DUAL Poetry Podcast

Join the PTC's Partisipation Producer Bern Roche Farrelly and one of our Queer Digital Residency translators Jon Herring for a wide ranging conversation about getting started in translation, the interplay between linguistics and transition  and , of course, a discussion of queer readings of DC superhero. Who else remembers Chris O'Donnell's robin? But wait... what was the Queer Digital Residency? The Poetry Translation Centre (UK) and the Universidad de San Andrés (Argentina) partnered together to run a Queer Digital Residency programme to support two queer-identifying translators in 2022 and 2023. We worked with one translator based in Argentina, Paula Galindez, translating from English into Spanish and one translator based in the UK, Jon Herring, translating from Spanish into English. During the residency the translators received tailored seminar support, led translation workshops, produced a new body of translations, and generated videos reflecting on the translation process. They also both recorded podcast interviews, so, watch out for our Paula Galindez chat coming soon.

Right now in April 2022 the PTC has just released our latest World Poets Series Book ‘To Love a Woman' by Argentinian poet Diana Bellessi, translated by Leo Boix. So this week we are taking a little thematic inspiration and playing you four poems about desire written by female poets. You will hear 'Make Me Drunk with Your Kisses' by Maria Clara Sharupi Jua from Equador, translated from Shuar by Nataly Kelly and The Poetry Translation Workshop, 'Cat Lying in Wait' written in Dari by Shakila Azizzada from Afghanistan and translated by Zuzanna Olszewska with the poet Mimi Khalvati, 'The Lost Button' by Fatena Al-Gharra from Palastine, translated from the Arabic by Anna Murison and Sarah Maguire and 'Taste' by Ash Lul Mounamd Yusif translated by Said Jama Hussein with Claire Pollard. Remember to do as the Somali women would at the live readings and chant along to the repeating lines. Say it- "If he's not to your taste, he's just a blocked path!"

Today's podcast is dedicated to the poetry of Georgian Poet Diana Anphimiadi. Thanks to our working relationship with the translator Natalia Bukia-Peters the PTC has been translating Georgian poetry since 2013 when two of Diana's poems 'May Honey' and ‘Tranquillity' were translated at one of our collaborative workshops, then in 2018 Diana was part of our Georgian Poets tour alongside Salome Benidze. Now the PTC with Bloodaxe Books has published Diana's first full-length English Language collection entitled Why I no Longer Write Poems, with translations by Natalia Bukia-Peters and the UK poet Jean Sprackland. The book has received Creative Europe funding and a PEN translates award. Plus, Diana's work was described as 'gorgeous, fabulising verse' by Fiona Sampson in The Guardian In her introduction, translator Natalia says: Diana Anphimiadi's paternal roots lie in Pontus, a historically Greek region on the southern coast of the Black Sea that once stretched form central Anatolia to the borders oft he Colchis in modern-day Turkey. Her mother is Georgian,from the area known as Megrelia-Colchis, where the famous legends of the Golden Fleece, the Argonauts, Jason and Medea also originate. In this small area of the Caucasus, Georgian literature – and Georgian poetry, in particular, has always been of central importance and its legacy, the urgency of expression and narrative allusions, can be felt in Anphimaidi's work You will hear prayer before taking nourishment, one of several prayer-poems Diana has penned, Dance 3 / 4 time, not just a dance Diana tell us but an Erotic poem and Medusa on of serval poems where Anphidiadi gives voice to the women of Greek mythology.

Welcome to the Dual Poetry Podcast's department of births deaths and marriages. Reflecting our remit, the  department of births deaths and marriages will be playing you three poems reflecting these three themes: The Caesarean of Three Continents by Corsino Fortes from Cape Verde Death of a princess by Gaarriye from Somalia & the married woman by Adelaide Ivánova from Brazil The start of the new year suggested a podcast about fresh beginnings, renewal and rebirth. But this, of course, is impossible as all poems are about death, or if not death, perhaps poems are simply about poetry, about form. The idea that all poems are about death comes from Tom Boll, a Spanish Translator and lecturer who was once my boss at the PTC. He found that picking a poem to read at a wedding was near impossible because even love poems contain within them the seed of love's withering. It's easy to think there is meaning on one side and form on the other but its never so neat and a poem tends to meld these two stands lightly together like the curing phosphate backbones of a DNA double helix. As the translation process itself often demonstrates, you ask a question about form and you will get an answer about meaning.

