Carlos Germán Belli and Karl Maurer — Gisele

     Unfortunately, I was unable to attend Carlos Rojas' talk this past Friday so I will be focusing on this week's reading. 

    I liked reading Carlos Germán Belli's poetry side by side with Karl's translations, it left no questions unanswered and gave the impression that Karl was proud of his translations (rightfully so). He clearly seems to have a relationship with his translations in a similar way that Carlos has a relationship with his poetry in which they both have very personal, introspective, and almost spiritual approaches to their work. The more we learn about interactions between writers and translators, the more I am convinced that some writers and translators simply fit into one another. When it comes to Karl, his description of the "hunger" certain poems incite in him reflects that sentiment. I actually liked reading about the "magic" or "luck" involved in his work because it reintroduced the idea that in translations the words tend to find themselves, and translators are merely the means through which they come alive. One poem that seemed to illustrate this "magic" was Karl's translation of "The Cornucopia" (page xix). It was incredibly satisfying to read the English version, which practically mirrors the Spanish both visually and lyrically, alongside the Spanish (and I just really liked the poem itself). The two complement each other on the page. I suppose it was even more satisfying to have translated it. Finally, reading the emails between Karl and his brother, Christopher, was really heartwarming. It was clear that Karl put a lot of careful thought into his work.