Bones and Bears: Notes on the Translation of Two Poems by Gary Snyder Nacho Fernández
FEATURE | Translating Gary Snyder
Seven years separate my translations of “this poem is for bear” and “Under the Hills Near the Morava River”, and for me the only noticeable difference between them lies in the more flexible approach that I have today regarding the correspondence of my version to the original text. I completed the second of the translations specifically for this maga zine, and the first of them is part of a brief anthology of Gary Snyder’s poetry and prose which I prepared, with the collaboration of other translators, in the year 2000 and which is, to this day, the only book of the author that has been published in Spain1. A poet friend, Andrés Fisher, remarked that the only mis giving about my translations in that book was that at times there was a tension – or stiffness, perhaps – absent in the original. It struck me as a sensible comment: Gary Snyder’s poetry possesses a “deep breath”, an apparent sim plicity in the craftsmanship which is probably one of the reasons for its attraction; besides, I don’t know any poets – many translators are poets – willing to translate someone they don’t look up to; every time we view the land scape, we feel ourselves capable of following the trails and slopes that the chosen poet has trodden before us, capable also of the same breath. And if we willingly choose the trail, “this poem is for bear” is a path with numerous twists and turns for the translator. Among them, it is a poem of considerable length and of fluctuating tone, which takes mythical refer ences for its raw material and evolves in a nar rative that branches out in various substantial digressions; it offers precise information on animals and plants, and uses a language root ed in local context, charged with colloquial
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vocabulary and expressions. As regards the central use of myth in the poem, it is arguable that outside information is generally of little initial help for the translator. The myth behind “this poem is for bear” can be defined as a tale of interspecies communication, a recurrent leitmotif in Snyder. He Who Hunted Birds in His Father’s Village2 is a fascinating introduc tion to this theme, for me even more illustra tive than “The Woman Who Married a Bear” – an essay included in The Practice of the Wild3 which returns to the poem’s subject in greater detail and from different angles. I have never been convinced that this – or any other information relevant to the o riginal text, but not directly part of it – should be used at the beginning of the translation; it is perhaps better used at a later stage – before embarking on a final version – but never as an obligatory starting point. The poem –“charged with meaning to the utmost degree” (Pound) – reflects its author’s criteria in discerning what he wishes to reveal and, most important, how he wishes to do so. An excessive attention to sources and external interpretations can blunt the translator’s ear. The narrative opening to Snyder’s poem skillfully combines the author’s first-hand experience – his observation of a she-bear – with a presentation of the myth, and should, I believe, be translated with the same frugal deftness in the presentation of a fluid reality. The verses offer an austere expla nation at the edge of confusion, parallel to the confusion that the girl must have felt towards the invitation to follow a man who was a bear. In just ten lines Snyder condenses all the narra tive tension of the first encounter, the living together and the maternity referred to in the myth.
new | 1_ 2005