This week's literary highlights from across the world
Happy Friday, Asymptote!
All translation is approximate, but we don’t always like to think so. “Approximate Translation” is a performance that grapples with intelligibility, performing sections of Ouyang Jianghe’s poem Between Chinese and English. And speaking of canny approximation, the Los Angeles Review of Books‘ “Multilingual Wordsmiths” series continues with Ann Goldstein, past journal interviewee and translator of Italian fever-phenom Elena Ferrante. READ MORE…
"...she values the translation of her poetry into English, as well as into other languages, to plant her poetry on the globe."
Yumiko Tsumura’s translations of poems by Kazuko Shiraishi, also known as “the Allen Ginsberg of Japan,” appeared in our Winter 2016 issue. Recently Tsumura corresponded via e-mail with Interview Features Editor Ryan Mihaly.
Your first book of translations of Kazuko Shiraishi’s poems dates back to 2002. When did you first meet Kazuko, and how did you begin working with her?
I met Kazuko Shiraishi on September 30, 2000 in Tokyo. My co-translator, Samuel Grolmes, my late husband, and I had been working on a translation of Ryuichi Tamura’s poetry, ever since he was the first guest to the International Writing Program (IWP) at the University of Iowa established by Paul Engle. I was working on my MFA in poetry and translation and Sam was an assistant director to Paul Engle, and we started translating Tamura’s poetry during his stay at the IWP.
Tamura’s “The World Without Words” was published [in] New Directions Annual 22. When our book Tamura Ryuichi Poems: 1946-1998 was published early September 2000, Shichosha, the publisher of modern poetry, held a symposium in Tokyo called “How to Surpass Tamura” on September 30, 2000. Kazuko Shiraishi was a great admirer of Tamura’s poetry and one of the panelists. During that meeting she came to ask Sam and me to translate her poetry. READ MORE…
"Poets have long been questioning the usefulness/uselessness of the label 'prose poem.'"
When I was invited to create a miniseries of semi-regular author events as translator in residence at the Austrian Cultural Forum London, I wanted to make sure that the Austrian author would always be in dialogue with a British counterpart about something they have in common in their writing. My motivation is to juggle the foreignness and uniqueness of German-language literature with where it meets and overlaps with literature written in English in order to show that writing comes from a specific linguistic, cultural and literary context, but one that connects and communicates with others. As journalist Judith Vonberg summed it up in her review of the event for Literaturhaus Europa: “it’s a simple but unconventional idea. Instead of highlighting the differences between British literature and literature made on the continent, the starting point is similarity, which opens up far more interesting discussions.”
The first of these events brought Austrian writer and musician Carolina Schutti and author and illustrator Joanna Walsh together to discuss poetic prose and how poetry permeates their writing in terms of language, effect and form with me in the ACF London’s Salon back in February. As a writer of both poetry and short fiction, I’m interested in why sometimes one form does and then other times won’t do at all, and why it sometimes happens that I can read the poetry and prose of others interchangeably as if in the other form. What are the markers and where is the boundary? READ MORE…
"I believe you must invest your own body in relation to otherness. You can’t choose what’s 'other' to you."
In addition to winning this year’s Close Approximations contest (in poetry, judged by Michael Hofmann), Swedish poet Marie Silkeberg is the author of seven books of poetry and many other works, including essays about and translations of Inger Christensen and Rosmarie Waldrop. She also works on sound compositions and makes poetry films, often in conjunction with other artists. She was born in Denmark and teaches at the University of Southern Denmark.
I translated eight of Marie’s poems into English while she was completing a residency in Iowa City as part of the International Writing Program in the fall of 2015. The poems form a series called “Städerna” (“The Cities”), and comprise one section of the book Till Damaskus (published in Stockholm by Albert Bonniers Förlag in 2014), a collaboration between Silkeberg and Syrian-born Palestinian poet Ghayath Almadhoun (now based in Sweden). The book explores city spaces across the world and asks questions about belonging, immigration, and identity. As we collaborated on the translations, Marie described her process and her goals for her poetry, as well as her goals for translation. In this conversation, I asked Marie to tell more about some of the initial ideas she shared with me during the translation process.
