Striving to translate like an author makes you realize how difficult it is to write well, to compose adequately, to strive for and achieve the coherence, the elegance, the economy, the ardour and generosity that make us want to read poetry.  And what beauty awaits those who persevere.

Translating ten poems from Gloria Macher’s manuscript Cuerpos Celestes makes me eager to continue the task I have begun. 

It has been an extremely gratifying experience, though not without all kinds of challenges, turning points, quibbles and doubts.  The process of writing a work again just makes you appreciate the original work more. Translation does not erase original authorship: it multiplies it. A work in translation experiences an afterlife.

My heartfelt thanks go to ellipse magazine and its wonderful editorial staff for providing this opportunity to reflect on the translation process and to collect the insights alongside the work-in-progress as a sort of illumination on what choices we consciously and intuitively make in bringing poetry into a new phase of its literary trajectory.