Poetry as Translation: Translation as Poetry

 While I am not a poet myself, the closing paragraph of Cavanagh's article touched on one aspect of translation in relation to creative writing that I have previously struggled to articulate. She mentions "the impulse that drives one to try" after "you see a wonderful thing in front of you and you want it". While Cavanagh uses these ideas to connect the motivations for translating poetry to those for writing poetry, this comparison also resonated with my experiences writing vs. translating fiction. The writer is grasping at something, at their inspiration; for the translator that inspiration is the source text, while for the author that may be less definable. But in both circumstances one approaches the empty document with the same will, the same "impulse that drives one to try" to translate that sense, that mental image of the work they are trying to create. Essentially, as Cavanagh says, translation is just as impossible as any other creative act.

The article about the French translations of Szymborska's poetry confronted me with my own lingering prejudices towards translated poetry. Despite everything I have learned, I avert my eyes from the world literature section at the bookstore like an ex at a party. How do you change someone's mind about translated poetry? How do you change a country's mind about translated poetry? I think the exception to this case would be cultures where poetry is already inherently avant-garde and inaccessible such that translated poetry would simply extend this trend.

Grace Ashton