NEW HOPE INTERNATIONAL REVIEW
An independent small press poetry review
 MAGDALENA DALE: DEW PEARLS Editura Fat-Frumos Bucuresti, Romania ISBN 973 552 73 Read a review of a book by Magdalena Dale & Vasile Moldovan visit the website of Magdalena Dale        Web design by  This page last updated: 17th December 2007. |
MAGDALENA DALE: DEW PEARLS | |
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DEW PEARLS is a potentially excellent tanka collection badly served by its current translation. Taking a numbered nine poem sequence as a base, and repeating this structure nine times across the four seasons and aspects of sea, sky and music, the collection contains many notable and several superb poems: night thoughts struggle helplessly, black butterflies with both wings broken by the hostile windOr again, in less despondent mood: winter air while between you and me is only silence ... at the end of the breakwater a wave strikes rockBut these poems have been tidied up: the first line of the butterfly poem actually reads nightly thoughtsthe first line of the second, the winter airDEW PEARLS in the current version is full of such infelicities, which intrude on the reader and in many cases effectively screen out Dale's poetic voice and intent: in park on the bench fellowship with a shadow a memory ... the unutterable longing and many wasted moments soft light autumn enwraps us stilly again ... a red dragonfly conceals in my day dreams together with your thoughtIt seems to be an accepted rule of practice that commercial, government and other professional translators translate only into their mother tongue. True professionals translate only into the native tongue, and nothing else. For work of lasting cultural value — and Dale's work falls squarely into this category — the work deserves to be treated with respect, and not be mangled like the instructions to an electric kettle. Where the current English rendering of the work avoids the pitfalls of non-native translation, the work jumps off the page: a white butterfly in my olive palm; if I close it I shall dispel the gold from its delicate wingsHere Dale's essential voice shines through: a clean, unfussy (but never unpoetic) engagement with the fine connections between the conduct of nature and humanity. Lovely moments slip through the net in every sequence the flood tide brings only broken shells ** the song of the magpie strikes rhythmically at the window ** heavy wind shakes the branches of the limeBut at each stage the wider translation stumbles, waving a gun towards its own feet: birds of passage stopped from their flying ... ** the insistent thought which pursuits your steps ** deep in my heart my longing is more fierce a remembranceI am disappointed that DEW PEARLS has not been translated by a native speaker, and moreover one familiar with the nuances of the short-form tradition. It is an excellent book waiting to be brought properly into English. Unfortunately, in the present translation, DEW PEARLS does not come close to Donald Davie's standard in a 1996 interview with Thumbscrew: The great verse translator is an even rarer and more admirable creature than the great poet.Dale's work has not yet found its great translator; but when it does I would very much like to read it. | ||
| reviewer: James Roderick Burns. |