{"title":"Josephine Balmer","description":"Josephine Balmer was born in Hampshire in 1959. She studied Classics and Ancient History at University College, London, and has worked as a continuing education lecturer in Classics and Comparative Literature. She is a freelance writer and translator. She has published four books with Bloodaxe: her translation \u003cem\u003eSappho: Poems and Fragments\u003c\/em\u003e (1992) and the companion anthology, \u003cem\u003eClassical Women Poets\u003c\/em\u003e (1996), and her new translation \u003cem\u003eCatullus: Poems of Love and Hate\u003c\/em\u003e, published in 2004 with \u003cem\u003eChasing Catullus: poems, translations \u0026amp; transgressions\u003c\/em\u003e. Her latest collection, \u003cem\u003eThe Word for Sorrow\u003c\/em\u003e, for which she was awarded a Wingate Foundation Scholarship, was published by Salt in 2009. She has written widely on poetry and translation for publications such as \u003cem\u003eThe Observer\u003c\/em\u003e, \u003cem\u003eThe Independent on Sunday\u003c\/em\u003e, \u003cem\u003eThe Times Literary Supplement\u003c\/em\u003e and the \u003cem\u003eNew Statesman\u003c\/em\u003e, and is reviews editor of \u003cem\u003eModern Poetry in Translation\u003c\/em\u003e. Chair of the Translators’ Association from 2002 to 2005, she is a present judge of The Times\/Stephen Spender Prize for poetry in translation and has recently been awarded a PhD by Publication in Literature and Creative Writing at the University of East Anglia. She lives in Crowborough, East Sussex and in Cornwall.\n","products":[{"product_id":"modern-poetry-in-translation-series-3-no3-metamorphoses","title":"Modern Poetry in Translation (Series 3 No.3) Metamorphoses","description":"\u003ci\u003eMetamorphoses\u003c\/i\u003e seeks to extend the very idea of translation, and features texts which translators have transformed from a foreign original into something that is peculiarly their own.  \u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eHighlights include versions of Akhmatova done by outstanding contemporary poets for Poetry International at the South Bank in 2004, as well as Ingeborg Bachmann’s War Diary, a moving document of her early life in terrible times.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eThis volume of MPT gives a voice to the unheard and creates living connections across frontiers, cultures, genres, mediums and ages.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003ca name=\"contents\"\u003e\u003c\/a\u003eCover by Lucy Wilkinson. Typesetting by Paul Dunn. Editorial by David and Helen Constantine.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003eContents\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cul\u003e\n\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\n\u003c\/ul\u003e\u003cb\u003e Akhmatova on the South Bank \u003c\/b\u003e\u003cul\u003e\n\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cli\u003eRuth Borthwick: Anna of all the Russias: Translating Akhmatova    \u003cbr\u003e\n\u003c\/li\u003e\n\u003cli\u003eElaine Feinstein: An Evening for Akhmatova\u003cbr\u003e \u003c\/li\u003e\n\u003cli\u003e\n\u003ca href=\"#e0\"\u003eColette Bryce: Six poems \u003c\/a\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\n\u003c\/li\u003e\n\u003cli\u003eSasha Dugdale: Five poems\u003cbr\u003e\n\u003c\/li\u003e\n\u003cli\u003eJo Shapcott: Three poems\u003cbr\u003e\n\u003c\/li\u003e\n\u003cli\u003e\n\u003ca href=\"#e1\"\u003eGeorge Szirtes (with Veronika Krasnova): Six poems \u003c\/a\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\n\u003c\/li\u003e\n\u003cli\u003eMarilyn Hacker: ‘For Akhmatova’\u003cbr\u003e\n\u003c\/li\u003e\n\u003cli\u003eJohn Greening: ‘Coming Soon. Remastered from the Old Norse’\u003cbr\u003e\n\u003c\/li\u003e\n\u003cli\u003e\n\u003ca href=\"#e2\"\u003eNeil Philip: ‘Twenty-one glosses on poems from The Greek Anthology’ \u003c\/a\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\n\u003c\/li\u003e\n\u003cli\u003ePaul Howard: Versions of four sonnets by Giuseppe Belli\u003cbr\u003e\n\u003c\/li\u003e\n\u003cli\u003eTerence Dooley: A version of Raymond Queneau’s ‘La Pendule’\u003cbr\u003e\n\u003c\/li\u003e\n\u003cli\u003eKathleen Jamie: Hölderlin into Scots. Two poems\u003cbr\u003e\n\u003c\/li\u003e\n\u003cli\u003e\n\u003ca href=\"#e3\"\u003eJosephine Balmer: The Word for Sorrow: a work begins its progress \u003c\/a\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\n\u003c\/li\u003e\n\u003c\/ul\u003e\u003cb\u003e