Modern Poetry In Translation

David Morley reads ‘Roma and Roma’ – a Romani tranlsation of AE Housman from the MPT online translation workshop

Mukur Petrolwala reads ‘રાખ (Ash)’ – a Gujarati translation of AE Housman from the MPT online translation workshop

Philip Gross and Cyril Jones read a series of englyn translations – in English and Welsh From MPT 'Our Small Universe: Focus on Languages of the United Kingdom', Spring 2019 See more at wwwmodernpoetryintranslation.com

Jhilmil Breckenridge reads ‘वेनलॉक एज पर वन मुशकिल मे है’ – a Hindi translation of AE Housman – from the online translation workshop

Liz Berry reads ‘Iron Oss’ – in Black Country Dialect From MPT 'Our Small Universe: Focus on Languages of the United Kingdom', Spring 2019 See more at wwwmodernpoetryintranslation.com

Gerda Stevenson reads ‘I am the Airt’ – in Scots From MPT 'Our Small Universe: Focus on Languages of the United Kingdom', Spring 2019 See more at wwwmodernpoetryintranslation.com

Christine De Luca reads ‘Dis life is nivver enyoch’ – in Shetlandic by Modern Poetry in Translation Magazine

In this episode, MPT Editor Clare Pollard introduces our Digital Pamphlet on Lithuanian poetry, 'How to Swim', and looks back at our online translation workshop on Lithuanian poetry. Hear Martyn Crucefix reading his tranlsation of *** by Nijolė Miliauskaitė, alongside a reading in the original Lithuanian. This digital pamphlet is published on 21 February 2018. See more at: modernpoetryintranslation.com/how-to-swim/

IN this episode, MPT Editor Clare Pollard introduces our Digital Pamphlet on Latvian poetry, 'Words about Words', and looks back at our online translation workshop on Latvian poetry. See more at: http://modernpoetryintranslation.com/words-about-words/

IN this episode, MPT Editor Clare Pollard introduces our Digital Pamphlet on Estonian poetry, silencesilencesilencesilencesilencesilence, and looks back at our online translation workshop on Estonian poetry. See more: http://modernpoetryintranslation.com/estonian-poetry-digital-pamphlet-silencesilencesilencesilencesilencesilence/

Introduction to Jacques Tornay by Annie Freud, published in MPT 'Profound Pyromania'. I met Jacques Tornay in 2016 at HeadRead, the International Literary Festival of Estonia. Sitting in the audience, listening to poems in many languages which are foreign to me, I was suddenly transported by the familiar sounds of the French language. Having been brought up on the poems of Ronsard, Du Bellay, Lamartine and de Regnier, I had the sensation of inhabiting that part of myself that breathes, hears and dreams in French. While the poet spoke, the hubbub of chairs and glasses quietened and I was overtaken by an irresistible smile. For those who don’t know him, Tornay is a French-speaking Swiss writer, journalist and translator. His work includes poetry, short stories, aphorisms and biography. He is the author of numerous books and has been the recipient of prestigious prizes. It was no surprise to learn of his love for Rilke, the poet I am most reminded of when reading his work. Set in the stark landscapes of his n

From the introduction to Hisham Bustani's poems in MPT 'A Blossom Shroud' by translator Thoraya El-Rayyes: Few poems better capture the cynicism of the infamously irate Hisham Bustani than these two odes to frustration. A poet, short-story writer, political commentator and veteran rabble rouser, Bustani’s eventful public life has been punctuated by various brushes with the police state – from harassment by the censors and security services, to arrests for his writing and involvement in political protest. Bustani’s poem ‘On the Brink Of’ revolves around vivid imagery from the urban landscape of the Jordanian capital Amman, where he lives. Through this imagery, the poem constructs a noisy microcosm of Middle Eastern post-colonial modernity in all its dysfunction – from urban sheep-herding to petrodollar-fuelled sex tourism. The other poem presented here, ‘The Struggle’, is a forceful portrait depicting the futility of individual human endeavour in the face of larger forces that shape our world. It conveys an

Russian poet Maria Stepanova wrote her epic poem ‘War of the Beasts and the Animals’ in 2015, when the war in the Donbas Region of Ukraine was at its height. Every line in this densely-populated and highly allusive poem emerges from a consciousness of conflict and the martial culture and mythology that allows state-sponsored violence to happen. Stepanova traces the mythmaking culture of war from ballads and films of the Russian Civil War through the Second World War and into the twenty-first century, and Russia’s illegal and covert involvement in a war against Ukraine. ‘War of the Beasts and the Animals’ is impossible to translate in a superficially ‘faithful’ way: the language is so much a captive of the surrounding culture: folk refrains jostle for space against psalms, Silver Age Russian poetry, an Old Russian epic poem ‘The Tale of Igor’s campaign’, pop ballads, phrases from popular culture, Paul Celan, T. S. Eliot – the list is endless. Many of these allusions are simply not accessible to a non-Russian

