What Sparks Poetry is a serialized feature that explores experiences and ideas that spark the writing of new poems. In our fifth series, What Translation Sparks, a group of poet-translators share a seminal experience in translation. Each Monday's delivery brings you the poem and an excerpt from the essay.
long ago in the Guam Archipelago I met the four-winged Pantarheia with large slanted eyes one on each wing not noted in Linnaeus
today she is flying to me already half way here she hobbles in the airs my three-winged one asymmetrical the Youppi typhoon tore from her the fourth wing
I keep it in this drawer the left hazel one now asleep careful don’t touch because it’s losing sight
and there Youppi junior lurks for one more sidelong glance or maybe even three slant-eyed
and you are flying after your ruin or to your ruin who knows Pantarheia
you are halfway now so many years and years and years only in flight and flight and flight
oh how long it is this halfway
Pantareja na Archipelagu Guam poznałem ongiś Pantareję czteroskrzydłą z wielkimi skośnymi oczyma po jednym na każdym skrzydle nienotowaną w Linneuszu
właśnie dziś leci do mnie jest już w połowie drogi utyka w powietrzach moja trójskrzydła asymetryczna czwarte skrzydło urwał jej tajfun Youppi
mam je w tej szufladzie śpi mu już lewe piwne o strożnie nie dotykać bo traci wzrok
a tam Youppi junior czyha na jeszcze jedno powłóczyste a może i trzy skośnookie
a ty lecisz po swoją zgubę czy na swoją zgubę kto wie Pantarejo
jesteś w połowie drogi tyle już lat i lat i lat i ciągle lot i lot i lot
"What is it we’re actually influenced by when we read or translate from other languages? One answer lies in what the late critic Daniel Albright called panaesthetics, a sort of belief that certain universal principles might unite artists or the process of making, regardless of medium or language. But another answer might be that we go to the work of other languages or other art forms in order to escape an influence or given tendency that our own language and tradition may exert on our making."
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"Always: the poem behind the poem, the stakes in the smallest things. It is overwhelming to contemplate the variety and history contained in this volume. The poems gathered here have the force of event. They were written as acts of public mourning, and as secrets; they are love poems and bitter quarrels. They are prized company."
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