Modern Poetry In Translation

Modern Poetry in Translation Magazine (MPT) celebrates fifty years between July 2015 and July 2016 with a programme of special events and publications. To mark the occasion, MPT is working with Bloodaxe Books to publish an anthology of the most exciting and important work published in MPT over the last 50 years. Speaking at International Translation Day in October 2015, Sasha Dugdale was joined by former editors David and Helen Constantine to discuss the anthology and look back over the magazine's extraordinary history. Find out more about MPT's 50th anniversary: bit.ly/MPT50

This podcast was recorded at the launch of MPT ‘I WISH...' and features Michael Rosen and Marina Boroditskaya in conversaiton with MPT Editor, Sasha Dugdale. Read an interview with Michael and Marina on the MPT Magazine website here: http://bit.ly/1Yge46E Read poems from MPT 'I WISH...' here: http://bit.ly/1KsAmw0

This podcast was recorded in July 2015 at a special celebration to mark the opening of MPT's 50th year and 12 months of events, publications and special projects. Find out more about MPT's 50th anniversary celebrations: http://www.mptmagazine.com/page/fifty-years-mpt/ About David Constantine David Constantine was born in Salford in 1944. For thirty years he taught German at the Universities of Durham and Oxford. He holds honorary professorships in English at the Universities of Liverpool and Aberystwyth, and was co-editor of Modern Poetry in Translation until 2013. He is a translator and editor of Hölderlin, Goethe, Kleist and Brecht. His translation of Goethe’s Faust, Parts I and II, came out in Penguin in 2005 and 2009. He has published several volumes of poetry, most recently Nine Fathom Deep (Bloodaxe, 2009); also a novel and three volumes of short stories, the most recent of these being The Shieling (Comma Press, 2009). He was the 2010 winner of the BBC National Short Story Award for 'Tea at the

MPT’s Spring Issue 'Scorched Glass' focussed on Iranian poetry. In July 2015 we held a series of events celebrating Iranian Poetry at Poetry International, produced in partnership with Southbank Centre and the British Council. In this podcast you'll hear readings by Hubert Moore, Nasrin Parvaz, Stephen Watts, Ziba Karbassi, Paul Batchelor, Karen McCarthy Woolf and Pascale Petit.

TEDI LÓPEZ MILLS Tedi López Mills was born in Mexico City in 1959. She studied philosophy at the Mexican National University and literature at the Sorbonne. She has published ten books of poetry including Muerte en la Rúa Augusta, published in David Shook’s translation as Death on Rua Augusta by Eyewear Publishing in 2014.

AMARJIT CHANDAN Amarjit Chandan was born in Nairobi in 1946 and studied in India at Panjab University, coming to Britain in 1980 to live in London. He has published five collections of poetry and three books of essays in Punjabi notably Jarhān (poems) and Phailsufiān and Nishāni (essays). He has edited and translated about 30 anthologies of Indian and world poetry and fiction by, among others, Brecht, Neruda, Ritsos, Hikmet, Cardenal, Martin Carter and John Berger in Punjabi.

The Somali-English Poetry Collective The Somali-English Poetry Collective is a group of five women: Abyan Cusmaan, Jawaahir Daahir, Karin Koller, Idil Osman and Marilyn Ricci, based in Leicester. They share a passion for poetry and have also produced a Somali-English book: Somalia To Europe: Stories from the Somali Diaspora available through: www.Leicesterquakerpress.org.uk or www.jdsaqal.com.

NIKOLA MADZIROV Nikola Madzirov is a Macedonian poet, essayist, translator and editor. His poetry has been translated into over 30 languages. He won the European Hubert Burda Prize for young East European poets for his collection Relocated Stone (2007). A selection of his poetry, Remnants of Another Age, was published by Bloodaxe Books in 2013. PEGGY REID Graham and Peggy Reid have translated and co-translated many and various texts, including history, novels, plays, film scripts and poetry. In 1973 they won the Struga Poetry Festival Translation Prize, and later participated in the few but very productive Struga International Translation Workshops. Both have honorary titles from Ss. Cyril and Methodius University and both have been awarded an MBE for services to literature and language in Macedonia. Their translations of Nikola Madzirov appear in his collection Remnants of Another Age (Bloodaxe, 2013).

SUJATA BHATT Sujata Bhatt’s Collected Poems (Carcanet, 2013) was a Poetry Book Society Special Commendation. Her new collection, Poppies in Translation, will be published in March 2015, also by Carcanet.

KAREN LEEDER Karen Leeder is Professor of Modern German Literature at the University of Oxford, and Fellow and Tutor in German at New College, Oxford. She has published widely on modern German literature, especially poetry and has been active in translation in the UK and beyond: including a stint on the English PEN Work in Translation Committee, the Steering Committee of the British Centre for Translation and on the Board of MPT. DURS GRÜNBEIN Durs Grünbein was born in Dresden in the former East Germany in 1962. He has lived in Berlin since 1985, working as poet, essayist and translator from English, Latin and Greek, and now as Professor at Kunstakademie Düsseldorf. He won Germany’s major literary prize, the Georg-Büchner-Preis, at the age of 33. Ashes for Breakfast (Faber), his ninth book of poems and his first in English translation, was launched at the 2006 Aldeburgh Poetry Festival.

