DUAL Poetry Podcast

Listen to two poems from the Poetry Translation Centre Archive: 'Taste' by Asha Lul Mohamud Yusuf translated by Said Jama Hussein with poet Clare Pollard and 'He Tells Tales of Meroe' by Al-Saddiq Al-Raddi, translated by Atef Alshaer and Rashid El Sheikh with poet Sarah Maguire, selected forBlack History Month.

DEALS

Our Black History Month bundle features So At One With You, an anthology of modern poetry in Somali and He Tells Tales of Meroe: Poems for the Petrie Museum by Al-Saddiq Al-Raddi from Sudan.

Buy it here: https://www.poetrytranslation.org/shop/black-history-month-bundle

ALSO use the code NAJWAN 2020 to get access to our Online Najwan Darwish ‘Embrace’ Launch event, a copy of the book plus postage and packaging all for £7: http://embrace-launch.eventbrite.com/

Listen to two poems from the Poetry Translation Centre Archive: 'Taste' by Asha Lul Mohamud Yusuf translated by Said Jama Hussein with poet Clare Pollard and 'He Tells Tales of Meroe' by Al-Saddiq Al-Raddi, translated by Atef Alshaer and Rashid El Sheikh with poet Sarah Maguire, selected forBlack History Month.

DEALS

Our Black History Month bundle features So At One With You, an anthology of modern poetry in Somali and He Tells Tales of Meroe: Poems for the Petrie Museum by Al-Saddiq Al-Raddi from Sudan.

Buy it here: https://www.poetrytranslation.org/shop/black-history-month-bundle

ALSO use the code NAJWAN 2020 to get access to our Online Najwan Darwish ‘Embrace’ Launch event, a copy of the book plus postage and packaging all for £7: http://embrace-launch.eventbrite.com/

This week as part of the PTC’s Resistance Poets series we bring you two poems by Al-Saddiq Al-Raddi, a Sudanese poet who writes in Arabic.

'Poem of the Nile' was published in The London Review of Books one of the rare occasions the LRB has published poetry translated from Arabic and the first time they featured the work of an African poet.

'They Think I Am a King: Yes, I Am the King' is froma book of poems by Al-Saddiq Al-Raddi inspired by thePetrieMuseum’s collection of material from Meroe in Sudan. which was nominated for a Ted Hughes Award.

The PTC Resistance Poets season looks at poets as political activists. This selection brings together four poets who are unafraid to engage with the urgent political issues of our day, sometimes explicitly addressing inequity and tragedy were they find it, yet often simply holding a space for reflection and joy amidst dark times and chaos.

Get the Resistance Poets Book Bundle here: https://www.poetrytranslation.org/shop/resistance-poets

Currently, the PTC is looking at Resistance Poets whose work is unafraid to tackle political issues. This week we are bringing you two pomes by Afghan poet Reza Mohammadi who writes in Dari. These were translated for the PTC in 2012 by Hamid Kabir and the Northern Irish poet, novelist and screenwriter Nick Laird.

You can purchase the PTCs Reza Mohammadi’s dual-language Chapbook, containing 10 of his poems in the original Dari alongside the English translations as part of our Resistance Poets book deal.

The book bundle includes 4 books from poets hailing from Eritrea, Brazil, Sudan and Afghanistan reflecting on issues important to them and their culture, but echoing wider global concerns.

Order now from poetrytranslation.org/shop

Translator André Naffis-Sahely worked with Ribka Sibhatu for 10 years leading up to the publication of their PTC World Poet series book Aulò! Aulò! Aulò!

While Ribka translates her own poems from Tigrinya and Amharic into Italian, Andre translates her poems from Italian into English and works tirelessly promoting her work in the anglophone world.

In addition to her work as a lyric poet and human rights activist, Sibhatu has devoted a considerable amount of her creative energies to assembling and recording of Eritrea’s folkloric cannon which is then handed down through the ages in the form of Aulòs.

This podcast brings you Ribka reading her Italian translation of ‘To the Sycamore’ and the fable ‘How African spirits Were Born’ in Tigrinya with André Naffis-Sahely reading his English transitions.

This month the PTC is celebrating resistance poets looking at poets as activists and poetry a space for resistance Our resistance poets book bundle focuses on four writers including Ribka who are unafraid to engage with the urgent political issues of our day, sometimes explicitly addressing inequity and tragedy were they find it, yet often simply holding a space for reflection and joy amidst dark times and chaos.

To order this book bundle go to our online shop.

