Wednesday, October 10, 2007

57

Mongolians know certain poems by heart. I found out recently, though, that this doesn’t mean they like those poems. A lot of our poetry is ego and nationalism, said A about Mongolian poetry the night we went dancing.

There’s also a lack of good translations, which I’m trying to change. Translation is intensely tricky, and poetry translation is perhaps the hardest, and translations between poetry an Asian and a Latin-based language the hardest of the hardest. Such an immense service when a work is translated well, and such an immense disservice when it isn’t. Scares the shit outta me, to be honest.

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