Alice Oswald's Nobody at Kings Place, and Anselm Kiefer at White Cube

In the past couple of weeks I went to two events which were either poetry, or poetry-adjacent ("adjacent" is my current overused word) and wanted to write a little about them here.

Alice Oswald, who is definitely "the great Alice Oswald" and is also now the first woman Oxford Professor of Poetry (though not the first to be elected - that was Ruth Padel), performed at Kings Place on 17 January with live music by Ansuman Biswas. Oswald does specifically "perform" rather than "recite" or "read" - even her more conventional appearances involve her almost chanting her poems off by heart, unforgettable performances unlike anyone else's. I have written about seeing her a couple of times before, and this was one of the less conventional appearances. It started with a "sound calendar" or seascape by Chris Watson, and the actual performance was mostly in total darkness, although there was partial lighting for sections of it.

Oswald was performing Nobody, her most recent book, based on stories of water, humans and gods from Greek mythology. I'm only superficially knowledgeable about the Odyssey and related works, so I appreciated Nobody more from a sea-perspective, but the tales that washed in and out sometimes had an odd familiarity. Ansuman Biswas performed on the aquaphone, which reminded me of sea sounds washing into a cave, and also an enormous gong, which was overwhelming to the point of being almost distressing at certain points. The whole performance was mesmerising, thrilling and absolutely haunting.

Last weekend I went to Anselm Kiefer's new exhibition Superstrings, Runes, The Norns, Gordian Knot at White Cube in Bermondsey. I got in just under the wire - the exhibition had been on for a few months but was in its final hours when I went. I was very glad that I did make it, as I've found that Anselm Kiefer is one of the very few contemporary artists who I really connect with. I've written about him on this blog before, as my way into his work was through the poetry of Paul Celan, one of his greatest inspirations (and mine...)

The tangled, broken, cascading canvases and masses of wires weren't quite as enthralling to me as Kiefer's exhibition Walhalla, also at White Cube a few years ago, or the retrospective at the Royal Academy which introduced me to his work - although this was still excellent. This exhibition also seemed a little less poetry-influenced. But poetry was still there: one canvas took inspiration from Georg Trakl, another from the Kalevala, a work which brings together traditional poetry about Finnish mythology. In one of the books accompanying the exhibition, Kiefer referred to Ingeborg Bachmann's poem 'Bohemia Lies By the Sea'.

The painting below, one of the Gordian Knot series which featured axes, seemed slightly more optimistic than most of the other works in the exhibition (which probably tells you something about how "optimistic" it was overall: Kiefer is pretty shattering, almost literally.) I don't quite know what it was - perhaps the colours. I just knew that I felt a slight lifting of the heart. But it also reminded me of Paul Celan's poem 'I hear the axe has flowered'. You can read this poem in full, along with a few others, in translation by Ian Fairley on this link: https://www.guernicamag.com/four_new_translations_of_paul/

The Dreamed Ones: Filming the Celan-Bachmann Letters

Anja Plaschg, Laurence Rupp
© Ruth Beckermann 
Filmproduktion


Last week I went to see The Dreamed Ones (2016, directed by Ruth Beckermann) at Institut Français in South Kensington. I walked for over half an hour in a sleetstorm to get there - it's only been showing for a few nights here and there in the UK, so I was determined to see it.

The Ingeborg Bachmann-Paul Celan letters were first published in German in 2008, and a few years later in English translation. Prior to the publication of the letters, not much was known about the relationship between two of the greatest German-language poets of the 20th century (Bachmann was Austrian and Celan was a Romanian/Bukovinian German-speaking Jew. He is the very definition of 'hard to label'.) Celan and Bachmann met in Vienna in 1948 when he was 27 and she was 21. He wrote the poem 'In Egypt' for her 22nd birthday. They had an on-off affair/friendship, and correspondence, for 20 years, during most of which time they didn't see each other or only occasionally. Celan was married to artist Gisèle Lestrange when the affair resumed in the 1950s.

