Translating a collage of voices in multimodal poetry

In this essay, I discuss my experiences translating poetry by Víctor Cabrera – an author originally from the Chiapas State of Mexico. Cabrera’s work engages with a variety of art forms, including film and music. In the case studies discussed in this essay, I focus on my process for translating A Garden Razed to Ashes Un jardín arrasado de cenizas (2014), a work in dialogue with the music of American jazz composer Thelonious Monk, and WIDE SCREEN (2009), a work in dialogue with the films of American arthouse director Jim Jarmusch. In this essay, I discuss my translations in relation to theories of intertextuality, intratextuality, pastiche, and palimpsest. These translation projects raise interesting questions regarding how a translator might recognize the ways in which a literary author incorporates the voices of artists in other media and how these elements can be re-created in a translation to highlight the complexity and transdisciplinarity of the source author. My principal aim in writing this reflection is to illustrate the creative and interpretive activity carried out by translators.