“There's a kind of confessional impulse that not every literate, intelligent person has,” Mr. Updike said in his 1990 Globe interview. “A crazy belief that you have some exciting news about being alive, and I guess that, more than talent, is what separates those who do it from those who think they'd like to do it. That your witness to the universe can't be duplicated, that only you can provide it, and that it's worth providing.” Quoted boston.com in their article about John Updike's death.
I can't help feel insignificant in light of this - feel as though what I want to do is devote my days to writing in the belief that I can be one of the few, lucky writers to do so. I don't know if I'm a coward or just lazy, but I haven't yet learned this kind of insanity. But I hope to.
Tuesday, January 27, 2009
Friday, January 23, 2009
The death of teaching
Stanley Fish, in a blog for the New York Times on January 18th, The Last Professor, lauds a book by a former student of his that in no uncertain terms declares victory for the utilitarian model of education and predicts the demise of the university as a place for "understanding and explaining." He's not entirely wrong, but neither is he entirely right.
I haven't read the book he's reviewing, and based on his review I likely won't. As a poet, moreover, a literary translator, and an aspiring academic, I hear often enough how the humanities don't contribute to the world in a tangible or measurable way. I hear often enough that higher education is "an enterprise characterized by a determined inutility." This is the triumph of the corporation over the individual, the system over the human. And those who can view this change with satisfaction, with victory, have clearly never read Dickens' Hard Times.
Had they bothered to read literature they would perhaps understand that this is the ultimate dehumanization. The author of the book, Donoghue, concludes, “that all fields deemed impractical, such as philosophy, art history, and literature, will henceforth face a constant danger of being deemed unnecessary.” He's not wrong - in fact, we have already seen this happening - it continues to happen to the fields of imaginative pursuits. It is not my purpose to rehash the classic arguments that only by first imagining a better world can we then create it, or by taking an imaginative perspective on the world can we critique it, and therefore improve it. I fully subscribe to these arguments, as anyone pursuing my future would have to. But the idea that the future holds no place for the imagination, and only for utility, is not to be congratulated as pragmatic but lamented as defeated.
Not only that, but it seems to me to be distinctly wrong. One might just consider events of the past several months as an example. The devastating crash of the unregulated market, and the resulting loss of faith in the free market as a suitable system of moral guidance for life, is a place to start. The free market, we have learned, is very good at one thing, but can not serve as a model for all things, nor even can it be left to its own devices without oversight. No longer can we associate goodness as a virtue with the manifestation of material wealth and productivity, as the utilitarian model requires. While we need technicians, engineers, investors and bankers to make the system run, so also do we need the visionaries who imagine ways to improve the system, to make it both more efficient and more human. We need people with the developed ability to envision alternatives to the status quo, both in the name of progress and in the name of morality. And these people don't just learn to do this by studying numbers or processes. It requires the nurturing and development of a different set of skills, those of the imagination, through literature, philosophy, dare I say art?
Second, look at the recent (political) victory of the intellectual imagination over the lowest-common-denominator. It is the ability to envision change, envision a better world that we can all be part of, that in large part ensured the success of the Obama campaign. No longer are the willfully ignorant lauded as being more 'authentic' - but the chance for education must be extended to be universal. Only by having an imaginative, engaged and educated populace can a democracy thrive. People get the government they deserve in a democracy; it is by celebrating the life of the imagination, the ability to make real in the world what our artists, writers and philosophers dream for us as a better existance, that we have come finally to a new beginning. There is hope in this national shift, though no assurance it will become permanent.
The stifeling of the imaginative intellect visibily damaged the world we live in. These are but two examples. Perhaps there is a future in which professors, and university life that stimulates imaginative thinking, is gone entirely. But I rather doubt it. How many students vy to go to the University of Phoenix (mentioned approvingly in the article) over Harvard, or even the University of Massachusetts? This is not soley because of name recognition - it is because for the most part we still understand that without an interactive, imaginative education we are limited to our technical skills. Like a machine working into all eternity with no purpose.
