{"id":3823,"date":"2017-08-02T09:00:01","date_gmt":"2017-08-02T01:00:01","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/xichuanpoetry.com\/?p=3823"},"modified":"2017-07-31T10:22:52","modified_gmt":"2017-07-31T02:22:52","slug":"admussens-errata","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/xichuanpoetry.com\/?p=3823","title":{"rendered":"Admussen’s Errata"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"<\/a>Many people have said that translation–especially poetry translation–is more about interpretation than about accurate representation. What do these interpretations tell us?<\/p>\n

In one of the best personal essays about translation I’ve come across, Nick Admussen spots a mistake in a translation he did of a poem by Ya Shi \u54d1\u77f3, “<\/span>a moment when my work as a translator loosened and a ghost slipped in<\/a>“:<\/p>\n

And shadows of branches steal in through the window\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 the oak desk
\nthat\u2019s so fragile I am forced to love it has exploded just a little bit<\/p>\n

\u800c\u6811\u679d\u9634\u5f71\u7531\u7a97\u53e3\u6f5c\u5165\u00a0\u00a0 \u6e05\u8106\u5730<\/em>
\n \u4f7f\u6211\u73cd\u7231\u7684\u6a61\u6728\u4e66\u684c\u4e00\u70b9\u70b9\u70b8\u88c2<\/em><\/p><\/blockquote>\n

“My version of the line,” he writes, “stretches the grammar without apparent rationale … I had inserted an entire concept, so fragile I am forced to love it<\/em>. It\u2019s not in the poem, I brought it into the poem, and I knew where it had come from.”<\/p>\n

What follows is an incredibly moving remembrance of fortune, fathers, and furniture. Admussen ends with,<\/p>\n

