{"title":"Yannis Ritsos","description":null,"products":[{"product_id":"modern-poetry-in-translation-series-3-no7-love-and-war","title":"Modern Poetry in Translation (Series 3 No.7) Love and War","description":"\u003cem\u003eLove and War\u003c\/em\u003e contains translations and original poems on this modern and ancient topic. This volume demonstrates the wealth and variety of interpretations of the theme.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003ca name=\"contents\"\u003e\u003c\/a\u003eCover by Lucy Wilkinson.  Editorial by David and Helen Constantine.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cstrong\u003eContents:\u003c\/strong\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e•\tAdonis, nine poems, translated by Peter Clark and Sarah Maguire\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e•\tJeff Nosbaum, ‘Pride of Ajax’\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e•\tYannis Ritsos, twenty-eight of the Monochords, translated by Paul Merchant\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e•\t\u003ca href=\"#e0\"\u003eGuillaume Apollinaire, seven poems, translated by Stephen Romer\u003c\/a\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e•\tPushkin, The Captain’s Daughter, extracts translated by Robert Chandler\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e•\tVénus Khoury-Ghata, six poems from Interments, translated by Marilyn Hacker\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e•\tGilgamesh, an extract translated by Paul Batchelor\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e•\tFederico Garcia Lorca , ‘Song of the Civil Guard’, translated by Mark Leech\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e•\t\u003ca href=\"#e1\"\u003eOliver Reynolds, ‘Kolin’ and ‘Dusty Miller Breaks his Silence’(after Liliencron’s ‘Wer weiss wo’ and ‘Vergiss die Mühle nicht’)\u003c\/a\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e•\tStephen Romer, four poems\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e•\t\u003ca href=\"#e2\"\u003eDu Fu, two poems, translated by Paul Harris\u003c\/a\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e•\tCharles Dobzynski, ‘My Life as a Wall’, translated by Marilyn Hacker\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e•\tLucretius, ‘Aulis’, translated by Stephanie Norgate\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e•\t\u003ca href=\"#e3\"\u003eRobert Desnos, ten poems, translated by Timothy Adès\u003c\/a\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e•\tAnzhelina Polonskaya, four poems, translated by Andrew Wachtel\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e•\t\u003ca href=\"#e4\"\u003eManuel Rivas, six poems, translated by Jonathan Dunne\u003c\/a\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e•\tGiuseppe Belli, four sonnets, translated by Mike Stocks\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e•\tElsa Morante, Farewell, an extract translated by Cristina Viti\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e•\tAndrea Zanzotto, four poems, translated by Jo Catling and others\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e•\tElena Shvarts, nine poems, translated by Sasha Dugdale\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cstrong\u003eReviews and Comments\u003c\/strong\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e•\tMichael Hamburger on Assia Wevill\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e•\tRobin Fulton on Robin Robertson’s Tranströmer\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e•\tSasha Dugdale on Emily Lygo’s Voltskaia\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e•\tCharlie Louth on Eavan Boland and the Bachmann-Henze correspondence\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e•\tBelinda Cooke on translations of Vittorio Sereni and Luciano Erba\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e•\tJosephine Balmer, Shorter Reviews\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003chr size=\"1\"\u003e\u003ca name=\"e0\" title=\"e0\"\u003e\u003c\/a\u003e\u003cstrong\u003eGuillaume Apollinaire, seven poems, translated by Stephen Romer\u003c\/strong\u003e  \u003cbr\u003e                         \u003cbr\u003e\u003cem\u003eXxxii (extracts)  My Lou I shall sleep tonight…\u003c\/em\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eMy Lou I shall sleep tonight in the trenches\u003cbr\u003eFreshly dug and waiting near our guns\u003cbr\u003eSome twelve kilometers away are the holes\u003cbr\u003eWhere I shall go down in my coat of horizon-blue\u003cbr\u003eBetween the whizzbangs and the casseroles\u003cbr\u003eTo take my place among our soldier-troglodytes\u003cbr\u003eThe train stopped at Mourmelon le Petit\u003cbr\u003eAnd I stepped down as happy as I climbed up\u003cbr\u003eSoon we shall leave for the battery but for now\u003cbr\u003eI’m among the soldiery and shells are whistling\u003cbr\u003eIn the grey north sky and no one thinks of dying…\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e……………………………\t\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eAnd thus we shall live on the frontline\u003cbr\u003eAnd I shall liken your arms to the necks of swans\u003cbr\u003eAnd sing your breasts belonging to a goddess\u003cbr\u003eAnd the lilac shall blossom… I shall sing your eyes\u003cbr\u003eWhere a choir of lissom cherubs is dancing\u003cbr\u003eThe lilac shall blossom in the serious spring!