Ruby Street

A publishing house in the Ukraine, Krok , have just released an e-anthology in English and Ukrainian featuring 20 Australian & 20 Ukrainian contemporary poets , plus a small selection of images by Ukrainian and Australian photographers. Called Contemporary Poetry of Ukraine and Australia , it has been edited by Les Wicks, Yury Zavadsky and Grigory Semenchuk. Australian poets include Susan Bradley-Smith, joanne burns, Michelle Cahill, Susan Hampton, Andy Jackson, Kit Kelen, Cath Kenneally, Anthony Lawrence and Peter Minter, and photographers include Cath Phillips and Annette Willis. Ukrainian poets include Serhiy Zhadan, Pavlo Hirnyk, Iryna Shuvalova, Natalka Bilotserkivets, Kateryna Babkina, Vasyl Makhno and Yuri Andrukhovych. The book is available as a pdf download . It's free, it's easy and it's good.

Apparently, I have been translated into Turkish . I came across the above site today, just as I was preparing some work for a translation I do know about, into Chinese.

Hay(na)ku from The First Hay(na)ku Anthology have been translated into Spanish and available at Periodico de Poesia associated with the National Autonomous University of Mexico/Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México (UNAM). On the site are translations (and originals) by: Michael Chmielecki Craig Freeman Harry K. Stammer Crag Hill Jill Jones Tom Beckett Sheila E. Murphy The translators are Argel Corpus, Rebeka Lembo, Liliana Andrade, Itzel Rivas, Melisa Larios, Alfredo Villegas, Luis Felipe Alvarez, Alejandra Navarrete, María González de León, and Álvaro García. They are part of UNAM's Faculty of Literature and Philosophy/Facultad de Filosofía y Letras.

Richard Lopez dropped by a few days ago and left interesting comments about translation and internationalism. Like him, my translation projects aren't necessarily in languages I know well, or at all. I only really know English but rely on other versions, transliterations, dictionaries and other aids. Yet I also feel that much of the poetry that interest me is in languages other than English. One of the first books of poetry I ever ever bought was a selection of Montale's poems in English - one of those Penguin Modern European Poets series. For instance, at the moment I am reading translations of the Cuban exile poet José Kozer, a volume entitled Stet: Selected Poems of José Kozer , translated by Mark Weiss and available through Mark's Junction Press. I had heard of Kozer, specifically but not only from from Mark, but had never read much in translation. Now I can and am loving what I am reading so far. And, like Richard, I get something from the old Chinese poets, I have t...

I was re-reading some of Yves Bonnefoy's poems, for other reasons, and came upon this interesting essay by Hoyt Rogers on Bonnefoy and translation. The problem discussed begins with the translation of 'boat' as one of Bonnefoy's fundamental metaphors. For he uses barque not bateau , and that makes all the difference. Bonnefoy says: "The more a translation interprets a poem by making it explicit, the more it reflects the translator, with all his or her differences from the author. But to be truly faithful, we have to be free. And do we have any freedom if we are not entitled, every now and then, to leap ahead of ourselves as we read? To translate does not mean to repeat: it means to be won over; and that only happens when we put our own thoughts to the test as we proceed." I put all the above on my translation blog latitudes but thought it may be of interest here. I would like to know what it is to be free.

I really liked these pieces from Raoul Vaneigem's Journal Imaginaire , translated by Pierre Joris at nomadics .

I've added a couple of new posts to my blog on translation, latitudes , after a rather long hiatus. They include pointers to useful references on translating classical Chinese poetry, an 'imitation' of Mandelstam by Rosemary Dobson and David Campbell, and my version of a well-known Montale poem. And - my newest translation, of a well-known poem by Du Fu.

Anny Ballardini has just posted some information about works she has selected for the Wood of the Poets project in Italy. Below is the beginning of Anny’s note. The full press release in English and Italian can be read on her blog narcissus works . “I accepted the kind invitation by Lorenzo Menguzzato, in art LOME, to contribute to his Wood of the Poets with eight chosen Authors taken from the Poets' Corner. The gathering will take place tomorrow [5th June 2006] ... The work Lorenzo Menguzzato has been bringing forth is unbelievable. Last year his effort was awarded with the Telecom Prize and a notable amount of money he spent in tractors and trucks ... "I finally translated the press release I sent to Lome; to follow the original one in Italian. Foreign Poets Section "Upon the kind invitation of Lorenzo Menguzzato to open a new section at the Wood of the Poets dedicated to foreign authors, I chose the following poets: Douglas Clark Jon Corelis Joel Weishaus Fan Ogilvie ...