Lost in Translation

Robert Frost is usually credited for the quote that ‘Poetry is what gets lost in translation.’ But however good and whatever is translated in poetry or prose then what is also usually lost is the name of the person who translates the work. Which seems unfair as it is a highly skilled art and profession which I know little about.

All of Georges Simenon's Maigret works have been fully translated into English. Jean Stewart translated them through the 1950s, 1960s, and 1970s. 

In 2013 Penguin translated the full series but included no information whatsoever about the translators, such as Linda Asher, Anthea Bell, or Siân Reynolds. They are credited on the title page, but otherwise completely anonymous.

However, there are two organisations in the UK that do represent the profession.

The Institute of Translation and Interpreting (ITI) is a professional association representing translators, interpreters and language services businesses. ITI is affiliated with the International Federation of Translators (FIT). As the principal professional association of translators and interpreters it has become one of the primary sources of information on translation and interpreting to government, industry, the media and the public.

The Chartered Institute of Linguists (CIOL) is the UK's not-for-profit royal charter body for languages and linguists. They support linguists in their careers and lives. They do have a Diploma in Translation, a Master's-level qualification for work as a translator and a Certificate in Translation a Degree-level qualification for translation.

The International Association of Professional Translators and Interpreters (IAPTI) is an international professional association of translators and interpreters based in Argentina. I mention this as on its website there is an article by Marie Lebert entitled ‘60 translators who changed the world’. Well worth a look.

The Bukhman International Booker Prize, which is awarded annually, celebrates the best works of long-form fiction or collections of short stories translated into English and published in the UK and/or Ireland.  It recognises the vital work of translators, with the £100,000 prize money divided equally between authors and translators. In addition, shortlisted authors and translators each receive £2,500. This year ‘Taiwan Travelogue’ by Yáng Shuāng-zǐ, translated by Lin King, was announced as the winner.

In February of this year The Society of Authors announced the following:

‘Tonight we shine the spotlight on the often “invisible” creativity of translators, at a ceremony announcing the winners of our 2025 Translation Prizes.

Nine literary translators and one editor will be named winners at the event at the British Library, with more than £32,000 in prize money shared among the winners and runners-up. The prizes celebrate outstanding translations of prose, poetry and non-fiction, from languages from around the globe and across a range of genres.’

But I can only judge by how my reading has been affected by a translated book. I have no idea if they follow the original or read as well in English but I have loved them when reading. These are a few of my favourites.

'The Name of the Rose' by Italian author Umberto Eco was translated into English by William Weaver in 1983.

'The Shadow of the Wind' by Carlos Ruiz Zafón was published in 2004 and translated by Lucia Graves.

The Icelandic crime novel 'Jar City' by Arnaldur Indriðason was translated into English by Bernard Scudder.

When I was working at Butlins back in about 1970 the bloke in the next staff chalet said ‘You like reading, don’t you? Try this.’ It was a Penguin Modern European Poets copy of 'Rilke Selected Poems'. 3/6. Translated by J.B. Leishman. 

I was knocked out by it at the time. But I’m mentioning it now to show how there is no one way to translate a piece of work. I’m taking the first verse of Autumn Day from that book translated by J. B. Leishman and showing other translations.

Autumn Day

Lord, it is time. The summer was so great.
Impose upon the sundials now your shadows
and round the meadows let the winds rotate.
                                                  J. B. Leishman

Lord: it is time. The summer was immense.
Lay your shadow on the sundials
and let loose the wind in the fields.
                                                  Galway Kinnell, Hannah Liebmann

Lord: it is time. The huge summer has gone by.
Now overlap the sundials with your shadows,
and on the meadows let the wind go free.
                                                  Stephen Mitchell

Thanks for reading, Terry Q.

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Fruit Tree

Arboriculture, or the cultivation of fruit trees goes back to the Neolithic period and was developed, perhaps, around 6,000 BCE within the Fertile Crescent in Mesopotamia, between the Tigris and the Euphrates, and in Egypt, in the Nile Valley. The first fruit trees to be cultivated were indigenous species.

I was going to go along the historical line and trace what happened over the thousands of years since then but in looking up details I came across this place in Kent and I’d never heard of it before and it sounds wonderful.

