So far, where translation is concerned, computers and artificial intelligence have proved to be no match for humans : chess programmes can beat grandmasters but automated translations are usually awful. This is not surprising : you don’t need life experience to solve Sudokus but language, even that used in technical manuals, crucially depends on context — a computer finds it hard to decide whether a ‘plant’ is the vegetable or industrial variety.  But what about learner human translators? Are they going to provide unexpected competition for the professionals? The idea is not so daft as it may sound : there will apparently be a system of cross-checks and revisions before a Duolingo translation is given the OK. It is not inconceivable that a large and varied number of enthusiastic translators, if properly supervised, could come up with something quite interesting.

Von Ahn seems to have his sights more on factual stuff than the sort of material showcased on this website  — one of his aims is to get the whole of Wikipedia translated into Spanish without paying a penny — but learners might well have something to offer even in the field of literature proper. The Elizabethan and Jacobean era was a golden age for fine translations (Chapman’s Homer, Plutarch, The King James Bible, &c.) although, by modern standards, the translators were rank amateurs. Beginnerss have an enthusiasm for a new language and its poetry that people who translate for a living have, in most cases, long since lost : Ezra Pound, arguably the greatest 20^th century English translator of poetry, remained gloriously ignorant of most of the languages (Provencal, Anglo-Saxon, Chinese) he trafficked in.

 Maybe, given the nature of von Ahn’s business formula, one ought to get one of his students to translate into English the French expression, “Aux frais de la princesse” , or, better still  —  but this would be for advanced students only — into Sixties Cockney. We’ll see if any Duolingo student manages to come up with “Down to Larkin” which is what you said to a London publican when he asked you to settle up for your last ten pints.   S.H.  

Note : I heard about Duolingo via the excellent article “Learn a language, translate the web” by Jim Giles (New Scientist, 14 Jan pp. 18-19)

Le front comme un drapeau perdu
Je te traine quand je suis seul
Dans des rues froides
Dans les chambres noires
En criant misère

Je ne veux pas les lâcher
Tes mains claires et compliquées
Nées dans le miroir clos des miennes

Tout le reste est parfait
Tour le reste est encore plus inutile
Que la vie

Une nappe d’eau près des seins
Où se noyer
Comme une pierre

Paul Éluard

BEING

Brow as a lost flag
I pull you with me when I am alone
In the cold streets
In the dark rooms
Crying poverty

I’ll not let go of them
Your light intricate hands
Born in the closed mirror of mine

All the rest is perfect
All the rest is even more futile
Than life

A sheet of water near your breasts
Where I’ll let myself drown
Like a stone

(translation Graham Mummery)

Of the city, an impossible light, moonlit
Over the wall spiked up with glass shards
Against the house next door, on its choreography
Of emeralds,

The wind howling in the night rain,
Asking itself about its own condition –
The geometrics of rain.

Manuel VIlanova

Commentary by Jason Preater:

Why does Merlin touch the soul of Galician poetry?  The connection with a Celtic tradition is part of an answer, there is the sense that magic might still be practised in the wooded glades of rural areas : tales of healers and popular healings abound; the herbalist lives; witches are possible.
Manuel Vilanova’s Merlin, however, is displaced from the woods to the city.  The enjambment that leads from the `light in the centre’ to ‘of the city’ is disquieting and disappointing because of the sense of lost contact with nature.  How can Merlin make his way in this environment, where a lost dog wanders at a bus stop?

Not Even In the Sky (Nin siquera no ceo (Santiago de Compostela: Follas Novas, 2011) is an intelligent, cultured and sensitive meditation on themes that arise from Galician literature.  These themes are refracted through the characteristic broken light of modern poetic practice — like the ‘choreography of emeralds’.  Sharply drawn images of alienation and city-life are counterpoised against tradition, culture and a predominantly rural, elegiac past.