The PTC has just published Aulò! Aulò! Aulò! a collection of poems and fables by Ribka Sibhatu with translations by André Naffis-Sahely as part of our World Poet Series.

Ribka writes in Tigrinya and Amharic, two languages native to Eritrea as well as Italian and French. The poet calls her five languages her stepdaughters. She translates her own work into Italian and Andre, in turn, translates the Italian and English.

The collaboration has been going for a decade since André began translating her work in 2010. At that time Sarah Maguire, founder of the PTC, invited him to lead a series of workshops on Sibhatu’s poetry.

Ribka’s work includes short lyric poems and her more recent longer political works. Alongside her poetry Ribka has worked to collect and record the folkloric canon of the horn of Africa, a body of oral literature that was handed down for generations These stories are known as Aulòs, literally meaning:

Please give me permission, I have something to say in rhyme!

So today we will be playing you one poem and one fable so you can get a sense of the breadth of her work, this means it is a long 20-minute podcast. Enjoy.

This week the podcast features two poems by Cuban poet Legna Rodríguez Iglesias, both from her 2013 collection Sucking The Stone. The first of these, The Law of Dynamics, sees the poet explaining to Galileo why he can't to the Macarena. (Why? Because it is 'a dance for Satyrs and other sex-mad creatures.') while the second poem, one of two in the collection to share the volumes name, Sucking The Stone, references Lapis Lazuli the semi-precious stone that has been prized since antiquity for its intense blue colour.

You can find more poems from Sucking The Stoneon the PTC's free online audio archive of Legana's poems: https://soundcloud.com/alittlebodyaremanyparts.

Also, the podcast announces details of our upcoming Online Tour with Eritrean poet and refugee-rights activist Ribka Sibhata. Find out more here: https://www.poetrytranslation.org/events/series/ribka-sibhatu-tour

This week we have two poems by Legna Rodríguez Iglesias 'Farmer's Treasure' and 'An accumulation of dry matter that is slow after flowering but intensifies during the lactic phase' both from her collection Gimmer Spray.

The exceptional skill and formal dexterity that marks Rodríguez Iglesias’s work in Spanish has been expertly brought to life in English by Abigail Parry, an award-winning poet whose debut collection Jinx was published by Bloodaxe in 2018, working in collaboration with bridge-translator and writer Serafina Vick.

You can find our free online active of Legna's poems here: https://soundcloud.com/alittlebodyaremanyparts

A little body are many partsbyLegna Rodríguez Iglesiasandthe hammer and other poems by Adelaide Ivanova have both shortlisted for the first-ever Derek Walcott Prize for Poetry. Get them both for just £15 here: https://www.poetrytranslation.org/shop/derek-walcott-poetry-prize-shortlist-bundle

Find our more about our online Ribka Sibhatu Tour mentioned in the podcast here: https://www.poetrytranslation.org/events/series/ribka-sibhatu-tour

Contemporary Cuban poetry is as diverse and indefinable as contemporary poetry in any other country, but Legna does belong to a particular generation of poets. Generación O, formed mainly of poets born after 1975, is founded on the shared experience of growing up after the fall of the Soviet Union, when Cuba was launched into extreme deprivation. This week's two poems highlight Legna's use of humour.

The DUAL POETRY PODCAST is focusing on her work for the next few weeks as we release a free online audio archive of poems from her PTC collection 'A little body are many parts' you can explore the archive here: https://soundcloud.com/alittlebodyaremanyparts

'A little body are many parts' has been shortlisted for the first-ever Derek Walcott Prize for Poetry. Get our Derek Walcott Poetry Prize Shortlist Bundle for just £15.

The Cuban poet Legna Rodríguez Iglesias wasborn in Camagüey in central Cuba in 1984 and currently lives in Miami, Florida. As well as poetry she has written theatre, short stories, children’s books and a novel. Her poetry has been translated into Portuguese, German, Italian and English.

The DUAL POETRY PODCAST is focusing on her work for the next few weeks as we release a free online audio archive of poems from her PTC collection 'A little body are many parts'.

This week we are bringing you two poems 'The Day I' and 'Red Room' both originally published in her 2012 Spanish language collection The Perfect Moment.

'A little body are many parts' an overview of poems from Legna Rodríguez Iglesias' career translated by Serafina Vick and Abigale Parry has been shortlisted for the first-ever Derek Walcott Prize for Poetry.

Get our Derek Walcott Poetry Prize Shortlist Bundle for just £15: https://www.poetrytranslation.org/shop/derek-walcott-poetry-prize-shortlist-bundle