DUAL Poetry Podcast

Thanks to Kurdish poet and translator, Choman Hardi, we translated this wonderful poem by Dilawar Karadaghi over the course of three workshops at the beginning of 2005 when, appropriately enough, it was bitterly cold – though too cold for snow. And, as London faces its first ‘arctic blast’ of this remarkably mild winter, it seems fitting to choose ‘An Afternoon at Snowfall’ for our poem-podcast this week. The poem is read beautifully for us by two poets: in Kurdish by Mohammad Mustafa and in English by W N Herbert.

This is one of my favourite poems that we’ve translated in our workshops, I think because of the way in which Dilawar expresses something so essential about what it means to be exiled through the repeated evocation of every day, almost banal, details.

Book a Season Pass for our upcoming Poetry Translation Workshop: https://www.eventbrite.com/e/poetry-translation-centre-winter-spring-workshops-2020-tickets-84139289881

This is part of our new rebranded weekly release: the Dual Poetry Podcast, one poem in two languages from the Poetry Translation Centre. As ever we will be releasing a translated poem each week.

Please take a moment to rate and review this podcast on iTunes or wherever you download.

Direct download: snowfall_2.mp3
Category:general -- posted at: 7:00am UTC

This week's poem ‘Bucket, rope, fire extinguisher, etc’ is from by Legna Rodríguez Iglesias' collection Dame Spray, which was published in 2016.

The poem refers to Cubans entering the US by crossing the border from Mexico.

You can buy Legna's book 'A little body are many parts' from the PTC website.

This is part of our new rebranded weekly release: the Dual Poetry Podcast, one poem in two languages from the Poetry Translation Centre. As ever we will be releasing a translated poem each week.

Please take a moment to rate and review this podcast on iTunes or wherever you download.

Direct download: LEGNA_Bucket_Rope_Fire_Extinguisher_etc.mp3
Category:general -- posted at: 9:33am UTC

Adelaide Ivánova was born in Recife, Brazil in 1982. A poet,
journalist, photographer, activist and performance artist, she
currently lives between Berlin and Cologne. She is the author
of the collections 13 Nudes and o martelo (the hammer),
the latter awarded the 2018 Rio de Janeiro Literature Prize
for Poetry. Adelaide’s work has been featured in several
anthologies, and has been translated into Galician, German,
Greek, Italian and Spanish. She curates the anarcho-feminist
zine of queer and erotic poetry MAIS PORNÔ, PFVR! (MORE
PORN, PLS!), and is a co-founder of the feminist collective
RESPEITA! (RESPECT!), a coalition of Brazilian female
poets.

This is part of our new rebranded weekly release: the Dual Poetry Podcast, one poem in two languages from the Poetry Translation Centre. As ever we will be releasing a translated poem each week.

Please take a moment to rate and review this podcast on iTunes or wherever you download.

Direct download: The_Hammer_2.mp3
Category:general -- posted at: 7:00am UTC

Reza Mohammadi is a prize-winning poet, prolific journalist and cultural commentator. He is widely regarded as one of the most exciting young poets writing in Persian today.

He was translated collaboratively for the PTC by Hamid Kabir, editor in chief of the only Afghan fortnightly newspaper published in London, Simorgby and the Irish poet Nick Laird.

You can buy a short introduction to the work of Reza Mohammadi with translations  by Nick Laird and Hamid Kabir from the PTC online shop: https://www.poetrytranslation.org/shop/reza-mohammadi-chapbook

This is part of our new rebranded weekly release: the Dual Poetry Podcast, one poem in two languages from the Poetry Translation Centre. As ever we will be releasing a translated poem each week.

Please take a moment to rate and review this podcast on iTunes or wherever you download.

Direct download: PP_Reza_To_Love_3.mp3
Category:general -- posted at: 7:00am UTC

The poem is about the poet's love of a medieval stone tower in Istanbul, Turkey. Karin Karakaşlı’s pain can be deeply felt in most of her poems. However, alongside this we encounter an enormous amount of love for the geography she lives in, especially the city of Istanbul. Karakaşlı has an almost synergetic relationship with this city, as we can see in this poem ‘Galata’ – with the history embedded in every stone, every building and every landscape.

You can buy 'History-Geography' a short introduction of poems by Karakaşlı, with translations by the poet Sarah Howe and Canan Marasligil.

This is part of our new rebranded weekly release: the Dual Poetry Podcast, one poem in two languages from the Poetry Translation Centre. As ever we will be releasing a translated poem each week.

Please take a moment to rate and review this podcast on iTunes or wherever you download.

Direct download: KK_GALATA_2.mp3
Category:general -- posted at: 7:00am UTC

This week's poem is 'When Winter Comes' by Azita Ghahreman from Iran. The poem is read first in English translation by Maura Dooley and then in Farsi by Azita herself.

Azita Ghahreman's collection 'Negative of a Group photo', translated by Maura Dooley and Elhum Shakerifar, has been Shortlisted for the Warwick Prize for Women in Translation award.

This is part of our new rebranded weekly release: the Dual Poetry Podcast, one poem in two languages from the Poetry Translation Centre. As ever we will be releasing a translated poem each week.

Please take a moment to rate and review this podcast on iTunes or wherever you download.

Direct download: PP_Azita_When_Winter_Comes3.mp3
Category:general -- posted at: 7:00am UTC

This week's poem ‘My girlfriend leaves for Cancún today ’ is from by Legna Rodríguez Iglesias' collection Dame Spray, which was published in 2016.

