Poemes...

A few weeks ago now, I attended a reading of poetry in Sitges in which several friends of mine participated, as part of the launch of the poetry magazine Poetari.  In particular, my friend Pip translated into Catalan and read a poem by a friend of hers, originally written in English.  This inspired me to try my hand at some translation myself and see how some of my favorite poems in English held up in Catalan.  It's difficult!  It is very interesting, though, engaging in the sort of interpretive exercise of translation, trying to preserve double meanings or rhythm found in the original, and balancing that with making use of the sonic qualities of the language of translation.

Here I've posted my translation of Wallace Stevens' "Thirteen Ways of Looking at a Blackbird" (original poem here).  I think the poem lends itself well to translation in its structure, and I'm fairly pleased with the result...