frog hops in--
plop
Well, Mr. Patton, I've gone and done it: "plop" it is. And at first I thought it might be worse than yesterday's Latinate edition, but now I'm not so sure. All them o's in there are sort of nice. And you know me--I'm all good with the onomatopoeic. Cf. Keroac's translation of the Pacific at Big Sur: "Ker plotsch-- / Shore--shoe-- / god--brash--". Perhaps I'll have to borrow that Kerouacky "Ker plotsch," which, as Ann notes, is sort of the sound of a plunger leaving a toilet, or, maybe, the sound of water being quickly and variously displaced (by frog, ocean, plunger, etc.).
I think the "hops" is what works for me here--there's another translation that has "plop" in it somewhere, but I forget whose.... The "hops" give the whole poem a complete sonic direction towards that final occasion of the frog slipping under the surface.
Ooh, also nice is the sole non-o in the poem, the i of in, which provides a sort of aural compliment to the ya of the original.
Okay, I'm kinda cool with this one now.
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