K.K.Baczynski, [Golden sky ...]

[Senna Jawa]

--

Golden sky I'll open for you,
hear the silence's white thread,
the blue nut will crack and open,
follow life paths, hear the sounds
of the growing leaves of rivers,
of the lakes' song, the dusk's music,
till the morning birds will offer
milk of dawn.

The hard earth I will turn for you
into liquid milkweeds' flight,
I'll derive from things their shadows
that coil themselves like cats,
their fur sparks and folds each of things
into storm hues, leaves' hearts, gray rains'
convolution.

And the air's streams vibrating
like smoke above thatched roof
I will turn into long boulevards
of birches melodic flow
coming like from a huge cello
regret -- rosy climbers of light,
bee anthem of wings.

Just remove from my blinking eye
a glass splinter -- the days' image
which rolls white skulls from earth to sky
through the burning meadows of blood.
Just undo the crippled hours,
hide the graves under the river's coat,
blow the battle dust off of my hair,
of angry years
the black dust.

​

K.K. Baczynski
(tr. from Polish by wh)

 

[Maria2394]

wow, Senna Jawa

some marvelous, crystal clear images in that poem. especially the cat's fur. I enjoyed very much...do you have others by this poet?



maria

 

[Angeline]

--

Golden sky I'll open for you,
hear the silence's white thread,
the blue nut will crack and open,
follow life paths, hear the sounds
of the growing leaves of rivers,
of the lakes' song, the dusk's music,
till the morning birds will offer
milk of dawn.

The hard earth I will turn for you
into liquid milkweeds' flight,
I'll derive from things their shadows
that coil themselves like cats,
their fur sparks and folds each of things
into storm hues, leaves' hearts, gray rains'
convolution.

And the air's streams vibrating
like smoke above thatched roof
I will turn into long boulevards
of birches melodic flow
coming like from a huge cello
regret -- rosy climbers of light,
bee anthem of wings.

Just remove from my blinking eye
a glass splinter -- the days' image
which rolls white skulls from earth to sky
through the burning meadows of blood.
Just undo the crippled hours,
hide the graves under the river's coat,
blow the battle dust off of my hair,
of angry years
the black dust.

​

K.K. Baczynski
(tr. from Polish by wh)

Do you discuss translating poetry on your site? I'd be very interested to read how you go about changing the language and keeping the poetry. I don't know this poet, but your translation makes me want to read more of K.K. Baczynski. How is translating different from writing your own poems? More difficult? Do you feel you make compromises or change images to keep it poetic when a word or phrase does not translate directly?

Do you write your own poems first in Polish and then translate to English? Actually, these are all questions I have for others here--like Liar and Lauren--whose poems here are not submitted in their respective native languages.

Yes, I have lots of questions about this, but that's because producing poetry in translation fascinates me. I think it takes discipline that must carry over to one's own poem writing.

Oh and is Baczynski a common Polish name? Just wondering because I went to high school with kids with that surname (same spelling).

 

[Maria2394]

Do you discuss translating poetry on your site? I'd be very interested to read how you go about changing the language and keeping the poetry. I don't know this poet, but your translation makes me want to read more of K.K. Baczynski. How is translating different from writing your own poems? More difficult? Do you feel you make compromises or change images to keep it poetic when a word or phrase does not translate directly?

Do you write your own poems first in Polish and then translate to English? Actually, these are all questions I have for others here--like Liar and Lauren--whose poems here are not submitted in their respective native languages.

Yes, I have lots of questions about this, but that's because producing poetry in translation fascinates me. I think it takes discipline that must carry over to one's own poem writing.

Oh and is Baczynski a common Polish name? Just wondering because I went to high school with kids with that surname (same spelling).

Cool you asked him those questions Angeline, I was wondering many of the same things, and I too would like to read more of that poet.

SJ, do you know any Walczesky's?

I google the name and can only find people that we already know from Ohio and Michigan...my husbands brother says that although they think they are Polish, there was a rumour about some russian heritage too, lol...I dont know what to think, I was born a Howard

keep translating, I will keep reading



maria

 

[Angeline]

Cool you asked him those questions Angeline, I was wondering many of the same things, and I too would like to read more of that poet.

SJ, do you know any Walczesky's?

I google the name and can only find people that we already know from Ohio and Michigan...my husbands brother says that although they think they are Polish, there was a rumour about some russian heritage too, lol...I dont know what to think, I was born a Howard

keep translating, I will keep reading



maria

Thanks sis. Ever since I discovered the poet Fernando Pessoa a few years back, I've been taken with the process of translating poetry because it's not just translating; it's that and writing poetry. And I can't even conceive of the brain cells required to translate sonnets or other complex forms, but it has been done.

