Words from the editor

Welcome to “In Translation,” CV2’s 30th-anniversary issue. Yes, Contemporary Verse 2 is 30 years old, and what could be a better way to celebrate our biggest birthday yet than with—you guessed it, lots of poetry! As you will notice, this issue is a longer one than usual. We wanted to do something a little bit weightier to commemorate our 30 years of publishing Canada’s finest poetry, so we have included more poetry selections than normal, some in a variety of languages including German, Greek, Portuguese, Spanish, Vietnamese, and Ukrainian. This issue also marks the official start of CV2’s new bilingual look and the regular inclusion of French selections, as part of our new editorial policy to publish French-language poetry and critical writing.

I must also offer you readers out there a big apology for being so late with this issue. One of our biggest priorities in this publishing year is to get our issues out on time. One reason we are behind is that CV2 moved to new digs in October; yes, your favourite poetry magazine now has windows and a bit more elbow room to work. We also have a new face in the office: Adam Levin joins CV2 as production and circulation co-ordinator after his predecessor, Lisa Thompson, left to seek her fortune in Brandon. CV2 would like to offer Lisa big thanks for all her hard work over the last year, and welcome Adam to the magazine. Adam brings many wonderful skills to CV2 and is a fine poet with a critically acclaimed collection of poetry under his belt, Monks’ Fruit, published by Nightwood Editions in 2004.

The cover of this issue is graced with a photograph of one Winnipeg’s favourite poets. He was both a rising star in the Aboriginal arts and Manitoba literary scene. There was no art form unturned by this exceptional man, who was a playwright, poet, painter, and filmmaker, and who was working with printmaking when he became ill. Marvin Francis was generous with his talents and time. He was one of the founding members of the local Aboriginal Writers Collective, and was a dedicated volunteer in arts groups and organizations like Winnipeg’s Urban Shaman Gallery, where he was a longtime board member. (A sample of his work can be viewed on their website.) Marvin was also a familiar face, not to mention participant, at spoken-word performances as well as open-mike nights.

Marvin Francis was to have been a contributing editor to this issue, but because of health problems, he was not able to fulfill this commitment. Marvin’s work has appeared in previous issues of CV2—volume 25, issue 1, “Under the Influence,” where CV2 featured a short essay by Marvin and a selection of his work; and, more recently, in volume 26, issue 4, “Mythology.”

When Marvin passed away in January 2005, it was an extremely sad day for Winnipeg’s Aboriginal and arts communities. What always amazed me about Marvin was his vitality. He was always moving in a new direction, and that sense of adventure, along with his commitment and enthusiasm for poetry, was nothing less than awe-inspiring. It also made him a writer and an artist to watch. CV2 dedicates this issue to the memory of Marvin Henry Francis, and we have included a tribute to this amazing man who we all miss: merci, meegwetch, and thank you so very much, Marvin.

Many people think of the translation process as quite separate from the poetic process. That’s because many think of translation as the fairly straightforward technical act of taking writing or speech from one language and making it understood in another. Similar to a mathematical formula, in a sense, this word in Language A equals that word in Language B, and so it goes.

While in a very basic way this is more or less correct, it is hardly a simple matter to take a word—with all of its history, formal and informal usage, and associated idiomatic expressions or colloquial references—and then stick that into another language, expecting the two words to carry the same message. It is the baggage that each word carries in any language that pushes the translator to be more than a language machine, to do a good translation of a creative work. Poetry, especially, calls for well-developed creative faculties, making translators artists in their own right.

To convey the original weight of a piece of literature from one language into another successfully requires the translator to have not only an intimate working knowledge of the grammatical constructs of both languages, but also a deep sense of the history and literary innovation of those languages. Vocabulary is a slippery slope, with individual words meaning different things in different contexts, and literature often has its own conventions, separate from the spoken word. A translator who chooses to take on the chore of poetry needs to have an awareness of how poetry works in both languages, as well as an understanding of historical, social, environmental, and spiritual traditions of the country from where the work originates. It is also incumbent upon the translator to know as much as possible about the life and work of the poet he or she translates. Finally, the best translations, like all other creative work, require an artistic eye, and the ability to innovate and proffer insight, tone, grace, texture, and nuance. In other words, those who work with poetry need to be poets every bit as much as those they translate; and, as you will find in the pages that follow, they often are.

