{"title":"Hubert Moore","description":null,"products":[{"product_id":"modern-poetry-in-translation-series-3-no5-transgressions","title":"Modern Poetry in Translation (Series 3 No.5) Transgressions","description":"\u003cem\u003eTransgressions\u003c\/em\u003e explores the crossing of the borders of sex, gender, family, creed, race and nation. It features new work by \u003cstrong\u003eRuth Fainlight, Pascale Petit, Marilyn Hacker \u003c\/strong\u003eand \u003cstrong\u003eHilda Domin.\u003c\/strong\u003e Also Mansi songs from Western Siberia, versions of \u003cstrong\u003eBoccaccio\u003c\/strong\u003e and an extract from \u003cstrong\u003eBernard O'Donoghue's\u003c\/strong\u003e\u003cem\u003e Gawain.\u003c\/em\u003e \u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cem\u003eTransgressions\u003c\/em\u003e (\u003cem\u003eModern Poetry in Translation\u003c\/em\u003e Third Series, No 5) focuses on crossings that might be risky, unusual, unconventional, and which might in the past have invited censure and punishment, or might do so still. Translation has often been a sort of smuggling, a dealing in the illegal or the illicit, and has been dangerous (and productive) in that sense. Featuring new work by: \u003cstrong\u003ePascale Petit\u003c\/strong\u003e - whose work \u003cem\u003eThe Huntress\u003c\/em\u003e is short-listed for this T.S. Eliot prize. \u003cstrong\u003eRuth Fainlight\u003c\/strong\u003e - who offers us new translations of the important Mexican poet \u003cem\u003eVictor Manuel Mendiola\u003c\/em\u003e. \u003cstrong\u003eMarilyn Hacker\u003c\/strong\u003e - one of the best mediators between contemporary French and Anglo-American poetry. Also new versions of \u003cem\u003eCavafy\u003c\/em\u003e, and from \u003cstrong\u003eMichael Hamburger\u003c\/strong\u003e a never-before published translation of a text by Gunter Grass. \u003ca name=\"contents\" title=\"contents\"\u003e\u003c\/a\u003eCover by Lucy Wilkinson. Editorial by David and Helen Constantine. \u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cstrong\u003eContents\u003c\/strong\u003e \u003cul\u003e\n\u003cli\u003e\n\u003ca\u003e\u003c\/a\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003ci\u003eFour Mansi songs\u003c\/i\u003e, translated by Dorothea Gruumlnzweig and Derk Wynand.\u003cbr\u003eMeles Negusse, \u003ci\u003eWild Animals\u003c\/i\u003e, translated by Charles Cantalupo \u003cbr\u003eHubert Moore, \u003ci\u003eRemovals\u003c\/i\u003e\n\u003c\/li\u003e\n\u003cli\u003e\n\u003cbr\u003eSasha Dugdale, \u003ci\u003eLot's Wife\u003c\/i\u003e\u003cbr\u003ePascale Petit, three poems and a translation of a poem by Zhou Zan\u003cbr\u003eAndreas Angelakis, \u003ci\u003eConstantine in Constantinople\u003c\/i\u003e, translated by John Lucas \u003cbr\u003eConstantine Cavafy, two poems, translated into Scots, via the French, by John Manson \u003cbr\u003eVictor Manuel Mendiola, \u003ci\u003eYour Hand, My Mouth\u003c\/i\u003e, translated by Ruth Fainlight \u003cbr\u003eAn extract from Bernard O'Donoghue's translation of \u003ci\u003eSir Gawain\u003c\/i\u003e\u003cbr\u003eW.D. Jackson, two versions of\u003ci\u003e Boccaccio\u003c\/i\u003e\u003cbr\u003eHelen Constantine, \u003ci\u003eBanned Poems\u003c\/i\u003e\u003cbr\u003eJean Follain, seven poems, translated by Olivia McCannon \u003cbr\u003eDoris Kareva, three poems, translated by Ilmar Lehtpere \u003cbr\u003eHilda Domin, \u003ci\u003eTo whom it happens\u003c\/i\u003e, translated by Ruth Ingram \u003cbr\u003eLyubomir Nikolov, three poems, translated by Clive Wilmer and Viara Tcholakova\u003cbr\u003eRilke, four poems from \u003ci\u003eThe Book of Hours\u003c\/i\u003e, translated by Susan Ranson \u003cbr\u003eAmina Saiumld, \u003ci\u003efour poems\u003c\/i\u003e, translated by Marilyn Hacker\u003cbr\u003eJeff Nosbaum, versions from the Aeneid and the Iliad\u003cbr\u003eHsieh Ling-y, \u003ci\u003eBy the Stream\u003c\/i\u003e translated by Alastair Thomson via the Spanish of Octavio Paz \u003cbr\u003eYu Xuanji, two poems, translated by Justin Hill \u003cbr\u003eKaneko Misuzu, four poems, translated by Quentin Crisp \u003cbr\u003eGunter Grass, \u003ci\u003eThe Ballerina\u003c\/i\u003e, translated by Michael Hamburger \u003cbr\u003eRobert Hull, \u003ci\u003eOne Good Translation Deserves Another \u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003c\/i\u003e\u003cstrong\u003eReviews\u003c\/strong\u003e \u003cul\u003e\u003cli\u003e\n\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eOlivia