The translation of Rosanna Warren poetry by Ma Yongbo won the "Most Popular with Readers Award"

Poetics Multilingual Mag

2023 Annual Yanhe Magazine 'Most Popular with Readers Award' Translation Award Acceptance Speech——

Translation is a profound dialogue with the original author's soul

Award-winning work:

Cotillion Photo by Rosanna Warren, translated by Ma Yongbo

As a Chinese poet, it has always been my wish to build bridges for poems in different languages around the world through translation, and this is also an extension of my love for poetry.

Translation is a profound dialogue with the original author's soul and an adventure across languages, cultures, and time. In the process of translation, I not only learn the rhythm, imagery, and ways of thinking of foreign poetry but also continuously rediscover the possibilities of my own language. This has made me deeply realize that the boundaries of language are not barriers but doors to new worlds.

Translation work is sometimes like climbing a mountain, with rugged and arduous paths but more beautiful scenery; at other times, it is like diving into the deep sea to salvage treasures from shipwrecks, with each discovery being amazing. I believe that true translation is not just a simple conversion of words but a comprehensive understanding and recreation of the author's intentions, cultural context, and aesthetic power.

I pay special attention to poets marginalized in mainstream discourse, not only introducing their works to China but also conducting academic interpretations of their works from the perspective of a translator. This choice reflects my consistent respect for literary diversity and inclusive care for the poet community.

Translation is not only a cultural exchange but also an inspiration for writing concepts. Since the birth of modern白话新诗 (vernacular new poetry), Chinese poetry has benefited from the nourishment of translation, especially in terms of poetic modernity and postmodernity. The inspiration from foreign poetry, particularly Western poetry represented by British and American poetry, is indispensable. For a long time, we have lagged behind the West in the construction of modernity, and it has been difficult for us to establish the subjectivity of Chinese poetry. Only by being inclusive and embracing all can we hope to achieve certain achievements in the construction of Chinese poetics and truly enter the "world literature" family mentioned by Goethe.

Since the early 1990s, as a software engineer and poet, I have started a large number of translation practices. For more than 30 years, I have been tireless. Initially, I focused on translating and introducing American postmodern poetry, bringing in a large number of the most avant-garde poets never before seen in Chinese. Later, I turned to translating ecological literature, with results amounting to more than 20 volumes. Since the new century, while continuing to translate cutting-edge poetry, I have gradually begun to translate classic works, such as Melville's Moby-Dick, whose Chinese translation I have done and has sold more than 600,000 copies. In translating American poetry, I have, through critical essays and a series of interviews, comprehensively tracked and studied it while translating, providing timely new references for Chinese writing. Looking back now, the great American poets I inadvertently translated and published actually form a clear trajectory from modernism to postmodernism: Dickinson, Whitman, Stevens, Amy Lowell, Pound, Williams, Ashbery, Rosanna Warren, etc.—from the classic "great departed" to the outstanding "present" poets with whom I can communicate via the Internet at any time. I think this has also been a systematic arrangement of my own knowledge system

and a rare pleasure!

Translation has certainly had an important impact on my own writing, especially in poetic concepts. In terms of poetic theory, no one can emerge out of nowhere; everyone has their sources of influence, whether implicit or explicit. The rich openness of American poetry, its dynamic mixture of different elements, its emphasis on empirical poetics, its colorful experimental nature, etc., have all nourished me a lot.

2023年度《延河》杂志”最受读者欢迎奖”翻译奖获奖感言——翻译是一次与原作者灵魂的深度对话

获奖作品为马永波译罗桑娜·沃伦组诗《沙龙舞的照片》

马永波

作为一名中国诗人，能够通过翻译为世界不同语言的诗歌建立桥梁，是我一直以来的心愿，也是我对诗歌热爱的一种延伸。

翻译是一次与原作者灵魂的深度对话，更是一场跨越语言、文化与时间的冒险。在翻译的过程中，我不仅学习到异域诗歌的节奏、意象与思维方式，也不断

重新认识自己语言的可能性。这让我深刻体会到，语言的边界不是隔阂，而是打开新世界的大门。

翻译工作有时犹如攀登高山，道路崎岖而艰险，但也有更美的风景；有时又像潜入深海，去沉船上打捞珍宝，每一次发现都令人惊奇。我相信，真正的翻译

不是简单的词语转换，而是对作者意图、文化语境和美学力量的全方位理解与再创造。

我特别关注那些在主流话语中被边缘化的诗人，不仅将他们的作品引入中国，还以译者的视角对其作品进行学术性解读。这种选择体现了我一以贯之地对文学多样性的尊重以及对诗人群体的包容性关怀。

翻译不仅是文化的交流，也是写作理念的启发。从白话新诗开始，汉语诗歌就受益于翻译的滋养，尤其在诗歌的现代性和后现代性上面，外国诗歌，尤其英

美为代表的西方诗歌的启示，是不可或缺的。在很长一段时期，我们在现代性的建设方面落后于西方，我们还很难确立起汉语诗歌的主体性。兼容并蓄，海纳百

川，才有望在汉语诗学的建设上取得一定的成就，以真正地进入歌德所说的“世界文学”的大家庭。

从1990年代初以来，我以一名软件工程师和诗人的身份，开始了大量的翻译实践，30多年孜孜不倦，最初集中在美国后现代诗歌的译介上面，引进了大量汉语从来没有出现过的最具先锋性的诗人。后来我又去做了生态文学的翻译，有20多卷书的成果。新世纪以来，我坚持在翻译前沿诗歌的同时，开始逐步翻译经典作品，如麦尔维尔的《白鲸》，我的译本已销售60多万册。在美国诗歌的翻译上面，我一边翻译，一边通过评论文章和系列访谈的形式，予以比较全面的跟踪研究，为汉语写作适时提供新的参考。现在回头看来，我无心中翻译出版的美国伟大诗人，居然构成了一个清晰地从现代主义到后现代主义的路线，狄金森、惠

特曼、史蒂文斯、艾米·洛厄尔、庞德、威廉斯、阿什贝利、罗桑娜·沃伦等，从经典的“伟大的死者”到可以随时通过网络交流的“在场”的杰出诗人，我想，

这也是对我自己知识谱系的系统化整理，同时也是一份难得的乐趣！

翻译对于我自己的写作当然也有着重要的影响，尤其在诗歌理念上面。诗学上的拓展，任何人都不可能是横空出世，或隐或显都会有自己的影响源，而美国诗歌丰富的开放性、泥沙俱下的活力、对经验诗学的注重、缤纷多彩的实验性等等，都给了我很多滋养。