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…
Blog Archives
The year was so new, it yawned and stretched…
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
Oh, to be in Finland, now December’s there
It’s too warm. It should be colder – a lot colder. It’s unseasonable. It’s beautiful, delightful, but it all feels wrong. It’s just all a bit too much, not cosy enough, not delicate enough, perhaps? Things should be the same,…
Tagged with: Christmas Carols, Finland, Finnish, Karl Collan, Poetry, Robert Browning, Swedish, Sylvian joululaulu, Sylvias hälsning från Sicilien, Translation, Zachris Topelius
Posted in Christmas, music, poetry, translation
Posted in Christmas, music, poetry, translation
Cold Mountain
Cold Mountain is a both a person and a place. A Buddhist monk, he brings the way to life through stories. He finds stillness inside him where he is. And he shows you, the reader, that you can do the…
Tagged with: Bill Porter, books, Buddhism, China, Cold Mountain, Han Shan, Poetry, Red Pine, Tao, Translation
Posted in books, poetry, translation
Posted in books, poetry, translation
Thomas Bernhard’s poems
Once he’d written them, he didn’t look back. He moved on to plays and novels, for which he’s much better known. He didn’t write any more poems for decades. Once he’d written them, he kept looking back. He returned and…
Tagged with: books, Collected Poems, German, James Reidel, Poetry, Seagull Books, Thomas Bernhard, Translation
Posted in books, poetry, translation
Posted in books, poetry, translation
VE Day #73: All that still matters at all
You might have heard of writing for the desk drawer, but what about writing for your jacket pocket when you expect to die, be buried in a mass grave if at all, and the odds of anyone finding what you’ve…
Tagged with: All that Still Matters at all, Hungarian, John M. Ridland, Miklós Radnóti, Peter V. Czipott, Poetry, Translation
Posted in books, history, poetry, translation
Posted in books, history, poetry, translation
Stormwarning
The storm is coming. The meteorologist knew it was coming. The title poem opens with a quote from weather-woman Birta Líf Kristinsdóttir, saying that tomorrow will be worse, which is not to say that today’s weather isn’t bad. Will winter…
Tagged with: books, Icelandic, K. B. Thors, Kristín Svava Tómasdóttir, Phoneme Media, Poetry, Translation
Posted in books, poetry, translation
Posted in books, poetry, translation