The 30th parallel north links several countries represented in the PTC archive, Mexico, Morocco, Israel, Iraq, Iran, Afghanistan Pakistan, India and China even glancing off the far south of the Japanese archipelago, sweeping between Tanega-shima and Sumanose-Jima, while totally avoiding Europe. Just like the PTC. So to close up 2021 this podcast is a poetry collection of the 30th parallel north, featuring poems from the PTC audio archive, including: Entropy in Wiesbaden by David Huerta From Mexico, In Vain I Migrate by Abdellatif Laâbi from Morocco, The Boat That Brought Me by Azita Ghahreman from Iran Kabul by Shakila Azizzada & Stay by Yu Yoyo These poems are literally from around the world, points on a line that encircles the globe but the texts themselves shrug off such simple plotting, we will hear a Mexican reflecting on a German City, an Iranian arriving in Sweden, a Moroccan in lifelong exile, a Chinese poet dreaming of betrayal in Vietnam, and Kabul remembered from afar by a poet living in the Netherlands. This all reminds us that people, and poems for that matter, are not static pin drops on a map. People move about, meanings migrate, homes are lost and found. So to round out the year, a year with less travel and exploration than maybe we would have all liked, 5 poems from the 30th parallel north.

This week the Dual Poetry Podcast is focusing on nature poems. In the shadow of the climate emergency poems about the natural world take on a new significance, so during the second week of the 2021 COP 26 conference in Glasgow we consider now contemporary poets are taking on and reshaping the traditional subject of nature. Setting aside red roses, summer flowers, floral metaphors about love or odes to the glories of the countryside, rather we are looking to nature as a site of political encounter. So on this weeks podcast our poems in Turkish, Somali and Chinese are offered in that spirit, as a call to encounter nature as a radical alternative where the vibrancy and resiliency of nature with its cycles of regrowth and complex balancing of interwoven diverse systems offer an alternative to a destructive capitalistic model of endless growth driving towards an unsupportable monoculture.   You will hear I know the unspoken by Bejan Matur translated from the Turkish by Canan Marasligil with Jen Hadfield, Our land by Asha Lul Mohamud Yusuf, translated by Said Jama Hussein Maxamed Xasan ‘Alto' with Clare Pollard and Empty Town by Yu Yoyo, translated by Dave Haysom with AK Blakemore.   You can read Leo Boix blog Diana Bellessi: Ecological Subjectivity and the Poetics of Biodiversity on the PTC website. In fact you can read it in English or Spanish.

Dual Poetry Podcast is taking a look at Afghan poetry, with five poems from the PTC archive. We made this recording in September 2021, weeks after the Taliban regained control of Afghanistan following the withdrawal of Western forces. There is worldwide concern for poets, scholars and intellectuals still in the country, many of whom have publicly supported universal human rights and been openly critical of the Taliban The world recognises the importance of classical poets who hailed from this part of the world, towering figures like Rumi, and now there are important contemporary poets there that needs further recognition, support and shelter. Towards the end of the podcast, we will be talking about what you can do to help. All of these poems are in Dari, the regional variation of Persian that has developed in that part of the world. However, there are two official languages in Afghanistan, the second being Pashtu, spoken by ethnic Pashtuns in both Afghanistan and Pakistan. Sadly, we do not have any audio recordings of Pashtu poems to play to you but you can find translated Pashtu poetry of the PTC website. As ever we would like to thank Arts Council England and our donors for their continued support. Thank you for listening, please tell your brilliant poetry loving friends and inspirational relatives about the Dual Poetry Podcast and repost, rate and review.

Born in the remote Khojand province of Tajikistan in 1964, Farzaneh Khojandi is widely regarded as the most exciting woman poet writing in Persian today and has a huge following in Iran and Afghanistan as well as in Tajikistan, where she is simply regarded as the country's foremost living writer. Her frequently playful and witty poetry draws on the rich tradition of Persian literature in an often subversive and humorous way.  Khojandi was translated by Narguess Farzad, Senior Lecturer, Persian Studies, at SOAS and Chair of Centre for Iranian Studies WITH the UK poet Jo Shapcott, who has won a number of literary prizes including the Commonwealth Writers' Prize for Best First Collection, the Forward Prize for Best Collection and the National Poetry Competition. Persian poetry is rightly famed for the richness of its heritage and many classical Persian poets, such as Rumi and Hafez, are famous across the world. But little is known about how contemporary Persian-language poets have continued to enrich and enliven their tradition, a gap that the PTC sought to fill in its early days translating Persian poets working within the local variations of Dari spoken in Afghanistan, Farsi from Iran and Tajik from Tajikistan.

