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Reflections on translating Emeric de Monteynard


I loved the experience of writing short this piece: it was written as a reflection on the process of translating Emeric de Monteynard's poetry. Having just finished a revamped version of a class on translation, translation theory was fresh in my mind. I love reflecting on language, and our discursive choices. I like that realm: that fragile connection between ideas, words, and intentions. Reflecting on my own choices added to the piece. And as I reflected on the process, I remembered that his poems gave me the same feeling I had in front of that massive painting hanging at the National Gallery of Art, Robert Motherwell's Reconciliation Elegy. Then another visual connection, this time with images of the yearly desert trips he takes, each year a new desert somewhere in this lush world of ours. As he and I whittled through his desert pictures, another serendipitous connection. The article is available online, and rather short. I discuss the connection between Motherwell's piece and Emeric's desert pictures towards the end of the short article: Drunk on Confusion: On Translation and Pure Language


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