Poetry Translating as Expert Action
translators, however, are richly networked, with experience of multiple projects:
about half the translators surveyed, for example, only worked on one project and/
or with one poet. Hence one can distinguish between central and peripheral actors
within a field. Here, richness of networking is again not the only indicator of im-
portance. Capital also counts – gained by producing a respected translation of a
consecrated poet, for instance.3.4.3 Interest networks
3.4.3.1 Web and paper publication
The survey examined the interest networks linking text complexes (and thus
project teams) with their readers – networks that are created by acts of publishing.
A striking finding of this survey is the rapidly changing relationship between pa-
per and web publishing. There is again no reason why Bosnian poetry should dif-
fer from other source poetries here.
The sheer number of web publications in the survey shows (even allowing
for search methods that may unduly favour web publications) how the internet
is now a crucial means of communicating translated poetry. Its audiences, more-
over, are potentially much larger and geographically more distributed than audi-
ences for paper. The variety of web publications is also growing: blogs and
streaming-audio readings, for example, were first signalled in the present survey;
and the parallel Serbian survey also found web forums posting translated poetry
(Jones 2010).
Ease of posting, re-posting and linking from site to site is making it ever easier
for teams to publish translated poetry. Moreover, if the poem was originally pub-
lished elsewhere, as often happens, the (re)poster need not be directly networked
with the original team’s members. Indeed, the latter may not have approved repub-
lication, and may even become invisible: original publication details, including
translator names, are not always cited. Moreover, even if they approve web publi-
cation and are acknowledged, unless the site is subsidized they will gain no in-
come, as poetry websites charge no viewing fees. However, financial gain is often a
bonus rather than the main motive in poetry translation projects. If translators
translate largely to communicate ‘their’ poet’s message, they may see informal,
repeated spin-off publications as helping this.
Nevertheless, paper publication still has primary status, with paper books as
the pre-eminent transmission means for translation projects. Books are more
prestigious, more durable, and better suited for delivering longer texts. Web pub-
lications, by contrast, often contain poems that originally appeared in paper, and
generally contain fewer poems – probably because most readers find long texts
easier to manage on paper than on screen. Where websites are advancing, it