Spanish to English Translation

• PROJECT: A bilingual anthology of poetry & essays
• DESCRIPTION: I recently completed a Spanish-to-English book project with Gary Glazner, founder of The Alzheimer’s Poetry Project.  Since 2004, Glazner and those he has trained have worked with patients living with Alzheimer’s disease to recall childhood poems and stories.  Glazner’s first anthology for this purpose, Sparking Memories: The Alzheimer’s Poetry Project Anthology (2005), gained national recognition, and he subsequently saw the need for programming in Spanish.  For the Spanish-English anthology, called Nútreme Hoy, No en la Muerte (see photo below), Glazner and I compiled Spanish proverbs and sayings known as dichos, tango lyrics from the early 1900s, other poems, as well as a rhymed, lyric-poem version of “La Llorona,” the traditional Mexican tale of the weeping woman, an excerpt for which is below.  I translated everything in the book, cover to cover; some things from English to Spanish, and others from Spanish to English.  The book came in May, 2010; copies can be bought on the APP website, at conferences, and at readings.

• EXCERPT IN THE ORIGINAL SPANISH of “La Llorona,” by Vicente Riva Palacio (ca. 1898), included in the bilingual anthology, Nútreme Hoy, No en la Muerte:

Blanca como la azucena
Cuyo cáliz de alabastro,
Con oro y púrpura vela
La lumbre del sol de ocaso;
Con ojos negros y ardientes,
Con el cabello rizado,
Que baja en revueltas ondas
Sobre unos hombros de mármol;
Con labios rojos y frescos
Como flores de granado,
Luciendo como diadema,
Sobre todos sus encantos,
El poderoso atractivo
De los juveniles años:
Tal es Luisa, la hechicera,
Que en un rincón apartado
De callejuela sombría,
En pobre y oscuro cuarto,
Vive llena de contento
Y sin temer los engaños
Del mundo que siempre ha sido
Para las hermosas, daño.
La fama de su belleza
Se va veloz dilatando
Desde la clase más pobre
Hasta los próceres altos.
No hay galán que no procure
Ya de frente, ya al soslayo,
Mirar el rostro hechicero
De aquel arcángel humano.
La desierta callejuela,
Que antes infundiera espanto,
Se llena de rondadores
En las noches, y no es raro
Escuchar trovas y endechas
De galán apasionado,
Que siempre acaban con riña
Y cuchilladas y escándalo,
Que sobre las piedras deja
Memoria, en sangrientos rastros.
Pero la puerta de Luisa,
Cual lápida de un osario,
Cerrada siempre aparece;
Ni siquiera rumor vago
Tras ella la gente escucha,
Ni de luz un leve rayo
Denuncia entre las rendijas
Que alguien habita en el cuarto.

• MY ENGLISH TRANSLATION, which retains the same rhyme scheme as the Spanish version (every 2nd and 4th lines rhyme together):

Pale as the calla lily
with throat of alabaster;
with gold and purple candle
and a sunset that lasts for
hours; with dark, ardent eyes
and long, curly hair
that descends in turning waves
to marble shoulders, bare
and white; with fresh red lips
like flowers of a pomegranate,
illuminating like a tiara
with the sparkling enchantment
and the endless desire
of youthful years:
such is Luisa the enchantress,
whose casita appears
on a sad side street of town.
She lives simply, contentedly
in one dark room,
immune to all the trickery
the world gives to women,
which often pain her sisters.
The fame of Luisa’s beauty
spreads quicker and quicker
from the poorest men
to the high noble class.
There’s not a suitor who won’t steal
a forward, back, or sideways glance
of that enchantress’s face,
that human arch-angel.
This lonely side street
so used to sadness and danger
is now filled at night
with hopeful suitors
who all sing ballads about
other impassioned suitors.
These always end badly,
in knives and scandal,
in broken, bloodied faces
from a jealous brawl.
Meanwhile, Luisa’s door,
like an ossuary,
always looks closed.
Her neighbors are wary—
they never hear a thing,
and no faint light
in the cracks announces
someone’s home inside.