The Dreamed Ones (in German, with English subtitles) dramatises the letters by placing the audience in a studio with the young Austrian actors Anja Plaschg and Laurence Rupp, as they make a sound recording of the correspondence. That's all that happens. We see them recording some of the letters and bits of poetry; in between takes, they smoke, chat, flirt, and discuss the events and emotions behind the letters (for instance, why Bachmann chose not to send certain letters.) 

That's all that happens, but the film was beautiful. The letters themselves are almost indescribable; passionate, tender, thoughtful, wistful, paranoid, hurt... 

In mid-August I will be in Paris for just a few days. Don't ask me why or what for, but be there for me, for one evening, or two or three... Take me to the Seine, let us gaze into it until we become little fishes and recognise each other again. (Ingeborg Bachmann to Paul Celan)

How far away or close are you, Ingeborg? Tell me, so that I know whether your eyes will be closed if I kiss you now. (Paul Celan to Ingeborg Bachmann)

It does seem as though the passion and the darkness of the letters could be spilling over into the interactions between the actors, although this isn't explored too far. The playfulness and the silences between them illustrate something about how flesh-and-blood people interact or even fall in love, beyond the words. But this film is really about the words. There is something about the studio, and the faces (especially the eyes) of the actors, which create a space in which these letters can really breathe and live. I don't know how better to put it than that. The letters, beyond the pain and misunderstandings and imperfection, and the paranoia that Celan especially fell into, seem to achieve a spiritual-sensual level that I can't imagine many correspondences reaching, especially today. I just know that nothing really happened in this film but I didn't want it to end.

50 Years of Modern Poetry In Translation

Founded in 1965 by Ted Hughes and Daniel Weissbort, Modern Poetry in Translation has led the way in bringing the poetry of non-English-language cultures to readers of English, and in fostering connections and collaborations between poets, translators and readers from different countries.

When I started seriously reading poetry in translation a few years ago - and even translating a little myself - I realised that it was a much broader field than I'd imagined; not just in terms of languages and styles explored, but in terms of starting points, end results and journeys. Poets can (in the traditional way) translate directly from the chosen poet/language. They can also create a poem from a literal translation (without knowing the original language). They can translate alone, in groups, with or without the original poet. They can translate closely, striving to maintain accuracy and form, or they can create loose "versions" which are more like completely new poems taking inspiration from the originals. They can also delve into film-poems and other multimedia. Of course, there can be controversy over these varying methods, but they all have their validity, and this diversity means that any poet, translator or reader can find their place. I also feel strongly that they should find a place, even if it's just an occasional corner; the frequent lack of interest about international poetry and poetry in translation in English-speaking literary circles is sometimes depressing.

This kind of diversity has also been reflected in the various events and projects organised by Modern Poetry in Translation for their anniversary. They have released Centres of Cataclysm (Bloodaxe, 2016), an anthology of work from across MPT's history, edited by current editor Sasha Dugdale and previous editors David and Helen Constantine. They also held launches and events in various places, including the London launch of the anthology on 5 May at King's College Chapel, and two 'study days' in Cambridge and Oxford.

I was fortunate enough to attend the King's College launch, and the Oxford study day on 14 May. At the King's College launch, readers and those present included Carol Hughes (Ted Hughes' widow), actor David Bradley (who read Hughes' translation of 'The Boy Changed Into a Stag Cries Out at the Gate of Secrets' by Ferenc Juhasz), Malawian poet Jack Mapanje, Ingeborg Bachmann's brother Heinz Bachmann, Ruth Padel, Frances Leviston, and many others. The moment that hit me particularly hard was Helen Constantine reading Ingeborg Bachmann's 'Days in White' (translated by Daniel Huws):


There on the horizon,
brilliant in its destruction,
I'm aware of my fabulous continent
that dismissed me
in a shroud.