McCannon on Peter Dale's \u003ci\u003eTristan Corbiere \u003c\/i\u003e\u003cbr\u003eTimothy Adès on Colin Sydenham's \u003ci\u003eHorace \u003c\/i\u003e\u003cbr\u003ePaschalis Nikolaou on Richard Burns \u003cbr\u003eBelinda Cooke on \u003ci\u003eSailor's Home: A Miscellany of Poetry\u003c\/i\u003e, and Piotr Sommer's \u003ci\u003eContinued\u003c\/i\u003e. \u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cstrong\u003eFour Mansi Songs\u003c\/strong\u003e \u003cstrong\u003eTranslated by Dorothea Gruumlnzweig and Derk Wynand\u003c\/strong\u003e \u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eThe Voguls still had shamans until the eighties of the twentieth century. They were intermediaries between human beings and the highest god, whom even the shaman was not permitted to see directly. The shaman is a person who accepts solitude, isolation, overexertion as his burden as bridge-builder, holy helper and healer. When he falls into a trance, a sense of the synthesis of all things flashes through his mind. In the ritual performance of the following song, the shaman sings the tribesmen who have come flocking in into birds, into wild geese and wild ducks. \u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eFor a long time, only men were admitted to these most sacred occasions. Lennart Meri, the Estonian playwright, film maker and; later; President of Estonia, has made films about the \u003ci\u003eWaterfowl People\u003c\/i\u003e; as he calls them, the Ob-Ugrians. \u003cbr\u003eThe shaman's own voice transforms itself in this song into the voice of a goose - it has magical powers that let those gathered around believe they will be of sound limb. The shaman, accompanying himself on the goose, gives the song to his tribesmen. Insofar as he describes the people as geese, they are, as it were, also made to resound. \u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eA cosmic event is here depicted: The earth begins to turn. The world's out of joint. Or the earth is reborn once again. In harmony with this event, human beings are to be helped. This suggests a thought process that intertwines the fate of the individual with the whole, in this case, with \u003ci\u003eMother Earth\u003c\/i\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cstrong\u003eShaman's Waterfowl Song\u003c\/strong\u003e Little sons, little sons! As gooseflock stream have you streamed as duckflock stream have you streamed. Little sons, little sons! What ails you what fails you? Little sons, little sons! My raincoat from the Hill-Luck-Spirit is -  behold; spread out. My coat from the Wood-Luck-Spirit, which my mother has stuffed with live sable is; behold - spread out. Little hearts, little hearts! What ails you what fails you? Sing to me with a merry goosecackling voice, little sons! I sing for you with the singing voice of the morning cuckoo, little sons. And when I open my rivergoose cacklemouth overnight overday strong bones strong flesh; behold; will rise from the earth; behold; from the water. We have this wish; behold; this want we plead because of this wish; behold; this want we need a happy day we need hale foot, we need hale hand. Little sons! Then when you beseech me and once I beat my wings the earth will go all a-tremble when I beat my wings again the water will go all a-tremble. And when my Ob-water sense rises when my sea-golden Ob-golden holy sense rises and I wave the holy staff with its seven notches clutched in my goodside hand the hunched holy earth will go all a-tremble. May my warm fur, my warm fur boots with their bit of warmth make your bones grow make your flesh grow. \u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cstrong\u003ePascale Petit\u003c\/strong\u003e \u003cstrong\u003eThe Banquet\u003c\/strong\u003e \u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eIn the end, there's only one way to stop the dead harming the living, that's what the Guayaki Indians believe, so they're helping me build a grill. \u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eAll week I fasted, until I too chanted 'human fat is very sweet'. The shaman cuts up the bodies, separates arms and legs from trunks. But only a daughter can shave off her parents’ hair and bury it along with her mother’s womb. I boil my fathers penis, offer it to a pregnant woman who wants a son. The meat roasts slowly. Fat crackles and drips along the slats and is sucked up by old women.