Adina Dabija was born on October 15, 1974, in Aiud, Romania, and she writes poems and theatre plays.
Her first book, poezia-papusa ("The Barbie Poem"), Cartea Româneasca, 1997, was awarded the Bucharest Writers Association Guild Prize. Her second book, Stare nediferentiata ("An Undifferentiated State"), Brumar Publishing House, 2006, was distinguished with the Tomis Award. She lives in New York, where she practices Oriental Medicine.
Claudia Serea is a Romanian-born poet who immigrated to the U.S. in 1995. Her poems and translations have appeared in 5 a.m., Meridian, Harpur Palate, Word Riot, Blood Orange Review, Cutthroat, Green Mountains Review, and many others. She was nominated two times for the 2011 Pushcart Prize and for 2011 Best of the Net. She is the author of To Part Is to Die a Little (Červená Barva Press), Angels & Beasts (Phoenicia Publishing, Canada), and A Dirt Road Hangs from the Sky (8th House Publishing, Canada). She also published the chapbooks Eternity’s Orthography (Finishing Line Press, 2007) and With the Strike of a Match (White Knuckles Press, 2011). She co-edited and co-translated The Vanishing Point That Whistles, an Anthology of Contemporary Romanian Poetry (Talisman Publishing, 2011).---------
Claudia Serea Interview, with Kaite Hillenbrand
We’ve published your work before, both your own (with an interview) and translations that you worked on with Adam Sorkin. But I haven’t translated a poem, and I haven’t, until now, interviewed a poet as a translator. It’s interesting trying to figure out how to go about it. I have some general questions, and I’m very curious about the process. I think of translating a poem as being like adopting and raising a child whose parent is watching, especially in a case like yours where the original author is very much alive. How would you characterize the relationships that are created – your relationships with the poem and with the original poet?
Some of my favorite American poets have also done translations. Charles Simic comes to mind—he translated Vasko Popa. Charles Wright translated Eugenio Montale. But my relationship with translations runs deeper than that. For me, it’s a way of giving back to my native language and asking it for forgiveness for not writing my own poems in Romanian.
The most important relationship between the original poet and the translator is of trust. To keep with your metaphor, I think translation is more like summer camp, where the child, the poem, comes to live for a while, with the parents’ agreement, but away from them, in another language. There, the child discovers new things and might even develop a somewhat different personality. Translation does just that: offers new ways of playing and almost creates a new poem in the new language. But there will always be the original version waiting at home.
It seems to me that, as a translator, you probably try to stay true to the poem (including its denotations, connotations, tone, imagery, lines, rhythms, etc.), the original poet, and yourself – and, sometimes, a co-translator. This seems like a huge challenge. How do all of these dynamics work? What do you understand your primary jobs and/or goals to be when translating a poem? Does this ever conflict with someone else, or with a poem itself?
The ultimate goal as a translator is to produce a poem that sounds as if it were written in English in the first place. Some poems are easy to translate, as if they were meant to be. Others are more challenging. There can be all sorts of difficulties: ambiguity of meaning, use of wordplay, puns, humor, rhyme, or syntax complicated by inversions. I think translation is a negotiation process through all the challenges, with the understanding, both by the translator and the original poet that some things will be lost, and others gained. As long as the spirit and life of the original poem are captured, I’d consider it a successful translation, regardless of the loss of some of the rhyme, for instance.
I’ve read “Beautybeast” many times, and every time, I think of at least one new meaning for the poem as a whole or in part. Would you share with us your understanding of the wheel and the beast? Did you discuss this (or similar topics) with Adina?
In my view, this poem is about the relationships between the artist, the society, and the process of creation. The wheel people represent the society: always on the run, bloodied and glittering. The beast is the process of creation, which swallows the narrator and gives birth to the artist in the end. Adina wrote this poem before I met her, while she was still living in Romania. We talk often about our poetry, about poets and society in general. All her poems are playful and fun, but ask bigger questions at the same time. I am looking forward to the collection I translated, coming up later this year from NorthShore Press.
I imagine that poems like Adina’s present special challenges for a translator because they involve metaphors and a kind of magical realism and because they’re open to many interpretations. For example, “Lollipops” begins, “Each evening, my friends and I / walk our collared small gods.” Was it a challenge to translate the metaphors and magical realism so that they leant themselves to the same or similar interpretations as the original? Also, generally, what do you find most challenging about translating, and what do you most love about it?
