Tomas Tranströmer, “Romanesque Arches” – two translations
I found this a moving poem when I first read it in Bly’s translation[1]. In Fulton’s version[2] I find it almost overwhelming. Not knowing Swedish, I can’t compare how well the two capture the flavour and spirit of the original, but I have no doubt which makes the better poem in English.
You can link to Bly’s version here and Fulton’s here.
You just have to put them side by side to see how much more taut and dynamic Fulton’s is, even simply on the level of sentence construction. This is obvious from the … Continue Reading