texts in translation 2011

8/3/2019 Texts in Translation 2011

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Texts in Translation

Upper School Literature | Jason Stumpf

Walnut Hill School for the ArtsFall 2011


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Contents

Introduction

Elizabeth Bishop in translation

Behind Stowe

Cirque dHiver

Electrical Storm

Insomnia

Little Exercise

One Art

SandpiperSeascape

Eight modern poems in translation

WANG JIAXIN

Country Meadow (Chinese)

KIM SOO YOUNG

The Grass (Korean)

SILVIA TOMASA RIVERA

Te necesito tanto, amor,(Spanish)

GEORGES GODEAU

Saint Jean Place (French)

HEEDUK RA

It Was Autumn (Korean)

SERGE PEY

from This poem is a decapitated head held up by a single hair (French)KIM YOUNG RANG

Until the Peony Blooms (Korean)

SILVIA TOMASA RIVERA

Serias Capaz (Spanish)


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Introduction

Students in Upper School Literature collaborated with one another and with

faculty from various departments to translate poems by Elizabeth Bishop

into French, Spanish, Korean, and Chinese. They also translatedcontemporary poems from those languages into English. In order to become

familiar with each poem they translated, students collaboratively wrote

descriptions of the poems using Google Docs. The emphasis throughout

was on engaging in the processes of collaboration and creation. Students

were asked to think like writers with one another.

Thanks to the support of the Walnut Hill faculty members who mentored

student translation groups: Raymonde Arseneau, Brian Blanchfield, Jay

Crawford-Kelly, Steve Durning, Ben Gregg, Monica Lee, Lucy Terzis,

Cathy Yun. Thanks also to Nick Admussen of Princeton University for his

insights into contemporary Chinese poetry.


6/37

Behind Stowe

I heard an elf go whistling by,

A whistle sleek as moonlit grass,

That drew me like a silver string

To where the dusty, pale moths fly,

And make a magic as they pass;

And there I heard a cricket sing.

His singing echoed through and through

The dark under a windy tree

Where glinted little insects wings.His singing split the sky in two.

The halves fell either side of me,

And I stood straight, bright with moon-rings.

Elizabeth Bishop


7/37

Derrire Stowe

Jai entendu un lutin pass en sifflant,

Un sifflement comme lherb clair par la lune,

Qui ma attir comme une ficelle dargent

o les papillons de nuit, poussireux et ples volent,

Et font de la magique en passant;

Et jy entendais un grillon chanter.

Son chant avait rsonn infiniment

La nuit sous un arbe venteux

O les petites ailes dinsect clair.Son chant a divis le ciel en deux.

Les moitis sont tombes de chaque ct de moi,

Et je me suis redress, brilliante avec des ronds de la lune.

Translated into French by Owen Alderson, George Li,

Emily Tracey, and Katherine Wilkins


8/37

Cirque dHiver

Across the floor flits the mechanical toy,

fit for a king of several centuries back.

A little circus horse with real white hair.

His eyes are glossy black.

He bears a little dancer on his back.

She stands upon her toes and turns and turns.

A slanting spray of artificial roses

is stitched across her skirt and tinsel bodice.

Above her head she posesanother spray of artificial roses.

His mane and tail are straight from Chirico.

He has a formal, melancholy soul.

He feels her pink toes dangle toward his back

along the little pole

that pierces both her body and her soul

and goes through his, and reappears below,

under his belly, as a big tin key.

He canters three steps, then he makes a bow,

canters again, bows on one knee,

canters, then clicks and stops, and looks at me.

The dancer, by this time, has turned her back.He is the more intelligent by far.

Facing each other rather desperately

his eye is like a star

we stare and say, "Well, we have come this far."

Elizabeth Bishop


9/37

Winter Circus

En travers du plancher volete le jouet mcanique,

convenable pour un roi de plusieurs sicles pass

Un petit cheval de cirque avec de vrai crins blancs.

Ses yeux noirs brillants.

Il porte une petite danseuse sur son dos.

Elle se tiens debout sur ses orteils et tourne et tourne.

