished. It is number 244 in the 300 Tang poems anthology.
千山鳥飛絕，
萬徑人蹤滅。
孤舟簑笠翁，
獨釣寒江雪。
No flights of birds past mountains,
No footprints will paths show.
An old man only from his boat
Is fishing through the snow.
This is Google Translate’s version of it:
Thousands of mountain birds fly, The million trails are gone. Lonely boat, Weng, Fishing for the cold river
I think that meter sometimes should mimic the natural speech… and the iambic meter sounds so natural in English, in old Greek they used their hexameter…
I agree. Mimicking the natural speech is important and it will involve a difficulty between two very different languages for the translator. The translator has to pay attention to the original, because the reader wants to know what the original actually said, but make it appealing to the reader in the new language at the same time.
We are so used to the hearbeat of the languages we practice so it might be difficult.. but poetry has to have semblance to natural speech I think… 🙂
I am so glad to have read Baudelaire and Neruda, which wouldn’t have been possible without some excellent translations. I’ve lately been enjoying Baudelaire’s verse from two translations simultaneously, one is verbatim in more of a prosaic format and the other taking liberty with the words and the language while capturing the meaning and the flow of it. Both provide a distinct experience while aiding into the interpretations thus derived.
I only write in English and have tried to translate a couple of verses from Hindi/Hindustani and Punjabi in English too. I didn’t like my own translations though perhaps because I couldn’t gather in a composite manner all the nuances of the original work. Also, I may not have the linguistic understanding and acumen to do it the way it should be done. It is a very tricky thing to do and I admire all those who do it so well.
I like the thought of reading two version, the verbatim and the more “poetic” one in parallel, maybe that’s the trick to do it to get closer to the meaning of the original poem…
What are the great poets that have written in Punjabi and or Hindi that you can recommend for us here at dVerse?
The thing about Japanese poetry is there is no rhyme or meter. To force that would be to make the translation sound forced and unnatural. I agree with Anmol. You basically have to live in the language to accurately translate it. And in Japanese you have both kanji and Romanji…two distinct ideas.
I like that idea of a poetic and a verbatim version, like a translation and a transliteration. Each revealing different aspects…
Maybe if we think of a poem as a living thing, then meaning is not lost, but perhaps bent, when it is translated. I personally favor more abstract poetry, which can have as many meanings and interpretations as readers — more, even. I do think a translated poem almost becomes a new thing — a child of the original poem, or at least an extension or variation of. It is certainly never the exact same poem but in a different language. This is certainly true of songs as well.
I like that thought… and then maybe there are some poems that “translates well” and others that are so precise and real they cannot be translated at all.. the thought of children is one that I really like.
For example one of the haiku of Basho:
Yuku haru ya/ Tori naki uwo no/ Me ha nam
Spring is passing.
The birds cry, and the fishes fill
With tears on their eyes.
But this is not about the passing of spring, it is about the eternal passing into death. The cultural thing.
I think I can understand that… and we have been brought up with all those images too… like autumn as an image of aging , or the image of night and dying… (rage rage against the night)…
For example one of the haiku of Basho:
Yuku haru ya/ Tori naki uwo no/ Me ha nam
Spring is passing.
The birds cry, and the fishes fill
With tears on their eyes.
But this is not about the passing of spring, it is about the eternal passing into death. The cultural thing.
But we westerners think of spring as new life or youth, never as death. It is our conditioning I think. The difference in our cultures
I think a poem about falling leaves might mean death to us, or the water clinging to telephone wires in the Tranströmer poem (which is about death)
I always think of poems as living things. But being childless, the children thing never enters my head. Lol. But it is a good point. I think along the Japanese lines…that each poem is an indivudual
I like this idea, Shawna. Poems are living things and have different meanings for different people, whether in their own language or another language. Just a small change in a word can shift the meaning of a poem, so it’s bound to happen in translation.
In the poem above by Tranströmer there are some images that might mean little for someone with other cultural frames…
To go slowly on skis in the winter sun is for me something extremely precise.. I can feel it in my body, I grew up with it… whereas the waterdrops on a telephone line is so much more universal… but maybe we can all imagine how it feels, just like I might imagine a monsoon and what it might mean.
