In university I spent some time studying translations of literature, and was directed to this quote:
“To reproduce the rhymes and yet translate the entire poem literally is mathematically impossible. But in losing its rhyme the poem loses its bloom, which neither marginal description nor the alchemy of a scholium can replace.”
Pushkin, Aleksandr, et al. Eugene Onegin : A Novel in Verse: Text (Vol. 1). Translated by Brian Boyd and Vladimir Nabokov, Princeton University Press, 2018. Page 27
With poetry, an exact translation is often near impossible, when metre, rhyme and original meaning have to be preserved, and often one has to be sacrificed for the benefit of the rest. My translation of my poem Какова Цвета Планета? aims to follow the metre of the original as closely as possible. I did not focus on rhyming in the original so this translation does not have much emphasis on rhymes either, and my goal was to make the translation sound as natural to the English-speaking ear as possible. As Boyd and Nabokov point out with rhyme, metre is also difficult to preserve when there are different word lengths and emphasis on words between languages. So I have only made a few concessions to sticking to metre, and other than that translated the poem as closely to the original meaning as I could.
Our planet? Well it’s green.
Where the trees stretch up to the endless sky, it’s green.
Where us forest dwellers live, and laugh
And sing sad songs with our quiet voices.
Where the sun glows on rolling fields,
Where we cry out “Run away, Run!”
Our planet? Well it’s white.
Where the ocean freezes into pale ice, it’s white.
And we play our little games in clean, cold snow.
Where the looming fog smothers our voices.
In the north, we live between the earth and vast space.
Where today, we lost our mother.
Our planet? It’s blue.
Where we dance in the stormy waves, its deep blue.
Where the sea is cruel above, but calm below.
Where we were born at the world’s birthplace.
From polar seas to the tropical, it’s our home.
Where sometimes, we cannot swim away.
Our planet? It’s grey
Where humanity sickens and dies,
Because we must hate ourselves.
Author: Iona Watt
Iona Watt 
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