Inspired by live translation slams that proved to be audience favorites at the Blue Metropolis Montreal International Literary Festival, and again at PEN World Voices, PEN’s online Translation Slam aims to showcase the art of translation by juxtaposing in a public forum two “competing” translations of a single work.

For the inaugural installment, we asked translators to test their linguistic mettle on 暮色, a poem by Chinese writer Xi Chuan.

At the live slams, audience members were invited to discuss the choices made by each of the translators and the resulting shifts of emphasis in the translated text. Readers of the online slam are encouraged to participate in the discussion by leaving comments below. We encourage you to cheer for your favorite translation, compare the two, talk about the poem.

暮色 by Xi Chuan 在一个幅员辽阔的国家 暮色也同样辽阔 灯一盏一盏地亮起 暮色像秋天一样蔓延 亡者呵，出现吧 所有的活人都闭上了嘴 亡者呵，在哪里? 暮色邀请你们说话 一些名字我要牢记 另一些名字寻找墓碑 无数的名字我写下 仿佛写出了一个国家 而暮色在大地上蔓延 伸出的手被握住 暮色临窗，总有人 轻轻叩响我的家门

Twilight in the vast expanses of a nation the twilight is just as vast lamp after lamp lights up and twilight spreads out like the autumn appear, ye deceased all of the living have shut their mouths where are you, deceased? the twilight invites you to speak some names I will memorize other names search for their tombs countless names I have written down as if I were writing a nation and the twilight spreads over the earth the outstretched hand grasped as twilight reaches the window, where someone is always rapping lightly at my door Translated by Lucas Klein

Dusk In a vast country Dusk, too, is vast Lamps light up one by one Dusk spreads like autumn Let the dead step out And we, the living, seal our lips Where are you, oh departed Dusk is inviting you to speak    Some names will live in my memory Some will search for a tombstone The rest will spill from my pen As if making a new nation Twilight on the horizon Extends its hand to be held When dusk arrives, someone Translated by Wang Ping & Johann Hauser-Ulrich

To promote Notes on the Mosquito: Selected Poems of Xi Chuan, forthcoming in the spring of 2012 from New Directions, I have started a blog at xichuanpoetry.com

Updated often, it contains links to work by Xi Chuan in English as well as news and information about translation and contemporary Chinese poetry.

Reading the orginal poem by Xi Chuan and the translations of his poem, it reminded me of a poem that I read over 10 years ago. It was a poem by the exiled poet Liu Hongbin. He is almost unknown, but his poem means much more to me, as he is more hones about what a poet can do and what he cannot. I pasted the poem and the translation here below. There is striking similarity in the last line.
The tone is more calm and dark.



STANDING AT THE DOORS OF THE DUSK

By Liu Hongbin

Standing at the doors of dusk,
I open words.
I see
darkness amid the silence.
The world emerges,
a man writes
with mutilated fingers,
the square in his mind is empty.

Bring your hands together,
move to a safe place to pray,
sprinkle water on silence,
watch the voices of light expanding,
now rip up that very silence.

The doors of the world
unlock ---
thousands of imprisoned lives
flee in the wind of evening,
I hear the banging doors.

Instantly I shut the doors again,
and find the pursuing words
have already been posted on them.

Translated by the author and Peter Porter

Published by Index on Censorship, 1997 - Routledge


站在黄昏的门前


站在黄昏的门前

我打开词语

我看见

沉默中的昏暗

世界

合拢

一个人写作

用残损的手指

他心中的广场空空荡荡


将双手合十，移到平安处祈祷

撒水在沉默上

长出一片光明的声音

然後撕裂沉默

世界的两扇门

打开

被囚禁的数万生命逃走

在暮色的风里

我听见门在撞响


我赶紧关上黄昏的门

发现抓我的通缉令已贴在门上

http://beijingspring.com/bj2/1997/400/2003124171015.htm

I like them both. Especially this from Klein:

"appear, ye deceased
all of the living have shut their mouths
where are you, deceased?
the twilight invites you to speak"

BTW, I thought this was a cool thing to say: "I would vote for Klein. His translation makes me want to see what the original is doing to force him to make such choices." --Jennifer Nelson

There's a strong metrical economy to the Wang Ping translation, brief and beautiful. The line in Klein is longer, more expansive. They're a pair of opposites along that particular axis. Very strong translations.

http://www.jameyhecht.com/Z-187.html

Li Fukan's translation seems to be of an earlier version of Xi Chuan's poem, published in '87, while Klein and Wang / Hauser-Ulrich [Wang Ping's family name is Wang, not Ping] translated from Xi Chuan's revised version from the early nineties.

This may sound harsh, even cruel, but Xi Chuan's 暮色 is so lost in Li Fukan's translation (http://www.shigeku.com/xlib/lingshidao/hanshi/xichuan.htm)....there is so little poetry left. That rendition is no more than line by line "transliteration." One has to be a poet in both (source and target) languages to attempt poetry translation at all. Now that I've seen Liu's translation, I appreciate both Klein's and Wang Ping's beautiful renditions so much more!

The Wang Ping translation is tight and clean and seems to understand the succinctness of certain kinds of Chinese poetry. But it also has some of the flaws I've seen in the works of many translators: a readiness to use English cliches. I understand that when one is learning a language one tends to learn the slangs and cliches too but in poetry one has to be careful.
Found another translation of Twilight, Translated by Li Fukang with Eva Hung
http://www.shigeku.com/xlib/lingshidao/hanshi/xichuan.htm

http://www.renditions.org

Totally wondering about the allusion to heaven and earth. -C

Yes, I enjoy Lucas Klein's translation as it sings along the lines, dare I say, of Pound/Eliot which is perhaps inappropriate to invoke here and yet the spirit of empathy and conversation, longer-winded, delicate and sincere translation appeal to me even if it all is 'vast' --- maybe it is the late winter, the sense of needing more than an ellipsis just now, so I go for the bit more, a few more words, a little incantation. Merci.