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eOnly when all traces of blood are cooked do we carve and hungrily eat - each mouthful slips easily down my throat, served with palmito buds to weaken the force of their flesh. I wrap the leftovers in ferns to be eaten cold tomorrow. Every bone will be cracked, the marrow extracted. When the banquet is over, my friends wash me with sap from the kymata creeper. \u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cstrong\u003eBernard O'Donoghue\u003c\/strong\u003e \u003cstrong\u003eFrom Sir Gawain and the Green Knight\u003c\/strong\u003e \u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eWhile the lord was busy by the borders of the wood the bold Gawain kept to his soft bed. He lay there till daylight shone on the walls, beneath his bright bedspread, screened all around. As he dozed there in peace, he warily heard a little noise at the door as it stealthily opened. He raised his head up out of the clothes and slightly lifted the edge of the curtain, peeping out cautiously to see what it was. It was the lady, most lovely to look at, who shut the door after her, in secret and privately, and stole towards the bed. The hero, embarrassed, lay hurriedly back down, pretending to sleep. She stepped forward silently and stole to his bedside, lifted the curtain and crept inside, sitting down softly on the edge of the bed. And there she stayed, to see if he'd wake up. The hero lay low some considerable time, pondering inwardly what all this might mean or amount to. It seemed pretty strange, but still he said to himself, 'It would be more fitting to ask her openly what she is after'. So he awoke, and stretched and, turning towards her, opened his eyes, pretending to be surprised. Then, as if to be safer by prayer, he blessed himself with his hand. With her pretty chin, and cheeks of mingled red and white, she spoke most sweetly with her small, laughing lips. \u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003eW.D. Jackson\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eTwo extracts from a work-in-progress:\u003ci\u003e Boccaccio in Florence: Three Stories and a Dream\u003c\/i\u003e, translated and adapted from \u003ci\u003eThe Decameron\u003c\/i\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eBoccaccio starts The Decameron with a description of the Black Death or \u003ci\u003emagna mortalitas\u003c\/i\u003e, as it came to be known, which he claims to have witnessed in Florence. While Boccaccio does not go so far as directly to question the social or religious fabric of medieval society, he sometimes comes remarkably close to doing so and an unmistakable atmosphere of carpe diem permeates the whole framework as well as the individual stories of The Decameron, in which ten young people retire from the plague-infested city of Florence to the countryside, where each of them tells one tale per day in idyllic surroundings which are beautifully - almost surrealistically - evoked. \u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eThe first of the following translations\/adaptations of II,v (the second is of III,i) \u0026amp;; incorporates passages from Boccaccio's introductory description and imagines how the whole collection might have started, but presumably didn't. \u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eBoccaccio's prose is transposed into the \u003ci\u003eVenus and Adonis\u003c\/i\u003e stanza and Chaucerian couplets respectively because both Shakespeare and Chaucer borrowed - directly or indirectly - not only stories but aspects of their world-view from their great precursor. So much so that a number of lines from both of them have transgressed into these versions. \u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eIf at the end of his life Boccaccio returned to the Dantesque vision of things (in his Life of Dante and commentary on the first seventeen cantos of the Divina Commedia), so did Chaucer in his so-called Retractation at the end of The Canterbury Tales. In more recent times one need go no further than Tolstoy to find an author turning against his own earlier writings. And there are, of course, many parallel instances not only in the history of literature but of societies in general - as anyone who was young in 1968 and has survived into the age of Aids will be aware. \u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eWhether humanity will ever make much actual progress between transgressing and regressing in such matters remains to be seen. Unfortunately, the twenty-first century's plague seems unlikely to encourage much liberation in the popular mind. In The Dream \u003ci\u003eAl quale ella, quasi ridendo disse: 'Buon uomo, el mi par che tu sogni.'