On today's episode, we are travelling again to Mexico to spend some time with the work of Coral Bracho, winner of the Aguascalientes National Poetry Prize in 1981 and a Guggenheim Fellowship in 2000. The PTC first published Bracho's work in 2008 when she was part of our Mexican Poets Tour along with Victor Teran and David Hurta. Her work was translated by Tom Boll with the poet Katherine Pierpoint. Bracho's early poems marry verbal luxuriance with a keen intelligence and awareness of the artistic process. Yet that artistic consciousness doesn't lose sight of world. Her poems have been seen as part of a neo-baroque trend in Latin American literature and in 1996 her work was included in the definitive anthology of contemporary neo-baroque writing from Latin America. Neo-baroque writing can be seen as the foundational literary movement of Latin America, with writers taking on the ornate literary and artistic styles of a 'transplanted' European Baroque as a way of disrupting more classical orderly forms of writing. Today's poems are Of Their Eyes Adorned with Crystal Sands, which sounds neo-baroque and Touches Its Depths and Is Stirred Up, a title that doubles as a good working definition of poetry itself.

This week we are looking at the work of Abdellatif Laâbi, who is widely acknowledged to be Morocco's greatest living poet. This week the PTC publishes My Mother's Language featuring a selection of Laâbi's poems originally written in French with translations into English by the noted Poet and translator André Naffis-Sahely, who has just become the editor of Poetry London Magazine. In his introduction to My Mother's Language Naffis-Sahely details Abdellatif Laâbi's biography, living through the end of French rule in Moroccan, then the oppressive 'Years Of Lead' that saw many  dissidents and intellectuals imprisoned or disappeared. Laâbi himself was imprisoned for 8 years between 1972 and 1980, during his captivity he was tortured and deprived of medical care. Five years after his release Laabi moved to France, where he continues to live. This week's poems are 'My Mother's Language', which lends its title to the new collection and 'The Earth Opens and Welcomes You' the last poem in the collection.  To get your copy of My Mother's Language, with an afterword by Yousif M. Qasmiyeh, directly from the PTC online store, for just £7 + P&P, head to poetrytranslation.org/shop.

Shakila Azizzada was born in Kabul in Afghanistan in 1964. She now lives in the Netherlands and writes in both Dari and Dutch. Her poems are unusual in their frankness and delicacy, particularly in the way she approaches intimacy and female desire, subjects which are rarely addressed by women poets writing in Dari. After working on the transitions with the cultural anthropologist Zuzanna Olszewska, the poet Mimi Khalvati said of Azizzada: She is a very musical poet,  tender and intimate, but also uncompromising in her political poems, and sometimes surreal – a poet of range and courage.  Many of the poems, or parts of them, were relatively straightforward to translate and, perhaps because of the European influence, seemed to slip happily into English.  Shakila's voice is not as adorned as some poetry in Farsi that I have read, and is idiomatic and sometimes humorous or satiric.  Don't forget to like, review, recommend and subscribe to support the Dual Poetry Podcast. You can find more translated poems, articles about translation and culture, as well as our upcoming program over on our internet home poetrytransation.org.

With his work translated and anthologized around the world, Víctor Terán is the preeminent living poet of the Isthmus Zapotec. He was born in 1958. His work has been published extensively in magazines and anthologies throughout Mexico. Since 2000, he has also appeared in anthologies in Italy and the United States and he is a three-time recipient of the national fellowship for writers of indigenous languages, The PTC translated Victor Teran first in 2010 when he was part of our Mexican Poets tour, alongside Spanish language poets Coral Bracho, David Huerta. Victor Teran was translated by David Shook, who has gone on to translate over a dozen books from Spanish and Isthmus Zapotec and has produced short literary documentaries and video poems in locations including Bangladesh, Burundi, Cuba, and Equatorial Guinea.

This week we are bringing you two poems in from a series by the Georgian poet Salome Benidze, The Story of Flying and The Story of the poor. Salome was one of two Georgian poets who toured the UK with the PTC in 2018 alongside Diana Amphidiadi. Benidze’s poems were translated by Natalia Bukia-Peters with the UK poet Helen Mort and we published a chapbook of her poems called I wanted to ask you. 

