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Problems in Poetic Translation

How Erin Mouré redefines what it means to work between languages

Translating any kind of literature is as much of an art as writing it in the first place. Transferring tone, pace and cadence between languages requires a special kind of expertise, a thorough knowledge of the ins and outs of both the source and the resulting language. And that's just for prose. How does one even go about trying to translate a poem? Not only must the literal content of the translated work roughly match the original, but rhyme, meter and general flow must in some way be preserved. Even the very shape of the word matters in poetry--the length of the line, the sculpture of the stanza, the way the poem carves out its architecture across the blank page. I can hardly fathom the skill it must take to produce a satisfactory replica of a poem in another tongue.

Erin Mouré plays with the inherent difficulty of translation all across her work. While she does wield sharp linguistic skills, the real power of her translations comes through in her aesthetic intuition--her ability to get at the real feel of a poem without necessarily staying true to the letter of it. Her 2010 book O Resplandor is the mixed-genre result of her attempts to translate an entire book of poetry from its original Romanian--a language she does not read or speak. The poems within are the translations, cushioned with semi-fictional and wildly imaginative prose that details her creative process.

Because the literal content of Mouré's source poems and her ultimate "translations" do not match, one might be tempted to disregard her work as translation at all. Which begs the question--how accurate must we be in order to call ourselves translators? Which is more important in a poem, the impression or the skeleton? You could take all the words in a Lorca poem and faithfully recast them in dull, bland English, but would you really have a translation? Or would you simply be gutting the poem for its bare vocabulary, leaving out the real meaning that inheres in everything but the definitions of the words?

After all, a poem is far more than the sum of its parts. I like to think of Mouré's work as a hazy painting of her source. The details might be blurred, but the feeling, the essence is there. And with poetry, often it's the spirit of the work that matters more than the body.

Epic Poetry

And the epic hero

Epic poetry is probably one of the most ancient genres in existence if not the single most ancient genre, but nobody really composes epics any more. It would be tough to write an epic poem in the modern world without a sense of irony (which would almost certainly ruin the epic) because we've become very skeptical toward heroes. This in itself is kind of odd, because we also expect a lot more of our heroes than our ancient ancestors did. They only expected their heroes to be fantastically competent and fantastically brave. We expect ours to also be perfectly moral, which is beyond their reach. If we find out one of our heroes has a moral failing, we rip him to pieces for it.

If you read any of the ancient epics, you find out that men like Hercules, Achilles, Cuchullain or Gilgamesh are not always portrayed as being all that morally admirable in the conventional sense. Some scholars have even interpreted the whole concept of the hero as being that of a person so much larger than life that he can temporarily break all the rules and get away with it for the greater good of the tribe. The hero always dies tragically in the end, of course- because in the end his violation of the taboos of his tribe must be punished.

The hero is not a moral exemplar, but something much more complicated. Maybe if we explore this idea a little more deeply, there could be room for a modern epic.

The Poetry of Tolkien

Widely read, but underappreciated

JRR Tolkien's “Lord of the Rings” is filled with poetry of his own composition. While this poetry is not really a significant contribution to the Western poetic canon in the same way the novel is to the genre of fantasy literature, it is probably more widely-read than just about all of the famous poetry of the twentieth century just by virtue of being part of such a popular novel.

Tolkien's poetic achievement probably deserves more recognition than it generally gets. There are several reasons for the neglect. One is that all of these poems are set squarely in the fantasy context of Middle Earth, so they can't easily be read or appreciated beyond that context. Then there's the fact that twentieth century poetry has almost completely rejected formal technique, but Tolkien went in exactly the opposite direction. His poems are technically expert exercises in various ancient forms of verse, some of which are highly demanding. The main reason his poetry is not read for its own sake is probably this anachronistic quality.

He liked to write in the accentual meter of “Beowulf” and the other Old English epics such as “Sir Gawain and the Green Night.” He also wrote in the ballad form. One of his longer pieces seems to be in conscious imitation of the Welsh bardic forms known as “cynghanedd.” The fact that he largely succeeded in imitating this incredibly complex form in English would be widely seen as an impressive technical feat, if impressive technical feats still carried any weight in modern English-language poetry!

Adrienne Rich

RIP

I am only passingly familiar with the poetry of Adrienne Rich, as most of the poetry I read these days is either old or translated from some other language or both. I am, to put it mildly, not in sympathy with most modern English-language poetry.

However, what I have read of her work did seem to have something, and she occupied a very rare place in American culture- that of the influential poet. Not influential to the average American, of course, that would be asking too much under current circumstances. But among the minority of people in this country who care about things such as poetry at all, Adrienne Rich was an important figure. Her words carried weight.

