KJ

Bien tomados de la mano

Qué lindo que es caminar,
bien tomados de la mano,
por el barrio, por la plaza,
¿qué sé yo?, por todos lados.

Qué lindo es mirar los árboles,
bien tomados de la mano,
desde el banco de la plaza,
en el que estamos sentados.

Qué lindo es mirar el cielo
bien tomados de la mano;
en nuestros ojos, volando,
dos pájaros reflejados. 

Qué lindo que es caminar
bien tomados de la mano;
¡qué lindo, andar por la vida
de la mano bien tomados!

-Douglas Wright

Holding Hands Firmly

How pleasant it is to look at the trees,
While holding hands in love,
at the bench in the plaza,
Which is where 

we are sitting.

How pleasant it is to look at the sky
While holding hands in love;
In our eyes, 

Two birds flying in love reflected.

How nice it is to walk
While holding hands in love;
how nice, to walk through life
With the love of my life!

-Translated from Spanish by KJ

Holding Hands Firmly

How nice is it to look through the trees 

Holding hands, making my heart freeze

While we catch a breeze 

While on the bench at the plaza.

How pleasant it is to look at the sky

While holding hands my heart flies

Like the two lovely birds in 

the reflection of our eyes.

How nice is it to hold hands in love

How nice is it to walk 

While holding hands in love

How nice is it to walk through life

Knowing you will be my wife.

-Translated from Spanish by KJ Gordon

Translator’s Statement

Douglas Wright was an Argentinian poet/children’s author and illustrator. His poems discuss children's experiences and their relationship with nature and the world. The poem that I used from him was “Bien tomados de la mano.” This poem is basically about being with a person and you are holding their hands tightly and walking around the neighborhood. The author used a bit of writing and kept a slight romantic tone throughout the poem while also having 16 lines. It didn’t seem like Douglas didn’t want to shape the poem in a certain way and it seems like he wanted to keep the poem simple.

The translation process was slightly difficult due to the fact that the author is from Argentina and my mom is from the Dominican Republic. So even though they both speak Spanish they don't speak the same Spanish. This is because things like slang in a different language make certain words mean other things and also just things are said differently all across the world even if it is still the same base language. 

For my first translation, I mostly focused on the love aspect of the poem. In this poem, it seems like the author focused on talking about the person that he is with and basically how love is in the air. I changed the word nice into pleasant because I felt as if nice was too vague and pleasant showed I enjoyed being with this person more. I also changed the words so that it would feel like this time with this person was more like a date. I used words like, “holding hands in love,” and, “In our eyes, two birds flying in love reflected.” I said those things to show that I am in love with this person that I’m with and the world is telling me that. It was challenging choosing what to change because I felt like the original poem did a good job of showing that he was walking with someone while being in love with this person, but I eventually figured out what to add.

For my second translation, I focused on the rhyme scheme of the poem. When I was analyzing the original poem I noticed that there was a bit of rhyme going on with the words like cielo, mano, volando. The repetition of the, “o,” inspired me to make a poem that focused on rhyming while also still having that romantic element. I rhymed the words, trees, freeze, and breeze together to show how happy this person makes me feel. I also changed the line, “How pleasant it is to look at the sky while holding hands in love; In our eyes, two birds flying in love reflected,” to, “ How pleasant it is to look at the sky while holding hands my heart flys like the two lovely birds in the reflection of our eyes,” to make it more evident that the birds are giving signs of love and to also allow me to rhyme.

“I used to be ashamed of my hand-me-down, stitched-together Spanish, but I’m learning (as Freud advises) to embrace my symptom” (Carina del Valle Schorske). This quote relates to my blackout poem because I feel like there is a disconnect between me and Spanish since my mother never taught me it so I have to learn more as I go through life. The process of making my blackout poem was hard and fun at the same time. It was difficult getting a chance to show my mom the questions I had for her about her heritage because of things like work and school is was hard to get to her. It was also hard trying to get information about my heritage because my mom doesn’t really know much about hers. When people move from different countries it is kind of hard to keep some of the stories because they are so far away. It was fun figuring out what my mom knows about her heritage because it gave me a bigger picture of how difficult it is to pass on stories about family and also about heritage. When I made this poem I decided to draw a picture of myself crying at the bottom to show how I feel disconnected from what my mom speaks and how I’m still trying to figure out who I am as a person.

Bibliography

“About Dominican Republic - GoDominicanRepublic.com.” Dominican Republic, https://www.godominicanrepublic.com/about-dr/. Accessed 1 June 2023.

Del Valle Schorske, Carina. “Letter of Recommendation: Translation.” The New York Times, 26 October 2017, https://www.nytimes.com/2017/10/26/magazine/letter-of-recommendation-translation.html. Accessed 6 June 2023.

Wright, Douglas. “Bien tomados de la mano.” El Jardín de Douglas, 7 April 2013, http://eljardindedouglas.blogspot.com/2013/04/bien-tomados-de-la-mano.html. Accessed 1 June 2023.

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KJ is a student that lives in Boston. He enjoys playing and watching basketball. And he likes to consider himself a “vamp.”