This is a quote from the Translator’s Preface, by Matthew Moore, that opens the book: Opera Buffa. Poems by Tomaž Šalamun, translated of course by Matthew Moore.
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“So what, OK, what is a poetry translation into written English? Poetry translation into written English needs the translator to provide the discrete language that goes against written English, literal translation, and correct word choice; the discrete language that deems unpoetic what a poems’s reader would presume written English needs. Silly written English dependencies on propriety and property, such as grammar that always agreesm sentences that are always complete, and total structural integrity; all of which has nothing to do with poetry. Poetry translation into wirtten English must reside in the poem-heart, and in poem-time, to provide the indifference of poetry with dicrete language to get a poem through the difference in languages alive. Written English is rarely discrete, unless it omits, or condenses. Written English likes to explain, with words. Why, saying it, I notice, why wouldn’t be the time to do away with the unpoetic habits in written English? Why, yes: now’s the time! Poetry translation into written English only needs a translator to accept the moods of histories and the genealogies of allusions behing poetry. I don’t know Slovenian. I don’t think you need to train in languages to translate a poem very well. Just accept a poems’s discrete language, keep several dictionaries and grammar books open on the desk as you work; after that, you have just to accept all of the coming critiques.”
From: Translator’s Preface by Matthew Moore, in: Tomaž Šalamun: Opera Buffa. Boston, Chicago: Black Ocean, 2021.