At its best the minipoema, as the poet calls the individual visions of his verses, captures a moment of heightened intensity.  And as these moments are brought together in the book they emerge as themes of singular relevance to life in modern Galicia: how to take on the inheritance of the past; how love and sorrow continue to illuminate, like the moonlight, our lives despite all changes; how fantasy and imagination thread through even the most mundane feature s of this world.

Manuel Vilanova was born in Barbantes (Ourense) in 1944.  He is a teacher in Vigo.  Nin siquera no ceo is a new collection from Editorial Follas Novas (www.follasnovas.es).

Note: Jason Preater will be presenting Galician Saudade poetry and song at our final meeting this year of the series “The Trace They Wished to Leave” due to take place on November 30th at the Poetry Cafe, Betterton Street — see Events and Meetings.  S.H.

In my homeland
fear gathers me up & pulls me apart :
a man who writes
and another who watches over me –
from behind closed curtains

Baghdad  10th January 1987

Martyrs of the Uprising

Those who
were heaped in piles
before the tanks of the Guard,
those who so often dreamed of land
and then flew off with white wings
those whose tombstones fertilised
cactiof oblivion
those whose stories were eroded
piece by piece …
In the city’s tumult
see how they look, their astonished
eyes, & our ability to forget them
so absolutely

Baghdad 1992

A Hole

A passing shot
glanced his sleep –
and the blood of
defeated dreams
gushed viscous
onto his pillow.

Baghdad  1st January 1993

Agamemnon

He came back
from the dusts of war
with a wounded heart, his
arms full with drums & gold
dreaming of Clytemnestra’s
honeyed lips that at that very
moment Aegisthus was melting
with his own, as every night.
And as he opened the door
he sensed on her lips’ grease
the thousands of corpses he’d
abandoned under the open sky
& recalled how he’d forgotten
to leave his own body there.

 Baghdad 14^th January 1993

Adnan Al-Sayegh was born in al-Kufa,Iraq in 1955. In the 1980’s he was conscripted in the Iran-Iraq war and in 1993 his uncompromising criticism of oppression and injustice led to exile in Jordan and the Lebanon.
He has been described as  “one of the most original voices of the generation of Iraqi poets that came to maturity in the 1980’s, his poetry, sharp & crafted with elegance, carries an intense passion for freedom, love and beauty. His words denounce the devastation of wars and the horrors of dictatorship, but also act on quieter and more personal levels.”
In 1996 he published ‘Uruk’s Anthem’ – a book-length poem, one of the longest in Arabic literature – in which he richly articulates deep despair at the Iraqi experience. On its publication he was sentenced to death in Iraq and took refuge in Sweden. Since 2004 has been living in exile inLondon.
Adnan Al-Sayegh has received several international awards, including the Hellman-Hammet International Poetry Award(New York 1996), the Rotterdam International Poetry Award(1997) and the Swedish Writers Association Award (2005). His poetry has been translated into many languages and he is frequently invited to take part in poetry festivals around the world.   S.H.

Love VI

We will meet again
in the lake
you as water
I as lotus blossom

You will carry me
I will drink you

We will belong to each other
in everyone’s sight

Even the stars
will be surprised
here are two beings
transformed back
into their dream
that chose them

Rose Ausländer translated by Vincent Homolka

Liebe VI

Wir werden uns wiederfinden
im See
du als Wasser
ich als Lotosblume

Du wirst mich tragen
ich werde dich trinken

Wir werden uns angehören
vor allen Augen

Sogar die Sterne
werden sich wundern:
hier haben sich zwei
zurückverwandelt
in ihren Traum
der sie erwählte