The poem refers to Cubans entering the US by crossing the border from Mexico.

You can buy Legna's book 'A little body are many parts' from the PTC website.

This is part of our new rebranded weekly release: the Dual Poetry Podcast, one poem in two languages from the Poetry Translation Centre. As ever we will be releasing a translated poem each week.

Please take a moment to rate and review this podcast on iTunes or wherever you download.

Direct download: My_Girlfriend_leaves_for.mp3
Category:general -- posted at: 7:00am UTC

List week's poem is Empty Town by the chinese poet Yu Yoyo. In her afterward to Yu Yoyo's collection My Tenantless Body the poet Rebecca Tamás notes that Yoyo's concerns are often the global, concerns of those whose future is at stake in an uncertain world.

Get a copy of this book of Yu Yoyo's book My Tenantless Body from the PTC website.

This is part of our new rebranded weekly release: the Dual Poetry Podcast, one poem in two languages from the Poetry Translation Centre. As ever we will be releasing a translated poem each week.

Please take a moment to rate and review this podcast on iTunes or wherever you download.

Direct download: Empty_Town_PODCAST01.mp3
Category:general -- posted at: 8:12am UTC

This week's poem is 'Earth' by Partaw Naderi from Afghanistan. The poem is read first in English translation by Sarah Maguire and then in Dari by Partaw himself.

Partaw Naderi was born in Badakhshan a northern province of Afghanistan in 1331 [1953]. He studied in his birthplace and graduated from the Faculty of Sciences at Kabul University in 1354 [1976]. He was imprisoned in the notorious Pul-e-Charki prison by the Soviet-backed regime for three years in the 1970s shortly after he’d begun to write poetry. He is now widely regarded as one of the leading modernist poets in Afghanistan, the lyrical intensity of his work coupled with his bold use of free verse distinguishing him as a highly original and important poet. After years in exile he recently returned to live in Kabul where he is president of Afghan PEN.

This is part of our new rebranded weekly release: the Dual Poetry Podcast, one poem in two languages from the Poetry Translation Centre. As ever we will be releasing a translated poem each week.

Please take a moment to rate and review this podcast on iTunes or wherever you download.

Direct download: PP_Partaw_Earth_2.mp3
Category:general -- posted at: 7:00am UTC

'But' is by Azita Ghahreman from Iran. 

Azita Ghahreman's collection 'Negative of a Group Photograph' has been longlisted for the Warwick Prize for Women in Translation. This wonderful collection of Farsi poems was translated by Maura Dooley & Elhum Shakerifar.

Order your copy here: buff.ly/2FiQMvL

This is part of our new rebranded weekly release: the Dual Poetry Podcast, one poem in two languages from the Poetry Translation Centre. As ever we will be releasing a translated poem each week.

Please take a moment to rate and review this podcast on iTunes or wherever you download.

Direct download: Azita_But_3.mp3
Category:general -- posted at: 7:00am UTC

‘Giddy-up Johnny’ is from by Legna Rodríguez Iglesias' collection Miami Century Fox, a series of Petrarchan sonnets the poet wrote when she was finding her feet in America.

This poem makes reference to Queso proceso, a kind of processed cheese eaten during Cuba's Special Period, from 1989 to 2000 when the country was struggling to survive after the collapse of the Soviet Union and food shortages and power outages were very much the norm. 

You can buy Legna's book 'A little body are many parts' from the PTC website.

This is part of our new rebranded weekly release: the Dual Poetry Podcast, one poem in two languages from the Poetry Translation Centre. As ever we will be releasing a translated poem each week.

Please take a moment to rate and review this podcast on iTunes or wherever you download.

Direct download: DPP_Giddy_Up_Johnny.mp3
Category:general -- posted at: 7:00am UTC

This week's poem is 'Death Of A Princess' by Maxamed Xaashi Dhamac 'Gaarriye' from Somalia. The poem is read first in English translation by W N Herbert and then in Somali by Maxamed Xaashi Dhamac 'Gaarriye'.

‘Gaarriye’ (1949–2012) is regarded as one of the most important Somali poets of the twentieth century. He composed on a wide variety of topics, from nuclear weapons to the nature of poetry. He was the initiator of the Deelley, a very famous 'chain' of poems by leading Somali poets in the 1970s and 1980s that were critical of the regime of Siad Barre.

Pre-order 'Ask the Thunder' our new Gaarriye collection with translations by WN Herbert & Martin Orwin.

This is part of our new rebranded weekly release: the Dual Poetry Podcast, one poem in two languages from the Poetry Translation Centre. As ever we will be releasing a translated poem each week.

Please take a moment to rate and review this podcast on iTunes or wherever you download.

Direct download: PTC_Gaarriye_Death_of_a_Princess_4.mp3
Category:general -- posted at: 7:09am UTC

Diana Anphimiadi is a poet, publicist, linguist and teacher. Currently a doctoral student at the linguistic institute at the Tbilisi Javahkishvili University, Diana has published four collections of poetry, Shokoladi (Chocolate 2008), Konspecturi Mitologia (Resumé of Mythology, 2009), Alhlokhedvis Traektoria (Trajectory of the Short-Sighted, 2012 and Kulinaria (Personal Cuisine, 2013.

