Ace Cannon

Fiind băiet păduri cutreieram

Fiind băiet păduri cutreieram

Şi mă culcam ades lângă isvor,

Iar braţul drept sub cap eu mi-l puneam

S-aud cum apa sună-ncetişor:

Un freamăt lin trecea din ram în ram

Şi un miros venea adormitor.

Astfel ades eu nopţi întregi am rămas,

Blând îngânat de-al valurilor glas.

Răsare luna, î-mi bate drept în faţă:

Un rai din basme văd printre pleoape,

Pe câmpi un val de arginţie ceaţă,

Sclipiri pe cer, văpaie preste ape,

Un bucium cântă tainic cu dulceaţă,

Sunând din ce în ce tot mai aproape...

Pe frunze uscate sau prin ‘naltul ierbii,

Părea c-aud venind în cete cerbii.

Alături teiul vechi mi se deschide:

Din el ieşi o tânără crăiasă,

Pluteau în lacrimi ochii-mi plini de vise,

Cu fruntea ei într-o maramă deasă,

Cu ochii mari, cu gura-abia închisă;

Ca-n somn încet-încet pe frunze pasă,

Călcând pe vârful micului picior,

Veni alături, mă privi cu dor.

Şi ah, era atâta de frumoasă,

Cum numa-n vis o dată-n viaţa ta

Un înger blând cu faţa radioasă,

Venind din cer se poate arăta;

Iar păru-i blond şi moale ca mătasa

Grumazul alb şi umerii-i vădea.

Prin hainele de tort subţire, fin,

Se vede trupul ei cel alb deplin.

-Mihai Eminescu

Whispering Waves

When I was a young boy

I often roamed the woods

I laid my head down by the stream

to hear how the sounds of  water flowing

A whooshing would jumping from branch to branch

And the sweet smell of dreams followed

I had these nights many times

Where i head the whispering waves

When the moon comes out and illuminates my face

When I close my eyes, I see a paradise of fairy tales

a wave of silvery fog glimmers in the sky

Like an aura over waters

The long horn is singing softly with a sweetness

The sound gets closer and closer, over the tall grass

As if herds of stags were coming closer

Next to me the chamomile tree opens up

To reveal a young princess

my teary eyes were full of dreams

Her forehead was covered by a thick veil

With big eyes her mouth barley closed like a  sleep that slowly slowly passes over leaves

She was tiptoeing on her little feet

and came to look at me with longing

She was so beautiful that you could dream of it only once in the life time

A tender angle with a radiant face, coming from the sky

Her blown hair soft as silk

Her white neck and shoulders showed through her dress made of silk, you could see her entire body

-Translated from Romanian by Ace Cannon

Paradise of Fairy Tales

When I was a young boy

I often roamed the woods

I laid my head down by the stream

to hear how the sounds of water flowing

A heard a whooshing jumping from branch to branch

Followed by the sweetness of dreams

There were many nights when I heard

Where i heard the whispering waves

Where the moon comes out and illuminates my face

When i close my eyes, a silver fog glimmers in the sky

And i see a paradise of fairy tales

Like a aura over waters

The Bucium is singing softly with a sweetness

And the sound gets closer and closer,

Galloping over the tall grass

As if herds of stags were coming near

Next to me the chamomile tree opens to reveal

a young princess whose forehead was covered by a thick veil

With big eyes and a mouth barley closed,

like a sleep that slowly slowly passes over leaves

She was tiptoeing on her little feet

and came to look at me with longing

She was so beautiful that you could dream of it only once in the life time

A tender angle with a radiant face, coming from the sky

Her blown hair soft as silk

Her white neck and shoulders showed through her dress made of silk, you could see her entire body

-Translated from Romanian by Ace Cannon

Translator’s Statement

The poem I chose to translate is “Fiind băiet păduri cutreieram” by Mihai Eminescu. Eminescu’s life was very interesting as he published his first poem at just sixteen years old. He is Romania's national poet, with his romance, nature, and nostalgia themed poems being something the country cherishes. While some of his poems are quite lovely and sweet, Eminescu struggled with depression at different points in his life, which can be demonstrated in other works. His cause of death is unknown. The poem “Fiind băiet păduri cutreieram” is about how when the poet was a young boy, he went into the woods for peace. One night, a magical lady appeared in front of him, so beautiful that the moment was forever ingrained in his memory. To my understanding of the poem, the woman was made of moonlight, and was a sort of angel. This author is old, so I didn’t just have to translate what he said into English with my translation mentors, but they had to do some work to figure out what certain things meant. If you were to translate one of Shakespeare's works into another language, you would first have to understand what he meant, as the language from then to now has changed quite a bit.

