Pulvers and Beichman: Response - Reshma

 I was expecting poetry translation to be a lot more difficult than prose, and honestly, reading these two essays only made me more certain of my opinion. There's so much that goes into what seems to be a good translation: awareness of the meaning, syllables, tone and so much more that almost feels more difficult than just writing a poem on your own. The way Pulvers described it really resonated with me: the translation has to be a poem in its own right. I find his translation of 'Ame ni mo Makezu' to be interesting though. I feel like 'strong in the wind' has a much more passive connonation to it compared to the Japanese, and I'm curious as to what other attempts look like. 

Similarly, I find the examples in the Beichman reading to be really interesting. One thing that stood out to me was the translation of Yosano Akiko and the use of formatting to create a sense of motion. While I think it's a great idea that adds to the piece, I wonder if it's almost unfaithful to original, improving on it in a way that other reading we've done considers out of the scope of a translator's job.