Her poetry has received prestigious awards, including first prize in the 2008 Tsero (Crane Award) and, in 2009, the Saba Prize for the best first collection.

This is part of our new rebranded weekly release: the Dual Poetry Podcast, one poem in two languages from the Poetry Translation Centre. As ever we will be releasing a translated poem each week.

Please take a moment to rate and review this podcast on iTunes or wherever you download.

Direct download: Diana_Anphimiadi__Because.mp3
Category:general -- posted at: 7:00am UTC

'the elephant' by Adelaide Ivánova, looks at how the human body processes trauma, drawing parallels between a mother reacting to the death of her young child and a woman experiencing sexual assault.

In this recording, you will hear Ivánova talk about the origins of this poem in her friendship with an elderly German woman suffering from Alzheimer's disease before she reads her poem in the original Portuguese. Afterwards, you will hear the poet Rachel Long reading the English translation that she prepared collaboratively with the writer and editor Francisco Vilhena.

Adelaide Ivánova and Rachel Long will be appearing together on Saturday, October 19th at the 'Exploring Translation as Disruption' event, part of Poetry International at the Southbank Centre, London.

Book here: https://www.southbankcentre.co.uk/whats-on/138227-exploring-translation-disruption-2019

This is part of our new rebranded weekly release: the Dual Poetry Podcast, one poem in two languages from the Poetry Translation Centre. As ever we will be releasing a translated poem each week.

Please take a moment to rate and review this podcast on iTunes or wherever you download.

 

 

Direct download: The_Elephant.mp3
Category:general -- posted at: 4:58pm UTC

Bejan Matur is the most illustrious poet among a bold new women’s poetry emerging from the Middle East. Her poetry engages directly and concretely with the struggles of her people, and yet there is also a mysticism in her writing, a closeness to nature, an embracing of mythology – a dialogue with God.

This poem and many others that appear in her PTC chapbook 'If This is a Lamnet' were translated by TS Elliot Award-winning poet Jen Hadfield and bridge translator Canan Marasligil.

This is part of our new rebranded weekly release: the Dual Poetry Podcast, one poem in two languages from the Poetry Translation Centre. As ever we will be releasing a translated poem each week.

Please take a moment to rate and review this podcast on iTunes or wherever you download.

 
 

Show

Direct download: ceremonial_robes_weekly_poem_podcast_2.mp3
Category:general -- posted at: 7:00am UTC

Despite the pleasurable excitement and excess of youth that Yoyo shows us, these poems are also laced with the insecurity and fear of growing up on a planet which may not outlast you; and the societal fissures that flow from that. In Yu’s poetic world, nature is necessary and liberating, but it is not the beautiful, timeless vision we see in classical Chinese poetry. Nature offers potential freedom, at the same time that it is full of latent, utterly modern threat and suffering." -Rebecca Tamás, from her afterward to 'My Tenantless Body'

Get a copy of this book of Yu Yoyo's work from the PTC website: https://www.poetrytranslation.org/shop/my-tenantless-body

This is part of our new rebranded weekly release: the Dual Poetry Podcast, one poem in two languages from the Poetry Translation Centre. As ever we will be releasing a translated poem each week.

Please take a moment to rate and review this podcast on iTunes or wherever you download.

Direct download: Sway_PODCAST01.mp3
Category:general -- posted at: 7:00am UTC

This week's poem is by Corsino Fortes from Cape Verde. The poem is read first in English translation by Sean O'Brien and then in Portuguese by Corsino Fortes.

Corsino Fortes's first book Pão & Fonema [Bread & Phoneme] which appeared in 1974 made an immediate impact. 1974 was a momentous year for Portugal and its African colonies as it was the year in which Portugal's dictator Salazar was overthrown, an act which began the process that led to the decolonisation of the Cape Verde Islands in 1975.

You can buy a copy of our Corsino Fortes Chapbook from the PTC website:https://www.poetrytranslation.org/shop/corsino-fortes-chapbook

This is part of our new rebranded weekly release: the Dual Poetry Podcast, one poem in two languages from the Poetry Translation Centre. As ever we will be releasing a translated poem each week.

Please take a moment to rate and review this podcast on iTunes or wherever you download.

Direct download: PTC_Corsino_Letter_from_Bia_dIdeal_2.mp3
Category:general -- posted at: 6:55am UTC

Translated by Rachel Long and Francisco Vilhena.

Before we hear the poem in both in the original Brazilian Portuguese and English translation, the poet Adelaide Ivánova talks about the importance of research in her work and how she discovered the work of a British anthropologist called Dame Mary Douglas.

You can buy a copy of the hammer and other poems from the PTC website: www.poetrytranslation.org/shop/the-ham…-other-poems

This is part of our new rebranded weekly release: the Dual Poetry Podcast, one poem in two languages from the Poetry Translation Centre. As ever we will be releasing a translated poem each week.

Please take a moment to rate and review this podcast on iTunes or wherever you download.

Direct download: The_Half-Confession.mp3
Category:general -- posted at: 7:00am UTC

Abdellatif Laâbi is a leading Moroccan poet who writes in French. In 1966 he helped found the important artistic journal 'Souffles', in 1972 the journal was banned and in 1974 Laâbi was imprisoned for 8 years for "crimes of opinion" for his political beliefs and his writings. After his release in 1985, he moved to France where he still lives in exile.