I haven't read the book he's reviewing, and based on his review I likely won't. As a poet, moreover, a literary translator, and an aspiring academic, I hear often enough how the humanities don't contribute to the world in a tangible or measurable way. I hear often enough that higher education is "an enterprise characterized by a determined inutility." This is the triumph of the corporation over the individual, the system over the human. And those who can view this change with satisfaction, with victory, have clearly never read Dickens' Hard Times.
Had they bothered to read literature they would perhaps understand that this is the ultimate dehumanization. The author of the book, Donoghue, concludes, “that all fields deemed impractical, such as philosophy, art history, and literature, will henceforth face a constant danger of being deemed unnecessary.” He's not wrong - in fact, we have already seen this happening - it continues to happen to the fields of imaginative pursuits. It is not my purpose to rehash the classic arguments that only by first imagining a better world can we then create it, or by taking an imaginative perspective on the world can we critique it, and therefore improve it. I fully subscribe to these arguments, as anyone pursuing my future would have to. But the idea that the future holds no place for the imagination, and only for utility, is not to be congratulated as pragmatic but lamented as defeated.
Not only that, but it seems to me to be distinctly wrong. One might just consider events of the past several months as an example. The devastating crash of the unregulated market, and the resulting loss of faith in the free market as a suitable system of moral guidance for life, is a place to start. The free market, we have learned, is very good at one thing, but can not serve as a model for all things, nor even can it be left to its own devices without oversight. No longer can we associate goodness as a virtue with the manifestation of material wealth and productivity, as the utilitarian model requires. While we need technicians, engineers, investors and bankers to make the system run, so also do we need the visionaries who imagine ways to improve the system, to make it both more efficient and more human. We need people with the developed ability to envision alternatives to the status quo, both in the name of progress and in the name of morality. And these people don't just learn to do this by studying numbers or processes. It requires the nurturing and development of a different set of skills, those of the imagination, through literature, philosophy, dare I say art?
Second, look at the recent (political) victory of the intellectual imagination over the lowest-common-denominator. It is the ability to envision change, envision a better world that we can all be part of, that in large part ensured the success of the Obama campaign. No longer are the willfully ignorant lauded as being more 'authentic' - but the chance for education must be extended to be universal. Only by having an imaginative, engaged and educated populace can a democracy thrive. People get the government they deserve in a democracy; it is by celebrating the life of the imagination, the ability to make real in the world what our artists, writers and philosophers dream for us as a better existance, that we have come finally to a new beginning. There is hope in this national shift, though no assurance it will become permanent.
The stifeling of the imaginative intellect visibily damaged the world we live in. These are but two examples. Perhaps there is a future in which professors, and university life that stimulates imaginative thinking, is gone entirely. But I rather doubt it. How many students vy to go to the University of Phoenix (mentioned approvingly in the article) over Harvard, or even the University of Massachusetts? This is not soley because of name recognition - it is because for the most part we still understand that without an interactive, imaginative education we are limited to our technical skills. Like a machine working into all eternity with no purpose.
Saturday, January 10, 2009
Giving Thanks
Last year I was incredibly fortunate to receive a grant from the International Center for Writing and Translation at the University of California, Irvine. As part of my responsibilities, I needed to send them a completed version of my project, along with a letter describing how the grant helped me in completing it.
Writing the letter, I realized that, while the grant was incredibly generous and had a significant financial impact on my ability to work on the project, perhaps even more significant was the impact on my confidence as a writer and translator. As a relatively young translator, with no major publications as yet, it's difficult sometimes to believe that my work has any value outside of my immediate circle of friends, family, mentors and colleagues. It's difficult to remember that it is to bring the work to the world outside of my direct interactions that I'm doing the work in the first place.
Receiving the support of an institution to which I have no direct connection was perhaps the greatest assurance I could have gotten that not only is the work I've selected worthwhile, but my own translations are as well. It is not only the completion of this project that this grant has supported, but my ability to take on new projects with assurance, and to continue to pursue my passion with confidence in my ability to succeed.
Writing the letter, I realized that, while the grant was incredibly generous and had a significant financial impact on my ability to work on the project, perhaps even more significant was the impact on my confidence as a writer and translator. As a relatively young translator, with no major publications as yet, it's difficult sometimes to believe that my work has any value outside of my immediate circle of friends, family, mentors and colleagues. It's difficult to remember that it is to bring the work to the world outside of my direct interactions that I'm doing the work in the first place.
