this transfluxion of yaxkin melchy's poem "el cometa" is an exploration toward indefinite translation. a way to give in, willingly, to multiplicity.

the poem itself is from yaxkin's book los poemas que vi por un telescopio (tierra adentro, 2009), which is part of his decade long constellation-book project called EL NUEVO MUNDO (2007-2017).

central to yaxkin's poetics in this project is an attempt to integrate poetry and science in order to transform the paradigms of both of these related (though traditionally partitioned) disciplines. as a translator of yaxkin's work, i believe it's important for me to go beyond simply translating the content. i need incorporate his sci-poetic approach into the creation and presentation of my translations.

the various translations that are activated when you touch a line in the poem are versions taken from my own [draft] translations, my friend j gan's [draft] translations, and a previously published translation by nicole cecilia delgado and tom slingsby that appeared in the anthology hallucinated horse (pighog press, 2012). all translations were compiled and then randomized. this means that any translation which appears in more than one of our versions has a greater chance of being displayed.

this transfluxion was coded using harlowe 3.2.1 in twine 2.0. given that i am a non-coder coder, there are certainly bugs and glitches. if and when you find them, please let me know -- my email is in the footer.

thx for reading and i hope you enjoy!