For my translation, I met with a man and his daughter who spoke Romanian. The man read the poem out loud for me to hear and record, and then went on to give a literal translation of the poem. His daughter, Amanda, helped synthesize certain words and phrases that her father couldn’t quite explain to me in English. Something interesting that we found was that the site that I got the poem off of seemed to have typos. Whether or not this site error caused a difference in the translation remains to be seen, but I think it is an important piece of information to acknowledge.

While editing the literal translation after our meeting, I decided to focus on the descriptiveness of the original poem in my retelling. While that meant I couldn’t always have a steady rhythm, I got to demonstrate the word choice the author used in the original poem, which I think is a very important part of Eminescu’s writing. Like the Manifesto for Ultratranslation says: “Nothing is lost in translation. Everything was always already lost, long before we arrived.” My interpretation of this poem might not be what the author intended, but at the end of the day it’s art. Its job in the world is to inspire people and connect people on a fundamental human level. Once a piece of art is published, it no longer belongs to just the artist, but to anyone and everyone. This knowledge makes me confident about my choices as a translator, because I know that there is no “perfect translation”. It’s simply not possible. The only thing translators can do is try to shed some light on a part of a text and interpret it as they see fit.

For my blackout poem, I interviewed my father. I asked him about the story of our family coming to America, and how we connect to our ancestors. Some of the things he said weren’t that shocking: I know the gist of our story. Romanian and Hungarian lovers seek refuge from a country with slavery and come to America, where they build a life for their family. Somewhere along the way it is clear that there was some sort of shame about our heritage, because there was almost no trace of it in our family. The only two people who would ever even talk about it were my grandma Ginny and my aunt Judy. I never really knew my grandma Ginny – she lived in Florida for most of my life, she had really bad dementia, and died when I was about ten years old. On the only trip I remember to my grandma Ginny's house, I made sarmale with my aunt Judy. I was about five years old, but always the adventurous eater, I was really excited to eat the stuffed cabbage leaves. I can still remember the smell of her house as we cooked the food, and how my brother and I played on the carpet of her living room before dinner. My parents have some pictures from that night, most of them including me and food. The point of all this? I knew two people who ever showed me anything about my culture, and it was with food. So when my dad told me that our ancestors had “a more willing assimilation”, it really wasn’t a surprise. If my family was proud about who they were, I would know more. My dad would’ve grown up with the good Romanian dishes instead of grandma Ginny trying (and to my dads recollection failing) to make “American style” food.

Now I did find out a few new things that I think are fascinating. For starters, I had no idea that Cannon wasn’t actually our last name, and the fact that they thought it came from O’Cannon only to find that side of the family wasn’t Irish at all was kind of funny to me. It was interesting how my dad talked about it though; he said that his mother knew about their heritage, and how when he was little he had some cousins speak Romanian, but other than that they were really shut off from the culture. I understand that, because for a long time it was a method of survival, but for his mom to lie about their last name was kind of shocking to me. I was also unaware that my family didn’t come straight to America from Europe. I just assumed that they immigrated to the US, because here I am now. In reality, they actually immigrated to Canada, where there was a huge Romanian population at the time. Then they moved to Michigan, before spreading and leaving the nest to find other places to live. While learning about all of this, I was interested but also a bit heartbroken. I understood that we weren’t really connected to our ancestry, but what my dad said about it was so personal it really made me understand why he doesn’t really connect with me or my brother about his – our – culture. At the end of the interview, I think he put it best when he said “I wish I could tell you more.”

Bibliography

“Poezii Romanesti.” Poezii Romanesti, http://www.romanianvoice.com/poezii/poezii/lamijloc.php. Accessed 12 June 2023.

Wa Thiong'o, Ngugi. The Language of Languages. Seagull Books, 2023.

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Ace is a ninth grader at Meridian Academy in Boston, MA, who really likes to read poetry. They also enjoy playing and listening to music, as well as all things related to the fungi kingdom. When they're not doing any of these fun activities, they're probably asleep!