Translations
I am not a poet (obviously), but every so often I read a translation of a poem or a song I love and think, with the completely unjustified confidence of the amateur, surely this can be done differently. This is usually how the trouble starts. Translation is an impossible optimization problem: preserve meaning, rhythm, music, image, register and the small accidents that made the original memorable, while changing almost every word. One cannot win, but the attempt is an intimate way of reading, and occasionally one finds a line that feels close enough to make the rest of the failure worthwhile.
These are some of my attempts.
Verse
- Poetic translations into ItalianHenley, Invictus · Gumilev, Жираф · Eminescu, La steaua
- English translations of Russian poetryVoznesensky · Blok · Mandelstam · Mayakovsky · Vizbor · Severyanin
- English translations of Italian poetryIllica & Giacosa, E lucevan le stelle · Endrigo, Altre emozioni
Prose
- Un cestino con le pigne d’abeteKonstantin Paustovsky, Корзина с еловыми шишками
- Ruscelli dove sguazzano le troteKonstantin Paustovsky, Ручьи, где плещется форель
- A thesis defenseV. F. Turchin’s one-act comedy, freely translated and adapted
- DaffodilsMrs. Whymont is ill, and Mrs. Gracie, who teaches science, takes the literature class