Our 2013 print issue of the LRR included a Foreign Literatures section. We purposefully published these pieces—two in Irish (Lisa Nic An Bhreithimh’s piece, “Grá Fómhair”; Alex Fogarty’s poem “Focail Sneachta”) and one in Spanish (Mikel Lorenzo Arza’s “Deola”) —in their native languages with no accompanying translations in order to assert our belief that our increasingly polycultural world requires a knowledge of various languages. We wanted our readers to struggle a bit. We wanted readers to appreciate the beauty of the written words in the original languages, even if they could not understand the literal meaning, to try to translate the pieces on their own, and to realize that all translations are separate works of art that serve as approximations of the originals.
However, for those readers who nevertheless love literal meaning (myself included), we are providing the English translation of Alex’s “Focail Sneachta” below (a translation of Lisa’s piece was posted on November 17th and a translation of Mikel’s piece was posted on December 27th). The original versions of all three foreign literature pieces can of course be found in the 2013 print issue of Long River Review and copies are still available for sale at a small price at the UConn Co-Op.
About the author: Alex Fogarty is an English major who specializes in Irish literature and the Irish language. He used to be computer science major and somehow ended up with more work after the switch to English. He also won first place at the Sterling Count Fair Butter Dance when he was eight.
Focail Sneachta
Amharcaim mo shaol bán
agus tá sé poncaithe le dearaí dorcha.
Tá an áit beag seo fuar agus glan
agus ’sí mó thearmann í.
Mar bhuail an stoirm faoi bhallaí an tsolais.
Feicim an reacht nuair a amharcaim amach,
Is féidir leis an domhan a ghlanadh orm go dtí a dhath.
Words of Snow
I lean over a white landscape,
Dotted with my dark creations.
This small world, cold and clean,
As the storm rages outside,
Becomes my harbor,
Crafted from light.
As I turn from my light,
I see the chaos brewing outside,
Threatening to cover my world and wipe it clean.