In this episode of the podcast, we are looking at Hindi poetry. Late last year the PTC published two chapbooks in our World Poet Series featuring Hindi poets: The Cartographer by Mohan Rana and This Water by Gagan Gill. The poems you hear on today’s podcast are by Mohan Rana who lives in Bath, England and writes deceptively simple poems circling metaphysical themes. Today’s two poems are In Your Own Words and After Midnight by Mohan Rana translated by Lucy Rosenstein with the poet Bernard O'Donoghue. You can buy our Hindi Poetry Set here: poetrytranslation.org/shop/hindi-poetry-set You can donate to the PTC here: https://www.poetrytranslation.org/support-us  

In this podcast, we bring you poems that take the form of messages from afar, the poets are addressing loved ones but communicating to the reader as well, the implied distance between the writer and the addressee standing in for personal and emotional distance.  Kajal Ahmad was born in Kirkuk in Iraqi Kurdistan in 1967, Kajal Ahmad began publishing her remarkable poetry at the age of 21 and has gained a considerable reputation for her brave, poignant and challenging work throughout the Kurdish-speaking world. Her poems have been translated into Arabic, Turkish, Norwegian and now, for the first time, into English. Noshi Gillani was born in Pakistan in 1964. The candour and frankness of her highly-charged poems is unusual for a woman writing in Urdu and she has gained a committed international audience, performing regularly at large poetry gatherings in Pakistan, Australia, Canada and the US. Unknown outside the Pakistani community, the translations here mark her introduction to an English-speaking audience. Please take a moment to rate and review this podcast on iTunes or wherever you download.

We start 2021 with two poets from Afghanistan whose poems have narrative strands, one is a fairy tale complete with daemons and the other is a sketch of the life of an economic migrant who fears the host of his wife. Shakila Azizzada was born in Kabul in Afghanistan in 1964. During her middle school and university years in Kabul, she started writing stories and poems, many of which were published in magazines. Her poems are unusual in their frankness and delicacy, particularly in the way she approaches intimacy and female desire, subjects which are rarely adressed by women poets writing in Dari. Mohammad Bagher Kolahi Ahari was born in 1950 in Mashhad, Khorasan. His first collection Above the Four Elements was published in 1977. He published six more collections of poetry. Kolahi has developed his distinct voice inspired by lyrical and elegiac traditions of Persian poetry combined with his story-telling talent. Many of  Kolahi’s poems contain a narrative containing elements of folk tales and description of rural Khorasan. In his poems, he very often depicts the life and the stories of marginalized groups of the society like gypsies, petty criminals and labourers.

Translated by Atef Alshaer with Paul Batchelor. This October the PTC published 'Embrace' a dual-language Arabic and English collection of poems by Palestinian poet Najwan Darwish, who has been called one of the foremost Arabic-language poets of his generation. This collection includes many new poems and was translated by Atef Alshaer with UK poet Paul Batchelor. Listen to three poems from the collection in this podcast. To get a copy of the book head to the PTC online shop: https://www.poetrytranslation.org/shop/embrace

Listen to two poems from the Poetry Translation Centre Archive: 'Taste' by Asha Lul Mohamud Yusuf translated by Said Jama Hussein with poet Clare Pollard and 'He Tells Tales of Meroe' by Al-Saddiq Al-Raddi, translated by Atef Alshaer and Rashid El Sheikh with poet Sarah Maguire, selected for Black History Month. DEALS Our Black History Month bundle features So At One With You, an anthology of modern poetry in Somali and He Tells Tales of Meroe: Poems for the Petrie Museum by Al-Saddiq Al-Raddi from Sudan. Buy it here: https://www.poetrytranslation.org/shop/black-history-month-bundle ALSO use the code NAJWAN 2020 to get access to our Online Najwan Darwish ‘Embrace’ Launch event, a copy of the book plus postage and packaging all for £7: http://embrace-launch.eventbrite.com/

This week as part of the PTC’s Resistance Poets series we bring you two poems by Al-Saddiq Al-Raddi, a Sudanese poet who writes in Arabic. '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. 'They Think I Am a King: Yes, I Am the King' is from a book of poems by Al-Saddiq Al-Raddi inspired by the Petrie Museum’s collection of material from Meroe in Sudan. which was nominated for a Ted Hughes Award. The PTC Resistance Poets season looks at poets as political activists. This selection brings together four poets who are unafraid to engage with the urgent political issues of our day, sometimes explicitly addressing inequity and tragedy were they find it, yet often simply holding a space for reflection and joy amidst dark times and chaos.  Get the Resistance Poets Book Bundle here: https://www.poetrytranslation.org/shop/resistance-poets

