Motionless Revolvolution

from "Notebook from a Return to My Native Land" by Aimé Césaire

Césaire was a master of neologisms and in this anti-colonial call-to-arms he employs them to explore his own hybrid identity.

The proceedings get murky though when he gets to the end and the "immobile verrition" seems to house the author's political standpoint and his transformative linguistic subversions. The phrase has given English translators fits, because Césaire coined "verrition" from the Latin "verri": to sweep, scrape or scan. "Verre" is also the French for "glass," so you have an immobile, transparent, scraping, sweeping, scanning thing.

It's a bit of jump to include "revolution" into this phrase, although quite understandable given the context of the rest of the poem and the politics of its author. But it's not quite enough to substitute a fresh, ambiguous, violent word with a shopworn one like "revolution," so this translation opted for "revolvolution." Interesting enough, with a suggestion of double motion: physical and political.

"Motionless Revolvolution" only became problematic when Volvo co-opted the word for a marketing campaign.