Rose Ausländer

Czernowitz before the Second World War

Peaceful hill town
encircled by beech woods

Willows along the Pruth
rafts and swimmers

Maytime profusion of lilac

About the lanterns
May bugs dance
their death

Four languages
Speak to each other
enrich the air

The town
breathed happily
till bombs fell

Rose Ausländer transted by Vincent Homolka

Czernowitz vor dem Zweiten Weltkrieg

Friedliche Hügelstadt
von Buchenwäldern umschlossen

Weiden entlang dem Pruth
Flösse und Schwimmer

Maifliederfülle

um die Lanterner
tanzen Maikäfer
ihren Tod

Vier Sprachen
verständigen sich
verwöhnen die Luft

Bis Bomben fielen
atmete glücklich
die Stadt

Rose Ausländer

Note:  We must be grateful to Vincent Homolka for bringing us these beautiful poems from a writer I had previously never even heard of. Rose Ausländer’s poetry has the chief characteristics that I believe poetry should have (and which few poets today even strive for, let alone achieve) : it is sincere, it deals with recognizable human situations and emotions in a language which ordinary people can understand and yet is both musical and memorable. She puts the appropriate expression and celebration of human feelings first and ‘showing what can be done with words’ last  : exactly the reverse of a poet who lived in the same town, Paul Celan, and whose only merit in my eyes is to have apparently encouraged Rose Ausländer to carry on writing.  S.H.

O dissecting tables,  O laboratories
This crime cannot possibly remain concealed for ever
Show us their features printed on the eyes of Mahmoud
The last thing a man sees remains in the retina
Such a crime cannot be obliterated so easily.

If it is thus, then every science is rendered impotent
Uncover from the hammer and anvil bones what the assassins said to him
What answer Mahmoud gave to the knives

The dialogue between a killer steeled to his task
And the victim at the point of extermination
Is the most painful in the history of speech

O Guardian Angels who are on the shoulders of every human being
Doubtless you know the facts in every detail
From the knock on the outer door to the last withdrawal of breath
But you are bound by duty to silence and absence
It is your duty to obey but your obedience is utterly blind

You cannot be called to the witness stand
Even if the Earth were to be turned upside down

But tell me, Guardian Angels, did you ever lose your balance
When the blows rained down without a break one after the other?
Did you stay there on his shoulders until he gasped his life away?

Note:  This poem was read out at the Poetry Cafe, Covent Garden, on Wednesday 7th September (see Events and Meetings) to conclude the evening devoted to the memory of the two great modern Iraqi poets, al-Sayyab and al-Braikan.  Though this poem can stand alone, it is taken from a longer Arabic poem by Salah Niazi not yet translated in entirety.
It may also be worth mentioning that there are indeed bones within the ear which resemble a ‘hammer and anvil’ (l. 10), also that, in the Islamic tradition, the two Guardian Angels (l. 15) actually stand on the shoulders, they do not just hover in the air as depicted in Victorian prints.   S.H.

perhaps happiness is so far away
invisible among the tamarind leaves
when my hand brushes the fruit
to share them with spirits laughing at man’s
cruelty to man

perhaps the hope in my eyes drags
the future in clouds of dust where I seek
sparks and the dignity of condemned souls

when the horizon in the early hours
creates images and silhouettes between sun and sea

you are not here to see my eyes
where you have never seen the humour of the world

with the blessing of the island’s
invisible inhabitants I become alive again
as your look is not a poem

but the vast sea that pours infinite pages
by my feet

peut-être le bonheur est-il si loin
invisible dans les feuilles de tamarinier
quand ma main effleure les fruits
à partager avec les génies riant des cruautés
faites à l’homme par l’homme

peut-être l’espérance dans mes yeux traîne-t-elle
l’avenir en nuages de poussières où je cherche
étincelles et dignité des âmes en sursis

quand l’horizon au petit matin
dessine images et silhouettes entre soleil et mer
tu n’es pas là pour voir mes yeux
où tu n’a jamais vu l’humeur du monde

avec la bénédiction des habitants
invisibles de l’île ici je revis

car ton regard n’est pas un poème
mais toute la mer qui coule à
mes pieds
des pages infinies

II

here too I drank at the source
words covered with mildew
like walls oozing all the sorrows
carved on the door of time

