New year, fresh snow. Fresh snow, old words. I first came across Gwerful Mechain this time last year through her most famous poem of all, translated as ‘Ode to My Cunt’ by Zoë Brigley Thompson for Modern Poetry in Translation.…
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New snow, old words
Tagged with: books, Broadview, Broadview Press, Gwerful Mechain, Katie Gramich, New Year, Poetry, Translation, Welsh
Posted in books, history, literature, poetry, translation
Posted in books, history, literature, poetry, translation
Sergius Seeks Bacchus
A fellow queer Christian, from an utterly different context. Indonesian literature has been in the literary news since the country guest of honour at the Frankfurt Book Fair in 2015. But now it gets personal: Sergius Seeks Bacchus. This slim…
Tagged with: books, Indonesian, Norman Erikson Pasaribu, Poetry, Sergius Seeks Bacchus, Tiffany Tsao, Tilted Axis Press, Translation
Posted in books, faith, gender, poetry, translation
Posted in books, faith, gender, poetry, translation
Negative Space
A voice from Albania, somewhere I’ve never been, seems to know exactly what I’m thinking. This is all the more interesting as for a long time, the poet, Luljeta Lleshanaku, couldn’t go anywhere at all. Born in 1968, she grew…
Tagged with: Albania, Albanian, Ani Gjika, Bloodaxe Books, books, Luljeta Lleshanaku, Negative Space, Poetry, Translation
Posted in books, poetry, translation
Posted in books, poetry, translation
Come into the story
I’m on the way home from Gdańsk, from the choral festival which my choir achieved silver in the equal-voice category yesterday – we are thrilled. For the competition we had to sing two songs in our own language and two…
Tagged with: Finland, Finnish, international, music, Pentti Linkola, Poetry, Sirkka Turkka, Translation, Tule kanssani satuun
Posted in international, music, poetry, translation
Posted in international, music, poetry, translation
Hell, freshly translated
Lent starts next week, so what better time to get your hands on a book about sinners, in their infinite variety, and where they end up? The gates of Hell open onto what some might consider the worst of the…
Tagged with: Alastair Gray, books, Dante, Divina Commedia, Hell, Illustration, Italian, Poetry, Translation
Posted in books, Illustration, literature, poetry, translation
Posted in books, Illustration, literature, poetry, translation
The year was so new, it yawned and stretched…
I was in London over new year, and there was one place I had to go. The British Library to see the Anglo-Saxon Kingdoms exhibition. It is stuffed with treasures, including some of the earliest works ever written and translated…
Tagged with: books, Middle English, Poetry, Simon Armitage, Sir Gawain and the Green Knight, Translation
Posted in books, Christmas, Folklore, history, literature, translation
Posted in books, Christmas, Folklore, history, literature, translation
New Year: The Sea Migrations
New year. Will old rage fuel new hope? Why publish this poem again now? Thirst was translated by Clare Pollard in 2017, but Asha Lul Mohamud Yusuf wrote it earlier. After more than two decades in the UK, she has…
Tagged with: Asha Lul Mohamud Yusuf, Bloodaxe Books, Clare Pollard, migration, PEN Translates, Poetry, Poetry Translation Centre, Simon Armitage, Somali, The Sea Migrations Tahriib, Translation
Posted in books, international, poetry, translation
Posted in books, international, poetry, translation