Un petit bouquet inclin de roses artificielle

est cousu en travers sa jupe et corsage de guirlandes.

En haut de sa tte elle poseun autre petit bouquet de roses artificielles.

Sa crinire et queue sont directement de Chirico.

Il a une me crmonieuse et mlancolie

Il sent ses orteils roses pendent vers son dos

le long de la petite perche

qui perce les deux son corps et son me

et va dans le sien, et rapparat en bas,

sous son ventre, comme une grande clef tain.

Il va au petit galop pour trois pas, puis il fait un rvrence,

va au petit galop encore, fait une rvrence sur un genou,

va au petit galop, puis fait un dlic et arrte, et me regarde.

La danseuse, par ce temps, avait tourn son dos.Il est le plus intelligent de loin.

En face d'un l'autre plutt dsesprment

son oeil est comme une toile

nous regardons fixement et disons, "Enfin, nous tions venus de si loin."

Translated into French by Melanie Benker, Tess Bissell,

Kai Cameron, and Teddy Quinlivan


10/37

Electrical Storm

Dawn an unsympathetic yellow.

Cra-aack!- dry light.

The house was really struck.

Crack! A tinny sound, like a dropped tumbler.

silent, his eyes bleached white, his fur on end.

Personal and spiteful as neighbor's child,

thunder began to bang and bump the roof.

One pink flash;

then hail, the biggest size of artificial pearls.

Dead-white, wax-white, cold--diplomats' wives' favors

from an old moon party--

they lay in melting windrows

on the red ground until well after sunrise.

We got up to find the wiring fused,

no lights, a smell of saltpetre,

and the telephone dead.

The cat stayed in the warm sheets.

The Lent trees had shed all their petals:

wet, stuck, purple, among the dead-eye pearls.

Elizabeth Bishop


11/37

-.

!,()

,-

,,.

,

.

;

,.

,,-

-

.

,,,.

.

.

,,.

Translated into Korean by Yun Jae Choi, Jungwon Stephanie Kim, Audrey

Emerson, Ji Yoon Lee, Grete Langrind


12/37

Insomnia

The moon in the bureau mirror

looks out a million miles

(and perhaps with pride, at herself,

but she never, never smiles)

far and away beyond sleep, or

perhaps she's a daytime sleeper.

By the Universe deserted,

she'd tell it to go to hell,

and she'd find a body of water,or a mirror, on which to dwell.

So wrap up care in a cobweb

and drop it down the well

into that world inverted

where left is always right,

where the shadows are really the body,

where we stay awake all night,

where the heavens are shallow as the sea

is now deep, and you love me

Elizabeth Bishop


13/37

(

)

.

,

Translated into Korean by Ji Hyo Kim, Andrew Ianacci,

Colby Robbins, and Dana Vanderburgh


14/37

Little Exercise

Think of the storm roaming the sky uneasily

like a dog looking for a place to sleep in,

listen to it growling.

Think how they must look now, the mangrove keys

lying out there unresponsive to the lightning

in dark, coarse-fibred families,

where occasionally a heron may undo his head,

shake up his feathers, make an uncertain commentwhen the surrounding water shines.

Think of the boulevard and the little palm trees

all stuck in rows, suddenly revealed

as fistfuls of limp fish-skeletons.

It is raining there. The boulevard

and its broken sidewalks with weeds in every crack,

are relieved to be wet, the sea to be freshened.

Now the storm goes away again in a series

of small, badly lit battle-scenes,

each in "Another part of the field."

Think of someone sleeping in the bottom of a row-boattied to a mangrove root or the pile of a bridge;

think of him as uninjured, barely disturbed.

Elizabeth Bishop


15/37

Translated into Chinese by Sofia Basile, Melody Cheng,

Kaiyuh Cornberg, and Yi Qun Xu


16/37

One Art

The art of losing isn't hard to master;

so many things seem filled with the intent

to be lost that their loss is no disaster,

Lose something every day. Accept the fluster

of lost door keys, the hour badly spent.