Brogdale Farm is near Faversham in Kent. It has the largest collection of temperate fruit in one place in the world. Row upon row of fruit trees and grape vines make up its treasure trove of over 4,000 fruit varieties. It is, in essence, the UK’s largest orchard.

Brogdale Farm

The collection is owned by the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (Defra) and is part of an international programme to protect plant genetic resources for the future. The University of Reading is responsible for the curation and maintenance of the UK’s National Fruit Collection (NFC) in collaboration with the Fruit Advisory Services Team (FAST), who are based at the Farm. Public access is organised by Brogdale Collections, who manage public access and provide guided tours and run various events throughout the year.

They reckon to have near to 3,500 fruit trees and say that with around 2,100 varieties of apple tree, the spring time blossom display is worth a visit alone. But there is so much more to the Nation Fruit Collection. Its mandate is to safeguard the future of each and every one of its trees and vines. The genetic resources housed within the NFC are fundamental to researching how we can adapt fruit crops to our changing environment, or select varieties that will grow well as our seasons and climatic conditions change.

They ask why should you visit Brogdale and the National Fruit Collection? And answer that question thus:
‘As well as being a stunning sight to behold, you can taste many different varieties of fruit and even taste the exceptional apple juice that is produced from the harvest. Visitors can get their unfamiliar fruit varieties identified.

What’s more, you’ll be better acquainted with an establishment that has contributed immensely to the development of global fruit growing knowledge.... Since the NFC was established it has conserved the 4,000 cultivars and distributed them to research organisations all over the world, as well as supporting many local fruit groups and orchards to identify fruit varieties and obtain scions for rare cultivars.

By visiting, you’ll also be supporting the Brogdale Collections, which relies on visitors to the NFC and the festivals and events and on charitable funding. The best time to visit Brogdale Collections is during one of its events such as the Apple, Cider or Cherry Festivals, where you can taste and buy hundreds of varieties and tour the NFC, or Hanami Festival for spring blossom. But whenever you go, be sure to join the daily guided tour of the extensive orchards. See the website for more information.’

Here is an example of one of the Tours on offer:
Blossom Tours
Dates: 28, 29 March, 18, 19, 25, 26 April
Times: 11.30pm and 2pm

Brogdale blossom time

"The blossom tours will take you on a journey around the collections, discovering the seasonal highlights and peak blossom areas of the orchards. Ideal for the curious to learn about the National Fruit Collection or for aspiring photographers to grab those perfect shots of the blossom."

Thanks to Julie in Australia for suggesting the following poem.

After Apple-Picking

My long two-pointed ladder's sticking through a tree
Toward heaven still,
And there's a barrel that I didn't fill
Beside it, and there may be two or three
Apples I didn't pick upon some bough.
But I am done with apple-picking now.
Essence of winter sleep is on the night,
The scent of apples: I am drowsing off.
I cannot rub the strangeness from my sight
I got from looking through a pane of glass
I skimmed this morning from the drinking trough
And held against the world of hoary grass.
It melted, and I let it fall and break.
But I was well
Upon my way to sleep before it fell,
And I could tell
What form my dreaming was about to take.
Magnified apples appear and disappear,
Stem end and blossom end,
And every fleck of russet showing clear.
My instep arch not only keeps the ache,
It keeps the pressure of a ladder-round.
I feel the ladder sway as the boughs bend.
And I keep hearing from the cellar bin
The rumbling sound
Of load on load of apples coming in.
For I have had too much
Of apple-picking: I am overtired
Of the great harvest I myself desired.
There were ten thousand thousand fruit to touch,
Cherish in hand, lift down, and not let fall.
For all
That struck the earth,
No matter if not bruised or spiked with stubble,
Went surely to the cider-apple heap
As of no worth.
One can see what will trouble
This sleep of mine, whatever sleep it is.
Were he not gone,
The woodchuck could say whether it's like his
Long sleep, as I describe its coming on,
Or just some human sleep.

                                                   Robert Frost

               

Thanks for reading, Terry Q.

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Terza Rima - Don't Panic!

Terza rima is a rhyming verse form, in which the poem, or each poem-section, consists of tercets (three line stanzas) with an interlocking three-line rhyme scheme: The last word of the second line in one tercet provides the rhyme for the first and third lines in the tercet that follows (aba bcb cdc ). The poem or poem-section may have any number of lines, but it ends with either a single line or a couplet, which repeats the rhyme of the middle line of the previous tercet (yzy z or yzy zz ).

