Poetry Translation
Translating others’ poetry from Spanish to English is part of my daily work. Below are two examples of poems I have translated from Spanish to English; these projects were not done for a client, but as an exercise for myself (a labor of love, if you will). Please click on the author’s name to see the poem in its original Spanish. In addition, I also write my own original bilingual poetry. Visit this page to read some excerpts of my work.
- My translation of Pablo Neruda‘s “Poema 20,” from Veinte poemas de amor y una canción desesperada.
Poema 20
I could write the saddest lines tonight.
Write, for example, “the night abounds with stars,
their bodies tremble, blue, from far away.”
The night wind circles the sky and sings.
I could write the saddest lines tonight.
I loved her, and at times she loved me, too.
On nights like this I had her in my arms.
I kissed her again and again beneath a countless sky.
She loved me, and sometimes I’d love her.
No way not to love her large, steady eyes.
I could write the saddest lines tonight,
think I don’t have her, feel that I’ve lost her––
hear the great night, greater now without her.
And lines fall to my soul like light rain on a field.
What does it matter that my love couldn’t keep her?
The night is star-filled and she is not with me.
That’s all. Far away, someone sings. Far away.
My soul is not content with having lost her.
My gaze looks for her, as though it could bring her closer.
My heart looks for her, and she is not with me.
The same night that whitens the same trees.
We, the we from that time, are no longer the same.
True, I don’t love her anymore, but oh, how I loved her.
My voice would find the wind to touch her ear.
Another’s. She’ll be another’s. Like she was before my kisses.
Her voice, her bright body. Her endless eyes.
True, I don’t love her anymore, but maybe I do.
Love is so short, the forgetting so long.
Because on nights like this I had her in my arms,
my soul is not content with having lost her.
Though this may be the last pain she causes me,
and these may be the last lines I write for her.
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- My translation of José Martí‘s “Si ves un monte de espumas,” from his collection, Versos sencillos.
If You See a Mountain of Mist
If you see a mountain of mist,
what you’re seeing is my verse:
my poem is a mountain first,
a fan of feathers next.
My verse is like dagger
from whose hilt a flower springs out:
my poem is a fountain’s spout
that gives us coral water.
My poem is a cooling green,
a carmine lit on fire:
my poem is an injured deer
found on the sheltered mountain.
The brave will read my poem, pleased:
my verse, brief and genteel,
is strong, vigorous as the steel
with which a sword is fused.
(Translations by Anacelie Verde-Claro. Copyright 2009. All rights reserved.)
