| [Russian] | Published in Üyge igilik, no. 3 (53), 1997 |
Comments
Poetry is a kind of art which is maybe the most dependent on its material, the phonemic organization of the language. This live sound, this atmosphere of the language cannot be reproduced in the best translation ever possible. That is why I don't like the word "translation" and prefer to speak of the interpretation of a person's poetry by another person, sometime in another language. Well, even reading verse in one's native language, doesn't one have to translate it into one's own internal language of unique individual variations of sense and feelings? Is it very different from transferring poetry to the world of a different language, or from an artistic interpretation of poetry by the means of the other arts?
These pages present my interpretation of just a few poems by a Karachai poet Bilal Laypanov. Of his many hundreds of lines, I have chosen those that are nearer to my own attitude to the world—this is what I could maybe have said myself sometime. The reader can notice that the verse collected here is never ethnically colored—it might as well be written in any other language of the Earth, or even in the language of an extraterrestrial dweller. I do not present Bilal Laypanov as a Karachai, but rather as a poet who brings the great universality of the art to all the people.
For comparison, the translations into Russian by an excellent professional interpreter Arcady Tyurin (late) are presented as well. Of course, neither Russian, nor English translation do not convey the phonemic organization of the original—but I hope that these interpretations do reflect its peculiar imagery, and thereby the distinctive features of Bilal Laypanov's way of thought and his personal vision of the world. Thus the universe of Bilal Laypanov's voice becomes open for the millions of readers in Russian and English, beside those reading in the languages cognate to Karachai. As for me, I just tried to be a poet first of all, and to give birth to the self-contained English-sounding poems, which might be thought of as originally written in English and made a part of the English native poetry before they found their expression in Karachai. Now, let the reader judge whether I have succeeded in that.
|
* * *
Poetry |
* * *
Поэзия — озеро, |
|
Ways of salvation
One could escape |
Пути к спасению
Можно спастись, |
|
* * *
The poet grows |
* * *
Поэт растет |
|
* * *
You love |
* * *
Ты любишь |
|
* * *
The poet’s epitaph: |
* * *
Надпись на надгробии поэта: |
|
* * *
Never mind the years passing by.
No one asked if you wanted to come.
The day will burn down into the night, |
* * *
Не считай уходящие дни —
Не спросясь, ты родился на свет.
И, устав от мирской суеты, |
|
The fallen beauty The heavens gleaming in the pools of dirt... |
Падшая красота Обломки неба в грязных лужах... |
|
* * *
Night—and his fingers black,
Clenching my feelings tight—
Flower caressed by the sun, |
* * *
Черные пальцы ночи
И утром — ревности муки,
То солнце тебя ласкает, |
About the author
Bilal Laypanov (Laipanlari Bilal).
Born in 1955. After graduating from the M.Gorky Literature
Institute in Moscow, worked as a journalist, high-school teacher, scientist
(humanities). Published many books of poetry, including Collected Poems in
10 volumes. Three volumes of Russian translations appeared in 1993 and were
later nominated for a State Prize of Russian Federation.