Currently, the PTC is looking at Resistance Poets whose work is unafraid to tackle political issues. This week we are bringing you two pomes by Afghan poet Reza Mohammadi who writes in Dari. These were translated for the PTC in 2012 by Hamid Kabir and the Northern Irish poet, novelist and screenwriter Nick Laird. You can purchase the PTCs Reza Mohammadi’s dual-language Chapbook, containing 10 of his poems in the original Dari alongside the English translations as part of our Resistance Poets book deal. The book bundle includes 4 books from poets hailing from Eritrea, Brazil, Sudan and Afghanistan reflecting on issues important to them and their culture, but echoing wider global concerns. Order now from poetrytranslation.org/shop

Translator André Naffis-Sahely worked with Ribka Sibhatu for 10 years leading up to the publication of their PTC World Poet series book Aulò! Aulò! Aulò! While Ribka translates her own poems from Tigrinya and Amharic into Italian, Andre translates her poems from Italian into English and works tirelessly promoting her work in the anglophone world. In addition to her work as a lyric poet and human rights activist, Sibhatu has devoted a considerable amount of her creative energies to assembling and recording of Eritrea’s folkloric cannon which is then handed down through the ages in the form of Aulòs. This podcast brings you Ribka reading her Italian translation of ‘To the Sycamore’ and the fable ‘How African spirits Were Born’ in Tigrinya with André Naffis-Sahely reading his English transitions. This month the PTC is celebrating resistance poets looking at poets as activists and poetry a space for resistance Our resistance poets book bundle focuses on four writers including Ribka who are unafraid to engage with the urgent political issues of our day, sometimes explicitly addressing inequity and tragedy were they find it, yet often simply holding a space for reflection and joy amidst dark times and chaos. To order this book bundle go to our online shop.

The PTC has just published Aulò! Aulò! Aulò! a collection of poems and fables by Ribka Sibhatu with translations by André Naffis-Sahely as part of our World Poet Series. Ribka writes in Tigrinya and Amharic, two languages native to Eritrea as well as Italian and French. The poet calls her five languages her stepdaughters. She translates her own work into Italian and Andre, in turn, translates the Italian and English. The collaboration has been going for a decade since André began translating her work in 2010. At that time Sarah Maguire, founder of the PTC, invited him to lead a series of workshops on Sibhatu’s poetry. Ribka’s work includes short lyric poems and her more recent longer political works. Alongside her poetry Ribka has worked to collect and record the folkloric canon of the horn of Africa, a body of oral literature that was handed down for generations These stories are known as Aulòs, literally meaning: Please give me permission, I have something to say in rhyme! So today we will be playing you one poem and one fable so you can get a sense of the breadth of her work, this means it is a long 20-minute podcast. Enjoy.

This week the podcast features two poems by Cuban poet Legna Rodríguez Iglesias, both from her 2013 collection Sucking The Stone. The first of these, The Law of Dynamics, sees the poet explaining to Galileo why he can't to the Macarena. (Why? Because it is 'a dance for Satyrs and other sex-mad creatures.') while the second poem, one of two in the collection to share the volumes name, Sucking The Stone, references Lapis Lazuli the semi-precious stone that has been prized since antiquity for its intense blue colour. You can find more poems from Sucking The Stone on the PTC's free online audio archive of Legana's poems: https://soundcloud.com/alittlebodyaremanyparts. Also, the podcast announces details of our upcoming Online Tour with Eritrean poet and refugee-rights activist Ribka Sibhata. Find out more here: https://www.poetrytranslation.org/events/series/ribka-sibhatu-tour    