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Kelsi Vanada: The eight poems in “Städerna” are written in what you’ve called “blocks.” They are composed by many short phrases, separated by periods, which are the only kind of punctuation that mark the poems. In addition, there is no capitalization in the Swedish poems, and many of the phrases separted by periods seem to either extend the thought of the previous phrase, or bleed into the following phrase. Why the choice of this form?
Marie Silkeberg: I’d like to revise that, actually. I want to call them “squares.” They are related to the black square of Malevich. He was a Russian painter, early 20th century. He was extreme; he made black squares on white. It is the extreme part of representation that I’m interested in. Some of the first poems I wrote were in these squares, and I didn’t know what I was doing. The space of a poem is a geometric figure for me. Or the movement in a geometric figure. These squares were invaded by a circular movement; it was a feeling of a circle inside a square. READ MORE…
The drizzle like infinitesimal pinpricks, the sensation of __________.
Someone’s going to dream about this.
Head in the second house, the body
centered: a brick, a bar,
equidistant from two gringos.
We were about to go somewhere else
when an alarm began to signal
another reality:
“In that photo”—it tells me— “fix
the pit stains on my shirt.”
Climate change is listening
to summer’s hit song
in the winter.
A word like antiretroviral
in even the most visionary poem. READ MORE…
"In the text the girl sings: This earth cell is old—I am full of longing. She is under the oak. There is ambiguity. "
I’m translating “The Wife’s Lament,” from the Anglo-Saxon (among other poems), and—though I am in the habit of calling my drafts “transgressions”—there is a palpable sense of longing breaking through which I think may be possible to understand. What I mean by “even now,” has to do with the ideas of immediacy prevalent (one could say saturated) in the current collective consciousness.
I just read an article eulogizing the long email. And who even talks on the phone anymore. We interact in quick bursts, with no breaks. Both of these things being, of course, enemies of longing. We do not allow ourselves the luxury of longing. For to long, literally, takes “length.” Long stretches of absence and time—for which nobody has time for anymore.
The girl I’m trying to write (the wife lamenting) gets left to long by herself under an oak tree. This oak tree intrigues me. There is so much symbolism here. Pagans had their sacred groves. Druids had oak knowledge. I have also read about the linguistic link between the Celtic word for oak and the Sanskrit word for door—the connection between knowledge and doors apparently reaches pretty far back, but the other thing has to do with the oak as a portal, a door to another world. In the text the girl sings: This earth cell is old—I am full of longing. She is under the oak. There is ambiguity. Is she even alive?
"This year's Poligon boasts three prize winners: Krivokapić, Kaplan, and Pajević."
The first incarnation of the literary festival Poligon was held in Mostar on September 25-27, 2015 at several different venues in the city. The decentralization of the festival and the “occupation” of Mostar’s cultural hotspots by poets and writers helped revive the city’s dormant literary scene. The festival was imagined as a space for dialogue between authors from the former Yugoslavia, an opportunity for strategic planning and strengthening of interregional literary exchange. In the words of Mirko Božić, the initiator and co-organizer of Poligon, the festival hopes to put Mostar on the region’s literary map by providing a multi-medial platform for literature, but also visual arts and music. READ MORE…
"...it became apparent at once that women have always used writing as a form of politics and activism."
In a conversation about a younger generation of Anglophone writers in India, Annie Zaidi’s name is bound to come up. From poetry to non-fiction to drama to a novella that is both ghost story and romance, her writing continually shifts forms, landscapes, and languages. Zaidi is the editor of Unbound: 2,000 years of Indian Women’s Writing and the author of Gulab, Love Stories # 1 to 14, and Known Turf: Bantering with Bandits and Other True Tales. She is also the co-author of The Good Indian Girl. Her work has appeared in several anthologies including Eat the Sky, Drink the Ocean, Mumbai Noir, Women Changing India, and Griffith Review 49: New Asia Now. Zaidi spoke with me about her influences, process, and literary interests in an email interview.
***
Poorna Swami: Your grandfather was a well-known Urdu writer, and you have said in the past that literature was a big part of your childhood. How has that culture of language and literature influenced your career as a writer? Although you write primarily in English, does Urdu shape your work in any way?
