MELLAN MASKORNA

Abstract

This essay explores the ethics and erotics of translation, particularly of translating queer poetry, through my attempt to translate two works by the U.S. poet Ching-In Chen into Swedish. Using the work of Eve Kosofsky Sedgwick as a primary framework for looking at the source texts, I present my reading of the two books (The Heart’s Traffic and recombinant) and explain the ways in which Chen’s poetry, to me, functions as an »open mesh of possibilities.« I explore the challenges of transferring Chen’s queer English syntax into Swedish, recreating said open mesh in a way that maintains the possibilities of slippages, lapses and excesses of meaning in the target language. The essay also attempts to open the door to how queer-informed translation could chip away at (or wreak havoc on) ideologies of linguistic coherency, purity, and/or fluency.