The Creativity of Loss

Clare Cavanagh’s essay, “The Art of Losing,” establishes a central theme: translation, especially poetry, inherently involves loss but offers potential gains and creative acts of recreation. Cavanagh critiques the expectation of perfect or literal translation, arguing that poetry often transcends literal-mindedness by exploring the forms of meaning and the meaning of forms. She parallels Elizabeth Bishop’s “art of losing” and the translator’s “art of loss,” suggesting a more humane understanding of the process. Cavanagh highlights the work of Stanisław Barańczak, a prolific translator of English poetry into Polish, using his translation of Bishop’s villanelle as a prime example of retaining form while navigating linguistic differences, such as the rhyme limitations in Polish. This act of re-creation can even enrich the target language, as Barańczak’s use of the villanelle form was considered a personal contribution to Polish versification. The essay also delves into the Polish poetic tradition of finding creation in loss, referencing poets who emerged as moral authorities during Poland’s national division and upheaval periods.

Furthermore, Cavanagh introduces the concept of “joyful failure,” particularly evident in the works of Szymborska and Adam Zagajewski, where poets grapple with the overwhelming abundance of the world, finding creative possibility in the inherent limitations of language and form. Piotr Kamiński likens the translation process to “polishing diamonds,” emphasizing the painstaking effort to preserve Szymborska’s deceptively simple style. His description of how the poem seemed to “leak” when translated word-for-word captures the challenge of maintaining the poem’s integrity without succumbing to literalism.

All in all,  translation is an art of navigating loss, but it also offers unexpected gains. To put it another way, it’s the art of finding beauty and insight within limitation and imperfection. 

~Ibrahim