Imitations

Robert Lowell has had dramatic upswings and downswings in his reputation as a poet. Right now, thanks to the release of his COLLECTED POEMS, edited by Frank Bidart, he is experiencing another upswing. What has never suffered in esteem is this collection, IMITATIONS, the most influencial of its type since Ezra Pound's TRANSLATIONS. Lowell has, in his own words, "been reckless with literal meaning, and labored hard to get the tone." As Pasternak said, in poetry, the tone is everything. Hence the title: imitations, not translations. Of course, I know many of the originals of these and Lowell has not been reckless, at least not by my standards. Instead he has (often, but not always) taken the translation one step beyond the normal conversion and internalized the poems to himself and his own experiences. A colossal trick of ego? Perhaps. "All my originals are important poems," he claims in his introduction. As if to dance upon the grave of Western poetry, the first imitation condenses THE ILIAD into 46 lines. But Lowell is much more respectful from there, and earns his faithfulness to the original poets in his own unique way. I think he really has succeeded in making poems that equal the originals with a high percentage. He has also put his unmistakeable pissmark on them. George Steiner called them "creative echoes." Whatever they are, love 'em or hate 'em, they are a must read for all poets and translators, a sort of gauntlet thrown down upon the heads of Homer, Sappho, Heine, Villon, Baudelaire, Rilke, Montale, Pasternak et al. How should one go about translating any literature? This is one of the best points of departure.