When you translate poetry in particular, you're obliged to look

Hear the words of Marilyn Hacker, who speaks with the voice of one who has journeyed deep into the labyrinth of language: “When you translate poetry in particular, you’re obliged to look at how the writer with whom you’re working puts together words, sentences, phrases, the triple tension between the line of verse, the syntax, and the sentence.” This is not merely instruction—it is revelation. For to translate a poem is not only to carry meaning across tongues, but to wrestle with the very breath of its life. Each line, each turn of syntax, each rhythm of the sentence is bound in holy tension, and to betray one is to wound them all.

The origin of this wisdom lies in the ancient struggle of translation itself. For when the Hebrews brought their psalms into Greek, when the Greeks gave their epics to the Romans, when Persian poets were carried into English, the translators stood at the crossroads of fidelity and betrayal. They saw clearly that a poem is not only its words but also its music, its cadence, its architecture of silence. To translate is to hold a delicate vessel of three forces: the march of the line, the breath of the syntax, the sweep of the sentence. Lose one, and the vessel cracks.

Consider the tale of FitzGerald’s Rubáiyát of Omar Khayyám. His translation took liberties—he bent phrases, he reshaped sentences, he altered the lines of verse. And yet, in this bending, he carried something luminous across the centuries. The quatrains of Khayyám, though changed, sang in English with a new fire. Here we see the paradox Hacker names: the translator must weigh three tensions at once, balancing faithfulness with life, structure with music, meaning with beauty. The art is not mechanical but heroic, demanding wisdom, patience, and courage.

The triple tension is what makes poetry so fragile to move across languages. In prose, one may carry over the thought plainly; but in poetry, each word is a jewel cut to fit its precise setting. The line controls the rhythm, the syntax controls the flow, and the sentence controls the sense. Together, they form a trinity of meaning, music, and motion. The translator, then, is not a scribe but a tightrope walker, balancing upon the strand of another’s art, carrying it across the gulf of language.

We must see, too, that this teaching applies not only to translators but to all readers and writers of poetry. When we read a poem, we too are translators—moving it from the page into the theater of our own mind. We must attend not only to what the words mean, but to how they are placed, how they breathe, how they build. When we write, we must remember that every line, every twist of syntax, every unfolding sentence holds within it a living tension that gives poetry its power.

Therefore, the lesson for us is clear: do not treat translation lightly, nor reading, nor writing. To engage with poetry is to honor the sacred tension between form and sense, between music and meaning. If you read in another tongue, read slowly, with reverence. If you write, weigh your lines not only for clarity but for cadence. And if you translate, know that you are not merely carrying words—you are carrying breath, rhythm, and vision across the gulf of human difference.

In practice, take up this discipline: when reading a poem, pause after each line of verse, ask how the syntax bends or resists, trace the arc of the sentence. When writing, experiment with how meaning changes if a line breaks here instead of there, if a phrase is stretched or compressed. And when encountering poetry in translation, read two versions if you can, to hear how different translators wrestled with the holy tension. This practice will sharpen not only your art but your soul.

Thus, Hacker’s words endure as a teaching: to translate poetry is to step into sacred struggle, where words, sentences, and phrases are bound in a living trinity of tension. Honor this balance, and you will not only translate but also truly listen. And in listening, you will learn the deepest secret of poetry—that every poem is a bridge across the silences between souls.