Constellation of the Lyra

The VII World Festival of Poetry "The emigrated Lyra-2015" is held in Paris, Brussels and Liège. I was invited to read in Liège. Poems in Russian, Oekranian, French, Dutch, English, Portuguese and Arabic. Al the poems of each participant ( we were 20 poets) were translated into French and Russian and published in a book with all the poets in alphabetical order. Of course there is also a real constellation of the Lyra. It can be found  between Hercules and the Swan. So we were all between heaven and earth. People came from far away: from Australia, from the USA... Each read in his/her mother tongue with the projection of the translation in French and Russian on a screen behind the reader. Two friends of mine, members of PEN-Flanders were there. Actually, it was Alhadi who had to flee from Sudan who had proposed me to the organizers and his buddy Kaptue from Cameroon of course was there too. They both are incredible performers. Alhadi reads in long drawn sounds in Arabic,  moving his right arm and hand to stress  the fact that one is reading a story, a poem, and telling it so all can see and hear it. Kaptue reads differently, rawer, he tells the story of what happened in Cameroon and having to flee he reeds as a protest, and seeing the poem one understands his feelings. Fred Schywek took a lot of pictures of the event. Clicking on this link will give you a good idea of the diversity in languages and nationalities. The event brought poets together and any time people are brought together and work together that is a great thing. I want to make a special mention of the interpreter Valéry Dvoinikov for his ease and and pleasant interpretations of the languages needed.

Translating The Sahara Testaments

As many things in life translating The Sahara Testaments by Tade Ipadeola happened by circumstance and coincidence. He was due to be the PEN-Flanders guest in spring. For an obscure reason he didn't get a visum from the Belgian embassy. Yet Sven Peeters who was to interview him was all prepared and asked me to translate two poems, which I did. I began thinking and thought our guest should be able to read more poems so I asked Sven if he had any more poems by Tade. I could not have foreseen that then Sven mailed be a pdf file called The Sahara Testaments, containing 200 poems, all quatrains (you remember: four lines) and a fixed rhyme scheme in the greatest majority of them. I looked at it, thumbed through it, fell for the rigorous work (although I am usually a free verse poet) and translate one more, and then an other one. I love the desert. My desert is the Mojave Desert in California and Arizona. A high desert mostly rocky, and here and there an area with sand dunes. Nothing like the vastness of the Sahara being a continent on its own. When Tade arrived  at the flat we met and talked poetry and translation and I translated a few more poems for the two performances we had in the framework of The day of the writer in prison. Too many, although they may count them lucky not to have been killed like happens all too often in South America. Working together was fun and my PEN colleagues suggested I translated the whole book.  Now it is essential to know that he was the recipient of the Delphic Laurel in Poetry. 200, two hundred poems... Delphic Laurel in Poetry is only the biggest, most important poetry prize in Africa. I am still a bit intimidated by the task, yet some poems give them easily in Dutch, others are recalcitrant and I have to be very careful with them, peeling of layer, after layer until the also become a poem in translation.

I am very grateful for the time Tade grants me when I have a question or can't find a reference. When words have several meanings, I don't try to guess what connotation he had in mind but just ask him. His response is always kind, to the point and very helpful. If I don't understand what is meant, I cannot translate it. And although Tade's poetry is highly formalized, it flows as if effortless. The grand gift with this translation is that I get to see the world and the African continent, through the eyes of a keen African observer, in a way rereading history from a different perspective. I am now over halfway through in a first draft. I'll be asking a mutual friend to go through the text with me to catch mistakes, stupid or inelegant constructions.

Zwanenzang - Swansong by Rose Vandewalle

Rose writing in Dutch and the Dutch-English version being published by Rose's longtime publisher Dodo Press in the Netherlands makes me  inclined to post the press release in Dutch.

