Upcoming events at Bristol with Don Share, 28 and 29 March 2017

We have two rare and exciting events coming up later this month in Bristol with poet, editor and translator Don Share, who has been invited with the support of the Bristol Institute for Research in the Humanities and Arts (BIRTHA), the Bristol Poetry Institute and SML Translation Studies:

More details about the translation event here.

Don Share became the editor of Poetry in 2013. His books of poetry are Wishbone (2012), Squandermania (2007), and Union (2013, 2002). He is the co-editor of The Open Door: 100 Poems, 100 Years of Poetry Magazine (2012), and editor of Bunting's Persia (2012) and a critical edition of Basil Bunting's poems (2016). He is the translator of Field Guide: Poems by Dario Jaramillo Agudelo (2012), Miguel Hernández (2013), and I Have Lots of Heart: Selected Poems by Miguel Hernández (1998), winner of the Times Literary Supplement Translation Prize and the Premio Valle Inclán for Spanish Translation.

Poems about Translation 28: Nicola Gardini, Tradurre è un bacio

For the feast of St. Valentine this year I thought I would share a real treat: Nicola Gardini's beautiful poetry collection Tradurre è un bacio [Translation is a kiss]. Here is a sample:

A (very) rough translation would be:

FRENCH KISS

Translation is a kiss.
It is to have not one, but two tongues
In the mouth

At the same time,
Like Ruggero and Alcina.
[It is] to compose saliva.

For this reason lots of people
Are bad at it and even
Montale doesn't find it easy.

(Ruggiero and Alcina are two characters from Ariosto's Orlando Furioso).

Poems about Translation 27: Robo-Burns; The Orfeon Translates (from Bill Herbert)

This poem for Burns Night may be slightly cheating because Burns Night is just past,  but it cheered me up so much that I wanted to share it anyway. It's not strictly speaking a poem about translation, but the whole post can be considered a poetic reflection on translation, if I squint...

The three texts represented are the Scots poem by Bill Herbert 'Rabbie, Rabbie, Burning Bright'; an translation into Bulgarian by Kristin Dimitrova, and a back-translation from Bulgarian into English by Facebook Autotranslate.  They are in reverse order, so you might like to start by scrolling up from the bottom of the page.

P.S. For a previous Burns Night post in this series, see no.21, 'Robert Burns on the Translator as Assassin'.

Sebald Lecture, 20 Feb 2017: Michael Longley on translating Latin & Greek poetry

The British Centre for Literary Translation
In association with the British Library

The Sebald Lecture 2017

Releasing the Lyric: Translating Latin and Greek Poetry
Michael Longley CBE

Monday 20 February 2017
7pm, The British Library Conference Centre
London NW1 2DB

Tickets £12 (£10 over 60s, £8 con)
On sale from the British Library Box Office
www.bl.uk/events

Since studying Classics at Trinity College Dublin, Irish poet Michael Longley has frequently drawn on classical models in his poetry and established allusive parallels between ancient and modern concerns. Over the course of his career he has also translated a wide variety of fellow poets, from classical authors to Nuala Ní Dhomhnaill, prompting Justin Quinn to write that ‘for Longley, translation becomes a way of thinking about the world’. In this lecture he will be reading, and commenting on, his translations from Latin and Greek. He will begin with his youthful versions from Sextus Propertius and progress to later poems derived from Ovid’s Metamorphoses and Homer’s Iliad and Odyssey, taking in Sappho and Tibullus on the way.

One of Britain’s finest poets, Michael Longley has received many awards for his lyrical poems about love, death, memory, history and nature, published over more than fifty years. His collection Gorse Fires (1991) won the Whitbread Poetry Prize, and The Weather in Japan (2000) won the Irish Times Literature Prize for Poetry, the Hawthornden Prize, and the T.S. Eliot Prize. His most recent book The Stairwell won the 2015 Griffin International Prize. His next collection Angel Hill will be published in June 2017. He was awarded the Queen’s Gold Medal for Poetry in 2001, and was appointed a CBE in 2003. He was Professor of Poetry for Ireland from 2007 to 2010.

The Sebald Lecture is given annually on an aspect of literature in translation and is named after W.G. Sebald who set up BCLT in 1989. ‘Max’ was a German writer who opted to live in the UK and continue writing in German. His novels and essays include The Rings of Saturn, Austerlitz and On the Natural History of Destruction, and they established him as a leading writer of the 20th century.

