The aim of the present paper is to reflect upon the strategies of preserving global as well as specific or total ambiguity in a literary text (a poetic text in particular) when translated and therefore imported by another culture. It is a well-known fact that literary texts in general, and poetic texts in particular, sometimes make use of ambiguity, obscurity and plurivalence of meaning, which represent a real challenge for the translator, who is supposed to preserve them and ensure all potentialities. Starting from a series of Romanian versions of poems by Mallarmé, Valéry and Tzara as well as some of Luca’s self-translations (from Romanian into French), we will identify the recurring difficulties the translator is faced with and the solutions he finds. While facing the traps of ambiguity, the translator is left to explore the potential of the target language, which sometimes implies resorting to rare, archaic terms or even “trouvailles” and a second-degree creativity restricted by what(ever) is imposed by the original.