Matter

Abstract

In “The Task of the Translator,” Walter Benjamin writes, “[t]he intention of the poet is spontaneous, primary, graphic; that of the translator is derivative, ultimate, ideational” (76-77). Writing poetry is one thing, but writing with the ekphrastic intention of translating a memory or an image is another. It means entering a hybrid space of artistic transcreation. I often enter this space when I am translating, painting, or writing about home. For Stirred: Memories and Dreams, I have included several translations of home, including a painting of my childhood home in Jilava and three accompanying poems in three languages (English, Spanish and Italian). The poems reflect on the experience of leaving and going back to that home and recall Valerio Magrelli’s metaphor, of a translator as a oneperson moving company, constantly packing and unpacking meaning (246-247). I consider these poems translations of each other and of the painting, even if they may not be literal: poetic and artistic transcreation moves beyond the literal, surrendering to a more liberal, experimental, and spontaneous form of translation.