Found in Translation

The Chinese poets recite in Mandarin,
Before their words are translated into English.
Through the forty-year fog
Hazing my bilingual childhood,
I clearly glimpse
“Grandma”, “I like”, “500”, “the sun and moon”, “now”, “children”.
The rising-falling voices
Peel away the layers of growing up
To uncover the little girl
Who did not dream in her mother tongue.

7 June 2008

I won free tickets via The Poetry Society to a reading at the South Bank Centre of Chinese poetry in translation. It did not say in the publicity, whether the poems wld be read in Chinese first, and the man at the desk had no idea either. I was really pleased that they were, because how a poem sounds is also very important to me. I was struck by the fact that I was actually much more affected by the poems in Mandarin, even though I cld only understand the odd word here and there, than the English translations. I get the same feeling when I watch Chinese films with subtitles. It's something about the combination of familiarity and distance, I think... I don't really expect this poem to mean anything to most people (a bit like the Knole Park one I've also just posted), but it was an important moment for me... I was very unsure about a lot of the word choices, my first draft was:

The Chinese poets read in Mandarin,
Before their words are translated into English.
Through the forty-year fog
Clouding/hiding/hazing/veiling/wrapping my bilingual childhood,
I clearly glimpse
“Grandma”, “I like”, “500”, “the sun and moon”, “now”, “children”.
The rising-falling voices
Peel back/away the layers/skin of adulthood/growing up
To reveal/uncover the/a little girl
Who did not dream in her mother tongue.

So any comments wld be welcome!