Hi everyone! My writers name is “Ongehoorde”, which basically means “unheard”. I am a South African poet and artist. I heard of Hive from friends and decided it would be interesting to share my Afrikaans (home language) poetry here as translations! I am inspired by Umberto Eco and his view on linguistics, which I read as stating that the translation of especially poetry itself becomes poetry. Hence, my slogan or banner photo: translation as poetry.
Through this, I hope to inspire an interest in South African poetry and to improve my own translation skills. There are about 6 million speakers of Afrikaans, and not everyone is interested in poetry. The scope of potential readers is thus very small. I would like to see if my translated poetry might find some new readers, especially here on Hive!
For this introduction post, I will translate one of my published poems! I am so lucky to have had some of my poems published and I hope for more publications.
I will go through some of my reasoning why and how I translate certain things, which then leads to the English translation to be a new poem. I think poetry is one of the few translations where you cannot really “say” what the poet in the original language wanted to say without losing some or most of the meaning. But again, this is not a bad thing. If the translation is good enough, the English poem will become a new poem! Without further ado, here is the published poem.
[photographs: the book my poem was published in]
Tussen die Here en die Hel
in ʼn graf
(ses voet onder die grond)
begrawe lê my ontbindende liggaam
verrot vol maaiers
en langs my lê die Here
en onder my lê die hel
kriewelende bewegings
ontsnap ek met siel deur die fyn krake van my kis
saam met die Here
en ons dans om my graf
terwyl die hel onder my brand
en die duiwel vir my siel veg
gaan ek ooit tot rus kom liewe Here
vra ek terwyl ons om my graf dans
en dans en dans op die maat van stilte
ons vergeet van tyd
en ek vra die Here om van my te vergeet
Now the English version.
Between the Lord and Hell
in a grave
(six feet beneath the ground)
buried lies my decaying body
rotten busting with maggots
and next to me lies the Lord
and underneath me lies the hell
squirming movements
I escape with my soul through the cracks of the coffin
with the Lord
and we dance on my grave
while the hell burns underneath me
and the devil fights for my soul
will I ever find peace Lord
I ask while we dance on my grave
and we dance and we dance on the tempo of silence
we forget about time
and I ask the Lord to forget about me
I will now briefly list some of the things that got lost in the translation.
The title and in the poem in the original language has different alliterations which cannot be translated.
The word “kriewelend” says in such a manner that the squirming movements are visualized in the sound, which is not necessarily the case with squirming.
In Afrikaans you can place the subject of the sentence in various places, while still holding the same meaning and being grammatically correct. (For example, the poem reads: “ontsnap ek”, but it could also have read “ek ontsnap”, while in English I escape makes sense but when you say, “escape I” it just sounds strange.
Some of these may be due to my own lack or inexperience in English, but it may also be that as I am trying to show that the translation is a new poem and cannot hold on to the original one.
I hope that this is at least somewhat interesting. I hope to write some more of this linguistic type posts, but I would like to use Hive as a platform where I can pin down ideas. I hope you will take this journey through translation with me!
Welcome ongehoorde!
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Translation is intriguing. I wonder if, on different days and under different moods, if a translation might be affected (either slightly or radically.) As you well know, poetry is a game of sound, meaning(s), rhythm, context, and EMOTION.
Do you think a happier day creates a happier translation? Is it a different mental process than composing the original poem?
Jorge Borges, who wrote in Spanish, was also fluent in English (he was born in Argentina, but his grandmother was British), but he always chose to have someone ELSE translate his work from Spanish to English. Does this make sense to you? He claimed that he was comfortable speaking English but not confident enough to WRITE it.
Fascinating. I find translation in general to be interesting, but POETRY! That's an even trickier task!
(Welcome to HIVE! Not everyone here blathers as much as I do. Sorry!)
Hi, sorry for only responding now! That is something I have never thought of (difference in translations on different days). I think it will definitely change depending on days. I think if a poem is happy and you try to translate it on a sad say, there might be a big difference when done the other way round.
That is very interesting (the Author who did not translate his own work). I know there is a South African author (Andre P. Brink) who wrote in Afrikaans, but while writing in Afrikaans, he wrote the English version of the book. So, I think it is up to the author?
I appreciate your blathering! Thanks so much. I hope to produce some interesting work here via translating my poetry and essays! Hope to hear from you.
Welcome to the Hive community @ongehoorde!
We sincerely hope you find everything you are looking for and have found a new home here.
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be sure to source all of your work, even if it is your own.
I found you because @brittandjosie and @jamerussell from @heyhaveyamet presented and promoted your publication to get more exposure and help you grow faster.
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Have fun and happy Hiving!
Thank you so much for this! I will do this.
Welcome to HIVE< always great to see more South African's joining the platform, I think you should check out the creative coin crowd I am sure they would enjoy your content. Theres plenty to see and do here, but man is it a rabbit hole, so its up to you on how deep you go
Wishing you all the best with your blog!
Hi, sorry for only responding now! I will check it out and thanks! Nice to see fellow South Africans here.
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