The Oxford study day on 14 May, at Queen's College, was a feast. I was able to catch up with some new and old poetry friends during the many tea and coffee breaks. We started the day with a couple of workshops, having been given a few to choose from. My first workshop was about translating from German, with German poet Ulrike Almut Sandig and translator/scholar Karen Leeder. Ulrike Almut Sandig's poems were fascinating - we watched a film-poem of her collaboration with New Zealand poet Hinemoana Baker, and heard/watched her perform her poem 'The fairy tale of Schlauraffenland', a weird, beguiling, disturbing game-show-set work about contemporary Germany and the refugee crisis. My own problem with trying to translate from a literal translation was that, although I don't speak German, I do have an inkling of it, and thus I felt a bit over-tied to the original without it being really useful (if that makes any sense at all...) Ulrike Almut Sandig and Karen Leeder spoke about the visual dimension of poetry, how 'mistakes' in translation can be part of the aesthetic (or, in the film-poem, geographical mistakes on an inflatable globe of the world), and how orientation in the poem and in translation involves both gathering and losing (like the inflatable globes being chased and taken by the wind...) When confronted with very culturally specific idioms or concepts, the poet may need to find an equivalent in their own culture, or go for the meaning, or go for the sound. Translating is so often about choice and compromise.

The French workshop with Stephen Romer was of the greatest interest to me because I actually can translate directly from French. He explored the different types of writing in French poetry and their difficulty or ease of translation into English. For example, the poetry of Verlaine, Hugo and Baudelaire tends to have a smooth, orchestrated, soft sound which translates with difficulty (although anything is possible...) Poets such as Gautier and Corbière featured a more staccato sound with more to "grab on to" in order to "English" the poem. These were invaluable tips and suggestions for finding poems which will translate well. We then worked to translate poems by writers such as Jean Follain and Valérie Rouzeau, and I made some discoveries both in terms of approaches and in wanting to look more deeply into these wonderful writers.

Lunch was in a magnificent hall in the college, in good company, and then there was a launch and discussion of Centres of Cataclysm and translation. The readers and speakers included Sasha Dugdale, David and Helen Constantine, Karen Leeder, Nikola Madzirov, Pascale Petit and Ulrike Almut Sandig. Pascale Petit read her fascinating response 'At the Gate of Secrets' to 'The Boy Changed Into a Stag Cries Out at the Gate of Secrets', while Ulrike Almut Sandig's poem about the Holocaust and the translation by Karen Leeder were particularly moving for everyone, including the readers themselves. This was followed by a session on Playing Brecht, where David Constantine and Tom Kuhn discussed the translation of Bertolt Brecht. Composer Dominic Muldowney, actor Claire Brown and director Di Trevis ran us through a fascinating rehearsal/staging of a Brecht song.

The final session was a launch of the new microsite dedicated to the first issue of MPT. This is an elegantly presented resource featuring extraordinary poems by the likes of Czeslaw Milosz, Zbigniew Herbert, Vasko Popa, Miroslav Holub and Yehuda Amichai. Karen Leeder spoke about Ingeborg Bachmann, who appeared in MPT 3 (there were no women poets in the first two issues) and the importance of highly literal translations in the earlier editions. Macedonian poet Nikola Madzirov read a wonderful poem written in tribute to Vasko Popa, which was a particularly awesome moment for me as Madzirov and Popa are two of my favourite poets. Vasko Popa, a Serbian, was a Yugoslavian poet because of the times he lived in, while Madzirov was coming of age when Yugoslavia was coming apart; thus, he said, there was a distance between them, but "there was something that brought us closer - it was the darkness" and the way Popa's use of mythology and symbolism was like "looking through the darkness and seeing the shapes of souls and objects." Madzirov, while (to me) a more tender and less potentially frightening poet than Popa, is a worthy successor. Ulrike Almut Sandig spoke about refugee movements and their parallels/reflections in changes of language, also reading a tribute to German-Icelandic writer Helga Maria Novak.

This was a really rich, warm occasion which I was delighted to be part of. I didn't get many great photos, but here are a few:

Ulrike Almut Sandig and Karen Leeder

David Constantine

Nikola Madzirov