His work was translated for the PTC by André Naffis-Sahely, who recently edited 'The Heart of a Stranger' an anthology of exile literature for Pushkin Press: www.pushkinpress.com/product/the-he…of-a-stranger/

The dual-language chapbook introducing the poetry of Abdellatif Laâbi, translated by André Naffis-Sahely can be brought from the PTC website: www.poetrytranslation.org/shop/abdella…abi-chapbook

This is part of our weekly the Dual Poetry Podcast, one poem in two languages from the Poetry Translation Centre. As ever we will be releasing a translated poem each week.

Please take a moment to rate and review this podcast on iTunes or wherever you download.

Direct download: PTC_In_Vain_I_Migrate__4.mp3
Category:general -- posted at: 12:00pm UTC

'Stay' starts with the wonderfully direct and odd line 'Your beard is expendable', a great example of Yu Yoyo's lithe, arresting language, deftly translated by UK poet AK Blakemore and the translator Dave Haysom.

This is a poem in seven sections that sees the poet imaging a lover's journey to Viet Nam, a country she had never visited when she wrote the poem.

You can find this poem in My Tenatless Body, an introduction to Yoyo's work published by the PTC as part of our World Poets Series.

You can buy a copy of My Tenantless Body from the PTC website.

This is part of our new rebranded weekly release: the Dual Poetry Podcast, one poem in two languages from the Poetry Translation Centre. As ever we will be releasing a translated poem each week.

Please take a moment to rate and review this podcast on iTunes or wherever you download.

Direct download: Stay_PODCAST01_online-audio-converter.com.mp3
Category:general -- posted at: 7:30am UTC

This is one of two poems titled 'the hammer' in Adelaide Ivánova's World Poets Series collection the hammer and other poems. This poem shows the great breadth of Adelaide's references, from the mating rituals of hammerhead sharks to reports that when a Pope die a senior member of the Vatican staff strikes him on the forehead with a silver hammer to make sure he isn't just sleeping.

Also, in this recording, you can hear the contrast between how Adelaide Ivánova reads the original text, with a quick, unhalting delivery and Rachel Long's slower, more deliberate reading of her translation.

You can buy a copy of the hammer and other poems from the PTC website.

This is part of our new rebranded weekly release: the Dual Poetry Podcast, one poem in two languages from the Poetry Translation Centre. As ever we will be releasing a translated poem each week.

Please take a moment to rate and review this podcast on iTunes or wherever you download.

Direct download: The_Hammer_1.mp3
Category:general -- posted at: 7:00am UTC

'July' is by Diana Anphimiadi, a Georgian poet who is also a linguist, and whose often complex poetry foregrounds language.

Scrambled thoughts become crow-songs perched on a wire. Famous women from Greek myth speak frankly - upside-down, headless, from beyond the grave. The five senses tussle on the page, among cats and fish and chandeliers. Eating and bathing offer a glimpse of the eternal.

In Beginning to Speak, Anphimiadi repeatedly makes the world unfamiliar with the flick of a pen, demonstrating why she is one of her country’s outstanding contemporary poets. 

You can buy a copy from our website here: https://www.poetrytranslation.org/shop/beginning-to-speak

Direct download: Diana_Anphimiadi_July.mp3
Category:general -- posted at: 7:00am UTC

at three o’clock in the morning
you put your arms around a tree
because there’s no-one to put their arms
around you

Sleepwalking by Yu Yoyo is a set of 9 connected poems. In translating this poem the translators, Dave Haysom and AK Blakemore, were forced by the form of the English language to specify who the poem is addressing in a way that the Chinese original left totally open.  

You can buy an introduction to Yu Yoyo's poetry My Tenantless Body translated by Dave Haysom and AK Blakemore from the PTC online store: www.poetrytranslation.org/shop/my-tenantless-body

This is part of our new rebranded weekly release: the Dual Poetry Podcast, one poem in two languages from the Poetry Translation Centre. As ever we will be releasing a translated poem each week.

Please take a moment to rate and review this podcast on iTunes or wherever you download.

Direct download: Yu_Yoyo_Sleepwalking_.mp3
Category:general -- posted at: 7:00am UTC

"dad
sentence me to death
so you can live inside my tenantless body"
 
Born in 1990, Sichuanese poet Yu Yoyo had already begun to earn critical attention before she turned sixteen, publishing dozens of poems in PoetryPoetry Monthly and other prestigious publications in China. She is seen as a representative voice among the post-90’s generation, especially known for her mature voice and subtle treatment of modern femininity. 

You can buy an introduction to Yu Yoyo's poetry My Tenantless Body translated by Dave Haysom and AK Blakemore from the PTC online store.

This is part of our new rebranded weekly release: the Dual Poetry Podcast, one poem in two languages from the Poetry Translation Centre. As ever we will be releasing a translated poem each week.

Please take a moment to rate and review this podcast on iTunes or wherever you download.

Direct download: Dad_PODCAST01.mp3
Category:general -- posted at: 7:00am UTC

Translated by Jo Shapcott and Narguess Farzad.

This week's poem is 'Behind The Mass Of Green' by Farzaneh Khojandi from Tajikistan. The poem is read first in English translation by Jo Shapcott and then in Tajik by Farzaneh.

Farzaneh Khojandi is a poet with a huge following in Afghanistan and Iran as well as her native Tajikstan. She is widely regarded as the most exciting woman poet writing in Persian today and is revered as Tajikistan’s foremost living writer.

