The magazine of translated poetry from around the world since 1965.
CALL FOR SUBMISSIONS!
Our November 2024 issue will have a focus on poetry from early modern to the contemporary. We are keen to hear from poets and translators working with the Catalan language and all of its dialects.
Deadline: 16 August 2024 https://modernpoetryintranslation.com/submit/
Only a few places left for our launch this Friday at Housemans Bookshop!
https://housmans.com/event/magazine-launch-modern-poetry-in-translation/
Poetry has always been critical to dreams of liberation. In these perilous, and calamitous times, we’ll hear from our poets about their liberatory dreams and rage. An archive of anger, dissidence, and rebellion, this issue features poets and translators speaking truth to power from Palestine, Ivory Coast, Iran, Nepal, Argentina, China, India and various other places and languages.
We are delighted to welcome our readers Leo Boix who has translated Liliana Ancalao from Argentina, Cristina Viti who has translated Batool Abu Akleen from Gaza and Yě Yě who has translated Jike Ayou from China’s Sichuan province.
The Poets:
LEO BOIX is a bilingual Latinx poet and translator born in Argentina who lives in the UK. His second poetry collection is forthcoming with Chatto & Windus (Vintage) in June 2025.
CRISTINA VITI’S recent publications include Pasolini’s La rabbia (Tenement Press, 2022) and An Anarchist Playbook (NoUP, 2024), a series of texts co-translated in her workshop at King’s College.
YĚ YĚ is the co-founder of Poetry Lab Shanghai, and has had two collections of poetry published. Her words have appeared in the87press, Pamenar Press, Voice & Verse poetry magazine and elsewhere.
ALL PROCEEDS FROM TICKET SALES WILL BE DONATED TO THE RED CRESCENT
As always, tickets are priced on a sliding scale. If you are unable to pay for a ticket please do not hesitate to contact us at [email protected], and a free ticket will be made available.
If you choose ‘book + event entry’ or ‘special bundle’, your copies of the book will be available to collect on the evening. If you would like to collect it earlier, or arrange for delivery, please contact us (postage is £2.95). Telephone 020 7837 4473 or email [email protected].
Doors Open at 7pm, Event Starts 7:30
Poetry has always been critical to dreams of liberation. In these perilous, and calamitous times, we’ll hear from our poets about their liberatory dreams and rage. An archive of anger, dissid…
Cover reveal ✨
Here's the cover of the forthcoming issue of MPT 'Salam to Gaza: Focus on Dissent and Resistance' - the first issue from our new editor, Janani Ambikapathy.
Cover art by Justin Moore.
Posting to subscribers end of July / early August.
Here's an excellent online event from Poetry Translation Centre!
Launching 'The Thorn of Your Name', by indigenous poet Víctor Terán, translated by Shook
Thursday 11 Jul 6-7pm (BST)
Hear one of the most important Latin American voices today, in the original Zapotec and translated into English
🌸🌼🌸🌼🌸🌼🌸🌼🌸🌼🌸
It’s !
To mark it, we’re giving away 20 copies of our latest issue, focused on the poetry of care, to readers in the UK.
For a chance to win a copy, all you need to do is sign up to our email newsletter by 16 June!
We are now welcoming sign-ups for the next : Writing the Poetry of Care.
A reading & writing workshop
Wednesday 26 June, 10am-12noon
Online / Zoom
https://modernpoetryintranslation.com/mpt-labs-writing-the-poetry-of-care
Led by our Managing Editor, Sarah Hesketh, this Lab will be a reading and writing workshop. Using poems in MPT’s most recent issue ‘Bearing the Burden of Sameness’ as inspiration for your own writing, we’ll consider different aspects of the act of care, including caring for others, the environment and self-care. Knowledge of languages other than English is welcomed but not necessary.
Capped at 12 places. Free / pay what you feel.
