Mary Tang wrote me today to share a Chinese translation of my poem “For Tomas Transtromer.” For more information about my call for translations of this work, see the Translate This Poem page. On the composition of the translation, Mary writes, “My translation of your poem from English to Chinese was spontaneous and took little time. To me some poems translate themselves into Chinese; other can never be.” Find out more about Mary on her site here. Thanks Mary!
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路上的冰
影出你我
眼中所見
一般無奈
無法轉向
南部遠冬水盡
跪倒一行古柏
像一隊累了的兵人
失去了重舉的志願
他們背後
鱷寇稱王
我在千里之外的寒春麥田
望見無聲未覺的風暴逼近
深信萬物可失
像腦中的浮現
像夢中的呼叫
–縁盡
風以暴力
能否聽到
你我心聲？
與我同在
面向將來
(c) Mary Tang
Translations from the English 
Cool, Jeff. I wish I could read the Chinese. Mary has certainly offered great insight to several of the poems I’ve adapted.
Thanks for posting this on your front page, Jeff. It was a spontaneous thing but I enjoyed the exercise so much that I plan to attempt another translation before too long. 🙂 Thanks for your kind words also, Robert.
I’ve changed one word on the poem – ‘軍‘ instead of ‘兵’ on the eighth line. Sounds better when I read it out. Yes I have recorded it but can’t post audio files on my blog after all.
If you send it to me, I can see if I can figure out how to do it here. I will make the revision you mention to the posted translation later today. Thanks for trying that out.
How can I send it to you?
You could attach it to an email to jeffrey.schwaner@gmail.com and we’ll see if it comes through.
Sent
VERY cool, Mary and Jeff!!!
cool
Here’s the edited version of the Chinese translation, Jeff. I have also included the revision to line breaks. The first draft was a bit rough and hard to read. I will send you a new audio file by email.
路上的冰影出
你我眼中所見
一般無奈
無法轉向
南部遠冬水盡
跪倒一行古柏
像一隊
累了的軍人
失去了
重舉的志願
他們背後
鱷寇稱王
我在千里之外的
寒春麥田
望見無聲未覺的
風暴逼近
深信萬物可失
像腦中的浮現
像夢中的呼叫
縁盡
風的暴力
能否聽到
你我心聲？
與我同在
面向將來
(c) Mary Tang 2015
Sorry！One typo. I am so bad at editing. Here it is again:
路上的冰影出
你我眼中所見
一般無奈
無法轉向
南部遠冬水盡
跪倒一行古柏
像一隊
累了的軍人
失去了
重舉的志願
他們背後
鱷寇稱王
我在千里之外的
寒春麥田
望見無聲未覺的
風暴逼近
深信萬物可失
像腦中的浮現
像夢中的呼叫
縁盡
風以暴力
能否聽到
你我心聲？
與我同在
面向將來
(c) Mary Tang 2015
Thanks!