Thank you for listening to the Dual Poetry Podcast, one poem in two languages from the Poetry Translation Centre. As ever we will be releasing a translated poem each week.

Please take a moment to rate and review this podcast on iTunes or wherever you download.

Direct download: PP_Farzaneh__Behind_the_Mass_of_Green_4.mp3
Category:general -- posted at: 6:38am UTC

(Explicit content)

This week's poem 'the good animal' by Adelaide Ivánova. First, you will hear the poet, journalist and activist Adelaide Ivánova discussing the poem and reading her original Portuguese text, then her poet-translator, the UK poet Rachel Long will read the English version.

You can buy an introduction to Adelaide Ivánova's poetry 'the hammer and other poems' translated by Rachel Long & Francisco Vilhena from the PTC online store.

This is part of our new rebranded weekly release: the Dual Poetry Podcast, one poem in two languages from the Poetry Translation Centre. As ever we will be releasing a translated poem each week.

Please take a moment to rate and review this podcast on iTunes or wherever you download.

Direct download: The_Good_Animal.mp3
Category:poetry -- posted at: 7:00am UTC

This week's poem is by Mohan Rana from India. The poem is read first in English translation by Bernard O'Donoghue and then in Hindi by Mohan himself. 

The poet and critic, Nandkishore Acharya, has written that, 'Amongst the new generation of Hindi poets, the poetry of Mohan Rana stands alone; it defies any categorisation. However, its refusal to fit any ideology doesn't mean that Mohan Rana's poetry shies away from thinking - but that it knows the difference between thinking in verse and thinking about poetry. For Mohan Rana the poetic process in itself is also thought process.'

This is part of our new rebranded weekly release: the Dual Poetry Podcast, one poem in two languages from the Poetry Translation Centre. As ever we will be releasing a translated poem each week.

Please take a moment to rate and review this podcast on iTunes or wherever you download.

Direct download: PP_Mohan_The_Evening_News_3.mp3
Category:poetry -- posted at: 7:00am UTC

Beloved by Asha Lul Mohamud Yusuf is a passionate love poem!
It is a jiifto, one of the many Metric forms of Somali poetry made up of short lines.

First, you will hear the stunning translation by UK poet Clare Pollard who captures the alliterating Bs of the original Somali and the sense of yearning with lines like 'be my new moon / unbreakable metal'.

Afterwards, you can hear Asha reading the poem in the original Somali.

This month sees the publication of her first English Language collection published by Bloodaxe Books.

The collection's title The Sea-Migrations or, Tahriib in Somali, refers to the search for a better life in another country.

You can buy The Sea-Migrations here.

This is part of our new rebranded weekly release: the Dual Poetry Podcast, one poem in two languages from the Poetry Translation Centre. As ever we will be releasing a translated poem each week.

Please take a moment to rate and review this podcast on iTunes or wherever you download.

Direct download: ALMY_BELOVED_2.mp3
Category:general -- posted at: 7:00am UTC

Translated by Jamie McKendrick

This week's poem is 'Heaven's Kitchen' by David Huerta from Mexico. The poem is read first in English by the translator, the poet by Jamie McKendrick and then in Spanish by David Huerta.

David Huerta was born in Mexico City in 1949. He is one the leading poets of the generation that first came to prominence during the 1970s in Mexico. He published his first book of poems, El Jardín de la luz [The Garden of Light] (1972), while still a student in the Faculty of Philosophy and Arts at Mexico's Autonomous National University (UNAM). It has been followed by numerous collections, among them: Cuaderno de Noviembre [November Notebook] (1976), Huellas del civilizado [Traces of the Civilized] (1977), Versión [Version] (1978), El espejo del cuerpo [The Mirror of the Body] (1980) and Incurable [Incurable] (1987), a long poem in nine parts that encourages the reader to participate in constructing the meaning of the poem.

This is part of our new rebranded weekly release: the Dual Poetry Podcast, one poem in two languages from the Poetry Translation Centre. As ever we will be releasing a translated poem each week.

Please take a moment to rate and review this podcast on iTunes or wherever you download.

Direct download: PTC_David_Heavens_Kitchen_3.mp3
Category:general -- posted at: 7:00am UTC

This week's poem podcast contains three short poems by Kurdish-Turkish Poet Bejen Matur, translated by Canan Marasligil and UK poet Jen Hadfield. The poems are 'Dead Sun', 'There is no Sun' and 'Truth'.

Bejan Matur’s enthralling visceral poems are among the most imaginatively potent being written anywhere in the world. She is one of the leading voices of a bold new women’s poetry emerging from the Middle East. Her award-winning poems describe a delicate space between concrete realism and mystical reflection, engaging with the struggles of the Kurdish people of Turkey.

The PTC's introduction to Bejen Matur's poetry, Akin to Stone will be published in October. You can pre-order it from the PTC online book shop now.

This is part of our new rebranded weekly release: the Dual Poetry Podcast, one poem in two languages from the Poetry Translation Centre. As ever we will be releasing a translated poem each week.

Please take a moment to rate and review this podcast on iTunes or wherever you download

Direct download: 3_short_poems_a_dead_sun_there_is_no_spring_truth_3.mp3
Category:general -- posted at: 12:53am UTC

'guerilla bitchcraft' was the first poem by Adelaide Ivánova that the Poetry Translation Centre translated at a workshop with Francisco Vilhena and Clare Pollard in 2017.

