Translating Poetry

[djordje87]

I have been writing poetry in English and Serbian and translating in both directions. It is tricky to find rhymes and to preserve meaning so i just kept those in my own collection. I am willing to try to translate any poem in any of above mentioned languages. As for advice i think one could use those synonym engines like rhyme zone or similar. It is basic, but you have to start with basic and who knows, as time goes by your skills might evolve in a good direction. I can not promise perfection, far from that, but it is something that i really like and i know i would do my best. Even the literal translation is OK because you give people a taste of what your poetry sounds like and i know that in Serbia we have great poets with some amazing styles and they are not , probably, know to the rest of the world. I, as a great poet lover, would like to learn, hear and translate poems from all languages known. I had a chance to hear some Hungarian stuff and Maltese and i have to say i was moved. We should give it a try.

[pesic87]

I am a writer myself and I know how tough it can be to translate something like poetry from one source language to a target language. I am also a translator, so for me, being a professional is always what i aim at. However, even being a professional does not mean that a poem could be translated into another language without losing its fluency, its charm, and sometimes its meaning. One has to turn to the poet in himself, try to find a lot of different synonyms for some words, know the culture and background of both the source and the target language, the period the poem was written in, etc. It is a very tough job to be done, but not impossible, With a lot of strain and a lot of effort, being clever and very resourceful, a good translator can do miracles.

 

[takibari]

Translating poetry is indeed a challenging task. I don't think I can do it. The best I can do if ever I attempt to translate a poem is to get to the 'meaning' it wish to convey. Not so much the translation word for word. Writing poems is an art form, and for me, you kind of lose the form once you translate it as there will never be perfect correspondence between original and target language.

[hungary93]

I used to do this with song lyrics, trying to get in the rythm and translate the verse so it looks nice in my mother language. I wasn't so good of course, because I was a teenager and now I think that translating poems and lyrics is more like translating the feeling, not just the words.