I don’t know about you but my eyes glazed over half way through that paragraph. It makes sense with an example such as Robert Frost’s:

Acquainted with the Night

I have been one acquainted with the night.                    a
I have walked out in rain—and back in rain.                    b
I have outwalked the furthest city light.                            a

I have looked down the saddest city lane.                       b
I have passed by the watchman on his beat                    c
And dropped my eyes, unwilling to explain.                   b

(etc)             

Proclaimed the time was neither wrong nor right         e
I have been one acquainted with the night.                     e

The first use of terza rima is in Dante's "The Divine Comedy ", completed in 1320. In creating the form, Dante may have been influenced by the sirventes, a lyric poetry form used by the Provençal troubadours. He set his poem using hendecasyllabic (so well known that I’ll not bother explaining) lines which are suitable for the Italian language. Whereas in English, poets tend to use iambic pentameter which is a line of writing that consists of ten syllables in a specific pattern of an unstressed syllable followed by a stressed syllable.

Now I knew what to look for here’s an example from "The Divine Comedy ":

Tant’ è amara che poco è più morte;
ma per trattar del ben ch’i’ vi trovai,
dirò de l’altre cose ch’i’ v’ho scorte.

Io non so ben ridir com’ i’ v’intrai,
tant’ era pien di sonno a quel punto
che la verace via abbandonai.

Ma poi ch’i’ fui al piè d’un colle giunto,
là dove terminava quella valle
che m’avea di paura il cor compunto...

It doesn’t matter what it means and anyway a friend tells me that English translations don’t do the words justice.

The first occurrence of Dante’s terza rima rhyme scheme in English is found in parts II and III of Geoffrey Chaucer's poem "Complaint to His Lady ". Here’s a few lines:

Hir name is Bountee, set in womanhede,
Sadnesse in youthe, and Beautee prydelees
And Plesaunce, under governaunce and drede;

Hir surname is eek Faire Rewthelees,
The Wyse, yknit unto Good Aventure,
That, for I love hir, she sleeth me giltelees.

I just about get the gist of that and the form gained popularity as it also allowed poets to connect stanzas to one another, creating a smooth transition from topic to topic or from image to image.

As ever with forms that are transposed from one language to another e.g. haiku, they can be modified. Frost’s poem keeps to the rules but then Derek Walcott in his book length poem entitled "Omerus " (which is brilliant) takes more than a few liberties with the Terza Rima form.

All the above begs the question of whether you view rhyming verse of any sort as a help or a straightjacket.

To be fair to Robert Frost, here is the complete poem:

Acquainted with the Night

I have been one acquainted with the night.
I have walked out in rain—and back in rain.
I have outwalked the furthest city light.

I have looked down the saddest city lane.
I have passed by the watchman on his beat
And dropped my eyes, unwilling to explain.

I have stood still and stopped the sound of feet
When far away an interrupted cry
Came over houses from another street,

But not to call me back or say good-bye;
And further still at an unearthly height,
One luminary clock against the sky

Proclaimed the time was neither wrong nor right
I have been one acquainted with the night.

Thanks for reading, Terry Q.

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Impulse - spontaneous acts of generosity

From a very young age it was obvious that I was a fairly impulsive person. I often found myself stuck up on the roof or chimney stack having followed my brother on the climb only to be left stranded when he descended.

When I was around seven, my mother came home in floods of tears. It evolved that she had lost her purse on a trip to the local shops. Apparently I ran to my bedroom and brought a ten shilling note to Mum, bringing a smile to her face and making my dad very proud.

This was the first of many spontaneous acts of generosity that have become a fundamental feature of my life. Of course it takes faith in human nature to act on impulse: It is easy to give help to others but there can be a cost if that generosity is not reciprocated. I have lent quite large sums of money to people who desperately needed help. Of course it is easy to be benevolent when you have a healthy bank balance but on occasion spontaneity involves a more physical approach.

I am sometimes reckless when it comes to members of the public in distress. I once heard a young man verbally abusing a girl who was with him in the corner bakery. I couldn't help myself and followed the pair down the street, speaking to her, reassuring her that she could come to my home if she was afraid. As I walked and the young man continued to shout at her, other people joined in and eventually the girl left the man and  decided to go to her mother's home. It was a seminal moment for me and cemented my commitment to intervene whenever the need arose.