\u003c\/i\u003e Decameron II,v May, 1348. \u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eThe sun was sinking Behind the campanile. Boccaccio knelt Inside the still unfinished duomo, thinking Of what he'd seen, and wondering how he felt About the Immortal Architect... Could He Have planned this plague, this \u003ci\u003eGreat Mortality\u003c\/i\u003e? Whole houses, great palazzi, emptied of Their occupants, the dead piled up outside With oozing tumours. Rat-packs freely roved Deserted streets, where pigs and dogs had died From mauling corpses or infected rags, And looters staggered under bursting bags. Abandoned children cried. The sick were left To die alone, their bodies left to rot. The stench of dead or dying people bereft Him of all words. But some he knew were not So easily shocked. All forms of strange excess Flourished - helped stave off horror and distress. Men dropped down dead in the street by day and night. Coffins and grave-plots were a rarity. Rough gangs of paupers dug deep plague-pits right Across old churchyards, charging a fat fee To stow the dead in tiers with a thin layer Of soil between. And more for a priest or a prayer. But most were thrown in like dead goats or sheep... Which stopped him trying to pray. Instead, he sat And closed his aching eyes, and fell asleep, And dreamt he'd travelled home to Naples - at The market, where he'd come to buy a horse. But all the horses were half-dead, or worse. And all their grooms and riders were half-dead And putrefying slowly. Stinking meat, Alive with maggots, and the grinning head Of a huge boar, were all there was to eat. One stall had bursting figs, egg-plants, milk, honey, But no one left alive to take his money. And so he waved his bulging bag of gold To bring them back to life: five hundred florins. A pretty girl strolled past. From how she strolled He knew she'd like to go with him to Florence. She smiled and said she was his bastard sister. I'm illegitimate too, he cried, and kissed her. \u003c\/li\u003e\u003c\/ul\u003e\n\u003c\/li\u003e\n\u003c\/ul\u003e","brand":"Modern Poetry in Translation","offers":[{"title":"Book","offer_id":1040744720,"sku":"9780954536756","price":9.95,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0441\/7369\/products\/2_2_eae2c79e-62c4-48eb-a9ff-609cf328ab95.jpeg?v=1417533364"},{"product_id":"modern-poetry-in-translation-series-3-no4-between-the-languages","title":"Modern Poetry in Translation (Series 3 No.4) Between the Languages","description":"\u003ci\u003eBetween the Languages\u003c\/i\u003e is concerned with questions of language and identity. It features work by Itzik Manger, Dimitris Tsaloumas, Gwyneth Lewis … Poets whose mother tongue is itself an issue.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eAlso poems by \u003cb\u003eBrecht\u003c\/b\u003e on exile.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003ci\u003eBetween the Languages\u003c\/i\u003e focuses on poets who, by choice or by force of circumstances, move among the languages. Must a poet write in the mother tongue? Will a second language serve just as well? We look at poets who translate themselves. Others who might but won’t. Others who defend their mother tongues by refusing all translation. Highlights include the poetry of Dimitris Tsaloumas, who moves between Melbourne and Leros, and Itzig Manger (1901-69) who wrote in Yiddish in his wanderings across the world. This volume of MPT asks questions about language and identity.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eAmong the featured poets are: Bertolt Brecht, Dimitris Tsaloumas, Gwyneth Lewis, Itzik Manger…  \u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003ca name=\"contents\"\u003e\u003c\/a\u003eCover by Lucy Wilkinson.  Editorial by David and Helen Constantine.