This is a very cool link (which I mentioned once before in some thread) to a page that presents 13 different translations of Pessoa's Autopsicografia. The variations across the 13 versions are fascinating to read and contemplate.

 

[Tzara]

http://falcon.tamucc.edu/~sencerz/baczynski.htm

 

[Angeline]

http://falcon.tamucc.edu/~sencerz/baczynski.htm

Thanks, Tzara.

 

[Senna Jawa]

Only 4 responses by 3 participants, and an impossible number of difficult issues.

Let me start with the relatively simpler one but still difficult to settle, about Maria's Walczesky. One thing is sure, the last letter originally was like in my own name, it was "i", not "y". The US used to be a "melting pot" in a somewhat simple minded way. Today it still is but in a more refined way: today people are happy to keep their ethnic heritage. Until fifties of the previous century the Poles who arrived to North America were often adopting the spelling of their names to make them pronounced the way they were pronounced in Poland. It is a hopeless task. Anyway, now you know why you see that "y" at the end of "Walczesky". As a minimum, it should have been in the original "Walczeski". Who knows, perhaps it used to be "Walczewski". The etymology may provide further hints, while I am not an etymologist . The first association, especially if it were "Walczewski", relates to word "walka" which means a struggle or fight or battle or conflict... But for instance the adjective (for a bravy warrior) would be "waleczny", hence I am doubtful about this direction (while it is still a possibility). Two other words that strongly come to mind are "walc" which means "waltz" ("valse"? -- dance) and "walec" which means "cylinder". BTW, read the Polish "cz" combination as "ch" in English (also "sz" as "sh").

Now about a possible Russian connection. The name is absolutely Polish, not Russian. However, in the second half of the 18th century Poland lost its independence. It was divided in three stages between Russia, Austria and Prussia (where not so long earlier Prussia was subjugated by Poland; Prussia was a parasite state within Poland & Lithuania anyway, it was a continuation of the "Knights of the Cross" or whatever the face of those horrible Christian monks was, brought there by a Polish prince--that's how history makes turns). Russia took more than a half of the territory of Polish-Lithuanian kingdom. So now, in the US, when someone's folks came here before Poland regained its independence and statehood in 1918, they might be confused, and for a good reason, about their descence.

Regards,

Senna Jawa (Włodzimierz Holsztyński]

PS. I have cut and paste unicode "ł" and "ń" in my name, not ISO.

 

[Senna Jawa]

"Knights of the Cross" or whatever the face of those horrible Christian monks was

"Teutonic Order" or, what's the same, "Teutonic Knights".

 

[Senna Jawa]

This is a very cool link (which I mentioned once before in some thread) to a page that presents 13 different translations of Pessoa's Autopsicografia. The variations across the 13 versions are fascinating to read and contemplate.

It's a curio. No big deal. The translators have a problem with the initial phrase in the original. It's a common enough situation, when it is not ppossible to translate the double meaning or similar from one language to another, I ran into many such untranslatable cases, so that eventually the translators have to go around it or to sacrifice this or that.

It is clear that the original is not on a poetic orbit, that it is an issue of a graceful logical play which just does not work in English. The presence of 13 or 13 hundred translations doesn't make the original any better or more profound. It's a cute text and not more.

 

[Senna Jawa]

For a contrast

It's a curio. [...] The presence of 13 or 13 hundred translations doesn't make the original any better or more profound. It's a cute text and not more.

If you want profound poetry related to the given topic then reread "Stranger" by Camus. The main (French) character was threaten with a knife by an Arab, and he shot the Arab. An objective court would decide if and to what extent the main character was guilty of man slaughter. But the court actually (in "Stranger") has sentenced and killed, virtually murdered, the young man really for something else. Our hero not so much refused as simply didn't know about such a thing like being an actor who plays a role, in this case himself. For instance, it is very clear from the story that he felt deep grief after his mother died. But he would not play any such emotion for others, and not for the court either, he would not claim it for the sake of apperances or for any sake. It was not in his make-up. And for this the regular folks, who routinely proclaim their heart and soul and emotions, these regular folks had to hate such a natural, unselfconsciencious (hence free) spirit, they had to murder him for such an unspeakable sin.

Now you see the difference between shallow talking, as in the poem, and the profound observation; between a skillful but pretty nothing toy and Poetry.

I still shiver when I think about Camus' "Stranger".

 

[Senna Jawa]

http://falcon.tamucc.edu/~sencerz/baczynski.htm

Thank you, Tzara, for the link. Unfortunately, there is not a trace of Baczyński's poetry in those translations. You may check r.a.p. for SAO's translations of Baczyński. SAO has his advantages and disadvantages as a translator but he will give you a better idea.

