Translations — an Introduction
One of the aims for this website is to generate a new home for translations. The whole concept of the power of good translations was brought home to me during one of the conversations held at the 2004 Dodge Poetry Festival at the Duke Farms. I attended "The Mysterious Life Within Translation" at the Mud Lake Tent. The conversation was presided over by the Greek poet Adonis, Marilyn Hacker, Venus Khoury-Ghata, Khaled Mattawa, C.K. Williams and others.
A question was asked of Marilyn Hacker whether it was better not to attempt to translate a poem if the translator was not an expert in the field — or whether a bad translation was better than none at all. She pondered for a second and said:
"it depends who you are translating … we probably don't need another Rilke or Baudelaire translation … there are hundreds of them already … but if you are translating a poet who has never been brought into English … even if the translation is poor … perhaps it will inspire another translator with a better grasp of the language to work on the poems …"
This is the spirit I want to approach these tranlations, done by myself and others. They might not be perfect, but it is the spirit of communication between languages and poets of different cultures that is important.
These are translations of a poem I wrote in 2002, based on the myth of Narcissus. I had been writing to Maja Kleer, a German student from Essen (near Düsseldorf), who agreed to try her hand at bringing the poem alive in German.
"Narcissus' Lament"
You can't look
at yourself in these
waves, everything
moves so fast. My
face, marred
by floating
sea flowers.
«Narziss’ Klage»
Du kannst dich
nicht in diesen
wellen anschauen, alles
bewegt sich so schnell. Mein
gesicht, ruiniert
durch gleitende
seerosen.
The South African artist Sarah Hillman did a brilliant job of translating it into Afrikaans:
Jy kan nie,
in hierdie branders,
na jouself kyk, alles
beweeg so vinnig. My
gesig, stukkend
van dryf
seë-blomme.
Zozo McCarus from Kinshase, Congo, worked the poem into French:
Tu ne peux pas te regarder
dan les vagues. Toute
chose va tres vite. Mon
visage est cicatrise
ou abîme par
les fleures qui flotte
dans la mere.
This is my own translation in Eastern Armenian:
«Բու Չես Կարող»
տեսնել քեզ այս
ալիքների մեջ, ամեն ինչ
շարծվում է այնքան արագ:
իմ դեմքն այլանդակված է
լողացող ծովային ծաշիկներով: