“Transtranslation is an excavation of sorts: we brush away the layers of meaning deposited onto a text through time, to reveal the poem beneath the poem – that rift between rising and falling… groundlessness itself.” (Mark Goldstein) Engaging in what he calls transtranslation, Mark Goldstein bridges several methodologies, including homophonic and homolinguistic play, and lexical word-for-word translations, mapping the sound and sense of the languages with which he works. Through this deep engagement with another voice and with his own voices, Goldstein produces poems that are both translated and written, that are both the other’s breath and his own breath.
“Transtranslation is an excavation of sorts: we brush away the layers of meaning deposited onto a text through time, to reveal the poem beneath the poem – that rift between rising and falling… groundlessness itself.” (Mark Goldstein) Engaging in what he calls transtranslation, Mark Goldstein bridges several methodologies, including homophonic and homolinguistic play, and lexical word-for-word translations, mapping the sound and sense of the languages with which he works. Through this deep engagement with another voice and with his own voices, Goldstein produces poems that are both translated and written, that are both the other’s breath and his own breath.
A short interview with Mark Goldstein
Mark Goldstein is the author of three books of poetry published by the award-winning BookThug: Form of Forms (2012); Tracelanguage (2010); and After Rilke (2008).