The Literary Review

The Fall 2007 Volume 5 Literary Review contains both poetry and prose, most of which has been translated. Before I even began to read the poetry, I began thinking about language. The words chosen for a poem are selected through tedious process. The wrong word can ruin a poem, and a beautiful word can bring a poem to new heights. I began to think how many carefully chosen words could have been lost in translation and if what I was about to read is really what the poet wanted me to read. But then I thought that translation will always be a language barrier and tried to take the words that I read for what they were and did not contemplate whether they were what they're supposed to be.

I found Wei Ying-wu's poetry especially interesting because it was written a pretty long time ago but had a very modern feel, which could have been due to the translation. The following poem is the one I liked the best:

Jade Diggers Ballad
The government drafts a common man
tells him to dig for Lan River jade
over the ridge nights away from home
surrounded by brambles sleeping in the rain
his wife returns from taking him food
and sobs looking south from their home

I have said before that I like short poetry very much, and I found that most of the poetry in the Review was on the shorter side. I feel that short poetry has more power to it. It takes select, perfectly chosen words and places them together to create something that has vast effect. This is a simple, six line poem; but the words chosen make the reader feel the plight of the jade digger and the effect his duty has on his family. The language is very important here because it is where the story and the feeling that comes with it stems from. Of course I cannot be sure if anything was lost in translation, but the way the piece stands now is very powerful and the style really help encapsulate the struggle.

There is a chapter taken fromt he book Love and Language by Ilan Stavans and Veronica Albin (which is a dialogue between the two authors) and I want to discuss a small excerpt from it.

VA: You've said that dictionaries are prudish and unromantic.
IS: The definitions one encounters in them are cold as ice. I often wonder: Do lexicographers ever feel the need to express themselves in a more poetic language? Do they get the blues?
VA: They are methodical.
IS: They are cold fish, and wimps, too.

I found this little tidbit to be very interesting. People often forget that things outside of poetry can be poetic. All words have poetry to them and it is truly a magical craft when the right ones are placed together. Stavans ackonwledges something in the world that he knows is cold, but can be made beautiful; and I found the fact that he was addressing that inspiring. A perfect hand-in-hand example would be from a Swedish poet Fredrik Nyberg whose collection in the book turned sciene into poetry. It all ties into the overarching motif thatI find in this book of the importance of words. Scientific terms by themselves are not beautiful, but when put in the right context they can be made beautiful. The same thing applies to what Stavans is saying about the dictionary. The definitions are bare-boned and to-the-point, but they have the ability to be poetic. Now, I am not saying that I want the dictionary to be poetic, but I certainly understand and respect the argument. Overall, I came to understand and appreciate the importance of words in poetry from The Literary Review much more.