DUAL Poetry Podcast

Translator André Naffis-Sahely worked with Ribka Sibhatu for 10 years leading up to the publication of their PTC World Poet series book Aulò! Aulò! Aulò!

While Ribka translates her own poems from Tigrinya and Amharic into Italian, Andre translates her poems from Italian into English and works tirelessly promoting her work in the anglophone world.

In addition to her work as a lyric poet and human rights activist, Sibhatu has devoted a considerable amount of her creative energies to assembling and recording of Eritrea's folkloric cannon which is then handed down through the ages in the form of Aulòs.

This podcast brings you Ribka reading her Italian translation of 'To the Sycamore' and the fable 'How African spirits Were Born' in Tigrinya with André Naffis-Sahely reading his English transitions.

This month the PTC is celebrating resistance poets looking at poets as activists and poetry a space for resistance Our resistance poets book bundle focuses on four writers including Ribka who are unafraid to engage with the urgent political issues of our day, sometimes explicitly addressing inequity and tragedy were they find it, yet often simply holding a space for reflection and joy amidst dark times and chaos.

To order this book bundle go to our online shop.

The PTC has just published Aulò! Aulò! Aulò! a collection of poems and fables by Ribka Sibhatu with translations by André Naffis-Sahely as part of our World Poet Series.

Ribka writes in Tigrinya and Amharic, two languages native to Eritrea as well as Italian and French. The poet calls her five languages her stepdaughters. She translates her own work into Italian and Andre, in turn, translates the Italian and English.

The collaboration has been going for a decade since André began translating her work in 2010. At that time Sarah Maguire, founder of the PTC, invited him to lead a series of workshops on Sibhatu's poetry.

Ribka's work includes short lyric poems and her more recent longer political works. Alongside her poetry Ribka has worked to collect and record the folkloric canon of the horn of Africa, a body of oral literature that was handed down for generations These stories are known as Aulòs, literally meaning:

Please give me permission, I have something to say in rhyme!

So today we will be playing you one poem and one fable so you can get a sense of the breadth of her work, this means it is a long 20-minute podcast. Enjoy.

This week the podcast features two poems by Cuban poet Legna Rodríguez Iglesias, both from her 2013 collection Sucking The Stone. The first of these, The Law of Dynamics, sees the poet explaining to Galileo why he can't to the Macarena. (Why? Because it is 'a dance for Satyrs and other sex-mad creatures.') while the second poem, one of two in the collection to share the volumes name, Sucking The Stone, references Lapis Lazuli the semi-precious stone that has been prized since antiquity for its intense blue colour.

You can find more poems from Sucking The Stone on the PTC's free online audio archive of Legana's poems: https://soundcloud.com/alittlebodyaremanyparts.

Also, the podcast announces details of our upcoming Online Tour with Eritrean poet and refugee-rights activist Ribka Sibhata. Find out more here: https://www.poetrytranslation.org/events/series/ribka-sibhatu-tour

This week we have two poems by Legna Rodríguez Iglesias 'Farmer's Treasure' and 'An accumulation of dry matter that is slow after flowering but intensifies during the lactic phase' both from her collection Gimmer Spray.

The exceptional skill and formal dexterity that marks Rodríguez Iglesias's work in Spanish has been expertly brought to life in English by Abigail Parry, an award-winning poet whose debut collection Jinx was published by Bloodaxe in 2018, working in collaboration with bridge-translator and writer Serafina Vick.

You can find our free online active of Legna's poems here: https://soundcloud.com/alittlebodyaremanyparts

A little body are many parts by Legna Rodríguez Iglesias and the hammer and other poems by Adelaide Ivanova have both shortlisted for the first-ever Derek Walcott Prize for Poetry. Get them both for just £15 here: https://www.poetrytranslation.org/shop/derek-walcott-poetry-prize-shortlist-bundle

Find our more about our online Ribka Sibhatu Tour mentioned in the podcast here: https://www.poetrytranslation.org/events/series/ribka-sibhatu-tour

Contemporary Cuban poetry is as diverse and indefinable as contemporary poetry in any other country, but Legna does belong to a particular generation of poets. Generación O, formed mainly of poets born after 1975, is founded on the shared experience of growing up after the fall of the Soviet Union, when Cuba was launched into extreme deprivation. This week's two poems highlight Legna's use of humour.

The DUAL POETRY PODCAST is focusing on her work for the next few weeks as we release a free online audio archive of poems from her PTC collection 'A little body are many parts' you can explore the archive here: https://soundcloud.com/alittlebodyaremanyparts

'A little body are many parts' has been shortlisted for the first-ever Derek Walcott Prize for Poetry. Get our Derek Walcott Poetry Prize Shortlist Bundle for just £15.

