Firstly – thankyou so much to all the participants in Chain 1. It was great to see you all having fun with this, and your efforts are very appreciated.

The whole Chain may be viewed here.

If you have any comments to make on any of the individual translations, please make them on the translator’s deviation. Don’t forget to give them some love and cheers, for taking part.

Want to know more about TranslationChain’s coming events?

We have THREE Chain events in December – one of which features a poem by former Poet Laureate of the United States, Mr. Ted Kooser. Also kindly contributing material for these are *mediatedballe (poetry) and `GeneratingHype (prose). It promises to be a LOT of fun, so do let us know if you want to participate.

How do I get involved?

TranslationChain Project details & how to join in.

Chains 2, 3 & 4: Take a look at our news here!


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Some notes on the project by the author: *salshep

Again, all the translators have my thanks for taking part in this experiment. This first chain was about having fun, and seeing whether a project like this would succeeded on deviantART. It certainly did – and the results are fascinating.

I found myself feeling very sorry about not having another language as I watched the poem pass through all of the different translators, especially because I found that as it did so nuances of language gave quite a different spin on some of the lines— some I really wished I had thought of myself! These changes to the way an image was described, or interesting changes in ways of phrasing things, really gave me a different perspective on my poem. I regret being able to read only the English versions.

Of course I expected the poem to change significantly through this process, but was quite surprised to see that it remained pretty faithful to the original much further into the Chain than I thought it would. But as it went, small changes remained that diverged from the original wording and ideas, and of course these were passed along to subsequent persons who added to those changes, so it really is a different piece altogether at the end.

Another interesting thing was the feedback I received from some of the translators concerning difficulty finding ways to translate certain words or concepts from one language to another. As the author of the piece, I found this project very worthwhile to myself as a writer, and I’m very glad people liked translating my writing.

-- Salli Shepherd


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Original Poem: Homesick

-- first published in The Chimaera, October 2007

by *salshep ( Salli Shepherd )


Do not let them see you blink,
Mother said, so I am careful to turn
away when my eyes dry out. My grip
on the brush is clumsy. Colours speck
and dazzle, slop like foam on rocks;
the teacher dabs their brilliance
from my flaking arms. Children whisper

behind starfish hands; they go to play
in the bright, hot yard but I stay in,
as Mother told me. Below the window
there’s a tank of golden fish that circle,
circle, following their own reflections.

I dip my fingers in to scoop one up,
watch it flip and shine, cool in my palm,
and press my face deep into the water.
Membranes slide across my thirsty eyes.
I breathe, and breathe, and breathe.


Final Translation : Homesick

-- =lady-shirakawa : French to English


“Rain not in his presence”
My mother said to me “It makes me sad.”
In distancing me, wiping a tear,
My legs have a foreign behaviour,
My legs glitter like a stony surface.
Of my empty hands
The teacher takes the candle,
And the other children laugh.

Behind the arms of stars
They play in the garden, sunny and hot.
But I rest here, like my mother said to me.
The fish swim under the window, behind the glass,
From down in.
They do not follow their own path.

I touch the water of a finger.
Again, once a second.
They jump in the water, refuse to keep quiet.
Me eyes dry.
The water devours the bodies.
My eyelids close.
I breathe.
I breathe.
I breathe.

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CHAIN 1 PARTICIPANTS

Original poem : [link]

1 *FelixT English to German -- [link]
2 ~GuBCM German to Portuguese -- [link]
3 *S1mbelmyne Portuguese to English -- [link]
4 ~Bersaglio English to Italian -- [link]
5 ~iThemba - Italian to German -- [link]
6 *endless-one German to Spanish -- [link]
7 ~opiumsmoker Spanish to Latin -- [link]
8 *NLY Latin to English -- [link]
9 ~ordie English to Portuguese -- [link]
10 *batousaijin Portuguese to French -- [link]
11 ~DuilleogUaigneach French to English --[link]
12 ~Maly-Jo English to Spanish --[link]
13 ~AngelofGod87 Spanish to English --[link]
14 =Ronjana English to Dutch -- [link]
15 ~Hongske Dutch to French -- [link]
16 ~RagingGryphon French to English --[link]
17 ~AyumiFey English to Polish -- [link]
18 ~hopelesswriter Polish to English -- [link]
19 ~malicedomestic English to German -- [link]
20 =chakrabird German to Danish -- [link]
21 *rober2 Danish to English--[link]
22 ~tigress-phan English to Dutch-- [link]
23 ~Ailoura-aithe Dutch to English-- [link]
24 ~ancient-seeker English to French --[link]
25 =lady-shirakawa French to English -- [link]



Chains 2, 3 & 4 Start December 1—Watch for more news in a few days!