The information about Baczyński's death on that page is only approximately correct. Baczyński died as a soldier of "Armia Krajowa" ("National Army"--the main Polish underground army under the German occupation; Armia Krajowa acted under the orders from the legal Polish government in exile, in London). But it's hard to claim that he was defending anything at that particular time. The problem was that Poles had almost no arms. At the start of the Warsaw Uprising they had even less arms per soldier than the Jewish fighters of the earlier Warsaw Ghetto Uprising (a number of the survivers of the Ghetto Uprising had joined later the Warsaw Uprising). Baczynski on that day was unarmed. He died a death of a soldier in action, but also of a poet. They were inside a building, on the 2nd or higher floor. He just had to go to the window. I think that he was even warned not to do it, especially that he had no business to go to the window except that he was a poet, he had to see, to look around. A stray artillery bullet had chopped off his whole face.

His wife was a soldier of Armia Krajowa too (perhaps a nurse). She was at the time in a different part of the city. Witnesses said that somehow she knew and told them that her Krzysztof (Baczynski) got killed, and she was depressed from that moment on. She herself died in the Uprising the next day or withing a few days (before getting a notification about her husband).

Baczynski's poetry is very hard to translate, I was not even dreaming about doing it. Thus I was very impressed with SAO's (his nickname is Olek) translations because he got Baczyński's flow and mood and colorfullness. Somehow, at one moment I got psyched up and surprised myself but I am not going to try my hand at translating Baczyński again.

Of the great Polish poets you may read with pleasure Zbigniew Herbert. There are or were two strong translating teams. The results are excellent. Herbert's poetry is relatively easy to translate. Also not too difficult to translate is Wisława Szymborska--the Nobel Prize laureat. You may read in English both her and the other Nobel Prize winner, Czesław Miłosz. As good as these two are, both Herbert (who was not awarded Nobel) and another Nobel Prize winner, Joseph Brodsky from Russia, are still way better (in my opinion).

Thus you may get a good feel for these four poets but not for so well for Baczyński, and not for the greatest Western poet, Bolesław Leśmian (I never saw good translations of Leśmian except that a time ago I prompted high quality multiple translations of two short Leśmian's poems, including my own translations, alas they're all gone, lost).

 

[Tzara]

Thank you, Tzara, for the link. Unfortunately, there is not a trace of Baczyński's poetry in those translations. You may check r.a.p. for SAO's translations of Baczyński. SAO has his advantages and disadvantages as a translator but he will give you a better idea.

I was afraid that that might be the case. The translator is listed as a university professor and my experience with translations by university professors is that they often come from a critical background and are better at analyzing writing—be it poetry, plays, or fiction—than they are at creating it. Accordingly, their translations are often semantically accurate but stylistically awful. Sometimes they are not even semantically accurate.

I used to think that a less than stellar translation was better than no translation at all, but I'm not sure I believe that anymore, especially for poems. Several years ago I was reading several books by Stanisław Lem, whose work I enjoyed. Most of these were translated, I think, by Michael Kandel. I have no idea whether he is a good translator or not, but I greatly enjoyed the books. Then I read Lem's The Invincible and it was like reading a book by a completely different (and inferior) author. It turned out that the book had been translated into English from a German translation of the original Polish. Kind of like the children's game where you whisper a sentence into one child's ear, who whispers it to another, and so on until the last child states the sentence out loud, which is usually wildly different that the original.

 

[Senna Jawa]

Do you discuss translating poetry on your site?

I barely have started my page and have stopped almost immediately. I'll let you know when I am back at it.

I'd be very interested to read how you go about changing the language and keeping the poetry. I am reading your request in more than one way. Perhaps you may say more, if you like to.

I don't know this poet, but your translation makes me want to read more of K.K. Baczynski. For starters, you may read the same poem in the SAO's translation.

How is translating different from writing your own poems? More difficult? More difficult. It requires an external kind of the discipline. Only in the case of my own poems I would have occasionally easy time to translate them, while I don't even attempt to translate some of my other poems. I did translations in four directions: E-->P, R-->P, P-->E, R-->E, i.e. into Polish and English from Polish, Russian, English.

