Young Writers Society

Hi there! This is my first time reviewing a translation on this site (and from a language I don’t speak too) but I’ll do my best! The poem definitely caught my eye, and I always enjoy satire when it’s done well.

General Impressions

Reading this English rendition of the poem, I can definitely feel a sense of dark humor and a mocking tone towards the “you”. The speaker(s) comes across as confident despite being ‘stepped on’ by this “you”. The ending sounds prophetic and slightly hopeful.

I did some Googling to check the poet’s background and to understand the reference to Emperor Humayun. Based on that I think the intended interpretation of this piece would be that an oppressed class of people is addressing their oppressor? I like the irony in the lines:

Our breasts, blessed with your feet
Are ravished by your steps every day.

And

You dare not reveal to the world,
Your proud, thunderous, torturous feet.

In the first one, the speaker(s) points out a contradiction between the addressee’s above-it-all self-perception and the very ‘base’ destructiveness of their behaviour. And in the second one, it certainly is ironic that a “proud” person tries to conceal something.

Word Choices

I like the use of “the stairs”, which is an obvious plural form as opposed to something like “the staircase”. “stairs” to me evokes the image of a lot of people being trampled over, which makes the situation seem more extreme. It also lines up with the “we” being used. In general, I appreciate the use of specific verbs and nouns here, for example “trampling” vs “rise” is a powerful contrast and “tumble” yet another one to show the folly of the addressee.

I thought “cover” was an interesting choice. Granted, I’ve not read the original, but to me “cover” could have both good and bad connotations. Sometimes we “cover” someone with a blanket to keep them warm. Other times we “cover up” a mistake we made to other people’s detriment. I wonder how other words might work in this line, such as “conceal” (since the next line uses “hide”).

“the sights of the world” is also a little ambiguous in English. I think here it would mean something like: not hidden from the sights (of all the people) in the world? Is that what is meant there?

Rhythm

Something I appreciate about this translation is the effort you’ve put in to make it rhythmic. There’s assonance in breasts/blessed, and the line “covering . . . carpets” has the repeated sound and visual of the “c”. It makes the line sound harsher, which is fitting, as it depicts the results of violence. I also like how the “c” assonance appears again in the final stanza, where the line “Your calamitous feet . . .” echoes the second stanza. I also noticed a slight rhyme between chests/us with the “s” ending. I tend to like there being some rhyme to close off a poem – I just feel it sounds satisfying, like the final couplet in a Shakespearean sonnet does.

Overall

Thanks for the interesting read! I noticed there doesn’t seem to be many English translations of this poet’s work available online, so it’s great that you’ve created one yourself. While I’m not able to talk about the accuracy of the translation, I can just say that the poem’s effect in your English version is powerful. As mentioned, I found a few phrases or words a bit more ambiguous and so less hard-hitting, but on the whole it comes across as a witty yet also weighty protest poem.

Hope this helps – let me know if you’d like more feedback on something specific!
-Lim