I love Joanna Huss' translations of Zuzanna Ginczanka's poems! Or perhaps it's more fitting to say that I love the poems themselves. The imagery and use of language is exquisite. I wondered about the line "With eyes like safety pins / I safely pinned myself onto the world", because the words in the Polish version don't look similar, like they carry the same wordplay. Of course, I don't speak Polish, so the wordplay might be there and it's just unrecognizable to a foreign eye. The line "amidst matters of overt color and covert, obscure content" made me wonder if "overt" and "covert" are rhyming antonyms in Polish, as well, but it's hard to tell just looking at it. "Niejawnej / niejasnej" could be the original equivalent. Overall, it seems the translation stays true to the punctuation of the original. I would love to hear the Polish read out loud so I could compare the sounds of the translation to it, and see if Huss took the aural quality of her translation into account or tried to be more literal.
After reading the "Competing Poems by Nobelist" piece, I can honestly say that I prefer Joanna Trzeciak Huss' translation to the competition, and not just because she's the one who will be visiting us on Friday haha. "Mr. Baranczak, referring to Ms. Trzeciak, said, ''My translation clings to the uncertainty; she clings to poetry itself.''", but the excerpts just seem antithetical to that statement? Baranczak and Cavanagh's language seems very awkward and doesn't have much flow. It seems like they were the ones clinging to the original poetry, while Huss finessed the language of the translation to sound much more natural.
The first paragraph of the "Something or Other" piece is gold and sums up our class so well. I re-read it ~three times to soak it in. I love, love, love the way Grudzinska-Gross puts it. I love the ten-syllable per line meter that the translation at the end has, but it did make me curious what the other one sounded like, and what perhaps this translation had to sacrifice in order to make the meter work in English.
Okay! After reading the translation in the "An Angel Against Her Will" piece, I'm stumped. I love the meter and rhythm of the former translation, but there are rhymes missing from it that I love in the latter (namely the initial sheets / replete rhyme). I also really love the "May they serve you and yours. For why should it be / Outsiders? Neighbors, you – that’s more than empty name" line that seemed to have been cut from the former. Maybe reading multiple translations and forming some sort of hybrid/best of both worlds version in one's own mind is the way to go? There is certainly a give and take, depending on what the translator values, and I can see pros and cons to both sides.
Overall, Zuzanna Ginczanka sounded like an amazing woman and I cannot wait to talk about her poetry on Friday!
Sarah
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