Poetry – Tsadra Conferences

Translating Voices from the Margins

Gwen Witt Dorring — Fri, 18 Nov 2022 11:09:59 +0000

Translating Contemporary Women’s Writing

Gwen Witt Dorring — Fri, 18 Nov 2022 09:30:02 +0000

The State of the Field

Migmar Lama — Wed, 02 Jan 2019 08:19:05 +0000

Kurtis Schaeffer (University of Virginia) begins a reflective conversation about the State of the Field of Tibetan translation by acknowledging Janet Gyatso’s book Apparitions of the Self (1998). Kurtis notes that the work has fueled discussion about embodied engagement with literature that takes form and style in literature seriously. Since its release, it has inspired workshops and served as the basis of other significant work on the impact of thought, philosophy, and devotion on literary production.

The two scholars continue by contextualizing a major theme of current translation work: the fact that we can now focus on Tibetan literature as literature. Janet Gyatso (Harvard) reminds the audience to step back from the question of translation–before we become good translators, we need to be good readers and appreciators.

Janet follows her own example by giving a short presentation on her collaboration with Pema Bum, a Tibetan intellectual and scholar of literature, on three examples of verse that illustrate the literary technology found in Daṇḍin’s Mirror of Poetry (Kāvyādarśa, Tib. snyan ngak me long), an Indian text that exerted significant influence on Tibetan literature. Kurtis then acknowledges the humanness that can emerge from poetry–the social and interpersonal aspects evinced through these literary techniques–and reminds us to attend to the sensuousness and humor of the artform, and the awe evoked by the experience of it.

Criteria for Beauty and Readability

Migmar Lama — Wed, 02 Jan 2019 08:18:17 +0000

When assessing the beauty and readability of a translation one might pose the following questions: does the text come alive in the target language? Is there a distinct emotional tone that comes through in the translation? Does a chosen grammatical structure have the power to convey what we are trying to convey? How do we summon that power to our work?

In this breakout group, Amelia Hall and Andrew Schelling, colleagues at Naropa University in Boulder, CO, address these questions and discuss the importance of techniques to invoke the power of the creative act of translation. They encourage the translator to remain receptive and trust in the genius of his or her own contemporary language to deliver both beauty and readability.

An Act of Bardo: Translating Tibetan Poetry

Migmar Lama — Wed, 02 Jan 2019 08:15:09 +0000

Lama Jabb (Oxford) delivers this ground-breaking keynote lecture at the 2018 Lotsawa Translation Workshop. He weaves the extended metaphor of liminal space (bar do) throughout and softly punctuates his illumination of the translation process with insights from highly respected poets from numerous cultures while diligently considering the challenges and opportunities presented by the de- and reconstruction of languages. As he guides the audience through his translation choices, he explains his aims of preservation of cultural identity while delivering, with kindness, artistic richness to the reader. Ultimately questioning how translators can communicate in words that which is ineffable, Lama Jabb encourages the stalwart–those who struggle for the sake of human expression. His talk is an act of fortification, and encouragement for those brave enough to approach the arduous and meticulous task of translation to persevere despite the possibility that the poetic consciousness might remain lost in the bardo.

Collections of Songs (mgur ‘bum)

Migmar Lama — Wed, 02 Jan 2019 08:13:53 +0000

By taking a bird’s-eye view of collections of songs (mgur ‘bum), Kurtis Schaeffer (University of Virginia) and Andrew Quintman (Wesleyan) examine gaps in our knowledge based on the extant collections and their experiences both as translators and as historians of literature. They elicit an exploratory discussion by beginning with a series of key questions and positing ways in which we can think about songs as an autonomous literary form as well as how we might approach the provenance of songs and the process of their production and reproduction from the standpoint of history, in addition to other stimulating topics. What were the earliest song collections (mgur ‘bum)? When did they appear and how were they constituted? What are non-Kagyu examples of such collections?