This is the press release of the Dodo Press announcing proudly Zwanenzang/Swansong, a selection of poems spanning Three decades (1992-2012).
The English version is by Annmarie Sauer.
We all love Rose here in Antwerp, as a person and as a poet. Poetry came to her and we do share some poets cherished by both of us: Marsman, Paroles by Prévert, Brel...
Here the complete pressrelease in Dutch:
 

Met gepaste trots melden we de uitgave van Zwanenzang/Swansong, een selectie gedichten (1982 -2012) van Rose Vandewalle met naast elk gedicht een voortreffelijke vertaling naar het Engels van Annmarie Sauer.

Rose Vandewalle heeft meerdere bundels op haar naam, zoals In haar zak een doek van staal, Laat de klok met rust en Verwaaid.

‘Vandewalle slaagt erin die taal te vinden die recht doet aan haar oorspronkelijke manier van waarnemen. Want in de eerste plaats is ze de betrokken waarnemer met oog voor het schijnbaar onbeduidende detail. (Rosa)

In kleine kring wordt ze als dichter gewaardeerd. Zwanenzang/Swansong geeft een prachtig overzicht van haar gedichten in een tijdspanne van dertig jaar. De meerwaarde in de vertaling van Annmarie Sauer is, dat ze erin is geslaagd om taaleigen poëzie van Vandewalle in het Engels te volgen, zonder dat de taalsfeer ervan verloren gaat.

Rose Vandewalle:

De poëzie is zelf naar me toegekomen, niet andersom. Op een dag heeft ze me overrompeld. Grootsch en meeslepend wil ik leven! hoort ge dat, vader, moeder, wereld, knekelhuis! Dat was Marsman. Ik was er toen dertien. Later werd ze me aangereikt door een lerares Frans. Ze las ons voor uit ‘Paroles’ van Jacques Prévert. Ik raakte hierdoor compleet van de kaart. Begin jaren zestig liep ik journalistenschool te Brussel. Ik wou schrijven, journalistiek was - denk ik nu – niet meer dan een alibi. Kreeg er les van Jan Walravens (schrijver en essayist), dat was een man om nooit meer te vergeten. In 1966 vertrok ik voor een jaar naar de V.S. (Louisville, Kentucky). Er broeide van alles in die tijd. Ik las veel, Truman Capote en Henry Miller en keek naar kunst, Andrew Wyeth. Terug

in België kwam de poëzie naar me toe via Léo Ferré (zijn interpretatie van Baudelaire, Rimbaud en Aragon) en natuurlijk ook via die zeer authentieke Jacques Brel. Zelf publiceerde ik voor het eerst in de vroege jaren tachtig. Een van mijn bundels draagt als titel Laat de klok met rust, ontleend aan een vers van Maurice Gilliams, een dichter die me intuïtief sterk aanspreekt net als Vasalis dat doet. Naar haar poëzie grijp ik terug.

Over de laatste bundel ‘Verwaaid’:

‘De dichter ziet de neergang aan, in het besef dat er tegen het naderend verval, het naderend einde, geen kruid gewassen is. Tegen beter weten in wil ze zich daar niet bij neerleggen. Wanhopig zoekt ze naar sporen die nog getuigen van wat ooit was. De personages die worden opgevoerd zijn dolenden tussen de flarden van hun verleden (Bert Jans).’

‘Door de fijnbesnaarde toon, de lichtheid van haar woorden, de transparantie van de gekozen beelden komen de woorden nooit over als zwaarmoedig. Ze bewegen tussen eb en vloed, licht en duisternis, vorm en vormeloosheid en laten zich niet meteen vangen (Hannie Rouweler).’

Annmarie Sauer bij haar vertaling van ‘Zwanenzang’:

‘Het is een waar genoegen de gedichten van Rose te vertalen: menselijk, schrijnend, lichamelijk, prachtig, invoelend... boeiend, zachtaardig en soms boos, als Rose zelf.’

Abandoned by the muse by Bieke Stengos

Having moved in the same circles when young, the setting full of street musicians, painters and poets our lives took different paths. Bieke Stengos emigrated to Canada, studied some more and has a magnificent daughter. What is the same in our lives is that we both write. She just has a book out published by Vocamus Press, her second  book of poetry. Her inspiration is the land, the landscape, the changing season. her poetry is filled with the strange beauty of melancholy. She came back to Belgium for a brief time and thus salon 12b invited her and the other poets present for a reading: Lucienne Stassaerts, who read impressive poems from work in progress: Souvenirs part II, Frank De Vos, Silent Bear, myself.