The Poetry Of Bargachan – Essay by Olga Ulturgasheva
'The Eveny (Lamut) are one of the Tungus-speaking indigenous minorities (around 15,000 people) inhabiting the Arctic and sub-Arctic districts of Siberia. Eveny economy relies mostly on such subsistence activities as reindeer herding and hunting. These economic activities involving dependence on reindeer contribute to and still play a crucial role in the Eveny cosmology, rituals, and oral tradition. The extreme climate of Northern Siberia, characterised by minimalist ecosystems, long winters and freezing temperatures, has played a fundamental role in creating the unique artistic imagination of the community and its poetic imagery. But above all, Siberian Eveny poetry has been informed by people’s everyday lives centred on human-reindeer relations and animist beliefs.'
From 'MPT Bearing the Burden of Sameness: Focus on Care'
See link in bio to read in full
Image: Vasily Bargachan, an Eveny man in a thickly furred coat and matching hood looks thoughtfully ahead.
The Poetry Of Bargachan – Essay by Olga Ulturgasheva https://modernpoetryintranslation.com/the-poetry-of-bargachan-essay-by-olga-ulturgasheva/
'The Eveny (Lamut) are one of the Tungus-speaking indigenous minorities (around 15,000 people) inhabiting the Arctic and sub-Arctic districts of Siberia. Eveny economy relies mostly on such subsistence activities as reindeer herding and hunting. These economic activities involving dependence on reindeer contribute to and still play a crucial role in the Eveny cosmology, rituals, and oral tradition. The extreme climate of Northern Siberia, characterised by minimalist ecosystems, long winters and freezing temperatures, has played a fundamental role in creating the unique artistic imagination of the community and its poetic imagery. But above all, Siberian Eveny poetry has been informed by people’s everyday lives centred on human-reindeer relations and animist beliefs.'
From 'MPT Bearing the Burden of Sameness: Focus on Care'
ICYMI!
Our online launch from Tuesday is now available on our YouTube channel: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DmYphlMJFd8
With contributors Rachel Rankin, Csilla Toldy and Şafak Sariçiçek. Chaired by MPT’s Managing Editor, and editor of this issue of MPT, Sarah Hesketh
MPT’s May issue ‘Bearing the Burden of Sameness’ spotlights the poetry of care. Featuring Rachel Rankin’s new translations of Brynjulf Jung Tjønn’s experienc...
Join us for the launch of our new issue!
Tue, May 28, 2024, 1:00 PM - ONLINE
Hear poems and discussion from issue contributors Rachel Rankin, Csilla Toldy and more tbc
Making translation happen: reflecting on three approaches to translating poetry Tuesday 21st May 2024 The PTC’s Erica Hesketh reflects on three approaches to translating poetry as she prepares to step down as Director and Editor.In July I’ll be stepping down from my role as Director of the Poetr...
Join us for the online launch of the new MPT with a focus on the poetry of care.
Tuesday 28th May
1-2pm UK Time.
Free / pay what you can.
With contributors Rachel Rankin and Csilla Toldy, introduced and chaired by Sarah Hesketh
Join us live on Zoom to celebrate MPT’s 'Bearing the Burden of Sameness'.
Brynjulf Jung Tjønn, translated by Rachel Rankin from Norwegian. Full poem available on the MPT website, see link in bio.
Brynjulf Jung Tjønn is a critically acclaimed, award-winning Norwegian author whose work explores the themes of adoptive identity, belonging, alienation and otherness. Discovered as a young child in Kyung San train station in the South Korean town of Gyeongsan, Tjønn spent his early life in Sung Rak Won children’s home. At the age of three he was adopted by Norwegian parents and moved to Feios, a rural, sparsely populated village in Sognog Fjordane on the west coast of Norway. Despite having what can be described as a quintessentially Norwegian upbringing – being raised on a remote farm in an area of Norway known for its idyllic natural landscapes – Tjønn experienced and continues to experience racism and prejudice from those who do not consider him to be Norwegian enough. In 2022, Tjønn published the deeply personal poetry collection Kvit, norsk mann [White Norwegian man], which outlines and explores the racism and prejudice that he and many other adoptees in Norway experience, despite living in a country which is largely considered to be among one of the most equal societies in the world. Kvit, norsk mann was the highest-selling poetry book in Norway in 2022 and received the Norwegian Critics Prize (2022), the Norwegian Youth Critics Prize (2022) and the Nynorsk Literature Prize (2022). These poems are taken from Kvit, norsk mann and feature reflections on adoption, Tjønn’s early life in the children’s home in South Korea, and experiences of shielding his young son from racism in Oslo. - Rachel Rankin
Join us for the online launch of MPT Bearing the Burden of Sameness: Focus on Care!
