Apple tree is the best translation for ameixoeira

I have been completing first drafts of the last few poems in Aberto todos os dias by João Luís Barreto Guimarães.

In my experience, translating poetry involves a negotiation between sense and sound. The words I choose need to communicate a meaning close to the Portuguese original, and also a similar rhythm and sound patterning. There’s some adjusting to be done: swapping a word for a synonym with one extra syllable, or with one less. Swapping a word for a synonym whose vowel sounds complement an existing pattern in the line. It reminds me of being a dressmaker making small tucks or opening seams in a garment to get the best fit.

The acrostic is a literary form where such subtle alternations are inadmissible. Guimarães’s poem 'Introdução à poesia' ('Introduction to poetry') describes a group of fruit trees planted so that the first letter of each spells out the word CALMA (in English, CALM): Cerejeira, Ameixoeira, Limoeiro, Macieira, Ameixoeira. Translating this list into English gives: Cherry tree, Plum tree, Lemon tree, Apple tree, Plum tree. Taking the first letters of each fruit tree in English gives CPLAP – the acrostic has evaporated.

My solution was some brutal gardening. I took out the plums altogether, put the apple tree in their place, and planted a medlar. Now I had Cherry tree, Apple tree, Lemon tree, Medlar tree, together spelling out CALM.

The medlar, or Crataegus germanica, has a fine literary pedigree (it is written about by Chaucer, Shakespeare, Rabelais, Cervantes, DH Lawrence) but is almost completely absent from gardens, shops and from people’s diet in both Portugal and the UK. (Eastgate Larder is working hard to grow and distribute medlars and also has a rich source of information about the fruit.) My translation swapped something familiar and well-liked (ameixoeira or plum tree) with something unfamiliar or simply unknown (medlar), in the process making the grove of fruit trees more esoteric and further from our familiar experience. But I kept the acrostic alive.

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