Translation by a Translator
Introducing Mr Jack Dunwell, one of Web-Translations’ prized French to English legal translators, and his abstract, poetic thoughts on being a freelancer…
Free At Last, Debbie
When did I lose my autonomy?
To this 5 am drive
I can’t even find my trouser legs
Without falling over
My socks
Without gasping?
At the night walk
The night walk
To slump at the screen for another 5,000
Feel the bruised bottom
The weeping eyes
The occupancy of outward forces
Faith given to an unknown Sarah
Some Tiffany more eyeshadow
Determined than
Oxford fluent.
Who am I doing this for?
Or as your dead translator might prissily insist
For whom am I doing ….this?
Well, it’s a surprise to me
That someone will pay
To spiel words
Into ephemeral spirals
Hopeful, Yes
But Mere Words
Always a Gap to be bridged
An admission that there is an abyss
That communication remains an Everest to climb
So here we are picking away at the coalface
With our Tonka trucks
Our blistered digit
A million words unsprung
And what happened to life?
The 93rd honeymoon to Grenada
The 3rd position on the violin
(Under Madame Dousse-Planté)
Walking the Pyrenees
Dawn chorusing with blackbird
Migrating the Southern trail
Of hardy delicate Balkan cranes.
Who is it for, this 60 hours a week existence?
Well
It’s for greedy me
And my need to relate
To the Unknown Nail Varnish Person
The Speaker of no language
Who doubts my finesse
With such inhuman assurance
Wonders why I don’t necessarily
Always, inevitably, use exactly the same
Word.
I need to convince the unconvincible
I was born to insist, to fight, to leave no fool
Unspurned
To enlighten and grow.
So I sit here in chains
And Debbie does her nails.
[Editor's note: Debbie works for a Parisian Translation Agency.]
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October 13th, 2008 at 11:14 am
This is a fantastic way to touch the essence of the Translator’s life and mission. Mr Jack Dunwell described so well bridging gaps with the admission “that there is an abyss” and still “communication remains an Everest to climb”.
Although I am not a professional translator, I’ve always been involved with languages and I am so familiar with all uncertainty and temptation around taking last minute proyectos urgentes.
May be that’s similar to the mountain climbers’ drive to insist and fight… and always take the challenge to go the extra mile. The tight deadline is not too scary when you are a step away from revealing what is up there in the mist, when you know that someone needs you now to let out the meaning for them in their own language…
I cannot fall asleep with that, can you?
June 14th, 2009 at 12:18 pm
You seen this?…
I like yer site, keep up the good work man!…