I figured I would most likely end up getting a teaching job when I moved to Medellín in July of 2011, but I can’t say I was thrilled about it for a couple of reasons. When I saw a post on a forum for expats in Colombia looking for a Spanish-English translator, I jumped on the opportunity. The person put me in touch with someone named Edgar who said he had about 150 títulos to translate. I assumed he meant 150 diplomas or legal deeds or something like that, so just imagine my surprise when I realized that he meant 150 titles! 150 books! Huzzah! It felt like a windfall of good luck, and I was so happy to 1. finally be able to do something in Colombia besides teaching, 2. get a foot in the door in the translation world, and 3. have the opportunity to translate literature, my love. I happily shelved the job search and settled in to my new job as an at-home translator. (Well, an at-apartment translator.)
Of course, I always wrote Edgar in the most impeccable Spanish I could muster. I’d have my boyfriend at the time double-check what I wrote when he was around, but he usually wasn’t. I thus gained more and more confidence in my writing skills. I was always upfront about my shortage of experience, but Edgar never grilled me about my knowledge or made me pass any sort of translating exam. I have no idea if he understood English and could evaluate my translations, but I came to assume that he couldn’t. He was really putting a tremendous amount of trust in me, and I’m pleased to know that I was deserving of that trust. If I’d been lazy (or just overestimated my skills), I feel like I really could have gotten away with a lot. I know that I went above and beyond in the translations, though, and I don’t have any regrets about the quality of the work I did. When I was feeling highly cynical, I’d let myself wonder if I wasn’t pouring more time and effort into the translations than the original writings ever received. And who was really going to read these poems, anyway?
I first translated two short collections of poems, each of which Edgar called a poemario. Both were about love, and they were rather syrupy for my tastes. I love poetry, but Edgar’s particular style wasn’t exactly my cup of tea. Oh well. I didn’t even realize that Edgar was the writer of the poems until much later. There were misassumptions on both sides, though; he always sent fond greetings to me and the person he assumed was my esposo but, of course, was merely my boyfriend. I never corrected him.
Here’s an excerpt from the first poem. All of this can be found in the preview in the Kindle book version on Amazon. If you have Prime, you can read it for free.
I move toward you, amidst the commotion of this hostile city. Behind me, against the hill, the tall buildings with their vacant terraces and their wilted gardens are outlined. My steps are firm on the dark pavement. In my hand, a bouquet of violets wrapped in paper. Your postcard in my pocket. It’s nighttime and it doesn’t smell like ripe fruit on this steep street, where for a few minutes a perfect blend of scattered music can be heard. I clumsily recreate from memory your lips, your eyes and even your hands. A light rain falls on my shoulders and on the rooftops. My heart beats quickly beneath my thin coat, under which intangible strands of the voices from that dreamland of a concert we attended on Friday remain mysteriously imbued. I walk rapidly toward your arms, toward your kisses, alongside this desolate neighborhood.
(Please know that I didn’t write the part on the title page where it says the title and then “of Edgar . . . ” He added it in after I sent him the final draft. Obviously, I would never make such a basic error. He repeats the same unfortunate error in the second collection of poems.)
Here’s a screenshot.
The font was an interesting choice. Unfortunately, many of the words look smushed together, so the last line appears to be paperyourpostcardinmypocket. But it was long out of my hands (and, thus, my responsibility) by that point.
And the original, found in the Amazon preview of the Spanish version.
Avanzo hacia ti, entre el fragor de esta ciudad huraña. Atrás, a mi espalda, contra la colina, se recortan los altos edificios con sus azoteas desiertas y sus jardines marchitos. Firmes mis pasos sobre el pavimento oscuro. En mi mano, un ramito de alhelí envuelto en papel regalo. Tu postal en el bolsillo. Es de noche y no huele a frutas maduras en esta calle empinada, donde por minutos se alcanza a escuchar una mezcla perfecta de músicas dispersas. Incongruente voy rehaciendo de memoria tus labios, tus ojos y hasta tus manos. Es leve la llovizna que cae sobre mis hombros y sobre los tejados. Mi corazón palpita acelerado; bajo el abrigo liviano, donde en un misterio se quedaron impregnados pedazos intangibles de las voces de ese universo de sueños del concierto al que asistimos el viernes. Camino presuroso hacia tus brazos, hacia tus besos, a lo largo de este barrio desolado.