Good point. I think of the drops of water dripping from branches during rain. The Japanese word for this is kisame and it is precise
I think of this as do the Japanese, as rain transforming into something else and therefore meaning life
It has been interesting. I must leave you all to fix dinner. I will be back to read more of the comments. An excellent topic Bjorn
Interesting conversation, all. I did my literature studies at university in French, and found that the challenge was picking up on the cultural nuances, as well as understanding the philosophies not necessarily adopted by the English writers of the time. I think most of this has been said, but the translator would have to be well versed in both languages and cultures.
I’ve just read your comment and it’s very true. It’s what I was saying about a language being more than just words. And if anyone even mentions Google translate as being an option I might just go outside and put my head in the stream to cool off.
Ha ha ha – I’ll be right there with you.
Google Translate isn’t an option, but I have used it to get an idea of what is being said and as a quick dictionary for specific words. It also has an audio feature so I can hear the original text and test my ability to hear it rather than just read it.
The main sources I used for translating the Tang poems were other translators. My goal was to make the translation at least as good as theirs, or why bother? Of course that is all subjective.
Thing is, a poet makes very precise choices in words and rhymes and the way the poem sounds. A translation that doesn’t respect all of the poet’s parametres isn’t a translation it’s a free adaptation, which can be a good poem, but a different one.
Which I think it might be in many cases… after all I think a translator of poetry is almost always a poet him or herself… One of my favorite poets in Swedish, Karin Boye was also a translator of Eliot
Maybe to some extent English has become universal… it’s such an integral part of most cultures so we can use it for poetry from many perspectives— a lingua franca
But which English? There are many and they all sound and read differently.
Indeed… that’s what I meant… English is what we make it to be… that’s the blessing and the curse of being a universal language.
English is certainly a very versatile language, but use it badly and it loses all its beauty.
I have lived in France for more than thirty years and I speak French fluently, but I’m not bilingual. I translate but only into English. I think you can only translate poetry into your mother tongue, if you are immersed in the original language, and you are a poet. Just knowing a language isn’t enough. I’ve translated Verlaine (and I’m proud of the result) and written very short poems in French, but they’re no good because they’re not French. There’s more to a language than words.
Oh – still we try… actually the newest elected member in the Swedish academy is a poet in Persian who also writes poetry in Swedish..
I expect he’s a very talented poet with a very good knowledge of the Swedish language and culture. He would have to be. I don’t know Spanish and I’m willing to bet that if I did I might actually like Pablo Neruda. I don’t get much pleasure from the translations.
Sounds interesting, but what happens when you only read English?? It won’t work very well for me.
You read poetry in translation and you either like the translation or you don’t. We’re all in that position with most languages and have to rely on translators, but a translated poem is always an adaptation. It’s never going to be the ‘same’ as the original, so I think you have to judge it as a different poem.
Thanks Jane. I appreciate your explanation!
I have translated for a living and I’m always astonished how people who revere their own language think that anyone who owns a phrase book is qualified to translate somebody else’s. It’s a very delicate operation and for literature and poetry it has to be done by somebody who lives in the skin of both languages and cultures. Far more people translate than fall into that category. Not surprising so much ‘translated’ work sounds dull and mechanical.
I can see how that is true! It would be very difficult for someone to translate my poetry into another language and still capture what I was trying to say. Especially true when there are several was the interpretation could go.
Exactly, and if you did’t know the other language you couldn’t check that it was true to what you wanted.
That is right!
🙂
Bjorn, fantastic questions. Some of my favorite writers did not write in English, Neruda Borges Rumi. Rumi is particularly tantalizing, and I often wonder about the space between Coleman Barks and Rumi. Barks is certainly inspired. On first glance I wouldn’t have said that what is missing is the music, and it’s true because there is a lyric Hallidie in the original whereas Berks rights in free verse. But they’re such a heart in what he’s writing that I know he’s close. And I actually had the good fortune of meeting in a rainy and man who is able to recite some roomie in the original, and though I didn’t understand the words I could hear the music, and it was good. So yeah I don’t think the meaning in the music necessarily absent. In thinking more about it what’s most missing is the context. The environment that the original author was in his times his culture those are the things that are a little more difficult for me in my time and my culture to grasp. But in the end, how much does that really matter? The heart if it comes through without all that. -Erbiage
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I so like the thought of listening to poetry in a language you don’t understand… I once listened to Adonis, and it made see Arabic in a totally new way compared to what you usually hear on TV.