To translate poetry well, one needs to be able to envision beyond literal meaning because it involves creating the means to convey images and metaphors that cannot necessarily be directly communicated from one language to another—not just because of cultural context, but also because of the creative instincts of the original author.

Sounds a lot like writing a poem, doesn’t it? At the heart of every poem is a revelation/epiphany/insight/vision for which language is wholly inadequate to express. So the process seems to become one of “translating” wordlessness into wordfulness. It makes sense, then, that those who accomplish the amazing act of transforming a great poem from one language into a great poem in another language without losing the spirit of it are poets through and through.

That is because like a fine poet, a proficient translator needs many abilities—to take a poem from one language to another, you have to be part language guru, part historian, part cultural expert, and part archeologist. Good translators also have to have near perfect pitch, X-ray vision, and a predilection for puzzles. Translators must also be able to hurdle tall metaphors, crack clichés, and pick the stalwart locks of the most valuable images. Translators, in other words, have to know the true register of a poet, in addition to understanding how poetry works, inside and out. Finally, what you will discover from the sampling in this issue, many poetry translators are mighty fine poets in their own right. To translate creative work requires a creative mind and all the artistic ability that comes with it. It is important to understand that the translator’s role is that not of a conduit, the person with the dictionary, through whom the poet’s words travel to get to another language. Rather, the translator is just as fluent as the poet in understanding what their poetry is, how it works, and its intention.

As someone who has read a great deal of literature in translation, I have profound respect for those who pursue this art—and it is an art, trust me. One of my most startling experiences of how much can get lost in the process of translation was an experience I had as an undergraduate in Asian Studies many moons ago; it is, I am afraid, not strictly a poetic example, but I think relevant to this discussion.

In second-year university, I took a world literature course, and one of the required texts for the course was the famous Chinese novel The Dream of the Red Chamber, written by Cao Xueqin around 1760. The required translation was approximately 300 pages. The story is a complicated tale with several characters. Its plot revolves around the life and relationship of two primary characters, a boy who is born with a piece of jade in his mouth, and his emotionally fragile female cousin. A year or two later, I took a course specifically in Asian literature, and was assigned another, more-extensive translation of the same novel, which was twice as long—close to 600 pages.

In my final year of university, I took a course in Chinese literature in translation, and was assigned the first book of a then-incomplete translation of the same novel. The professor explained that the Dream of the Red Chamber was originally known as The Story of the Stone, and was a novel written in five parts or books. At the time, an eminent scholar of Chinese literature was working on the first complete translation of this book. So, to give you a you an idea of how much the previous translators had left out, the complete translation ranges over five books and 2,400 pages.

I highly recommend the amazing Story of the Stone to anyone interested in Chinese literature. All five volumes are published by Penguin, the first three translated by David Hawkes, the last two by John Minford—both world-renowned sinologists and translators. Their translation is now considered the definitive English edition.

It’s amazing that a book that seemed complete in 300 or so pages could, in the end, wind up spanning five books and over 2,400 pages. But this is the problem with translation. Consequently, the art of translation is to do it thoroughly and well.

Because of the linguistic dualism of Canada’s literary and historical development, the process of translation is entrenched in our daily life. We encounter both French and English on a daily basis, on such a mundane level that most of us probably hardly notice. For example, most of the products we buy are labelled in both French and English; all government services and documents are offered and produced in both official languages; and, even on the Web, most companies and organizations that provide service to Canadians offer both French and English text.

On the other hand, that does not mean that we are motivated to learn both languages to the point where we could appreciate the rich literary culture that exists in each. This tends to create separate publications that focus on either English or French, and do not necessarily allow for a holistic representation of Canadian literature. Canada has also in recent years made a point of emphasizing its other “official” languages and cultures. North America has become increasingly multicultural in social makeup over the last century, and the official position in Canada is one of acceptance and integration of peoples from all over the world. This has necessitated an emphasis on translation and publication of literature of other languages and experience of language.