Ingeborg Bachmann \u003c\/b\u003e\u003cul\u003e\n\u003cbr\u003e\u003cli\u003eKaren Leeder: Introduction\u003cbr\u003e\n\u003c\/li\u003e\n\u003cli\u003e\n\u003ca href=\"#e4\"\u003eMike Lyons: ‘War Diary’ \u003c\/a\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\n\u003c\/li\u003e\n\u003cli\u003ePatrick Drysdale and Mike Lyons: Five Bachmann poems\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\n\u003c\/li\u003e\n\u003cli\u003eSean O’Brien: A version of Canto V of Dante’s  Inferno\u003cbr\u003e\n\u003c\/li\u003e\n\u003cli\u003eCristina Viti:  Eros Alesi’s Fragments\u003cbr\u003e\n\u003c\/li\u003e\n\u003cli\u003eSarah Lawson and Malgorzata Koraszweska:  Six poems by Ann Kühn- Cichocka\u003cbr\u003e\n\u003c\/li\u003e\n\u003cli\u003eMarilyn Hacker: Guy Goffette’s  ‘Construction Site of the Elegy’\u003cbr\u003e\n\u003c\/li\u003e\n\u003cli\u003eBelinda Cooke and Richard McCane: Six poems by Boris Poplavsky\u003cbr\u003e\n\u003c\/li\u003e\n\u003cli\u003eCecilia Rossi: Poems from Alejandra Pizarnik’s Works and Nights\u003cbr\u003e\n\u003c\/li\u003e\n\u003cli\u003eTerence Cave: A memorial note on Edith McMorran and a translation of  Aragon’s ‘C’\u003cbr\u003e\n\u003c\/li\u003e\n\u003cli\u003ePaul Batchelor: An essay on Barry MacSweeney’s Apollinaire\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\n\u003c\/li\u003e\n\u003c\/ul\u003e\u003cb\u003eReviews\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cul\u003e\n\u003cli\u003e\n\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eAntony Wood on Angela Livingstone’s Poems from Chevengur\u003cbr\u003e\n\u003c\/li\u003e\n\u003cli\u003eJosephine  Balmer on Cliff Ashcroft’s Dreaming of Still Water and PeterBoyle’s Eugenio Montejo \u003cbr\u003e\n\u003c\/li\u003e\n\u003cli\u003ePaschalis Nikolaou on Philip Ramp’s Karouzos\u003cbr\u003e\n\u003c\/li\u003e\n\u003cli\u003eFrancis Jones on Jan Twardowski (translated by Sarah Lawson and Malgorzata Koraszweska) and  A Fine Line: New Poetry from Central and Eastern Europe\u003cbr\u003e\n\u003c\/li\u003e\n\u003cli\u003eJosephine Balmer:Books Received.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003ca name=\"e0\"\u003e\u003c\/a\u003e\u003cb\u003eColette Bryce:Two Poems\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003eUnder a dark veil she wrung her hands…\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eUnder a dark veil she wrung her hands...\u003cbr\u003e‘What makes you grieve like this?’\u003cbr\u003eI have made my lover drunk\u003cbr\u003ewith a bitter sadness.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eI'll never forget it. He left, reeling,\u003cbr\u003ehis mouth twisted, desolate...\u003cbr\u003eI ran downstairs, ran into the courtyard,\u003cbr\u003emanaged to catch him opening the gate\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eand begged him: ‘It was all a joke, don't leave,\u003cbr\u003eplease... I will lose my mind!’\u003cbr\u003eBut he only smiled, calmly, terribly,\u003cbr\u003eand said to me: ‘Get inside out of the wind.’\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e1911\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003eHe was young, anxious, jealous…\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eHe was young, anxious, jealous. \u003cbr\u003eHis love was like the heat of the sun\u003cbr\u003ebut he killed my white bird\u003cbr\u003eas he could not bear her singing of the past.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eSunset. Into the room he strides:\u003cbr\u003e‘Love, laugh, write poetry!’ he orders me.\u003cbr\u003eI buried the bird\u003cbr\u003eby the well, near the alder tree.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eI promised him I wouldn't cry\u003cbr\u003ebut my heart set to a stone,\u003cbr\u003eand now it seems that everywhere\u003cbr\u003eI turn, I hear her sweet song.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e1914\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003ca name=\"e1\"\u003e\u003c\/a\u003e\u003cb\u003eGeorge Szirtes (with Veronika Krasnova): From the Introduction to Six poems \u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eThe first and most difficult task of a translator is, as I see it, to understand the poem. I don’t mean the words, but somehow to see the ghost in the machine, to see what it is that gives that particular form of words life. Without this nothing can be done. I am aware that this sounds far too simple, because the process of reading is also the process of translation, so the life in the original begins to kindle, then overlap with, the life of the developing translation. The translator, if a poet, seeks that life and is used to seeing it develop in his or her own work. Nor is that ‘life’, if I may give the word its proper inverted commas at this stage, independent of all the elements that seem to comprise it. There is compromise and conversation throughout.