I would like the people who say that Ping and Hauser-Ulrich's is "simply" better or more "poetic" to clarify these statements. To me this is obviously not true: firstly, they use clichéd language, for example "seal our lips" and "live in our memory." Secondly, from the analysis of the original already done by other commentators, they stray further from the original. Finally, the difference between "writing a nation" and "making a nation" here is the kicker (for me): the former is by definition (for me) more poetic than the latter, as it activates language and avoids usual constructions.

Those who understand the original Chinese can confirm whether Klein's choice here, too, is closer to the original. It seems so from the repeated character. I would vote for Klein. His translation makes me want to see what the original is doing to force him to make such choices.

Both translations seem good to me--I am just expressing my surprise at some of the other commentators' unexplained views.

Dusk is a nice poem with its compact forms whereas Twilight is a loosely connected verbose poem. Though both the poems carries intense images and metaphors yet, dusk "invites me to speak' more and more as it "spreads like autumn"

DUSK is itself an excellent poem, conveying the message in concise, precise strokes, in the finest tradition of English literature. TWILIGHT is a good translation but falls far short as a poem, for many reasons, too numerous to mention.

What a lovely and evocative poem, and how differently each version attempts to translate its essence. I don't speak Chinese. The English version I prefer is Klein's, as its language is more poetic and its structure flows, bringing in more imagery and allowing for more places to be touched. Ping's short and choppy structure doesn't connect the phrases and their meaning to each other. Klein's "rapping lightly at my door" is a wonderful ending. I prefer Ping's choice of the word "tombstone."

Ping & Hauser-Ulrich is simply a better poem in English.

i think both translations have something to offer, but how can we be sure which is best until we've heard them read aloud? isn't that the purpose of a "slam"? the great thing about Poetry Slam was that it got the poem off the page and back on the stage and it's a shame to see PEN putting it back there. unless they start presenting the translations as podcasts or videoclips, i think they ought to stop calling it a "Translation Slam" and call it something else, like "Translation Same-Ol' Same-Ol'".

Both are excellent translations, but if you want to compare the translations with the original, Klein's version is a bit superior; it captures not only the spirit/essence of the original, but also its pathos and ethos via its rendition of imagery, both visual and auditory.

幅员辽阔: 4 characters in the original, Klein uses "vast expanse" to capture it expensiveness (a single "vast" in the other version doesn't deliver the effect).

国家: "Nation" is obviously better than "Country" because its emphasis is on people, multititudes of people....

暮色: As has been pointed out, "twilight" is more poetic than the more prosaic "dusk;" besides, there is a hint of hope in the choice of "twilight"; it can be both early evening or the time right before daybreak--the dawning of a new day.

灯一盏一盏地亮起: The original 一盏一盏 (with its repetition of both visual and sound imagery) is perfectly captured by Klein's "lamp after lamp lights up" (the alliteration works really well here).

暮色像秋天一样蔓延 "and twilight spreads out like the autumn" visually presents to our eye (and ear) the expansiveness....more faithful to the original.

亡者呵，出现吧 "appear, ye deceased" is addressing the "deceased" directly, hence emotionally more appealing, touching, than the imperative "Let the dead step out"... the archaic "ye" lends the line an almost biblical depth and intensity of feeling.

We can go on and on.

Again, both are good renditions, but Klein's, to me, is quite a bit superior (if you compare with the original).

I enjoyed them both. What a great idea to do this. I translate Chinese myself, so seeing the different choices is fascinating. I particularly note "countless names I have written down" vs. "The rest will spill from my pen." I would have gone present tense, so both make me think.

Sorry, the Anonymous below is me, Anny Ballardini, I did not notice the Name slot.

I prefer Klein's literal translation by which I get more in contact with the original text written in a language I do not know. Besides that I prefer 'twilight' to 'dusk.'
Congratulations to the three translators, whichever version might be the best. And wonderful the original text.

The poem is beautiful. Visually it looks much less compressed and more free-form than classical Chinese poems you seem printed. For me the most striking difference is between "appear, ye deceased" and "Let the dead step out", since these are completely different verb tenses. Am I right in inferring from the pattern of the repeated characters in lines 1 and 3 of that stanza that the original is probably more like "Dead ones, come out?" Disclaimer: I don't speak Chinese.

I vote for Ping and Hauser-Ulrich. Stanza by stanza, I like their poetry a smidge better that Klein's admirable but sometimes too literal interpretation.

Between "nation" and "country" there's an abyss! Not to mention "twilight" and "dusk," "deceased" and "dead," "shut" and "seal." To me it is the apostrophe (the figure of speech, not the punctuation mark) that really underlines the difference. "Appear, ye deceased" is the real turning point. Klein seems to favor a high, almost archaic literary diction; Ping and Hauser-Ulrich something more contemporary.

Wow, they are very different. They each set a different tone. The translation by Klein seems more positive and optimistic, whereas the translation by Ping and Hauser-Ulrich seems to be more calm and waiting.

I'm just a student.

In the spirit of our gentle slam, we invite your comments about these two translations of Xi Chuan’s poem. I am struck by how different the two English versions are, particularly in the final stanza in which the outstretched hand is read now as belonging to a personified dusk, now as a metaphor for the twilight itself. Each interpretation suggests a different reading of the poem’s final lines. It also strikes me that despite all the many synonyms that exist in English for “large,” both translators agree that the twilight is “vast.”