Mariana Martinez

on translating Alejandra Pizarnik

Moving into college meant I was forced to leave my Pizarnik anthology behind. Surprisingly scarce, Pizarnik translations in the States excluded most of her earlier gems. My translation stemmed from the desire to share Pizarnik's early brilliance with the English-speaking world.

I started by doing a literal translation using my knowledge as a native Spanish speaker. However, to achieve my goal I felt the need to take some liberties to evoke the irreversible nature of maturing, a central theme of the poem. Unlike some unofficial translations that used the words “Sir” or “Master” for the repeating verse, I chose the word “Lord” because I wanted the poem to read like a prayer. I also went for a bolder choice in the verse(s) “la jaula se ha vuelto pájaro,” as I didn’t choose “turn” or “twist” for the verb but “ripen” which emphasizes the idea of maturing.

Wanting to make this translation all about maturing, I manipulated verb tenses to evoke an awakening throughout the poem. I prioritized the use of the past perfect in the first half of the poem to create the nostalgic sense of something once vibrant and existing, now gone. The climatic stanzas eight and nine maintain instead a blunt simple present to show the shift from reminiscing and nostalgia to acceptance and action taking.

After the climax, once again the poem seems to change and the speaker remembers the past, but without yearning, which is why for this last part I chose to use the past simple. I used this most vigorously in the last two stanzas where I used “ripe” in the past simple. I loved compromising with the idea that indeed the bird ripened into a cage, but it no longer matters that it was a bird once, because all there is now is a cage.

All in all, my choices in this translation not only aimed for linguistic accuracy but to create an emotional weight, so the English readers would feel Pizarnik’s prayer as intensely as I did in Spanish.