Comments on: Poeta en Nueva York

By: Rigoberto

Rigoberto — Wed, 23 Jan 2008 14:16:44 +0000

Daisy, I hear you, though the Shout Out here was in celebration to a project as a whole, which is a devastating read in any language. My succinct write-up doesn’t do it justice, though I will be happy to share my more substantial review forthcoming in The El Paso Times. And, Alicia, yes, I do translate, and had been wanting to translate this book in particular, but Medina & Statman produced this superb translation that’s going to be tough to beat. I will blog next week on some of the poets I have translated from the Spanish.
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By: Alicia (AE)

Alicia (AE) — Wed, 23 Jan 2008 05:52:59 +0000

Thanks for this, Rigoberto. I wonder–do you do any translating yourself? I’d love to see your Lorca!
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By: Anonymous

Anonymous — Wed, 23 Jan 2008 02:54:34 +0000

While I am always working to broaden my reading worlds, I must comment on the following line:
“…I’d rather speak to those who are willing to seek out imaginations and artistry that is not English-only.”
This is not only an empowering notion but a necessary one for writers and poets who want to take risks. Language is fluid, and may I forever swim alongside Lorca, Anzaldua, Vallejo, Mistral…
C/S
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By: Daisy

Daisy — Tue, 22 Jan 2008 17:26:20 +0000

Rigoberto–
Here’s my trouble with the passages you quote: I respond to specifics. Joy, love, fly, sand, suffer, earth, snow, eternity–these are just words: I don’t feel them. This is quite possibly my own limitation. But I don’t feel the emotion. I see that you, and the commenter above, do feel it. Me, I have a more visceral response to your prose paragraph about the men hurling themselves off skyscrapers because in that case there are people there doing something in a specific place. Is the problem in the translation? Is the problem in the original poem? I don’t know. I can’t speak Spanish, though I can puzzle through simple written Spanish. But painstakingly getting the vocabulary isn’t getting the poem. I can see that the English translation doesn’t attract me. I don’t know who to blame. I’m willing to blame myself. But I just don’t know. This happens a lot, for me, with translation. I just shrug–and think if I knew more of the original language I would at least understand more about what the poet was choosing to do.
Daisy
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By: Don Share

Don Share — Tue, 22 Jan 2008 17:02:46 +0000

There’s another recent Lorca translation, Ralph Angel’s bilingual edition of Poem of the Deep Song/Poema del cante jondo – praised by Merwin, introduced by Greg Simon. I’d love to see some comments on this one, too,
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By: Sheryl Luna

Sheryl Luna — Tue, 22 Jan 2008 16:45:43 +0000

Thanks for this lovely entry. I will definitely have to get a copy of this book!
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