DUAL Poetry Podcast

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 Bejan's PTC World Poets Series book 'Akin to Stone' with 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.

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

This week’s poem is by Abdellatif Laabi from Morocco. The poem is read first in English translation by Andre Naffis-Sahely and then in French by Abdellatif.

The prize-winning Moroccan poet, Abdellatif Laâbi, is widely acknowledged as being one of the most important poets writing today. Laâbi was born in Fez in 1942. He began writing in the mid-1960s, publishing his first novel in 1969. In 1966 he founded the renowned literary magazine Souffles, a journal of literature and politics that was to earn its editor an eight-year prison sentence (from 1972 to 1981) under the authoritarian reign of Hassan II. Once released from jail, Laâbi left Morocco in 1985 and has lived in Paris ever since.

This is part of 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.

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

Direct download: PTC_Im_a_Child_of_this_Century__3.mp3
Category:general -- posted at: 7:00am 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.

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: Salome_Benidze_The_Story_of_Flying_2.mp3
Category:general -- posted at: 7:00am UTC