Reviews
The Fishermen Sleep by Sabine Lange.
Arc Publications, Nanholme Mill, Shaw Wood Road, Todmorden, Lancs 0L14 6DA £8.95.
Translations can be problematic because of the uncertainty as to fidelity to the original poetry. If the translation has music it is probably a poem in its own right but will have moved away from the original version. A faithful translation for meaning only will lose the rhythm and most of the other musical effects and the association of words in the poetry will be lost. Sabine Lange's The Fishermen Sleep, in dual text and translated by Jenny Williams, is a lively and attractive collection. I don't know German so can't judge closeness to the original poems, but most of the English translations work in their own right. There are buoyantly humorous poems, such as The Cautious Man, who keeps a catalogue of possible pitfalls. She writes of love, abandonment, music and the landscape. The language is conversational, but the images are unexpected, allowing depth and much insight, as in Wrapped Up in a Blanket: '...always listening to the same record / Grieg most likely / most likely Sibelius / the caressing repelling North / whose trees shed their skins / mysteriously in the mist // so that I can write / on this lifeless snake skin I live...' Sad family communication is well expressed in Still Life: 'the tables of silence / three at table every evening // and always the same salami / says the child // and the parents slice / the salami in silence // even weaker than the coffee / are the words // and the child speaks / with its mouth full.' There is much variety and vigour in the fine poems in the collection's 116 pages, including an interesting introduction and translator's preface.
Page(s) 43
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