Index to Translation Methods
Page 9 – “Blissful Times” – manipulated ‘found text’ from the play Happy Days by Samuel Beckett
Below are brief explanations of the main way each poem relates back to the poem on Page 9:
Page 10 – “Bfillssu Eimst” – arranged words alphabetically
Page 11 – “Fistful Rhymes” – replaced each word with a rhyme
Page 12 – “The Terrifying Nature of Intimacy” – thought about the poem in relation to the concept of translation between languages and lovers
Page 13 – “Blissful Times of the Month” – replaced each word with a cliché starting with that word, if one existed (using Oxford Dictionary of Clichés)
Page 14 – “After Flirting” – contemplated the poem after flirting [this poem also employs imagery and additional text from Happy Days]
Page 15 – “Tone” – translated into wordless video [this poems riffs on imagery from Beckett’s only film, “Film”, starring Buster Keaton]
Page 16 – “Times Blissful” – rearranged words to alternate between shortest and longest
Page 17 – “Rain Dialogue 1” – translated into dialogue
Page 18 – “La época dichosa / A Poker Ditch House” – translated into Spanish (in five minutes) then translated back based on what the words look or sound like in English (homolinguistic)
Page 19 – “La época dichosa / Delightful Could Be Justice” – read Spanish translation from page 18 (in Spanish) into English-only voice-activated computer software
Page 20 – “Tilt” – acrostic translation based on title down left side of page
Page 21 – “Flip” – reverse acrostic based on title up left side of page
Page 22 – “Blissful Shillings” – replaced each word with its slang meaning, if it has one (using Routledge’s Dictionary of Slang)
Page 23 – “Without an Umbrella” – considered the poem after a conversation with a friend’s drunken boyfriend
Page 24 – “BefiillmsssTu” – letters arranged alphabetically, recorded as sound poem
Page 25 – “Looking Back” – considered the poem while thinking about a past relationship
Page 26 – “After the Phone Call” – translated into concrete poem after a bad phone call
Page 27 – “Blissful Are Out Of Joint” – replaced each word with a euphemism starting with that word, then removed original word (using Oxford Dictionary of Euphemisms)
Page 28 – “Recent Disappointments” – considered the poem while hungry on Queen Street
Page 29 – “Blissful Times of India” – translated the title using “Google Talk,” a system created by Douwe Osinga (www.douweosinga.com)
Page 30 – “Rain Dialogue 2” – see page 17
Page 31 – “Watching You Move” – considered the poem while watching people interact at a party
Page 32 – “After Going Out” – considered the poem after a strained party
Page 33 – “Secrets of the Game, The” – replaced each word with the first two words that appeared in a Google search of that word
Page 34 – “Les temps délicieux / Temps Are Delicious” – translated into French using freetranslation.com, then translated back based on what the words look or sound like in English (homolinguistic)
Page 35 – “Les temps délicieux / Darned Game This Year” – read French translation from page 34 (in French) into English-only voice-activated computer software
Page 36 – “While at War” – considered the poem while Canada was (is) at war with Afghanistan [this poem also uses imagery from Happy Days]
Page 37 – “After the Phone Call 2” – translated into sound poem after a bad phone call
Page 38 – “Morose Once” – replaced each word (or phrase) with an antonym
Page 39 – “During an Election Campaign” – contemplated the poem during the 2006 Canadian federal election campaign [this poem also uses imagery from Happy Days]
Page 40 – “Measure” – translated into photos
Page 41 – “Rain Dialogue 3” – see page 17
Page 42 – “Mesopotamia” – mesostic translation based on title running down centre of poem
Page 43 – “M. le fils is Bust” – anagram translation using title
Page 44 – “Slim Blue Fists” – anagram translation using all letters in poem
Page 46 – “Tragedy’s Dames” – replaced each word with a word containing the same number of letters
Page 47 – “Rain Dialogue 4” – see page 17
Page 48 – “Blindworm Timber Limit” – replaced each noun, verb, adjective and adverb with the word 6 words before or after it in the Gage Canadian Dictionary, 1983 (a variation of “N+7”)
Page 49 – “Nagging Questions, 2005” – thought about the poem while travelling
Page 50 – “Rant” – a rant, informed by the poem, as delivered at Di Brandt’s Ecopoetics Symposium; A Gathering of Women Poets, Brandon University, March 2006
Page 51 – “Blissful 2for1” – cut-up translation, using the left side of “Blissful Times” and the right side of “Wednesday 2for1” by Jorge Lara Rivera (translated from Spanish by me)
Page 52 – “After Her Suicide” – thought about the poem after the suicide of a friend
Page 53 – “B.L.I.S.S.F.U.L.T.I.M.E.S.” – acronymic translation of title
Page 54 – “At the Halifax Pier” – translated into a concrete poem at the Halifax Harbour
Page 55 – “Rain Dialogue 5” – see page 17
Page 56 – “Anglo-Saxon Guidebook” – found poem from “Timeline of the English Language” in the Canadian Oxford Dictionary, 2001
Page 57 – “During a Heat Wave” – thought about the poem in 43°C
Page 58 – “Channel Surfing” – thought about the poem while watching TV
Page 60 – “Good Old Days” – considered the poem while thinking about history
Page 61 – “Rain Dialogue 6” – see page 17
Page 62 – “While Studying the Anatomy of a Phrase” – considered the poem after discovering a relative is (alaso) queer
Page 64 – “Slippery” – translated into video of a language cooking show
Page 65 – “Between” – considered the poem in relation to (my) gender
Page 66 – “Seilful Tids / Sizeable Kids” – translated into Scots, then read into English-only voice-activated software
Page 67 – “Seilful Tids / Seizure Tides” – ran Scots translation from page 66 through spellcheck at www.spellcheck.net (words that were actual words were joined to the words following them)
Page 68 – “(Ruined) Fantasy” – considered the poem while fantasizing
Page 69 – “While Reading Others” – a cento translation, created out of lines from poems by Juliana Spahr, d’bi.young.anitafrica, Goran Simic, Erín Moure, Eileen Myles, Rita Wong and Sapphire
Page 70 – “End” – telestic translation running title vertically down right side
Page 71 – “After Going Out 2” – as page 32, but translated into sound poem
Page 72 – “Rain Dialogue 7” – see page 17, also the last line is a phrase from Happy Days that I omitted from the sequence in “Blissful Times”
Page 73 – “Times Blissful” – altered line order
Page 74 – “Breath” – the inhalations and exhalations required to read “Blissful Times”
Page 75 – Untitled – translated into diagram