Emil Hagström: 'Det torra trädet savas'

THE DRIED-OUT TREE

 

We were imprisoned in time’s inky blackness

and high above us space lay black as soot

and what in past days we had known most deeply:

a dried-out tree with dead and withered root.

 

But then a clear-eyed dawn broke through the mist clouds

that brooded round the years’ dark-hooded land,

then in the dried-out tree a bird was singing

and tender plant shoots trembled in our hands.

 

The dead root filled with sap deep in the darkness

as our dreams are awakened by a spring.

The star of bethlehem’s white stars are gleaming

and where a heart is beating sources sing.

 

 To see original Swedish poem, go to here.

Joke Koornstra: 'Gedicht' (141026)

 

Gedicht

 

Dat iemand nog een keer me zou bestrelen

en zeggen: bermbroei, land van maas en waal,

bloeiende betuwe. Verloren weelde

die poëzie van land en lijf en taal.

 

 

Such a beautiful, haunting poem. It is impossible to translate – I can find no way of creating any patterns of sound or sense that match or do justice to the feeling of loss, or to keep the same incantation of images. So what can be done in English? The word broei suggests ferment, smouldering, self-combustion and weelde opulence, abundance, plenty. The area of the Maas (Meuse) and Waal rivers lies in the south of the Netherlands. The Betuwe is an area originally made up of large fertile islands in the river delta of the Rhine and Maas – it is also known as ‘the fruit garden of the Netherlands’. The language of the poem is also like a fruit garden in rich soil.

  

 

Here is the fourth attempt to translate (thanks to new input from a Dutch-language poet)

 

Poem

 

That someone one more time should now caress me

say: steamy verges, land of Maas and Waal,

blossoming Betuwe. A lost abundance

that poetry of language, body and land.

Menno Wigman: 'Zwembad Den Dolder'

 

ZWEMBAD DEN DOLDER

 

Er zijn gevoelens die fascistisch zijn.

De vader die niet weet waarom hij slaat, 

de zoon die half verstikt in foto’s krast.

 

De mooiste idioot die ik ooit zag

lag op zijn rug een heel heelal te zijn.

Geen vader kreeg ooit greep op deze pees

 

die als een kosmonaut het bad door dreef,

geen moeder stookte in zijn vissenkom.

En wit en scheef en wijs zwom hij. Hij zwom.

 

 

THE SWIMMING BATHS AT THE DEN DOLDER CLINIC

 

There are emotions of a fascist kind.

The father who hits out but can’t tell why,

the son half-choked who scratches photos through.

 

The loveliest idiot I ever saw

lay on his back, a total universe.

No father got to grasp this basket case

 

that drifted through the pool like one in space,

no mother poked his bowl of fish around.

And skewed and pale and wise he swam. Swam sound.

ZKV 117 (timbre)

 ZKV 117 (timbre)

 

At a concert given in a local church last year, Michala Petri, an international icon among recorder players, included in her programme her own transcription of a Bach cello suite for treble recorder. And she preceded her performance by explaining what was so different about playing the cello suites on her instrument. Her remarks reminded me strongly of what happens when I translate poetry from one language into another and am asked about my priorities. After the usual discussions about form and content, denotation and connotation, rhyme, accent, prosody (the way the poem breathes), a question sometimes asked is: Why does the translation, no matter how good, always feel different? And the answer seems to have a lot to do with the sound picture of a poem in two different languages. An example:

 

 

Clearly, the cello and the recorder produce very different sounds. But Michala Petri asked us to pursue the subject more closely. The pitch of the treble recorder is much higher than that of the cello. The range of the cello is larger than that of the recorder. This means that it may be necessary to transpose the original key to another one, and to change the pitch of certain phrases if the notes lie outside what the recorder can produce. But that is only part of the difference. The cello is a string instrument – the sounds produced are produced by causing strings to vibrate with a bow. The recorder produces sounds by air being blown through a mouthpiece. The upper register of the recorder is produced by pinching the hole at the back of the recorder and increasing the intensity of the blowing. The cellist can modify sounds produced in volume by increased pressure on the strings, and modify the nature of any sound by moving the bow closer to the bridge. Fingers too can slide during the playing of a single note to produce a glissando. A cello can play more strings than one at the same time, whereas a recorder can only produce one note at a time. All these differences lead to a different timbre  the unique quality or colour of the sound, even when the same note is being played with the same loudness. And this explains why the music, despite all the notes being identical, feels so different when played on to musical instruments that differ in the way sound is produced. It is also why a Danish poem will ‘sound odd’ when translated into English, no matter how good the translation is. And the more the two languages differ, the greater the shift in timbre is going to be; just think of the cello suites played on a tenor saxophone, a bassoon – or a xylophone. 

 

Translated poems from French

 French

Translated poems from German

German 

Translated poems from Norwegian

Norwegian

Translated poems from Dutch

Dutch

Translated poems from Swedish

Swedish

Translated poems from Danish

Danish