I had a lot of fun with “Lollipops,” and that’s what I like the most. As a translator, you get to play with a poem’s puzzle and re-assemble it in another language. In “Lollipops,” it was obvious to me that she was talking about the gods as if they were dogs. I tried to express the smallness of the gods in as many as possible ways by using synonyms: miniature, tiny, diminutive, puny, slight, etc. This way, the playfulness of her original was preserved.
I don’t find Adina’s poems particularly hard to translate—I just do it, without explaining or interpreting in any way. I don’t think it’s the translator’s job to clarify the author’s intentions. It’s up to the reader to interpret, pause, re-read, and enjoy all the possibilities a poem has to offer.
How do you decide which poems or poets to translate, and how do you decide whether to translate alone or with a co-translator?
I translate poems or poets that I like. If I like a poem, I might contact the poet to ask for permission to translate it. Sometimes I get requests from poet friends. I usually work alone,
but, for a large project, or if a poem is more difficult to translate, it’s great to have a co-translator’s help. I had a great time collaborating with Adam Sorkin and Paul Doru Mugur on
the anthology The Vanishing Point That Whistles, published recently by Talisman House.
In what ways does your work as a translator affect your own poems?
I love translating contemporary Romanian poetry. It’s so different from its American counterpart: more abstract, but beautiful, surprising, and fierce. It’s a source of inspiration for me. Every time I’m stuck, I open a favorite book by a Romanian poet and feel the rush of fresh imagery pouring out. I am inspired by their courage. It makes me want to take more chances when writing in English.
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Acadele
În fiecare seară eu și prietenii mei
ieșim cu dumnezeiașii noștri de zgardă la plimbare.
Întâi dumnezeiașii fac pipi,
aleargă să se dezmorțescă,
apoi ne cer bani de îngerași și de ceruleț.
Noi nu avem bani de astfel de lucruri,
de-aia îi ținem pe pământ, la casa omului,
în cutiuțe, pe marginea patului.
Ca să nu ne mai sâcâie cu rugămințile lor
le cumpărăm acadele.
Ei fumează o țigară pe furiș, o fac poștă.
Noi mai pișcăm o tipă de fund,
ei se fac că nu văd.
Ce-am mai râs de dumnezeiașul lui Gogu odată.
Gogu suferea că-l părăsise o tipă
și dumnezeiașul lui se îngrășase,
toată ziua Gogu-l îndopa cu dulciuri,
îi făcea toate poftele.
La întoarcere dumnezeiașii fac băiță și intră la cutiuță.
La început se zbat, ne mușcă de mâini.
Noi punem spirt. Ne ustură.
Buuun. Semn de exorcismișor.
Noaptea participăm la verde.
Io-te nebunii ăștia! –
– țipă dumnezeiașii noștri din cutiuțe
și, somnoroși, se întorc pe partea cealaltă.
Lollipops
Each evening, my friends and I
walk our collared small gods.
First, the pint-sized gods go pee-pee,
run around to warm up,
then they ask us for money to buy minute angels
and diminished skies.
We don’t have enough money for such things,
that’s why we keep them on earth, domesticated,
in little boxes by the bed side.
We buy them lollipops
so they stop annoying us with their pleas.
Secretly, they share a cigarette.
We pinch a gal’s bottom;
they look the other way.
Once, we laughed so hard at Gogu’s small god.
Gogu was sad because his girlfriend dumped him
and his small god got fat
because all day long Gogu was stuffing him with candy
and satisfied all his whims.
Back from the walk, the pocket-sized gods
take their diminutive baths and get inside their miniature boxes.
At first, they jerk around and bite our hands.
We dab on alcohol. It hurts.
Gooood. Now, that’s a sign of a slight exorcism.
At night, we get lost in the green.
Look at these crazies!—
—yell our puny gods from their tiny boxes
and, sleepily, they turn on the other side.
Frumusar
Oamenii roții
Noi am întemeiat cu toții o roată
și alergăm după ea.
Alergăm și ne privim în oglindă.
tare mai suntem frumoși și moderni
așa goi în urma roții.
Sânii femeilor noastre sunt unși cu alifii
fosforescente
și li se zdruncină de fugă,
dar lor nici că le pasă,
fumează și vorbesc despre artă.