With contributors Rachel Rankin and Csilla Toldy, chaired by MPT Managing Editor, Sarah Hesketh
Online - Zoom
Tuesday 28 May, 1 - 2 pm
Free / Pay what you can
https://www.eventbrite.com/e/launching-mpt-bearing-the-burden-of-sameness-focus-on-care-tickets-907465392417?aff=oddtdtcreator
📣Four days left to submit to our open call with a focus on Dissent and Resistance.
FOCUS ON DISSENT AND RESISTANCE
In the next issue, our focus will be on ‘dissent and resistance’. Poetry has always been critical to dreams of liberation. As the poet Conceição Lima writes ‘[…] everything happened within the masts of the poem’*: poets have toppled capital cities, jumped prison walls, crushed their oppressors, threatened never to forgive injustices, and marched all the way to complete freedom. In these perilous, and calamitous times, we want to hear from poets and translators about their dreams and rage. We would like our next issue to be an archive of anger, dissidence, and rebellion. The theme is open to a wide range of readings: protest songs; poetry of social movements; meditations on the complex relationship between poetry and revolution; poetry belonging to a genre of resistance (e.g., ‘migrant worker poetry’ in China); poetry written by political prisoners amongst others. We invite all poetic modes of dissent.
*from ‘1975,’ No Gods Live Here’, Conceição Lima, translated by Shook
The deadline for submitting your work is 20th May at 12 noon.
FOCUS ON DISSENT AND RESISTANCE In the next issue, our focus will be on ‘dissent and resistance’. Poetry has always been critical to dreams of liberation. As the poet Conceição Lima writes ‘[…] everything happened within the masts of the poem’*: poets have toppled capital cities, jumped ...
'A girl is a peculiar kind of instrument: the harder
you hit, the softer her voice. Her body shrinks.
See the fine bones slip into their cells,
see the backbone wilt, the hesitancy
in those cutesy legs.'
Ester Naomi Perquin, tr. David Colmer https://modernpoetryintranslation.com/poem/care-advice/
XInyang Wu
Translated by Tuoya Wulan
Miss River Snail
Brothers:
One less river snail eaten,
One more wife will be given.
The quality of the flesh,
Speaks her gentleness and devotion.
Haven’t your hearts started itching?
Pity, the flesh won’t keep,
Spoils when left in heat.
A spoiled snail turns into a wayward woman.
The fleeting shelf life
Dates her love
Bestowed upon you each.
NOTES ON THIS POEM
As a contemporary reinterpretation of the Chinese folktale ‘The River Snail Maiden’, the poem reflects on the exploitation of care and the precarious status of female agency. It is first inspired by a photo of snails as a popular street food in China. Fried and braised river snail reminds Xinyang Wu of the goddess who transforms into a river snail to save a farmer from leading a wretched life. The River Snail Maiden assumes human form, finishes all the chores, and returns to the shape of a snail before the farmer comes back home. After discovering her true identity, the farmer marries the River Snail Maiden. A discussion in the May Fourth Poetry Club around the wordplay of the character ‘坏’ (corrupt, waywardness) further inspires the poet to rewrite the story into an allegory of modern love. By juxtaposing the eating of the snail with the taken-for-granted devotion of the goddess, Xinyang Wu questions the default kindness, labour, and sacrifice set for women in traditional imagination. ‘Miss River Snail’ dares to puncture the romantic bubble of predatory relationships instead of turning away to endure the suffering. When I translate the poem, the image of gluttonous, emotion-predators waiting to devour a bowl of snails comes to mind. Instead of drawing the action of eating the snail’s flesh, I wish to illustrate the cannibal nature of romantic connections that consume and imprison people in the name of love. One can rise to resist it as Miss River Snail does. - Tuoya Wulan
Najwan Darwish, translated by Kareem James Abu-Zeid
When Spring Comes
I told you I saw the land being led to the slaughter.
These are nightmares, you said,
they’ll end when spring comes
to the door of your home.
Spring was running late, so late
that my nightmare became
the spring itself.