I’m only fluent in English although I’ve read some poetry in Spanish and enjoy trying to translate it in my own head. I agree rhythm and rhyme would be difficult to keep in a translated poem. I remember my grandmother repeating a Dutch nursery rhyme (about crickets) to us but the translation in English lost the fun sounds of it. I wonder if any of the psalms in the Bible rhymed in the original Hebrew? After all, they were sung and songs often rhyme.
Rhyme is not always in songs… as an example the old nordic poetry was built around alliteration rather than rhymes… The main purpose of rhymes is to carry the rhythm which I guess depend on how a song is sung…
I wonder Gregorian psalms where rhymed at all
Interesting to know…thanks.
I had the opportunity to participate with a group of students being taught by Robert Bly. He had us help him translate Ponge’s The Oyster. Since it was a prose poem we didn’t have to think about meter and rhyme. It was an interesting study for me because I have notes from the class, Bly’s final published translation, and attempted my own translation a couple of years ago (The Oyster by Francis Ponge translated by Jane Swanson) which you can read on my blog. I remember Bly telling us to not translate into English but into American. The following year I got to participate in a class by Sam Hamill on translating. He told us to practice translating to help our poetry writing.
I like the thought of improving your poetry by translating… it helps you go into the meaning of poetry. I understand that Robert Bly have translated a lot from Swedish…
The mother tongue seems to give a depth to the words we cannot express in another language. Like sometimes there is just that one word we must use that will sum up our thoughts precisely that we cannot accomplish in another language. I wonder if our writing style is also influenced by our first language?
I have translated poems from Bahasa Malaysia to English and vice versa, it is more difficult to go from English to my mother tongue. There are words in English that may require a longer text than just a word. Bahasa Malaysia also has a courtly division and reminiscent of the writings of Rumi and Hafiz, influenced heavily by Sanskrit and Portuguese words. When I read these poets it is like listening to an elder speak.
A translatable poem to me is one which the translator can absorb the message of the poem into another language, they don’t probably have to be proficient in both languages but have understood the intention of the original poet. Translators who meet the mark to me are those that have taken the time to research the background of the poet they are translating. To delve into their other work, not just the one poem. For the sake of merely transcribing the words would be such an injustice to the poet and poem.
a very good discussion.
I agree, to translate a poem faithfully, the translator needs to know about the port and the poet’s larger body of work in order to understand. Thanks for sharing your experience!
it is a labour of love, when we admire the work of a poet to want to translate their words to give others an opportunity to enjoy the wisdom and beauty.
Gina, I adore what you say about the formal aspect of bahasa Malaysia, and how it incorporates Sanskrit and Portuguese! I often forget how much of English is actually imported. And how Rumi and Hafez feel like an elder speaking… Wow
now you remind me, that English also has a many “adopted” words! thank you! we do take these words for granted and Bjorn opened up some interesting thoughts about their origins, how could we translate if we don’t delve deeper right? those two poets are indeed so familiar to me, when i was younger we often gathered to listen to stories told by older relatives, the beginning of my life long love for preserving the wisdom from spoken word. thank you for your thoughts.
I think that many times the translator and the poets are very close friends… and I think what you are saying is that you have to understand other things around the poem…
interesting that you say that Bjorn, I watched an interview of Han Kang, a Korean author and her translator and even before they met in person, they were communicating through email, both expressed a bond that developed even before work began. however that may not be possible to forge in every situation! so the work of the author, their history, culture, all that will add details for the translator. yes a friendship of sorts, as if to take that the poet were writing personally to the translator.
I have tried translating a poem, especially some of my own that I write in French (French is my second language). Precise meanings are very hard to translate, especially preserving the rhyme and meter. Poetry is more than the words themselves.
Indeed… and the melody of french and english can be quite different… (but I think it’s easier to find rhymes in French)
Yes, English to French is easier to rhyme than French into English.
I’ve translated some poems for close friends and family members who’d asked me to do so. I think that I would find it harder to do for people I don’t know, for so much of a poem is in the intention of the writer, not just in the imagery that is evoked in the reader. It mattered to me to be able to run the drafts by the author and see if it felt ‘true’ not just to the words, but also the world/s it tried to convey, and to the tone and rhythm and ‘breath’ of the poem.
