The main problem with translations of poetry is a sort of metrical incoherence and half-heartedness. That is to say, the translation is not thought through as a metrical structure. Weak blank verse. Off-rhyme (used half-heartedly, as in Pinsky's Dante). Prose lineated as free verse. This is not a problem with Pound, or, looking on the other side of the aisle, with Richard Wilbur. Is verse merely a marker of genre? In that case, a minimalist approach would be justified. Can a translator assert own metrical approach? I don't see any other choice.

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Interesting comment by Silliman today on ability to "hear" poetry (with analogy to music). British readers cannnot hear American poetry, though they can be taught. On the other hand, I have no problem hearing what the British and Irish poets are doing, though the results are not always rewarding. Does American cultural nationalism still feel defensive toward poetry of British Isles? It must, or there would be no such thing as American cultural nationalism. That is why I am a Hispanist. I'm still looking for a blog written in Occitan.