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Thursday, March 21, 2013

Two Poems in Bahasa Indonesia


SORE DI MALIOBORO

Orang-orang, banyak warna.
Abu-abu, kehujanan.
Mantel-mantel, kecil di bawa.


I wrote this as a haiku in English, translated to BH, then lost the original English





Oleh Mengikuti Tanganku, Saya Menulis

Saya menulis "sarang"
dan di itu, burung menjadi terkejut kemudian terbanglah.
Saya menulis "api"
dan lembaran kertas ini tidak ada.
Saya menulis "kegelapan"
dan itu sudah diresapi oleh cahaya.
Saya menulis "kelanggengan"
dan saya menyaksikan berlian sedang mencair.
     --Dai Wei, my tr.

Dai Wei is a contemporary Chinese poet.  I've seen two of her poems and so far have not been able to find any others.



 随手写下
       代薇
当我写下“鸟巢”           
里面的鸟群惊飞了

当我写下“火”
这页纸已不存在

当我写下“黑暗”
它其实已经被照亮

当我写下“永恒”
我就是在目睹钻石的溶化



I hope this translation is better than it ought to be, with my being deficient in both the original language and the target language.  I worked from the English word-by-word and literary translations by Fan Jinghua on his blog, Poetry Chinese.  My Bahasa Indonesia is pretty minimal.  So I had to look up a lot of words and and then retranslate the BH into English again, going back and forth until the English made the sense I was aiming at.  I then accepted the BH that this last English version came from. Very presumptuous and a lot of work.  Anyone competent in Bahasa Indonesia and/or Chinese is welcome to offer criticism, whether constructive or scornful.

You can see Fan's English translation here: http://poetrychinese.blogspot.com/search/label/Dai%20Wei



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