man kan ikke oversætte sprogen/ man kan ikke andet

Som profetisk afslutning på sin smågeniale, engelsksprogede litteraturhistorie Danish Literature, 1978, oversatte Poul Borum de fire 80'er-fremmanende linjer fra F.P. Jacs J&J-debuthæfte Spontane kalender-blade, 1976, til engelsk:

let the bees suck the honey from the body-petal of your love
let people crush their ambitious nails
when our new-thinking blossoms out of the summer afternoon
which shall polish the eighties as motivated

I et interview fra 1998 bliver Jac spurgt om, det er Nobelprisen, han mener, han skal have:

Nej, det er den, der hedder Akademiets Store Pris [som han modtog i sidste øjeblik, en måned før sin død i 2008]. Nobelprisen får jeg aldrig, der skal man helst være oversat, og der er nogen, der siger, at jeg er svær at oversætte.

Og det kan han jo mildest talt have ret i. Men nu, 33 år efter Borum, har John Irons (i samarbejde med Jacs meddigter i Bandet Nul, Klaus Høeck) forsøgt det umulige og i den fortjenstfulde antologi 100 Danish Poems From the Medieval Period to the Present Day languaget Jacs sprogen i den legendariske "jeg har været på spritten"-passage fra Misfat, 1980, og det er han sluppet overrumplende godt fra, her de første 15 linjer:

i've been on the booze since i could make head or tail of myself,
a late-flowerer i refused war-threats abstained from being for or against
christ and began to take my own pictures straight form the skin, dis-
appeared at every crucial moment so as to find peace at some outer place,
find value perhaps next to a girl's temple that clearly reflected orgasm,
i had to get away from noise with a finger in my mouth and flowers in my hair,
find a corner and down a massive finger of gin while the leaves came out on all
the trees i mean i'm best on the whisky and porter boundary,
and no picture will be able to surprise me in my window haunt at night,
nix i'm a drunk but i carry around with me one of the biggest and the
tenderest of earthly hearts i've innumerable black cats on that, just ask the
girls on the street they know what state i'm in they know how i like to have
my neck caressed they know how the tongue's to be laid out along the nose,
they will be able to attest to my decline be able to light up the beauty,
they will be able to admit that i am the last thing from the aesthetic universe

Such extraordinarily fine jacisms!