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003ca name=\"e2\"\u003e\u003c\/a\u003e\u003cb\u003eFrom Neil Philip’s: ‘Twenty-one glosses on poems from The Greek Anthology’ \u003c\/b\u003e.                                                                                \u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003eAntipholos\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eWhen Tereina was just a child,\u003cbr\u003eI said, ‘This one will break a few hearts\u003cbr\u003ewhen she grows up.’\u003cbr\u003eEveryone laughed—me too—\u003cbr\u003ebut now it’s all come true.\u003cbr\u003eJust to look at her\u003cbr\u003eburns me up,\u003cbr\u003eand look at her\u003cbr\u003eis all I can do.\u003cbr\u003eWhen I beg her\u003cbr\u003eto put me out of my misery,\u003cbr\u003eall she says is,\u003cbr\u003e‘I’m a virgin.’\u003cbr\u003eThis will be the death of me.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003eBassus\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eTurn into a shower of gold, a swan,\u003cbr\u003ea bull, a bird? That’s too hard.\u003cbr\u003eI’ll leave such fancy tricks to Zeus,\u003cbr\u003eand woo Corinna with a credit card.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003eLucilius\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eAll this stuff you buy—\u003cbr\u003eexfoliating scrub,\u003cbr\u003emoisturiser,\u003cbr\u003efoundation,\u003cbr\u003ehighlighter,\u003cbr\u003elippy,\u003cbr\u003eeye-shadow,\u003cbr\u003eeye-liner,\u003cbr\u003emascara,\u003cbr\u003ecoloured contacts,\u003cbr\u003ewash-in hair dye—\u003cbr\u003ewouldn’t a new face\u003cbr\u003ework out cheaper?\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003ca name=\"e3\"\u003e\u003c\/a\u003e\u003cb\u003eFrom Josephine Balmer’s: The Word for Sorrow: a work begins its progess\u003c\/b\u003e.                                                                                \u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eOne rainy spring day I was working on an initial translation from Tristia using the Perseus site’s on-line Latin  dictionary, when an electrical storm required me to log off . Turning to an old dictionary, bought at a village fete as a school-student, I noticed by chance an inscription on its fly-leaf which I must have seen many times over the years and yet barely registered: a name in faded ink and a date, early in 1900. Back on-line a few days later, I ran a search on the name, almost on a whim. The results were impressive: First World War documents and diaries relating to 1\/1st regiment of the Royal Gloucester Hussars, posted to Gallipoli in 1915, to the Hellespont, near Ovid’s own place of  exile and which, by coincidence, Ovid had just described crossing in the poem I was translating. Following link after link, more and more connections were revealed; old photos of the regiment lined up on Cheltenham Station just before leaving for the east, bringing parallels with Ovid’s famous poem describing his last night before exile. The eye-witness accounts detailing the sickness, deprivations and dangers of the Gallipoli campaign in which 50,000 Allied troops and 85,000 Turkish soldiers died, reminiscent of Ovid’s own powerful laments about his conditions of exile. And so The Word for Sorrow came about, versions of Ovid’s verse alongside original poems exploring the history of the old second-hand dictionary used to translate it.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003ca name=\"e4\"\u003e\u003c\/a\u003e\u003cb\u003eFrom Mike Lyons' Translation of Ingeborg Bachmann's: ‘War Diary’ \u003c\/b\u003e.                                                                                \u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e11 June. L. has fallen in love with an Englishman, he is tremendously tall and gangling and is called Bob. She says he is very rich and was brought up in Oxford. He’s all she can talk about. Yesterday she said she had just one wish, to get away from here and go to England. She’s hoping, I think, that he will marry her. But marriage between Austrian girls and Englishmen is prohibited by the military government. She says the hardships here will never end and that she has gone through too much, can’t take any more, and wants a life for herself. I can understand her only too well but get angry with her too, because she thinks I also ought to marry an Englishman and get away from here. \u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eOf course I want to get away, but only in order to study, and I don’t want to get married and not even to an Englishman, just for the sake of a few tins of food and some silk stockings. Most of the Englishmen here are very nice and decent, I think. But I am much too young. Arthur and Bill are really very nice and we talk and laugh a lot together. In the garden we often play Tailor, Tailor, Lend Me Your Scissors and Look Behind You . Arthur keeps giving Heinerle chocolate, and a few days ago he called on Mummy, who is still in bed, and put tea and biscuits onto her bedspread. She calls him ‘Redilocks’, because he has such ginger hair, and likes him best. \u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eI think he also is in love with L., Bill is too, but Arthur more so, and I think too that Arthur is terribly jealous of Bob. Bob is quite standoffish. We once exchanged a couple of words but never again and even then it didn’t amount to much: it was just to thank him for letting L. have the car so that she could fetch Mummy from hospital.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e14 June. My mind is in a whirl still. Jack Hamesh was here again, this time he came in a jeep. Everyone in the village was gawping of course and S. came across the stream twice to look into the garden. I took him into the garden because Mummy is in bed upstairs. We sat on the bench and to begin with I was trembling again so badly that he must have thought I was mad or had something on my conscience or whatever. And I just don’t know why. I no longer know what we talked about first, but then all at once it was about books, about Thomas Mann and Stefan Zweig and Schnitzler and Hofmannsthal. \u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eI was so happy, he knows everything, and he told me he would never have thought he might meet a young girl in Austria who in spite of her Nazi upbringing had read all that. And suddenly everything was quite different, and I told him all about the books. He told me that he was taken to England in 1938 in a Kindertransport with other Jewish children. Actually he was already 18 years old at the time, but an uncle managed to arrange it, his parents were already dead. \u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eNow I know too why he speaks such good German. Then he joined the British army and in the occupation zones lots of former Germans and Austrians are now working in the offices of the FSS, on account of the language and because they know the conditions in the country better. We talked till evening, and he kissed my hand before he left. Nobody ever kissed my hand before. I am so mixed up and happy, and when he’d gone I climbed the apple tree in our garden, it was already dark, and I cried my eyes out and thought to myself that I would never wash my hand again.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eJack comes every day now, and I’ve never talked so much in my life. We talk mostly about Weltanschauung and history. He’s very good at explaining, and I’m no longer in the least embarrassed by him. I always ask him if it’s something I haven’t yet heard about. At the moment we’re doing socialism and communism (and of course if Mummy were to hear the word ‘communism’ she would faint!), but you must have detailed knowledge of everything and study. I’m reading Marx’s Capital and a book by Adler. I’ve told Jack that I’d like to study philosophy, and he takes me very seriously and thinks that is right for me. But I’ve kept quiet about the poems.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\n\u003c\/li\u003e\n\u003c\/ul\u003e","brand":"Modern Poetry in Translation","offers":[{"title":"Book","offer_id":1040750824,"sku":"9780954536732","price":9.95,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0441\/7369\/products\/2_2_9f70c4b0-eb28-488b-b088-4821d55ea06b.jpeg?v=1752237543"},{"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"}],"url":"https:\/\/inpressbooks.co.uk\/collections\/josephine-balmer\/itzik-manger.oembed","provider":"Inpress Books","version":"1.0","type":"link"}