This week we have two poems by Legna Rodríguez Iglesias 'Farmer's Treasure' and 'An accumulation of dry matter that is slow after flowering but intensifies during the lactic phase' both from her collection Gimmer Spray. The exceptional skill and formal dexterity that marks Rodríguez Iglesias’s work in Spanish has been expertly brought to life in English by Abigail Parry, an award-winning poet whose debut collection Jinx was published by Bloodaxe in 2018, working in collaboration with bridge-translator and writer Serafina Vick. You can find our free online active of Legna's poems here: https://soundcloud.com/alittlebodyaremanyparts A little body are many parts by Legna Rodríguez Iglesias and the hammer and other poems by Adelaide Ivanova have both shortlisted for the first-ever Derek Walcott Prize for Poetry. Get them both for just £15  here: https://www.poetrytranslation.org/shop/derek-walcott-poetry-prize-shortlist-bundle Find our more about our online Ribka Sibhatu Tour mentioned in the podcast here: https://www.poetrytranslation.org/events/series/ribka-sibhatu-tour      

Contemporary Cuban poetry is as diverse and indefinable as contemporary poetry in any other country, but Legna does belong to a particular generation of poets. Generación O, formed mainly of poets born after 1975, is founded on the shared experience of growing up after the fall of the Soviet Union, when Cuba was launched into extreme deprivation. This week's two poems highlight Legna's use of humour. The DUAL POETRY PODCAST is focusing on her work for the next few weeks as we release a free online audio archive of poems from her PTC collection 'A little body are many parts' you can explore the archive here: https://soundcloud.com/alittlebodyaremanyparts 'A little body are many parts' has been shortlisted for the first-ever Derek Walcott Prize for Poetry. Get our Derek Walcott Poetry Prize Shortlist Bundle for just £15.

The Cuban poet Legna Rodríguez Iglesias was born in Camagüey in central Cuba in 1984 and currently lives in Miami, Florida. As well as poetry she has written theatre, short stories, children’s books and a novel. Her poetry has been translated into Portuguese, German, Italian and English. The DUAL POETRY PODCAST is focusing on her work for the next few weeks as we release a free online audio archive of poems from her PTC collection 'A little body are many parts'. This week we are bringing you two poems 'The Day I' and 'Red Room' both originally published in her 2012 Spanish language collection The Perfect Moment. 'A little body are many parts' an overview of poems from Legna Rodríguez Iglesias' career translated by Serafina Vick and Abigale Parry has been shortlisted for the first-ever Derek Walcott Prize for Poetry. Get our Derek Walcott Poetry Prize Shortlist Bundle for just £15: https://www.poetrytranslation.org/shop/derek-walcott-poetry-prize-shortlist-bundle

The DUAL POETRY PODCAST continues with its focus on the Cuban writer Legna Rodríguez Iglesias who burst onto the Cuban literary scene with all the ferocity of a stampeding elephant aged 19. This week we are bringing you two poems, Pure Jazz and Maggot People, that originated in her 2017 title Miami Century Fox, a collection of 51 Petrarchan sonnets. Last year in partnership with Bloodaxe Books the PTC co-published 'A little body are many parts' an overview of poems from Legna Rodríguez Iglesias 8 Spanish language collections with translations by Serafine Vick and Abigale Parry and this year it was shortlisted for the first ever Derek Walcott Prize for Poetry.  Get our Derek Walcott Poetry Prize Shortlist Bundle including both Legna's collection and the second shortlisted book published by the PTC 'the hammer and other poems' by Award-winning poet Adelaide Ivánova’s fro just £15.

This week's podcast brings you 'I must ask you' & 'Mad Dog Pack' both translated by Abigail Parry and Serafina Vick for Legna Rodríguez Iglesias' PTC publication 'A little body are many parts' which brings together poems from seven different collections of Legna's poetry. The collection has been shortlisted for the first annual Derek Walcott Prize for a full-length book of poems published in 2019 by a living poet who is not a US citizen. You can find out more about the translation process on the PTC blog, were one of the translators Serafina Vick has written a piece called 'Mistrustful Trust - Musings on Translating Legna Rodriguez Iglesias'. Find it here: https://www.poetrytranslation.org/articles/mistrustful-trust-musings-on-translating-legna-rodriguez-iglesias The Dual Poetry Podcast is (normally) one poem in two languages from the PTC. Please take a moment to rate and review this podcast on iTunes or wherever you download.

This week the Dual Poetry Podcast is breaking its form to bring you two poems rather than one. 'Thirty heads a day' & 'Graduate' were both translated by Abigail Parry and Serafina Vick for the PTC publication 'A little body are many parts' which brings together poems from seven different collections of Legna's poetry. The collection has been shortlisted for the first annual Derek Walcott Prize for a full-length book of poems published in 2019 by a living poet who is not a US citizen. You can find out more about the translation process on the PTC blog, were one of the translators Serafina Vick has written a piece called 'Mistrustful Trust - Musings on Translating Legna Rodriguez Iglesias'. Find it here. The Dual Poetry Podcast is (normally) one poem in two languages from the PTC. Please take a moment to rate and review this podcast on iTunes or wherever you download.

