Light & Dragonflies: Nature Poems/Love Poems - 8. On my knees in happiness

I love this in the way in evokes varied forms and uses of water and large bodies of water.  I can picture sunlight, waves, and at the same time, weariness and frustration.  Thank you for translating this, @AC Benus.

1 hour ago, ReaderPaul said:

I love this in the way in evokes varied forms and uses of water and large bodies of water.  I can picture sunlight, waves, and at the same time, weariness and frustration.  Thank you for translating this, @AC Benus.

Thank you, ReaderPaul. Runge produced some amazing poetry; it's very experiential poetry too. This is stuff, if you feel it at all, you feel in your every pore

I was lulled by the sounds of the sea in the images evoked and in the very rhythms you translated.  I see rocky shores and sandy inlets, and high cliffs, all caressed by the restless waves.  But the green isle of your voice sounds like a shimmering atoll to a soul afloat on a lonely ocean. Thanks for this new translation.

4 minutes ago, Parker Owens said:

I was lulled by the sounds of the sea in the images evoked and in the very rhythms you translated.  I see rocky shores and sandy inlets, and high cliffs, all caressed by the restless waves.  But the green isle of your voice sounds like a shimmering atoll to a soul afloat on a lonely ocean. Thanks for this new translation.

Thank you, Parker. You certainly experienced this poem, which is what I believe Runge was striving for. Thanks again

I can only concur with those comments  of fellow readers' voices before me. Runge is attempting such a difficult task, again trying to paint images and stimulate emotions & feelings in our minds of his own vision, exactly like an artist or musician does.

With this piece, as a very appreciative reader, I was focussed more on understanding difficult task that AC Benus had set himself in translating such a work.

I am wondeing whether our author has German as a mother tongue from childhood or whether he has honed his existing German language knowledge even further  whilst completing this translation or should I more correctly say ,that during the creative process  of understanding meanings and imagery of words, putting all those words into the context of a sentence and understanding the meaning of the whole sentence  and then calculating how each sentence flows from its orevious neighbour into the next sentence and so on ; then finally considering the cohesion of the work as a whole, in a way, similar to the creative process that a successful audio engineer or afilm director accomplishes in their work.

This is where the true talent of a literary artist comes into play because as an integral part of this whole translation process, there is the need to consider the sounds of the words in each language almost as in the case of the methods a composer, conductor uses when orchestrating a musical oiece and which also reflects the cultural context in such a way as to create harmony of movement and meaning between the original language and the new translation.

When I read this translation, I am encouraged to feel, see, think and visualise the meanings of the text. Your taste AC Benus for each language complements the imagery and hence the meaning and the portrayal of feelings so that we can  get as close as possible to the original artist's intentions.

Again thank you for your diligence, literary taste, focussed concentration that this beautiful poem required of you .🌹

On 9/21/2023 at 10:13 AM, Saavikam17 said:

I can only concur with those comments  of fellow readers' voices before me. Runge is attempting such a difficult task, again trying to paint images and stimulate emotions & feelings in our minds of his own vision, exactly like an artist or musician does.

With this piece, as a very appreciative reader, I was focussed more on understanding difficult task that AC Benus had set himself in translating such a work.

I am wondeing whether our author has German as a mother tongue from childhood or whether he has honed his existing German language knowledge even further  whilst completing this translation or should I more correctly say ,that during the creative process  of understanding meanings and imagery of words, putting all those words into the context of a sentence and understanding the meaning of the whole sentence  and then calculating how each sentence flows from its orevious neighbour into the next sentence and so on ; then finally considering the cohesion of the work as a whole, in a way, similar to the creative process that a successful audio engineer or afilm director accomplishes in their work.

This is where the true talent of a literary artist comes into play because as an integral part of this whole translation process, there is the need to consider the sounds of the words in each language almost as in the case of the methods a composer, conductor uses when orchestrating a musical oiece and which also reflects the cultural context in such a way as to create harmony of movement and meaning between the original language and the new translation.

When I read this translation, I am encouraged to feel, see, think and visualise the meanings of the text. Your taste AC Benus for each language complements the imagery and hence the meaning and the portrayal of feelings so that we can  get as close as possible to the original artist's intentions.

Again thank you for your diligence, literary taste, focussed concentration that this beautiful poem required of you .🌹

Thank you, Saavikam17. Sorry for the delay in replying to your wonderfully encouraging comments, but I've been busy writing a new novella.

Soon after I read your comments on this poem for the first time, I encountered a section of verse by Michael Koby. It comes from an anthology of Two Spirit writings I have. They ask:

Why, this spring, am I feeling so unsettled -- 

[...] with not enough time 

to find the right words?

I'd want words with double meaning --

bloom, light, wave --

words I could string together 

to make something

precious, fancy.

I feel Wilhelm Runge would not only be able to understand Koby's feelings here, but would say he felt them too. Much of Runge's poetry seems to well up from the exact place same where desire meets the renewed vigor of springtime.

As for your comments on the nature of my translation work, you've hit the nail on the head of the process in so many ways. It's entirely possible to translate something from another language that makes no sense in English. This is because it's not enough to render a dictionary-form for each word, and arrange each subject/object relationship into suitable syntax for English-speaking minds, if the whole thrust of the original sentence is untransmitted. Compound that for each sentence in a paragraph, and for each paragraph in chapter, and each chapter in a book. Everything could be "correct," but totally meaningless. 

With poetry, the ideas are multiplied exponentially on a word by word basis, as you indicated. All must be weighed in what the translator feels is the original poet's intent. And for me personally, I hold true to the original's music. Their line lengths and metres are essential to me to be able to bring a poem to life in English; the life it has in the source material. A "translation" that sets this aside is first and foremost unfaithful to poetry itself, as one must always assume these musical elements were vital to the composition of the original. 

Thank you for reading this, and I hope you enjoy the other Wilhelm Runge translations as well