Translation of Yusef Komunyakaa's "Facing It"

Onunla yüzleşmek

Siyah yüzüm soluyor,

Siyah granite saklanarak

Hayır, yapmayacağım dedim,

Lanet olsun: Gözyaşına izin yok.

Ben taştanım. Ben ettenim. 

Bulutlu yansımam bana bakıyor,

Bir yırtıcı kuş gibi, gecenin görünüşünde

Sabaha karşı uzanmış. Dönüyorum,

O yöne, taş beni bırakıyor

Öbür yöne dönüyorum, yine Vietnam Şehit Anıtındayım,

Bir fark bulmak, ışığa bağlı 

58,022 ismin içinde, aşağıya iniyorum,

Kendi ismimi bir duman gibi bulmanın

Yarım bir beklentisi içinde. 

Andrew Johnson ismine dokunuyorum,

Bubi tuzağının beyaz ışığını görüyorum.

Bir kadın bluzunun üzerinde isim parlıyor, 

Ama oradan ayrıldığında, 

İsimler duvarda kalmaya devam ediyor.

Fırça darbeleri parlıyor, kırmızı bir kuşun 

Kanatları bakışımı yakalıyor.

Gökyüzü. Gökyüzünde bir uçak. 

Beyaz bir askerin sureti yayılıyor,

Bana yaklaşıyor, ardından solgun gözleri, 

Benimkilere bakıyor. Ben, bir pencereyim. 

Sağ kolunu, taşın içinde kaybetmiş. Siyah aynada

Bir kadın isimleri silmeye çalışıyor,

Hayır, bir çocuğun saçlarını tarıyor. 

To begin with, it is important to state that any translated text by different translators would never be completely the same. The translation heavily depends on the translator’s lifestyle, state of mind, and the language they prefer in their daily life. Therefore, it is crucial to detect the choices made by the translator. However, the translator should know why the author wrote certain phrases in those exact manners and take them into consideration while translating the work. 

In general, the most challenging parts are the use of punctuation and vocabulary in the original text. Along with these challenging parts, this translation task is not prose, it is a poem, therefore it creates the issue of form in the first place. Firstly, in the target language, Turkish, dashes are not used often when defining a certain word or creating a transition. It is possible to see them on line 9 and line 10 in Yusef Komunyakaa’s “Facing It”. The use of the dash in those lines is mostly used to describe a transition between the two different positions, which also demonstrates a shift within the mindset of the narrator. Secondarily, as simple as it looks, translating the word “black” was another challenge, because “black” does not have the same connotation in Turkish, and the use of that word does not imply anything in the target language. If there is the need to differentiate between skin, mood, dirt- such as the warzone’s soil on soldiers’ faces- and weather, there are two words that can be used: “kara” and “siyah”. “Kara” can also be used as “dark”. Therefore, I kept it simple, to be understood as broad as possible to not create a narrowed image and used the word “siyah” which has a broader meaning, and creates the contrast with the use of “white” on line 25, even though it does not reflect the negative connotation. Another challenge about the translation was deciding on keeping the original stylistic choice of the poem, such as keeping the capitals on every line or not but to make it grammatically correct in Turkish, I wrote them all with capital letters. Keeping the original flow of the text was not as challenging as the others while the poem is vocative, has a nice flow, and has a natural tone that allows readers to read it easily, therefore keeping that tone in the target language is not difficult. 

Lastly, it is essential to not forget that I made some changes in the order of the lines and sentences because if I kept the original order of phrases, it would make the poem become hard to read and hard to understand while English and Turkish do not share the same sentence structure. I tried to keep the transposed sentences, however, I still needed to change the order of lines 15 and 16. I combined lines 11,12, and 13 because if I did not, then the last sentence was going to be short, which I thought would affect the readers negatively.

To sum up, it is important to say that I used the communicative approach in my translation which allowed me to convey the original emotions and meanings while adding some changes and combinations to the original poem. Based on my own translation, it is possible to affirm that everything is not translatable, especially when it comes to translating into languages that do not share a similar culture, or use a similar kinds of expressions when describing things. Some cultural elements, such as the use of “black” and “white” contrast, cannot be given the same way as the original poem in the target language. It is possible to do expansion to create a broader understanding, which alters the original meaning, even if it is a small adjustment. Being loyal to the text in the sense of conveying the meaning means securing the communication between the author and the target audience and that is the only thing that matters to decide if something is translatable or not. In the sense of form, some elements get lost during translation, such as the use of commas or dashes; sentence formulation, and the order of words or sentences. These are untranslatable materials. However, the core of the text or the poem stays the same, and to convey the core of the poem means conveying the meaning and emotions to the reader as accurately as possible. This core is always translatable, and that was the only concern I had while translating the poem.