The PTC workshop was dazzled by Ivánova’s breadth of reference, lurching between the personal and political. One moment she jokes about weed and star-signs, the next she’s addressing rape, colonialism and Zika. It’s not often in a poetry workshop you have to read a whole Nirvana lyric (turns out ‘Polly’ is not really about a parrot). And how to translate the ‘piriguetismo’ of the title? Francisco Vilhena, who provided the bridge translation, said it meant something like ‘bitchism’, but had more a celebratory charge (a woman saying it to another woman was being positive). Anne Macaulay made a very convincing case for ‘bitchismo’ but in the end we settled on Francisco’s suggestion of ‘bitchcraft’ as it sounded more empowered and cunning! 

The poem is read in Portuguese and English by Adelaide herself.

This is part of our new rebranded weekly release: the Dual Poetry Podcast, one poem in two languages from the Poetry Translation Centre. As ever we will be releasing a translated poem each week.

Please take a moment to rate and review this podcast on iTunes or wherever you download.

Direct download: Guerilla_Bitchcraft.mp3
Category:general -- posted at: 7:00am UTC

This week's poem is 'the dog' by Adelaide Ivánova, taken from her collection the hammer and other poems, translated by Francisco Vilhena and Rachel Long. The poem is read first in Brazilian Portuguese by the poet herself and then in English by her poet-translator Rachel Long.

This poem looks closely at the experience of a raped woman, worried about whether she will be able to enjoy sex after her experience.

In her introduction, Adelaide also discusses Humboldt, an ambiguous male figure that appears throughout the book.

This is part of our new rebranded weekly release: the Dual Poetry Podcast, one poem in two languages from the Poetry Translation Centre. As ever we will be releasing a translated poem each week.

Please take a moment to rate and review this podcast on iTunes or wherever you download.

Direct download: The_Dog.mp3
Category:general -- posted at: 7:00am UTC

This week's poem 'the mule' by Adelaide Ivánova begins with an epigram by the Romanian-German poet Paul Celan, translated by Michael Hamburger. Celan wrote predominantly about The Holocaust and the challenge of finding the words to express the unsayable.

This poem references other instances of rape in literature including 'The Rape of Lucrece' by William Shakespeare.

First, you will hear the poet, journalist and activist Adelaide Ivánova discussing the poem and reading her original Portuguese text, then her poet-translator, the UK poet Rachel Long will read the English version.

You can buy an introduction to Adelaide Ivánova's poetry 'the hammer and other poems' translated by Rachel Long & Francisco Vilhena from the PTC online store.

This is part of our new rebranded weekly release: the Dual Poetry Podcast, one poem in two languages from the Poetry Translation Centre. As ever we will be releasing a translated poem each week.

Please take a moment to rate and review this podcast on iTunes or wherever you download.

Direct download: Mule.mp3
Category:general -- posted at: 7:00am UTC

Coral Bracho was born in Mexico City in 1951. She has published six books of poems. Her poems were translated for the PTC's 2005 World Poets' Tour by Tom Boll and the poet Katherine Pierpoint.

Bracho's early poems marry verbal luxuriance with a keen intelligence and awareness of artistic process. Yet that artistic consciousness doesn't lose sight of world.

This is part of our new rebranded weekly release: the Dual Poetry Podcast, one poem in two languages from the Poetry Translation Centre. As ever we will be releasing a translated poem each week.

Please take a moment to rate and review this podcast on iTunes or wherever you download.

 

Direct download: PP_Coral_Marks_of_Time_3.mp3
Category:general -- posted at: 6:04am UTC

What is most difficult to translate, in my experience, is poetry that toys with sentimentality without ever crossing into its territory, poetry that counterbalances abstraction with precision. And that’s Víctor Terán’s poetry.

It is difficult to approach the edge of sentimentality without crossing it, and it is equally difficult to get as close to that edge as Terán has managed in Isthmus Zapotec. This funambulism is even more significant an achievement for Terán considering the state of the language: a Zapotec dialect spoken by fewer than one-hundred-thousand inhabitants of the Isthmus of Tehuantepec, in Oaxaca, Mexico.

-David Shook

This is part of our new rebranded weekly release: the Dual Poetry Podcast, one poem in two languages from the Poetry Translation Centre. As ever we will be releasing a translated poem each week.

Please take a moment to rate and review this podcast on iTunes or wherever you download.

 

Direct download: PP_Victor_From_the_Palm_of_My_Hand_2.mp3
Category:general -- posted at: 10:46am UTC

The ironically entitled 'Title' (like another poem by Abdulla Pashew, 'Unfinished Poem', that we translated in the same workshop) is concerned with the exigencies of writing poetry. In this case, the poet is tired; his life-long poem is turning into an epic and he becomes aware that in his mind, 'words slip out of place'.

The prominent Kurdish poet and writer, Abdulla Pashew, is widely regarded as the most popular living Kurdish poet.

This is part of our new rebranded weekly release: the Dual Poetry Podcast, one poem in two languages from the Poetry Translation Centre. As ever we will be releasing a translated poem each week.

Please take a moment to rate and review this podcast on iTunes or wherever you download.

Direct download: Title.mp3
Category:general -- posted at: 7:00am UTC

Anphimiadi is one of Georgia’s leading contemporary poets. With subtle lyricism, her poetry describes the most intense experiences of many women’s lives: childbirth; love, with its many complications and death. 