Celebration of Charles Tomlinson, poet, translator, teacher, Bristol, 30 September

British readers of poetry in translation will long have been familiar with Charles Tomlinson's generation-defining Oxford Book of Verse in English Translation, first published in 1980. Tomlinson was a poet, translator and lecturer who taught for many years at the University of Bristol. On 30 September (the day of St. Jerome, patron saint of translators, as regular readers of this blog will know well) the English Department is putting on an event in celebration of Tomlinson:

Charles Tomlinson - A celebration Fri 30 September, 1.30 pm – 8.30 pm Reception room, Wills Memorial Building, Queen’s Road, BS8 1RJ An afternoon of academic papers followed by a series of poetry readings in the evening to celebrate the legacy of Charles Tomlinson, internationally acclaimed poet, translator, artist and literary scholar. Charles taught at the University's English department for 36 years. Free to attend, booking required.

For more information and to book your free ticket, see https://www.eventbrite.co.uk/e/charles-tomlinson-1927-2015-a-celebration-tickets-26747233696.

Poems in translation 25: Alastair Reid, 'What Gets Lost/Lo Que Se Pierde'

I was recently reading Edith Grossman's book Why Translation Matters and came across this lovely candidate for our occasional series of poems about translation.

Alastair Reid, translator of Borges and Neruda, on 'what gets lost in language itself'. From his 1978 collection Weathering, presented here through the good offices of Google Books:

Poems about translation 23: Pushkin, 'To Gnedich' (1832)

Hot on the heels of the previous Poem About Translation (no. 22 in the series) comes a poem by Pushkin. (You may remember Pushkin has come up in these html pages before, in the form of Nabokov's poem on translating Pushkin.)

I discovered this particular poem via Efim Etkind's fascinating essay 'The Translator', translated from Russian by Jane Bugaeva. The article appears in the latest issue of the Massachusetts Review and can be downloaded here.

Etkind's piece tells the extraordinary story of Tatiana Grigorievna Gnedich, who translated Byron's Don Juan into Russian while a prisoner in Stalinist Russia. She spent two years translating some seventeen thousand lines into Russian rhymed verse, under the supervision of her jailer, before being sent to a labour camp for eight years where she made further improvements to the manuscript.

Pushkin's poem is addressed to Tatiana's great-great-great uncle Nikolay Gnedich, who translated the Iliad into Russian in the early decades of the nineteenth century:

"Gnedich" by Unknown - http://az.lib.ru/g/gnedich_n_i/ Transferred from ru.wikipedia Original uploader was Vasbur at ru.wikipedia. Licensed under Public Domain via Wikimedia Commons - http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Gnedich.jpg#/media/File:Gnedich.jpg

Etkind quotes the first lines of the poem, presumably in a translation by Bugaeva:

For a long time you spoke with Homer,
all alone.
For a long time we waited,
oh so long.
And then, enlightened, you returned
from those high mysteries
delivering your masterpiece.*

On searching for the full poem in English, I was struck by the difference between this translation and the only one I could find on the web, a 1996 translation by Genia Gurarie which seems to be in alternate hexameters and tetrameters, with end-rhyme:

With Homer you conversed alone for days and nights,
     Our waiting hours were passing slowly,
And shining you came down from the mysterious heights
     And brought to us your tablets holy.

Without having any knowledge of the Russian (or, perhaps, because of that), I find the few lines of Bugaeva's translation more appealing than Gurarie's, but I would be interested to hear opinions from any Russianists who might happen to be reading.

*Pushkin may not always have thought so highly of Gnedich's Iliad - see the Wikipedia entry for Gnedich which offers an alternative take on the translation.

Poems about translation no.22: Caroline Bergvall, 'Via' (for World Poetry Day)

It's World Poetry Day today.

Regular readers of this blog will know that I have a long-standing love of Dante's Comedy and the problems of its translation (see Dante in Leicestershire and Dante in Essex) so I thought a return to Dante was appropriate. Here is Caroline Bergvall's procedural poem 'Via', which began life as a live performance, then later a recorded performance and printed poem. It consists of 47 translations of the first tercet of Dante's 'Inferno', accompanied by the translators' names and years of publication.

