Alexandra Pierson
on translating Dahlia Ravikovitch
In translating “Clockwork Doll,” I wanted to keep the original sonnet’s essential theme of losing oneself, along with its beautiful imagery. In order to heighten the mythical and fantastical elements of the poem, I chose to add some internal rhyme in place of the original’s end rhymes, especially in the last stanza of the work. I also wished to make a few of the images new. Instead of literally translating that the doll’s hat is decorated with a cherry, I chose to say that the doll has a cherry in its dress. To me, a dress carrying “a cherry” in “its ruffles” expresses a piece of humanity the doll still has tucked away somewhere.
I think this poem is incredibly relevant to today’s world, where we can all at times feel like clockwork dolls, moving through the motions and sometimes falling on our faces.
about the author
Dahlia Ravikovitch (דליה רביקוביץ was born in Ramat Gan, Israel, in 1936, and died in 2005 in Tel Aviv. She was one of the most well-known contemporary Israeli poets, peace activists, and translators, her primary language being Hebrew. Losing her father at an early age, she spent time in a kibbutz and then at several foster homes. She published her first book of poetry in 1959, called The Love of an Orange. Throughout her lifetime, she published ten volumes of poetry, which have been translated into twenty-three languages. She also translated the works of W.B. Yeats, T.S. Eliot, and Edgar Allan Poe into Hebrew. Many of her poems have been set to song and are well-known radio favorites in Israel.
about the translator
Alexandra Pierson is a senior in the college studying English with concentrations in creative writing and consumer psychology. She first started writing poetry in Professor Silverman’s course “Orpheus After Ovid: Greek Mythology in Contemporary Poetry,” and first started translating poetry in Silverman’s course “Translation of Poetry/Poetry of Translation.”