English poet Percy Bysshe Shelley once described poets as being the unacknowledged legislators behind the scenes of world history. He was thinking about another time and another place. The only unacknowledged legislators in modern America are corporate lobbyists, and poets are just voices talking to themselves in empty rooms.

Adrienne Rich was more than that. Her words had impact, and that alone is something rare and precious. She was like an ambassador from a more civilized world, a world where words can be used for more fundamental purposes than marketing and deception. When I read her poems, I can see why they moved people even though they are not in the styles or modes I personally enjoy. But what's really important to me is just that she existed, a reminder that poetry can actually have impact, that it has done so before, that it could do so again.

Challenge Yourself This NaPoMo

Sure, you could just write a poem every day. Or you could…

It’s National Poetry Month, a time to celebrate, read, and write poetry. It is time to bring out that old beret and put it to good use while you pretend to be Rossetti or Poe for an entire month.

While writing a poem every single day is an ambitious project—not to mention fun—there are a few ways you can make this challenge even bigger and bolder. Here are just a few ideas…

Enter a poetry contest every day. This is the one that I’ve chosen to do this year. While the contests at AllPoetry are not paying, they do award you cute little Internet trophies you can display—as well as points you can use on the site to host your own contest or give to other poets. You could also submit to local and national contests, those that pay money to winners, etc., but many of these also cost money to participate in. I like AllPoetry because you are playing with and judging your peers, and it’s all in good fun. Plus, it’s free!

Memorize a poem every day. This one is much harder for people like me who have trouble memorizing things verbatim; but if you try to memorize a very short poem each day (such as “The Red Wheelbarrow” by William Carlos Williams, one of my favorites), it just might work. Of course, those of you with photogenic memories may have no trouble at all learning a new poem to quote each and every day, leaving you the potent quot-ant of the neighborhood.

Introduce yourself to a new poet each day. Maybe you planned on reading Poe every day this month (and why not, with his new thriller starring John Cusack on the way?), but have you ever read the wonderful Adrienne Rich, or some gorgeous Walt Whitman? How about something older, like Percy Byshee Shelley? Check out a new poet every day and find out who you love. You might have a new favorite by next month.

Introduce a child to poetry. Shel Silverstein and Dr. Seuss are fun, no doubt, but they do not monopolize what poetry is appropriate for children. My daughter and I have been reading Robert Frost together (we even have a picture book version of one of his poems) and she really enjoys it. Many times we think that things are not child appropriate just because they are not labeled as such, but in reality, as long as you preview it first (I would not recommend “Beowulf” for kindergarteners, for example—would they even be able to sit for that long?!) and you know what your child enjoys.

New formalism

Politics and poetry

New formalism or neoformalism was a movement that tried to bring back traditional poetic forms in English-language poetry. This was a very controversial thing to to try to do because the free verse poetry that now dominates the poetry scene was closely associated with left-wing politics in academia, so new formalism was seen as not only a literary stance but a (right-wing) political one as well.

When new formalism first appeared in the early 80s, articles were published describing it as “Yuppie poetry” and as a literary consequence of Reagan's politics. Since then it has been described as “patriarchal” and a host of other bad words, all associated with these assumed political implications.

Of course, none of that has anything to do with whether the poetry was any good or not, which is part of the problem with a lot of free verse and academic poetry today- the politics are treated as being more important than the poetry.

Unfortunately, new formalism took such a conservative stance (in the literary sense) that it wasn't able to incorporate a lot of the freedoms it could have incorporated from the modern poetry scene. Many new formalists rejected surrealistic imagery and other features that might have made the actual poetry more interesting. As it is, a lot of it was pretty dry stuff.

The picture on this blog is of Lewis Turco, a poet who did a lot of good work for poets writing in the formal traditions with his “New Book of Forms,” which is not dry stuff at all. This book is a crucial resource for anyone who wants to write metrical poetry.

Poets and Tyrants

From Nero To Mao

Poets and artists should never be put in charge of anything. Not a really big scale anyway. I say this as a radical activist and a longtime poet, so I'm including myself in the prohibition. Even if an omnipotent genie offered to make me the king of the world so I could fix everything I think is wrong with it, I would decline the opportunity. Why is that?

Because of Chairman Mao- sensitive and talented poet in the classical Chinese tradition, mass murderer and tyrant.

Because of Nero, who always wanted to be an artist and a playwright, but ended up as the emperor of Rome instead- and burned the whole place to the ground.