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e \u003cli\u003e\n\u003ca href=\"#e0\"\u003eKapka Kassabova Polyglot Peregrinations \u003c\/a\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\n\u003c\/li\u003e\u003cli\u003eAmarjit Chandan Inhabiting two Planets\u003cbr\u003e\n\u003c\/li\u003e\u003cli\u003eItsik Manger Four Poems, with three translations and a literal version, introduced by Helen Beer\u003cbr\u003e\n\u003c\/li\u003e\u003cli\u003e\n\u003ca href=\"#e1\"\u003eMichael Hamburger Afterthoughts on the Mug’s Game\u003c\/a\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\n\u003c\/li\u003e\u003cli\u003eMary-Ann Constantine ‘To let in the light’: Gwyneth Lewis’s Poetry of Transition. \u003cbr\u003e\n\u003c\/li\u003e\u003cli\u003eGwyneth Lewis Two Poems, translated by Mary-Ann Constantine and the author \u003cbr\u003e\n\u003c\/li\u003e\u003cli\u003eChoman Hardi ‘Switching Languages: a Hindrance or an Opportunity?’\u003cbr\u003e\n\u003c\/li\u003e\u003cli\u003ePoet to Poet The Scotland-China Project.  Introduction by Polly Clark\u003cbr\u003e\n\u003c\/li\u003e\u003cli\u003eAntonella Anedda Five Poems, translated by Jamie McKendrick\u003cbr\u003e\n\u003c\/li\u003e\u003cli\u003eDimitris Tsaloumas Four Poems, translated, with an introduction, by Helen Constantine\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\n\u003c\/li\u003e\u003cli\u003e\n\u003ca href=\"#e2\"\u003eExtracts from Mourid Barghouti’s Midnight, translated by Radwa Ashour\u003c\/a\u003e  \u003cbr\u003e\n\u003c\/li\u003e\u003cli\u003e\n\u003ca href=\"#e3\"\u003e'Dear Fahimeh’, translated by Hubert Moore and Nasrin Parvaz\u003c\/a\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\n\u003c\/li\u003e\u003cli\u003eExtracts from Sherko Berkes’s The Valley of Butterfly, translated by Choman Hardi\u003cbr\u003e\n\u003c\/li\u003e\u003cli\u003eIngeborg Bachmann Ten Poems, translated by Patrick Drysdale and Mike Lyons, with an introduction by Karen Leeder\u003cbr\u003e\n\u003c\/li\u003e\u003cli\u003eRimbaud Versions of Three Poems, by Martin Bennett\u003cbr\u003e\n\u003c\/li\u003e\u003cli\u003eBertolt Brecht Ten Poems of Exile, translated by Timothy Adès\u003cbr\u003e\n\u003c\/li\u003e\u003cli\u003eIvan Radoev Three Poems, translated by Kapka Kassabova\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\n\u003c\/li\u003e\u003cli\u003eAnthony Rudolf ‘Any Ideas?’ Calling all Poetry Detectives\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\n\u003c\/li\u003e\u003cli\u003eJosephine Balmer A Note on Reviewing Translation\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003eReviews\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cul\u003e\n\u003cbr\u003e\u003cli\u003eOlivier Burckhardt on Claire Malroux’s Birds and Bison, translated by Marilyn Hacker\u003cbr\u003e\n\u003c\/li\u003e\n\u003cli\u003eSasha Dugdale on  Ileana Malancioiu’s, After the Raising of Lazarus, translated by Eiléan Ní Chuilleanáin\u003cbr\u003e\n\u003c\/li\u003e\n\u003c\/ul\u003e\n\u003cbr\u003e\u003chr size=\"1\" color=\"a0a0a0\"\u003e\n\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003ca name=\"e0\"\u003e\u003c\/a\u003e\u003cb\u003eKapka Kassabova\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003ePolyglot Peregrinations\u003c\/b\u003e \u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eA foreign language is a paradoxical escape: it takes you out of yourself, but also back into yourself to places you didn’t know existed. To translate is to travel this unpredictable landscape. To live between languages, as in my case, is to be constantly moving over untrodden territory, negotiating internal and external boundaries of identity and meaning. I was born an escapist and a traveller, which is why I was gripped from the moment my Russian teacher wrote on the blackboard a funny-looking sentence in Cyrillic, then turned her bespectacled face to the class and said: ‘Today, we are going to learn Russian.’\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eI was eight. The year was 1981, the place Sofia. Leonid Brezhnev, the last serious Soviet dictator, died soon after. My Russian teacher wept into her black shawl while we stood freezing in the school courtyard, listening to records of Soviet army songs. By then, I understood the songs. I also understood, with a child’s instinct, that something was wrong with us, with these songs blaring out of megaphones, with the way we had to understand them. So, as an unconscious act of protest, I tried to be bad at Russian. I gave idiotic answers in class, infuriating the poor teacher. Being an idiot was unrewarding, but I persevered. But it wasn’t to be. \u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eOne day I found myself entertaining my little sister with a slide-show of Russian stories. I had to translate as well as I could for her benefit. My mother