Annie Zaidi: Literature was a big part of my childhood, but not in the sense of literature with a capital L. My family had some literary background, and there were a lot of books around but there were no literary discussions and for many years, I did not have access to a good library. But books were seen as a good thing and we were bought books and comics from an early age. Books were my main source of entertainment and, later, my main solace. I read almost all the time and that turned me into somebody who didn’t know much except the world of words and stories. Turning to literature as a vocation was a very short step from there. READ MORE…
"A lot of what's really vibrant and interesting in Uyghur poetry right now is happening primarily on the web, and even on phone messaging apps."
Your translation of Merdan Ehet’éli’s poem “Common Night” is Asymptote‘s first piece from the Uyghur. I want to point out two words from the poem: “pig iron” and “hellfruit.” Can you tell us about these words and how you translated them?
The Uyghur word choyun (also chöyün) refers to pig iron or cast iron, and for me it calls to mind something hard and rough. The connotations are much less positive than the words tömür (iron) and polat (steel), both of which are used in Uyghur personal names. In speaking of “a night poured into our spines like pig iron,” Merdan Ehet’éli may be alluding to Tahir Hamut’s well-known poem “Summer Is a Conspiracy,” in which Tahir refers to fear’s “pig iron voice”, which “seeps into the marrow / and hardens.” READ MORE…
The October issue is live—and with so much good content, you might be overwhelmed. Take a deep breath, and dive in:
Hot off the digital presses! Asymptote‘s new October issue is live—and completely, utterly alive and alight with literary voices from around the world. This season’s issue is especially star-studded—featuring star writers like Yves Bonnefoy, Sjón, and Thomas Stangl—but it’s equally stuffed with brilliant, lucid literary voices you simply haven’t heard of . . . yet. That’s where translation (and Asymptote) comes in.
But with so many gems of fiction, poetry, nonfiction, we get it—you might be overwhelmed at the prospect of so. much. reading. So if you’re sneaking a read at work (psst—we won’t tell), here are five quick reads sure to make the time pass more quickly:
1. Roland Glasser on translating Fiston Mwanza Mujila’s Tram 83, by Roland Glasser
The difficulty of translating is something not only every budding translator but every writer can relate to all too well. The struggle of finding the right word, regardless of the language, is something that Robert Glasser iterates very clearly in the essay. Whether it’s a thin, overworked, minor-miner (known as a biscotte in French slang) or a slim-jim, as Glasser translates it—the right word at the right time can mean a world of difference.
Glasser understands this endeavor, and succeeds at illuminating the translation quagmires in Fiston Mwanza Mujila’s Tram 83. The scenes of “melting-pot” Parisian people, food, and culture flow throughout the piece, juxtaposing the worlds people have left behind with the world of the novel being translated. Reading this piece is a surefire way to get excited, not only about Glasser’s writing, but also his translation of Tram 83, released on September 8th, 2015, by Deep Vellum. —Allegra Rosenbaum, asssistant blog editor READ MORE…
"The army is the dreams we share / Our tent is the sky (we have nothing to hide) / Take a deep breath."
There are no city gates here
No city walls, no army, no tanks
There are the people, there are things they care about, there are tents
There is the night sky with no wind, an empty, empty sky
You can watch the TV, the one and only CCTV,
To learn about the world and
Watch live-edits of people hurting people,
The Tape Recorder looks stuck up
In his suit and tie. He’s getting ready to lie
But his eyes are flickering (tape’s stuck, won’t play)
"I suspect many casual bookstore readers might not know how many languages are still spoken in Mexico. The sheer diversity is astounding."
David Shook is a poet, translator, and filmmaker in Los Angeles, where he serves as Editorial Director of Phoneme Media, a non-profit publishing house that exclusively publishes literature in translation. Their newest book is Like a New Sun, a collection of contemporary indigenous Mexican poetry, which Shook co-edited along with Víctor Terán.