\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e \u003chr size=\"1\"\u003e\u003ca name=\"e1\" title=\"e1\"\u003e\u003c\/a\u003e\u003cstrong\u003eOliver Reynolds, ‘Kolin’ and ‘Dusty Miller Breaks his Silence’(after Liliencron’s ‘Wer weiss wo’ and ‘Vergiss die Mühle nicht’)\u003cbr\u003e\u003c\/strong\u003e  \u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e               \u003cem\u003eKolin!\u003c\/em\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\t (18.vi.1757)\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eSoldiers drown in their blood.\u003cbr\u003eWheeling smoke, hoof-churned mud\u003cbr\u003e\t and the sheen\u003cbr\u003eof a thousand spurs catches the sun.\u003cbr\u003eNo one’s springing to attention\u003cbr\u003e\t at Kolin.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e All the generals and squaddies\u003cbr\u003e who necked bullets like toddies\u003cbr\u003e\t now stand easy.\u003cbr\u003e Death having meant no harm\u003cbr\u003e by his jogging each arm\u003cbr\u003e\t now stands easy.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e An oblong bump in the shirt\u003cbr\u003e of a corpse feeding on dirt\u003cbr\u003e\t looks like a book.\u003cbr\u003e An adjutant stooped as he grieved\u003cbr\u003e undid the pocket and retrieved\u003cbr\u003e           the Gospel of Luke.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eReturned with Prussian palaver\u003cbr\u003eto the high-ranking father\u003cbr\u003e\t fixed in his chair\u003cbr\u003eit now bears a spidery inscription.\u003cbr\u003eKolin. My son lost in action.\u003cbr\u003e\tWho knows where.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eAnd you who now read that line\u003cbr\u003eare one with its writer: both decline\u003cbr\u003e           to see what’s there.\u003cbr\u003eFor each of us will be posted in turn\u003cbr\u003elost in action, to freeze or burn\u003cbr\u003e           who knows where.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003chr size=\"1\"\u003e\u003ca name=\"e2\" title=\"e2\"\u003e\u003c\/a\u003e\u003cstrong\u003eDu Fu, two poems, translated by Paul Harris\u003c\/strong\u003e  \u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cem\u003eA Scene in Spring\u003c\/em\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eThe state is torn apart, only the mountains and rivers remain.\u003cbr\u003eWeeds and trees run rampant in the city this spring.\u003cbr\u003eDo the flowers sense the times, that they, like me, should weep?\u003cbr\u003eDo the birds feel the emptiness, they seem so fearful?\u003cbr\u003eFor three months on end the garrison beacons have glimmered at night.\u003cbr\u003eA letter from home would be worth a heap of gold to me,\u003cbr\u003eAn old man waiting, whose remaining white hairs\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e \u003chr size=\"1\"\u003e\u003ca name=\"e3\" title=\"e3\"\u003e\u003c\/a\u003e\u003cstrong\u003eRobert Desnos, ten poems, translated by Timothy Adès\u003c\/strong\u003e \u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cem\u003eSong of the Glass of Wine\u003c\/em\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eWhen the train goes don’t wave your hand,\u003cbr\u003eYour handkerchief, your umbrella,\u003cbr\u003eBut fill a glass with wine,\u003cbr\u003eAnd throw, towards the train whose grab-rails are singing,\u003cbr\u003eThe wine’s long flame,\u003cbr\u003eThe wine’s bloody flame that is like your tongue,\u003cbr\u003eAnd shares with it\u003cbr\u003eThe palate and the couch\u003cbr\u003eOf your lips and your mouth.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e \u003chr size=\"1\"\u003e\u003ca name=\"e4\" title=\"e4\"\u003e\u003c\/a\u003e\u003cstrong\u003eManuel Rivas, six poems, translated by Jonathan Dunne\u003c\/strong\u003e \u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cem\u003eBallad on the Western Beaches\u003c\/em\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eThe ship settles on the shore\u003cbr\u003eand land birds nest on its mast.\u003cbr\u003eWith the compass I trace routes on maps of tillage,\u003cbr\u003ehurt by the sky’s anger on the seed’s weak ribs,\u003cbr\u003efearful of the flower’s drift before inhumane winds.\u003cbr\u003eThe ship sleeps on the shore,\u003cbr\u003ethe keel’s blue imagination covered in brush and rushes,\u003cbr\u003eand the figurehead has a strolling soul.\u003cbr\u003eIn the binnacle is kept the book of moons and the rains’ needle,\u003cbr\u003ea bottle of old snow liqueur.\u003cbr\u003eA skylark sings on a rusty harpoon,\u003cbr\u003ea blackbird’s sigh lashes the cables\u003cbr\u003eand crows on the rudder glimpse lesser death lying alongside.\u003cbr\u003eAll set, admiral, for the great journey.