I drank the life source
that gives us memory and the capped path
of days to come
I lost count of the mouthfuls of elixir I drank
so that the poem
that has for ever haunted my steps survives

tomorrow I will return
to hear you talk to me
again of you and me

here too the sheets where history snoozed
are white and empty

the covers of time alone
are green like the last word in the world
when the wind howls
day and night at the gates of chaos

then I wrap myself in the words of your look faraway
beyond the sea that separates us infinitely

ici aussi j’ai bu à la source
des mots couverts de moisissures
comme murs suintant de tous les malheurs
gravés aux porte du temps

j’ai bu la source vive
qui nous donne mémoire et chemin majuscule
des jours à venir
j’ai bu je ne sais combien de gorgées élixir
pour la survie du poème
qui hante mes pas depuis toujours

demain je reviendrai
entendre ta voix qui me parle
encore de toi et de moi

ici aussi les draps où l’histoire fait la sieste
sont blancs et vides

seule la couverture du temps
est verte comme dernière parole du monde
quand le vent tourbillonne
nuit et jour à la porte du chaos

alors je m’enroule dans les mots de ton regard horizon
par-delà la mer nous séparant infiniment

(Gorée île baobab, Le Bruit des autres/ Ecrits des Forges, 2004)

Tanella Boni was born and brought up in Abidjan, Ivory Coast, before going to
university in Toulouse and then Paris. She is now a Professor of Philosophy
at the University  of Abidjan (Cocody). She was the President of the Ivory Coast Writers Association from 1991 to 1997 and is often invited to address international conferences on poetry, the arts and literature. Her poetry collections include Labyrinthe, Grains de sable, Ma peau est fenêtre d’avenir, and Gorée île baobab.
She has also published novels (Une vie de crabe and Les baigneurs
du Lac rose), short stories and children’s literature. Tanella Boni has lived in Abidjan for more than twenty years.

 Now you’re preparing for that longest of journeys,
deciding how best to take your leave;
choosing the clothes that you’ll wear on departure,
your spirit clinging to the air you still breathe.

For you, death seems almost a sporting thing,
though desire wanes with your body’s decline.
Holding on to the light that’s fast retreating,
you rescue last thoughts from a drowning mind.

Having kept a tight vigil, your path’s become clear,
though dreams fade away into wandering.
A longing for life only briefly returns
as you ready yourself for eternity,

but wisdom, holding itself in reserve,
courageously helps you subdue your cries.
You seem to extend your hand to the darkness,
a sweet resignation lighting your eyes.

You’re preparing now for that longest of journeys.
Its vision draws you away too soon.
Sadly we see, as you’re dressing to leave,
your eyes have the look of one already gone.

from Deepening the Mystery by Cristiana Maria Purdescu,
translated by Leah Fritz from the literal translation of Alina-Olimpia Miron

]]> http://poetryintranslation.org/2011/07/24/the-longest-journey-by-cristiana-maria-purdescu-translated-by-leah-fritz/feed/ 0 Robert Mules http://poetryintranslation.org/2011/07/15/there-you-have-him-man-by-maria-de-cebreiro-translated-by-jason-preator/ http://poetryintranslation.org/2011/07/15/there-you-have-him-man-by-maria-de-cebreiro-translated-by-jason-preator/#comments Fri, 15 Jul 2011 14:11:51 +0000 Sebastian Hayes http://poetryintranslation.org/?p=451 ]]>

PERPETUUM MOBILE

Between our ideals and their fulfilment
There’s always a bigger drop
Than on the highest waterfall.

But we can use it rationally
By building a hydro-electric station there.
Even if its energy
Can only light our cigarettes,
It’s quite something.
Because while smoking, we can dream up
Even greater ideals.                     
(version by Graham Mummery)

I love the absurdity of building a hydro-electric station on our ideals. It makes the poem a “cod inspirational” verse. The way he manages both to affirm human spirit in the face of absurdity, while ridiculing it is amazing. Plus it also mocks pomposity of propaganda, taking a sly swipe at the Ceauscescu regime, and rhetoric that exhorts people to greater efforts, which is hidden in Sorescu’s self deprecation and mockery.

