Working with a poem you brought with you to the workshop, perform one of the deformance strategies we discussed (isolating, altering, reordering, adding). Share it with us below! Comment on your process and consider the following question: What creative possibilities did this exercise open up for you?
Post what you completed during the workshop, a revised version of it, or a new use of these ideas with another poem.
In the comments section of this blog post, paste your response to the writing prompt. Feel free to comment on others’ work and/or process.
Poetics of Translation Series 
Isolating “Profile of Smoke and Ash”
I ask here before us,
nobody sounded nobody ever heard,
timeless language scales on the
final fish; bones still steaming
We can still see nothing will whisper
Silence
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Whoa! This turned out really cool. Thank you for engaging with Katabasis!
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altering / recoding the second stanza of Ashbery’s “As You Came from the Holy Land”
all is said in whispers
the writing down of
lethargy in the avenues
before, surely not before
what will number land
your house is built in
tone under the apple trees
voice among the hedges
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Beautiful! I especially love what you did with “what tone of voice among the hedges / what tone under the apple trees”.
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Reworking a stanza of one of my poems:
Calm without qualms
with a good front—then
the coherent thing, what must
surprise, with a word destroy
the surface, show true colors
I won’t. because
I am not crazy.
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Love this! Thanks for sharing your poetry!
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An isolation of
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An isolation of Ashaki M. Jackson’s “A Proclamation;” I tried taking out the verbs and a select few conjunctions/pronouns 🙂
Our bodies
into the ocean
us beneath its tongues How
our loss
with water our throats? Oh
Sea, You
greedy and us—
our faces soft and
You
You
babies from our arms
husbands
We in your disregard You
this body We
your ruin
Our monuments
bones in all shores
The original poem: https://poets.org/poem/proclamation-0?mc_cid=be4b9a276e&mc_eid=474f30c452
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So cool! The body images really stand out here in the isolated poem.
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Hi friends. Lovely posts above. So nice to see everyone’s work!
I have a question from the workshop. I am new to translation and was wondering about the idea of risk as a translator. In today’s talk there was discussion of risk by the translator. What does that mean in terms of translating speech which is written by someone else, who is potentially in a position with actual physical risk? I don’t fully grasp the concept of risk through translation because it seems maybe the risk has already been taken by the original rendition of the poem? Is it conceptual risk of making a translation which may be read as “wrong” or is it in reference to danger? Thanks so much for your thoughts.
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Thanks for your question and your thinking on this! I think the idea of “risk” can be different for everyone and also can be dependent on each project. Taking “risks” for me often means opting for less literal translations in favor of non-linguistic forms of meaning, which I think is needed in approaching Katabasis since so much of its force is beyond concrete ideas. In this way, I totally agree with you: the “risk” is taken by the original poem. By taking into account other ways of meaning, or being as a poem, I try and re-create the poem with all its meanings. For other projects, a more literal approach might best serve the ways of meaning of the original; and that might also be a “risk”.
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Hello
I have really enjoyed the workshop and found it very inspiring and insightful.
I have taken “backward reading” into consideration and reconstructed a poem I have written recently about the last harvest of the year
I have rewritten my poem in backward, and I find it more interesting and not so straightforward (I tend to find myself being really straightforward when writing my poems, where I try to be a bit mysterious). I will definitely keep”reordering” as a writing strategy when editing my word.
Please find below the original poem
the season is dawning
tipping its tip
sliding downhill
into a break
I collect myself
bidding it farewell
gathering its last fruit
before sunset
sunshine gliding between the branches
kissing the nest softly
leaves of lime green fern
between the branches
hanging softly
forgotten summer fruit
turned into an amber brunette
the altered
Brunette amber
Forgotten summer fruit
Softly hanging
Quietly between the branches
Fern green lime leaves
Softly kissing
In its embrace
A nest
Branches gliding silently
Between the sunshine rays
Before sunset
The last fruits
Gathered
Bidding farewell
I collect myself
Sliding downhill
Tipping
Dawning
The season
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Whoa this is great and it’s fantastic to see backwards reading in action!! I’m so glad you found the workshop helpful!
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Isolating: Richard Snyder’s “A Mongoloid Child Handling Shells on the Beach”
She turns slow
as did the sea to her
broken maze
they are the calmest sand
The unbroken shout
rough as towels
But she plays the sea’s
small vowels
Process: I’ve been wanting to respond to this poem and how frustrated I am with the term ‘mongoloid.’ Isolation starts to free up the possibilities of how a response might look like, what pieces can be kept and why, and what pieces should be added and why. I gutted the center and kept the shell, a few words from each line’s first and last words, and I’m much more excited about responding to this, perhaps filling it with replacement phrases, or re-translating it as Mouth: Eats Color.
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Amazing! I really love what you’ve done here – and would be excited to see you continue along the lines of Mouth: Eats Color.
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anon, really like what you’re doing here
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