It's
a great honour that someone would think my poetry worth translating into
another language. This involves a lot of work and needs subtle thought. I read
quite a lot of poetry in translation, and have often thought about the problems
involved.
The
translations are by Fernando Cuevas Ulitzsch, from Colombia, whom I had the
pleasure of meeting in Bogotá, when he gave me these texts. Fernando has been, for more than 20 years, a creator, artist and
professional scholar of the relationships between art, communication and
aesthetics, with emphasis on the possibilities and capabilities of the Image,
drawing and speech, associated with its digital and / or analog nature. I am
deeply grateful to him for this remarkable gift.
The
translations have been revised with the expert help of Jacqueline Buswell and
Penny O'Donnell, working through a series of memorable poetry lunches. My
heartfelt thanks to them for teaching me a great deal about Spanish, and about
poetry.
The
translations are in the "Free Papers" file on this blog, and can also
be accessed directly, under the heading TRADUCCIÓN, here :
https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/0B7PfMzZfEk7vcE9NWU9GTkVEUWc
Here
is the first in the series:
BASURA ORGÁNICA
Un lunes si, un lunes no,
el municipio recoge residuos verdes
de los contenedores en el
callejón.
Raramente recuerdo cual
semana nos toca,
y mi basura es
principalmente cucaracha marrón
o el gris de las ramitas
muertas, así que agrego rápidamente, para alentarlos,
una capa de malas hierbas
suaves, todavía fresca.
Verde, sí, pero
¿desperdicio? ¿Puedo confiar que este municipio de constantes recortes
apunte su camión basurero
a un montón de compost?
Quiero que mis riquezas
alimenten el verde nuevo, y no
el negro derroche de
petróleo, el rojo desperdicio de la guerra.
GREEN WASTE
Each second Monday the council collects Green Waste
from bins in the back lane.
I rarely remember which week is the one,
and my Waste’s mostly cockroach brown
or the grey of dead twigs, so I quickly add – to encourage them –
a layer of soft weeds, still fresh.
Green, yes, but waste? Can I trust this cost-cutting council
to aim its dump truck at a compost heap?
I want my wealth to feed new green, and not
the black waste of oil, the red waste of war.