The Rules of Bird Hunting

by Eeva Park, Jayde Will (translator)

Translated by Jayde Will. Eeva Park began as the author of mood poems depicting nature, and has said that she mixed feeling and thought in her poetry, while her prose is a mixture of understanding and memory. This original collection, translated by Jayde Will is an exploration of values, real and imagined incorporating the best of Park's work from the last three decades. Freefall is part of the 'Parthian Baltic' project. The project was launched at the Parthian poetry festival at the Wheatsheaf and the London Book Fair 2018 (focus region: Baltics).

Genres: Poetry

58 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 2012

About the author

Eeva Park is an Estonian poet and novelist. She also has written plays, short stories and translated poetry into Estonian. In 2004 she was awarded for her thriller novel "Lõoks lõpmatusse" with The Literary Prize of Eduard Vilde.

Reviews

[Alan (on December semi-hiatus) Teder · Rating 4 out of 5]

This translation of Linnujahireeglid is Estonian writer Eeva Park's first English language poetry collection. She also has short stories included in The Dedalus Book of Estonian Literature and Baltic Belles.

From the few originals that I have been able to track down, the translation by Jayde Will is quite correct but many of the poems lose a lot of musical tone when the alliterations and the vowel-rich sound of Estonian cannot be reproduced. Take for instance "Sa aerutad" (You row):

Sa aerutad,
hambad ristis,
aga ma pole paat,
vaid puri.
Heiska mind masti ja mine!

The sing-song alliteration of "pole paat... puri" (not boat.. sail) (the p is pronounced as a much softer b in Estonian) and "mind masti... mine" (me mast.... go) just doesn't come through in the otherwise correctly translated:

You row,
Teeth clenched,
But I'm not a boat,
I'm a sail.
Unfurl me and go!

There is still a lot of the spirit of the poem that comes through ("Unfurl me and go!" is very good) but it just doesn't quite sing in English. Still this was a great introduction to Eeva Park's work.

"The Rules of Bird Hunting" is one of the recent Parthian Baltics poetry series and I hope to pick up more of these translations from Estonian, Latvian and Lithuanian.