I can’t bring the land
down from on high,
and I don’t know who hung her there,
and all I can find is my own self
to take my vengeance on:
‘You were the one
who hung her…. You were the one’.
Convinced it hung the land, my self
refuses to wake
from the throes of remorse.
Our new issue has started arriving with subscribers in the post!
MPT 'Bearing the Burden of Sameness: Focus on Care'
Cover art by Liliana Dmitrovic
Excellent event with our friends Manchester Poetry Library!
Launching 'Out of Sri Lanka: The Poetry of Witness' - featuring Vidyan Ravinthiran, Seni Seneviratne and Shash Trevett
Wed 1 May, 6-7.30pm
Tickets: Free
Sri Lanka has thrilled the foreign imagination as a land of infinite possibility. Portuguese, Dutch and British colonisers envisioned an island of gems and pearls, a stopping-point on the Silk Road; tourists today are sold a vision of golden beaches and swaying palm trees, delicious food and smiling...
CALL FOR SUBMISSIONS: FOCUS ON DISSENT AND RESISTANCE
https://modernpoetryintranslation.com/submit/
In the next issue, our focus will be on ‘dissent and resistance’. Poetry has always been critical to dreams of liberation. As the poet Conceição Lima writes ‘[…] everything happened within the masts of the poem’*: poets have toppled capital cities, jumped prison walls, crushed their oppressors, threatened never to forgive injustices, and marched all the way to complete freedom. In these perilous, and calamitous times, we want to hear from poets and translators about their dreams and rage. We would like our next issue to be an archive of anger, dissidence, and rebellion. The theme is open to a wide range of readings: protest songs; poetry of social movements; meditations on the complex relationship between poetry and revolution; poetry belonging to a genre of resistance (e.g., ‘migrant worker poetry’ in China); poetry written by political prisoners amongst others. We invite all poetic modes of dissent.
*from ‘1975,’ No Gods Live Here’, Conceição Lima, translated by Shook
The deadline for submitting your work is 20th May at 12 noon.
NEWS: We are delighted to announce that Janani Ambikapathy will be joining MPT as our new Editor. Janani succeeds Dr Khairani Barokka who stepped down in autumn 2023. We are delighted to welcome Janani to the MPT team, and look forward to working with her to continue our work publishing translations of the most urgent, and most brilliant poetry, supporting and showcasing a global community of poets, translators and readers.
Janani Ambikapathy was born and raised in Chennai. She was awarded her PhD in English from the University of Cambridge. Her recent poetry pamphlet ‘If Not Theirs’ was published by Veer2. Her poems, essays and translations have appeared at the Poetry Foundation, Lana Turner, Circumference Magazine, Firmament, Modernism/modernity and elsewhere.
Read more on the MPT website.
We are delighted to announce that Janani Ambikapathy will be joining MPT as our new Editor.
A wonderful, in-depth of Sasha Dugdale's forthcoming collection 'The Strongbox' (Carcanet Press May 24)
'The Strongbox is like the TARDIS, it is an immensely rich poetic world which, when you enter, you find is bigger on the inside than it is on the outside.'
Sasha Dugdale is the kind of poet who is as interested in the work of others as she is in her own. As editor of Modern Poetry In Translation between 2012 and 2017 she championed poets from all over…
Before the City Goes Under Water
Jaku Mata
Translated by Eric Abalajon
https://modernpoetryintranslation.com/poem/before-the-city-goes-under-water/
I apologize if I consider
the city and its establishments as my enemies.
But for you, I will set aside my
anger and bring you to its heart before the city
goes under water. We will start inside the buildings
where successful protest marches have passed by. We will
chase each other as fast as the flow of speeding jeepneys. We
will then rest our exhausted feet under the shade of the bridge. We
will consume history in a few bites of siopao.
We will greet the new souls renting the
vacant holes in walls that have lost
their former meaning. In city proper, the sea
has started to lick the streets. Flooding even if the
sun has been up since yesterday. On its last days,
I would like to gaze at my city with you beside me.
We will count the bodies in the bodies of water –
those who didn’t listen to the visions of fishes
in the river. Where fresh and salt water will mix. We will jump
from the rooftops of the jeepneys floating. And end the day
going home with you having learned how to swim.