Ornamentation Shared by Poetry and Song

Migmar Lama — Wed, 02 Jan 2019 08:06:06 +0000

With humor and levity, longtime collaborators Nicole Willock (Old Dominion) and Gedun Rabsal (Indiana) present chapter three of Daṇḍin’s Mirror of Poetics (Kāvyādarśa) through the lens of twentieth century Tibetan scholar Tseten Zhabdrung (the Snyan ngag spyi don). The focus is the concept of “world-play” (sgra rgyan) and the various examples given in this section of the text. Nicole outlines the third chapter and delves into the “richness of the phonemic value of poetry” with focus on beat, rhythm, and alliteration using examples from one section of the commentarial text focused on “phonemic reduplication” (zung ldan). Professor Rabsal looks at examples from Longchenpa and other authors and provides some analysis of the differences he sees between poetry (snan ngag) and song (mgur) in Tibetan literature.

Translating: What and How?

Marcus Perman — Thu, 19 Apr 2018 06:00:21 +0000

On the second day of the conference, the nuts and bolts of the craft of translation became the focus and the main questions asked in this session were: What tools are in your translation workshop? What skills should one cultivate to be a good translator? How do we cultivate those skills? Elizabeth Napper begins the session by looking at the perennial issue of literal vs. aesthetic translation from a practical standpoint of needing to adjust to the intended audience of the translation. Thupten Jinpa continues this discussion of the tension between fidelity to the text and consideration of the reader and begins by making note of the paradoxical nature of translator and translation and highlights the need to have competency in the target language. Kurtis Schaeffer uses humor and intelligence to bring up core issues for translators, all the while presenting a four-fold rubric for analyzing Tibetan poetry: form (lus), content (srog), figure (rgyan), and feeling (nyams). Janet Gyatso discusses her idea of ‘referential resonance’ and the ability to let the text speak to you, the place from which translators make key decisions about how to translate, and the importance of quieting oneself and learning to pay attention to the relationship with a Tibetan teacher trained in a text when reading and translating.

Kavya in Tibet

Marcus Perman — Wed, 18 Apr 2018 06:00:05 +0000

Kavya in Tibet is a session following from a workshop on Tseten Zhabdrung’s commentary on poetics (Snyan ngag spyi don) that was hosted at the Latse Library with Gendun Rabsel, Nicole Willock, Andy Quintman, and Kurtis Schaeffer. The Tibetan system of poetics and ornate poetry is highly influential in the history of Tibetan writing and is based on the most important Indian manual of poetics, Daṇḍin’s Mirror of Poetics (Kāvyādarśa). This session introduced some of the fundamental theory and practice of this snyan ngag type of literature. The intellectual gravity of snyan ngag did not make itself felt until 1267 and 1270 when the Kāvyādarśa was translated fully into Tibetan. From that point onward we see hundreds of major and minor works on snyan ngag and its influence on writers throughout the Tibetan world can hardly be overstated. The organizers of this session give four main reasons for presenting a more extended public presentation of kavya and why that would be useful and enjoyable for people who engage in different kinds of work with Tibetan texts: 1) snyan ngag is one of Tibet’s major art forms and most other types of writing are heavily influenced and often include snyan ngag; 2) This classical form of literary art is still alive today, and snyan ngag is at the center of contemporary discussions and debates about the relationship between innovation and tradition in modern Tibetan literature; 3) it is notoriously difficult to learn, but useful for a deeper understanding and appreciation of Tibetan literature; 4) historically it is now possible to approach this challenging technical literature because of the work being done be a few scholars and translators these days.

Translating Poetic and Inspirational Materials

Marcus Perman — Tue, 13 Mar 2018 18:03:47 +0000

Poetic and inspirational materials exist as a place where culture emerges creating a challenge for the translator to capture both the meaning and the psychological effect of the literature in the target language. Andrew Quintman begins this workshop with a theoretical discussion of how the characteristics and structure of a traditional song of devotion give clues about indigenous conceptions of poetry in the Tibetan tradition. Holly Gayley works through various grammatical structures and literary conventions, like metaphor and parallelism, to illustrate the scope of possibility in conveying meaning. Finally, Wulstan Fletcher guides the group through the challenge of capturing the meaning of the translation while also eliciting inspiration between the poet and the reader.