TRANSLATING NTOZAKE SHANGE
A sweet yet overwhelming challenge. Perhaps this is the most exact way for describing the experience of translating African American poet Ntozake Shange. Shange’s poetry is not afraid of addressing topics that pertain to any black woman: political marginalization, the pain of racial discrimination, the contradictions these last two imply, physical and sexual abuse, the beauty in poor people, and musicality in a woman’s love life. It’s a matter of strong, fierce, colloquial, no-nonsense poetry; written for vulnerable and marginalized audiences, and yet playful, smart, cultured, wise. In a nutshell, Shange presents a mature poetic voice that comes from the gut in all its splendor, a verse that comes from the most intimate part of being a woman, a poetry that comes from an oral tradition passed down from generation to generation, as is the case of African poetry. If Maya Angelou can be considered the Martin Luther King of black poetry, then Ntozake Shange is the Malcom X of this genre.
Thus, perhaps the hardest part of re-creating Shange’s poetry in Spanish is her informal spelling. This could respond to a way of showing class and racial difference in writing, which is key in the author’s poetry. This feature also inserts Shange’s poetry in the American Black poetry tradition with others such as Langston Hughes, Audre Lorde, James Baldwin, Maya Angelou, among many others. Informal spelling implies shortening words (nothin, enuf, cuz, cept, walkin, comin), fusing words (haveta, sorta), cultural references (to jazz, literature, and historical figures), generally not capitalizing words that normally would be, the lack of punctuation, and constantly using overlapping lines (phrases that begin in one line and end in another, thus markedly interrupting the syntax). While I’ve been able to re-create most format aspects, irregular capitalization, and most overlaps, in other instances I resorted to particular translation procedures. In “crack annie,” I had to capitalize the names of the character “cadillac lee” in the Spanish version, because lee could also mean “to read,” thus confusing the reader. Consequently, I also had to capitalize the names of the rest of the characters for consistency.
In order to make this translation work, the following translation procedures were implemented: compensation, explicitation, adaptation, and equivalence. First, the ampersand symbol (&) was kept throughout. Even though this symbol can be translated as y (and), I believe the ampersand is a visual element that can be preserved. The morphology was inevitably changed in Spanish in cases in which the poetic voice speaks clearly to a woman or as a woman yet using gender-neutral words—child, kid, or friend, as in “poemas para una amiga” (“poem for a friend”). Furthermore, close attention was paid to matters of class and race, as well as cultural references. In this sense, I chose the Afro-Latino Caribbean as a space for placing Shange’s work because this region has a well-established, rich, Black poetry tradition. Authors like Nicolás Guillén and Nancy Morejón (Cuba), Manuel del Cabral (Dominican Republic), as well as Luis Palés Matos and Fortunato Vizcarrondo (Puerto Rico)—who I grew up with as a reader—among others, provide a solid reference for a Spanish version of Ntozake Shange’s work. Most translation decisions in this text originate from this cultural space.
Nevertheless, perhaps the hardest part was reproducing an informal spelling in Spanish comparable to Shange’s. Her poetry shows an English spelling that responds to orality: she writes as English sounds phonetically. The problem is that this is the very same norm in which Spanish works—spelling in our language directly responds to the way in which the words are pronounced. Thus, it was impossible to reproduce the exact instances in which words were modified. I have taken advantage of the words ending in -ada or -ado, or in -dad, and shortened them to –á, -ao, or -dá. This is the case of separá, enojao, realidá, among others. The same principle was applied to nada and para, which were rendered as ná and pa; the case of forms todo, todos, toda, todos modified to tó, tós, toa, toas, is similar (the accent in the masculine forms avoids confusion with tos (cough). These abbreviations are very common in spoken Spanish. In the same way, I fused words in order to replicate the author’s style because the distinction would not be made in spoken Spanish. This is the case of estabaquí, delos, dela, deque . . . among others. A particular case is sufisiente because it seems to me that enuf is too much an important word in the author’s work, thus requiring a visual mark in Spanish to highlight its spelling. In addition, the s opens the door for a play in meaning allowed by Shange’s spelling.
Terms referring to skin tone in a racial context were also a problem. It seems to me that the author uses the pejorative word niggah in order to show a political, historical, and social context that weighs in such a controversial word. In order to re-create this semantic load, I propose maldita negra or jodía negra, because it is an effective way of rendering such a negative word. In the case of red niggah, the author has made it clear that this term points to a skin tone that is not too dark nor too light, a mixed skin tone, a word used in the Midwest and the South—where Shange grew up—to refer to Native Americans, hence the red. Shange suggested using india negrita, and I have respected her criterion in this matter.
In the case of people of lighter, yet not white, skin, there is a reference to the color yellow—yellah girl. I used the term jabá (masculine, jabao), used in the Afro-Latino Caribbean to refer to people of white or light skin color with physical features—nose, cheeks, hair, thighs, etc.—related to black people. Regarding brown, a skin tone in between black and white, I used trigueña and morena. The first term is a euphemism for a mixed-race skin tone—literally, the color of wheat—yet in truth, this term is used for referring to darker skin tones. The same situation pertains to morena, which points to mixed-race skin, but is commonly used as a euphemism for dark skin tones. These two terms work very well in the Hispanic Caribbean when referring to mixed skin tones, which are implied in English by the term brown.
Adaptation, equivalence, and explicitation were used to translate cultural references. Papa Legbé was translated by the equivalent term for this Yoruba deity in Spanish, Eleguá, more identifiable in the Afro-Latino world. Similarly, references to children’s stories of rose red and rose white were adapted as cenicienta (Cinderella) and blanca nieves (Snow White), because they are universally known throughout the Spanish-speaking world. Song lyrics used by the author in poems were translated as best as possible, except in cases in which she asked to keep specific lines in English. In the Spanish version of “take the A train,” I used explicitation when translating a wordplay on the famous line by Mick Jagger and Keith Richards, “(I Can’t Get No) Satisfaction,” recorded by Otis Redding, a necessary addition so that the reader can identify the song without any doubt. In the Spanish version of “Shortnin’ Bread,” I had to adapt the entire lines pertaining to a children’s rhyme intended for little black girls with a stanza from the poem “Duerme negrito” by Nicolás Guillén. The poem itself is a black version of an Atahualpa Yupanqui song, and thus, it is a well-known reference in the Spanish-speaking world. I then used the popular song “La pelusa” to recreate a rhyme in which a white girl is invited to dance.
There were other minor modifications that I can’t include due to lack of space, yet I want to mention the use of peso and moneda for dime. The first was used to indicate a coin of low value that would be universally known throughout Latin America. The second was used as an option for coin due to a lack of a colloquial word in Spanish that would be valid for all Spanish speakers.
The end product is a Spanish text that renders the colloquial nature, the playful and desolating tone, the musical and poetic register of Ntozake Shange. Her poetry in Spanish can be situated in the tradition of Black poetry that can be seen in recent Afro-Caribbean authors, like Puerto Rico’s Anjelamaría Dávila. The poems are well-written, strong, overwhelming, and it is also a poetry disconnected from the formalities of the poetic world. In Ntozake Shange I’ve had the privilege of finding a mentor in all the senses of the word, because her poetry comprehends all roles—from how much poetry can hurt to how high a poem can fly. It has been a wild adventure, filled with beauty.
ALEJANDRO ÁLVAREZ NIEVES, PHD
San Juan, Puerto Rico