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What, Why and How I am translating

1
I take a book from a shelf - in the library or in the BN bookstore, sometimes - it is a web-site like Poet's corner. It is a book of English verse. I mean any native English authors, no matter where they were born or living. I never work with translations - no third parties, please.

I open it on a random page and try to catch something outstanding - a word, a line, an image, an idea, a feeling. If yes, I go on.

2
I try to express the element found in my native Russian. I try to make it not less impressive for Russian reader than the original element is impressive for English reader. For now the English reader and the Russian reader are both I. If I am satisfied of this new Russian element I go on.

3
I repeat the "fishing" of step 2 again and again. But it is not only repetition. Now the new born elements must create a new unity of rhythm and style. The unity appears as face from the photo-paper. And when it becomes clear I go on.

4
Now I write the new Russian poem that keeps the unity found and includes the elements created before. Meanwhile I peak into original text. But it is not the original English texts that dictates me what details to include but the new Russian poem selects from the origin the details needed, transforms another details as needed, ignore the rest and invents what is missing. When the Russian poem is written from the first to the last line I go next.

5
Some time I take to polish the new text. I pronounce it aloud and weight up every word. I forget it and remind again. I compare what I remind with what it was there before. For a while the text is changing, twisting to and fro. But the moment comes when the game is over and the text is as hard as basalt. If so I go next.

6
Now I put aside my new Russian poem and read the original English text anew. If I get something important I missed before (and it cannot be added to the Russian poem that is hard as basalt now) I throw my translation out and start again. Now I start from the important element discovered last. If I get nothing new and important my work is done, my translation is final, I publish it now and never change it again.

To minimize the trash-out of the last step I have a middle move. After something is found in the origin but before it is translated yet I copy the origin by hand, word by word, and translate every word with dictionary. Some of the texts copied I never translate. So it may be waste of time. But it is better to waste time at the beginning then to throw out the final product.

Don't tell me that I miss something in the origin. Not miss but omit because consider as not so important.
Don't tell me that I break the spirit of the origin. I keep the part of spirit I agree with, transform or ignore or laugh on part of spirit I disagree with.
Don't tell me that I break the form of origin. I pick up for the spirit and details I selected and transformed the best for I can build inside the rules and tradition of Russian language.

I never translate two or more things in parallel. The results would be too close in this case. But every newborn poem must stand far away from everything known at the moment of its creation.

When I am sad I translate sad verses, when I am happy I translate something funny. Self-expression is the hidden part of the iceberg. The bridge between cultures is its explicit part. My own selecting of what I consider as "real poetry" is the core. So if you ask me "what is the real poetry?" my answer is "what I am translating and how I do it".

Yakov Feldman

© 2001 Elena and Yacov Feldman