Translating poetry is a difficult challenge, because sometimes the constraints of the original poem make it difficult to do it justice. There’s freedom in both the close and free versions – in staying close to the original poem, one has to work hard on imagining how best to convey the meaning. A close rendition requires more imagination and creativity than a free rendering of the same text. However, that same creativity can lead to getting seduced by easy reads, rather than making of every word a fresh creation with no easy way out.

When translating, there’s a tradeoff that exists between getting close to the source text and using poetic devices to compensate for this. If your imagination is soaring when translating, you’re going to need a good space suit with nimble fingers, or you’ll have to keep a pillow on the floor. Robert Fitzgerald soared while remaining intimately close. For great Tang poets in China, it was “dancing in chains.”