Poetry Translating as Expert Action
Translators may be recruited by other actors: the source poet, for example, or
an editor, festival organizer or publisher. Alternatively, translators may self-recruit,
by contacting a poet, or by simply starting to translate – though even here, they may
act on information from source-culture insiders. In either case, a cluster of emo-
tional, cognitive and metacognitive evaluations help translators decide whether or
not to translate a set of poems: whether source-text quality seems adequate; wheth-
er they feel empathy for the poems; whether other translators have worked with the
poet; and whether they have the expertise, or can form a team, to tackle the task.
Finding a publisher was seen by interviewees in largely strategic terms – in-
volving, say, placing translations in poetry journals before approaching publishers.
Two interviewees, however, brought in second-order network considerations by
claiming that low status hinders their access to publishers: like Flynn’s poetry
translators (2004: 279), they saw a translator’s symbolic capital as a strategic re-
source needed to help the translator recruit a publisher. Regarding publisher re-
cruitment as capital-based is likely to affect translators’ recruitment strategies: for
example, ‘borrowing’ the capital of a high-status patron who can recommend them
to a publisher, rather than simply sending the publisher some sample poems.4.4.5.3 Autonomy and collegiality
The translators interviewed saw themselves as remarkably autonomous agents: not
in that they worked alone, but in that they made key working decisions them-
selves. If the interviewees are typical members of their field, poetry translators are
free to initiate, accept or refuse projects, to recruit their own text helpers, set their
own deadlines, and even to seek their own publication outlets. This autonomy is
underpinned by the fact that poetry translating seems to be based on symbolic
rather than economic capital. Translators translate poetry because they see it as
worthwhile, not because it pays a wage. This results in an almost complete absence
of work-for-hire relations between client (be this a source poet, editor or publish-
er) and translator.
In this the poetry translator’s working conditions approach those of the poet.
Moreover, since translators stress empathetic liking of the source poems and their
own competence as key reasons for them to enter into a translating relationship
with a poet, this implies that such relationships are based on a strong sense of af-
finity between translator and source poet. This, according to Schiferli, is why some
poetry publishers prefer to receive proposals from translators rather than to com-
mission translations (1999: 4).
Relations with other translators were also important, however. What also emerged
from the interviews was the sense of belonging to a second-order field-based network
of fellow translators, each of whom – as outlined in Chapter 3 – was linked into sub-
networks with his or her ‘own’ source poets and works. The mutual support gained