Receiving the support of an institution to which I have no direct connection was perhaps the greatest assurance I could have gotten that not only is the work I've selected worthwhile, but my own translations are as well. It is not only the completion of this project that this grant has supported, but my ability to take on new projects with assurance, and to continue to pursue my passion with confidence in my ability to succeed.
Saturday, December 20, 2008
UnCommon Sense
Denise Levertov is one of those great poets who is sometimes overlooked because of her politics. Which is why Jacket's issue on her is such an important thing. These essays, reflections and sharings of very personal interactions with Levertov are necessary, not only because she is a poet of peace and we are again in a time of seemingly endless war, but because she has particularly valuable insights about poetry's role in the world.
As the responsibility of the poet (which makes me think, now, of the wonderful poem "Responsibility" by Grace Paley read last week at the Joiner Center's tribute to her), Levertov is recorded by poet Mark Pawlak as saying:
Later in the same piece, Pawlak shares another few sentances from an interview which hold the kind of no-nonsense wisdom that I associate with Levertov:
Metaphor arising from the literal, the layering of meaning upon meaning while still remaining transparant to the concreteness of the image, this has always been for me the ultimate poetic achievement. I find this to be the common ground in every poem that moves me - though I couldn't have put it into these words exactly.
Finally, in the same Pawlak piece, he discusses her view of writer's block, something I have languished in recently.
And this rational, undramatic approach to writing and life is perhaps what inspires me the most about Levertov, and about the perspective offered by this issue. Levertov has been for me one of those poets that I want to know better, that I want to read more carefully. This is still true, perhaps it will always be that she is one of the poets I feel like I can never fully approach, or appreciate. But the demonstration of her uncommonly common sense, her practical apprach to the world, and to writing is something that is so often missing in poetry. She dispenses with the mystique, the persona and is simply engaged with the world, without pretension. This is why now more than ever we need to read poets like Levertov - poets who engage the literary world with the actual world, who see with rationality and sense the work that needs to be done, and literature's place in doing it.
As the responsibility of the poet (which makes me think, now, of the wonderful poem "Responsibility" by Grace Paley read last week at the Joiner Center's tribute to her), Levertov is recorded by poet Mark Pawlak as saying:
"It is not the responsibility of the individual writer to increase the literacy of the masses,” Denise asserted. “To assume oneself responsible and able to do so would be arrogant. A complete upheaval of the social order is necessary to achieve that. It is rather the individual writer’s responsibility to work toward a revolution."This profoundly reasonable understanding of how a poet can be 'of the people' addresses something I've thought about for a long time, since first reading Neruda and Vallejo as a teenager. How can a poet write in the voice of the people without a kind of condescention? And this quiet private conversation points me in the right direction.
Later in the same piece, Pawlak shares another few sentances from an interview which hold the kind of no-nonsense wisdom that I associate with Levertov:
"A poem can have only literal meaning and still be a poem. I think of such poems as ‘plain’ poems. But, myself, I prefer that layering of meaning upon meaning which metaphor allows. However, any metaphor deserving the name must in poetry arise from the literal; and the layering of one meaning upon another must never obscure the literal; reading of the poem.”
Metaphor arising from the literal, the layering of meaning upon meaning while still remaining transparant to the concreteness of the image, this has always been for me the ultimate poetic achievement. I find this to be the common ground in every poem that moves me - though I couldn't have put it into these words exactly.
Finally, in the same Pawlak piece, he discusses her view of writer's block, something I have languished in recently.
She has as much as said that the creative unconscious has a natural rhythm of its own that cannot be rushed. Because one is not putting pen to paper, she has explained to me, does not mean that there is inactivity in the unseen depths of ones being, activity that might eventually surface as poems.
