[Janice D. Soderling]

So then I started checking out who this CW person was and discovered that he was a student at a London college, seemingly talented and with lots of creds. I discovered that he had published under his own name translations from several languages.

But wait, he's 27 and he knows a handful of unrelated languages (Swedish, Croatian, French, German, Spanish) well enough to translate poetry?

Some Googling soon uncovered that the basics of his "translations" were easily found at a variety of blogs of the kind where the blogger was translating from his/her own language into English. The results weren't always good English or good poetry and the translations in the Scandinavian languages, at least, were not always accurate.

In some cases, I couldn't find the source, but I hit on the idea of finding the original poem (in French, German, Croatian, you name it) and doing a google translation and this fixing it up so it made sense. Hey, presto, CW is a genius translator.

His German translations that I traced are no longer online. They were removed by the editors of the zines where they appeared.

In one issue of Gloom Cupboard http://gloomcupboard.com/2009/03/01/82/ translations from Croatian, Swedish, and French—three totally unrelated languages appear under his name (Antun Branko Simic, Edith Södergran, Charles Baudelaire).

It transpired that CW had published "his translations" at Frostwriting as well (now removed). This was one of the instances of fixing up a google translation, easy to reconstruct how he went about it. Find the original poem, google-translate and fix up the English.

But there was a flaw in the master plan. If someone (CW) is not familiar with the language, he would not know that Google had chosen the wrong word from possible homonyms (such as fira which means both celebrate (the more commonly used word) and draw up [water from a well] (the correct translation).

Thus, in a Södergran translation:

fira vi upp vatten we celebrate the water
ur vår brunn för dig. from our well for you.

CW "celebrates" water that rightfully should have been "drawn up". Anyone familiar with the language would not make that mistake. But CW doesn't know when it makes sense and when it doesn't. A "Tonto-speak translation" (see below) from the Spanish of Amado Nervo also at Gloom Cupboard.

Original Spanish

Alba en sonrojos
tu faz parece:
¡no abras los ojos,
porque anochece!
Cierra -si enojos
la luz te ofrece-
los labios rojos,
¡porque amanece!
Sombra en derroches,
luz: ¡sois bien mías!
Ojos oscuros:
¡muy buenas noches!
Labios maduros:
¡muy buenos días

Google trans.

Alba in charming
your face looks like:
do not open your eyes,
because it gets dark!

Close - if anger
the light gives you-
red lips,
because the sun rises!

Shadow in wastage,
light: you are well mine!

Dark eyes:
very good night!
Mature lips:
very good morning

Ward translation
Sonnet
by Amado Nervo
Your face seems
to blush at dawn:
Do not open your eyes,
because it is dark!
Close – if the light
offends you-
red lips,
because it is sunrise!
Waste in shadow,
light: you are still mine!
Dark Eyes:
very good night!
Mature lips:
very good morning!

Pls note that I am not dissing Gloom Cupboard or any other editor who has been fooled. I have been published by several of the journals and zines myself and regard all the editors as thoroughly reputable. But while print magazines continue to be difficult to cover, any online publication is easy to double-check. The very least an editor should do is to ask for credentials.

Here is another example of a Södergran poem CW claims to have translated:
http://www.typomag.com/issue07/sodergran.html

MY ARTIFICIAL FLOWERS (Johannes Göransson)
My artificial flowers
I send them to you.
My small bronze lions
I set up at your door.
I myself sit down on the steps --
a lost oriental pearl
in the big city’s noisy sea.

My Artificial Flowers (Ward)
I sent my artificial
flowers to you.
I set my small bronze
lion up on your door.
I sat myself down on the steps –
an oriental pearl lost
in the big city’s noisy sea.

The glance at the Swedish original below indicates that Johannes Göransson understands Swedish, but Ward does not.

[sander jag = I send ] (JG I send) / (CW I sent)

[mina små bronslejon = my small bronze lions (plural)] (JG my small bronze lions) / (CW my small bronze lion) Note that "lejon" is both singular and plural in Swedish but "mina" indicates that the plural is intended.

This is a reference to the custom of having a pair of cast bronze lions set up outside the entrance of a mansion. JG has understood this and used "at". CW has not, he seems to think the reference is to a brass knocker formed like a lion head so he adjusted the language to fit what he thinks sounds better "singular lion" + "on your door". It makes sense if you can't understand the Swedish

Also though JGs English is shaky, he has correctly understood "Själv sitter jag nere" while CW has not. I'm guessing that JGs native language is not Swedish, not English.


Here is the Swedish original.


Mina Konstgjorda Blommor
Mina konstgjorda blommor
sänder jag hem till dig.
Mina små bronslejon
ställer jag upp vid din dörr
Själv sitter jag nere på trappan--
en borttappad österländs pärla
i storstadens brusande hav.


It would seem that if an editor doesn't know the language and doesn't have resources to double check the quality, it has sufficed to see that other magazines have published CWs work. Once he tucked a few creds under his belt, it's been all downhill for him. IMO, editors should not print translations unless they have proof that the translator is familiar with the language and has some kind of verifiable poetry creds or formal education.

(more to come)