DUAL Poetry Podcast

Diana Anphimiadi makes a use of the great Greek myths in her poetry, using these stories to get at her preoccupations as a poet. In Helen of Troy, the familiar story is reworked to talk about the Georgian nation's more recent experience of war, displacement and alienation.

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Direct download: Diana_Anphimiadi__Helen_of_Troy.mp3
Category:general -- posted at: 11:41am UTC

This is the final poem in Salome Benidze’s chapbook ‘I wanted to ask you’, a lament which contains both prayer and secular invocation. In ‘My Soldier Husband’, a woman longs for her husband’s return from the war that has ravaged her country. Imploring him, and trying to console herself, the speaker describes a heightened sensitivity that might well describe Salome’s poetics:

When you’ve survived bullets and ghosts
the smell of cotton sheets is all the sweeter

Salome’s poems explore the dramatic historical and social changes of Georgia’s recent history, as they map out very personal stories of life and love. They are conveyed in a rich and Romantic language, and yet speak to the living moment. In its exemplary construction as well as its subject matter, her work is a call for women’s voices to be taken more seriously.

If you enjoy this podcast and would like to support the work of the Poetry Translation Centre then please visit poetrytranslation.org/support-us

Direct download: Salome_Benidze_My_Soldier_Husband.mp3
Category:general -- posted at: 8:00am UTC

Diana Anphimiadi quickly distinguished herself as an unusually imaginative, original talent in the Georgian poetry scene. Her work refuses the formulaic or expected response, wrong-footing readers with its wit and delicacy. In her acclaimed 2013 collection, Personal Cuisine, for instance she explores the traumatic experiences of recent years, yet the narrative unfolds as a patchwork of recipes, poems and stories.

If you enjoy this podcast and would like to support the work of the Poetry Translation Centre then please visit poetrytranslation.org/support-us

 

Direct download: Diana_Anphimiadi__Prayer_before_taki.mp3
Category:general -- posted at: 1:31pm UTC

Salome Benidze is a poet, writer, blogger and translator. Her poetry has received many prestigious awards and has been translated into more than a dozen languages. Born in 1986 in Kutaisi, Salome grew up during the turbulent decade of the 1990s when the Soviet Union collapsed and many new countries emerged from its ruins. In Georgia these years were marked by civil war, a downturn in the economy, widespread corruption and rampant crime. As a consequence, a great number of people were forced to emigrate in order to earn their living. The majority of these migrants were women, many of whom had to leave their young children with relatives and live in exile from their homeland, often working abroad for decades in order to provide for their families.

 

If you enjoy this podcast and would like to support the work of the Poetry Translation Centre then please visit poetrytranslation.org/support-us

 

 

Direct download: Salome_Benidze_The_Story_of_Flying.mp3
Category:general -- posted at: 11:48am UTC