[Carl Copeland]

I don’t know how to gauge pyrotechnics, but here are a few comments on the latter two translations (all I have time for at the moment):

L2: M’s verb doesn’t have the harshness of “scrape,” and once he’s chosen that verb, Greene has to add “across a string” to clarify it. Davis’s “rosin,” though less literal, solves those problems and is lovely.

L3: M’s verb means something like “dig into.” (Mayakovsky used it to describe a tick digging into an ear in “Brooklyn Bridge.”) Greene’s “sting” is closer, though it implies the inflicting of pain, while Davis’s “empty myself into” opens up avenues of thought that just aren’t there in the original.

L4: A more literal translation would be “mighty, cunning wasps.” Davis’s “seditious, imperious” is too grand, and Greene’s “energy” isn’t quite right either.

L5: Davis’s “stalling” is a nice word, but “bypassing,” “skirting” or “sidestepping” is M’s meaning.

S2: Greene follows M’s grammar here, while Davis has “reimagined” the stanza, adding “catch” and “chirp” and making the N a potentially active hearer, rather than one forced to hear. (Literally, M says, “If only the goad of air … could force me to hear,” but I like the way Greene has replaced “goad … force” with “sting … goad.”)

L8: The original wording is “earth’s axis, earth’s axis.” There’s no “slipping” or “buzz,” but M is playing on the similarity between os (axis), osa (wasp) and Osya (short for Osip), so some reimagining is justified here.

As a free verse poem in English, I suppose Davis’s is more satisfying. As a translation, I vote for Greene’s. It’s closer to the original sense, and the iambic undertow throughout and hint of rhyme in S2 keep us from completely forgetting M’s form. To be fair, Davis’s more even line lengths also give a hint of formality.