[Brian Watson]

Thank you Janice. I had wondered if it had something to do with how the Swedish for thing operates in Swedish.

I love Tranströmer. I have The Great Enigma, The Half-Finished Heaven (Bly's selection and translation), Charter's translation of the long poem Baltics, and The Deleted World (15 "versions" by Robin Robertson).

There's something flaccid and wordy about many of Fulton's translations, though in places his quieter more writerly style is superior to Bly.

Bly is colloquial, and favours independent clauses and the active voice. I prefer his more energetic translations, although the link you gave shows a good example of how silly he can be "The night heaven gave off moos". That just sounds idiotic to me. Fulton: "The night sky bellowed"; Robertson: "The night sky was lowing". (Original: Natthimlen råmade).

I like Robertson the best. Unfourtunately he only tranlsates 15 poems, but the Swedish original is supplied, which I like though I speak not a word. He calls his translations "versions", but I think there are only a couple places where he's decided to take large liberties.

An I love Baltics, for which the Charters' tranlation is subtly superior to the Fulton.

[Robert J. Clawson]

What Juster said.

[Janice D. Soderling]

Brian, it might interest you to know that Modern Poetry in Translation (third series, number seven) "Love and War" has a review by Robin Fulton on Robertson where he lambasts Robertson rather strongly for various reasons. Among them; Before their publication as a small book, Robertson's versions appeared in various magazines, presented as if they were his own original poems. (...) On p. 25 we find "after Tranströmer" in small print beneath the title: what we then read is not a "version" or adaptation but a straight-forward line by line translation. Obviously, the poem should have been credited to its real author. (About a third of the text is identical to my translation, and there are several phrases identical to Bly's.)

[This is followed by a lengthy reference to correspondence in Poetry about including a reply from Robertson--I'm still quoting Fulton's review), thus:]

Robertson tells Shipley that she "has not grasped the difference between a translation and a version", and claims that his version "takes a number of liberties with the oriignal but is, he hopes, "an independent poem that is true to the tone of the Swedish". Considering how arbitrary the few liberties are, and how the "tone" is scarely to be distinguished from that of many other translators of Tranströmer, it is hard to see how this particular translation, or any other of the same kind, can be regarded as an "original poem".

For the entire (lengthy) review, refer to MPT (series 3, Number 7) might be available at your public library. (It is of course available from the publisher at http://www.mptmagazine.com/

Additionally Fulton does say this:

I suppose that, in terms of quantity, Robert Bly and myself have been most industrious [in translating Tranströmer]: I like to think that Bly's American-English versions and my British-English versions complement each other nicely. Good-sized selections of his work have been published by, among others, Samuel Charters, Don Coles, John F Deane, Eric Sellin, and May Swenson (with Leif Sjöberg). At least half a dozen others have given us smaller selections.

I mention this as you might want to keep an eye out for these names since you, like myself, are an admirer of Tranströmer.

[Janice D. Soderling]

An aside: Bly has translations of Olov H. Hauge in the "translations" volume of Poetry April 2008. He is a Norwegian poet whom I greatly admire. I have his work in Norwegian only. Both Fulton and Bly (and others) have translated him.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Olav_H._Hauge

It makes me so happy to know that our Scandinavian poets are read and admired outside our lingual and geographic confines.

Janice

[Michael Juster]

A Powow River poet, Bill Coyle, is probably the best of the lot. He's starting to look for a publisher for his translations of Hakan Sandell.

[Janice D. Soderling]

I recently read an article by Bill Coyle in Swedish. It was Maryann who drew my attention to him then his name started popping up at regular intervals. He had a Sandell translation in the most recent translation issue of Poetry. I wish him the best of luck with finding a publisher. I don't doubt but that he will succeed.

It was cool to learn that he was a powwow poet. Lucky all of you to have such a fine base.

[Katy Evans-Bush]

Re the Robertson: I distrust "versions" for this very reason. Several UK prominent poets have published versions of other poets int he same way, and unless you have the original, or a literal prose translation, beside you, it's impossible to tell what you're reading. I know of at least one case where the original poet had collaborated, thought he was being translated, and was then horrified to find that the by-line had gone to the "translating" poet, and that he had no copyright over it! (Last I heard there were lawyers on the case.)

And as a reader, you have no way of knowing where what you're reading originated, with which poet. Any serious reader, seeking to engage with a writer, would, I imagine, be hampered by this.

[Brian Watson]

Robertson's The Deleted World is presented honestly: Tranströmer's name is the more prominent on the cover, the original Swedish is supplied side-by-side, and "versions by" is necessary because of one or two large liberties.

However, I can tell from comparison to the original and to other translations that Robertson's "versions" are for the most part straight translations. Thus Fulton's charge, that prior to being collected in The Deleted World these "versions" were not poperly credited to Tranströmer, is a serious one.

Anyway, thanks Janice for listing some additional translators. I'd be particularly interested in looking at what May Swenson does with him, and whether Charters translated anything in addition to Baltics.

[Janice D. Soderling]

Katy, yes, I have had that experience at different times, when two translations differ so much that you are not sure which one best echoes the poet's intentions.

Brian, I am going to put up a reference to this thread at Translations. Thanks for starting it.

[Seree Zohar]

Katy -
I agree absolutely. I cant abide the idea that I've been deluded into relating to a poem one way, then discovering that some entirely other wording could have possibly been used far more eloquently, correctly, appropriately. I've been battling with publishers for ages to please, put translated work into side-by-side page formats, or provide an additional accompanying booklet with the original works, even in eensy print to reduce bulkiness, costs, whatever. Nada and zilch so far. I also read a translation of a fairly recent Israeli poet (operative years 1920-1970), translated by someone with no religious background, who completely let slip by the multitude of liturgical references that the poet, an ultra-orthodox woman, used; but the work is done, & the copyrights copyrighted. The more frequently this kind of situation becomes apparent, the more wary I become of anything at all that's translated.