Thierrence Mathurin

Tanbou a pale

Tanbou-a pale

Ti-Roro fé

Tanbou-a pale

Nót yo leve

Yo mache

Y’al sote

Sou Só Yaya

Yo rantre

Nan kolet li

Yo jwe anba vant li

Teke zantray li

So Yaya

Alekile

Avek de bra-l anle

K’oun pe k’ap preche

Komanse gouye

Pli nan vant li woule

Kou vag sou lanme

Souf li kou timoun

K’ap sote kod

Lo mizik la fini

Figi Yaya w’a di 

Oun fanm ki

Fek fin fe lanmou

-Suze Baron

The drum talks

The drum is talking

Ti-Roro makes

The drum talk

The notes got up

They walked

They jumped on

Sister Yaya

They got

On her neck

They played right on her

And tickled her

Sister Yaya

With two arms in the air

Like a pastor

Started twisting and turning

The folds in her stomach started turning

Like waves in the sea

She panted, gasped and choked

Like a kid jumping rope

When the music finished

Yaya’s looked like

A woman who

Was in love

-Translated from Haitian Creole by Thierrence Mathurin

The talking drum

The drum spoke

Ti-Roro is made

The drum speak

It’s as if the notes jumped

As if they walked

As if they jumped on

Sister Yaya

on her neck

They played right on her

And made her laugh

Sister Yaya

Danced with two arms

Like a pastor

Who twisted and turned

The folds in her stomach rolled

Like waves in the sea

She panted and was out of breath

Like a kid jumping rope

When the notes sat back down

Yaya looked 

As if

She had fallen in love

-Translated from Haitian Creole by Thierrence Mathurin

Translator’s Statement

Tanbou-a pale is a poem that gives playful imagery to a small scene describing the dance of a woman named Yaya. It was written and published in the 1920s by Suze Baron but was republished in a collection of Haitian poetry in 2001. The title when directly translated means the drum talks. The meaning behind the drum talking is the idea that the notes from the drum are speaking to the listeners and in the poem itself it describes the notes as if they are people. They jump and play with the person dancing. The form of the poem is very simple with most of the lines consisting of 3 to 4 syllables and then increasing to 4 to 6 in the 4th stanza. I think this was done to show the change in pacing in the poem. 

My translation process first started with an in-head translation of the poem to get a better understanding of what was being said and also how it would sound in English with and without idioms included. I took note of what did and didn’t directly translate in my mind such as small prefixes like “ti” which means small or little. I then used these small alterations to give the translations more character and sound less robotic. Some of the most important changes to the poem were changes to make it more idiomatic in the English translation. Haitian Creole is built around idioms so when it is left out, the poem sounds almost hollow and missing something.

There were also some difficulties with translating the poem. Something that was very difficult to retain in the translation was the playfulness of the idiomatic phrases. This meant I had to spend a lot of time trying to capture the imagery of the poem while still following the basic guidelines of English.  Another challenge was making sure that was interpreted the right way. Because of their idiomatic nature, getting that to be clear to the reader is extremely important to me as I don’t want to have the reader leaving with a faulty interpretation of what they just read.

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Thierrence is 16 years old and lives in Foxboro Mass. He has many different interests ranging from computer science to soccer. He also enjoys reading, with some of his favorite books being Born a Crime and Black Clover.