In which there are poetry, poets, and voices
- Reading, books 2015, 54.
46. My Voice, edited by Sarah Maguire, is a significant anthology celebrating a decade of translations by the Poetry Translation Centre, which translates works by African and Asian and Latin American poets into English (while further publishing the poems in their original language/script alongside). The book is just short of 400 pages and contains 111 poems by 45 poets in 23 languages (from Arabic to Zapotec), and is named for the poem My Voice by Partaw Naderi. All the poems are presented in their original languages/scripts first and then in an English translation, made through collaborations of literal translators with respected English poets. There are many other poems freely available on the Poetry Translation Centre website, although I personally find the format of the book easier to read. The quality of work is generally high, delivering readable poetry with artistic merit, and proving that poetry is not "what gets lost in translation" (boo to Robert Frost!). I’ve repeatedly dipped into this volume, using different reading strategies, since I acquired it nearly a year ago but this is the first time I’ve read it straight through and the experience was definitely worth the effort. There are additional materials including an introductory essay by the editor (9pg), nine short essays on translation (17pg), biographies of poets and translators (14pg), and three thorough indexes utilising four forms of indexing, lol. (4/5)
With a Red Flower, by Azita Ghahreman, PTC page
Wearing a poppy
leave behind those black clothes,
the flags of mourning,
the tired, disconsolate streets.
This is the only way forward.
Wearing your red flower
climb from between these handwritten lines,
turn from the empty space of this paper
and step into my memories.
Come! Meet me
in that shabby old house,
where now the pipes are rusty,
the shutters lost in ivy and long grass,
where cobwebs and whispers have
settled over everything,
where, after all these years,
sorrow is the only dustsheet.
Come back to me, hide your fears,
wearing your red flower, come back,
but take care that no one sees
the route that brought you here from Heaven.
-End-
The literal translation of this poem was made by Elhum Shakerifar.
The final translated version of the poem is by Maura Dooley.
- So, what are you doing, thinking, wondering about, reading, watching, making, or writing, that you don't usually post about?
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