I’ve translated some of my own, too, though that feels a lot less like a translation and a lot more like a re-writing. So perhaps that’s not exactly the same process when it is the same poet doing both. What do you think?
I think that some things translate better than others. Euphemisms, multiple-meaning words (i.e. puns), certain language-bound imagery and the use of specific expressions and culture-relevant metaphors can make it difficult to bring the same ‘spirit’ into the translation even if the words or the semantics translate somehow. I suppose there will be some poems that might be difficult to translate or that will not translate well in a 1:1 format or perhaps not at all. Or, maybe in the right hands, in the right time, with the right muse on both ends, it could be.
Translating poems is always, however, an imperfect and informative journey. I found it an crystalize for the poet (original and translator) what the meanings were, what the intent was, what it evokes and what it reminds and where it lacks and how to fill the gaps. If at all.
Na’ama
I really love your view of the imperfect and informative journey… maybe making an effort every now and then would help us all to be better poets.
Thank you! And … yes … I agree about the efforts well worth making. For isn’t it all about the journey into becoming better poets, writers, friends, people and what we are able and willing to put into those? 🙂
Hello, dVerse poets! I’m delighted to participate in PubTalk! 🙂 And this topic is close to my heart.
I am from the Philippines and my first language is Filipino (Tagalog). The weird thing is that I cannot write poems in my native tongue. And when I try, it is sloppy and a bit too cheesy.
I once tried translating an English poem to Filipino and it is a pain, and a disappointment. There and English words that are not easily translated to Filipino. And there are loooots of Filipino words and phrases that have no English equivalent. This is were the gap starts.
Perhaps each language has its own identity. When we try to transform them into another, we almost always miss some points. 🙂
I have a similar experience… I have hardly ever tried to write in Swedish… maybe it’s time to try again (after all Swedish and English are closely related)… but we have things in Swedish that doesn’t work in English and vice versa…
Yea. That is the challenge!
In the last 4 ,months, I have tried my hand at translating Hindi poems of a fellow blogger that appear on my weekly writing challenge. I think that the translator does become a part of the translated work, despite all care to retain the spirit of the original. Two minds cannot visualize the same picture, or find similar words to describe it – in the same manner. There are nuances that a translator adds or omits – maybe because equivalent words are not available in another language, or maybe because s/he feels a need to downplay or exaggerate the intensity of expression.
The original writer may well be disappointed to see the translated work. Nonetheless, it makes me want to try my hand at more – maybe a few established poets in ethnic languages.
I think that would be very interesting to see… my experience is that your poetic voice changes when you translate… and maybe you have to find a poet that is close to you in subject and matters.
You are right about that.
Hi, I’m a poet from Sri Lanka. This topic drew me in.
I think in translation we lose a lot more than we think we do. I write in English because I grew up with English as the language most familiar with. I can’t write in any other language, even my mother tongue. A couple of years back I translated a few poems from Sinhala into English and encountered a problem I’ve always had – trying to find words in English to convey the meaning of a word in Sinhala. It’s one of the most difficult things to do. Sinhala literature goes back many centuries and the early forms of classic literature are so beautiful that anything that’s translated would only sound like a very poor version. The poems I translated were modern verse and although I worked with the poet and she was happy with the translation, I was not. I felt there were better ways of saying what I did in the translation than the way I said it, but to this day I can’t seem to find what words I should have used. I tried to follow the rhythm in the original and tried and convey this as well as the nuances within but felt they were inadequate. The translated poems ended up being a cross between a translation and a new poem.
Come to think of it, I have yet to read a good translation of any poem or story from Sinhala to English, even from well known translators. When you read the original and then read the English version you wonder what in the world happened as the translation sounds like a watered down version. It’s sad because we lose the beauty of the original and don’t even realize this. I don’t think this is because the translator isn’t good, because some of the translators are also writers and have a good knowledge of both languages. I think it has to do with the original language itself. There are far too many ways of conveying a meaning with just one word in Sinhala or any other language that can’t be replicated in English. To do so we need to explain it out as it were, and that hurts the diction and rhythm of the poem and much more. We lose the spirit of the poem in translation and sometimes we don’t even realize that.