Do you feel you make compromises or change images to keep it poetic when a word or phrase does not translate directly? I don't feel that I make compromises. But I am often short of giving the original the full justice. You may call it compromises, but to me "compromise" has a more narrow meaning. I did on occasion certain trade-offs or "operations". I allowed once or twice a poem to have an extra Russian sound in Polish. Or I would borrow the sound of the author from his other poems, I would make the translation to conform to the total body of work of the given author rather than to the given poem only. And in the case of my own things it felt good on at least two-three occasions to go free, to write variations. In the case of "poe tr y" I simply have ommited the first two lines, when I recently decided to translate it into Polish. They don't work in Polish. (Was I casual? )
Do you write your own poems first in Polish and then translate to English?

If I write in English, I write in English, period--there are no Polish phrases or words in my mind on such occasions. E.g. I got "poe tr y" when I was driving, just leaving my brother's home (where I lived at the time). I was afraid that I may forget the text Some other poems I got under shower, etc. In a few cases I followed the advice of having a tiny, pocket notebook and pencil on you.

Yes, I have lots of questions about this, but that's because producing poetry in translation fascinates me. I think it takes discipline that must carry over to one's own poem writing. Great poets were often also great translators. Obviously the technique and lingustic capabilities are important in both cases. Also, both poets and translators should be humble (cocksure but humble nonetheless). It's especially bad when someone, who translates a poem by a great poet wants to do better than the poet. Such an arrogant translator is proud of understanding of something in the poem (sometimes s/he may think that s/he understands more than the author--it happens quite often!). Then something pathetic happens: the translators iinserts his/her understanding into the translated text. And the top poetry is gone. You get chewed food instead of a fresh meal. It's the same situation as when you write your own poems, when you give the readers your understanding instead of poetry. The difference is that when one writes his/her own poem then it is his/her own business. In the case of a translation the translator victimizes the original author.

Oh and is Baczynski a common Polish name? Just wondering because I went to high school with kids with that surname (same spelling). It's not common, not at all. (I vaguely remember that there was also a chess player in Russia who had the same name). Those former kids should check their family history.

Krzysztof Kamil Baczynski lived only 23 years before he got killed by Germans during the Warsaw Uprising. Critics agree that his work is surprisingly mature, accomplished, like he had a premonition of his death and had speeded up his poetic development. His poems were forbidden in the communist Poland until about 1955. Afterward critics still would not write the whole Baczynski's life story, they were dishonest cowards. The result is that this great body of poetry still is not fully understood by the public. His poetry is popular. Some of his poems, including the one presented in this thread, became song hits, very dramatic songs. His poems are viewed either as something of colorful, exotic candy wrappers or as patriotic. They are much more than that. They are univerasal poems about humanity and about the global cataclism. When you read "blood" in his poems, or "fires", you should take them very seriously, not metaphorically. His poems are very Polish but at the same time they include the tragedy of the annihilation of Jews as a nation. Baczynski never mentions Germans in his poems (or possibly just in a marginal one, not meant as serious art), and he rarely uses words Poland or Polish, never Jew(s), Jewish. Instead he considers the issue of men turning into monsters as a human, depressing option, and he worries about himself in the poems, about being affected by history and turning into a monster himself (no, he is not using such any epithets like "monster", he avoids naming abstractions).

Communists tried to hide Baczynski under the cover of silence because he was a soldier (he had achieved a low officer rank) in Armia Krajowa, which was in an opposition to communism. The post-communism lack of full disclosure of Baczynski's life story is due to his Jewish descent. It is known, but not commonly known, that his mother was Jewish, and together with Baczynski's aunt, they lived through the years of German WWII occupation of Poland in fear of being discovered and murdered like the geat majority of Polish Jews. This certainly had a monumental impact on Baczynski, who was especiually close to his mother. Very few people know that also Baczysnki's father was almost for sure Jewish too--the Krzysztof Baczynski's paternal grandfather owned artisan shops and had organized for his artisans hebrew schools. You will not read this last information in any printed sources. I have learned it privately from one of the heros of the Warsaw Uprising, tkg, who years later has participated also in the Martin Luter Civil Rights Movement (this time in the US of course); tkg is not a professional historian but he's fond of very serious, solid, historic research, and he's a wonderful writer too.

Try to listen to the songs written in the 60ies of the previous century, with Baczynski's lyrics. It should give you an idea how melofic his poems are.

 

[wildsweetone]

--

Golden sky I'll open for you,
hear the silence's white thread,
the blue nut will crack and open,
follow life paths, hear the sounds
of the growing leaves of rivers,
of the lakes' song, the dusk's music,
till the morning birds will offer
milk of dawn.

The hard earth I will turn for you
into liquid milkweeds' flight,
I'll derive from things their shadows
that coil themselves like cats,
their fur sparks and folds each of things
into storm hues, leaves' hearts, gray rains'
convolution.

