Poetry Translating as Expert Action Processes, priorities and networks

 Poetry Translating as Expert Action

Underlying this is a paradigm of poetry translation as ambassadorship: “to com-

municate the words of one poet of one country to the readers of the other country”

(Derek). As with the cosmopolitanist alliances and anti-war Bosnian poetry alli-

ances from Chapters 2 and 3, with certain source communities translation may

also be motivated by what Derek calls “human-rights translation” or “liberation

translation”: translating jailed poets, for example, and thus “giving a voice to the

people who don’t have a voice”.

Motivation may also be personal. Translating poetry may be simply enjoyable,

as Carl points out. Alternatively, deep-level contact with the source-culture Other

may be rewarding in emotional and identity terms. To quote Derek again:

there are stresses and strains in [Source Language 1]^3 poetry that don’t necessar-

ily exist in other literatures. But there are enormous rewards. You do approach the

[Source Language 1] soul. One of my friends said I’ve got three souls, a [Source

Language 1], a [Source Language 2] and an English.

Emotionally, source-culture players, plus enthusiasts for the source culture in the

receptor country, can motivate the translator, both by acknowledging the project’s

value and by praising the translator for tackling it. As Derek points out, this can

help counteract a demotivating lack of support by receptor-country literary play-

ers to whom the source poet may be unknown:

you do need that, oh God damn it, admiration^4 , you know, from the source peo-

ple, otherwise you lose momentum, you lose confidence in what you are doing

[...]: they know [and] you know they are great poets, but to get that across to the

English is a very hard thing.

4.3.2 Forming the team, shaping the project

4.3.2.1 Building vs. joining a team

Turning now to specific projects, how translators enter teams can be seen as form-

ing a ‘continuum’ – here, a qualitative spectrum where translators take different

notional positions. Figure 15 shows that interviewees’ reported patterns ranged

from initiating all their projects – that is, only translating on their own initiative

(extreme left: Alan and Ellen) – to usually being commissioned by editors or pub-

lishers (moderate right: Bruce), with some reporting a mixture of translator-initi-

ated and commissioned projects (middle: Carl and Derek). This reflects the claims

of Flynn’s Dutch receptor-language translators (2004: 275).

3. To protect translators’ anonymity, specific source languages, poet names, etc. are ano-
   nymized.


4. Underlining shows words stressed by the speaker.