Modern Poetry in Translation

Transitions, Series 3 Number 18

Edited by David Constantine, Helen Constantine, Sasha Dugdale

This is the final issue of MPT to be edited by David and Helen Constantine. It features the last of their inspiring editorial essays and a host of surprising and wonderful poems from all over the world. 

‘Transitions’, is jointly edited by David and Helen Constantine and the poet and translator Sasha Dugdale, who will succeed them as Editor from 2013. So in that obvious sense this autumn issue is transitional. It addresses the whole concept of transition in as many ways as possible. First as it might be applied to the theory and practice of translation itself, the going across from one language and from one text to another, from native to foreign, to and fro. Some translators actually strive to make their translation a thing in transition, partaking of both worlds and hovering between the foreign and the native. Many feel translations to be always ‘transitional’, since most (unlike the texts being translated) date quickly, and have to be done again for new readers coming along in successive generations. More widely: if, as Heraclitus thought, ‘eveything moves and flows’, no writing true to life can desire fixity, let alone achieve it; and some poets have made a virtue of the fact that everything is in flux. 

In this issue translated poems, short essays, and anecdotes address the idea of transition. This volume celebrates movement, flux, change, the eternal (and hopeful) possibility of moving on out of forms and ways of thinking that have lost their liberating and enlivening force, and into new ones, that will work. By its very diversity MPT always has acted against set minds. ‘Transitions’ is proof and promise that it always will.

Highlights include: 

Poems by Ko Un who is reading at the Aldeburgh Poetry Festival and whose collection First Person Sorrowful is appearing with Bloodaxe this Autumn.

Julith Jedamus's translations of Lorca's Romances.

New translations of Philippe Jaccottet by C K Stead and David Harsent's poems after Yiannis Ritsos.

East German poet Heinz Czechowski in fresh translations by Ian Hilton and Ken Cockburn.

Launch

We will launch our 'Transitions' issue at Lumen URC, 88 Tavistock Place, WC1H 9RS, on Tuesday 20th November 2012. Doors open at 6.30pm. Entrance £5 / £4. Proceeds from the evening go to Camden's Cold Weather Shelter.  All welcome.

Reading hightlights from the issue and other poems will be:

Julith Jedamus, Vidyan Ravinthiran, Jonathan Waley, Sasha Dugdale and David and Helen Constantine.

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In Transitions

Poetry and Features

Editorial

Giovanni Pascali, two poems, translated by Taije Silverman and Marina Della Putta Johnston

Wojciech Bonowicz, seven poems, translated from the Polish by Elżbieta Wójcik-Leese 

Jim Pascual Agustin, five poems, translated from the Filipino by the author 

Jo Balmer, ‘Charon’s Roll’ 

M. R. Peacocke, ‘Théâtre de Poche, 1951’ 

Roni Margulies, ‘The Apollo Years’, translated from the Turkish by the author 

Peter Swanborn, six poems, translated from the Dutch by Thea Summerfield 

Sohrab Sepehri, three poems, translated from the Farsi by Shokoofeh Rajabzadeh 

Alfonso Reyes, three poems, translated from the Spanish by Timothy Adès 

Mordechai Geldman, two poems, translated from the Hebrew by Tsipi Keller 

Tomás Morel, ‘Si no Fuera por Taita’, translated from the Dominican Republic mountain dialect of the Cibao into an Elizabethan-Appalachian English by Stephen P. Gross 

Lal Singh Dil, five poems, translated from the Punjabi by Trilok Chand Ghai 

Beppe Salvia, four poems, translated from the Italian by Nicholas Benson 

Heinz Czechowski, three poems, translated from the German by Ken Cockburn 

Heinz Chechowski, three poems, translated from the German by Ian Hilton 

Ami, four poems, translated from the Chinese by Matt Bryden

An Old High German Album, texts from early German poetry, translated by Philip Wilson 

David Harsent, four poems after Yiannis Ritsos

Andrey Voznesensky, ‘Ballad of the Year 1941’, translated from the Russian by Alex Cigale

Federico García Lorca, two poems, translated from the Spanish by Julith Jedamus 

Margaret Wilmot, On The Richness Of Not Knowing German 

Poems from the Puṟanāṉūṟu, translated from the Tamil by Vidyan and Thirunavukkarasu Ravinthiran

Božica Jelušić, ‘Thirty-five lines for a postscript’, translated from the Croatian by Dasha C. Nisula 

Noshin Shahrokhi, ‘Exile’, translated from the Farsi by Nasrin Parvaz and Hubert Moore

Chus Pato, ‘Grapes are like Paradise’, translated from the Gallego by David Pollard 

Su Shi, four poems, translated from the Chinese by Jonathan Waley

Naomi Jaffa, Aldeburgh 2012: The Year of Transition 

Ko Un, four poems, translated from the Korean by Brother Anthony of Taizé and Lee Sang-Wha

Photos from Poetry Parnassus

Harry Guest, three translations from the French

René Char, three texts, translated from the French by Fabienne Bonnet 

Larissa Miller, three poems, translated from the Russian by Richard McKane and Boris Altshuler

Philippe Jaccottet, poems, translated from the French by C. K. Stead

Reviews

Hilary Davies on Jacques Dupin and Anne Beresford 

Fiona Moore on Antonia Pozzi and Antonella Zagaroli 

Annie McDermott on José Kozer 

Paul Blake on Cornish and Breton poetry 

Saradha Soobrayen, Further Reviews

Website Bonus

Website bonus 

Ali Thurm on translations of Louis-René Des Forêts and Jules Supervielle