He uses the self-deprecation to good effect in this next poem. Here, I believe he is mocking officials who claim to be benevolent, yet whose generosity is humbug. His audiences would have recognized this.

 Late

It’s getting late
in my soul’s garden.
Look at the growing dark
in my right hand palm
in the acacia in front of my house.

Suddenly
I have to
get rid of everything
that is lit up,
my bedroom slippers:
my wardrobe, pictures on the wall…
As for the rest of my effects
that I piled up
to the stars
I can’t take them with me
so I’ll leave them shining on.

In my will I have requested
in my honour
as my memorial
at least on solemn remembrance days
that the whole universe
be distributed amongst the poor.     
(version by Graham Mummery)

Marin Sorescu was born in southern Romania on February 29, 1936. When he was three, his father died. In 1955 Sorescu entered the University of Iasi, and received his B.A. in philology in 1960. After moving to Bucharest, Sorescu married Virginia Seitan. In 1963 he became the editor of the literary journal Luceafarul, where he published his first poems, a book of poetic parodies.
Between 1966 and 1972 Sorescu served as editor-in-chief in a film studio. In 1971-72 Sorescu participated in the International Writing Program at the University of Iowa. Over the years he took part in a large number of other poetry events world wide including Poetry International, which has contributed to his being widely translated. There is a delicious absurdity about how the first book of poems came to be published in the UK from German translations of Sorescu’s poems.
In Romania Sorescu enjoyed huge popularity. His readings apparently filled football stadiums which probably helped prevent his being arrested, though he did have a period of being under house arrest in the 1970’s because he knew people in a “meditation class” which the Communists took as being a vehicle for spreading subversive thoughts — an absurdity characteristic of his poetry. An absurdity compounded when under the House arrest as he and his wife were allowed out to slip out of their house to do the shopping!
After the Ceauscescu regime fell Marin Sorescu was asked to become Minister for Culture. Another absurdity, just like in the poems. Though unsuited to the role, he served in this position 1993-5. Holding this position caused him to attract a great deal of criticism, not least from fellow poets. Whether he resigned from these criticisms or ill health I don’t know. In 1996 he was diagnosed with liver cancer. In his last month he wrote a long sequence of wry quizzical poems in which he faces and pain. His comic persona remains even into death. The book is dedicated “To those who suffer.” There is a sense of inevitability in it as he confronts it. But it contains some astonishing poems, in which he still affirms life and creativity. Here are two:

A Ladder to the Sky

A spider’s thread
Hangs from the ceiling
Directly over my bed.

Every day I keep track
How much closer it descends
“Look” I say to myself,
“I’m being sent a ladder to the sky
Lowered from above.”

 I’ve grown dreadfully thin,
A mere ghost of what I used to be,
Yet I think my body
Is too heavy still
For this delicate ladder.

 Soul, you go ahead.
Shhh! Shhh!
(version by Graham Mummery)

And another dated the day before Marin Sorescu died:

I’ve turned my subconscious towards the plus.

I’ve turned my subconscious towards the plus.
It had faced the minus
enclosed in a circle
Exactly at the core of the earth.

Daily it irradiated me
With pulses of grief.
“Stop this nonsense all at once” I told it.
I’m a solar man,
I need emanations from above.
I felt good in the air,
In the joy
Of a fulfilled life.

 There’s an attraction for Thanatos too,”
A fascination replies.
“Always farther and farther thresholds to cross.
Leave things for later.
Come out into the light,
We’ll do fine old fellow.”

Note: Unless otherwise acknowledged, the poems come from Marin Sorescu The Bridge (translated by Adam J Sorkin and Lidia Vianu) published by Bloodaxe. It won the 2005 Corneliu M Popescu Prize for European Poetry Translation.