Thanks for this, Anand. As we know, the business of translation is equally the business of writing poetry; only, with a guide to keep your standards high.
I also obviously have no access to Punjabi or Urdu so I can't comment beyond a point on the word choice. I'm putting on my fake accent and think I can hear a bit of the original's music, and that is, I would say, what you would have to work on some more in a revision. There is a very particular cadence in the original (rendered in the original by a wind up in the first half of the line and release in the long vowels at the end of each line?) This lyrical cadence is kept strict throughout except in the third and fourth lines, and in a slight variation in the first half of the sixth line. The closest I think you come to it is in the second line: "my town is called loneliness"; though maybe it would come out even clearer if you made it, "the name of my town is loneliness"? For this reason also, I think you were right to get rid of "the lively spectacle of pain", because that's a serious breakdown into prose, but I think "making his pain shine bright" is worse-- it's a bit awkward and disingenuous as a phrase, and the rhythm gets stoppered by those three short, hard syllables at the end. How about just changing the word "spectacle" with something that flows a little more easily, like "festival"?-- perhaps, "a lively festival of pain", or something like "shining festival of pain", if the idea of brightness is in the original? Though there ought to be a better synonym than shining. Lines 5-8 are also prose-ish to different degrees and could be worked on similiarly. An important aspect of the original is the lovely repetition of "ey" at the end of most lines. You need to find some equivalent for this in the English, with a repeating word or sound. How about "ess", since you already have it and it seems to be working? So-- "the post office is Disgracefulness", "a shining festival of painfulness" [is that a word?], "its famous monument is apartness", etc. A good thesaurus always comes in handy when translating. thesaurus.com is pretty good. You can fit in the idea of sitting in the penultimate line, it wouldn't be too much divergence: "you can find Abid sitting there now." A cadenced variation for the 6th line: "to get there you have to get lost in thought" And if the original's sixth line is a double-length line, why did you make it two lines in your translation? I suppose I really need to do some work now, Vivek Anand Vivek Taneja wrote: > Making his pain shine bright. ------------------------ Yahoo! Groups Sponsor --------------------~--> What would our lives be like without music, dance, and theater? Donate or volunteer in the arts today at Network for Good! http://us.click.yahoo.com/pkgkPB/SOnJAA/Zx0JAA/yqIolB/TM --------------------------------------------------------------------~-> Did you get this mail as a forward? Subscribe by sending a blank mail to [EMAIL PROTECTED], OR, if you have a Yahoo! ID, by visiting http://groups.yahoo.com/group/ZESTPoets/join. Members are encouraged to post poetry, their own and others', respond critically to the poems circulated, and participate in discussions. Post via email at [email protected] OR online at http://groups.yahoo.com/group/ZESTPoets/post. ---theZESTcommunity-------------- [1] ZESTCurrent: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/ZESTCurrent/ [2] ZESTEconomics: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/ZESTEconomics/ [3] ZESTGlobal: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/ZESTGlobal/ [4] ZESTMedia: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/ZESTMedia/ [5] ZESTPoets: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/ZESTPoets/ [6] ZESTCaste: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/ZESTCaste/ [7] ZESTAlternative: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/ZESTAlternative/ [8] TalkZEST: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/TalkZEST/ Yahoo! Groups Links <*> To visit your group on the web, go to: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/ZESTPoets/ <*> To unsubscribe from this group, send an email to: [EMAIL PROTECTED] <*> Your use of Yahoo! Groups is subject to: http://docs.yahoo.com/info/terms/
