Old Gus Eats
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To read the translation, click on the portfolio.
I don't read/speak/understand ancient Greek at all. To visually mistranslate The Odyssey, I look at the foreign, nonsensical shapes and symbols of the Greek in search of something familiar, in search of English words. I read The Odyssey years ago, and my memory of the story is less than or equal to yours, which is to say that it is rudimentary. What you are about to read has been termed eye-rhyming, bad lip reading of Homer, and Rorschach writing. I wonder what you will term it. The Greek and English are placed side-by-side so that you can agree or disagree with my mistranslation.
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Polly Bresnick's work has appeared or is forthcoming in The Brooklyn Rail, trnsfr magazine, elimae, LIT, The Offending Adam, MonkeyBicycle, decomp, Weave Magazine, The Six Sentence Review, and others. She received her MFA from Sarah Lawrence College. A section of her visual mistranslation of Homer's The Odyssey, OLD GUS EATS, has been published as a chapbook by Publishing Genius. She teaches creative writing to all sorts of people. She is currently searching for a home for her novel.
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Translation by Polly Duff Bresnick
Translator's Note
To read the translation, click on the portfolio.
I don't read/speak/understand ancient Greek at all. To visually mistranslate The Odyssey, I look at the foreign, nonsensical shapes and symbols of the Greek in search of something familiar, in search of English words. I read The Odyssey years ago, and my memory of the story is less than or equal to yours, which is to say that it is rudimentary. What you are about to read has been termed eye-rhyming, bad lip reading of Homer, and Rorschach writing. I wonder what you will term it. The Greek and English are placed side-by-side so that you can agree or disagree with my mistranslation.
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Polly Bresnick's work has appeared or is forthcoming in The Brooklyn Rail, trnsfr magazine, elimae, LIT, The Offending Adam, MonkeyBicycle, decomp, Weave Magazine, The Six Sentence Review, and others. She received her MFA from Sarah Lawrence College. A section of her visual mistranslation of Homer's The Odyssey, OLD GUS EATS, has been published as a chapbook by Publishing Genius. She teaches creative writing to all sorts of people. She is currently searching for a home for her novel.
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