DUAL Poetry Podcast

at three o'clock in the morning you put your arms around a tree because there's no-one to put their arms around you

Sleepwalking by Yu Yoyo is a set of 9 connected poems. In translating this poem the translators, Dave Haysom and AK Blakemore, were forced by the form of the English language to specify who the poem is addressing in a way that the Chinese original left totally open.

You can buy an introduction to Yu Yoyo's poetry My Tenantless Body translated by Dave Haysom and AK Blakemore from the PTC online store: www.poetrytranslation.org/shop/my-tenantless-body

This is part of our new rebranded weekly release: 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.

"dad sentence me to death so you can live inside my tenantless body" Born in 1990, Sichuanese poet Yu Yoyo had already begun to earn critical attention before she turned sixteen, publishing dozens of poems in Poetry, Poetry Monthly and other prestigious publications in China. She is seen as a representative voice among the post-90's generation, especially known for her mature voice and subtle treatment of modern femininity.

You can buy an introduction to Yu Yoyo's poetry My Tenantless Body translated by Dave Haysom and AK Blakemore from the PTC online store.

This is part of our new rebranded weekly release: 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.

Translated by Jo Shapcott and Narguess Farzad.

This week's poem is 'Behind The Mass Of Green' by Farzaneh Khojandi from Tajikistan. The poem is read first in English translation by Jo Shapcott and then in Tajik by Farzaneh.

Farzaneh Khojandi is a poet with a huge following in Afghanistan and Iran as well as her native Tajikstan. She is widely regarded as the most exciting woman poet writing in Persian today and is revered as Tajikistan's foremost living writer.

Thank you for listening to 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.

(Explicit content)

This week's poem 'the good animal' by Adelaide Ivánova. First, you will hear the poet, journalist and activist Adelaide Ivánova discussing the poem and reading her original Portuguese text, then her poet-translator, the UK poet Rachel Long will read the English version.

You can buy an introduction to Adelaide Ivánova's poetry 'the hammer and other poems' translated by Rachel Long & Francisco Vilhena from the PTC online store.

This is part of our new rebranded weekly release: 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.

This week's poem is by Mohan Rana from India. The poem is read first in English translation by Bernard O'Donoghue and then in Hindi by Mohan himself.

The poet and critic, Nandkishore Acharya, has written that, 'Amongst the new generation of Hindi poets, the poetry of Mohan Rana stands alone; it defies any categorisation. However, its refusal to fit any ideology doesn't mean that Mohan Rana's poetry shies away from thinking - but that it knows the difference between thinking in verse and thinking about poetry. For Mohan Rana the poetic process in itself is also thought process.'

This is part of our new rebranded weekly release: 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.

Beloved by Asha Lul Mohamud Yusuf is a passionate love poem! It is a jiifto, one of the many Metric forms of Somali poetry made up of short lines.

First, you will hear the stunning translation by UK poet Clare Pollard who captures the alliterating Bs of the original Somali and the sense of yearning with lines like 'be my new moon / unbreakable metal'.

Afterwards, you can hear Asha reading the poem in the original Somali.

This month sees the publication of her first English Language collection published by Bloodaxe Books.

The collection's title The Sea-Migrations or, Tahriib in Somali, refers to the search for a better life in another country.

You can buy The Sea-Migrations here.

This is part of our new rebranded weekly release: 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.

Translated by Jamie McKendrick

This week's poem is 'Heaven's Kitchen' by David Huerta from Mexico. The poem is read first in English by the translator, the poet by Jamie McKendrick and then in Spanish by David Huerta.

David Huerta was born in Mexico City in 1949. He is one the leading poets of the generation that first came to prominence during the 1970s in Mexico. He published his first book of poems, El Jardín de la luz [The Garden of Light] (1972), while still a student in the Faculty of Philosophy and Arts at Mexico's Autonomous National University (UNAM). It has been followed by numerous collections, among them: Cuaderno de Noviembre [November Notebook] (1976), Huellas del civilizado [Traces of the Civilized] (1977), Versión [Version] (1978), El espejo del cuerpo [The Mirror of the Body] (1980) and Incurable [Incurable] (1987), a long poem in nine parts that encourages the reader to participate in constructing the meaning of the poem.

This is part of our new rebranded weekly release: 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.

This week's poem podcast contains three short poems by Kurdish-Turkish Poet Bejen Matur, translated by Canan Marasligil and UK poet Jen Hadfield. The poems are 'Dead Sun', 'There is no Sun' and 'Truth'.

Bejan Matur's enthralling visceral poems are among the most imaginatively potent being written anywhere in the world. She is one of the leading voices of a bold new women's poetry emerging from the Middle East. Her award-winning poems describe a delicate space between concrete realism and mystical reflection, engaging with the struggles of the Kurdish people of Turkey.

The PTC's introduction to Bejen Matur's poetry, Akin to Stone will be published in October. You can pre-order it from the PTC online book shop now.

This is part of our new rebranded weekly release: 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

'guerilla bitchcraft' was the first poem by Adelaide Ivánova that the Poetry Translation Centre translated at a workshop with Francisco Vilhena and Clare Pollard in 2017.

The PTC workshop was dazzled by Ivánova's breadth of reference, lurching between the personal and political. One moment she jokes about weed and star-signs, the next she's addressing rape, colonialism and Zika. It's not often in a poetry workshop you have to read a whole Nirvana lyric (turns out 'Polly' is not really about a parrot). And how to translate the 'piriguetismo' of the title? Francisco Vilhena, who provided the bridge translation, said it meant something like 'bitchism', but had more a celebratory charge (a woman saying it to another woman was being positive). Anne Macaulay made a very convincing case for 'bitchismo' but in the end we settled on Francisco's suggestion of 'bitchcraft' as it sounded more empowered and cunning!

The poem is read in Portuguese and English by Adelaide herself.

This is part of our new rebranded weekly release: 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.

This week's poem is 'the dog' by Adelaide Ivánova, taken from her collection the hammer and other poems, translated by Francisco Vilhena and Rachel Long. The poem is read first in Brazilian Portuguese by the poet herself and then in English by her poet-translator Rachel Long.

This poem looks closely at the experience of a raped woman, worried about whether she will be able to enjoy sex after her experience.

In her introduction, Adelaide also discusses Humboldt, an ambiguous male figure that appears throughout the book.

This is part of our new rebranded weekly release: 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.