SODÏQ OYÈKÀNMÍ
TRANSLATED BY THE POET
river
there is something about the grace of the river
that keeps me singing & dancing to the alto of her metal clavicles.
the rhythm of her gourd-rattle—the wavelength of her skirt.
but your uncleanliness is the broken chord altering the symphony
of this orchestra of godliness.
you who have made the body of water a septic-tank for your toxins.
you who empty your dregs into the belly of the river—
killing a thousand generations with your filthiness—
maiming the sons & daughters of the water deity. tell me,
what would you do to protect your own children from harm?
it is raining season again & you are praying to God against flood
with the excrement of yesteryears still on your palms.
listen to how the water laughs at your foolishness.
humans who have smeared their own riverscapes with dirt.
& what would you do without water? what would become of a child
without the amniotic fl uid in her mother’s womb?
this verse is a cowry of admonition—the dialect of Yemọja
telling you to treat water with dignity. listen: the same reason
you prepare indigo for your off springs
makes the cattle-egret adorn her own with white garments.
𝘛𝘩𝘪𝘴 𝘮𝘶𝘴𝘵 𝘣𝘦 𝘮𝘺 𝘭𝘢𝘴𝘵 𝘭𝘰𝘴𝘴,
I repeat each time
grief rips apart the sky
leaving me weeping.
I don’t want to learn
that we are each a sea
where losses come as waves
breaking, always breaking.
Co**ha Méndez translated by Harriet Truscott
https://modernpoetryintranslation.com/poem/this-must-be-my-last-loss/
Water Snake - Kim Seon-Hyang
Translated by Darcy Paquet and Sun Kyoung Yoon https://modernpoetryintranslation.com/poem/water-snake/
In an expansive lake
A woman with gold-colored skin
Stretches her body to another woman
And, wrapped in water plants, makes love
Eyes fixed someplace faraway
Her tongue that flickers like a flame repeats:
I am no one’s mother, wife or daughter
We are women of nature
In this place where not an ounce of weight exists
That spellbinding body!
A violent wave strikes the women
And at the moment of their climax
They turn into a water snake with two heads
And lay their necks upon the water’s surface
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NAJWAN DARWISH Translated by Kareem James Abu-Zeid When Spring Comes I told you I saw the land being led to the slaughter. These are nightmares, you said, they’ll end when spring comes to the door of your home. Spring was running late, so late that my nightmare became the spring itself. I can’t bring the land down from on high, and I don’t know who hung her there, and all I can find is my own self to take my vengeance on: ‘You were the one who hung her…. You were the one’. Convinced it hung the land, my self refuses to wake from the throes of remorse.
'A girl is a peculiar kind of instrument: the harder you hit, the softer her voice. Her body shrinks. See the fine bones slip into their cells, see the backbone wilt, the hesitancy in those cutesy legs.' Ester Naomi Perquin, tr. David Colmer https://modernpoetryintranslation.com/poem/care-advice/
The Garden Must Tend Me By Abdullah O. Jimoh Translated by the poet from Yoruba Last week, I did not attend jumu’ah because overthinking numbed my strength. Today, I flush tablets of hope down my throat with water and attend jumu’ah. I must not allow the chain of the past tether me like an anchor clasping a ship. I must rise up everyday with daybreak in the garment of the sun. I must shine to light up my dark world. I must burn the shrub of my aches and play with the cinders. My worries are feces, each time I visit the toilet, I flush them down the closet. Henceforth, I will not be the only one tending the garden, the garden must tend me too. I deserve joy, warmth of sunlight, and the coolness of water too. I deserve weeding away my sorrows to let in fresh breeze into my presence. I must make care scent in my ambience.