So interesting… the way that so many words are incompatible I think is something common… I write in Swedish and English that are two languages very close to each other, so it’s a lot easier… yet I find the same, and always thing something is lost in a translation… it seems like what we want to express is very very tied the actual language…
Exactly, and it’s sad to know we may be missing so much and we don’t even know it.
Interesting conversation. I’ve been intrigued by the various translators’ interpretation of Basho’s work. Also the work of Lao Tzu. The general idea comes across in the different work but there’s a special sensibility that some translators bring to the poetry. I’ve recently read translations from Afrikaans into English of a local (South African) poet, Ingrid Jonker. The translators were both Afrikaans and both well versed in the English language, both highly educated with a string of degrees and published work of their own. I was shocked in how they managed to change the meaning of Ingrid Jonker’s poetry, actually using different images to what she has meant. It made me doubt all translations actually. However, not knowing any other languages, I’m forced to trust what I read and if there’s something I can take away from any given translation then that will have to do.
Each language has a tone, a texture, a general sound and if it can be captured in the translation it produces a better interpretation (I think).
I think this can be the result of the translator turning more into an interpretor. or maybe creating new poetry themselves… yes I can see how that might happen… In the case of Tranströmer and Bly above I know that they were close friends, and maybe they could even discuss different alternatives.
That would be best, dialogue with the poet in his/her own language to make sure of the original intention of the writer.
A South African poet and novelist mentioned trying to translate her own work from Afrikaans into English and she ended up asking someone else to do it as the translation is a different or new creative process.
I think that if you translated your own work you always find things you want to improve, maybe even going back to your original poem … rewriting it… a good translator has to keep the meaning.
Hello Bjorn, I write in English, I have tried a few poems in Spanish but since Spanish is not used by me on a day to day basis. I say it is not a second language for me.
I do agree that some ideas will be lost in translating a poem from one language to another. But it depends too on the translators’s simpatico within the languages.
I submit to a Croatian haiku journal my haiku written in English which the editor translates into Croatian Language.
Many times he would ask me to explain a word or an expression giving his something similar to work with from another culture. I remember in one of my submissions I mentioned a fruit we eat here in Trinidad and Tobago and we went through many emails with me trying to compare flavours colours and textures that are similar in international fruits and flavours.
I suppose that kind of connection will not happen in most translation exercises. But I would narrow down the process to knowledge of the cultures and Yes as I mentioned above the translator’s simpatico
much love…
The senses are so different… and when I read some of your work I have always felt that some of the tropical imagery is something I can only vaguely relate to… maybe saying that nature and climate also comes in… for you it’s the fruit and for me the sound of a pair of skis through the snow…
Hallo all
I ma sorry that I am late…however on translating and poems. My daughter Ellen’s favourite poem as a young teen was the translated version of Past One O clock by Vladimir Myakovsky and it has also become one of mine, I have no idea if it is a good translation but feel that it is most beautiful. Having lived in NZ I realsie that often it is not possible to create perfect translations, so for example some phrases in Maori are more than just translatable words, a poem is a Taonga, which literally means a treasure or something that is highly valued, but the word Taonga is a much more accurate description it carries a sense of the sacrosanct.
Anyway I have to let you read the poem to understand its poignant beauty.
Past One O clock
Past one o’clock. You must have gone to bed.
The Milky Way streams silver through the night.
I’m in no hurry; with lightning telegrams
I have no cause to wake or trouble you.
And, as they say, the incident is closed.
Love’s boat has smashed against the daily grind.
Now you and I are quits. Why bother then
To balance mutual sorrows, pains, and hurts.
Behold what quiet settles on the world.
Night wraps the sky in tribute from the stars.
In hours like these, one rises to address
The ages, history, and all creation.
Vladimir Mayakovsky
With love to you all. XXXX
I just googled that poem and found that it was a part of his suicide note… a beautiful poem indeed.
Yes it was. XXX Very very beautiful words though.
As I thought about the conversation going on I realized that words are lacking, but in nature, nothing is lost in translation… This is my post today in that regard…
https://rothpoetry.wordpress.com/2018/10/17/nothing-lost-in-translation/
Translation is dependent on the reader. There are times when the words are right there but one’s mood distracts understanding or offers inspiration not originally intended.