poet’s form was also modern to his readers). There is no reason why a poet will always be inspired by a work to recreate that work, that his performance should necessarily be a re-creation, no more than a singer will want to sing a song just the way the songwriter had imagined it. As we’ve seen with Celan’s versions and adaptations, the poet might want to make the poem his, refract it through his own eyes, sing it in his voice; and the result might be better than a translation. As with Pound, the poet might want to focus on certain elements of the poem that he wants to bring into English, to confirm his own approach to poetry or just to see what will happen. People like this sort of thing when it comes to music; the question is, could they like this in translation as well? Would enough people be willing to read multiple translations to allow a market to grow in various responses to poetry that are actually sold like that and do not necessarily come from the pens of famous poets?
There are all sorts of responses to a poem, and translation is only one of them. It is the most popular one not because it is the best or most ethical in its own right. It is the most popular because we are a monoglot society and most people are looking to read the original in the only way possible. The ethical nature of translation comes less from the requirements of faithfully reproducing an original, and more from the reader’s expectations and desires of something as close to the original as possible. When the reader chooses ease over authenticity of form, the modern concept of fidelity embraces that as well, because it is primarily interested in fidelity to content, a more limited ethical position overall fidelity.
If there were more readers looking for how Robert Bly responded to a poem—in a form other than a translation — then he might be even freer with his free-verse versions, and the results might be even better. But I think there is an ethical problem in putting forth all of his performances as translations, especially because he is, relatively, a celebrity and, therefore, more people will read his Rilke than anyone else’s. Readers will likely get a great deal from them, but they will never know that what they are reading bears only limited resemblance to Rilke’s verse. If they knew, however, they still might choose celebrity over authenticity; Bly’s fame as a poet makes him an artist in the public’s eye even when
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