Inspired by live translation slams that proved to be audience favorites at the Blue Metropolis Montreal International Literary Festival, and again at PEN World Voices, PEN¡¯s online Translation Slam aims to showcase the art of translation by juxtaposing in a public forum two ¡°competing¡± translations of a single work.

For the inaugural installment, we asked translators to test their linguistic mettle on ĺɫ, a poem by Chinese writer Xi Chuan.

As you can see by comparing the there’s more than one way to skin a poem. Here’s the opening stanza of both:

Lucas Klein version:

Twilight

in the vast expanses of a nation
the twilight is just as vast
lamp after lamp lights up
and twilight spreads out like the autumn

and

Wang Ping & Johann Hauser-Ulrich version:

Dusk

In a vast country
Dusk, too, is vast
Lamps light up one by one
Dusk spreads like autumn

Be sure to to log your own reactions about these two translations.