“Arena del Sur caliente
que pide camelias blancas.
Llora flecha sin blanco,
la tarde sin mañana,
y el primer pájaro muerto
sobre la rama.
¡Oh guitarra!
Corazón malherido
por cinco espadas.”
Which translates to
“Hot southern sands
yearning for white camellias.
Weeps arrow without target
evening without morning
and the first dead bird
on the branch.
Oh, guitar!
yearning for white camellias.
Weeps arrow without target
evening without morning
and the first dead bird
on the branch.
Oh, guitar!
Heart mortally wounded
by five swords.”
English can be a beautiful language but doesn't have the natural rhythm that Spanish does. I realize that one of my favorite things in the world is the sound of an old South American lady speaking Spanish. The two sections above may be saying the exact same thing, but when I read it in my head, there is this flow, and this rhythm that the Spanish one follows, and I picture it read by an old lady. The English one sounds dull and lacks a flow. I see this lack of flow in other English poems as well. It isn’t the poet’s fault. I think it’s just the language we speak. I think that for a long time with my own poetry I had wanted it to sound like Spanish because of the flow. I hadn’t realized this because I hadn’t even considered that I was looking for that. I had always been consumed with the idea of making it sound nice. The words just aided the sound, but there was a beat. It was so difficult and even when I did achieve this rhythm it never sounded the way I wanted it to. I realize that I was trying to rip off Spanish in English. But I don’t think that you can rip off Spanish in English poetry. The words in English don’t sound a pretty as they do in Spanish. Right now I think of the word heart. In Spanish heart is corazón. Since not all of you understand the accents of Spanish I’ll walk you through how to say corazón. The “c” is making the normal “k” sound we are used to. The “o” sounds like you singing the letter “o” in a really deep voice. The “r” is rolled. Not everyone can roll their “r” so doing it like a normal “r” is fine. The “a” sounds like the beginning of a written sneeze, “ah-chew”. The “z” sounds like an “s”. The “on” sounds like the one in the word cone. Corazón. If you can say it correctly, in the way I tried to lay out, it sounds melodic. Now if you compare it to heart, heart sounds grotesque. As I continue to read the Spanish poetry, I'm gonna focus on the rhythm and how the words connect, more than what the poets are saying.
by five swords.”
English can be a beautiful language but doesn't have the natural rhythm that Spanish does. I realize that one of my favorite things in the world is the sound of an old South American lady speaking Spanish. The two sections above may be saying the exact same thing, but when I read it in my head, there is this flow, and this rhythm that the Spanish one follows, and I picture it read by an old lady. The English one sounds dull and lacks a flow. I see this lack of flow in other English poems as well. It isn’t the poet’s fault. I think it’s just the language we speak. I think that for a long time with my own poetry I had wanted it to sound like Spanish because of the flow. I hadn’t realized this because I hadn’t even considered that I was looking for that. I had always been consumed with the idea of making it sound nice. The words just aided the sound, but there was a beat. It was so difficult and even when I did achieve this rhythm it never sounded the way I wanted it to. I realize that I was trying to rip off Spanish in English. But I don’t think that you can rip off Spanish in English poetry. The words in English don’t sound a pretty as they do in Spanish. Right now I think of the word heart. In Spanish heart is corazón. Since not all of you understand the accents of Spanish I’ll walk you through how to say corazón. The “c” is making the normal “k” sound we are used to. The “o” sounds like you singing the letter “o” in a really deep voice. The “r” is rolled. Not everyone can roll their “r” so doing it like a normal “r” is fine. The “a” sounds like the beginning of a written sneeze, “ah-chew”. The “z” sounds like an “s”. The “on” sounds like the one in the word cone. Corazón. If you can say it correctly, in the way I tried to lay out, it sounds melodic. Now if you compare it to heart, heart sounds grotesque. As I continue to read the Spanish poetry, I'm gonna focus on the rhythm and how the words connect, more than what the poets are saying.
The essence of the beauty of poetry isn't the meaning but the language. And certainly when it is translated a huge amount is lost. Some of the images remain, and the "ideas," the textual ideas - the content, but the color is sucked out.
ReplyDeleteIt also loses the rich connotations that words carry with them. As an example, German has a verb tense called the imperative, which translates to a command in English. So, in German, "Essen" is the imperative of "eat." In English it doesn't really translate, but it's something like yelling at everyone to eat. But in German, the command Essen can be eat like you're yelling at prisoners, or, if you've ever eaten a meal with a German family, when the mother says Essen, it's more like your being invited into the meal with a gentle push. Hard to describe. The connotations of a word... English has so many words, so many colors of connotation. We can say go, run, jet, bolt - and all these refer to variations on fast bodily movement. Translate this and how do you match the word exactly? The poem says "We bolted out" and it gets translated as "We left." Totally different, and a huge loss of nuance and connotation.
I love that you're exploring Spanish and language as a means of expression. Perhaps you can do something on poetry as a side salad?
In the meantime, English has beauty as well. One of my favorite poems in the English language is this one, by poet Robert Bly.
Winter Poem
The quivering wings of the winter ant
wait for lean winter to end.
I love you in slow, dim-witted ways,
hardly speaking, one or two words only.
What caused us to live hidden?
A wound, the wind, a word, a parent.
Sometimes we wait in a helpless way,
awkwardly, not whole and not healed.
When we hid the wound, we fell back
from a human to a shelled life.
Now we feel the ant's hard chest,
the carapace, the silent tongue.
This must be the way of the ant,
the winter ant, the way of those
who are wounded and want to live:
to breathe, to sense another, and to wait