The Cuban poet Legna Rodríguez Iglesias was born in Camagüey in central Cuba in 1984 and currently lives in Miami, Florida. As well as poetry she has written theatre, short stories, children's books and a novel. Her poetry has been translated into Portuguese, German, Italian and English.

The DUAL POETRY PODCAST is focusing on her work for the next few weeks as we release a free online audio archive of poems from her PTC collection 'A little body are many parts'.

This week we are bringing you two poems 'The Day I' and 'Red Room' both originally published in her 2012 Spanish language collection The Perfect Moment.

'A little body are many parts' an overview of poems from Legna Rodríguez Iglesias' career translated by Serafina Vick and Abigale Parry has been shortlisted for the first-ever Derek Walcott Prize for Poetry.

Get our Derek Walcott Poetry Prize Shortlist Bundle for just £15: https://www.poetrytranslation.org/shop/derek-walcott-poetry-prize-shortlist-bundle

The DUAL POETRY PODCAST continues with its focus on the Cuban writer Legna Rodríguez Iglesias who burst onto the Cuban literary scene with all the ferocity of a stampeding elephant aged 19.

This week we are bringing you two poems, Pure Jazz and Maggot People, that originated in her 2017 title Miami Century Fox, a collection of 51 Petrarchan sonnets.

Last year in partnership with Bloodaxe Books the PTC co-published 'A little body are many parts' an overview of poems from Legna Rodríguez Iglesias 8 Spanish language collections with translations by Serafine Vick and Abigale Parry and this year it was shortlisted for the first ever Derek Walcott Prize for Poetry.

Get our Derek Walcott Poetry Prize Shortlist Bundle including both Legna's collection and the second shortlisted book published by the PTC 'the hammer and other poems' by Award-winning poet Adelaide Ivánova's fro just £15.

This week's podcast brings you 'I must ask you' & 'Mad Dog Pack' both translated by Abigail Parry and Serafina Vick for Legna Rodríguez Iglesias' PTC publication 'A little body are many parts' which brings together poems from seven different collections of Legna's poetry.

The collection has been shortlisted for the first annual Derek Walcott Prize for a full-length book of poems published in 2019 by a living poet who is not a US citizen.

You can find out more about the translation process on the PTC blog, were one of the translators Serafina Vick has written a piece called 'Mistrustful Trust - Musings on Translating Legna Rodriguez Iglesias'. Find it here: https://www.poetrytranslation.org/articles/mistrustful-trust-musings-on-translating-legna-rodriguez-iglesias

The Dual Poetry Podcast is (normally) one poem in two languages from the PTC. Please take a moment to rate and review this podcast on iTunes or wherever you download.

This week the Dual Poetry Podcast is breaking its form to bring you two poems rather than one. 'Thirty heads a day' & 'Graduate' were both translated by Abigail Parry and Serafina Vick for the PTC publication 'A little body are many parts' which brings together poems from seven different collections of Legna's poetry.

The collection has been shortlisted for the first annual Derek Walcott Prize for a full-length book of poems published in 2019 by a living poet who is not a US citizen.

You can find out more about the translation process on the PTC blog, were one of the translators Serafina Vick has written a piece called 'Mistrustful Trust - Musings on Translating Legna Rodriguez Iglesias'. Find it here.

The Dual Poetry Podcast is (normally) one poem in two languages from the PTC. Please take a moment to rate and review this podcast on iTunes or wherever you download.

This week's poem is by Shakila Azizzada from Afghanistan. The poem is read first in English translation by Mimi Khalvati and then in Dari by Shakila herself.

Shakila has spent many years in the Netherlands and her poetry reflects both her Afghan heritage and her European influences. She also writes in Dutch and translates her own poetry both ways. She is a very musical poet, tender and intimate, but also uncompromising in her political poems, and sometimes surreal – a poet of range and courage. Many of the poems, or parts of them, were relatively straightforward to translate and, perhaps because of the European influence, seemed to slip happily into English. Shakila's voice is not as adorned as some poetry in Farsi that I have read, and is idiomatic and sometimes humorous or satiric. I speak colloquial Farsi and this of course was a great help as, with Zuzanna's help, I could understand most of the original. Zuzanna also recorded a tape for me of the poems we were working on and this, more than anything else, helped me to try and find equivalent idioms while replicating the musical phrases.

If you would like to take part in the PTC workshop survey mentioned in the podcast introduction, please follow this link: https://docs.google.com/forms/d/e/1FAIpQLSdVydXD-N6nP-hSiZ7QYKAjWrJqCukmeQQPxcHWk_HPwZ8bDA/viewform

The Dual Poetry Podcast, one poem in two languages from the Poetry Translation Centre. As ever we will be releasing a translated poem each week. Please take a moment to rate and review this podcast on iTunes or wherever you download.