Can we really call it a poem about translation, made up as it is of other people's translations of the tercet? Yes, absolutely, because it's not just a list, it's an ordering of the translations. In a more conventional list one might expect the translations to be ordered chronologically, or perhaps by surname of translator, but Bergvall orders them alphabetically by the first letter of the first line. The full audio recording of Bergvall's poem can be listened to here.

There is a very interesting discussion of the poem in the PoemTalk podcast which suggests some of the angles from which the poem can be approached (the circularity generated by the three lines of terza rima; the intensification of the poem's opening scenario by repeating it over and over again; Dante is in the dark wood and he's not getting out anytime soon). The way in which the poem multiplies translations, some of which are quite laboured (e.g. the egregious padding of 'the right road lost and vanished in the maze' in James Romanes Sibbald's 1883 translation) underlines the directness and simplicity of the Italian.

It's also a reflection on retranslation. The constant repetition-with-variations of the translations underlines the way the translations seem to require constant renewal while the source text remains unchanging. The non-chronological presentation warns the reader against reading retranslation as improvement; instead, the poem fluctuates between the diction of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, creating an echo chamber of consonances and divergences. Sets of translations cluster around the same opening word or phrase. The poem throws up apparently random and paradoxical effects: six of the last seven translations in the poem finish with 'stray' or 'astray'; only one other version in the rest of the poem does. Some poets' attempts to vary the expected rhymes do not end happily: Binyon's 'aware' and 'not anywhere'; Bickersteth's 'life' and 'strife'.

I really want to read this poem as a creative proliferation of translations showcasing the individual interpretation of each poet, but this inclination is undermined by Bergvall's deadpan vocal delivery and the subject matter of the tercet. Her poem seems to invite a more pessimistic reading, in which retranslation dooms the poem to eternal and cyclical repetition where innovation is stifled and variation muffled by poetic consensus.

I was intrigued when I saw that one of the translators appears twice: Seamus Heaney, who appears at no.6 and no.16:

6. HALFWAY on our life’s journey, in a wood,

     From the right path I found myself astray. 

           (Heaney, 1993)

16. In the middle of the journey of our life

      I found myself astray in a dark wood

      where the straight road had been lost sight of.

           (Heaney, 1993)

This is in fact a typo, because translation number six is in fact by Parsons from 1893. But it feels like a happy error, because it's perfectly possible for a poet to translate the same poem twice, or revise a previous translation; it only underlines the multiplicity of possible readings of a text - even the same translator may not read the same source text the same way twice.

Postscript: For an enjoyable reflection on why infidelity in a translator can be a virtue, see this LRB review by Matthew Reynolds of Carson's Inferno. I couldn't resist adding Carson's, and three other translations which don't appear (for various excellent reasons) in Bergvall's poem.

In the midway of this our life below
I found myself within a gloomy wood
No traces left the path direct to show (Ichabod C. Wright, 1833)

Halfway through the story of my life
I came to in a gloomy wood, because
I'd wandered off the path, away from the light. (Ciaran Carson, 2002)

At the mid-point of the path through life, I found
Myself lost in a wood so dark, the way
Ahead was blotted out. (Clive James, 2013)

Halfway through a bad trip
I found myself in this stinking car park,
Underground, miles from Amarillo… (Philip Terry, 2014)

Happy World Poetry Day.

Poem about translation 19: 'To the Translator, Somewhere in New England, on the Road to Far Cathay'

This latest instalment in the poems about translation series is by the Chinese-English translator Steve Bradbury, from the excellent online literary magazine Cipher. 

I was drawn to the title, 'To the Translator, Somewhere in New England, on the Road to Far Cathay' partly because I spent some time in China recently for work - an extraordinary experience, whose extraordinariness was experienced partly through language (and the lack of it) and partly through the cultural prism of Arthur Waley's translations of Chinese poetry, which I got to know as a child.

The poem speaks for itself, so I won't comment further here.

For more from Bradbury about translation see his translation of three poems by Shang Qin here and his translation and comment on a quatrain of Li Bai, also known as Li Po, here. This quatrain has been most famously translated - why do I want to say 'covered'? - by Ezra Pound.

