Subversive Translations - More than Just the Gist

It's the longest day tomorrow. Juhannus in Finland, when the Finns douse themselves in summer; light bonfires, go to sauna, jump in lakes and leave the city. It'll be a quiet day for us. Everything's closed, we don't have a summer cottage to retreat to. It's one of those weird holidays where if you didn't grow up with it and have the associated traditions connected, you wander around feeling out of sorts. It's important, but you can't place why. It always leaves me feeling a little out of sync. 

A new poetry delivery this week, Dastram/ Delirium by Taylor Strickland. Published by Broken Sleep Books, I chose this collection because it is 'versions' of translations of Scottish Gaelic poetry. I've half-heartedly studied Gaelic since I first lived in Scotland in 1991 and have an interest in its poetry, but not the skill to read it. I'd heard of the poet the collection is based on, Alasdair Mac Mhaighstir Alasdair, but had never read his work. The first person to publish a Scottish Gaelic book, the first Gaelic-English dictionary, he is also considered one of the foremost Gaelic poets and his life was connected to many of the most important Scottish events during his lifetime. 

But beyond the historical interest, I was intrigued by Strickland's translations because this collection won a Poetry Society Translation Choice Award while he says he doesn't speak much Gaelic. The answer to the questions raised by that last sentence is Subversive Translation. According to Strickland via the poet/translator Rody Gorman, subversive translation is 'less a technical methodology and more an accountability act that represents the text through translations, but which accepts the failure in worthwhile translation as sufficient in its own right'. 

I don't claim to totally understand the concept, but my gut is saying these translations owe more to the author's interpretation of the text rather than the exact translation of the words. This appeals to me as this is how I exist in Finnish at the moment. I have enough of the language to understand the gist, mood or theme of a text or a conversation, but I cannot directly translate or understand the nuance and details. If I read a poem in Finnish I can get something, but it's heavily weighted towards my surface understanding of the words rather than a deep dive into the language, the place and the time it's coming from. I also hang my own sense of self, place and time over the poem. 

And this I feel is what Strickland is doing. The first section of poems, praise poems to a lover Morag, are already erotic in the original Gaelic, especially considering they were written by a minister's son (the translation of his name) in the 1700s. The subverted translations in this collection bring a modern sense to the poems, stylistically and thematically. They are loose, savouring the modern freedom of playing with the language in English and with social mores. There's no pulling punches here, but there is a beautiful sense of forbidden and furtive love throughout this selection,

I left you and you left
a burr of whispers in my head, 
a beehive of sex and nectar,

blocked up my nose
as I inhale lenten rose,

                    ('Crùnluath') 

As I can't read the Gaelic well enough to know what's been changed, how the music is different from the rhythms of the original Gaelic, how the poet has adapted them to English, I can only get caught up in his versions. They are like hearing one side of the conversation with the original poems. A chance to embrace being out of sync. They acknowledge their traditional roots, but subverting 'worthwhile' translations opens them up to new generations of poetry readers, those who speak Gaelic and those who don't. They made me want to explore more about the original poet and his poems which is always a sign of a good book for me.

Happy midsummer to you.