Michael Swan's Poems in Translation on Social Media – An Exercise in Rendering Poetic Images and Encouraging Translating Communities

Abstract

Translating poetry is an exercise that stimulates both the cognitive and the emotional potentialities of students. Poetic texts are the essence of what poets thought and are therefore more difficult to decipher given the minimal linguistic input. The present study is the result of the work with two groups of students who had classes online during the coronavirus pandemic. Facebook as an accessible social media platform proved to be a great hub for launching the challenge of translating poetry and having students post their versions of translations. Their work was thus exposed to the assessment and appreciation of their fellow students who became thus part of a translating community. The poems chosen for this exercise in translation were selected from Michael Swan’s volume tiger dreams/ vise cu tigri POEMS/ POEME. The bilingual edition appeared at Niculescu Publishing House Romania and served as a consistent basis for the translation practice with the students from the “Alexandru Ioan Cuza” University of Iași who were specializing in Applied Linguistics - Translation and Interpreting. The resulting versions of the texts prove that language in poetry is pulsating with meaning anchored in the reality of the author’s imagination and in the translators’ efforts to mediate that reality and make it accessible to the contemporary public.