Concrete Poetry, Playfulness and Translation

Abstract

This chapter explores the complex question of the translatability of concrete poetry and argues that a translator of a concrete poem faces the same challenges as with any other kind of poetry. The playfulness inherent in much concrete poetry is highlighted, as is the multidimensionality of poems by such writers as Filippo Marinetti, Bob Cobbing and Edwin Morgan. Following Paul Valery, and through a range of examples from children’s poems to interactive internet poetry, the chapter argues that the translation of all poetry, whether concrete or mainstream, involves producing analogous effects through the use of different means which necessarily indicates that the source text metamorphoses into something different and new.