came in at one point, and praised me for my translation. I was secretly chuffed. I kept up my slide-shows, ostensibly for my sister. I started looking up Russian words in the dictionary, and that is how I stopped wanting to be bad at Russian – being good at it was much more fun. Around that time, I started writing poetry in Bulgarian – about railway stations and going away. I also read Evgeni Onegin in a bilingual edition, and was transfixed by the miracle of sustained rhyming translation. Gradually, books became the centre of my world. I stopped showing my sister slide-shows because I was too busy reading. It was a way of forgetting what was wrong with us, and travelling to other worlds in the only possible way. \u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003ca name=\"e1\"\u003e\u003c\/a\u003e\u003cb\u003eMichael Hamburger\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003eAfterthoughts on the Mug's Game\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eMy first translations may have been my way of bridging the displacement from that country, separation from the relatives and friends left behind, from the open spaces around Kladow to which I owed my first moments of freedom and exhilaration, the diverse animals I had collected and looked after there, and what had been my family’s culture – though it was music, not language, that was my earliest love in the arts, and one practised by my father and mother.  Had I been a few years older when the displacement occurred, I might well have had to return to my first language as a writer of poems.  \u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eMy friend Franz Wurm, born in Prague into a German-speaking family also fluent in Czech, was shipped to England in a children’s transport at the age of thirteen and educated at an English boarding-school, then Oxford.  Because, unlike me, he had lost his immediate family, when told by an English friend that he would never make a good English poet, he reverted not to German but to French for his early verse – his German lost to him by association with the more grievous loss.  ‘It was only then that I turned to German, which for quite a while came from my reading rather than from the language spoken at home,’ he writes in a letter.  \u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eHe was then moved to re-emigrate to a German-speaking part of Switzerland, a neutral country by association, and became a German-language poet as linguistically inventive and idiosyncratic as his friend Paul Celan – who was even more multilingual by circumstance, but clung to German for poetry when he talked and corresponded with his wife and son in French, out of his very obsession with his mother tongue and the wound inflicted on his family and friends under German occupation.  Erich Fried, one of the most widely read German-language poets of his time, came to England at the age of sixteen, remained resident there, but never became wholly bilingual other than as a translator of texts ranging from Shakespeare to Dylan Thomas and Sylvia Plath.  Many other cases could be cited, each distinct for reasons too intricate to be unravelled here.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eWhen towards the age of thirty, I was induced to write unambitious critical pieces in German, they proved acceptable, though my syntax, like my attitudes, tended to be more English than German and my grammar could be shaky; but the attempt to function bilingually, at least in prose, precipitated an identity crisis for a year or two, leaving me stranded in a no-man’s land. \u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003ca name=\"e2\"\u003e\u003c\/a\u003e\u003cb\u003eMourid Barghouti\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003eExtracts from Midnight\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003eTranslated by Radwa Ashour\u003c\/b\u003e                                                                         \u003cbr\u003e       \u003cbr\u003eMy grandfather, still harbouring the illusion \u003cbr\u003ethat all is well with the world,\u003cbr\u003efills his countryside pipe\u003cbr\u003efor the last time\u003cbr\u003ebefore the advent of the helmets and bulldozers.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eOn the bulldozer’s teeth\u003cbr\u003emy grandfather’s cloak gets hooked.