For this workshop Ricarda teamed up with Pavle Ninković who runs the interactive Serbo-Croatian Poetry Translation website. The workshop began with a short presentation of Translation Games and its outputs. We discussed the fine line between translation, interpretation, illustration and response. What does translation mean within different contexts and how can we define language beyond the linguistic realm?

We then proceeded to the practical part and challenged participants to translate a visual translation of a poem by Vasko Popa back into words. The original poem, ‘Daleko u nama 22’, was written in Serbian and had been translated by artist Danka Dimitrijevic into a photograph.

Danka Dimitrijevic’s translation of Vasko Popa’s ‘Daleko u nama 22’

 

Even though both of us (Pavle and Ricarda) felt that Danka’s image was an excellent translation of the poem, we were  worried that perhaps this time round the challenge to literary translators was bigger than ever before, as so far the artistic translations had always involved several senses and layers of communication, e.g. film, dance, scent, etc. So this time round the poem had been distilled into a two-dimensional purely visual experience, albeit with a multi-layered pictorial ground.

We then decided to gradually give away more clues about the original poem and played a recording of ‘Daleko u nama 22’:

Now our participants had image and sound, albeit the sounds of a language none of them spoke. To this we added the printed poem itself:

In retrospect, we felt that it would perhaps have been better not to show the German translation, as from that moment the tantalisingly more accessible German words distracted from the photograph and the nuances of the Serbian recital. In any case, as transpired from the discussion afterwards, most participants felt that they were able to capture the mood and gist (the essence?) of the poem by merely looking at the photograph and listening to the Serbian recital. So the German helped with finding words rather than content.

Here are some of the drafts for poems:

We discussed these together with Danka’s blurb for her translation:

Above all, it’s important to note that the photo came about in a Parisian flea market where old items are endowed with the energy of their former owners; where on the stands (or “In shop windows”) objects mingle with history. Then there’s Paris, questionably itself a symbol of love. Furthermore, the quality of the photo does not conform to today’s standards but suggests a more distant past.
The mere title of the poem “Far Within Us” permeates the various elements of the photo. These are very archetypal – especially the knowledge that deep within ourselves we are all children. Yet some of the objects are intended for personal use and may carry sentimental value, like the framed photo or the little box with a mirror.
The two children in the photo represent the two parts of the green apple, one part boy and one part girl. The girl directs her gaze at us while the boy amuses himself with other things. The cold tone of the scene mirrors the “blind sun”.
The apparent forced distance (“torn-apart hug”) and lack of communication (“I don’t hear you”) are reflected by the objects in the photo which are deaf to one another, although still together create a harmony of composition. Similarly, the disconnection between the girl and the boy suggests “deaf air” between them.
In the first part of the poem, the children (who will become adults) play the main part and the photo captures the symbolism of the two sexes caught in their eternal misapprehension.
The second part of the poem, then, relates to the wedding dress as a symbol of realised love, though in this case something unrealised: the dress hangs lifeless and without a corresponding male suit, hung like a judgement and without hope of realisation of a happy dream. Indeed, “I gave you my hand” alludes directly to a marriage proposal and the desire to be with someone.

And finally, we revealed the English translation of the poem, which, by then, did not hold any surprises for anyone…

Far Within Us
22
Translated by Lazar Pašćanović

Our day is a green apple
Cut in half
I look at you
You don’t see me
There’s a blind sun between us
On the stairway
Our torn-apart hug
You call me
I don’t hear you
There’s deaf air between us
In the shop-windows
My lips seek
Your smile
On the crossroads
Our run-over kiss
I’ve given you a hand
You don’t feel it
The void has given you a hug
On the city squares
Your tear seeks
My eyes
In the evening my dead day
Meets your dead day
Only in a dream
Do we walk in the same fields

If you would like to provide a new translation of Vasko Popa’s ‘Daleko u nama 22’ into English or any other language, we’d be delighted to  publish it on this website as well as on the Serbo-Croatian Poetry Translation website.

Follow this link to see a spin-off from this workshop: Further Away – translating drawing to poetry

Here are some pictures of the workshop

Collaborators’ bios: