Pulvers and Beichman

Reading about translating poetry was quite interesting because of how important tone and things 

like rhythm can be. The analogy made about translating poetry being akin to actors getting their 

lines down was a good way to visualize it, and even though I understood that it was only until I 

read the example of how “Watashi wa zettai ni makenai!” was translated that I was able to feel 

the difference.

Similarly, the examples used to demonstrate the importance of editing in poetry translation 

were also very interesting to read. How changing even one word or moving one line can introduce

 entirely new meanings to the reading of a poem. Or using spacing to maintain the flow or feeling 

of motion in a poem. That the translated poems can read so differently, yet still feel so similar was 

interesting to see. The fact that interpretation is viewed as a task in which you are to emulate the 

speaker, and translation is viewed more as ‘interpreting’ text into your own rather than translating 

directly is cool to see. And that it is even more so with poetry, because it is so dense/specific, is 

also interesting. I noticed that my experience reading translated text side by side was wholly different

 to my experience reading translated poetry. Before this class, I think I viewed things like interpretation

 and translation pretty homogeneously but to see that they are so different was interesting. 

Kenny