\u003cbr\u003e \u003cbr\u003eThe bulldozer retreats a few yards,\u003cbr\u003eempties its load,\u003cbr\u003ecomes back to fill its huge fork \u003cbr\u003eand has never had enough.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eTwenty times, the bulldozer \u003cbr\u003ecomes and goes, \u003cbr\u003emy grandfather’s cloak still hooked on it.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eAfter the dust and smoke\u003cbr\u003ehad cleared from the house that had been standing there \u003cbr\u003eand as I was staring at the new emptiness\u003cbr\u003eI saw my grandfather \u003cbr\u003ewearing his cloak,\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003ewearing the very same cloak,\u003cbr\u003enot one that was similar\u003cbr\u003ebut the very same.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eHe hugged me and maintained a silent gaze\u003cbr\u003eas if his look \u003cbr\u003eordained the rubble to become a house,\u003cbr\u003erestored the curtains to the windows,\u003cbr\u003ebrought my grandmother back to her armchair, \u003cbr\u003eand retrieved her coloured pills,\u003cbr\u003eput back the sheets on the bed,\u003cbr\u003ethe lights on the ceiling,\u003cbr\u003ethe pictures on the walls,\u003cbr\u003eas if his look brought the handles back to the doors\u003cbr\u003eand the balconies to the stars,\u003cbr\u003eas if it made us resume our dinner,\u003cbr\u003eas if the world had not collapsed, \u003cbr\u003eas if heaven had ears and eyes.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eHe went on staring at the emptiness.\u003cbr\u003eI said:\u003cbr\u003eWhat shall we do after the soldiers leave?\u003cbr\u003eWhat will he do after the soldiers leave?\u003cbr\u003eHe slowly clenched his fist\u003cbr\u003erecapturing a boxer’s resolve in his right hand,\u003cbr\u003ehis coarse bronze hand,\u003cbr\u003ethe hand which had tamed the thorny slope,\u003cbr\u003ethe hand which holds his hoe lightly\u003cbr\u003eand with ease like prayer,\u003cbr\u003ehis hand which can split a tree stump with a single blow,\u003cbr\u003ehis hand open for forgiveness,\u003cbr\u003ehis hand closed on sweets to surprise his grandchildren,\u003cbr\u003ehis hand amputated \u003cbr\u003eyears ago.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003ca name=\"e3\"\u003e\u003c\/a\u003e\u003cb\u003eDear Fahimeh\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003eTranslated by Hubert Moore and Nasrin Parvez\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eThe poem, originally in Farsi, is for Fahimeh Taghadosi, executed in Iran, 1982. The writer is unknown. Farkhondeh Ashena, who recently escaped from Iran, heard it when she was in solitary confinement, and memorised it.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eDear Fahimeh\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eThat day,\u003cbr\u003ethat hot day in July,\u003cbr\u003ewhen the Evin loudspeakers\u003cbr\u003ecalled out your beautiful name and your lips\u003cbr\u003esmiled, your eyes said to your friends,\u003cbr\u003e'So today is the day.'\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eYou went and your walk\u003cbr\u003ewas a perfume filling the corridor.\u003cbr\u003eEveryone gasped, everyone asked with their eyes,\u003cbr\u003e'Is today then the day?' The Pasdar\u003cbr\u003eflung back an answer : 'Where is her bag?\u003cbr\u003eWhere are her veil, her socks, her money?'\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eA rumour went round that you'd given a sign\u003cbr\u003ethat yes, today was the day :\u003cbr\u003e'I don't need my food,' you had said.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eSo tonight is the night.\u003cbr\u003eA silence hangs in the heart of it.\u003cbr\u003eFriends look at friends and tell themselves\u003cbr\u003ethat perhaps you'll come back.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eFahimeh dear, tell us, spare\u003cbr\u003ea word for your friends. Is\u003cbr\u003ethe sky sad where you are, does it weep?\u003cbr\u003eAnd the wind, does it ruffle your veil?\u003cbr\u003eBack here, the ward sweats for your news.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eAnd a message gets through : \u003cbr\u003ewind-blown breathless dandelion\u003cbr\u003ecomes from the mountains to say that clouds \u003cbr\u003eare massing up there and they're big with child.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eHead held high, you are standing and waiting for this,\u003cbr\u003efor the clouds to open, for you \u003cbr\u003eto be mother of change.