Pierre,
that's beautiful
thx
Randolph
----- Original Message -----
From: "Pierre Joris" <[log in to unmask]>
To: <[log in to unmask]>
Sent: Monday, May 08, 2006 11:19 PM
Subject: Re: [POETRYETC] kenneth koch's manuals
> 1) of course, poetry is untranslatable. and that's exactly why we have to
> translate it.
>
> 2) anything put into language is already a translation, language is
> already a translation, so there is no pre-translation, no original
> untranslated text. and if all is always-already translation, why worry?
>
> 3) belief is useless when translating or writing.
>
> Pierre
>
>
> On May 8, 2006, at 3:45 PM, MJ Walker wrote:
>
>> I'm curious, Stephen - how do they translate the "found" bits where the
>> poetic effect depends on your understanding French words in a different
>> context, like place-names? If you translate Vierge in a place-name,
>> fr'instance, it comes out unFrench as Virgin (oh, that railway company),
>> if you don't, you don't understand why it chimes with Marie, etc
>> etc.(That's in a poem called something something *naturel*, in my
>> sagging memory) There's a lot of that Oulipian sort of thing going on in
>> that book. (OUvroir de LIttérature POtentielle). I no longer believe in
>> poetry translation - imitation, yes (Nachdichtung), crib, yes, but not
>> traduttore= traditore. But even novels come out of the machine bleached
>> or discoloured, and they're something else again ("He's something,
>> Else", as Frieda von Richthofen said to her sister.)
>> mjay
>>
>> Stephen Vincent wrote:
>>
>>> By the way, speaking of Ouilipo, particularly for its wonderfully
>>> diverse
>>> and exhaustive embrace of Paris, I suggest folks keep their eyes for
>>> Jacques
>>> Roubaud's "The Form of a city changes faster, alas, than the human
>>> heart."
>>> It's coming out from Dalkey Archive Press in July and is translated by
>>> Keith
>>> and Rosemarie Waldrop. I got an advance review copy and I can't put it
>>> down, well, I did for this!
>>>
>>> Stephen
>>> http://stephenvincent.net/blog/
>>> Currently home of the "Tenderly" series,
>>> A serial work in progress.
>>>
>>>
>>
>>
>> --
>>
>> The self that shines in the greying sunshine
>> of the immediate is actual, though it is
>> not all that is there. - Douglas Oliver
>
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> "Blasphemy is a victimless crime." -- a t-shirt sent to Salman
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> ==============================================
> Pierre Joris
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