the mule by Adelaide Ivánova

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.

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