Rhosean Asmah
on translating Tomas Tranströmer
I translated Tomas Tranströmer’s “Memories Watch Me” without any familiarity with the original Swedish. As a result, my translation is based more on direct translations of individual words, in-class discussions of the poem, and my knowledge of the author rather than on my comprehension of the original poem.
In the original, a period ends the first stanza, but I decided to end the stanza with a colon. The colon brings a cohesiveness to the translation, connecting the speaker’s experience to the memories and the June day. The second stanza of the poem was the most difficult for me to translate. The problem was not in conveying what the original poem was saying, but in structuring those ideas in English and fitting them into the rest of the translation. I played around with several arrangements, but ultimately settled on the current version because I felt that it sounded the most cohesive when read aloud. Other arrangements of that stanza that I read in other translations or tried to create myself were awkward and confused the meaning of the poem. My only concern for the current version is in the lack of punctuation, which could cause one to rush as they read it. Nevertheless, these decisions, among others, allow my translation of “Memories Watch Me” to both accurately represent my interpretation of Tranströmer’s thoughts and be pleasing to the ear.
about the author
Born in 1931, Tomas Tranströmer was a Swedish poet, translator, and psychologist. The publication of 17 dikter (17 Poems), his first book of poetry, was well-received, and he went on to become one of the foremost Swedish poets of his generation. Tranströmer’s work is internationally acclaimed and has been translated into over sixty languages. His poetry is admired for its distinctive language and form, most evident in his use of metaphor and his concision. He chose to address ideas of human isolation, memory, and identity and to integrate them with images of nature. In 1990, Tranströmer suffered a stroke that left him paralyzed and robbed him of his ability to speak. Nevertheless, he continued to write poetry. In the same year, he received the Neustadt International Prize for Literature and in 2011, he received the Nobel Prize in Literature, for which he had been nominated every year since 1993. Tranströmer passed away in 2015 at the age of eighty-three.
about the translator
Rhosean Asmah is a sophomore studying linguistics at the University of Pennsylvania. She has always been interested in languages and culture, which led her to take a class in poetry translation during her freshman year. She realized that she does like poetry and loves the challenge that comes with translating it. So far, she has only translated poems from languages she is unfamiliar with, but is currently working on poetry translations from French and Mandarin Chinese, both of which she studies.
photo by Simon Bazilian
