Translating Gary Snyder...

Nature is not a place to visit, it’s home.
- Gary Snyder

For last week’s presentation (October, 22nd) we’ve had the opportunity to know Gary Snyder: his work, his way of life, his line of thinking and we’ve considered it a great experience.
While studying Snyder and reading his poetry, one must keep in mind that, besides from being a member of the “beat generation”, he practiced (and still does) environmental advocacy with a strong ecological consciousness. Snyder is a Zen Buddhist who sees poetry as an exercise of meditation between men and the surrounding nature, he writes about his experience blending physical reality and observations of nature. He tells no tales, what he says is what he experienced.

Our translation process was highly influenced by that simplicity.

It’s terribly hard to be able to translate a poem without giving wings to your poetic self and actually, you only realize it when you’re “on the job”.
In order to follow the originals and to be as truthful as possible, we chose to accomplish a word-by-word translation. However it wasn´t quite successful as we would’ve hoped.
In order to translate Wang Wei’s poem “Deer Park”, we studied the original, then it’s word-by-word translation and after comparing the several available translations, we decided to work from Snyder’s version. His seemed to be the most “clean” and “raw”, it had no flourishes and it went straight to the point.

Unfortunately, although we tried, we couldn’t place ourselves as far as it was required in this matter, as you can see:

Deer Park

Empty mountains
no one to be seen.
Yet—hear—
human sounds and echoes.
Returning sunlight
enters the dark woods;
Again shining
on the green moss, above.

                               - Gary Snyder, 1978

And then ours:

Montanhas

Montanhas sós
Ninguém à vista,
Ainda assim –
oiço sons de gente e ecos
Vejo a luz do Sol
que rasga a escuridão dos bosques
Brilha de cima
sobre o verde musgo.

                               - Sónia Lima e José Carvalho, 2015


To translate Meng Haoran, we used the same scrutinizing method and once again, Gary Snyder’s translation was by far the simpliest and the one who resembled both the original and Meng Haoran’s purpose. Once more, we chose to follow Snyder’s line of thinking:

Mooring on Chien-te River
The boat rocks at anchor by the misty island
Sunset, my loneliness comes again.
In these vast wilds the sky arches down to the trees.
In the clear river water, the moon draws near.

                                  - Tr. by Gary Snyder

And then ours:

Deslizando pelo Rio Jiande
O barco desce pelo rio,
Ao encontro de uma ilha,
Perdida na neblina. O pôr-do-sol entristece-me.
Olho o céu acima que se estende pelas copas das árvores,
Vasto, à distância de um toque.
O rio desliza em silêncio,
A lua chega perto de nós.

                                  - Tr. By Sónia Lima e José Carvalho

So, we come to the conclusion that the poet writes mostly for two reasons: he writes for himself and writes for the public expecting to extend his experiences to others. Snyder practices poetry writing by nature and creates a new kind of poetry that is direct, non-romantic, concrete and ecological.

He also rarely uses metaphors and symbols because they create a detachment from the thing itself.
In Snyder's poetry, the experience is much more important than the adjectives you're able to use while describing it. You should be able to focus mainly on the feeling it brings.