And this rational, undramatic approach to writing and life is perhaps what inspires me the most about Levertov, and about the perspective offered by this issue. Levertov has been for me one of those poets that I want to know better, that I want to read more carefully. This is still true, perhaps it will always be that she is one of the poets I feel like I can never fully approach, or appreciate. But the demonstration of her uncommonly common sense, her practical apprach to the world, and to writing is something that is so often missing in poetry. She dispenses with the mystique, the persona and is simply engaged with the world, without pretension. This is why now more than ever we need to read poets like Levertov - poets who engage the literary world with the actual world, who see with rationality and sense the work that needs to be done, and literature's place in doing it.
Sunday, November 23, 2008
Language v. Culture
"Reconciling language and culture is both a science and an art." So ends the NPR featurette on "The Art of Translation" which examins several issues that arise in the process of literary translation. And it is both a science, in the sense of languages being a science, and an art in the sense of creative writing. This bridge that literary translation creates between the critical and the creative, the objective and the subjective, is what perhaps initially drew me into its practice. But it is more than a science and an art, it is and has to be a love.
I was told in one of my first translation workshops with renouned poet and translator Martha Collins that there aren't very many young literary transltors. It seemed odd to me at the time that any craft would have much to do with the age of its practicioners. But it occurs to me that perhaps it has something to do with that requirement of love. As a creative writer, the love I hold for my own work is somewhat selfish - it's hard to get real distance from it, to seperate it from my intentions and emotions. As a translator, the love I bear for the work I'm translating is significantly different. It's not that I don't feel intimately attached to the work - I certainly do - possessive sometimes, proprietary over the original. But that to devote yourself, your creative energies, entirely to someone else's work requires a kind of selfless love that comes with perspective and time.
The NPR story correctly identifies several issues of literary translation as meaning, sound, cultural context. But there are some worrying statements: "A good translation needs to be true to the original and able to stand on its own for a new audience." While I tend to be on the faithful side of the translation spectrum in my own work, it's absurd to say there is no room for more experimental translations, ones that intentionally aren't "true to the original," like Lowell's famous imitation-translations of Akhmatova. Neruda believed that translators could improve upon the original. And being true to the original doesn't necessarily make the translation good - not by a long shot. Trots are the primary example, but I've read stilted, 'true' translations of verse into verse. This is where standing "on its own" comes into play, but what does that really mean?
While I'm lothe to attemt to define what makes a translation 'good,' it seems to me to have something vital to do with power. The effect that the piece has on its reader, or rather, the effect that the piece has on its translator, must be conveyed as faithfully as possible. But this doesn't necessarily mean that the syntax, grammar, word choice, sound, rhythm, etc. also have to be. These are the choices a translator makes, what to sacrifice, what to gain. And the cumulative effect is what makes a translation good or not.
This myriad of possible choices, an endless permutation of decisions, is what makes multiple translations not only possible but in many cases necessary. Compare the three Victor Hugo excerpts on the NPR article, and find subtlely different takes on the character. Each one may shed light on a different part of the book. Even moreso with drastically different versions. As Bea Basso says in the interview, each choice influences the next step, so the intentions of the translator are insinuated into each line, each word of the text. It is inevitable, though not undesirable so long as the readers are aware of the fact that they are coming to the work through the lens of another reader. Being aware of the possibility of different interpretations of an original text, different equally valid translations, encourages a deeper critical engagement with the text, inspires readers to move from a passive receptor to an active participant in the work.
And here is the issue with that closing quote. Translation isn't about "reconciling language and culture" as though they are two opposing forces working against one another. Language serves culture, culture serves language - they are overlapping subsets of a greater whole. Translation can't and shouldn't view language and culture as obstacles to overcome, or warring parties to mediate between. They are the very medium of the art form, the materials from which both the original and the translation are shaped.
I was told in one of my first translation workshops with renouned poet and translator Martha Collins that there aren't very many young literary transltors. It seemed odd to me at the time that any craft would have much to do with the age of its practicioners. But it occurs to me that perhaps it has something to do with that requirement of love. As a creative writer, the love I hold for my own work is somewhat selfish - it's hard to get real distance from it, to seperate it from my intentions and emotions. As a translator, the love I bear for the work I'm translating is significantly different. It's not that I don't feel intimately attached to the work - I certainly do - possessive sometimes, proprietary over the original. But that to devote yourself, your creative energies, entirely to someone else's work requires a kind of selfless love that comes with perspective and time.
