Category: Poetry in translation

• Poetry in translation: Anais knits time

  And the old clock in the kitchen stands still now.
  Always quarter to seven.
  The warm knitted stitches in autumn days forming, one by one,
  a warm colourful scarf.
  For friends, for herself, knitted in is the quiet, lost time
  in this house. Quiet hours, gone and forgotten.
  Like tassels of her imagination, the same.
  Each carefully knitted stitch is a meditation, a prayer for peace, calm.
  In turbulent, stressful days.
  Opposite the cemetery, in a deserted village full of strangers now,
  lying underneath collapsed tombstones,
  overgrown with ivy and misty shrubs,
  the old dead family members in their graves.
  The quiet witnesses of a forgotten time, in which I went to school and played. Skipping
  on their arm.
  Four family members in one grave. “Now they can play cards”, my mother said at the time.
  At the very last funeral.
  Anais knits time and thinks about the days of old.
  I add a pebble to the grave in the cemetery and whisper softly “hearts are trump”.
  Perhaps the old can still hear me.
  And I wrap a warm knitted autumn scarf around me, while I turn the corner of life
  in a bitter wind.
  Braving time.

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  This nostalgic poem was written by Flemish poet Renée van Hekken. I translated it into English for you to enjoy! If you understand Dutch, you can find the original poem on a WordPress blog called The Sausage Machine.

  January 6, 2023

  Poetry, poetry translation

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• Poetry in translation: Re: how are you

  after Dorien de Wit

  in the beginning there were days
  your emails I saved unread in the junk folder
  between Mr Bill Gates says Hello,
  Michael Kors Handbags,
  Hot Girls, Hello

  on Google Maps I’ve found the secret
  an island called Mainland

  for weeks in my purse I’ve been carrying a book about the man
  who thought up cloud classification
  I was so happy that clouds fit into a structure

  what should I say when I see you?
  the most important thing is
  to jump in at the right moment
  like back in the day in the schoolyard
  when I still collected pencil shavings and discovered
  that popcorn is corn kernels turned inside out

  explosions are beautiful but their shape is unpredictable

  through this country there runs a growing fault line
  you said with a distant gaze
  in your eyes I saw myself and the landscape mirrored
  searching where the tearing began.

  Tom Cruise has decreed in a contract
  that one can’t look straight at him
  there’s something in his eyes

  or is it because looking
  is a kind of touching

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  Another poem by Dutch poet Dorien de Wit. I like translating her work. I haven’t figured out her thought process yet, but I like her imagery and currentness. The original poem can be found here.

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  October 12, 2022

  Poetry, poetry translation, relationships

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• Poetry in translation: Dorien de Wit

  after Dorien de Wit

  on the airstrip
  people lay their heads on tables
  I think of ducks plunging their head under the duckweed
  staying so long without air

  buckled in we disappear from sight
  I want to stay the same but miles high
  we turn into a dot
  has someone pulled the plug from my head

  the first night I see from the balcony lights flickering
  motional in a rhythm, a hill that breathes
  the belly of my cat

  during the day I wear out my new view
  by passing my eyes over it time after time
  I prefer to skip the nights

  on a dented mattress
  I feel the impression of a stranger
  which forms an arc in me

  homesick is a towel in the shape of a swan

  This is my translation of a poem by Dutch artist and writer Dorien de Wit. Sorry, I don’t know the title of this poem. I found it online without one.

  August 21, 2022

  Poetry, poetry translation

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• Poetry in translation: Rapier

  After Lize Spit

  the neighbour pushes his dog
  the leash taut like a rapier
  the lawn mower tows the man who closes his eyes
  as straight as possible behind

  here one can at most crash
  into sheets that just won’t dry
  on the corner of the cemetery is a café
  there are sitting people sitting
  until they can be late somewhere else in their dog’s life
  there is seven times less time but dogs never give that impression
  unless they smell rabbits.

  pushing is a lot like pulling
  if it occurs on the opposite side

  they who are drinking beer by the cemetery are likely suffering
  from lack of
  imagination for example what if the night falls and our heads
  separate from our bodies

  This poem is a translation from the Flemish. The original poem is called Sabel and was written by poet and novelist Lize Spit.

  I had to make a calculated choice when naming this poem. The Flemish word sabel translates to sabre, but a sabre is a curved type of sword, so this didn’t fit with the image in the poem. I think Lize Spit made a mistake. She chose a word that is often misused. I pondered on which type of sword would be the best fit here, and in the end I went for a rapier, which is straight and also quite narrow.

  June 24, 2022

  Lize Spit, Poetry, poetry translation

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• Insurmountable

  with Lize Spit & Thomas Gunzig

  An octopus has three hearts:
  one for birth, one for life, one for death.
  The soft oval body envelops
  everything it needs.

  One human heart attempts to think
  of yesterday, today, and tomorrow,
  but the head doesn’t listen.
  Through the ossicles we learn that
  many things in nature occur in threes:
  you, me and your ego in a ménage à trois.

  We overreach.
  As in a wild ocean
  we move in three dimensions,
  while trying to prove a fourth.

  There is no escaping
  the flames behind the gate
  of Cerberus, each head one of the Brontë sisters.

  For us too, as fragile animals
  and if one after the other stays silent,
  the night falls on the bottom of the sea.

  This is a translation of a poem I wrote for a competition. The first and final two lines were given by author-and-poets Lize Spit and Thomas Gunzig. The original poem in Dutch can be found on the Flirt Flamand website.

  April 14, 2022

  Poetry

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• Poetry in translation: Houston we have a problem

  after Lotte Dodion

  beloved
  i know that you want more space,
  but how many planets do you want specifically?
  how many light years do i need to be removed from you
  so that you can float again?
  you don’t want to carry me any longer
  you want to be weightless again
  an insignificant dot among so many others?
  is it another
  another sun to revolve around?
  don’t you know that we are all the same?
  just as uninteresting just as blistering
  just as much pain at the end of the day
  you don’t need to plant flags
  no celestial bodies to conquer
  here is mine
  i am gravity
  i keep your feet on my ground
  but if you insist on space
  if you think you are stuck in your orbit
  get lost
  be forgotten.

  This poem is a translation from the Dutch. The original poem “Houston we have a problem” is by Belgian poet Lotte Dodion.

  April 1, 2022

  feminist poetry, flemish poetry, Poetry, poetry translation

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