Anphimiadi’s own paternal roots lie in Pontus, a historically Greek region on the southern coast of the Black Sea which at one time stretched from central Anatolia, in modern-day Turkey, to the borders of the Colchis in modern western Georgia. Home to the legendary Golden Fleece, West Pontus is sometimes referred to as the home of the Amazons. Undoubtedly, Diana’s Greek roots inspired her use of the goddesses and other female figures from Greek mythology. Both Helen of Troy and Medusa are conjured up; these figures allow the poet to speak out – throwing her voice through centuries of experience – against the unchanged restrictions placed on women in patriarchal societies.

This is part of our new rebranded weekly release: the Dual Poetry Podcast, one poem in two languages from the Poetry Translation Centre. As ever we will be releasing a translated poem each week.

Please take a moment to rate and review this podcast on iTunes or wherever you download.

Direct download: Diana_Anphimiadi__Medusa.mp3
Category:general -- posted at: 7:00am UTC

This week's poem is by Coral Bracho from Mexico.  The poem is read first in English translation by Katherine Pierpoint and then in Spanish by Coral herself.

Coral Bracho's poems were translated for the PTC's 2005 World Poets' Tour by Tom Boll and the poet Katherine Pierpoint.

Bracho's early poems marry verbal luxuriance with a keen intelligence and awareness of artistic process. Yet that artistic consciousness doesn't lose sight of the world. When she visited London in 2005 she described the way that her tour-de-force ‘Agua de bordes lúbricos' [Water of Jellyfish] operates: ‘It tries to get close to the movement of water' with images that are ‘fleeting'; ‘you can't grasp them, they are very fluid. What remains is that continuity of water. Her works is considered to be part of the contemporary neo-baroque literary movement from Latin America.

This is part of our new rebranded weekly release: the Dual Poetry Podcast, one poem in two languages from the Poetry Translation Centre. As ever we will be releasing a translated poem each week.

Please take a moment to rate and review this podcast on iTunes or wherever you download.

Direct download: PP_Coral_Behind_the_Curtain_2.mp3
Category:general -- posted at: 7:00am UTC

'Poem of the Nile' was published in The London Review of Books one of the rare occasions the LRB has published poetry translated from Arabic and the first time they featured the work of an African poet. Al-Saddiq Al-Raddi's poems have also been published in Poetry Review and The Times Literary Supplement. This is a real indication of Saddiq's growing status as an important international poet.

This is part of our new rebranded weekly release: the Dual Poetry Podcast, one poem in two languages from the Poetry Translation Centre. As ever we will be releasing a translated poem each week.

Please take a moment to rate and review this podcast on iTunes or wherever you download.

Direct download: Poem_of_The_Nile_Podcast_.mp3
Category:general -- posted at: 7:30am UTC

This week, to celebrate Nowrus, the Dual Poetry Podcast poem is Haft Seen by Shakila Azizzada from Afghanistan. The poem is read first in English translation by Mimi Khalvati and then in Dari by Shakila Azizzada.

'Haft Seen' is a traditional custom for the Persian new year celebration known as Nowruz. A table is set with 7 different items which its essential items letters start with (Sin-Seen "س"). These are Sib - Apple, Sabze - Grass, Senjed - Sea-buckthorn, Serkeh - Vinegar, Samanu -a sweet paste made from germinated wheat, Somaq - Sumac and Seer - (Garlic) each with their own symbolic meaning.

The poem also references Dam Platz, a historical square in Amsterdam flanked by the Royal Palace and the National Memorial to the Dutch war dead.

This is part of our new rebranded weekly release: the Dual Poetry Podcast, one poem in two languages from the Poetry Translation Centre. As ever we will be releasing a translated poem each week.

Please take a moment to rate and review this podcast on iTunes or wherever you download.

 

Direct download: PP_Shakila_Haft_Seen_2.mp3
Category:general -- posted at: 7:00am UTC

This week’s poem is by David Huerta from Mexico. The poem is read first in English translation by Jamie McKendrick and then in Spanish by David Huerta.

This is part of our new rebranded weekly release: the Dual Poetry Podcast, one poem in two languages from the Poetry Translation Centre. As ever we will be releasing a translated poem each week.

Please take a moment to rate and review this podcast on iTunes or wherever you download.

Direct download: PTC_David_Entropy_in_Wiesbaden_3.mp3
Category:general -- posted at: 7:00am UTC

Much of Azita Ghahreman's work is deeply personal yet infused with political undertones. Her poems often reflect on her childhood growing up in a land-owning family in the South-Eastern Khorasan province of Iran – referenced in evocative images of the natural world amongst which she grew up – and on the changing face of modern Iran.

This is part of our new rebranded weekly release: the Dual Poetry Podcast, one poem in two languages from the Poetry Translation Centre. As ever we will be releasing a translated poem each week.

Please take a moment to rate and review this podcast on iTunes or wherever you download.

Direct download: AzitaGhahremanEveryTangledBranch2.mp3
Category:general -- posted at: 10:49am UTC

Abboud al Jabiri fixes on a deceptively simple image and, when elaborating on it, manages to convey complex and delicates feelings about loss and acceptance.

An Iraqi poet and translator, Abboud al Jabiri, was born in Najaf in 1963. A member of the Iraqi Writers' Union and the Arab Writers' Union, he was one of the founders of the Iraqi Youth Literature forum. His two poetry collections are Index of Faults (2007) and Lean on his Blindness (2009). Since 1993, he has lived and worked in Amman, in Jordan. 

