As I said, I'm not crazy about the poem, but whatever merits it does have - mainly sonic, IMO - fail to come through in the translation. For me this raises the issue, how much can you rely on a translation when you don't know the original? Which of course, is the crux of translation. Because after all, isn't it the translator's responsibility to capture that elusive element – the poetry that, as Robert Frost says "gets lost in translation" – and bring forth the spirit of the original to those who couldn't read it otherwise. I'd be curious what others think, although maybe this is a topic for another thread.
That said, this poem seems to me virtually impossible to translate. I myself wouldn't touch it with a 10 foot fabric softener!
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