Xenomorph Blood: An Antonymic Translation Poem

Xenomorph from "Alien" (1979)

This is an antonymic translation, a poetry revision technique that looks for antonyms of each word in a draft. I was introduced to this technique in a poetry class. Unfortunately, because the instructional packet we got for the revision in that class is not available anywhere else on the Internet, I don’t have a public version to reference for you. Insights 2 and 4 below have most of the key creative conclusions we learned in class.

You can read a draft of a poem and its antonymic translation side-by-side below.

Reader beware: this poem contains gore.

Xenomorph blood (original draft)

When I already hate myself

And I ruin someone else’s day 

My blood turns into

acid 

Corrodes context

Makes cause and effect caustic

Turns memory sour

Drips to the floor

Spoils and shuts me down 

Spills bad thoughts

Gnaws through bone

Melts my plastic brain

Breaks open everything else

Dissolves away any sugary compliment

Not eating, but consuming, absorbing.

Erases the marks on the checklist

Renders the material of a good room or a good day useless

I’m sorry

I can’t live without someone else hurting.

When I already hate myself

And I ruin someone else’s day

I knew I was wrong before I got here

Human muscle (antonymic translation)

Where you delay love yourself

Or you save nobody if night

Your muscle stays out of

Alkali

Slathers trivia

Destroys effect or cause immune

Flips forgotten sweet

Sucks from a ceiling

Ripens or starts you up

Collects happy stimuli

Licks alongside skin

Freezes your paper body

Repairs closed nothing if

Forms towards every meaty insult

Absolutely drinking, so vomiting, expelling

Marks an erasing off a map

Fragments a immaterial without the bad yard and the bad night useful

You're proud

You can die with nobody if healing

Where you might love yourself

Or you rescue everyone if's night

You imagined you will be right after you lost there

What insight does an antonymic translation give this poem?

1. This is a translation.

Like other revision techniques, antonymic translation relies on having an existing draft to translate. I can't imagine a technique like this is useful as a prompt for a new poem. The “Tina Turner” craft draft especially uses literal translation between languages.

2. Be considerate and thoughtful, even when writing the first draft.

But (this is important) resist the instinct to second-guess your word choice! You can still make interesting word choices even while losing some of the specific techniques like alliteration as you translate. Antonymic translation will punish you for being sloppy at the beginning.

3. Antonymic translation is a small-scale, granular revision technique.

It focuses on individual words at a time. This is not a large-scale revision focused on stanzas, line breaks or other structural elements of the poem.

4. Antonymic translation is not as simple as it first appears.

 The process is straightforward when you look at dichotomous words that have antonyms. Many English nouns and verbs have antonyms. Day and night. Light and dark. Happy and sad. Big and small. Acid and alkali.

What's the opposite of "xenomorph"? In the context of the original "Alien" movie (1979), the xenomorph is the antagonist of the human protagonist Ripley and the rest of her human crew. I would consider the opposite of "xenomorph" is "human".

In one scene from the movie, the human crew of the Nostromo try to remove a face-hugging alien, and its blood leaks onto the floor and eats through the floor like acid. Self-loathing can sometimes make you feel like a movie monster antipathetic to human life. It's described as a "defense mechanism", but eating everything it touches is just as much an offensive mechanism. It destroys in a perverse attempt at protection. Appropriate for this poem.

The imagery doesn’t just connect to other images but also to a well-established visual language from “Alien”. Unfortunately, the context-dependent imagery makes the antonyms even more destructive towards the original draft.

Antonymic work is not straightforward. What's the opposite of "thought"? Maybe a thought is something you have now, and a memory is something you used to have. Or maybe a thought is a reaction and a stimulus is the cause.

You have to make creative choices about what "opposite" and other words mean. When I was first introduced to this technique in an introductory poetry class, those creative choices were the appeal of the technique. It forces spontaneity and a total rethinking of how the poem works. This makes it a lot like my previous craft draft that relied on perspectives that are not in your total control, like translation between languages.

5. The draft's grammar changes.

 Because I write in English, my poems tend to follow English syntax and sentence structure. From the insight above, sometimes a word doesn't have a satisfying antonym - this also distorts the sentence structure.

Line 17 of the original draft, "Renders the material of a good room or a good day useless", is an incomplete clause that refers back to the blood noun introduced in line 3. Many other lines in the poem use that structure, as well.

The line's antonymic translation, "Fragments a immaterial without the bad yard and the bad night useful", is nonsense. Its words have no meaning when put together. It is neither a complete English sentence or a coherent clause anymore.

6. The draft's tone can change. 

The original draft here is self-serious, self-loathing and moody. It has graphic imagery and invokes a classic horror movie monster. I have some experience with horror stories like this.

The antonymic translation is struggling to be anything except total nonsense. When you're writing, you can often be caught up in the emotion you're trying to put on the page. If you're also like me, you will also prioritize your own first impressions. You might think the first draft is the best draft - or at least the draft that most clearly expresses what you want from the poem.

In this draft, the opposite of "I" is "you". So now it harmonizes with other ideas about self-talk and mental health. Think of expressions that, to paraphrase, if someone talked about you the way you talk about yourself, I'd punch them.

We also have a lot of new sweet, saccharine imagery - which is a more clear observation of the food and eating subtext inside the original draft's word choice. Eating food is destroying food. “Slathers”, “sucks”, “licks”, “freezes” and more are just as appropriate in the antonymic draft as the original.

With antonyms, we might consider different perspectives on the xenomorph. We could empathize with the monster itself. We can defuse pessimistic and horrific tones with irony. Or we might consider social or economic subtexts from the movies. This is not film criticism of the movies - you can find plenty of that in other places. But allusions like this should be in conversation with their subject matter.

The opposite of "ruin" here is "rescue".

This technique helps you get out of your own head and not take your poem too seriously. Antonymic translation forces careful (but not sentimental) re-interpretation of your draft.

And, as a bonus, this craft draft covers the three-block bases, too, even if they’re out of order. You can learn more about that here.