ABOUT THE POET: MONA KAREEM Mona Kareem is a poet-writer-translator based in New York. She is the author of three poetry collections. Her translations include Ashraf Fayadh's Instructions Within and an Arabic selection of Alejandra Pizarnik’s poems. ABOUT THE TRANSLATOR: ROBIN MOGER: Robin Moger is a freelance translator of Arabic with a particular interest in twentieth-century and contemporary prose and poetry

DUNYA MIKHAIL was born in Iraq and left for the United States in 1996. Her books include The Iraqi Nights, Diary of A Wave Outside the Sea, and The War Works Hard. She also edited a pamphlet of Iraqi poetry titled 15 Iraqi Poets. She was awarded the Kresge Fellowship, Arab American Book Award, and UN Human Rights Award for Freedom of Writing.

Two poet-translators rattle their sabres for a duel of words and French poetry! Listen to MPT's translation duel which took place at Ledbury Poetry Festival, Sunday 9 July 2017. Olivia McCannon and Susan Wicks went head-to-head with their translations of a poem by Ariane Dreyfus. *No poets were harmed in the production of this event*. About the translators: Olivia McCannon is a translator of Balzac and winner of the Jerwood Aldeburgh First Collection Prize. Susan Wicks’ translations of Valérie Rouzeau have won prizes and her own seventh collection, The Months was a Poetry Book Society Recommendation.

In Gavura’s work the poetic persona has a strong empathy with nature, seeing it as an example of both a non-human otherness and as part of God’s creation. As a theologian Gavura regards nature and humanity as part of a post-lapsarian existence. Gavura’s natural world and the animals which inhabit it are true to themselves and the savagery they express is an aspect of the innocence they retain. His poems draw on everyday feelings of doubt, fear, disillusionment, anger, weakness or even evil thoughts and he tries to bring together these aspects of the contingent world and gain insight. Given his religious sensibility Gavura’s poems frequently incorporate a mythical dimension. This spiritual bedrock in Gavura’s poetry paradoxically opens his poetry to all readers with its acute positioning of human beings, nature and divine aspiration. - James Sutherland Smith JÁN GAVURA is the author of three collections, Burning Bees (Pálenie včiel, 2001), which was awarded the Ivan Krasko Prize for the best debut book in th

ABOUT SIDDHARTHA BOSE I was born in Calcutta and spent the first five years of my life there. This city, which was once the second city of the British Empire, was where English literature was fi rst introduced as a discipline of study, to civilise the natives. I spent the next eight years in Bombay, and returned to the city of my birth for another five before moving to the USA on my own when I was eighteen. After seven years in America, I moved to London in 2005 on a British government scholarship. I have lived in London ever since. My writing grows out of this fractured upbringing across three continents. The linguistic eff ects of this fracturing are peculiar. I grew up with three languages (English, Bengali, and Hindi) and started learning another (French) when I was fourteen. Strangely, given the formative years of my schooling took place in Bombay, I cannot read what is – ostensibly – my mother tongue (Bengali), though I still speak it. I am illiterate in the language of my ancestors. ‘Elegy, Father’

This podcast includes readings of two poems by award-winning Korean author Han Kang, 'Pitch-Black house of Light' and 'Winter Through a Mirror'. SOPHIE BOWMAN is a literary translator and student of Korean literature. She won the 2015 Korea Times Translation Award for her translation of poems by Jin Eun-young and her prose translations can be found in Koreana magazine. HAN KANG is a novelist, poet, and a professor of creative writing at Seoul Institute of the Arts. She received the 2016 Man Booker International Prize for The Vegetarian (2015, Portobello Books, translated by Deborah Smith). Her other publications available in English include Human Acts (2016) and The White Book (forthcoming in 2017). The readings in this podcast were recorded and edited by James Bull.

In this podcast: 00:00 - Introduction to Denise Riley 02:50 - Denise Riley reading begins 33.05 - Sasha Dugdale introduces Don Mee Choi 42.12 - Don Mee Choi reads translations of Kim Hyesoon 54:00 - Don Mee Choi reads translations of Kim Yideum 1:05:48 - Don Mee Choi reads from her book ‘The Morning News is Exciting’ This podcast features Denise Riley and Don Mee Choi. It was recorded at The Print Room, London, for the launch of Modern Poetry in Translation's winter issue 'The Blue Vein', which features Korean poetry including work by Kim Hyesoon, Kim Yidium, Han Kang and more. See the full contents on www.mptmagazine.com About Don Mee Choi: Don Mee Choi was born in Korea, but settled in the USA. She is a poet, critic and essayist and in experimental and important work she challenges notions of history and identity. She is one of Korean poetry’s foremost translators and her translations of Kim Hyesoon are published by Bloodaxe. Her last collection of poetry, Hardly War was published to acclaim in 2016. Th