“I write with my ears”: translating Simone Lappert’s poetry collection “long overdue feralization”

long overdue feralization is a translation of the Swiss author Simone Lappert’s längst fällige verwilderung (Diogenes, 2022), a poetry collection concerned with female identity and the desire to free oneself of societal expectations. As the author frequently mentions, she “writes with her ears,” and the rendering of this collection into English is an attempt to “translate with ears: by focusing on sound.

The preface introduces the collection, addressing the importance of sound, distinct imagery, and other stylistic devices in Lapper’s collection, such as neologisms. While the collection was written over the course of a decade, the poems follow a narrative arc, moving from a focus on the speaker’s interiority, a feeling of immobility and discomfort, to a focus on the speaker’s outer world and experiences. By creating new words, Lappert emphasizes a close relation between nature and the body. Through the precision of her neologisms, she is making her poetry more accessible, while also inspiring the reader to interpret and generate their own associations.

long overdue feralization is an attempt to cross perceived linguistic and cultural boundaries, to make space for deep reflection, thought, and wit, ultimately leading to the “feralization” of the author, the translator, and maybe even the reader.