Culoarea sâneglui nostru ce-a curs în drum
prețuiește mai mult ca durerea din tălpi,
căci ia priviți ce nuanțe dă acest roșu
la lumina făcliilor ce le purtăm
ca să ne lumineze vouă trupurile.
Din goană nu se opresc nici femeile care nasc
și copiii lor vin pe lume tot alergând.
mamelor, barbații le dăruiesc maimuțe și diamante
si de dragul lor își scutură părul
lung până la călcâiele lui Ahile.
Astfel întemeiem un nou curent artistic.
Suntem frumoși și n-o să murim niciodată.
Nimeni n-a atins încă roata,
dar timp este până la ziuă,
căci noaptea asta nu se va sfârși niciodată.
Cântec de leagăn
Astfel am călcat, în goana mea.
pe o fiară care dormea.
Ea a deschis gura și m-a înghițit
Stau în burta neagră și bat în ea cu pumnii.
Pe o ferestruică îi văd pe oamenii roții
gonind fericiți.
Mi-e ciudă pe ei.
Deodată întorc capul și într-un colț al burții
mă zăresc chiar pe mine.
Mi-e frică.
Cum se poate ca făptura
cu tălpile însângerate și sânii fosforescenți
să fiu chiar eu?
Milă-mi e de acest animal nebun și speriat.
Îmi iau inima-n dinți și mă apropii de el,
îi bandajez rănile, îl iau în brațe
si-i cânt până adoarme.
Acum știu că fiara care m-a răpit roții
e un pământ cald și bun
din care voi răsări.
Eu
Acum știu că fiara aleargă mai repede decât roata.
Am fost închisă aici ca să văd un lucru orbitor mie: pe mine.
Mă țin de mână și-mi zâmbesc
și mângâi pereții aceștia ai fiarei
ce mă va naște din nou.
iar ea-mi trimite niște precupeți
să cotrobăi în coșurile lor după mâncare.
să râd de nasurile lor mari
și mirosind căruțele lor să adorm.
Frumusar
Fiara a murit și s-a uscat în jurul meu.
Am rămas eu – miezul ei.
Sunt umedă și miros a nou-născut.
Vântul care bate îmi duce mirosul în lume
Tot felul de animale mă adulmecă și mă ling
se urcă pe mine, își fac culcuș
în scobiturile trupului meu
si astfel devin frumusar –
– un pământ vertical până la stele.
Beautybeast
The Wheel People
We built a wheel together
and now we run after it.
We run and look in the mirror.
We’re so beautiful and modern,
naked behind the wheel.
Our women’s breasts are slicked
with phosphorescent creams
and jump up and down when the women run,
but they don’t care,
they smoke and talk about art.
The color of our blood that flowed into the road
is more prized than the pain of our soles,
just look at this red shimmer
lit by the torches we carry
to light our bodies.
Even the women who give birth don’t stop running
and their children are born racers.
To the new mothers, the men bring monkeys and diamonds,
and, for their love, they shake their long hair
that touches their Achilles’ heel.
This way, we create a new art trend.
We’re beautiful and we’ll never die.
No one has touched the wheel yet,
but there is still time until dawn
because tonight will never end.
Lullaby
Running, I stepped on
a sleeping beast.
She opened her mouth and swallowed me.
Now I sit in her black belly and bang on it with my fists.
Through a small window, I can see the wheel people
running happily away.
I envy them.
Suddenly, I turn my head, and, in a corner of the belly,
I see myself.
I’m afraid.
Is it possible that this creature
with bloody soles and phosphorescent breasts
is really me?
I pity this crazy scared animal.
I work up some courage and get close,
bandage its wounds, hold it in my arms,
and sing to it until it falls asleep.
Me
Now I know that the beast who kidnapped me from the wheel
is a warm and kind land
from which I’ll sprout.
Now I know the beast runs faster than the wheel.
I was trapped here to see something blinding: myself.
I hold my own hand and smile to myself
and caress the walls of the beast
who will give birth to me again.
The beast sends me some merchants
so I can rummage through their baskets for food,
laugh at their long noses,
and fall asleep in their carriages’ smell.
Beautybeast
The beast has died and dried around me.
I’m left alone—its pit.
I’m moist and smell of a newborn.
The wind blows my scent through the world.
All sorts of animals sniff and lick me,
climb on top of me, and sleep
inside the hollows of my body,
and thus I become the beautybeast—
vertical land stretching to the stars.