This week's poem is by Shakila Azizzada from Afghanistan. The poem is read first in English translation by Mimi Khalvati and then in Dari by Shakila herself.  Shakila has spent many years in the Netherlands and her poetry reflects both her Afghan heritage and her European influences. She also writes in Dutch and translates her own poetry both ways.  She is a very musical poet,  tender and intimate, but also uncompromising in her political poems, and sometimes surreal – a poet of range and courage.  Many of the poems, or parts of them, were relatively straightforward to translate and, perhaps because of the European influence, seemed to slip happily into English.  Shakila’s voice is not as adorned as some poetry in Farsi that I have read, and is idiomatic and sometimes humorous or satiric.  I speak colloquial Farsi and this of course was a great help as, with Zuzanna’s help, I could understand most of the original.  Zuzanna also recorded a tape for me of the poems we were working on and this, more than anything else, helped me to try and find equivalent idioms while replicating the musical phrases. If you would like to take part in the PTC workshop survey mentioned in the podcast introduction, please follow this link: https://docs.google.com/forms/d/e/1FAIpQLSdVydXD-N6nP-hSiZ7QYKAjWrJqCukmeQQPxcHWk_HPwZ8bDA/viewform 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.

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 Naderi. Partaw Naderi studied science at Kabul University and 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. 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.

This week’s poem is by Reza Mohammadi from Afghanistan. The poem is read first in English translation by Sarah Maguire and then in Dari by Reza. The prize-winning poet, Reza Mohammadi - widely regarded as one of the most exciting young poets writing in Persian today - was born in Kandahar in 1979. He studied Islamic Law and then Philosophy in Iran before obtaining an MA in Globalisation from London Metropolitan University. You have been listening to the Dual Poetry Podcast, one poem in two languages from the Poetry Translation Centre. If you enjoy our podcasts and would like to support the work of the Poetry Translation Centre then please visit poetrytranslation.org/support-us.

This is one of two prayer-poems from Diana's PTC Chapbook 'Begining to speak' Diana Anphimiadi quickly distinguished herself as an unusually imaginative, original talent in the Georgian poetry scene. Her work refuses the formulaic or expected response, wrong-footing readers with its wit and delicacy. In her acclaimed 2013 collection, Personal Cuisine, for instance she explores the traumatic experiences of recent years, yet the narrative unfolds as a patchwork of recipes, poems and stories. You have been listening to the Dual Poetry Podcast, one poem in two languages from the Poetry Translation Centre. If you enjoy our podcasts and would like to support the work of the Poetry Translation Centre then please visit poetrytranslation.org/support-us.

Today's poem is 'Aural ' by David Huerta from Mexico.  The poem is read first in English translation by Jamie McKendrick and then in Spanish by the original poet. Also, this week we have details of the PTC's first-ever online workshop season looking at the work of Yoruba Poet & political activist Ọláńrewajú Adépọ̀jù.  Sign up for these workshops here: https://buff.ly/3c28IY8  

This week's poem is 'Empty Town' by the Chinese poet Yu Yoyo. In her afterword 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. All this week the poet and artist Ella Frears is joining our PTC YouTube Takeover with a series of videos that mix the language of the YouTube Makeup Tutorial with seen short reflections on Yu Yoyo's book My Tenantless Body. Check them out here. 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.

Today’s poem is Fertile Truce the title poem from Legna Rodríguez Iglesias’ 2012 collection. It was translated for the PTC in 2019 by the award-winning poet Abigail Parry and the Havana based writer Serafina Vick. The poem refers to the national flower of Cuba, the Mariposa or white ginger lily. Also in this poem, you will hear the use of the English term 'grandfather' in place of the Spanish 'Abuelo'  This plays on the idea of foreign intrusion and interference: a vexed issue for Cuba’s revolutionary generation. You can buy our collection of Legna Rodríguez Iglesias' work from our online store: https://www.poetrytranslation.org/shop/a-little-body-are-many-parts The Dual Poetry Podcast is one poem in two languages from the Poetry Translation Centre. Please take a moment to rate and review this podcast on iTunes or wherever you download.  