The art of losing isn't hard to master.

Then practice losing farther, losing faster:

places, and names, and where it was you meantto travel. None of these will bring disaster.

I lost my mother's watch. And look! my last, or

next-to-last, of three beloved houses went.

The art of losing isn't hard to master.

I lost two cities, lovely ones. And, vaster,

some realms I owned, two rivers, a continent.

I miss them, but it wasn't a disaster.

Even losing you (the joking voice, a gesture

I love) I shan't have lied. It's evident

the art of losing's not too hard to master

though it may look like (Write it!) a disaster.

Elizabeth Bishop


17/37

.

.

..

..

,.

.

,.

,,.

.!,

.

.

.

,,...

-(,)

..

.

(!).

Translated into Korean by John Drisko, Yoo Min Lee,

Courtney McCain, and Sang Eun Oh


18/37

Sandpiper

The roaring alongside he takes for granted,

and that every so often the world is bound to shake.

He runs, he runs to the south, finical, awkward,

in a state of controlled panic, a student of Blake.

The beach hisses like fat. On his left, a sheet

of interrupting water comes and goes

and glazes over his dark and brittle feet.

He runs, he runs straight through it, watching his toes.

- Watching, rather, the spaces of sand between them

where (no detail too small) the Atlantic drains

rapidly backwards and downwards. As he runs,

he stares at the dragging grains.

The world is a mist. And then the world is

minute and vast and clear. The tide

is higher or lower. He couldn't tell you which.

His beak is focussed; he is preoccupied,

looking for something, something, something.

Poor bird, he is obsessed!

The millions of grains are black, white, tan, and gray

mixed with quartz grains, rose and amethyst.

Elizabeth Bishop


19/37

Andarrios

El rugido junto a el que toma algo por sentado,

y que a veces el mundo esta por agitarse.

El corre, el corre al sur, delicado, torpe,

en un estado de pnico controlado, un estudiante de Blake.

La playa silba com grasa. En su izquierda, una hoja

de aqua incordiante que viene y va

y apacenta encima de sus pies oscuros y frgiles.

El corre, el corre a travs lo, observa sus dedos de los pies.

- Observa, ms bien, los espacios de arena entre los dedos de los pies

donde (no detalle demasiado pequeo) la Atlntica vacia

rapidamente atrs y abajo. Mientras corre,

la mirada a los granos arrastrardos.

El mundo es una niebla. Y despues el mundo est

preciso y enorme y claro. La marea

est alta o baja. No podria decirtelo.

Su pico est centrado; El est preocupado.

Buscardo para algo, algo, algo.

Pobre pjaro, est obsesionado!

Los millones de granos son negros, blancos, morenos, grises,

mezclados con granos de cuarzo, rosa, amatista.

Translated into Spanish by Geoffrey Gillman, Lara Leblanc,

Gillian OBrien, and Sarah Tollman


20/37

Seascape

This celestial seascape, with white herons got up as angels,

flying high as they want and as far as they want sidewise

in tiers and tiers of immaculate reflections;

the whole region, from the highest heron

down to the weightless mangrove island

with bright green leaves edged neatly with bird-droppings

like illumination in silver,

and down to the suggestively Gothic arches of the mangrove roots

and the beautiful pea-green back-pasture

where occasionally a fish jumps, like a wildflowerin an ornamental spray of spray;

this cartoon by Raphael for a tapestry for a Pope:

it does look like heaven.

But a skeletal lighthouse standing there

in black and white clerical dress,

who lives on his nerves, thinks he knows better.

He thinks that hell rages below his iron feet,

that that is why the shallow water is so warm,

and he knows that heaven is not like this.

Heaven is not like flying or swimming,

but has something to do with blackness and a strong glare

and when it gets dark he will remember something

strongly worded to say on the subject.