I never drive past a woman or elderly person in a broken down vehicle. I have been in that situation myself and in the days before I was able to afford breakdown cover have felt isolated and sometimes afraid. One morning I was driving from my home to a local supermarket when I was slowed by a stream of traffic. It was cold and snowing. An older lady had broken down and she had been en route to her disabled child's school. I had a blanket in my boot and once I had made sure that the child was warm enough, I helped the woman to push her car to the side of the road. The woman put her trust in me: she allowed me to take the little girl to school. She asked me if  I was a Christian. Well yes I am and perhaps the parable of The Good Samaritan plays into my actions.

During my years of bringing up teenagers singlehandedly,  my home has often been safe-haven for friends of my kids who have been thrown out of their parental homes. I have rules. I provided a clean bed, good food and a listening ear but in return they had to keep sensible hours, attend school and be respectful. Often the youngster would remain for weeks and I hope that my intervention helped them to overcome difficulties.

Spontaneous acts of generosity can be far more simple. In cold weather, I buy a coffee and sandwich for a homeless person  rather than give them money that could be spent on booze or drugs.  I never walk past litter on the street: I pick it up and put it in the bin. This has its rewards. A few weeks ago, I  picked up what I thought was a discarded lottery scratch card. It was actually a folded ten pound note. I was out with my daughter and granddaughter earlier this week. We went for an ice cream at Notariani's. There was a discarded tin can on the pavement. I duly picked it up and deposited it in the nearest bin. I was delighted to see Riley, who is only three, pick up several pieces of paper and follow my lead.

I have acted on impulse on many more occasions and I truly hope that some of my readers will take this to heart and embark on their own spontaneous acts of generosity. The rewards may not be instantaneous but like dad always told me, "What goes around comes around and a good deed is returned ten fold."

The Impulse

It was too lonely for her there,
           And too wild,
           And since there were but two of them,
           And no child,
           
           And work was little in the house,
           She was free,
           And followed where he furrowed field,
           Or felled tree.
           
           She rested on a log and tossed
           The fresh chips,
           With a song only to herself
           On her lips.
           
           And once she went to break a bough
           Of black alder.
           She strayed so far she scarcely heard
           When he called her—
           
           And didn't answer—didn't speak—
           Or return.
           She stood, and then she ran and hid
           In the fern.
           
           He never found her, though he looked
           Everywhere,
           And he asked at her mother's house
           Was she there.
           
           Sudden and swift and light as that
           The ties gave,
           And he learned of finalities
           Besides the grave.

Robert Frost

Thank you for reading. Adele

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Chance Lead Me

I’m going cycling tonight. I don’t know where but I rarely do. Fellow cyclists, planning their routes in exhaustive detail, regard this behaviour as morally suspect but it’s my normality. I’ll set off around five from Broughton Interchange and, depending which slip-lane is running freer, head north or south on the motorway. After that, it’s down to the way the light plays on the hills – if Pendle catches my eye, I’ll swerve off at the Tickled Trout. On the northbound option, the Kentmere fells might make a pleasing grouping and it’s off at the Kendal turn for a wrestle with the stony Lakeland passes of Garburn and Gatesgarth.

 

That makes logical sense when you’re dodging the capricious weather of Northern England. It would, after all, be foolishly intransigent to head up the rain-sodden and cloud-capped Howgills with some specious allegiance to Plan while the neighbouring Longsleddale Fells bask in sun. But it’s more than practicality – the experiences taste the sweeter for the wrappers being removed with eyes closed. So tonight I might encounter a fox slinking into the bracken, a deer browsing the edges of a cool wood, or a dazzling swathe of red campion. Whatever it is, it will be better, looser, lighter without the dread burden of Expectation.

You’re a grown-up, so you know how these things work: everything’s a metaphor for writing, yes? I’m inordinately fond of Robert Frost’s aphorism, “No surprise for the writer, no surprise for the reader” and we’ve all encountered over-plotted novels or poems so corseted by form they make you long to scratch in sympathy. So dive in to your poem, take a turn that surprises you, shift register when your reader has just got comfortable and remember that everything is the fleeting, chance result of a trillion caprices. That Dylan fella put it well: "I accept chaos, I'm not sure whether it accepts me."

