by Willem
Groenewegen, 2003
When I read the editorial (July 16th, 2003) on www.poetryinternational.org
for the first time, I wasn't really struck by anything - just wanted to get
stuck in, read the essays. However, coming back to it, there is a highly relevant
question embedded in this introduction, at least, relevant to my own practice:
why translate, when in the same amount of time you could write a poem, or
even: why do either when there's so much to read, or so much living to be
done?
I am both a publishing poet and a poetry translator. Every day I find myself
choosing between the two crafts. I usually translate in the morning and write
during the afternoon. Translating starts up the linguistic motor so to speak,
which then actually facilitates the writing process in the afternoon - writer's
block, therefore, is not in my vocabulary. Publication-wise, translation still
has the upper hand: one book of poetry translations vs. only magazine entries
of my own work. I have at times thought: if I'm capable of credibly translating
Dutch poetry, then why become yet another debuting poet? The former talent
is the lesser exploited, so would create the greater niche. However, the personal
poetic vein must be tapped, if only because of the inspiration translating
poetry provides. Furthermore, others have started to take notice of my own
poetic skills, so I'm also feeling obliged to work at this. Lastly, there
is of course the bread-winner issue, translation rendering more of an income
than writing poetry. But that is a given and therefore not a matter to be
discussed here.
In Martijn
Meijer's review of the Poetry International 2003 seminar dealing with
poetry translation, Lisa
Katz and Raoul
Schrott reassert the main arguments for translating poetry: the best way
to understand a poem and how poetry works, is to translate. For me, there
is an added component: if I really like a poem, I want to translate it. Translation
is to me a way of showing my appreciation for the original. Unfortunately,
with all the assignments I get these days, there is little time left to translate
for mere pleasure - certainly if I want to carry on writing my own work to
boot!
In an essay I recently wrote for a
Dutch literary magazine, outlining my poetics, I was asked to say something
about the way I write. That turned out to be quite a long essay, because I
have a highly structured way of writing. Studying in Sheffield (UK) for a
short period, I was offered the opportunity of delving into the Peter
Redgrove archive (see http://portland.shef.ac.uk/redgrove/workmeth.htm
for a more detailed description of his method). This poet, who I'm sorry to
say died this summer, had a writing system comprising a sequence of notebooks,
known as the 'Incubator'. Through a series of drafts, like in any poet's work,
he would arrive at a final, publishable, poem. However, the way he ordered
his drafts, starting with snapshots, clippings, quotes and the like, which
he would glue and/or write into the first notebook and then associate with
through following notebooks, suited my needs. It's an organic way of writing,
and yet highly organized at the same time. And if I wanted to free up time
for my writing from my translating schedule, I would need some sort of ordering
principle for my own work.
For years I'd been haphazardly writing poetry - and translating - in notebooks,
but just one after the other, drafting as I went along. Now, though, I start
with ideas brought about by collecting odds and ends in the first notebook
and then gradually distilling poetry out of the associative process through
the following notebooks. Book number four, the thinnest one in the series,
contains the finished product. Then I can go back to book one and start something
new, using old material or new stuff, whichever seems relevant at the time.
Going back and forth, knowing something's brooding on a left-hand page, wanting
to be processed onto a right-hand page, thrills me to bits and at the same
time gives me a sense of calm, knowing they lines will sit there until I'm
good and ready. It makes the time I spend on writing more delineable and therefore
opens up my translating schedule.
Now something about translating methods, for they have made me more productive
and aware of what I do as a poetry translator. When I started translating
it was mostly for practical reasons: fellow
poets in Groningen (NL), where I lived and studied English, would go to
England to read and needed translations for their English-speaking audiences.
What started it off properly was a poetry festival I organized in Groningen
in 1996, called Poetry North, where English and Dutch poets read who at one
time or another had taught at the University (Jeremy
Hooker, Jeffrey
Wainwright) or had visited there as poets (Julia
Darling, Keith
Armstrong). Naturally, the English poems had to be translated into Dutch,
but I also thought it might be a sterling idea to have the Dutch poets translated
into English. Not knowing any translators, I set about translating them myself.
Rutger
Kopland, however, insisted he be translated by his own translator, the
late James
Brockway.
The latter turned out to be quite approachable and he took me under his wing
as a poetry translator. Correcting the versions I handed in, he would summon
me to his stately home in The Hague and basically tear my drafts apart. This
instilled in me an awe for the work of a literary translator. The work at
hand wasn't to be dealt with lightly! The following year a Dutch poet, J.
Bernlef, was writer-in-residence at the University
of Groningen. One of his friends in the poetry world is Seamus
Heaney, and for one term, he did a weekly workshop of translating some
of Heaney's sonnets into Dutch. Bernlef taught me something new, and quite
exciting. He would do a draft translation of the original poem, then leave
the poem to one side and 'turn' this translation into a 'poem' in the target
language, Dutch in this case. This translation/poem wouldn't be a totally
novel piece of writing after this, but at the same time, it wasn't a faithful
and exact representation of the original poem, either. So I learnt two approaches,
the faithful word for word vs. the more liberal rewriting mode.
You might be wondering what this learning curve has to do with the time-share
issue. Well, through these approaches I am better able to choose when to do
what. As I said, these two approaches have made me both more aware of what
I do and more productive. If I am working on a particularly taxing poem of
my own, I will choose to translate poetry where I can be somewhat more liberal
in translation. Conversely, if I am translating a particularly intricate set
of poems, I won't write anything too taxing. That's how I resolve the balancing
act content-wise.
So, all in all, I manage the balancing act quite well. True, there are days
I do more writing than translation or vice versa, but on the whole the system
stands. At the moment I'm doing more reading than either, because I want to
translate new things at the start of this new season.
In closing, let me add a topic for further discussion. It is one that has
been much on my mind lately: why be a poetry translator, when there is no
sustenance in it and all the grants go to 'original' authors? I put as much
work, effort and creativity into translating as I do with writing. In one
respect I even do more: unlocking other people's writings to the world. But
am I eligible for grants in this country? No, only writers are. I can translate
all the poetry I want, yet not earn a (euro)penny while I'm at it. Only when
I translate other languages into Dutch do I get to make a living. This is
a sorry state of affairs. So you have to have a servile nature to devote yourself
to translation. As the joke goes: This is my lot in life. It's not a lot,
but it's a life…