Poetry Translating as Expert Action
It worked absolutely fantastically, really really well. Because he translates in a way
very different from mine. He doesn’t look for patterns in the text, he does it much
more intuitively [...]. Whereas [...] I read [for patterns].Buzelin reports that same-expertise co-translating enables literary prose transla-
tors to meet deadlines while assuring each other’s quality (2005: 213). For poetry,
interviewees mentioned a similar speed advantage (“we could normally get a first
version down on paper very quickly”: Ellen), and stressed the usefulness of face-
to-face sessions for debugging working versions (“the good thing about collabo-
rating [...] is that one of you can [...] read [the version] out and you get a very clear
sense of what it sounds like, and you pick up on things that sound strange”: Carl).
A final advantage is division of labour (as reported by Séguinot 1996 for non-liter-
ary translation): thus Ellen described how both co-translators would first translate
a line orally, she would then hand-write it, and her co-translator would later pro-
duce a typed-up version.
Interviewees also described what may be called added-value co-translating.
Here both translators are receptor-language poetry writers. Only one, however,
can read the source language, enabling the other to focus on receptor-language
effectiveness. Finally, in what might be labelled distributed co-translating, different
people translate different elements in a text complex. Bruce, for example, reported
that he translated a book’s poem quotes while a co-translator tackled its prose
matrix text.
A translator’s working processes and priorities appear to vary only slightly
across translating modes. Thus Ellen’s accounts of her complementary-language
and same-expertise co-translating experiences closely resemble each other, and
her priority in her complementary-language co-translating project on isolating
“sound patterns” reflected a similar priority in her solo translating.
Co-translation also has affective advantages, such as mutual support in a dif-
ficult translation genre. In Derek’s words:
if you are with a co-translator you are lucky, because you’ve got a rope connecting
the two of you: one will take the lead up the mountain of the poem and hold the
rope to the other, and the other will lead.4.3.5.3 Text helpers
Most interviewees also reported consulting various text helpers, as confirmed
again by published self-reports (e.g. Bly 1983: 16–21,42–43; Honig 1985; McEwan
1991: 919; Bishop 2000: 65). This is useful because, as Carl points out, different
people “come with completely different sorts of comments”. Translators, like Bruce
and Carl, might read each other’s working versions, again allowing their skills to
complement each other. Thus Carl reports that Bruce “is a very good craftsman