Writing Exercise: Homophonic Translation
Sometimes the hardest part of writing is starting. There's so much pressure to come up with a good idea that you forget there are good ideas around you all the time.
In the coming months we’ll be sharing some of the exercises we use in our Writing Rooms to introduce new ways of finding inspiration, and to relieve a bit of the pressure. (Check out last month's exercise here!)
This month's exercise requires a single poem.
Homophonic Translation
Pick a poem in a language you can pronounce but can’t understand.
Re-write the poem using the first English word that comes to mind when you look at each word, whether due to its look, sound, location, or your previous word.
Try to do this quickly. Keep it loose. Let your imagination fill the gaps.
Don’t look back, second-guess, or stop until you’re finished.
Example
The first two stanzas of Paul Verlaine’s ‘Chanson d'automne’ with Verlaine on the left and my homophonic translation on the right:
Is this a great poem? Probably not! But it's led me somewhere unusual and unexpected, and that's often a great place to start.