You lay the table...

The revelation that somebody actually reads this blog (you know who you are and, though we disagree on many things, your readership is very valued) has spurred me on to post here more often. Here is an unpublished translation that I did years ago of a poem by Mirkka Rekola.

I had just spent a weekend at an old ramshackle cottage in Pukkila with an eminent Finnish poet who was trying to encourage me to venture into poetry translation. We had talked about many different poems, and miraculously during that drink-fuelled weekend we managed to come up with some pretty good translations of a number of challenging poems. This one caused us a great deal of frustration. Rekola's imagery is always challenging, and I remember sitting on the backseat of the bus on the way back to Helsinki (with said eminent poet and half a box of wine) discussing the implications of the imagery in this poem – after we'd already debated it all afternoon! Here it is, so make of the translation what you will.

Katat pöydän, näe nyt nälkäsi.
Puolikas leipää, lasillinen punaviiniä.
Kukahan osti sen toisen puolikkaan.
Selkeää puhetta yhteisestä ateriasta:
suupalat samaa leipää, puolilasillista viiniä.
Ei täällä ole ketä katsoa. On.
Juo pois kuvasi ja lakkaa sinuttelemasta.

– Mirkka Rekola

You lay the table, now witness your hunger.
Half a loaf, a glass of red wine.
Who could have bought the other half?
Simple talk of a shared meal:
morsels of that same loaf, half a glass of wine.
There's no one here to look at. Oh yes.
Drink up your reflection and stop calling yourself you.

– trans. DH