Seven translators in total—Shook, Adam W. Coon, Jonathan Harrington, Jerome Rothenberg, Clare Sullivan, Jacob Surpin, and Eliot Weinberger—translated poets from six different languages: Juan Gregorio Regino (from the Mazatec), Mikeas Sánchez (Zoque), Juan Hernández Ramírez (Huasteca Nahuatl), Enriqueta Lunez (Tsotsil), Víctor Terán (Isthmus Zapotec), and Briceida Cuevas Cob (Yucatec Maya). I corresponded with Shook over gchat to speak with him about the project.
Today is Columbus Day, a controversial holiday in the United States. Several cities have recently adopted Indigenous Peoples’ Day over Columbus Day, clearly a victory for recognizing indigenous cultures in the United States. Which leaves me wondering: how are the indigenous Mexican writers recognized today in the Mexican literary landscape?
As someone who regularly visits Mexican literary festivals and also translates from the Spanish, I’ve observed the under-appreciation of indigenous writers firsthand. Mexico’s indigenous communities make up 10 to 14% of its total population, and you certainly don’t find anywhere near that percentage of literature being published in Mexico today. READ MORE…
"I think there’s an interest among the editors in finding new translators, allowing the work of new translators to shine."
Ugly Duckling Presse is a nonprofit publisher for poetry, translation, experimental nonfiction, performance texts, and books by artists. Matvei Yankelevich is the co-founder and co-executive director of the press, and Rebekah Smith is an associate editor who spent the summer in Buenos Aires. We chatted over Skype about the press’s origins, as well as two of its translation series: EEPS (the Eastern European Poets Series) and Señal, which Rebekah and Matvei both curate.
Alexis Almeida (AA): I want to first ask about Ugly Duckling’s origins. I read recently that you started as a zine and over time evolved into a small press. Can you highlight a few major transformations that the press went through during in this time? What were you goals for the press initially, and how have they changed over the years, especially as you expand to include more collective members and publish new kinds of books?
Matvei Yankelevich (MY): Well, it’s important to say first that the press has very little to do with what the zine was, although the name stuck. When I moved to New York, I kept using the name for new collaborative projects with people I met. When we decided to actually do something more substantial, in the late 90s, we were just a group of writers, artists, and theater people. It wasn’t necessarily going to be a publishing house, but we decided to keep the name, Ugly Duckling Presse. What united us, or gave us the idea of working together, was that we were making books with each other, or for each other, so books were a common language. And the original idea was that we would publish things, maybe have a space, have performances and shows, but that was very difficult in late 90s New York. READ MORE…
In honor of our July Issue, a super-special multilingual Translation Tuesday—Ann Cotten translates Ann Cotten, and back again!
Select translation:
nonesuch I (from Fremdwörterbuchsonette)
The ghost entered me like a kind of shirt.
It hung next to the dancefloor and was opposite
to all. That sounds a bit odd, not quite
credible, certainly I cannot say it right.
Something was backward in the whole construction
of what I happened to be working on.
Time seemed to have some purpose further on
with me, wrung me and couldn’t work it out.
And so I leant against the wall and smoked,
and watched the Russendisko on and on and smoked
too much. And I was much too bored to write.
Still not at all ill at ease, squandering my light
I thought of never going home to better-lighted dirt
and suddenly began to see the ghost in the shirt.
“O ghost,” spake I, “please understand my wonder!
I didn’t know that ghosts would deign to wander
casting their eyes perplexingly asunder,
in shirts, our fears and echoings to pander.”
The ghost just stared at me. A girl came over
and asked me for a light. My boyfriend came
and told me he was going home. It was the same
to me. I nodded, quite the midnight rover,
knowing myself to have become rather a dud,
my self’s long-empty shell, and how my words
rustled and shifted, like rice in gourds,
vague and conceited like smoke from a cigarette,
cold and precise like condensation.
And I awoke, as cold as ash, in my own tub.
***
nonesuch II (from Fremdwörterbuchsonette)
In my own tub I lay and dreamt of girls
who come around and ask you for a light.
Their little souls rotate inside their eyes
as my lighter renders them closer than the night
which is the reason why I love these rituals
in which the incomparables and I unite.
