7. Which is your favourite 'Nature' poem from your mother tongue? Write the poem
and try to translate it into English. Your translation can be in the form of a poem
or a paraphrase
Answers
Explanation:
I think it would be “Zoo” by Michel Butor. It is considered a poem targeted towards children, but I think there’s some quiet and simple beauty to it. I also had a book with illustrated poems when I was a kid and it was already one of my favorites. It is not a great classi or romantic sonnet, it doesn’t even rhyme, but yet it is very well written. The languages dances and flows, and the text is quite beautiful.
À la tombée de la nuit
Quand se sont refermées les grilles
L’éléphant rêve à son grand troupeau
Le rhinocéros à ses troncs d’arbres
L’hippopotame à des lacs clairs
La girafe à des frondaisons de fougères
Le dromadaire à des oasis tintant
Le bison à un océan d’herbes
Le lion à des craquements dans les feuilles
Le tigre de Sibérie à des traces dans la neige
L’ours polaire à des cascades poissonneuses
La panthère à des pelages passant dans les rayons de lune
Le gorille à des bananiers croulant de leurs feuilles violettes
L’aigle à des coups de vent dans des canyons de nuages
Le phoque aux archipels mouvants de la banquise disloquée
Les enfants des gardiens à la plage
- Michel Butor
(Translation’s mine so might not be the best out there)
When the night falls
And the gates have closed
The elephant dreams of his large herd
The rhinoceros of his tree trunks
The hippopotamus of clear lakes
The giraffe of the foliage of ferns
The dromadaire of a tingling oasis
The bison of an ocean of grass
The lion of the crunching of leaves
The Siberia tiger of footsteps in the snow
The polar bear of waterfalls full of fish
The panther of fur moving in moonbeams
The gorilla of banana trees crumbling under their purple flowers
The eagle of gusts of wind between canyons made of clouds
The seal of moving archipelagos of the torn-apart floe
And the gardians’ children, of the beach.