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e","brand":"Modern Poetry in Translation","offers":[{"title":"Book","offer_id":1040751556,"sku":"9780954536770","price":9.95,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0441\/7369\/products\/2_2_29d55b0a-dc86-4821-800d-d6dad869e2c0.jpeg?v=1752237541"},{"product_id":"modern-poetry-in-translation-series-3-no2-diaspora","title":"Modern Poetry in Translation (Series 3 No.2) Diaspora","description":"Cover by Lucy Wilkinson.  Editorial by David and Helen Constantine.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cstrong\u003eContents\u003c\/strong\u003e\u003cul\u003e\u003cli\u003e\n\u003ca\u003e\u003c\/a\u003e\u003cbr\u003eCarmen Bugan, an essay and two poems\u003cbr\u003eYannis Ritsos, \u003ci\u003efifteen Tristichs\u003c\/i\u003e, translated by David Harsent. \u003cbr\u003eDavid Harsent, three poems from Legion . \u003cbr\u003eGoran Simic, an essay and four prose poems. \u003cbr\u003eForough Farrokhzad, four poems, translated by Gholam Reza Sami Gorgan Roodi. Marzanna Bogumila Kielar, six poems, translated by Elzbieta Wjcik-Leese.  \u003cbr\u003eLyubomir Nikolov, six poems, introduced by Clive Wilmer, translated by Miroslav Nikolov.                                                                               \u003cbr\u003eAdel Guemar, four poems, introduced and translated by Tom Cheesman and John Goodby, with a note on Hafan Books \u003cbr\u003eSandor Mrai, \u003ci\u003eFuneral Oration\u003c\/i\u003e, translated by George Gmri and Clive Wilmer                                                                                \u003cbr\u003eVersions of Ovid's Tristia,  by Paul Batchelor. \u003cbr\u003eOlivia McCannon, three poems. \u003cbr\u003eYvonne Green, three poems. \u003cbr\u003eZiba Karbassi, three poems, translated by Stephen Watts\u003cbr\u003eVolker Braun, nine poems, translated by David Constantine. \u003cbr\u003eWulf Kirsten, ten poems, translated by Stefan Tobler. \u003cbr\u003eKnut Odegaard, \u003ci\u003eTaking out the Hives\u003c\/i\u003e, translated by Kenneth Steven. \u003cbr\u003eEugenio Montale, three uncollected poems, translated by Simon Carnell and Erica Segre. \u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003eReviews:\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eBernard Adams on George Szirtes's \u003ci\u003eAgnes Nemes Nagy\u003c\/i\u003e  \u003cbr\u003ePaschalis Nicolaou of David Connolly's \u003ci\u003eYannis Kondos\u003c\/i\u003e\u003cbr\u003eWill Stone of Antony Hasler's \u003ci\u003eGeorg Heym\u003c\/i\u003e\u003cbr\u003eJosephine Balmer: \u003ci\u003eFurther Books Received\u003c\/i\u003e. \u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eExtract from the Editorial to \u003ci\u003eDiaspora\u003c\/i\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eMuch, though not all, in this issue has to do with what we think of as the hallmark of our age: exile, the search for asylum, the speaking of native languages abroad. But poems by Brecht - leaving Germany for Scandinavia, the Soviet Union and America in 1933 - and by Ovid - leaving Rome for the Black Sea in AD - should site our topic in a long tradition. \u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eThe abundance and variety of material we received for Diaspora was astonishing, heartening and alarming in equal measure. What are you to feel when an Iraqi poet sends you his latest volume - in English - from New Zealand? It seemed we put out a receiver and signals came in urgently from round the globe. We took all  we could of the best and most characteristic writing, so assembling a very mixed company, from Sarajevo via Toronto, from Sofia via Baltimore, from Algiers via Swansea. \u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eTom Cheesman contributes a note on Hafan Books. They publish, in Swansea, work by asylum seekers from Somalia, Cameroon, Chile, Sudan.  They might be set alongside the Mother Tongues issue of MPT as testimony of the packed plethora of voices in the British Isles today. We had no wish to exhaust the topic, which is literally inexhaustible, only to establish it as a fact and a constant presence. This magazine will always be listening for and will try to be a staging post for the world's diaspora.  The original application of the word 'diaspora', in the Septuagint, was to the threatened dispersal of the Jewish people: that they should be 'a diaspora in all kingdoms of the earth'. \u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eIn the New Testament, the dispersal, still grievous, has a hopeful colouring too, in that those going abroad will be the carriers of a new faith. The word itself, in its roots, means 'a sowing abroad'. The two senses - exile and seeding - will be obvious in much of the work collected here.  