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Jorge Eielson #3 - mutilated body
In this poem from dark night of the body, the Peruvian poet,
Jorge Eielson takes his exploration of the physiological to a deeper
level, a level of dissection without disgust, without moral sentiments
of any kind. The poet counts extremities "as were they cherries or
grapes". One problem that arises in the translation of this poem is
located in the first line: "Cuento los dedos de mis manos y mis pies".
In Spanish, "dedo" refers to either "fingers" or "toes"; however, the
line would become quite clumsy if it were "I count the fingers on my
hands & toes on my feet". Due to this, "digits"– both the medical
terms for finger & toes –has been preferred, partly because it
captures this semantic aspect of the line, but also because it plays
off the idea of "counting", albeit this double meaning does not exist
in the "dedos" of the Spanish version. This sheds light on the
translation process in general. While it commonly thought that the
translation of a poem loses poetic elements of the original,
this example shows that a translation can also add poetic elements
without doing harm to the poem itself.
The Smelting Process Podcast
http://www.jwmulligan.wordpress.com
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