This is part of our new rebranded weekly release: the Dual Poetry Podcast, one poem in two languages from the Poetry Translation Centre. As ever we will be releasing a translated poem each week.

 

Direct download: Remission.mp3
Category:general -- posted at: 8:30am UTC

Salome Benidze is a respected poet, novelist and translator. She has rendered the work David Beckham and Salman Rushdie into Georgian. Her poetry is direct yet deeply felt, dealing with love and it’s many shadows. Benidze was translated for the PTC multi-award winning poet Helen Mort, host of BBC Radio 4’s Mother Tongue show and Natalia Bukia-Peters, a respected Georgian Translator and academic.

You can buy I Wanted to Ask You a short collection of Benidze's poems where she explores romantic love and all its corollaries: longing, regret, trauma, confession, revelation, even war, from the PTC shop.

This is part of our new rebranded weekly release: the Dual Poetry Podcast, one poem in two languages from the Poetry Translation Centre. As ever we will be releasing a translated poem each week.

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

 

Azita Ghahreman was born in Mashhad in 1962. One of Iran's leading poets, she has lived in Sweden since 2006. She is a member of the South Sweden Writers' Union. Her poems directly address questions of female desire and challenge the accepted position of women.

Negative of a Group Photograph is the title poem of her new book published in 2018 by the PTC and Bloodaxe Books. The collection runs the gamut of Ghahreman’s experience: from her childhood in the Khorasan region of south-eastern Iran to her exile to Sweden, from Iran's book-burning years and the war in Iraq to her unexpected encounters with love.

This is part of our new rebranded weekly release: the Dual Poetry Podcast, one poem in two languages from the Poetry Translation Centre. As ever we will be releasing a translated poem each week.

Please take a moment to rate and review this podcast on iTunes or wherever you download.

Direct download: AzitaGhahremanNegativeofaGroupPhoto2.mp3
Category:general -- posted at: 8:00am UTC

Asha Lul Mohamud Yusuf is quickly emerging as one of the most exciting young poets living in the Somali diaspora. Like all Somalis, Asha grew up in a culture steeped in poetry and while she was young she started to compose her own poems. Her work began getting published on Somali websites in 2008 and, since then, she's rapidly garnered a great deal of praise for her ability to infuse her poetry with fresh imagery enlivened by telling details.

Her collection The Sea-Migrations was named the Poetry Book of the Year 2018 by The Sunday Times. Asha came to the UK in 1990 having fled the Somali Civil War. She now has three children and
a steady job and a growing career as a poet.

This is part of our new rebranded weekly release: the Dual Poetry Podcast, one poem in two languages from the Poetry Translation Centre. As ever we will be releasing a translated poem each week.

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

Welcome to our rebranded weekly release: the Dual Poetry Podcast, one poem in two languages from the Poetry Translation Centre. As ever we will be releasing a translated poem each week.

If you enjoy our podcasts 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_Bath.mp3
Category:general -- posted at: 2:30pm UTC

In this poem, Sudanese poet Al-Saddiq Al-Raddi captured the deep-seated antipathy of the late night bartender ‘Nursing a drink that bores him’ translated by Atef Alshaer and Sarah Maguire.

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: PP_Saddiq_Bar_3.mp3
Category:general -- posted at: 2:49pm UTC

This week's poem is by Partaw Naderi from Afghanistan.  The poem is read first in English translation by Sarah Maguire and then in Dari by Partaw himself.

Naderi is now widely regarded as one of the leading modernist poets in Afghanistan, the lyrical intensity of his work coupled with his bold use of free verse distinguishing him as a highly original and important poet. 

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: PP_Partaw_On_a_Colourful_Morning_3.mp3
Category:general -- posted at: 7:13pm UTC

This week’s poem is by Mohan Rana from India.  The poem is read first in English translation by Bernard O'Donoghue and then in Hindi by Mohan Rana.

The poet and critic, Nandkishore Acharya, has written that 'Amongst the new generation of Hindi poets, the poetry of Mohan Rana stands alone; it defies any categorisation. However, its refusal to fit any ideology doesn't mean that Mohan Rana's poetry shies away from thinking - but that it knows the difference between thinking in verse and thinking about poetry. For Mohan Rana the poetic process in itself is also thought process.'

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: PP_Mohan__A_Standard_Shirt_4.mp3
Category:general -- posted at: 11:16am UTC

Poetry is an important part of Georgian literature, and dates back to the 4th century AD. The first known woman poets are Queen Borena and Queen Tamar, who reigned in medieval times.  Contemporary Georgian women’s poetry has its origins in the Soviet period, when a new form of free verse appeared.

Salome Benidze is a poet, writer, blogger and translator. She has been nominated for and has received many prestigious awards, and her poems have been translated into more than 10 languages. She writes both in a traditional poetry mode and in free verse.

Salome’s poems are a journey through the dramatic historical and social changes in Georgia’s recent history and her own experience of life and love. They are conveyed in a rich and romantic language, highly charged with passion and love. In some ways, her work is a call for women’s voices to be taken more seriously.

You can buy Salome Benidze's chapbook 'I Wanted to Ask You' with translations by Helen Mort and Natalia Bukia-Peters from the PTC online bookstore.

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