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eRifles crack.\u003cbr\u003eThe moorland holds its breath\u003cbr\u003eat a star shooting across it.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eIt would be good to sing and go with friends\u003cbr\u003eto face the firing squad, to dance,\u003cbr\u003eto float in the rain.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eIn the long sea-silence,\u003cbr\u003ea wave lifts, oars clip at the water.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eA young fisherman bringing his boat to land,\u003cbr\u003erice-growers trudging home,\u003cbr\u003ethey shape their lips to your name.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eYour name is beautiful for young girls born in July.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\n\u003c\/li\u003e","brand":"Modern Poetry in Translation","offers":[{"title":"Book","offer_id":1040751320,"sku":"9780954536749","price":9.95,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0441\/7369\/products\/2_2_2491335d-2269-4bf0-bfd6-2a69d98d27d8.jpeg?v=1752237541"},{"product_id":"the-north-43","title":"The North 43","description":"The biggest single issue of the magazine ever, North 43 features 70 poems by 37 poets, including Roy Fisher, Mimi Khalvati and Paidraig O'Morain and articles by John McAuliiffe and Bernard O'Donoghue on Seamus Heaney, Jonathan Davidson on learning Peter Didsbury by heart and Neil Curry on Edward Thomas  – as well as the ever-popular Blind Criticism and Poets I Go Back To features, together with two poems from each of the winners in the 2008\/9 Book \u0026amp; Pamphlet Competition.\u003cbr\u003e","brand":"Smith\/Doorstop (The Poetry Business)","offers":[{"title":"Book","offer_id":1040763316,"sku":"19885-0269-9885","price":8.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0441\/7369\/products\/2_2_a7f06740-40d5-4fb7-bacd-e3b8c5f4fc81.jpeg?v=1752237115"},{"product_id":"the-north-48","title":"The North: 48","description":"\u003ci\u003eThe North 48\u003c\/i\u003e showcases 143 poems by 82 poets.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003eFeatures\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e'Poets I Go Back To' — Simon Currie and Chris Jones\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e'Blind Criticism' — Andrew Forster and Helen Mort discuss \u003ci\u003eTaedium Vitae\u003c\/i\u003e \u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003eReviews\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eJohn Killick on Helena Nelson, Frank Ormsby, Anna Robinson, Mary MacRae\u003cbr\u003eAngelina Ayers on Mary Oliver, Peter Bennet, Anne Caldwell\u003cbr\u003eJane Routh on Justin Quinn, John Montague, John McAuliffe\u003cbr\u003eLiz Cashdan on Ivor Gurney, Tom Rawling\u003cbr\u003eStewart Conn on Derek Mahon\u003cbr\u003eNeil Roberts on Plath and Hughes\u003cbr\u003eNoel Williams on Clare Pollard, Kate Potts, Gill McEvoy\u003cbr\u003eNina Boyd on Some Girls Mothers\u003cbr\u003ePeter Carpenter on Hannah Lowe, Michael Mackmin, Steven Blyth\u003cbr\u003eDavid Cooke (1) on Tim Dooley, Oz Hardwick, Adam O’Riordan\u003cbr\u003eDavid Cooke (2) on Matthew Sweeney, Katrina Naomi, A.F. Harrold\u003cbr\u003eKay Syrad on Writing Your Self\u003cbr\u003eBelinda Cooke on Vasko Popa, Tadeusz Rózewicz\u003cbr\u003e","brand":"Smith\/Doorstop (The Poetry Business)","offers":[{"title":"Book","offer_id":1040764264,"sku":"22833-0269-9885","price":8.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0441\/7369\/products\/2_2_17f2b360-186e-4299-b966-06c31a4e6e9b.jpeg?v=1752237114"},{"product_id":"the-north-47-25-years-in-the-north","title":"The North 47: 25 Years in the North","description":"\"Stars in the north are seen not to set.\"\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003ePoems, articles, reviews and features - including 25 year poems and reflections on 25 years of poetry.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003ePlus Poets I Go Back To, The Collection and Blind Criticism. \u003cbr\u003e","brand":"Smith\/Doorstop (The Poetry Business)","offers":[{"title":"Book","offer_id":1040766284,"sku":"22305-0269-9885","price":8.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0441\/7369\/products\/2_2_71c19a2f-369e-4395-8bcb-aadb933a4eed.jpeg?v=1752237112"}],"url":"https:\/\/inpressbooks.co.uk\/collections\/hubert-moore\/peter-finch.oembed","provider":"Inpress Books","version":"1.0","type":"link"}