Poetry & Translation by Bernadette Jansen op de Haar

 By chance, as you do on the internet, I came across this marvellous person called Sebastian Hayes, who was organising some most intriguing events at the London Poetry Cafe. They were about translated poetry but presented in a wonderfully enthusiastic way, so I became hooked.

When Sebastian decided he could no longer go on organising the events, I leaped into the gap and offered to continue. The one thing I did was change the name, but only slightly, to Poetry & Translation, because it is about exciting poetry, and translation, and how it inspires other poets.

I started off the series by inviting a Dutch poet, Arnold Jansen op de Haar, to tell us about the poets he had read in translation and who had inspired his own work, and he movingly talked about Philip Larkin, Ted Hughes, Czeslaw Milosz and Joseph Brodsky.

It’s always great if you can bring a poet and his translator together in the same event. For our September meeting we did just that: Flemish poet Leonard Nolens appeared together with his translator Paul Vincent. It was even more of a coup as it had just been announced that Leonard Nolens was the 2012 recipient of the Dutch Literature Prize, the most prestigious Dutch literary prize, which is rarely awarded to a poet.

On this occasion Nolens, in addition to lovely readings of his poems, produced a few wonderful quotes such as: ‘I only read work by poets who are dead.’ & ‘I normally don’t re-read my own poems, so if I do I want to be surprised.’

At our next event in October Norbert Hirschhorn [http://hollandparkpress.co.uk/news_detail.php?news_id=99] nearly had us dancing to the tune of a Yiddish folksong that in turn inspired his poems which re-imagine these songs. I was so taken by the result that we’re now working with Norbert with the aim of publishing them in late spring 2013.

Some poets just get into a foreign poet and have to translate his poems. This is what happened to Martyn Crucefix, who told us of his fifteen-year fascination with Rainer Maria Rilke, which resulted in two wonderful translations: Duino Elegies and Sonnets to Orpheus, both published by Enitharmon.

We had a wonderful Christmas party in December, with poetry of course, and I hope you can join us in 2013.

 

Next up is something unexpected. You can’t have failed to notice Victor Hugo’s Les Misérables but did you know he also wrote wonderful poetry? Well, you have the chance to find out by joining us at the Poetry Cafe on Wednesday 30 January, when translator Timothy Adès will talk about and read from How to be a Grandfather, Victor Hugo’s last book of poetry.

Victor Higo was and still is a worldwide symbol of liberty. Twice a Deputy and twice a Senator, he never stood for President of France, but two million people went to his funeral. Timothy Adès will no doubt provide more interesting facts about this remarkable author, as well as explaining why he thinks translating poetry with rhyme and metre is challenging, but at the same time gives him more freedom compared to translating free verse.

We have a number of events in the pipeline. On 27 February at the Poetry Cafe, it’s your chance to spot new talents as the shortlisted poets in our What’s Your History? competition read their poems and we announce the winners. Yes, winners, because this competition invited poems from poets writing in English as well as Dutch.

Other poets in translation under consideration are Vittorio Sereni, Émile Verhaeren and Gerrit Kouwenaar, sponsored by their respective translators: Peter Robinson, Will Stone and Lloyd Haft.

I hope to meet you at one of our Poetry & Translation meetings, held on the last 

Wednesday of each month at 7.30pm at the Poetry Cafe, London. 

Of course I’ll be delighted to hear your suggestions for one of our meetings, so feel free to email me at Bernadette@hollandparkpress.co.uk.

Bernadette Jansen op de Haar

Publisher

Holland Park Press

Brit Writers

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