And the air's streams vibrating
like smoke above thatched roof
I will turn into long boulevards
of birches melodic flow
coming like from a huge cello
regret -- rosy climbers of light,
bee anthem of wings.

Just remove from my blinking eye
a glass splinter -- the days' image
which rolls white skulls from earth to sky
through the burning meadows of blood.
Just undo the crippled hours,
hide the graves under the river's coat,
blow the battle dust off of my hair,
of angry years
the black dust.

​

K.K. Baczynski
(tr. from Polish by wh)

some of this poem i do not understand but feel there are things i should know.

eg
line 3 - what is the 'blue nut'?
stanza 3 line 6 - 'rosy climbers of light' - is this, fire? but what then are the 'bee anthem of wings'? - is it the sound of the fire... oh wait, or is it gunfire?

also, the slightly 'quirky' phrasing in translation whilst probably not acceptable as an 'english poem' is great here because it seems to slow my reading to ensure that i think harder about what i'm reading. eg 'each of things', and 'coming like from a huge cello / regret'.

by the way, it's nice to see you back!

 

[Angeline]

Senna, thank you for your detailed answers to my questions. They raise more questions (as you know, good answers generally lead to more questions ) and I do have more to say. I'll ask the questions specifically related to the translations here.

I read SAO's translation. I put yours and Sao's next to one another on my screen and looked at them together. Immediately I saw that you wrote in a more active voice that makes the poem accessible, but also opens it to more interpretation. For example, SAO's version begins with "I'll unfold for you a heaven" while yours starts "Golden sky I'll open for you." Your version is a stronger voice and also allows the subject of the pronoun "you" to be taken as either the sky or the reader.

Your constructions make the poem more declarative. You also use more verbs. SAO's version seems to exclude verbs and uses implied subjects in some places, which makes it sound awkward. In comparison, most of your images are clearer and/or more graceful. I prefer "bee anthem of wings" to "hymm of hornet wings," and the startling "Just remove from my blinking eye/a glass splinter -- the days' image" is a sharper visual (no pun ntended!) for the reader than "Only pull out of my pupils/painful mirrors, shards of days."

Overall, your translation communicates more clearly than SAO's, but most lines have the same meanings (to me, anyway). There are other examples though where your line and SAO's seem to convey somewhat different--maybe opposite--meanings (for example, SAO's "will bring shadows out of matter" versus your "I'll derive from things their shadows"). And the third strophe is, in my opinion, problematic in both versions: I do like your bee anthem better, but "cello's sorrow" is easier for me to understand than "coming like from a huge cello/regret... ." That makes me wonder whether that third strophe is particularly difficult (maybe because of idiom?) to translate.

How do you decide where to make the trade-offs (not compromises!) you described to me in your last post? I suspect there are words or phrases (maybe idiomatic expressions or concepts peculiar to Polish language or culture) that can't be translated to a second language. Are the places in the poem where meaning diverges in the two translations those where you made trade-offs or felt free to write a variation that sounds better to you? Does your translation better represent the poet's voice? I ask this last question because I would describe your own poems as precise, and I think your translation is more precise (certainly more compact and coherent) compared to SAO's.

I feel ambivalent about translations because while I do want an opportunity to read poems I would not otherwise be exposed to (because I can't read them in the original language), I wonder if the translation I am reading is faithful to the original. And if it is not but is still a good poem, whose poem am I reading--the original poet's or the translator's? How would I even know? I have read various versions of translations of the same Pablo Neruda poem. Some are better (i.e., more poetic) to me than others, but I'll never know which is most faithful to the original. Ultimately I suppose it doesn't matter from the reader's perspective.

I do agree with you, by the way, about humility being important. Arrogance clouds the mind and produces poems that may be full of technique but still lack poetry. More and more I find that I when I read a poem I really love it is because it's honest. And I don't think honesty can coexist with arrogance.

 

[Tzara]

Green Integer has published a book of English language translations of some of Baczyński's poems, with Bill Johnston as translator. I am curious as to whether you have any feel as to whether these are good, or even adequate, translations. Have you seen these?

 

[Senna Jawa]

Green Integer has published a book of English language translations of some of Baczyński's poems, with Bill Johnston as translator. I am curious as to whether you have any feel as to whether these are good, or even adequate, translations. Have you seen these?

I don't have it. I'll check Amazon for Baczynski. Could you post one or two translations by BJ (I hope it's ok)? Thank you for info.

 

[Tzara]

I don't have it. I'll check Amazon for Baczynski. Could you post one or two translations by BJ (I hope it's ok)? Thank you for info.

I don't own the book. The only links I know are to commercial sites (Amazon, Green Integer) that want to sell it.