Eeva Park

This translation of "Linnujahireeglid" is Estonian writer Eeva Park's first English language poetry collection. She also has short stories included in "The Dedalus Book of Estonian Literature" and "Baltic Belles."

From the few originals that I have been able to track down, the translation by Jayde Will is quite correct but many of the poems lose a lot of musical tone when the alliterations and the vowel-rich sound of Estonian cannot be reproduced. Take for instance "Sa aerutad" (You row):

Sa aerutad,
hambad ristis,
aga ma pole paat,
vaid puri.
Heiska mind masti ja mine!

The sing-song alliteration of "pole paat... puri" (not boat.. sail) (the p is pronounced as a much softer b in Estonian) and "mind masti... mine" (me mast.... go) just doesn't come through in the otherwise correctly translated:

You row,
Teeth clenched,
But I'm not a boat,
I'm a sail.
Unfurl me and go!

There is still a lot of the spirit of the poem that comes through ("Unfurl me and go!" is very good) but it just doesn't quite sing in English. Still this was a great introduction to Eeva Park's work.

"The Rules of Bird Hunting" is one of the recent Parthian Baltics poetry series and I hope to pick up more of these translations from Estonian, Latvian and Lithuanian.… (més)