Poetry is one of the most intimate, subjective, and creative forms of expression. As such, the ultimate goal of poetry translators is to convey the original poem’s intent, meaning, and style as faithfully as possible. In some cases, the task may sound impossible since the poems are complex in rhymes, meter, rhythm, metaphors, and many other factors that could pose various problems in translating poetry. Here are some typical challenges to anyone who dares to translate poems.
All this came to mind on the evening of Wednesday 23rd October when I attended a poetry reading event organised by the hard-working arts enthusiast Mercedes Minguela. She understands how various art forms, including poetry, have the ability to create communities of tolerance and understanding. I used to organise similar events in the UK until I moved here to Lanzarote. However, that was then and this is now. Then the poems were in my own English language and now the poems are in Spanish.
Tonight all the poems read at the Central Biblioteca were in Spanish, except for my reading of my own poem, Where Imagination Begins, wrapped in a song by American writer Richard Dobson called So Have I.
I’m sure all visitors are immediately impressed by the two metre high sculptures of two piles of books, huge encyclopaedic tomes all of them, balancing, higgledy piggledy, in the entrance hall.
The library is adjoined to a huge sports area between the UD Lanzarote football stadium and The El Salinero, named after the late poet, Victor Fernandez Gopar. The library, (perhaps as are all libraries) is a magical, mystical place. This particular library, in Arrecife has twisting staircases and walkways or passages that disappear into the sports arena. There are huge floor to ceiling bookcases along most walls but it seems that one wall in every reading room has an intriguing mural daubed upon it, as you can see from our photographs.
As always at an event run by Mercedes the planning and preparation was meticulous. There was a neat podium with microphones installed, and she had invited several well known Lanzarote or Canarian readers to deliver a poem of their choice to reflect island life. She had publicised the event in all the right places to attract a good size audience and she was there at the door, ready to start welcoming her guests, fellow poets and audience members alike, long before starting time.
The special guest readers Mercedes had invited tonight included Ignacio Romero, Tere Perera and Manuel Martin who would all read on the theme of The Universe In The Word: A Veiled Reading Aloud.
My wife Dee and I took front row seats, and all the other contributors were similarly seated amongst the audience. So the whole evening was delivered in a delightfully informal but efficient manner that kept things running to time and kept the audience interested throughout.
I noted, as I had on previous occasions when attending these poetry events, that here the poems are (usually) read from a book and only (very occasionally) recited from memory. Each reader paid massive respect, both in the selection of, and in the reading of, a poem to fit the theme Mercedes had suggested of reflecting life on the island(s). There is very little of the performance poetry element that has eaten into poetry readings in the UK over the past thirty years.
Mercedes, of course, spoke in Spanish when inviting each reader to the podium and giving a potted biography of each as she did so. It seemed like she knew personally everybody in the room. It was obvious that all the writers in the room, the special guests Mercedes had invited and those who turned up to listen and perhaps participate too, knew and respected each other. It was a smiles and hugs kind of night, with the members of the media covering the event being as unobtrusive as possible as they took their photographs.
I have lived on Lanzarote for ten years now and have attended a couple of events like this every year and have learned to identify the rhyming schemes and the rhythm and the meter of the Spanish poetry, but find it difficult, obviously, to unpick the metaphors and the allegories etc.
Nevertheless, I can tell you that many of the poems delivered a sincere gratitude for the life style we enjoy of sun, sea and sand here on the island. I am also convinced that I can hear in the island’s poetry a reflection of the stoicism of an island people who have re-built from the desolation caused by volcanic eruptions of the mid seventeen hundreds.
Some readers delivered well known poems from the islands that have become established in Lanzarote’s history. Other, newer self-written poems were also offered in what was a tangible mutually supportive and respectful atmosphere.
One gentleman somehow conveyed by his tone of voice in reading that he was addressing a sad theme, and we could have heard a pin drop as he read the final verse with tears in his eyes.
All this quiet camaraderie I am talking about somehow extended beyond the room. As our photographs show the door to the room remained open as we read and shared our work, I guess a sign that this free event was open to everyone. On a couple of occasions people walking along the quite busy walkways and stairwells, stopped to look, attracted I guess, by the big audience and the hushed delivery, and were so seemingly impressed that they came in and found a few spare seats in the audience. Those who simply walked past on their way to the gym or basketball courts did so quietly and politely, as is the way here on Lanzarote.
As I began my own reading I apologised with a lo siento that I cannot speak Spanish, and asked if anyone in the room spoke English. Only a couple of hands were raised, so I told them, in English, that I would try to convey my poem not only vocally, but also visually in a manner that is now called ´performance poetry´ in the UK.
The seating was arranged ´up close and personal´ so I could clearly see the looks of amazement and amusement and bemusement when I told my story of how we enjoy simple pleasures here on Lanzarote. When I spoke of watching a bird on high circling around in a clear blue sky I flapped my arms like wings and spun around slowly as I spoke. When I spoke in the next verse of laying out at night in my own backyard to count the stars I pointed with my finger up to the constellations and when I closed with a final verse about the somehow guilty pleasure of hearing music in my head and dancing alone in an empty room, I waltzed around the floor.
I closed by explaining that once, when I was ´teaching´ poetry in a school in the UK, I wrote the word IMAGINATION on the board and asked a class of eleven year olds where imagination begins. After we had exhausted some twenty or so suggestions, one lad finally shouted out in triumph and pointed at the chalked word.
¨Sir, Imagination begins with I.
Do you mean I, or eye?
Oh, come on sir, —- your messing with my head !
Mercedes has an ambition to create a major festival that would see these Spanish readers working alongside translators and poets from our other national communities. This could see such poetry read in its original language and then in translation. Such a Festival could perhaps include workshops in Spanish poetry, English poetry and German, French, Dutch, and Italian poetry. Mercedes is sure that such an event could lead to collaboration and sharing, two words that exemplify what Lanzarote is all about.
We’ll bring you news of such an event as soon as it becomes finalised for the calendar.