One poem by Bieke: 

XIV

When I dream you into being
I find myself lost in a fog-invaded forest
Of glimmering naked trees
That rise
from the blue-white snow
cold like your body
Before heat devoured it

I search for a place to breathe freely
But I get lost
In the press of your lips
Against the stretched skin of time
And the memory of you fading
Like a melting negative
Of a city with no sun
Where streets run dead into low walls

When I open my eyes
To a black line of upright trees
I vanish from sight
*
Translation nto Dutch for whom needs it:
 
XIV

Als ik je tot leven droom
Verlies ik mezelf
In een nevel doordesemd bos
Van glimend naakte bomen
Die oprijzen
Uit blauwwitte sneeuw
Koud als je lichaam
Voor de hitte het verslond

Ik zoek een plek om vrij te ademen
Maar verlies mijzelf
In de druk van je lippen
Tegen de gespannen huid van de tijd
En de herinnering aan jou vervaagt
Als een smeltend negatief
Van een stad zonder zon
Waar straten dood lopen op lage muren

Wanneer ik mijn ogen open
Op een zwarte rij loodrechte bomen
Verdwijn ik uit het zicht

 

VERS 1984-2014

A friend and colleague Karel Sergen launched this fun and serious project. Bar Van Loo had sugested to find one's own audience for an original selection of thirty years of poetry. So Karel mailed out an extended overview of his work and asked his friends poets to choose one poem and write a short commentary like one would send a tweet. The publisher P Leo Peeraer of 'Uitgevery P' accepted the challenge to publish this book, and unbeknown to all the poets who send in their favorite poem they were considered co-authors of the book and received it as a gift. The celebration of this project was the reason we drove with four people from Antwerp to Saint Remy-Geest, the beautiful village just over the language border. I was again impressed by the place. I was even more impressed by the careful preparation of the program for the day. Karel is form the Dutch peaking part of Belgium and lives in the French speaking part since quite a while. I was impressed that the local dignitaries were bilingual. The authors speaking and reading were bilingual too and so is the book. Bernard De Coen, in close collaboration with Karel made a great and wonderful translation into French.

Everything breathes beauty and caring and even a deluge couldn't stop the festivities. In three different spots the poets who had chosen their 'favorite' read it for the audience. Everybody had a great time. I felt hopeful because of the inclusiveness of the whole day. On the picture right you see Karel (left) and Bart (right). French and Dutch, Japanese and English, all together. Hilde Keteleer is reading and I must thank her for letting me use her pictures. I love the attention to detail, the edible flowers, the great people there and the beautiful together of poetry and language.Even old chairs became poetic objects with a haiku.

Before the book presentation of Sequenza tonight

In the days, even weeks, leading up to a book presentation I feel restless, insecure, full of joyful anticipation, a bit crushed, really prepared and at the same time unprepared... In short a whole bag of mixed emotions. It must be a bit the way chimps in research labs feel. The good news is that a group of chimps has been relocated to "Chimp Haven" seeing the sky for the first, seeing the others chimps without bars and being able to touch each other. Soon they exhibit the natural behavior patterns of chimps living in the wild... If you like poetry and music come by in den Hopsack tonight. And I promise, no monkey business just warm and interesting times.
Here the first poem of Sequenza
If you want to hear the Dutch read by Marleen de Crée you'll have to be there tonight.

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I tell you, Plinius, it is September

poets turn in the tide.

fruit ripens on warm walls,

don’t forget: these are the last hours

of summer. warmth, nothing can happen still.

it are the quiet days of the year,

because more patiently all is carried

in multiples of the last gestation.

September knows what fondness means

and love draws shadows of wax.

I say: once prudence was calculated  

by the outline of a water glass.

the grapes, Plinius, the last trestles

of what a poet’s summer was.