CHRISTINE MARENDON Christine Marendon lives in Hamburg where she works with children with special needs. Her poems feature in anthologies including Jahrbuch der Lyrik 2013 (Poetry Yearbook 2013), and she has been widely published in periodicals. KEN COCKBURN Ken Cockburn has published two books of poems, Souvenirs and Homelands (1998) and On the flyleaf (2007). As editor, he worked on several anthologies including The Order of Things: an anthology of Scottish sound, pattern and concrete poems (2001), Tweed Rivers (2005), and The Season Sweetens / Die Saison Versüssend (2006).

ANA MARTINS MARQUES Ana Martins Marques has published two books of poetry: A vida submarina (Scriptum, 2009) and Da arte das armadilhas (Companhia das Letras, 2011), which won the Brazilian Prêmio Biblioteca Nacional and the Prêmio Alphonsus Guimaraens. JULIA SANCHES Julia is Brazilian by birth but has lived in New York, Mexico City, Lausanne, Edinburgh and Barcelona. She is currently studying Comparative Literature and Literary Translation at UPF in Barcelona. She completed her M.A. in Philosophy and English Literature at the University of Edinburgh in Scotland in 2010. She has been nominated for the Guardian and the Herald Student Media Awards in the category of Best Photographer. While doing her masters, she also works as a freelance translator, private teacher of English and Portuguese, and as a reader for Random House Mondadori. She is currently learning her sixth language and living in her sixth country.

Recorded at the Brighton festival, Angélica and Hilary read two poems in English and Portuguese, and answer questions from two GCSE students. ANGELICA FREITAS Angélica Freitas’s recent poetry collection, Um útero é do tamanho de um punho (Cosac Naify, 2012), was nominated for the Portugal Telecom Prize. Her first book, Rilke Shake (Cosac Naify, 2007), has been translated into English and German. She co-edits the poetry journal Modo de Usar & Co. from her home in Pelotas, Rio Grande do Sul, Brazil. HILARY KAPLAN Hilary Kaplan is the translator of Rilke Shake by Angélica Freitas (Phoneme Media). Her work was featured on BBC Radio 4 and has received fellowships from the PEN Translation Fund and Itaú Cultural. She is translating a collection of short stories by Paloma Vidal.

Paulo Leminski (1944-1989) was a writer of prose, poetry, literary criticism and translation. His first publications appeared in Invenção, a journal of the Brazilian Concretist poets. Leminski later engaged with Brazilian counter-cultural movements of the 1960's and 1970's. His extensive body of poetry was collected in 2013's Toda Poesia. Readings by: JAMES DUNCAN Jamie Duncan is currently completing a Ph.D. in Linguistics at Lancaster University. He publishes poetry in English and Portuguese through The Pedestrian Sounds Press. WELLINGTON DIAS Born in the Amazonian state of Amapá, Wellington Dias graduated in Performance Art at the Federal University of Rio de Janeiro (UNIRIO). He co-founded the Rio based collective Bando Filhotes de Leão (RJ).

This recording was made at the Saison Poetry Library, a public event that formed part of the British Council's Korea Market Focus at the London Book Fair. The event celebrated the publication of Kim Hyesoon's poetry in the mpt 'Twisted Angels', and the launch of 'I'm OK, I'm Pig!', published by Bloodaxe in April 2014. For more information: www.mptmagazine.com http://www.bloodaxebooks.com/titlepage.asp?isbn=1780371020 www.britishcouncil.org/KoreaMarketFocus

In this podcast, Seán Hewitt reads and discusses his translation of Ciaran Carson's only published poem in Irish. Seán Hewitt was born 1990, read English at Girton College, Cambridge, and is currently studying for an MA Irish Studies at the University of Liverpool. He translates from the Irish.

Wojciech Bonowicz is a poet, a columnist and an editor and an author of six poetry volumes. The most recent is 'Polish Signs' (2010). His volume 'High Seas' was awarded the prestigious Gdynia Literary Prize (2007). He is also an essayist and literary critic working for one of the most influential Polish weeklies, 'Tygodnik Powszechny'.and for the monthly 'Znak'. In this podcast, Bonowicz discusses trends in Polish poetry and focusses on Krystyna Milobedzka as an example of this. This podcast was recorded at Europe House.

Elżbieta Wójcik-Leese reads a six-word poem by Krystyna Miłobędzka in English and Polish, then discusses her arrival at the word 'transparenting' which runs vertically through the centre of the poem. Talking to MPT Editor Sasha Dugdale, Elżbieta then discusses how the poem's typographical layout in MPT's 'Secret Agents of Sense' becomes central to it's translated meaning.

A reading of Polish poet Justyna Bargielska's 'Two mirrors, one of which magnifies' from Elżbieta Wójcik-Leese and the English translation from Maria Jastrzębska. Followed by a discussion with Sasha Dugdale on poetry translation, neologisms and the origin of the 'tantrum tour'...

Claudiu Komartin, born in 1983, is a Romanian poet and translator. His fourth book, Cobalt, came out in May 2013. Between 2011–2012 he was resident writer at the Romanian Cultural Institute in London and his extended ‘Poem For Pop’ was published in the UK in Long Poem Magazine in 2011. He edits the review Poesis International. Stephen Watts is a poet, editor and translator. His most recent work is Mountain Language/Lingua di montagna (Hearing Eye 2009). He edited the Punjabi poet Amarjit Chandan’s Sonata For Four Hands and co-translated Meta Kušar’s Ljubljana (both from Arc Publications 2010). He is also co-translating, with Cristina Viti, a short novel by Reza Baraheni.