Publisher's Synopsis
A safe fairytale poetry is untrue to poetry itself. In the collection To Eternity On Time, Abel German explores the nature of time and its relationship to human existence with boldness and psychological insight, thus showing us that Abel's poetry is far from safe and uncommitted.
The messages can be challenging to decipher due to the use of abstract language and imagery. I respected the integrity of the entire collection, which unfolds as one solid, long poem. In hopes of improving the effectiveness of the English rendition, I focused on using the same symbols, imagery, and punctuation as in the original itself. I do not know if any part of it fits the bill: Abel plucks theories, producing thought-provoking poems that appear in long poetic prose in a way that tilts the prism and looks at the world from his very own perspective.
The writing style is complex, referential, and carries an erudite tone, enveloping the whole text as if it were part of a more extensive work; in other words, it makes you think of the future, which is another way of saying it makes you think of the present. Literary influences and philosophical idiosyncrasies abound, and his style owes much of its energy and exuberance to his erudition. The subjective point is conveyed through images of pessimism and a sense of the futility and significance of life. But, alongside that pessimism, there is also humor.
If there was a difficulty, it lay in reproducing that very style, which is also full of oddities, such as the title, which we aimed at respecting in its integrity, including its nuance.
It's ever so enticing to impose our views and styles when translating, to impose a meaning-after all, our craft is words, hence it makes us eager to understand what the writer means in order to pass it on to the world-but it's of utmost importance to ventriloquize the voice behind which lurks the sense of the poet, as it is vital to respect ambiguity and opacity. Finally, equally essential is getting the tone right.
To Eternity On Time swings in a back-to-forward motion with a steady rhythm, moving from all angles across the web of time and its events: a flight over the poetic world of a human being.
Nanaimo, Vancouver Island. September 3, 2023.