The NPR story correctly identifies several issues of literary translation as meaning, sound, cultural context. But there are some worrying statements: "A good translation needs to be true to the original and able to stand on its own for a new audience." While I tend to be on the faithful side of the translation spectrum in my own work, it's absurd to say there is no room for more experimental translations, ones that intentionally aren't "true to the original," like Lowell's famous imitation-translations of Akhmatova. Neruda believed that translators could improve upon the original. And being true to the original doesn't necessarily make the translation good - not by a long shot. Trots are the primary example, but I've read stilted, 'true' translations of verse into verse. This is where standing "on its own" comes into play, but what does that really mean?
While I'm lothe to attemt to define what makes a translation 'good,' it seems to me to have something vital to do with power. The effect that the piece has on its reader, or rather, the effect that the piece has on its translator, must be conveyed as faithfully as possible. But this doesn't necessarily mean that the syntax, grammar, word choice, sound, rhythm, etc. also have to be. These are the choices a translator makes, what to sacrifice, what to gain. And the cumulative effect is what makes a translation good or not.
This myriad of possible choices, an endless permutation of decisions, is what makes multiple translations not only possible but in many cases necessary. Compare the three Victor Hugo excerpts on the NPR article, and find subtlely different takes on the character. Each one may shed light on a different part of the book. Even moreso with drastically different versions. As Bea Basso says in the interview, each choice influences the next step, so the intentions of the translator are insinuated into each line, each word of the text. It is inevitable, though not undesirable so long as the readers are aware of the fact that they are coming to the work through the lens of another reader. Being aware of the possibility of different interpretations of an original text, different equally valid translations, encourages a deeper critical engagement with the text, inspires readers to move from a passive receptor to an active participant in the work.
And here is the issue with that closing quote. Translation isn't about "reconciling language and culture" as though they are two opposing forces working against one another. Language serves culture, culture serves language - they are overlapping subsets of a greater whole. Translation can't and shouldn't view language and culture as obstacles to overcome, or warring parties to mediate between. They are the very medium of the art form, the materials from which both the original and the translation are shaped.
Thursday, October 30, 2008
Common Words for Common People - Repackaging the Liberals
Reading this New York Times article on a psychologist who is helping liberals re-brand their message I had a two-fold response: it's about time, and now we're no different than the conservatives. Because those of us with critical thinking abilities have seen for a long time that the conservative message is just neatly packaged and sold, and ultimately gets people to vote against their political, social and economic interests by playing on fear and emotion. And I for one have been proud that the liberals aren't stooping to those tactics.
On the other side, a friend and I were lamenting a few years ago that 'liberal' has become a dirty word. That tolerant and progressive are negative qualities, at least according to the conservatives and their populist rhetoric. It's not that the voting masses were actually against tolerance or progress, just that these things had been metaphorically tarred and feathered. And it seemed like the liberals, who for all intents and purposes should be master word-smiths, or at least be able to draw upon some, were just spinning in circles, unable to reclaim or re-imagine the context of the debate.
But should we really use the dirty and deceitful rhetorical stylings of the right? The article reads:
On the other side, a friend and I were lamenting a few years ago that 'liberal' has become a dirty word. That tolerant and progressive are negative qualities, at least according to the conservatives and their populist rhetoric. It's not that the voting masses were actually against tolerance or progress, just that these things had been metaphorically tarred and feathered. And it seemed like the liberals, who for all intents and purposes should be master word-smiths, or at least be able to draw upon some, were just spinning in circles, unable to reclaim or re-imagine the context of the debate.
But should we really use the dirty and deceitful rhetorical stylings of the right? The article reads:
The handbook does not offer a script so much as a menu of options, each of which was poll-tested against
conservative arguments. On economics, for example, one message begins with “I want to see the words ‘Made in
America’ again.” Another reads, “We need leaders who don’t just talk about family values but actually value families.”
conservative arguments. On economics, for example, one message begins with “I want to see the words ‘Made in
America’ again.” Another reads, “We need leaders who don’t just talk about family values but actually value families.”