Because of the Nazis, a club of fashionistas and drama kids gone terribly, terribly wrong.

I can think of one exception- Vaclav Havel, often referred to as a modern “philosopher king.” He was an important poet and dissident under the Communist regime, and an effective leader after it fell. But generally speaking, revolutionary poets are better off when they die young and romantic deaths before their revolution succeeds, remaining unsullied by the corruptions of power, like Padraic Pearse.

Poets and artists have a vital role, much more vital than our culture currently realizes. That role can and frequently does include the critique of power, but it should not include the exercise of it. It's not what we do best. We're the dreamers and the idealists who show what could be and compare it to what is. But when you try to force reality to match your dreams, the result is insanity.

Sonnets

What's In A Name?

I read a blog recently featuring a “sonnet” about the presidential race. It was a funny little bit of satire, but there was just one problem: it wasn't fourteen lines of iambic pentameter. (Maybe that's actually two problems?)

I've seen the same problem with haiku. A haiku is, at a bare minimum, a three-line syllabic poem of seventeen syllables. Technically, it's also supposed to have a seasonal reference, but non-Japanese haiku often ignore that rule. If the poem doesn't have seventeen syllables, though, it is not a haiku. You can't just write a poem of any length or structure you please and call it a haiku just for the cachet of that term. The word has a definition, after all!

The same thing is true of the sonnet. A sonnet has fourteen lines- not “usually,” not “traditionally,” but always. A sonnet is written in iambic pentameter. Not “a traditional sonnet” but just a sonnet. If you write a poem that is not fourteen lines and/or is not in iambic pentameter, it is not a “non-classical sonnet” or a “non-traditional sonnet.” It simply isn't a sonnet of any kind.

Even if you wrote the very best fifteen-line poem that had ever been written, better than all the sonnets of Shakespeare, it would not be a sonnet. And even if you wrote the most amazingly gorgeous non-iambic fourteen-line poem in all of human history, it would not be a sonnet.

A sonnet is a fourteen-line poem in iambic pentameter. That's what the word means. Rant over.

Cynghanedd

Welsh Classical Poetry

“Cynghanedd” (pronounced very roughly like “KUNG-a-neth” with the “th” as in the word “the”) is the system of alliteration and syllabic meters used in classical Welsh poetry. These meters are inherited from the Welsh bards, the court poets of the medieval period, but they are actually still used today. This is all thanks to a cultural festival called the Eisteddfod (pronounced approximately as “EYE-steth-fod,” again with the “th” as in “the”), which presents a very prestigious award every year to the best poem in the Cynghanedd verse forms. Without this type of support, classical Welsh bardic poetry would almost certainly have disappeared by now, but it is still a thriving art form thanks to the institution of the Eisteddfod.

This is a perfect example of how a small culture can protect and preserve its own traditions to keep them from fading away in the modern world. By providing those traditions with a high-status showcase, giving people a chance to win a title for their art, the culture can ensure that its traditions continue to be valued and maintained.

“Bards” have practically disappeared from the world, but not in Wales, were the competition for the Eisteddfod's “Bardic Chair” remains a keen one! In case you're thinking of trying your hand, though, be forewarned- Welsh is not a particularly easy language to learn in the first place, but Cynghanedd is incredible, a virtuoso style of poetry with strict rules governing almost every single word in the piece. Every word or nearly every word has to fit into an elaborate pattern of assonance, consonance and internal rhyme. It's not for the faint-hearted!

Rumi

Mystic Poet

I can't remember where I read this, but I do remember reading somewhere that Rumi is currently the most widely-read poet among Americans. This is a remarkable thing, when you consider the fact that Rumi was a Sufi Muslim mystic and that is not exactly a worldview most Americans are either familiar or comfortable with.

Of course, most Americans don't read any poetry at all, or any books of any kind for that matter. So all we can really say here is that among the subset of Americans who read any poetry ever, Rumi is the most popular poet. He certainly deserves to be.

Rumi's poetry is among the most intensely personal religious poetry ever written. He uses two analogies over and over again for his spiritual viewpoint, describing himself as “drunk” with the love of God and addressing God as a lover. This is not a unique approach among Sufi poets, and actually a number of other Sufi poets are probably just as good as Rumi. But the idea of addressing God in a language of alcohol and eroticism is still very striking if you've never been exposed to it before.

More importantly, Rumi's poetry is just excellent as poetry, in that ineffable way of all great verse. I'm not sure if its his perceived uniqueness or his spiritual insight that makes him so appealing to a lot of American poetry readers, but either way his status as a great poet is beyond any reasonable question or criticism.

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