It is a great privilege to have a poem given such close and thoughtful reading: thank you. I am especially pleased that you chose 'Prefabs': I think the sounds and rhythms of the translated versions convey the mood of the poem really effectively. It was a pleasure to be in email contact with Julie concerning a particularly compressed phrase in the poem. Although not fluent myself, I find the similarities and differences between the three translations fascinating, and look forward to discussing them with German speaking friends.


Thanks and best wishes to all the translators
Emily

My German is fairly basic, & I can't tell all the nuances where the translators have chosen different words for the same thing. But it's so interesting to see how the translations differ, and what the issues are for any translation. I'm very honoured to have had you all paying such close attention to the poem (and pleased that you chose Powerpoint, which I'm very fond of). And I hope we can get an event going next year.

Ruth Valentine

I'm fascinated by this work. In particular I congratulate the translators; my poem, with its "litany" of names which have a mystery and a romance even to English readers, must I imagine, have been a curious challenge! It is an honour for me to have my work so carefully considered, and I hope the process has been useful from the students' point of view.

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Seán Street

What a nice thing to happen on a wet Monday! I was delighted to read the translations of my poem, for several reasons. First of all, it's a lovely present, having one's own work translated. Thank you, Anna, Sabine, Chrissanti and Theresa. I read your versions with great enjoyment, and was deeply impressed by your ability to make the poem work on all levels – linguistic, stylistic, poetic – in German. And then, the poem that I thought I knew so well has suddenly become something new and different: four semi-strangers, with all sorts of neat and impressive ways of expressing themselves that sometimes seem to me to read better than the original. And then, the experience made me think about how some parts of a poem seem pretty inflexible – they all get translated in much the same way – while others send the translators off in all sorts of directions, rather like the parallel lines in my poem. I was particularly intrigued by the fact that four German women all have their own individual, personal and highly expressive ways of saying 'You bastards!'. What can this mean? This is another very rewarding episode in my long-standing love affair with the German language. I'm most grateful to all of you.

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Michael Swan

It is really fascinating to see my work in German, and I wish I was familiar enough with the language to appreciate the skill and nuances of the three translations. I can see straightaway however that no two lines have been translated in exactly the same way! - which brings up the familiar point: there is no such thing as a "correct" translation of a poem; each translation reflects the interpretation and "ear" of the particular translator, and is perfectly valid in its own way.

I did ask my husband, who has a reasonable knowledge of German, to look at the translations, and he made a few observations which might be of interest. He felt that all three versions were sympathetic, and intriguing in their own way: the first seemed to be a more precise, literal translation; the second seemed to capture particularly closely the rhythms and poetic diction of English; while the third felt more imaginative and interpretive, and sounded particularly fluid in German.

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Caroline Price

It was a real pleasure to see three versions of my poem in German, although the last time I studied the language formally was more than thirty years ago. Living with a German partner, though, and with us bringing up our daughter bi-lingually, I now have contact with the language again on a daily basis and it's been fascinating to see the subtly different ways in which the lines of my poem have been rendered in German. On a personal level, it's also quite humbling to think of the degree of attention the translators must have brought to the performance of the task. It's a degree, I suspect, that as poets we always hope for, without necessarily expecting it.

Jeremy Page

I have often loved translations of poems from German. Though my understanding of the language is not fluent, it is sufficient to compare them with the originals. I have even attempted translations for myself, which has brought me closer to the poems. It fascinates me to see how one poem can be brought into another language in several, equally valid ways. The translation process is a dialogue of traditions and ways of looking at life reflected through the language. Thus it is is both a joy and a privilege to see this process applied to my own words. Even more so to see them taken into a tradition that has enriched my imagination so much. Vielen Danken.

Thanks
Graham Mummery

A particularly interesting aspect of this project for me is that I lived in Germany for 19 years and remain very connected to the language. There is something extraordinary about reading my own work in German, comparing the minute decisions made by different translators. It feels like connecting doors to the room in which I first sat down to write.

Linda Parkes

I have found working with poetry trend very satisfying, in particular much thought and hard work was put into establishing the best available semantic and phonetic equivalents in German to the original English. A sensitive and careful approach being consistently adopted.

William Oxley

I've realy enjoyed reading the three versions of my poem. I can't read German so I can't comment on many aspects of the translations, so I will comment on those things that struck me! My poem has quite a few words in it that might not appear in many poems and I enjoyed looking at these in translation, especially Gummihandschuhe - rubber gloves - what a wonderful word. I loved fingerhut too - thimble - and munzensack - coinbags. I was interested that Judith and Barbara used 'Happy Bithday' and that Aprilia used something else. I didn't know if this represented the spelling mistake my daughter made on the card or not. My daughter (now 24) does read German and said she really enjoyed reading them. Thank you, Aprilia, Barbara and Judith for translating my poems.

Victoria Pugh

It was fascinating to read the translations of my poem in German, especially to see the different ways in which the three translators had interpreted some of the ideas, and also the way in which the German language itself expresses some phrases with a very different construction to English. I do read a little German, which made the experience all the more interesting. Well done to the translators who had obviously put a lot of thought into their sensitive translations.