These insubstantial phrases are all bells and whistle, sound and fury, with no purpose. These, frankly, are something I can hear Sarah Palin or George W. Bush saying to a crowd of cheering people who don't want anyone smarter than them to be in charge. That's the whole problem with this "common words for common people" take, as far as I'm concerned.
I am not the smartest person in the country. I don't think that people who are smarter or better educated than me are inherently elitests or privledged. Many incredibly smart people come from working class backgrounds, and make their opportunities with the help of a system that is designed to reward merit (at least as well as wealth and class). This is a uniquely American construction, and something I'm proud of. And when it comes down to it, I want the person in charge to be smarter than me, by a lot. I don't understand the complexities of government, economy or foreign policy. So this reliance on 'straight talk,' which is just a euphamism for dumb talk, is part condescention taken to it's worst and part shame of being intelligent. Neither of these is a good thing.
However, it is past time that the liberals get energized, come up with some new messages or new ways of conveying the same messages, and stop rolling over for conservative dirty tricks. I just don't know if the lowest-common-denominator rhetoric is the best way to do that. Because then, how are we any different?
I am not the smartest person in the country. I don't think that people who are smarter or better educated than me are inherently elitests or privledged. Many incredibly smart people come from working class backgrounds, and make their opportunities with the help of a system that is designed to reward merit (at least as well as wealth and class). This is a uniquely American construction, and something I'm proud of. And when it comes down to it, I want the person in charge to be smarter than me, by a lot. I don't understand the complexities of government, economy or foreign policy. So this reliance on 'straight talk,' which is just a euphamism for dumb talk, is part condescention taken to it's worst and part shame of being intelligent. Neither of these is a good thing.
However, it is past time that the liberals get energized, come up with some new messages or new ways of conveying the same messages, and stop rolling over for conservative dirty tricks. I just don't know if the lowest-common-denominator rhetoric is the best way to do that. Because then, how are we any different?
Wednesday, October 29, 2008
Spider Curtains
Recently I got involved with a filmmaker who is doing a project on the translation of poetry. I've long been interested in the interplay between poetry and film, since both as an art form rest so heavily on expression of image. Her project is examining the aspects of poetry that are able to be translated, and will consist of several translations of the same poem being read over sequences of images. I'm thrilled to be involved - especially since the poet is Enrique Molina, a brilliant 20th century Argentinian poet.
So I started working on my translation today, and was humbled by the language in this poem. Much of what I've translated has been prose-poetry, or more generally approachable lyrical poetry. This piece, besides the modismos (word usages specific to the author's country) and elevated diction, is mostly lacking in punctuation. It makes it difficult in some cases to determine the grammar of each phrase, and if I happen to find myself moving too quickly I end up with delightful neologisms like "spider curtains." The phrase, properly punctuated (or prosaically punctuated) would be "...spiders, curtains..." But as I've always found when working through someone else's language, these mistranslations that are often as rich as the intended meaning.
Spider curtains: webs in an abandonded house grown so thick that they diffuse the light; finely wroght lace curtains with a web-like pattern; the image is layered with potential. It is only by suspending my own voice, my own sense of logic and structure and image that I can genuinely translate, and it leaves me open to words and pairings I wouldn't have come to on my own. That, perhaps moreso than any other reason, is the joy in translation - the being rendered open by language, and to language.
So I started working on my translation today, and was humbled by the language in this poem. Much of what I've translated has been prose-poetry, or more generally approachable lyrical poetry. This piece, besides the modismos (word usages specific to the author's country) and elevated diction, is mostly lacking in punctuation. It makes it difficult in some cases to determine the grammar of each phrase, and if I happen to find myself moving too quickly I end up with delightful neologisms like "spider curtains." The phrase, properly punctuated (or prosaically punctuated) would be "...spiders, curtains..." But as I've always found when working through someone else's language, these mistranslations that are often as rich as the intended meaning.
Spider curtains: webs in an abandonded house grown so thick that they diffuse the light; finely wroght lace curtains with a web-like pattern; the image is layered with potential. It is only by suspending my own voice, my own sense of logic and structure and image that I can genuinely translate, and it leaves me open to words and pairings I wouldn't have come to on my own. That, perhaps moreso than any other reason, is the joy in translation - the being rendered open by language, and to language.
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