Pound's translation, from the collection Cathay, can be read on the Poetry Foundation website. It's free verse, rather than the metrical, rhyming quatrain that Bradbury favours - but then, as he observes in his address to the translator, how do you follow Pound?

For more of Bradbury's comment on translating Li Bai/Li Po, see issue 66 of Translation Review which is still freely downloadable at time of writing here. For more versions of Li Bai's poem, see here, here, here and here.  

Poems about translation 18: Willis Barnstone, 'ABC of Translating Poetry'

Today's Poem About Translation is Willis Barnstone's ABC of Translating Poetry. It's a poem(ish) about the translation of poems, and it lives in the very pleasing online literary magazine Cipher (not to be confused with the also excellent Irish poetry magazine Cyphers).

Barnstone's poem covers a lot of ground, paying calls to different methods of translation, attempting to debunk some of the more persistent commonplaces about translation. It offers new angles on familiar perspectives on translation, not only of poetry, but mostly of poetry.

It belongs to a rich tradition of epigrammatic reflections on translation by American poet-translators - see also Eliot Weinberger's Notes on Translation from 1988, readable here with Notes on the Notes by Kent Johnson, or Forrest Gander's Homages to Translation ('When I read a poem, I hear it in my thorax') from his 2005 book A Faithful Existence. The Homages can be read online here.

Come to think of it, this is less a Poem About Translation than a Blog Post About Epigrammatic Writing About Translation, all the more so because the status of Barnstone's poem as a poem is not certain. It seems to have started life in prose in Barnstone's 1993 book The Poetics of Translation. That version, with brief introductory remarks by Barnstone, can also be read in a single-page format here.

I think I prefer it as a poem: the layout somehow seems to help the epigrammaticity of it:
 
A translation is an XRAY,
not a Xerox.

A translator spends a life asking Y?
       Yet the I
[...]
       knows it's for U.

Poems about translation 15b: Magrelli redux

As readers may remember, the last Poem in Translation (number 15) was Magrelli's wonderful 'L'imballatore', in honour of my moving to Bristol.

I have now tracked down my copy of the published translation by Anthony Molino in The Contagion of Matter (2000), published by Holmes & Meier.

I was particularly curious to know how Molino had rendered two lines from the poem:

È questo il futuro, la spola, il traslato,
il tempo manovale e citeriore,

Cognates of 'translate' are difficult anyway, because Italian has so much more space to play with them than English does - but the real problem for me was this 'tempo manovale e citeriore'. There is something magically hermetic about this phrase, and I note that Molino picks it up in his dedication of the book to his son.

Molino translates it

This is the future, the shuttle, the shift,
manual, otherwhere Time,

So the problem of 'citeriore' is solved with 'otherwhere', relationally less specific than the Italian but similarly ambiguous in context in relation to time. The weight and rhythm of the polysyllables in the second line of the Italian is present again in a very different but also compelling form in the English, and the sound patterns are also acknowledged in the alliteration of 'shuttle' and 'shift'. The choice to capitalise Time is a nice reminder of how the materiality of print can carry signification. Absolutely fascinating to see how Molino does it.

There are some other very interesting translational things at work in this section of the book. For one thing, Magrelli uses the first two lines of Nabokov's famous poem about translating Pushkin (fêted as no. 6 in our occasional series) as an epigraph to the Italian poem: 'Cos'è la traduzione? Su un vassoio / la testa pallida e fiammante d'un poeta'.

Rather than doing what one might normally do and restoring the lines from Nabokov's poem in his English translation ('What is translation? On a platter / a poet's pale and glaring head'), Molino chooses to translate the Italian translation used by Magrelli: 'What is translation? On a platter / the pale and glaring head of a poet'.

This has the effect of adding a further layer of 'translatedness' to Molino's own translation. The 'poet' in question is not only Pushkin, and Nabokov but also Magrelli. This bravura translation by Molino of a poem about translation by a translator (we should remember that in Magrelli's Italian collection, the poem about translation accompanies translations of a number of poems, one of them also about translation) is presented through the lens of somebody arguing that the translation of poetry is impossible and undesirable. By way of response, Molino then goes on to present Magrelli's translations themselves in English translation - and in a nice touch, the poems translated into Italian by Magrelli are presented in their original languages in an appendix.