In this issue, you will find a unique selection of writing that reflects the reality of today’s multicultural Canada. The poetry you will find in this issue comes from many different languages as well as cultural and creative perspectives. It has been important for us to include the idea or process of cultural “translation” in this issue. I think it is obvious that no one language fits all. But what if you are trying to communicate poetically to those around you from the perspective your culture? What if most others have no real appreciation of that experience? You may be addressing people with whom you share a language, but to present your ideas, that language needs jigging in what seem unorthodox ways with regard to syntax, grammar, colloquialisms, or spiritual or mythological imagery in order to communicate the impact of that experience appropriately. This is the process that many Canadian poets must undertake when they attempt to speak from their own cultural experience, when English is not the language of those experiences. Poems like “Cantonese Lesson 1” and “Cantonese Lesson 2,” written by Yaya Yao, and “Chief Miska Muskwa,” by Shayla Elizabeth, are examples of this kind of translation.

When she founded Contemporary Verse 2, Dorothy Livesay made sure the editorial mandate was sensitive to the issues of all poets including those whose artistic traditions came from outside the predominate influence of Anglo-European literary conventions. Livesay wrote in her first CV2 editorial, published in 1975: “We chose the poetry—whatever its genre—that best expresses our craving for confrontation with the real, with direct, day-to-day living.” She also wrote:

. . . the poetry we want to praise and print must have the authority of
experience and action from all levels of society; the deprived, the
enslaved, the sheltered; as well as the fat, sleek, jaded. It must spring
from all ethnic and (immigrant) sources, whose roots will nourish
us. Where necessary, as with the literature of Quebec, we must
translate and expound . . .

For long-time subscribers to Contemporary Verse 2, these are familiar words, and have been evoked more than once over the last several years to talk about what seems a major shift in the literary mandate of this magazine. But at the heart of this quotation, which I am sure sounds ridiculously archaic to our younger readers, is the commitment to the support of critically sound, talented Canadian poetry, whatever its source.

It makes sense to mark the substantial age of a literary magazine like CV2 with a diverse range of voices and experiences, because our country is home to a vast chorus of poetic talent that has its roots in a myriad of cultural perspectives.

It is always good to keep in mind that, while poets might write in isolation, they are never alone in pursuit of poetry. Poetry is written all over the world, and each poet has something to offer—or that he or she wants to offer to others.

An interesting selection in this collection is that of Ken Kowal, a Winnipeg poet whose poems were translated from English into the Ukrainian by Olya Marko. Ukrainian is the language of Kowal’s ancestors, but one, as he explains in his short essay that accompanies the poems, that he has never learned to speak.

Other poets are their own translators, like Manitoban Duncan Mercredi, who translates his own work from Cree into English; and Paulo da Costa, who provides us with English and Portuguese versions of his own work, as well as English translations of Portuguese poets, and Portuguese renderings of Canadian Richard Harrison’s poetry from the English. Madeline Sonik talks to Canadian poet and translator George McWhirter about the process of rendering the work of Mexican poets Gabriel Zaid and Homero Aridjis from Spanish into English, and George McWhirter provides an first-person account of his experience of translating. Of course, this issue would not be complete with out a discussion of the process of translating French poetry into English; Zachariah Wells does us that honour by providing us with a unique look into the poetry of French Canadian poet Émile Nelligan.

When CV2 first began work on a translation issue two years ago, we had grand visions of a collection that would represent all of Canada’s many voices. As it happens with many huge expectations, the reality of the work involved in collecting that corpus was far beyond the resources of CV2’s staff—and space limitations. Still, we are proud of this issue, and, as it happen with dreams, we aren’t ready to let go of the possibility that a future issue on translation might provide for a different and an even-wider representation of poetry in translation.

I would like to thank all the poets who lent their fine work to this amazing issue, thereby helping us celebrate 30 wonderful years of poetry. I would also like to thank Joanne Elder, whose generous assistance was invaluable in the initial process of putting “In Translation” together. In addition, thanks also to former board members Sharon Caseburg and Deborah Schnitzer, whose vision and energy turned a grand idea into tangible realty.

I would also like to thank all of you readers out there who have kept us around through all these many years, through thick and thin. Next on the slate is “Memory”—until then, all the best in words.

— Clarise Foster