Translation

Reflections Concerning the Translation of Poetry

Thinking about various modes of translating poetry it occurs to me that a translation that respects the rules of grammar must [inevitably] be a false translation of the original [the matter of originality will be discussed below] because a poem -- a true poem -- is a poem [the repetitiousness is deliberate here] that reflects on poetry as all true poems do while pretending to say something important about life, love, nature, mankind, death, religion, reality or whatever it pretends to be saying -- a true poem -- regardless of whether it is ancient, classical, romantic, symbolic, modern, contemporary, postmodern or whatever it is or has been made to be -- a true poem cannot, must not, will not respect the rules of grammar --

• grammar is the police of poetry
• grammar is the IRS of poetry
• grammar is the CIA of poetry
• grammar is the Gestapo of poetry
• grammar is worse than a concentration camp
• grammar dictates and to dictate is to be dictatorial
• grammar exterminates true poetry
• grammar forces the one who translates into submission to the rules of
• grammar
• grammar destroys true poetry

The day grammar was invented poetry was enslaved -- only those poets who revolted against this enslavement wrote true poems -- [the readers of these reflections concerning the translation of poetry can make their own list of poets who have revolted -- mine is already made] and so to render the grammarlessness [thank you sam] of a true poem one must not -- one cannot be faithful to the original because faithfulness would by necessity [and by obligation] introduce grammar into the new version in whatever language it has been translated --

but there lies the ambiguity, the inescapable ambiguity and the paradox of translating a true poem because a translated poem that rejects the rules of grammar can only be a falsification of the original poem -- it has to be a false translation just as a translation that respects the rules of grammar is a false translation --

only the original can be a true poem but since poems always borrow or steal from other poems then the act of poetry is always an act of plagiarization and as such a true poem is in fact a false poem -- this is why the act of translating poetry is a futile act just as the act of writing poetry is a futile act since one can never write a true poem -- only the first poem was true but it quickly got lost, erased, forgotten into subsequent poems -- and so to write poetry is to lose ground [I stole this from my Roumanian friend Emile Cioran] --

[when Cioran told me that I replied] then why kill oneself to write poetry since one always kills oneself too late -- why write to say exactly what one wanted to say in the first place or what others have tried to say in vain --

[those who disagree with the above reflections can reflect on the subject by themselves -- I merely wanted to share these reflections with those who may not have reflected on the question of translating poetry -- or cannot do so] -- these reflections apply also to the translation of fiction -- I thank you for your attention]

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