Been trying my hand at poetry translations

[Bouvre]

Here's two whose results I'm particularly pleased with:

 

 

The Beggars, by Ko Un

 

When the food is gone they roam

Okjŏng-gol, Yongdun-ri, Chaetjŏngji,

Chigok-ri, Sŏmun and beyond, as far as

Tanbuk-ri in Oksan.

 

“Got any food to spare?”

 

Their humility rivals the wife

from Sŏnun-ri in Jungttŭm, their words,

“Please, anything,” hardly a murmur.

 

Even the shadows of pots

containing scraps of cold barley rice

dwindled in the spring famine,

so they indulge in the well water

at Soijŏngji.

 

Two beggars, married, share

a drink and return home.

Thick flocks of jackdaws settle

and daylight fades as husband and wife

descend the hill at Okjŏng-gol, where thin wisps

of supper’s fires rise from one less house.

 

 

 

Family Life, by Jacques Prévert

 

The mom knits.

The son goes to war.

Do what you must

she says, echoing

her husband busy

with work the same way

she’s busy knitting

and their son busy, too,

at war. As for the son?

Well, when the war is over,

he’ll go into business

with his old man. War,

knitting, business goes on

until he’s shot. The mom

and dad tend his grave.

What else can they do?

Mend, sell, kill, mend

again. That’s business for you.

[Bouvre]

Here are two poems of Akhmatova's. The first was an assignment for my translation class.

The other was done as an experiment in subtle tone differentiation.

 

 

I don’t need tedious epics,

or Romantic notions of death.

Poetry’s for misfits and punks.

 

If only you knew what junk nurtures

an empty rhyme, invasive

as dandelions shot up along a fence,

or crabgrass patches.

 

An uproar, the stench of fresh tar, 

black mold eating at the wall…

That’s a poem, passionate

and raw like you and me.

 

---

 

He loved three things truly:

white peacocks, evensong,

and faded maps of America.

He couldn’t stand crying kids,

tea with raspberry jam,

or inconsolable women.

And he married me.

 

 

Here's the Russian text for that last one.

 

Он любил три вещи на свете:

За вечерней пенье, белых павлинов

И стертые карты Америки.

Не любил, когда плачут дети,

Не любил чая с малиной

И женской истерики

...А я была его женой.