New issue alert! We are thrilled to share a first look at our forthcoming issue: MPT ‘Bearing the Burden of Sameness: Focus on Care’. 🖼️ art by carer-artist Liliana Dmitrovic Posting to subscribers early May 2024
'All Roads Lead to Rome’ captures the slippery nature of time: its relentless onward propulsion; its infinite circularity. Immersed in impermanence, we craft our own illusions of control—for better or for worse. Who has not heard the footfall of present-day gladiators ‘ready for blood’? Malta, like Rome, has seen its own millennia of change. Towers and traffic jams smother swathes of what was once fertile soil. Rome fell. What have we learned? – From the introduction in MPT Call the Sea a Poet: Focus on Malta
'The Wave' – Maria Grech Ganado, translated by the poet https://modernpoetryintranslation.com/poem/the-wave/ A number of times I’d set out to search for the wave that sweeps us all away. It was because of this I stripped you naked then threw your clothes haphazardly upon a rock with mine— and on tiptoe under the moon whispered to you between our kisses of a salt door within the wave. You pulled me close but waited in vain and, feeling cold, you dressed and left while I remained, licking the salt around my mouth with a dry tongue, still waiting for the wave that sweeps us all away.
Cover reveal video! Call the Sea a Poet: Focus on Malta Cover illustration by Daniela 'iella' Attard. Subscribe from £29 https://modernpoetryintranslation.com/subscribe/ VIDEO DESCRIPTION: A glitching illustration of line-drawn sparrows, emerging from wavy sea, similarly line drawn. Interspersed with these glitchy sparrows are frames of bold text, white on bright red background that spell out 'CALL THE SEA A POET FOCUS ON MALTA COMING SOON' The video then pans out to reveal the full magazine cover against a background of the glitching sparrow illustrations. The magazine is an illustration in black pencil, with a bright red background. The illustration shows a group of sparrows emerging from an endless sea, seemingly singing their song, while a traditional Maltese boat known as a Luzzu emerges from the waves. The sparrow in the foreground thinks about l-għajn, a motif seen on Luzzu intended to protect fishermen from harm.
COVER REVEAL VIDEO! Our Focus on Vietnam Issue comes out this month, look out for it, and subscribe at https://modernpoetryintranslation.com/subscribe/ This video is of Tea Nguyen's fantastical cover, featuring a blue landscape of plants native to Vietnam, and a woman in a red áo dài resting on a giant leaf. Gentle music plays as close-ups of the cover turn into the cover reveal, with the text 'MEASURELESS MELODIES: FOCUS ON VIETNAM | Posting to subscribers mid-April 2023'. The next frame says 'Read the best of world poetry | Subscribe from £23', then 'MPT | Modern Poetry in Translation | The best of world poetry'.
Cover reveal! We're very excited to share the first glimpse of MPT No.1 2022, THE FINGERS OF OUR SOUL: THE BODIES FOCUS Guest edited by Khairani Barokka and Jamie Hale. Cover artwork: Priyanka D’Souza Subscribe from £23 at www.modernpoetryintranslation.com
Did you know you can subscribe to the digital edition of MPT via Exact Editions? Access our digital archive wherever you are via your phone or laptop – and read issues going back decades! https://www.exacteditions.com/mpt (Thanks Exact Editions for producing this gif!)
CALL FOR SUBMISSIONS! www.modernpoetryintranslation.com/submit BODIES FOCUS: SPRING 2022 The focus of our Spring issue will be guest edited by Khairani Barokka and Jamie Hale. We would love to read new translations of work that engages with bodies, and the physical and social meanings of inhabiting them. Everyone is welcome to submit, but for this special issue, translators who identify as d/Deaf and/or disabled, and those translating work by d/Deaf and disabled people–encompassing various different terminologies in various languages–are particularly encouraged, especially from people of the majority world. We are also keen to encourage work that engages with multisensorial, multimodal translation, work in signed languages and transliterated alphabets, and through translational methods including AAC and PECS. Deadline: 13 December
Read the best of world poetry. The latest issue of Modern Poetry in Translation focuses on Mexico and is out now: https://modernpoetryintranslation.com
'The sea often blows deep thoughts Over those walking along the beach.' Today we share the final scene from our digital feature on 'Pure Love...' as part of the #Norwid200 celebrations! Read the short verse play in full, complete with bespoke animations on the MPT website! https://modernpoetryintranslation.com/pure-love-at-sea-side-bathing/
