Modern Poetry in Translation

After-Images, Series 3 No. 6

By David Constantine, Helen Constantine

This powerful issue includes a selection of “Brecht on the South Bank”, part of this autumn’s Poetry International, which marks the fiftieth anniversary of the death of the most important dramatist of the twentieth century. Here are translations and poems ‘After Brecht’ from leading poets ranging from Lavinia Greenlaw to Adrian Mitchell.

The editors’ call for ‘after-images’ conjured up a wealth of submissions, in their words: “poems after photos and pictures; ghostings and re-incarnations by other writers; conversions of ancient and foreign forms; memories one would be loath to lose, memories one might wish to erase.”

Their theme was taken up, to name only a few, by Mimi Khalvati who writes about “englishing the Ghazal”; Pascale Petit inspired by Magritte’s Reckless Sleeper; and there is a fascinating account of a workshop with ten translators working on the poetry of Dutch master Gerrit Kouwenaar.

At home, the greatest Welsh-language poet of the twentieth century, Waldo Williams, is translated by Damian Walford Davies, and Tom Cheesman explains Owain Glyndŵr to an Algerian Asylum Seeker.

This is an inspiring issue which amply justifies Fiona Sampson’s praise for the magazine: “Essential reading, MPT, with its sustained intelligence about how poetries work across cultures, has transformed the British landscape since its inception in 1966.”

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In After-Images

Poetry and Features

Editorial David and Helen Constantine

Brecht on the Southbank

Translations and Poems ‘after Brecht’ by Adrian Mitchell, Andy Croft, Lavinia Greenlaw, Ulrike Draesner, Iain Galbraith, David Constantine, Bert Papenfuss, Andrew Duncan, Albert Ostermaier and Tom Cheesman – introduced by Karen Leeder

Bertolt Brecht, four new Herr Keuner Stories and a short Reflection on the Constitution, translated by Tom Kuhn from German

Gonçalo Tavares, five stories, translated by Desirée Jung from Portuguese

Thomas Brasch, five poems, translated by Ken Cockburn from German

Mimi Khalvati, five ghazals

Damian Walford Davies, ‘Kilvert’, with illustrations by Lucy Wilkinson

Ellen Coverdale, two poems after Lorenzetti and Courbet

Pascale Petit, two poems after René Magritte and Leonor Fini

Jeff Nosbaum, ‘Ukiyo-e’, after Ryoi

Alison Brackenbury, ‘1.15 a.m.’

Tara Bergin, ‘Himalayan Balsam for a Soldier’, after Christina Rossetti’s ‘Winter: My Secret’

Oliver Reynolds, ‘MVM’ from Latin

David Hart, ‘He came mute…’

Andrea Zanzotto, ‘Hypersonnet’, translated by Peter Hainsworth from Italian

Tom Cheesman, ‘Owain Glyndŵr Explained to an Algerian Asylum-Seeker – Act V’

Robert Hull, two poems

R. Cheran, ‘I could forget all this …’, translated by Lakshmi Holmström from Tamil

Waldo Williams, ‘The Dead Children’, translated by Damian Walford Davies from Welsh

Mario Luzi, two poems, translated by Elizabeth MacDonald from Italian

Dorothea Grünzweig, three poems, translated by Derk Wynand from German

Vyacheslav Kupriyanov, four poems, translated by Dasha Nisula from Russian

Poems from Aldeburgh:

Naomi Jaffa, Poets and their Translators at Aldeburgh

Joan Margarit, six poems, translated by Anne Crowe from Catalan

Durs Grünbein, three poems, translated by Michael Hofmann from German

Peter France, In Memory of Gennady Aygi: Translation and Community

Francis Jones, Stroking Hands over the Heart (concerns Dutch)

Reviews

Anna Reckin on Yang Lian and Zeng Danyi

Belinda Cooke on Clive Scott and Ruth Fainlight

Josephine Balmer, Shorter Reviews and Further Books Received