(Neon)
hardly in
view the new fast cools. nothing connects us
too quickly
its pale blood decays beneath the frantic days.
we drink
sluggishly cheerful again the latest news drains colour
we suck
the tubes' garish marrow out of our bones.
(Aluminium)
at midday
half-empty metal bowls clattering hundred-fold sighing scratches across
plate-bottoms forking four-fingered
in clenched
fists a desperate density heavier chains steaming from
beakers then swinging
to cut
another blank pressing welding casting requiring particular care
time's in the
end a
foil memory's ripped from on the crust of
the earth outside
(Chromium)
from lightning
we can expect nothing nor more from talking
about lightning. with luck we'll be standing some
way off or at least
alive.
let's talk
about what happened before or something that happened
nearby. like the sunflowers in their stupid oil
how daft they always were
afterwards
just pictures
copied from nature. not theirs. but of the
glowing sickness only moving at nightfall. they'd never
bloomed before. we're seeing their
therapy.
from Periodic Song
Sylvia Geist
translated from the German by Catherine Hales
Listen to the poems read in the original German by the author:
Translation is always interpretation and adaptation, a cover version in which the associations, resonances, history, etymology and semantics of one language replace those of another to make a new poem that is recognisably related to the original. "As close as possible, as far away as necessary". But the object should always be to make a translation that works as a poem in its new language. That said, there is the question of how far such constraints as rhyme and metrical pattern can or should be replicated. Sometimes such constraints are inherent to the poem in translating, say, a Shakespeare or Petrarch sonnet or Rilke's 'Neue Gedichte'; recreating the rhyme scheme must be done cunningly and well, for if it is too heavy-handed and calls attention to itself, the poem can be ruined.
Translating these poems by Sylvia Geist involved a different kind of constraint, but one that enhanced the challenge no end. They are part of a series based on the elements in the Periodic Table, and the number of words in each poem's stanza matches the number of the element in the table. So the number of words in the translation has to be the same as in the original – it's the structural raison d'être of the poems. And that's where the fun begins. What do you do with a one-word preposition like 'aus', the English match of which is the two-word 'out of'; or declined articles like 'des' (of the) or 'dem' (to the)? Not to mention the German way of forming compound nouns that sometime need a sentence to render into English? Fortunately English has its own tricks and elisions; used properly, the apostrophe is a wonderful tool; and a hyphen can make compounds in English too.
Finally, translation is also a dialogue between poet and translator, and where possible I like to involve the poet in the process, providing explanations and clearing up misunderstandings where necessary, especially where the word-number constraint has made the German text particularly dense. And it reduces the risk of the poet throwing up her hands in horror and complaining, "That is not what I meant at all!"
Translating these poems by Sylvia Geist involved a different kind of constraint, but one that enhanced the challenge no end. They are part of a series based on the elements in the Periodic Table, and the number of words in each poem's stanza matches the number of the element in the table. So the number of words in the translation has to be the same as in the original – it's the structural raison d'être of the poems. And that's where the fun begins. What do you do with a one-word preposition like 'aus', the English match of which is the two-word 'out of'; or declined articles like 'des' (of the) or 'dem' (to the)? Not to mention the German way of forming compound nouns that sometime need a sentence to render into English? Fortunately English has its own tricks and elisions; used properly, the apostrophe is a wonderful tool; and a hyphen can make compounds in English too.
Finally, translation is also a dialogue between poet and translator, and where possible I like to involve the poet in the process, providing explanations and clearing up misunderstandings where necessary, especially where the word-number constraint has made the German text particularly dense. And it reduces the risk of the poet throwing up her hands in horror and complaining, "That is not what I meant at all!"
Sylvia Geist was born in Berlin, Germany, in 1963. She is a poet, novelist, translator and networker. Geist studied literature and art history as well as chemical sciences, a combination with a beneficial effect towards her understanding of literature. In her work science and poetry constantly seem to reflect each other. She has published five volumes of poetry and two books of prose. She has edited several anthologies of Eastern European literature and is also known as a translator. She translated Chirikure Chirikure's first German collection Aussicht auf eigene Schatten. Sylvia Geist has received numerous awards for her work, including the Meran Poetry Prize, a fellowship at the Künstlerhaus Edenkoben, the Adolf Mejstrik Award of the German Schiller Foundation and a Sylt-Quelle residential fellowship.
Catherine Hales lives in Berlin and works as a translator. Her books include hazard or fall (Shearsman 2010), a bestiary of so[nne][r]ts (Oystercatcher Press 2010) and feasible stratagems (Veer Books 2013), and as translator, Berlin Fresco – Selected Poems of Norbert Hummelt (Shearsman 2010). She is also included in the 2010 and 2012 Shearsman anthologies Infinite Difference, edited by Carrie Etter, and Sea Pie, edited by Peter Hughes. Recordings of her readings are available in the Archive of the Now. Her poems have been translated into German and Czech. She was co-ordinator of the Berlin Poetry Hearings festival.