Interestingly, in his introduction, Molino admits that one poem from Magrelli's collection (Esercizi di tipologia, 1992) had to be omitted. 'Due dichiarazioni' presents a play on words between 'Scarabeo' (the Italian translation of the game 'Scrabble') and scarabeo, the beetle.

What is a translator to do, says Molino,

to later justify in the text the sudden appearance of a beetle? Short of toying with images of a Volkswagen, or a member of Liverpool's Fabulous 4, the decision was reached to wave a white flag and desist, in this case, from "pushing a whim to its utter extreme". (p.xiii)

Normally, one treats with gentle scepticism the claim that a poem is truly untranslatable. In this case, I think Molino has more than earned the benefit of the doubt.

Post-doctoral position, poetry translation, Norwich

An opportunity on an interesting-sounding research project:

Senior Research Associate (60%FTE)

Project: Translating the Poetry of the Holocaust

University of East Anglia -School of Literature, Drama and Creative Writing

Ref: RA913 
£30,424 to £36,298 per annum, pro rata 

Applications are invited for the post of Research Associate to work with Professor Jean Boase-Beier on the AHRC-funded project Translating the Poetry of the Holocaust. This part-time post (60%FTE), which is available from 1 August 2013 to 31 January 2014, will involve multiple tasks including: locating and evaluating examples of Holocaust poetry in languages other than German or English; organising public events in Norwich and London; attending project meetings. You must have a reading knowledge of one European language besides English (and other than German), a first degree in a relevant subject, and a PhD (or equivalent research experience) in a related field.

Closing date: 12 noon on 22 February 2013.

More details here. 

An evening of Arabic literature in translation, London, 1 February 2013

For readers within reach of London, this looks like a very interesting event:


An evening of Contemporary Arabic Literature in Translation
1 February 2013
7.30 – 10.00 pm
Venue: Over-Seas House, Park Place, St James’s Street, London SW1A 1LR

The Chartered Institute of Linguists: Translating Division is delighted to announce that Peter Clark, a well-known translator of contemporary Arabic novels into English, will be introducing an evening of excerpts of contemporary Arabic writing in the original and in English translation; he will speak about both the cultural context of Arabic-into-English translation and specific technical challenges.

The London-based Sudanese poet, Al-Saddiq al-Raddi, will then talk about translating poetry, and Sarah Maguire, the Director of the Poetry Translation Centre, will read her translations of some of Al-Saddiq’s poems. The Palestinian novelist, Selma Dabbagh, lives in London and writes in English: she will speak about language choices in expressing Arab consciousness. Finally, Sarah Maguire will read a short story in Arabic by the UAE writer, Muhammad al-Murr, and Peter Clark will read his own translation.

There will be ample opportunity for members of the audience to ask the speakers questions throughout the evening, and particularly during the break.

Tea, coffee and soft drinks will be available before the evening begins and during the break.

Tickets: £20 for CIOL members / £25 for non-members – please see booking form below.

Kind regards,

The Translating Division Committee
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Venue: Over-Seas House, Park Place, St James's Street, London SW1A 1LR
See www.rosl.org.uk for more information; nearest underground station – Green Park
Time: 19.30 – 22.00
Price: £20 for CIOL members / £25 non-members
Please apply on the tear-off slip below to Julie Hobbs, Chartered Institute of Linguists, Saxon House, 48 Southwark St, London SE1 1UN, Tel: 020 7940 3144.
Applications by: Friday 18 January 2013 Places are limited, so please book early to avoid disappointment Please address any queries to Julie Hobbs at julie.hobbs[at]iol.org.uk
" ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------o I would like to attend the Contemporary Arabic Literature in Translation event on 1 February 2013
Please find enclosed my cheque payable to: “Chartered Institute of Linguists”
Price: £20 for CIOL members / £25 non-members
CIOL membership no.: ……………… Registered Student / ACIL / MCIL / FCIL (please delete as applicable)
Title: ……… First name: ………………………. Surname: .……………………………………......... Address: …………………………………………………………………………………………………... ………………………………………………………………. Post code: .………………………………. 
Tel: ………………………………...……… E-mail……………………………………………………….

2012 Harvill Secker translation prize: Chinese to English

The Harvill Secker Translation Prize organisers have announced the source text for their third annual competition: the short story 'The Wig' by the Chinese writer Han Dong. The text can be downloaded from the competition website.

