Poem review + recent translation at the PTC

A thoughtful review of my poem 'Carousel', recently published by Strange Horizons, appeared on Charles Payseur's Quick Sip Reviews, and you can read it here: https://quicksipreviews.blogspot.com/2018/06/quick-sips-strange-horizons-06182018.html

In translation news, I joined the Poetry Translation Centre workshop a few weeks ago to help translate an Arabic prose poem, 'Savannah' by Amjad Nasser. I was really pleased that a few sixth-formers (that's high school...ish...for the North Americans) joined the workshop with their teacher, made interesting contributions, and evidently enjoyed it.

Poets After Dark/Light Show at the Hayward Gallery: This Is Your Brain On Poetry and Art

Hayward Gallery, London, Southbank. Photo by Aurelien Guichard. Used under Creative Commons license



On Monday night I went to the Light Show exhibition at the Hayward Gallery, Southbank - which on Monday and Tuesday was also the setting for Poets After Dark, where ten poets commissioned to write about some of the artworks read their poems. (You can find pictures from the show, and more information, at Hayward Light Show.)

I carried away a medley of impressions. There were moments when I thought the concept wasn't working that well, and others when I was completely caught up in the experience. I suspect that a certain amount of adjustment was required. I am much more used to experiencing art on its own, or poetry on its own (whether at a reading, or reading it on my own) - not the two at the same time, and I occasionally felt what I think was mild sensory overload. In at least some cases, though, the art/poetry interaction was one I wouldn't have missed.

The experience felt like being in a sort of poetic funhouse. There were moments, amidst the dark rooms, the mirrors and the strobe lights, and the poems, where I expected the floor to move beneath my feet. I was intrigued to hear Kate Tempest read, alongside Leo Villareal's cascading column of light, Cylinder II - her poem was one which closely observed the reactions of people she had watched as they looked at the artwork, as well as her own reactions. Kate Tempest  has just won the 2013 Ted Hughes Award for new poetry, for her work Brand New Ancients - she falls into the "spoken word artist" area of poetry, which is not (so far) entirely my cup of tea, but her passion was fascinating. I loved Amjad Nasser's poem (which he read in Arabic, followed by an English translation) about the death of a family member and exploring related concepts of light, but I was unsure whether the accompanying artwork did much for me. Mimi Khalvati read a very sensuous poem amidst the strobe lights of Olafur Eliasson's Model for a Timeless Garden, where fountains and water jets froze moment by moment into peaks and arcs of ice - overwhelming, but fantastic. I also felt that Sam Riviere's poems, which explored visions of a city through the filter of the digital age, worked remarkably well alongside the whirling shadow-cubes of the artwork by Conrad Shawcross. (Riviere referred to it as "the room of feeling increasingly sick", and I can confirm that I almost fell over when I walked through the door.)

You can read the poems and some comments from Julia Bird and Tamar Yoseloff, two of the poets who participated, on this link: http://www.poetryschool.com/news/poets-after-dark.php

Poetry Parnassus: 'Alternative Geographies' of Middle Eastern Poets

I went to my first Poetry Parnassus event tonight at the Royal Festival Hall, which was 'Alternative Geographies', an evening of Middle Eastern poets reading their works in Arabic and French, with English translations. The poets included the following:

Iman Mersal (Egypt)
Vénus Khoury-Ghata (Lebanon)
Amjad Nasser (Jordan)
Amina Saïd (Tunisia)
Qassim Haddad (Bahrain)
Hassan El Ouazzani (Morocco)

Some of the poems had been translated by Marilyn Hacker, who also read her translations in the course of the evening.

This was a pretty wonderful event. I was able to understand the poems in French (by Khoury-Ghata and Saïd), as French is my second language. For the Arabic poems, I had to rely entirely on the English translations, but Arabic is an incredibly resonant language and it was a pleasure just to listen even without comprehension, knowing that the excellent translations would help me to grasp the meaning and emotion.

These poets read with so much passion. I feel that many Western poets could learn something from their unabashed emotion and their dark/bright chiaroscuro of language. I was nearly moved to tears at some point during every poet's reading. One of the highlights was Amjad Nasser's poem 'The Phases of the Moon In London', where he finds the gulf between himself and one of his English neighbours hard to bridge:


I wanted to tell her that the skies of eastern cities, bent under military rule and corruption, are also blotted out, and that the stars that freckled our childhood with comets have also disappeared, but I feared to lose the only gift for which she envied me.


I was also deeply moved by Amina Saïd's incredibly beautiful, transcendent poems, delicately translated by Marilyn Hacker. And Moroccan poet Hassan El Ouazzani read with incredible verve and excitement. All of these poets ventured deep into difficult and dangerous territory, such as the ravaging of their countries by invasion and conflict, family relationships, and the quest for self-knowledge.

Here are a few pictures from the evening (lousy ones - I really need a new camera). First, Vénus Khoury-Ghata, who recently received the prestigious Prix Goncourt in France:

Amina Saïd:

And Hassan El Ouazzani:

The audience was a pleasant mix of nationalities and knowledge of languages, but there was an air of excitement and pleasure throughout the evening from pretty much everyone.

This was an awesome start to my Poetry Parnassus experience. More to come!

(Incidentally, the Guardian has provided an excellent interactive poetry map with selections from all the Olympic countries and the poets attending Poetry Parnassus. This is extremely helpful if you want to get a taste of the amazing range of international work on hand this week.)