| Volume 6, Number 3, July 2009 |
The Joy of Translating Poetry
by 姚京明 Yao Jingming
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Macao Poetry Today
by Christopher Kelen 客远文 |
FIRST of all, I’d like to thank Macau Ricci Institute for granting me such an opportunity to share with you my translation experience. It has been about 20 years since I first became engaged in translation. During this period, I have translated works of different literary forms, including novels, essays and also general official documents. But it is translation of poetry that has brought me real happiness. Translation of poetry is translation of joy, and translation of your favourite poets is, all the more, of exceeding joy. Translation of works by Eugénio de Andrade, a contemporary Portuguese poet, has indeed brought me such happiness, a happiness that is everlasting and, in my mediocre life, some of his lines often sparkle in front of my very eyes.
Poems by Eugénio de Andrade are a kind of extremely pure lyrics, with Iberian Peninsual characterisitcs: sensible, passionate, limpid, and lucid, fully laden with such words and expressions as ocean, soil, sunshine, rock, wind, bird, trees, lime wall, etc., and at the same time, permeated with Portugese stylish sentimentality. His poem can easily call to mind the Spanish poet Lorca. In fact, Lorca is one of his most...
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THIS paper is about the present state of poetry in Macao. It is also about poetry writing methods and the production of a “poetry of response” in Macao; about translation and movement of poems and poetic ideas across cultures; about communities of poets, about their contribution to society; and about the future of poetry in Macao. This paper also aims—through selective quotation—to allow the new Macao poetry to speak for itself.
Before going further, it will be apt to acknowledge a tension between an observer’s view and a participant’s view of the object under consideration—the object in question being contemporary Macao poetry. The author of this paper feels obliged to acknowledge the several hats he wears as writer and teacher, editor and translator, as publisher and disseminator of Macao poetry. How objective can he be about the subject? That question is well answered with a question. How objective does one need to be—could one be—about poetry, its making, its reading, its dissemination? Poetry is an art and it needs to be produced and discussed according to aesthetic standards—that is, according to standards which apply to...
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| Issue 6.3 |
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Remembering—
A Shared Duty
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