DUAL Poetry Podcast

This week we are looking at the work of Abdellatif Laâbi, who is widely acknowledged to be Morocco's greatest living poet. This week the PTC publishes My Mother’s Language featuring a selection of Laâbi’s poems originally written in French with translations into English by the noted Poet and translator André Naffis-Sahely, who has just become the editor of Poetry London Magazine.

In his introduction to My Mother’s Language Naffis-Sahely details Abdellatif Laâbi’s biography, living through the end of French rule in Moroccan, then the oppressive 'Years Of Lead' that saw many dissidents and intellectuals imprisoned or disappeared. Laâbi himself was imprisoned for 8 years between 1972 and 1980, during his captivity he was tortured and deprived of medical care. Five years after his release Laabi moved to France, where he continues to live.

This week’s poems are 'My Mother’s Language', which lends its title to the new collection and 'The Earth Opens and Welcomes You' the last poem in the collection.

To get your copy of My Mother’s Language, with an afterword by Yousif M. Qasmiyeh, directly from the PTC online store, for just £7 + P&P, head to poetrytranslation.org/shop.

Shakila Azizzada was born in Kabul in Afghanistan in 1964. She now lives in the Netherlands and writes in both Dari and Dutch. Her poems are unusual in their frankness and delicacy, particularly in the way she approaches intimacy and female desire, subjects which are rarely addressed by women poets writing in Dari.

After working on the transitions with the cultural anthropologist Zuzanna Olszewska, the poet Mimi Khalvatisaid of Azizzada:

She is a very musical poet, tender and intimate, but also uncompromising in her political poems, and sometimes surreal – a poet of range and courage. Many of the poems, or parts of them, were relatively straightforward to translate and, perhaps because of the European influence, seemed to slip happily into English.

Shakila’s voice is not as adorned as some poetry in Farsi that I have read, and is idiomatic and sometimes humorous or satiric.

Don’t forget to like, review, recommend and subscribe to support the Dual Poetry Podcast. You can find more translated poems, articles about translation and culture, as well as our upcoming program over on our internet home poetrytransation.org.

With his work translated and anthologized around the world,Víctor Terán is the preeminent living poet of the Isthmus Zapotec. He was born in 1958. His work has been published extensively in magazines and anthologies throughout Mexico. Since 2000, he has also appeared in anthologies in Italy and the United States and he is a three-time recipient of the national fellowship for writers of indigenous languages,

The PTC translated Victor Teran first in 2010 when he was part of our Mexican Poets tour, alongside Spanish language poets Coral Bracho, David Huerta. Victor Teran was translated by David Shook, who has gone on to translate over a dozen books from Spanish and Isthmus Zapotec and has produced short literary documentaries and video poems in locations including Bangladesh, Burundi, Cuba, and Equatorial Guinea.

This week we are bringing you two poems in from a series by the Georgian poet Salome Benidze, The Story of Flying and The Story of the poor. Salome was one of two Georgian poets who toured the UK with the PTC in 2018 alongside Diana Amphidiadi. Benidze’s poems were translated by Natalia Bukia-Peters with the UK poet Helen Mort and we published a chapbook of her poems called I wanted to ask you.

This week we are bringing you two poems in from a series by the Georgian poet Salome Benidze, The Story of Flying and The Story of the poor. Salome was one of two Georgian poets who toured the UK with the PTC in 2018 alongside Diana Amphidiadi. Benidze’s poems were translated by Natalia Bukia-Peters with the UK poet Helen Mort and we published a chapbook of her poems called I wanted to ask you.

In this episode of the podcast, we are looking at Hindi poetry. Late last year the PTC published two chapbooks in our World Poet Series featuring Hindi poets: The Cartographer by Mohan Rana and This Water by Gagan Gill.

The poems you hear on today’s podcast are by Mohan Rana who lives in Bath, England and writes deceptively simple poems circling metaphysical themes.

Today’s two poems are In Your Own Words and After Midnight by Mohan Rana translated by Lucy Rosenstein with the poet Bernard O'Donoghue.

You can buy our Hindi Poetry Set here: poetrytranslation.org/shop/hindi-poetry-set

You can donate to the PTC here: https://www.poetrytranslation.org/support-us

In this podcast, we bring you poems that take the form of messages from afar, the poets are addressing loved ones but communicating to the reader as well, the implied distance between the writer and the addressee standing in for personal and emotional distance.

Kajal Ahmad was born in Kirkuk in Iraqi Kurdistan in 1967, Kajal Ahmad began publishing her remarkable poetry at the age of 21 andhas gained a considerable reputation for her brave, poignant and challenging work throughout the Kurdish-speaking world. Her poems have been translated into Arabic, Turkish, Norwegian and now, for the first time, into English.

Noshi Gillani was born in Pakistan in 1964.The candour and frankness of her highly-charged poems is unusual for a woman writing in Urdu and she has gained a committed international audience, performing regularly at large poetry gatherings in Pakistan, Australia, Canada and the US. Unknown outside the Pakistani community, the translations here mark her introduction to an English-speaking audience.

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We start 2021 with two poets whose poems have narrative strands, one is a fairy tale complete with daemons and the other is a sketch of the life of an economic migrant who fears the host of his wife.

Shakila Azizzada was born in Kabul inAfghanistan in 1964. During her middle school and university years in Kabul, she started writing stories and poems, many ofwhich were published in magazines. Her poems are unusual in their frankness and delicacy, particularly in the way she approachesintimacy and female desire,subjects which are rarely adressedby women poets writing in Dari.

Mohammad Bagher Kolahi Ahari was born in 1950 in Mashhad, Khorasan. His first collection Above the Four Elements was published in 1977. He published six more collections of poetry. Kolahi has developed his distinct voice inspired by lyrical and elegiac traditions of Persian poetry combined with his story-telling talent. Many of Kolahi’s poems contain a narrative containing elements of folk tales and description of rural Khorasan. In his poems, he very often depicts the life and the stories of marginalized groups of the society like gypsies, petty criminals and labourers.

Translated by Atef Alshaer with Paul Batchelor.

This October the PTC published 'Embrace' a dual-language Arabic and English collection of poems by Palestinian poet Najwan Darwish, who has been called one of the foremost Arabic-language poets of his generation. This collection includes many new poems and was translated by Atef Alshaer with UK poet Paul Batchelor.

Listen to three poems from the collection in this podcast.

To get a copy of the book head to the PTC online shop: https://www.poetrytranslation.org/shop/embrace

Translated by Atef Alshaer with Paul Batchelor.

This October the PTC published 'Embrace' a dual-language Arabic and English collection of poems by Palestinian poet Najwan Darwish, who has been called one of the foremost Arabic-language poets of his generation. This collection includes many new poems and was translated by Atef Alshaer with UK poet Paul Batchelor.

Listen to three poems from the collection in this podcast.

To get a copy of the book head to the PTC online shop: https://www.poetrytranslation.org/shop/embrace