Elizabeth Bishop


21/37

Paisaje

Esta vista celestial, con garzas blancas como angeles,

volando en cualquier direcin quieren

en niveles y niveles de reflejos imaculados;

toda la regin, desde la garza ms alta

hasta la isla de manglares ingrvida

con hojas de verdes brillantes que estn cubiertas en excrementos de pjaros

como iluminacin en plato,

y hasta los arcos Goticos de los raices de los manglares

y el pasto verde y bonito

donde de vez en cuando un pez salta, como un flor silvestreen un ramo de ramo ornamental;

esta imagen de Raphael para un tapiz por un Papa:

parece como el cielo.

Pero un faro esqueletico que est de pie

en ropa religiosa negra y blanca

que vive nerviosamente, piensa que sabe ms.

Piensa que el infierno arde bajo de sus pies hiernas

y es porque el agua poco profunda es tan caliente

y l sabe que el cielo no es como este.

El cielo no es como el acto de volando o nadando,

pero es como la oscuridad y tiene una mirada fuerte

y en la noche l recoradar

un opinin fuerte decir en el sujeto.

Translated into Spanish by Miranda Gelch, Nicole Hiyashi,

Alison Remmers, Taylor Wolfe, and Alessandro McLaughlin


22/37

()

Wang Jiaxin


23/37

Country Meadow

If one travels slowly down a country road near Beijing,

They will probably see the sheep herd in the meadow,

Like unmelted snow, or bursting blooms

Fully covering the meadow,

Being herded through a road-side ditch,

Stumbling and tripping as they go.

I had never noticed them before

Driving behind a sheep truck

One snowy afternoonAnd this time I saw their dark eyes

(They were looking at me, too)

Gentle, quiet

And not seeming to know where they were being taken.

They were curious, like children, about my presence.

I let myself slow,

And watched them

Disappear ahead in the thickening snow.

Translated from Chinese by Sofia Basile, Melody Cheng,

Kaiyuh Cornberg, and Yi Qun Xu


24/37

.

.

.

.

.

.

.

.

..

Kim Soo Young


25/37

The Grass

Grass lies down

The eastern wind brings the rain

The grass laid down

And finally cried

Because the day was cloudy it cried more

Laid down again

Grass lies down

It lies faster than the wind

It cries faster than the windWakes up earlier than the wind

The day clouds and the grass lies down

It lies down to ankle and than down to your feet

Even though it lies down later than the wind

It wakes up earlier than the wind

Even though it cries out later than the wind

It smiles earlier than the wind

The day clouds and the roots of the grass are lying down.

Translated from Korean by Yun Jae Choi, Jungwon Stephanie Kim,

Audrey Emerson, Ji Yoon Lee, Grete Langrind


26/37

Te necesito tanto, amor,

Te necesito tanto, amor,

en estas horas grises !

Me arrepiento haberte dicho

que eras el basurero

donde mis sueos descansaban.

No puedo ms!

a estas alturas del siglo veinte.

tengo que aferrarme a alguien

o perecer bajo ruedas de un vw.

T eres lo que quiero.la dependencia que nos une

me la he ganado a pulso,

regresa o voy por ti,

botellita de tequila

chocolatito relleno de ron

pastillita de vlium

no me abandones a mi pinche suerte.

Silvia Tomasa Rivera


27/37

I Need You, Love

I need you, love,

in these grey hours!

I regret what I said;

you are not the garbage

where my dreams rested.

Ive had enough!

In times like these,

I have to clutch to someone

or else I will fade into the shadows.

You are what I want,united by our dependence,

I am worthy of your love.

Dont leave me to

the little bottle of tequila

little chocolate filled with rum,

little pill of valium...

Dont leave me to my damned luck.

Translated from Spanish by Miranda Gelch, Nicole Hiyashi,

Alison Remmers, Taylor Wolfe, and Alessandro McLaughlin


28/37

...

...

..

...

..

.

...

.

..

..

HeeDuk Na


29/37

It was Autumn

It was autumn.

A snake was crying,

In a thicket, a snake was crying.

Its cries like a tinkle of a bell

or a bird song.

I didnt understand.

How could a snake cry?

Was I the one crying in the thicket?

Was the snake a part of me?

It was autumn.