JULIA (Biting her pen) But I would at times carry over to my son A light explosion of enthusiasm!… OSMOND (Suddenly) Which could destroy the lad! * Our week-long focus on Norwid's #verseplay 'Pure Love at Sea-Side Bathing' continues! Read the full illustrated text of this verse play, translated by Adam Czerniawski: https://modernpoetryintranslation.com/pure-love-at-sea-side-bathing/
'Pure Love is a comedy of manners set in seaside France, with ferry links to Dover and glimpses of industrialised Britain. As in Grande Dame, Poland is completely absent and this places Norwid apart from the other three masters. Norwid’s reliance on the implied and the half-said anticipates Maurice Maetelinck’s Pelléas et Mélisande and Henry James’s late novels.' – From translator Adam Czerniawski's introduction to 'Pure Love at Sea-Side Bathing' by Cyprian Kamil Norwid. Read the short verse play in full on the MPT website: https://modernpoetryintranslation.com/pure-love-at-sea-side-bathing/ * To celebrate Norwid's 200th birthday, in partnership with @polish_culture we've published the illustrated text to the short verse play 'Pure Love at Sea-Side Bathing' in English over on our website! This animated illustration is one of a series specially commission by Modern Poetry in Translation, created by by Emma Brierley: Temporary Commons, conceived & produced in partnership with Golden Hour Productions #Poetry #poem #verseplay #polishculture #polishliterature #worldlit #animation #illustration
Day two on our animated feature for “Pure Love at Sea-Side Bathing”, Norwid translated by Adam Czerniawski! Link: https://modernpoetryintranslation.com/pure-love-at-sea-side-bathing/ * SCENE II Walter – Osmond – Servant WALTER Walking slowly from the sea No, this would have been common, Petty, mean and restricting. Would be – let’s speak honestly – stupid, If, when seeing one wonderful profile, One were to imprison his feelings, And turned others into a blurred background. A medal may have several profiles, Which cover each other like clouds Silvered by the moon at the edges. That doesn’t harm the landscape, Rather adds life to nature.” Read in full - see link in bio! #Norwid #PolishLit #WorldLit #PureLove #animation #illustration #illustrationart #illustrator #poetry #verseplay
[Read the verse play in full on the MPT website – see link in bio!] * Pure Love at Sea-Side Bathing CYPRIAN NORWID Translated and introduced by Adam Czerniawski * SCENE I Sea-shore in the distance, on one side, closer, a dairy in an arbour Julia – Marta JULIA Truly, Osmond says justly (His every word is reasonable) That humans are ruled by coincidences. For would I wish to leave So many days with no reply? Especially to a letter from lovely Auntie Ola, Auntie Ola, whom I respect so much! It’s easy knowing the time and place Where and when you write letters, Not knowing how and when they arrive. If a year ago Auntie had sent me An oddity like the one she looks after, I would have found time to take up the request – though it’s strange and almost frivolous – But a few days before that day, the eve, The letter arrived and I welcomed the deliverer, Who brought Aunt Ola’s most intimate love. I perform everything and yet I’m guilty Of not yet replying to her letter. And so I’m guilty for not finding a moment, When such moments before tomorrow are vanishing. So, I don’t remember when I last Spoke to you. * #poetrytranslation #worldlit #Norwid200
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When Ted Hughes and Daniel Weissbort founded MPT in 1965 they had two principal ambitions: to get poetry out from behind the Iron Curtain into a wider circulation in English and to benefit writers and the reading public in Britain and America by confronting them with good work from abroad. They published poetry that dealt truthfully with the real contemporary world. For more than 50 years MPT has continued and widened that founding intent.
MPT builds on the first editors’ extraordinary achievement. It brings together brings the best new poetry, essays and reviews from around the world. We aim to give voice to the silenced, exiled and excluded, and create a diverse and creative community of translators, poets and readers.
The editors of the Third Series (2002-2012), David and Helen Constantine, sought to widen and diversify the whole idea and practice of translation. They published transformations and metamorphoses of all kinds: down the ages, across the frontiers and cultures. They increased the rate and scope of MPT’s linked activities such as translation workshops, poetry pamphlets and public poetry readings here and abroad.
In 2013 the editorship of MPT passed to Sasha Dugdale. The magazine was redesigned, with reference to the original iconic designs of the 1960s and 70s.
The magazine is currently edited by poet and translator Clare Pollard, suceeding Sasha Dugdale in November 2017.
