Aaron Crippen (translator of Mu Cao’s Sexual Abuse) beds his roots in the soft dirt of original voices.

1. First, I really want to know how to pronounce Mu Cao. I’m from the south and I read it as “Moo Cow” which I adore and am surely wrong about.

Lol how about Moo Tsow? “Moo” should be said with a falling tone, as in “Moo!” And “Cao” should be said with a dipping tone, so your voice almost drops out in the middle. It means “Grave Grass.”  Your Cow sensed it.

2. Do you write more when you’re translating another’s work? How does it affect your own writing?

Translating Chinese is very fruitful for me. Chinese writing has its roots in pictographs, so it’s very concrete. Concrete words are sensory and they signify nothing other than themselves: perfect for poetry. And Chinese has scale. One word can picture the horizon and the sun or a range of mountains. You can have multiple landscapes in a few syllables. Making a line of Chinese poetry is like laying a row of bricks, bricks of colored glass depicting scenes from Earth. Translating Chinese makes me want to write compact English poems, using words like bricks that can bear the weight of a whole poem, that signify nothing other than themselves. To this extent, translating Chinese energizes me and returns me to my Imagist roots.
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