The translator regrets the error. I am especially sorry to admit that I still don\u2019t know what the translation should look like or if there exists a version that will feel both stable and \u201cright.\u201d I\u2019ll keep trying: perhaps my repeated mistakes will reveal as much about the poem as a translation could. I don\u2019t know how to remember my father or how I should have acted in the Goodwill parking lot. The memorial, if it exists, seems to be happening outside what I think I am saying. All I can do for now is show you what I have done, to describe the psychological result of the process of translation, the experience of the texture, language to language, father to son, writer to reader: how qingcui<\/em> it is, how fragile, how much like music.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Click the image above to read the full piece.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Many people have said that translation–especially poetry translation–is more about interpretation than about accurate representation. What do these interpretations tell us? In one of the best personal essays about translation I’ve come across, Nick Admussen spots a mistake in a … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_is_tweetstorm":false,"jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","enabled":false}}},"categories":[3],"tags":[664,526],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p8srwF-ZF","jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":4775,"url":"https:\/\/xichuanpoetry.com\/?p=4775","url_meta":{"origin":3823,"position":0},"title":"Cornell Chronicle on Admussen’s Ya Shi","author":"Lucas Klein","date":"March 25, 2020","format":false,"excerpt":"Kate Blackwood on Nick Admussen's translation of Floral Mutter \u82b1\u7684\u4f4e\u8bed, by Ya Shi \u54d1\u77f3 Nick Admussen's translation of Floral Mutter \u82b1\u7684\u4f4e\u8bed, by Ya Shi \u54d1\u77f3, is now out from Zephyr and Chinese University Presses, and to announce the publication the Cornell Chronicle has published an article under the headline \"Translation\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Links"","block_context":{"text":"Links","link":"https:\/\/xichuanpoetry.com\/?cat=3"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/news.cornell.edu\/sites\/default\/files\/styles\/full_size\/public\/2020-03\/0323_admussen.jpg?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]},{"id":3238,"url":"https:\/\/xichuanpoetry.com\/?p=3238","url_meta":{"origin":3823,"position":1},"title":"Admussen’s Ya Shi at Cha","author":"Lucas Klein","date":"July 10, 2015","format":false,"excerpt":"The new issue of Cha: An Asian Literary Journal features poems by Ya Shi \u54d1\u77f3, as translated by Nick Admussen. From \"An Exiled Poet Addresses his Own Formless Nostalgia\" \u4e00\u4e2a\u6d41\u4ea1\u8bd7\u4eba\u5bf9\u7740\u65e0\u5f62\u7684\u4e61\u6101\u81ea\u8a00\u81ea\u8bed: Don't worry. I've got no evidence here that can harm you. \u653e\u5fc3\u5427\uff0c\u6211\u624b\u4e0a\u6ca1\u6709\u5bf9\u4f60\u4e0d\u5229\u7684\u8bc1\u636e\u3002 Click the image to read more.","rel":"","context":"In "Links"","block_context":{"text":"Links","link":"https:\/\/xichuanpoetry.com\/?cat=3"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":3624,"url":"https:\/\/xichuanpoetry.com\/?p=3624","url_meta":{"origin":3823,"position":2},"title":"PEN\/Heim Translation Grant for Admussen’s Ya Shi","author":"Lucas Klein","date":"February 15, 2017","format":false,"excerpt":"Nick Admussen has received a 2017 PEN\/Heim Translation Fund Grant for his forthcoming translation of Floral Mutter (Zephyr Press), the selected poems of Ya Shi \u54d1\u77f3, which PEN describes as a \"master of disjunctive imagery.\" Ya Shi brings language to the precipice of the absurd and holds it over the\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Links"","block_context":{"text":"Links","link":"https:\/\/xichuanpoetry.com\/?cat=3"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":4841,"url":"https:\/\/xichuanpoetry.com\/?p=4841","url_meta":{"origin":3823,"position":3},"title":"Joanna Krenz reviews Admussen’s Ya Shi for Cha","author":"Lucas Klein","date":"July 31, 2020","format":false,"excerpt":"Cha: An Asian Literary Journal has published Joanna Krenz's review of the selected poems of Ya Shi \u54d1\u77f3, Floral Mutter \u82b1\u7684\u4f4e\u8bed, as translated by Nick Admussen (Zephyr and Chinese University Press). Read the epic and erudite review here: Joanna Krenz reviews Nick Admussen's Floral Mutter, by Ya Shi, for Cha\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Links"","block_context":{"text":"Links","link":"https:\/\/xichuanpoetry.com\/?cat=3"},"img":{"alt_text":"Floral Mutter","src":"https:\/\/chajournal.files.wordpress.com\/2020\/07\/floral-mutter.jpg?w=350&h=200&crop=1","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]},{"id":3406,"url":"https:\/\/xichuanpoetry.com\/?p=3406","url_meta":{"origin":3823,"position":4},"title":"Nick Admussen’s “The Lyric Copy: From the Hundred Flowers to the Mongrel Coalition”","author":"Lucas Klein","date":"February 5, 2016","format":false,"excerpt":"Nick Admussen on former Manchurian royalty copying Du Fu \u675c\u752b, socialist-era prose poetry, Conceptual poetry and the Mongrel Coalition controversy, and Xi Chuan: https:\/\/vimeo.com\/145647766 \u00a0","rel":"","context":"In "Links"","block_context":{"text":"Links","link":"https:\/\/xichuanpoetry.com\/?cat=3"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":3244,"url":"https:\/\/xichuanpoetry.com\/?p=3244","url_meta":{"origin":3823,"position":5},"title":"Chinese Poetry in New England Review","author":"Lucas Klein","date":"July 15, 2015","format":false,"excerpt":"The current issue of the New England Review features poetry translations of Ya Shi \u54d1\u77f3 by Nick Admussen, Xiao Kaiyu \u8427\u5f00\u611a by Chris Lupke, and Yin Lichuan \u5c39\u4e3d\u5ddd by Fiona Sze-Lorrain--as well as prose translations of Wei An \u82c7\u5cb8 by Tom Moran. Unfortunately, the NER has made none of these\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Links"","block_context":{"text":"Links","link":"https:\/\/xichuanpoetry.com\/?cat=3"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.nereview.com\/files\/2015\/06\/NER36-2frontcover-204x300.jpg?resize=350%2C200","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]}],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/xichuanpoetry.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3823"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/xichuanpoetry.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/xichuanpoetry.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/xichuanpoetry.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/xichuanpoetry.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=3823"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/xichuanpoetry.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3823\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3825,"href":"https:\/\/xichuanpoetry.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3823\/revisions\/3825"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/xichuanpoetry.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=3823"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/xichuanpoetry.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=3823"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/xichuanpoetry.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=3823"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}