Dear friends,
Translation has its delicious difficulties. I’m used to, in English, saying “Let’s head” meaning “Let’s go” or “Let’s head on.” Living in French-speaking Switzerland 30 years ago, I said to an English friend, “On va têter,” forcing the French noun for head (“tête”) into a verb — knowing that such a move would be an error, but knowing that my friend (a brilliant linguist) would get the wordplay. However, a devout Swiss man was nearby. He heard me say “On va téter.” As I knew, it did not convey “Let’s head on.” It means “Let us suckle.”
“Désolé,” I said, but I didn’t mean it.
I laugh about it to this day. The shocked face of a Swiss Evangelical; my English friend’s mortification; me pretending to be sorry, but guffawing all the way down the apartment block stairs. I said it to my English friend for the rest of the time I lived near Lausanne.
All six of us siblings studied English, Irish, and French at school, so occasionally one of us will message a “mélange of teangacha idir nous in notre clann grúpa chat.” It’s ridiculous but entirely entertaining.
Last week, we shared my interview with the Oxford scholar and translator Karen Leeder. She had translated a collection of Durs Grünbein’s volumes of poetry, and together they won the Griffin Prize 2025. Talking with Karen was a joy: she mixes vivacity with brilliance in a way that enlivened discussion of translation. For instance, here’s how the interview finishes:
“Well, translation is so human. I think, you know, we live in a world that tends towards the insular, tends towards the xenophobic, tends towards the inward looking, and translation is the opposite of all that. It’s a kind of political effort to explode those tendencies, and it’s now more necessary than ever. And so I do believe in it as … I believe in it as art. I believe in it as political [...] It’s a democratic thing, isn’t it, you know, when you can meet someone from a different experience, a different culture, a different way of thinking and outlook on the world, and you can find common ground in a kind of shared experience. So I think it’s, you know, it’s a kind of a poetry for peace. You know? It’s … you can’t really bomb someone while you’re translating them.”
I like what Karen Leeder says, and even if it’s not always true, I wish it were, and I’d like to live in (and work towards) a world where it is more, and often, and entirely true.
One of the ways to say translation in Scottish Gaelic is “idirtheangaire” — an intertonguing. I like that too. Searching for other ways of exploring translation, I happened upon Rūpāntar, a Sanskrit approach to translation that allows for a text to be remade or reshaped by its translator. Rūpāntar comes from Rūpa (रूप) for form and Antara (अन्तर) for change. (Sanskrit readers will forgive me for my abbreviated version of the rich layers of these terms and concepts.)
Translation theories differ between asserting that a translation should convey as much of the original form and meaning as possible and asserting that a translation can modify in order to convey meaning in a fresh way in the translated language. And of course, we are always translating: I am translating my thoughts into words right now, and you are translating what you’re reading into what you’re perceiving. (Go easy on me!)
My question is an invitation: Tell us about an experience of translation from your life. Perhaps you were being translated, or you were translating something. What do you make of this experience now? If you feel like it, pick up on Karen’s point about translation being a political, democratic thing, a poetry for peace.
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A list of my events: Online and in the U.S. (Frenchtown, NJ; Hickory, NC; Cambridge and Stockbridge, MA; Collegeville, MN) and England (London, Kettering)
Join me in celebrating the launch of my new collection, Love Between Men, hosted by St. Martin–in-the-Fields Church, beginning at 6 p.m. (For more info, click on the date heading.)
August 27–30, Kettering, England
I’m absolutely delighted to be returning to this year’s Greenbelt Festival, a gathering of arts, activism, and belief in England. (For registration info, click on the date heading.)
I’ll be leading evening worship alongside Nadia Bolz-Weber and Doug Gay as part of the Festival of Preaching, beginning at 5:30 p.m. GMT. (For registration info, click on the date heading.)
October 1, Frenchtown, New Jersey
Join me at Frenchtown Bookshop for a conversation and book signing, beginning at 6:30 p.m. (For more info, click on the date heading.)
October 11, Hickory, North Carolina
Join violinist and fiddle player Liam Bailey and myself for an afternoon of music and poetry at Grace Chapel, beginning at 3 p.m. (For more info, click on the date heading.)
I’m leading a virtual craft intensive on poetry and desire through Poets House, beginning at 6 p.m. ET. (For more info, click on the date heading.)
I’m delighted to be joining Ellen Bass’s wonderful Living Room Craft Talks Series for a discussion of the poetry of eros, beginning at 12 p.m. ET. (For more info, click on the date heading.)
November 2, Cambridge, Massachusetts
I’ll be reading alongside Susan Stewart as part of the Blacksmith House Poetry Series, beginning at 8 p.m. (For more info, click on the date heading.)
I’m leading a virtual course on lyric address through Arvon, beginning at 7 p.m. GMT. (For registration info, click on the date heading.)
December 18–20, Stockbridge, Massachusetts
I’m leading a retreat on poetry and prayer at the Kripalu Center for Yoga and Health. (For more info, click on the date heading.)
Michelle Penn and I will be reading together in a virtual event with Café Writers, beginning at 7:30 p.m. GMT. (For more info, click on the date heading.)
May 24–29, Collegeville, Minnesota
I’ll be returning to the Collegeville Institute to lead a workshop on poetry and prayer; applications are open through the 13th of December. (For more info, click on the date heading.)
Thanks for this piece, Padraig. I’m a native Turkish speaker, and English is my second language. I studied English Language Teaching at university, so I’m fluent in English. Maybe this isn’t exactly what you were asking about, but I’ve found that when I write essays or poems, I often feel more comfortable writing in English.
Sometimes I translate my own work into Turkish as well, just to see how the feeling changes. For me, preserving the feeling while translating is an art in itself, as is the act of translation. Sometimes I feel that the Turkish and English versions carry completely different feelings, but neither is more or less than the other. They are simply unique in their own forms.
I have both Turkish and English versions of some novels, too, and I enjoy reading them in both languages and comparing the two. It never fails to amaze me how much work and artistry a translator puts into a text. Contrary to what many people think, this is something I believe AI will never truly be able to replace and it feels good to know that.
And I’d like to add one more Turkish saying: “Kolay gelsin,” which literally translates to “may it come easily.” We say it to someone who is working, writing, or even to a shopkeeper when we’re saying goodbye. So, kolay gelsin to all of you who are creating and writing.
Bless you.
I live in a two bedroom townhouse where the 2nd bedroom served for a decade as the shared bedroom of my two sons - where they landed every other week as they shuttled for most of their lives between my home & their father's. Now that they are both at university, the metal bunk bed is gone, books & trinkets have been sorted or stored in the closet, and the room has been transformed into a guest room which has a new life hosting international high school exchange students - my own rebellious form of "guerrilla diplomacy" in contentious times. This summer, I hired my younger son & his best friend to take out carpet, put in flooring, & paint the walls - completing the metamorphosis. The French call a guestroom a "chambre d'ami" ("a friend bedroom"); as I look about the room to see the bed given by my son's friend covered by the quilt given by a close friend which once covered her beloved Grammy's bed, my childhood dresser covered by the runner stitched together from French placemats by my best friend, or the olive wood praying hands carved in Bethlehem which came to us after my father's passing - even the solar dancing monkey given to my children when they were small by a colleague - the room has truly become a "chambre d'ami" - representing so many gifts of love & friendship.