"CAROLINE'S CORAL STRING": TRANSLATING A CECÍLIA MEIRELES' 'TETRIS-POEM' INTO ENGLISH

Abstract

Many of the poems fromOu isto ou aquilo, by CecíliaMeireles, are plays on the very fabric of Portuguese and were built upon a"syllabic structure", such as "Colar de Carolina". Atfirst, Meireles singles out a particular moment – case in point, a little girlrunning around the columns on a hill – as if the poet had taken a mental photoof the scene. Then, with the use of some key-syllables, the poet develops thatphoto before our very eyes, verse after verse, in a kind of "Tetris-poem",as if the syllables or phonemes were 'tiles dropping from above'. As one doeswhen playing Tetris, Meireles moves the 'tiles' to the right, to the left, orrotates them (thus producing some changes in the order of the letters) – sothat they can fit into the room envisaged by her. Even though they look simplein appearance, Meireles' poems put the translator on the spot: what if, bytrying to keep the rules of the game (that is, build the translated poem fromthe recombination of some given phonemes), the translator feels compelled toreconfigure the scene photographed by the author? What if, while attempting tokeep the scene photographed by the author, the translator feels compelled tochange the rules of the game? When it comes to translation of poetry forchildren, middle ground, or the "reinvented naturalization", is oftenthe solution to get around the old dilemma "form versus content",which are always being reinvented by poets.