On Poetics

There are some good things in the life of a translator, and some bad. This is about the bad.

Now, Blue Duck confesses to having quite a stash of mercifully unpublished poetry under her bed (including such classics as "Duck-Duck the Duck" and "Ode to Linguistics"). Let it not be said that the Duck hates poetry. What she does hate, however, is TRANSLATING poetry. Especially really fancy-pants poetry that rhymes internally and alliterates perfectly and uses lots of words have never once graced the face of a dictionary. And Icelandic is a language reknowned for its internally-rhymed, perfectly-allierating, word-innovating poems. So much so, that authors of completely unrelated texts (say, the biographies of farming pioneers), often find it irresistable to throw in at least five or six stirring stanzas into the mix. All rhyming and alliterating, of course. Which is all well and good - until someone has to say the same thing in Cantonese or Greek or English.

It is. Simply. Wrong.

So Blue Duck urges all you poets out there - be responsible with your rhymes!


(The Duck vehimently disassociates herself with this image)