Translation itself is an act of beneficent diaspora. It seeds the countries of the world with words from elsewhere. Poetry, even in its native country, is a more or less foreign language, a language of elsewhere. Translation sends it down the tradewinds, lands it anywhere and everywhere, as vital contraband. The translation and dispersal of poetry throughout the world sustains an old ideal of internationalism. It makes for a global solidarity against all the ideologies and globalisations that reduce humanity. \u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003ePoetry is an act of truthful speech, and as such, by nature and context, is intrinsically an act of opposition to the ruling packs of lies. It is subversive because essentially intractable and irreducible. Poetry can't be ordered into place. If it tried to obey, it would lose its soul. It would continue an existence like that of the living dead, whose souls go below at the very moment of betrayal, leaving their bodies to shift on earth a while longer. The Republic of Letters is, in Louis MacNeice's phrase,  'incorrigibly plural'. In its plurality it faces and opposes all fundamentalisms. And it is a republic: it concerns itself with the res publica, with what we have in common and need for our common good. Translators extend the writ of the Republic of Humane Letters.  \u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cstrong\u003eFrom \u003ci\u003eWhy I do not write in my native language\u003c\/i\u003e by Carmen Bugan\u003c\/strong\u003e  \u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003ePeople ask me so often why I do not write in Romanian that I think about it long and hard. First, I do not want to write in the language in which my family suffered interrogations, prison visits, threats of all kinds. I certainly do not want to remember all the times when we wrote to each other and burned our words: we were surveyed twenty-four hours a day for the last five years that I lived in my country and everything we said was recorded by microphones set up around the house. I hated subtexts, lies, the fear of words. \u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eNow I belong to those people who write in a learned language. And I belong to those who strive to define their responsibilities as people who were born in one country and live quite willingly in another. This might seem to many the kind of thing one 'grows out' of. But the reason why one writes in one's native language, from exile, is that the native language has beauty and truth in it. Poets write in their native language to remember the warmth of their home, the customs of their villages and towns, their happy youth. They want to recreate a sense of home, a warm cocoon around the icy experience of exile. \u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eBut my exile is my cocoon. I like it here in English more than I like remembering kids calling me 'daughter of criminal'; in my native language: that never sounded safe or good or home. When I stopped looking behind my back to see if anyone was following me to harm me, I stopped looking at writing poetry in my native language. I think the poems themselves make my choice seem less harsh or less impertinent. In my situation it is not that bad to be on the side of forgetting. \u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cstrong\u003eFrom Ziba Karbassi \u003ci\u003eDeath by Stoning\u003c\/i\u003e, translated by Stephen Watts\u003c\/strong\u003e \u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eLast night wolves were howling\u003cbr\u003eI heard their voices last night \u003cbr\u003ethey brought me your torn clothes\u003cbr\u003ethe blue shirt your auntie made you\u003cbr\u003eI wish her dear hand had been \u003cbr\u003ebroken \u003cbr\u003eyour blue shirt is red with blood\u003cbr\u003eand I cannot make out its print  \t\u003cbr\u003eor pattern \u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003ethey said their skirts were filled with stones \u003cbr\u003etheir hands were full of stones, their skirts \u003cbr\u003eeverywhere stones were being rained down \u003cbr\u003ethe world was become a world \t\t\t\u003cbr\u003eof stone \u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eI wish        \u003cbr\u003eI wish                      \u003cbr\u003eI wish \u003cbr\u003eyour mother were dead \t\t\u003cbr\u003eI wish I were \u003cbr\u003eyour sister's skirts                    \u003cbr\u003eare full with blood \u003cbr\u003eyour brother is burning \u003cbr\u003ethe cradle of wood, can't you \t\t\u003cbr\u003esmell the smoke ? \u003cbr\u003elook, I am not \u003cbr\u003escared any more \u003cbr\u003ethe wolf of my fear is hunted \u003cbr\u003eby the tiger \u003cbr\u003eof my venom \u003cbr\u003eand I've become a fire monster \u003cbr\u003eif I open my mouth\u003cbr\u003ethe whole earth will \u003cbr\u003eburst \u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\n\u003c\/li\u003e\u003c\/ul\u003e","brand":"Modern Poetry in Translation","offers":[{"title":"Book","offer_id":1041136948,"sku":"9780954536725","price":9.95,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0441\/7369\/products\/2_2_6d9a8892-4420-45be-9c2d-2bb3d2cb93e3.jpeg?v=1752237510"}],"url":"https:\/\/inpressbooks.co.uk\/collections\/yannis-ritsos\/sarah-maguire.oembed","provider":"Inpress Books","version":"1.0","type":"link"}