here is a constant struggle in Turkey between being oneself and having to fit into a mould – a mould shaped by nationalistic values and imposed by a majority – which makes daily life extremely difficult for people who come from one of the many minority communities. This state of struggle and in-betweenness is described in the poem ‘Uniform’ – from school days dressed in ‘mouse grey’ skirts all the way to adulthood. The human suffering, the yearning for love and hope, portrayed in Karakaşlı’s poems is the daily reality for people in many parts of the world. Beyond specific historical and cultural contexts, Karin Karakaşlı’s poetry is a beautiful expression of the human soul: with all its darkness and light, including all the many shades of emotions and thoughts in between, seeking to build a common language through poetry. Canan Marasligil, from her introduction to Karin's Chapbook History-Geography The Dual Poetry Podcast is one poem in two languages from the Poetry Translation Centre. Please take a moment to rate and review this podcast on iTunes or wherever you download.

This week’s poem is 'Orphan' by Asha Lul Mohamad Yusuf from Somalia/Somaliland. The poem is read first in English translation by Clare Pollard and then in Somali by Asha. Asha Lul Mohamud Yusuf is a powerful woman poet in a literary tradition still largely dominated by men. She is a master of the major Somali poetic forms, including the prestigious gabay which presents compelling arguments with mesmerising feats of alliteration. The Dual Poetry Podcast is one poem in two languages from the Poetry Translation Centre. Please take a moment to rate and review this podcast on iTunes or wherever you download.

Translated by Nukhbah Langah and Lavinia Greenlaw. This week’s poem is by Noshi Gillani from Pakistan. The poem is read first in English translation by Lavinia Greenlaw and then in Urdu by novelist Kamila Shamsie. The candour and frankness of Gillani's highly-charged poems is unusual for a woman writing in Urdu and she has gained a committed international audience, performing regularly at large poetry gatherings in Pakistan, Australia, Canada and the US. Unknown outside the Pakistani community, the translations here mark her introduction to an English-speaking audience. The Dual Poetry Podcast is one poem in two languages from the Poetry Translation Centre. Please take a moment to rate and review this podcast on iTunes or wherever you download.

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.

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.

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.

This week’s poem is by Al-Saddiq Al-Raddi from Sudan. The poem is read first in English translation by Sarah Maguire and then in Arabic by Al-Saddiq Al-Raddi. Al-Saddiq Al-Raddi is one of the leading African poets writing in Arabic today. He has gained a wide audience in his native Sudan for his imaginative approach to poetry and for the delicacy and emotional frankness of his lyrics. This poem is included in a chapbook of poems by Al-Saddiq, in our shop you can also find his first English collection entitled 'A Monkey At The Window' published 2016 by PTC and Bloodaxe Books. 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.

This week's poem is by Bejan Matur. The poem is read first in English translation by Jen Hadfield and then in Turkish by Bejan herself. Bejan Matur is the most illustrious poet among a bold women’s poetry emerging from the Middle East. Her poetry engages directly and concretely with the struggles of her Kurdish 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 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 himself. David Huerta's poems frequently turn on images that are experiences in themselves. In an eerie piece, he describes a poem by Gottfried Benn: A flower fell apart in the middle of an autopsy and the doctor who'd cut open the corpse saw how those petals landed among the inner organs. This may only be a poem, but it takes hold of the speaker, removing him from his daily obligations. It is ‘something I must / come to terms with it won't be easy but I have to do it'. If ‘Poem by Gottfried Benn' recalls the violence of ‘Nine Years Later', it also revisits the earlier poem's cathartic purpose. Huerta turns away from questionable generalizations about history to concentrate on the experience of the individual. But he doesn't stop there; he casts a steady gaze back on the self that is the repository of that experience. This is not confessional poetry and he pokes fun at the autobiographical figure with his ‘imperious solipsistic moustache, / the hirsute landscape of minor characters'.

This week’s poem is 'With a Red Flower' by Azita Ghahreman from Iran. The poem is read first in English translation by the poet Maura Dooley and then in Farsi by Azita.  Her published book 'Negative of a Group Photograph' brings together three decades of poems by the leading poet Azita Ghahreman, it was also translated by Dooley and Elhum Shakerifar. find the book in our shop: https://www.poetrytranslation.org/shop/negative-of-a-group-photograph 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.

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.  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.

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.

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.

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.

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.