Translating Clemente Padin

Ottar Ormstad made the case for non-translation at the recent Paris 8 conference on the translation electronic literature. He eloquently explained that many explorations of language (including concrete poems) do not lend themselves to either ordinary translation or a simply explanatory note. This was a reasonable point that is appropriate to many works of concrete and sound poetry.

To illustrate this point, he displayed this concrete poem by Uruguayan poet Clemente Padin.

PAN=PAZ

Very compelling! This is an amazing poem that is quite language-specific. And yet, I was compelled to translate it to English, and have done so below:

ZAP your NAP!

The original message, that PAN (bread) converges with PAZ (peace), cannot be communicated precisely in every way. But, using the same characters as in the original poem, I can assert that people should ZAP their NAP and wake up to our reality, in which the needs of our fellow people must be met before peace can be attained.