I NEED BILINGUAL WRITERS to help conduct a fun experiment in how a piece of writing undergoes changes during many translations.

If you want to participate, you MUST read and write at least two languages reasonably well.

If you'd like to help, send me a note and let me know which languages are best for you. Alternatively, you could help someone who doesn't speak English at all to participate, by letting them know what's happening, and sending in their application for them.

I'd like at least 20 people for this, with as big a variety of languages as I can get, which means that unfortunately I can't promise everyone who puts their name down will get a turn-- it depends on the number and variety of language combinations I get.

When I have enough writers from enough different languages, I will make the chain list.

If you'd like to participate, or know someone who does, send me a note and let me know!


Okay, So How Will It Work, Exactly?


I will choose a poem from my gallery and hand it on, with the list, for it to be translated into another language.

Once the poem is translated, you must:

Upload it to your gallery -- make sure to credit *salshep (me) as the original author.

Send a link to both me AND the next person on the list. That person will be someone who knows your own language, plus another.

Make sure to put "Poem Chain" in the subject line of your note-- or I will lose you in my crowded in-box!

Once the first translation is done, my poem will go into storage—you must use only the translation before your own as a reference!!!

IMPORTANT: Please make sure to pass the poem on to the person after you on the list and nobody else-- or the chain will be broken!

When you submit your translation, include a few notes on what it was like to translate it, and they might get featured in the news, too!


So, the poem might go from English to French, and from French to Japanese, Japanese to Spanish, Spanish back to English, from English to Russian, Russian to Swahili, and so on, until it is finally back to English for the last turn, and returned to me!


I will paste the final translation, with the original poem, in a follow-up news report, along with the icons of ALL the people who contributed to this experiment, and links to their translations.




What a great way to get to know people!




If you are bilingual or would just like to help, PLEASE FAVE this article, or LINK it in your journals, and PASS WORD around.. I'd love to see dA become even more multi-cultural, and this is something fun I thought of to do to help people meet each other.


If this experiment works well, I will definitely run a few more!