A snake was crying

In a thicket,

becoming dry and weathered,

a snake was crying,

hidden from my view.

Why was the snake speaking to me?

I left the snake in the thicket, yet

descending the mountain,

its cries followed me.

It was autumn,

the season of solitude.

I climbed the mountain again,

the snakes crying in my ears.When I peered into the thicket, the sound stopped.

Yet as I descended the mountain,

its cries restarted.

The thicket grew sparse,

the snake disappeared.

It was my first autumn at the base of the unfamiliar mountain.

Translated from Korean by Ji Hyo Kim, Andrew Ianacci,

Colby Robbins, and Dana Vanderburgh


30/37

Place Saint-Jean

Dans cette pharmacie bien situee, sans clients, je tends mon ordonnance et

compte les bocaux. Le comptable sourit, la preparatrice se trompe et

l'apprentie se cache. Le patron qui entre, obsequieux, me salue. Il jauge ma

casquette qui repond a l'envers et reve sur son cheque. Je cherche un

mouchoir dans ma poce. Un nuage passe. Non, je n'ai pas de revolver.

Simplement, je m'occupe.

Georges Godeau


31/37

St. Jeans Place

In this pleasant pharmacy, without customers, I hold my prescription and

count the jars. The cashier smiles, the assistant is mistaken and the intern

hides. The boss who enters, obsequious, greets me. He measures my cap

which responds inside out and dreams on its cheek. I find a handkerchief in

my pocket. A cloud passes. No, I dont have a gun. Simply, I keep myself

busy.

Translated from French Owen Alderson, George Li,

Emily Tracey, and Katherine Wilkins


32/37

de Tout pome est une tte dcapite quon tient au bout dun seul

cheveu

On nentendait plus le vent

ni les grenouilles derrire la colline

En bas du pont une femme cousait ses lvres

avec la bouche dun noy

quelle avait sorti de la rivire

Tu me disais de venir

Il fallait maintenant venger lair

en jetant du sable froid depuis la rive

Quelquun avait commenc le premier

avec la tempe dun coquillage infini

Puis deux homes ont enterr tes ongles

dans la cave dune toile

et tendus des filets dans la nuit

pour attraper des avions et des oiseaux

Serge Pey


33/37

fromThis poem is a severed head that you hold by the end of a single

hair

You weren't hearing the wind anymore

nor the frogs behind the hill

Below the bridge a woman was sewing her lips

with the mouth of a drowned man

she pulled from the river

You were telling me to come

It was time to avenge the air

while throwing the cold sand from the shore

Someone started first

with the temple of infinite shellfish

Next two men buried your nails

in the cellar of a star

and stretched nets in the night

to catch planes and birds

Translated from French by Melanie Benker, Tess Bissell,

Kai Cameron, and Teddy Quinlivan


34/37

Kim Young Rang


35/37

Until the Peony Blooms

Who wants to organize this one? or shall I do this one too.

Until the peony blooms

I will still be waiting for the spring

The day when the peony plummets from the tree

I will then be sunk in sadness for losing the spring

One sweltering day of May

Even the fallen petals wither and

There is no trace of the peony, here or anywhere

Because sadly my hope has left

When the peony withers as does my year

Leaving me crying for three hundred sixty days

Until the peony blooms

I will still be waiting

For the next splendid spring of sadness

Translated from Korean by John Drisko, Yoo Min Lee,

Courtney McCain, and Sang Eun Oh


36/37

Seras capaz

a Gladys

Seras capaz

de retener

en tu pecho

una paloma

hasta hacer a la pobre

renegar del vuelo

besaras sus alas

ms que por desearlo

por sentir cmo tiemblaentre tus manos.

Silvia Tomasa Rivera


37/37

You Would Be Able

for Gladys

You would be able

to keep

a dove

in your chest

until you make the poor thing

detest flying

you would kiss its wings

more than you could wish

to feel it tremblinginside of your hands.

Translated from Spanish by Geoffrey Gillman, Lara Leblanc,

Gillian OBrien, and Sarah Tollman

texts in translation 2011

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