Translating Sound and Resonance in Experimental Poetry from the UK: a Cross-Channel Perspective

Abstract

This paper explores the translation of British experimental poetry into French, with reference to Charles Bernstein’s emphasis on “aurality” as “the sounding of the writing”. We consider three approaches to sound: firstly, the play between speech and perception in the poetry of Carol Watts, translated collectively by the graduate students of Paris Diderot University; multivocal lyric and inarticulacy in the context of mourning (Denise Riley, translated by Martine Chardoux); and finally linguistic soundings and echoes as present in the poetry of Jeff Hilson (translated by Carole Birkan-Berz with Auxemery). By examining, alongside the translations, the translation-like strategies at work in the source texts that focus attention on aurality, we attempt to investigate listening across the overlapping practices of poetry and translation in both languages.