This competition is distinctive in that it chooses a different source language each year (previously Spanish and Arabic) and provides a set text. The competition is for translation into English only, and  is open to young translators who are between 18 and 34 on the submission deadline of 27 July 2012.

The winning translator receives £1,000 and a selection of Harvill Secker titles. As part of a scheme supported by the British Centre for Literary Translation the winner will also be mentored by the distinguished translator Nicky Harman.

For information on other translation competitions out there, see this previous post. Translators of poetry into English may be particularly interested in the Times Stephen Spender Prize for Poetry Translation which closes on 1 June 2012.

3 PhD studentships at Queen's University, Belfast

Three PhD studentships at Queen's University, Belfast: 

1) Translation and Poetry: Translation Studies, Queen’s University Belfast, Northern Ireland

Applications are invited for a doctoral studentship, covering fees and maintenance. The studentship will run from September/October 2012 to September/October 2015.

The successful candidate will wish to conceptualise and study translation as a writerly act of interpretation that shapes poetic traditions, as well as potentially other cultural forms and practices. An interest in minor literatures and recent debates on ‘world’ literature may be an advantage.

The studentship will be held jointly in the School of Modern Languages and the School of English. Internal supervisors will be Professor David Johnston and Professor Ciaran Carson. Professor Lawrence Venuti, who is a Visiting Professor on the Translation Studies programme at Queen’s, will also provide official supervision.

In order to be eligible for both the fees and maintenance elements of this studentship, applicants must be UK nationals or EU citizens who have lived in the UK for the last three years for purposes other than studying. For more details, please go to: http://www.qub.ac.uk/home/Research/PostgraduateCentre/PostgraduateAwards/ProspectiveStudents/LocalUKApplicants/ResearchFundingAvailableforUKandEUApplicants/ Applicants are strongly advised to make informal enquiries before application, to David Johnston at d.johnston at qub.ac.uk.

Application is via https://dap.qub.ac.uk/portal/user/u_login.php by 15th March 2012.

2) PhD Studentships in Sign Language::  Translation and Interpreting Studies, School of Modern Languages, Queen’s University Belfast, Northern Ireland

Research Opportunities in Sign Language:  Two DEL-funded three-year PhD studentships are available in the School of Modern Languages at Queen’s University. These are full studentships for appropriately qualified applicants, to include tuition fees and a maintenance grant. The broad research areas are:

•    The local deaf community, its demographics and the extent to which deaf people have successfully integrated in / been excluded from wider social organisations and processes (education, health, the arts etc). This studentship is tenable from 1 April 2012, or as soon as possible thereafter.

•    Signing for performance, with particular reference to theatre and/or television. This studentship is tenable from 1 September 2012, or as soon as possible thereafter.

Successful applicants will hold a good honours degree in any related discipline, and have demonstrable proficiency in BSL. A postgraduate qualification in any related discipline is desirable. A working knowledge of ISL is also desirable.

Application is via the Queen’s direct admissions portal at https://dap.qub.ac.uk/portal/user/u_login.php  (closing date 20 March 2012 for both studentships) but all potential applicants are strongly advised to make informal enquiries to Professor David Johnston, at d.johnston at qub.ac.uk in the first instance.

In order to be eligible for both the fees and maintenance elements of this studentship, applicants must be UK nationals or EU citizens who have lived in the UK for the last three years for purposes other than studying. For full details, see:  http://www.qub.ac.uk/home/Research/PostgraduateCentre/PostgraduateAwards/ProspectiveStudents/LocalUKApplicants/ResearchFundingAvailableforUKandEUApplicants/.

For more information about any of these studentships, please contact David Johnston, at d.johnston at qub.ac.uk. 

Poems about translation 11: Apollinaire, 'il pleut'

Today, not so much a poem about translation as a poem in translation, in honour of the filthy, filthy weather in Southsea, and in memory of a very fun seminar on textuality and textual scholarship in Manchester on Friday. 

Here is Apollinaire's concrete poem 'il pleut' and a non-concrete English translation by Roger Shattuck, with comments by Edward Hirsch, from the Poetry Foundation website. For a lovely animated version by Gregory Vincent St. Thomasino and Mary Ann Sullivan, with some facsimiles of the manuscript and early typescripts, see here. For someone's earnestly linear wikitranscription of the poems, see here. For a bilingual edition of Calligrammes, see

Modern Poetry in Translation competition

The first Modern Poetry in Translation Poetry Translation Competition has just been announced and looks like lots of fun.