Jennie Osborne

Many thanks for the translations of my poem, 'Territory'. I studied German about 25 years ago, so I've enjoyed returning to my dictionary, and realising how few words and phrases I remember! I am impressed with all three versions of my poem, and the skilful way in which they have captured English expressions and phrases that must have been tricky to translate. Please pass my appreciation on to Theresa and Maria, and thanks to you all for taking the time to complete this exciting project.

All the best

John Mackay

I feel very proud to have merited inclusion in this fine project. I have often said that the basis of all art is the communication of our humanity and how it relates to the larger world. When an artist can feel that they have made a human connection through something they have created from their own experience and imagination, they are a success. To think today that such a thing has happened between people of differing culture and language, I can feel nothing less than amazement and, of course, gratitude. How could I have imagined that my simple musings one afternoon on my sofa in New York might find a home in Munich?

Prost-Daniel Thomas Moran

I am delighted to have had my poem chosen to be translated and, although I know very little German, I have some sense of how the three versions must sound in their new language and fascinated by the aural differences. This is a one-sentence poem that must surely have presented problems of syntax, punctuation and lineation for the three translators and to see how these challenges have been met by them is instructive and illuminating. I would like to thank them so much for their hard work, their ingenuity and care to remain faithful to the original, and wish this exciting translation project every success.

Mimi Khalvati

Translating Poetry- the Challenge?

Over the last few years, I have been observing how translation is increasingly coming to be considered as a separate literary art - growing in importance in universities and other higher learning institutions. And given the complexity of an increasingly transnational world, we need more and more translation. Indeed, we are more and more dependent on it for helping us overcome language barriers. My experience of being translated by Barbara Oberhauser, Maria Luise Schlay and Aprilia Zank, with biographical notes from Judith Koniger makes me wish I had more facility with German. At the same time, it is amazing how one feels an 'osmosis effect' - a merging between languages. Thank you very much.

Most poets know that reading writers from other cultures adds to the overall quality, range and depth of their work. Indeed, I feel all should at least attempt to translate a few poems in order to experience the challenge..They will gain insights and facility. Of course, they will need to have some contact with the language/poet being translated or at least with a person who speaks the 'other' language in order to make progress with the sounds, music, sense, vocabulary.and form. There is some consolation in that every attempt at a translation is a 'version' of some kind.

Occasionally, one hears people say that poetry is the most difficult genre to translate?? Perhaps, but therein lies the challenge.

Katherine Gallagher
London. November, 2008

I speak no German unfortunately so am unable to read the translations. But I am delighted that my poem was chosen to be translated. I had an enquiry from one of the translators about the meaning of some phrases and was happy to help. Translating poetry presents many problems in terms of nuance and meaning and my poem contains references that would probably only be understood by an English person, and even a young English person might know nothing about the man Blunt referred to in it. I have been interested to read the comments on the poems and send my best wishes to the translators who have taken such care with all the translations.

Lynda O'Neill

It is wonderful to see B Movie in German! I'm afraid that I have only basic 'tourist' German so can't comment with any degree of fluency on the translations, but I would like to say how much I enjoyed the new 'sounds' that the different translations give to the poem. The translations seem to give the poem a new 'edge', which I really enjoyed - fantastic! Thank you to all of the translators for struggling with 'dyeing/dying' and all of the other tricky nuances, I feel really happy to be involved with this project and wish poetry tREnD all the best,

Katrina

I’m delighted that one of my poems was chosen for the project. Despite my basic German I can see how well the translations work and I enjoyed the fact that the poem’s rhythm remained intact. It was interesting also to note how individual interpretations were displayed in the nuances of the language used, particularly in the second half of the translated versions.

With best wishes (and my congratulations to you and the other translators on your achievements)

Kavita

What a pleasure it is, to be able to pop onto the D I C H T H A U E R site and see so many English-language poems offered in translation, knowing the original poems and the poets. My congratulations to the D I C H T H A U E R translators and administrators for excellent work and presentation - and thank you for including me in the project. I really enjoy browsing through the translations and observing differences in treatment between them. Wishing you all continuing sucess...

Anne Stewart

These are beautiful poems, all of them, and, if I were Judith, Miriam or Maria, I would feel that something of this poem now belongs to me - as the versions clearly do. But something else, too, something unquantifiable like a glance, a secret sharing of language between writers. I was excited (of course I was) by seeing my poem translated into German, especially because it's a language very close to my heart. But I was excited too in reading new works of art, and I came at them exactly in that way - these were new poems that followed another poem closely but were different (in small and lovely ways).
There was a lot I admired and enjoyed about the work, particularly the control of tone and emotion, but I want to say something specific about each one. In Miriam Bross's poem I loved the use of 'den Lyrik' for 'poem', nodding a head to the form it's working in. In Judith Koniger's, I thought the word 'quetschen' was spot on (and besides, next to gemütlich is one of my favourite German words). In Maria Luise Schlay's poem, I loved the title, Regenrinne - somehow it seemed true: quiet yet playful, unconventional yet quotidian - I wish the English was as precise. I could say a lot more, but it's probably best to stop now.

Thank you very much for these poems,

Jacqueline.