And all the while I know my cigarettes are all
exactly the same length, and they seem to invite
their and my own interconfoundability,
white, lightweight, full of discontent,
rattling and wheezing when they’re full of tea
and, taken, all desire just to be spent,
as air races through them, they wake the ghosts
and attract minutes, posted between the lips’ red boasts.
The ash upon the water forms a brittle film.
Mein Liebling, erklärst du dich zu meiner Giraffe,
verspreche ich, dass ich dich immer lachen mache.
The past has risen and is lapping at my chin.
Die Biber haben alle Bäume abgenagt, mein Lieber, sieh,
noch während wir hier stehen, beknabbern sie meine Knie.
The tap presses a lullaby into my nape,
the boiler hums a low and dismal tune,
I watch myself scratch myself like an ape,
and fall asleep into the arms of monster rune:
It isn’t realistic to be lying here.
In all the fog and damp time seems to override itself.
I cannot reach you, not with beer, nor animals, nor jokes;
everything runs out; the ghost of the night lives to side with itself, but chokes.
nonesuch I (from Fremdwörterbuchsonette)
Der Geist betrat mich wie eine Art Hemd.
Es hing am Rand der Tanzfläche und bildete
den Gegenpol zu allem. Das befremdet,
wirkt unerklärlich, wenn ichs schildere.
Es war etwas verkehrt an dem Gebilde,
an dem ich zu der Zeit gerade arbeitete;
die Zeit führte mit mir etwas im Schild,
wrang mein Gebein und kriegte es nicht raus.
Und so lehnte ich rauchend an der Wand,
schaute der Russendisko zu und rauchte
zu viel. Zum Schreiben war mir viel zu fad.
Ich war trotzdem nicht unzufrieden, dachte
entfernt daran, eher nicht heimzugehen,
plötzlich begann ich diesen Geist im Hemd zu sehen.
“O Geist,” sprach ich, “verstehe mein Befremden:
Ich wusste nicht, dass Geister auch in Hemden,
die großen Augen gegenteilig wendend,
Widerhall, Trost und Unbehagen spenden.”
Der Geist indessen starrte mich nur an.
Ein Mädchen kam zu mir und bat um Feuer.
Meine Begleitung kam und sagte, dass er heimgeht.
Ich nickte nur, als ging es mich nichts an:
Ich war schon lange nur mehr eine Panne,
die Schale meiner selbst, und ausgehöhlt
klimperten geistermäßig meine Worte,
vag und geziert wie Zigarettenrauch,
kalt und präzise wie Kondensation.
Ich wachte auf, wie Asche kalt, in meiner Badewanne.
***
nonesuch II (from Fremdwörterbuchsonette)
Ich badete und träumte von den Mädchen,
die herkommen und mich um Feuer bitten.
In ihren Augen rotiern ihre Seelchen
in meinem Feuerschein in kurzen Augenblicken.
Deswegen liebe ich ja diese Sitten,
in denen unvergleichlich sich vereinen
jene und ich. Und meine Zigaretten
sind glatt und alle gleich lang. Bescheinigen
sie ihre und meine Vertauschbarkeit,
weiß, leicht und voller Unzufriedenheit,
klappernd und rauschend, wenn sie altern,
und jung voller Verlangen, wenn der Atem
sie schnell durchzieht, so wecken sie die Geister,
binden künstelnd Minuten, an Lippen gekleistert.
Die Asche auf dem Wasser bildet einen Film.
My darling, if you will be my giraffe,
I’ll promise to do things to make you laugh.
Mir reicht Vergangenheit bis an mein Kinn.
The beavers, dear, have gnawed off all the trees,
and as you look at me they’re working on my knees.
Der Hahn drückt mir ein Schlaflied in den Nacken,
der Boiler summt den Bass betrübt und wüst,
ich schaue mir beim Dösen selbstgesprächig zu,
gleich wird das Brainmap mich mit den Tentakeln packen:
Es ist nicht realistisch, hier zu sitzen
im Dunst, im Nass hebt Zeit sich aus den Angeln.
Erreich dich nicht mit Tieren, nicht mit Witzen, es läuft aus und
der Geist der Nacht sitzt tief im letzten Gurgeln.