Maybe it seems simple, but I agonized over every single word. I would save my numerous questions for my ex, and he did his best to help me make sense of the oftentimes senseless. Perhaps I overcomplicated things, but I was bright-eyed and bushy-tailed and very eager to please as a new translator.
Edgar called these books for young people in the Spanish versions, but we decided to label them as being for young women in the English translations. Not that young men should feel discouraged from enjoying these paeans to romance.
Here’s the second poemario that I did, again just an excerpt taken from the preview on Amazon.
Now you and I are full of hummingbirds, luminous tin that the poets call hope, perfect blue games and subtle fires. We arrived one drizzly night to each other, devastated by merciless solitude, affirmed by dreams and flowers, to offer ourselves bewilderedly to the reality of love. Life back then was covered in tin and soot. The sorcerers extolled death from the world’s pulpits, while deaf philosophers and blind mathematicians (in droves) denied us the right to be marvelous Saxon porcelain. The new caresses between us were repeated furiously. They mounted us inebriated, dancing over our hands, our lips, our bodies; and they delivered us from condemnation and cemeteries. We learned to be happy, keeping it far from the eyes of conscience. We learned to be each other’s only geography; to always remain just the two of us located in the two of us.
And the original Spanish.
Estamos ahora llenos tú y yo de colibríes, de estaño luminoso que los poetas llaman ilusión, de perfectos juegos azules y de fuegos sutiles. Llegamos una noche lloviznada a nosotros, devastados por la inclemente soledad, pronunciados por sueños y por flores, para brindarnos perplejos el acto del amor. La vida, para entonces, estaba cubierta de hojalata y de hollín. Los brujos preconizaban la muerte desde los púlpitos del mundo, mientras filósofos sordos y matemáticos ciegos (en hordas) nos negaban el derecho a ser juntos una mágica porcelana de Sajonia. La caricia nueva nos repetía desquiciada. Se nos trepaba embriagada y danzarina a las manos, a los labios, a los cuerpos; y nos redimía de censuras y cementerios. Aprendimos a ser felices, a espaldas de la conciencia. Aprendimos a ser la única geografía el uno del otro; para quedarnos para siempre los dos en los dos.
And so it went on and on and on. The first poem was 13 Microsoft Word pages; the second poem, 10. Some of the lines definitely tickled my funny bone (the line about marvelous Saxon porcelain provoked many tears of laughter from me and my ex), but I tried to take the job seriously. The novelty of translating soon wore off, though, and it became a drag to rack my brain to find the words to approximate the saccharine poetry. I started dreading the work, and I’d waste time doing anything but the translations. (Like, you know, maybe start a blog.) Which of course only dragged the whole thing out. Terrible strategy–I don’t recommend it to anyone. I became extremely lonely while online all day at home, and it’s not like I could take my laptop to a Panera or Starbucks. (But no one had a gun to my head, so Lord knows why I didn’t scrap the job and look for other work before it was too late to salvage some bits of happiness.)
This post has made me rather sad, but there’s no rewriting the past. If only I’d stopped after translating these poems and moved on. Instead, for a million inexplicable and lousy reasons, I stuck with it. I did end up moving on a few months later, but not in the way I wanted to–I eventually had to move on from Colombia and my relationship entirely. ¿Y para qué? For some silly translations I doubt anyone’s even read until now, translations that don’t even have my name on them. (Edgar apologized profusely for this oversight when I pointed it out to him, months after the fact.)
Emotions aside, it was kind of fun to have the experience of translating poetry without the pressure I’d feel if I were translating someone famous or if I knew my translations would be seen and scrutinized by many. Then again, I would have enjoyed and thrived under that pressure. Pablo Neruda or Federico García Lorca he wasn’t, but Edgar did have his own unique voice. And I helped give him a voice in English–I hope I did him justice. I also find it inherently gratifying to find just the precise translation for a difficult, nuanced word or turn of phrase.
Also, how many translators can say that their translations are on not only Amazon but also Youtube? It’s true. Check out the trailers for poem one and poem two.
After this poetry, I translated two breathtaking spy novels. I’ll save them for the next and final installment.