 

Here’s a poem from way back, reflecting on a rock-climbing experience and trying to make peace with disorder. The triumph/disaster line is swiped from Kipling, of course. These days, you can’t be too careful with citing sources. 

Pebble

Fingers scrabble upward, Brailing for texture.

On the blank slate: no hyphen of a welcome ledge,

just this full-stop pebble - hard, conclusive,

a goitred eyeball staring, Odin-wise. 

Now I see where necessity leads me:

to tug the world down like a Roman blind,

commit all that I am to this obstinate fragment,

stretch, trembling, into a hopeful sky. 

I ponder how securely this nugget is bonded.

Two futures open: triumph, disaster

(neither impostors, the distinction concrete).

 

To…

 

pluck the jewel between surprised fingers,

catch the critical eye of cartoon gravity

and scatter my flesh among distant boulders

 

or…

 

find it firmly-founded; reach and seize the windswept rim.

 

But spin the clock the other way, watch the birches recede,

see ice sheets pulsate across the land,

oceans spill over and continents cleave

to find this land, Sahara-scorched, Pangaean.

 

A storm-tossed pebble lies loose on a beach.

Emergent from the shimmer: three-horned beasts.

Will they swagger past, snorting stale breath on primitive bromeliads?

Or will one lumber near, impose its thunderous mass,

tamp the pebble down, cemented for a billion frosts?

 

Two pasts converge where two futures part

and here am I,

nailed to the crosshair of decision,

then, now and always.

 

 

In a postscript, chance led me to Troutbeck and Ambleside last night. There was a deer – a young roe fawn curled up in the grass. Also a close encounter with a heron and a cackling yaffing-gale. A pretty good haul on the wildlife front but topped by a human encounter: a last-minute decision to turn down a lane caused me to bump into a Garstang friend (he lives just down my street, in fact).

Norman Hadley

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ConFORM

Sonnet, Haiku, Senryu, Epic, Epistolary, Blank, Villanelle, Paradelle, Elegy.  Someone called Gary has counted 55 types of poetic form which makes me think that there the true number is closer to 555.  Some of these forms are rigid in their requirements of rhyme and metre.  Others encourage rebellion, such as Blank Verse, which requires only metre, or Free Verse which tends to follow no rules and Robert Frost described as "like playing tennis without a net".

As the quote above indicates, playing with form is a sort of game - an exercise.  It's one which is used in schools to familiarise students with form while allowing them to express themselves.  Below is an example of a sonnet written by Millie Shepherd, a high school student from Over Wyre. 

Shall I compare your love to refined art?

Not rendered by hue nor pigment but sublime.

Your composition plays a unique part,

In the remarkable mountains you climb.

You can't be broken by fragility,

Or overcome by the childlike spectrum.

Nothing you create hinders ability,

Instead it thaws with natural rhythm.

Your gentle golden brush of affection,

Hath expressed such bewitching imagery,

If such love would ever hint at rejection,

My entire existence would be a query.

If you only ever drew a rainbow,

It could never detract from your halo.

What Millie's poem reveals to me is the power of such an exercise on the direction of a poem.  I think you can see where the structure has guided the language.  This is no bad thing.  How many times have we started to write a poem only to find that the landscape, or chosen form, has redirected our initial efforts so that our final piece is removed from that first idea, sometimes radically so?  I think that structured exercises, and I cound adherence to form as such, is a time-honoured method of challenging those initial thoughts, of pushing ourselves that little bit further.  It's as if the paper is saying to us, 'Yes, that's an intriguing line of thread but let's see what happens to it when you wrap it about a new frame.' 

Of course, sometimes we don't want to be distracted by the frame - we want to communicate our idea in its first shape, without the twist of form.  But when you love to play with words (and we do love to play with words don't we?) there is a real joy in rising to the challenge of a complex structure, of hanging our ideas about a twisted frame. 

OK, it wouldn't be an exercise week without a challenge or two so here's a frame for you to try on... It's the Monostich form, which means a poem that consists of a single line.  Here's an example stolen from the interweb:

COWARD

Bravery runs in my family.

A. R. Ammons

And here is my attempt:

SWEET-EYE

Your licorice laces are untied.

Right.  Off you go...

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