Translate any poem on the subject of FREEDOM into English verse. The poem may be in any language, from any age, and in translation should not exceed twenty lines. The original text should be submitted with your translation.

First prize: £200
Second prize: £75

Three runners-up: one year’s free subscription to MPT. All winners and runners-up will have their poems published in the Spring 2012 issue of MPT ‘Parnassus’.

Entries (£4 per poem / £3 for subscribers) by 1 January 2012, may be submitted via our website, on payment of the entry fee. Alternatively hard copy of the original poem and translation, and cheque or money order, made payable to MPT, should be sent to MPT Poetry Translation Competition, Queen’s College Oxford, OX1 4AW,UK.

Judges

David Constantine
Helen Constantine
Sasha Dugdale

For full rules and an online entry form see the MPT website.

Cliff Becker prize, and poetry translation links

For anyone with an unpublished book-length manuscript of translated poetry in their drawer, the Cliff Becker prize might be just the ticket... A chance to see your work published in a bilingual anthology, and generally a very nice-looking initiative.

As a nice bonus, see this piece from Words Without Borders on a previously unpublished translation of the Nicaraguan poet Ernesto Mejía Sánchez by William Carlos Williams.

The PEN Translation Slams are a nice introduction to the challenges of poetry translation.

And not to forget the excellent work of the Poetry Translation Centre in London, and the Chicago-based Poetry Foundation, whose journal Poetry recently published a lovely special issue on translation which included translators' notes on the poems. See e.g. Conor O'Callaghan on his translation of a famous poem by Lorca...

Poems about translation 8: Twm Morys, 'To My Translator'

Les Murray is a very difficult act to follow, so it's been an (a)eon since we had a Poem About Translation. But lo, here is the Welsh poet Twm Morys with a series of poems, all of them presented as being in some way concerned with translation. First is Morys' poem 'CV' in Welsh, French and two different English versions. Then follows a number of poems with literal and more 'polished' English translations, and notes by Morys.

'To my Translator' is the one which caught my eye. In his notes, Morys says of the poem that:

This is a poem about a poem about to be translated! By the time it lands on the translator’s desk, it will have been prepared already for the operation by being put into English. The poem in English is like a note for the surgeon attached to the (dead) body. But in the original language, this hasn’t happened yet, of course! The poem in Welsh tells us what the surgeon will do to it, after it’s been “prepared.”

So it's a poem about translation which is first presented in a literal translation, in order that it can be translated by some eager-beaver non-Welsh-speaker, and then actually translated. (I think). The prickly literal translation, which I hope Mr Morys will not mind us reproducing in full, reminds us by its strangeness how much interpretation and rewriting takes place between the poem and its translation. Is it just me, or does it also act as a mischievous reminder to those of us who don't read Welsh that we have to take it on trust that this is actually a translation at all...?

To the One Who is in My Translating

By to him my receiving,
my brain and my insides
after going, without blood (any) more,
without breath, in ice,
this one will-be-able, like a surgeon,
to my opening without nausea.
And without mess, transplant,
put himself into the hole black.
After doing (of) the needlework,
Not you-will-see trace (of) his hand, either.
May-put the doctor then
On me the name which he-wishes.

Click here to read Morys' more fluent English translation, and wonder. Click here for another piece by Morys on Welsh prosody (but be warned that it may make your head chime).

For more information on the EmLit project, of which these translations were part, click here.

(Btw the workshops run by the Poetry Translation Centre at SOAS also work by means of literal translations into English. Their excellent site has lots of poems in the original, juxtaposed with the working literal and the polished 'final' draft, for your reading enjoyment.)

ES-EN poetry translation workshop, London, 22 September

Just a quick last-minute post to our readers in London to flag up a Spanish to English poetry translation workshop taking place tomorrow, organised by the Poetry Translation Centre at SOAS in London. The workshop will be led by David Shook and will work on poems by Marcelo Ensema Nsang, from Equatorial Guinea, the only Spanish-speaking country in Africa.

Who knew?

These workshops sound wonderful - some day I hope to make it up to the metropolis for one.