"Nienaturalny stan jednorozca": Translating Komunyakaa's "Unicorn" into Polish

One simple problem underlies the act of translating "Unnatural State of the Unicorn" into Polish. Unlike English, the Polish language does not have a generic word for "a human being" that would simultaneously mean "a male." In the original, the complexity and the passionate power of the speaker's assertion of self derive exactly from the impossibility (both experiential and linguistic) of divorcing the speaker's humanity from his masculinity. However, the structure of the Polish language demands that the translator of the poem should pry the concepts of humanity and masculinity apart. In Polish, the speaker of the poem must be made to choose between proclaiming "Jestem człowiekiem" ("I am a human") and "Jestem mężczyza" ("I am a male").

When I first published a translation of "Unnatural State of the Unicorn" in a Polish journal three years ago, I favored the former alternative. Only recently, however, while revising the translation for a forthcoming collection of Komunyakaa's poems, did I realize the extent to which my choice simplifies the interrelatedness between the corporeality and spirituality of the speaker's self. This is particularly apparent in the closing lines. With the use of "human" (człowiek) rather than "male" (mężczyza) in the Polish translation, the original "manly sweat" at the end of the poem becomes strictly "humanly sweat." Consequently, the erotic connotations of the final image are weakened, and the ending acquires a resonance that may place the poem's expression of identity in close relation to the Christian ideal of "universal" humanity. "Humanly sweat" emerges as a metaphor for human earthly hardship (akin to the biblical "toiling in sweat"), which makes the speaker's "love" echo the ideal of "neighborly love," and the image of "space" connote the concept of "the soul." Thus, what gets lost in this translation as a result of abandoning the direct reference to masculinity is the notion of self defined through love that is simultaneously spiritual and erotic, generated by the experience of the masculine body, which is a part of the integrated human/gender/race experience.

This is why, when revising my translation, I decided to abandon my initial choice. The speaker of the translated poem now declares in Polish, "Jestem mężczyza" (I am a male). Obviously, this solution still does not do justice to the complexity of the original's expression of self. However, the emphasis on gender rather than on abstract "humanity" prevents the new translation from reducing the original poem to a clichéd call for the erasure of race and the recognition of the "universal" humanity of all people. The translation now uses the concept of masculinity to shift the function of race from the primary signifier of human identity to one of its many factors. In this way, the new translation manages to re-create the main postulate of the original.