Modern Poetry in Translation

MPT at Poetry Parnassus

3rd July 2012

MPT was official poetry magazine for the amazingly successful Poetry Parnassus Festival at the Southbank Centre 26th June - 1st July.  Our 'Parnassus' issue, featuring over 70 poems by Parnassus poets which we launched at the Festival on 27th July is available here.  Altogether we took part in four poetry readings and events with Parnassus poets and other MPT contributors.  On the first night of the Festival Kristiina Ehin launched our MPTPoets pamphlet 'The Final Going of Snow' at the Poetry Parnassus launch event.  David and Helen Constantine helped present the Ted Hughes Celebration alongside Christopher Reid, and Simon Armitage with a particular focus on Ted Hughes as a translator on 1st July. MPT also had a celebration reading during the International Poetry Fair that day.  Board member Saradha Soobrayen represented Mauritius as a Parnassus poet, and took part in several panels and readings.  Board members Amanda Hopkinson, Amarjit Chandan, Caroline Maldonado, and newly appointed Editor Sasha Dugdale were also involved in readings.  MPT also facilitated a poetry translation workshop.  

We greatly enjoyed meeting so many poets and translators who have been in MPT, and many others who we hope to feature in future issues. Please keep in touch.  You can see photos of our time at Poetry Parnassus below, and a bonus poem we heard at the Festival by the Poetry Library's Chrissy Williams here.  Our congratulations go to Anna Selby, Martin Colthorpe, Simon Armitage and the whole team at Southbank Centre who produced a magical week of poetic utopia.  The quality and range of the poetry was outstanding. 

Poetry Parnassus photos by Amarjit Chandan, Peter Daniels, Angela Holton and Deborah de Kock.  Please click on FlickR link to see captions and credits.