DUAL Poetry Podcast

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 archiv...

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...

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...

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...

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...

This week's poem is by Partaw Naderi from Afghanistan. The poem is read first in English translation by Sarah Maguire and then in Dari by Partaw Naderi. Partaw Naderi studied science at Kabul University and was imprisoned in the notorious Pul-e-Charki prison by the Soviet-backed regime for three years in the 1970s shortly after he'd begun to write poetry. He is now widely regarded as one of the le...

This week's poem is by Reza Mohammadi from Afghanistan. The poem is read first in English translation by Sarah Maguire and then in Dari by Reza. The prize-winning poet, Reza Mohammadi - widely regarded as one of the most exciting young poets writing in Persian today - was born in Kandahar in 1979. He studied Islamic Law and then Philosophy in Iran before obtaining an MA in Globalisation from Londo...

This is one of two prayer-poems from Diana's PTC Chapbook 'Begining to speak' Diana Anphimiadi quickly distinguished herself as an unusually imaginative, original talent in the Georgian poetry scene. Her work refuses the formulaic or expected response, wrong-footing readers with its wit and delicacy. In her acclaimed 2013 collection, Personal Cuisine, for instance she explores the traumatic experi...

Today's poem is 'Aural ' by David Huerta from Mexico.  The poem is read first in English translation by Jamie McKendrick and then in Spanish by the original poet. Also, this week we have details of the PTC's first-ever online workshop season looking at the work of Yoruba Poet & political activist Ọláńrewajú Adépọ̀jù.  Sign up for these workshops here: https://buff.ly/3c28IY8  

This week's poem is 'Empty Town' by the Chinese poet Yu Yoyo. In her afterword to Yu Yoyo's collection My Tenantless Body  the poet Rebecca Tamás notes that Yoyo's concerns are often the global, concerns of those whose future is at stake in an uncertain world. All this week the poet and artist Ella Frears is joining our PTC YouTube Takeover with a series of videos that mix the language of the YouT...

Today's poem is Fertile Truce the title poem from Legna Rodríguez Iglesias' 2012 collection. It was translated for the PTC in 2019 by the award-winning poet Abigail Parry and the Havana based writer Serafina Vick. The poem refers to the national flower of Cuba, the Mariposa or white ginger lily. Also in this poem, you will hear the use of the English term 'grandfather' in place of the Spanish 'Abu...

here is a constant struggle in Turkey between being oneself and having to fit into a mould – a mould shaped by nationalistic values and imposed by a majority – which makes daily life extremely difficult for people who come from one of the many minority communities. This state of struggle and in-betweenness is described in the poem 'Uniform' – from school days dressed in 'mouse grey' skirts all the...

This week's poem is 'Orphan' by Asha Lul Mohamad Yusuf from Somalia/Somaliland. The poem is read first in English translation by Clare Pollard and then in Somali by Asha. Asha Lul Mohamud Yusuf is a powerful woman poet in a literary tradition still largely dominated by men. She is a master of the major Somali poetic forms, including the prestigious gabay which presents compelling arguments with me...

Translated by Nukhbah Langah and Lavinia Greenlaw. This week's poem is by Noshi Gillani from Pakistan. The poem is read first in English translation by Lavinia Greenlaw and then in Urdu by novelist Kamila Shamsie. The candour and frankness of Gillani's highly-charged poems is unusual for a woman writing in Urdu and she has gained a committed international audience, performing regularly at large po...

Bejan Matur is the most illustrious poet among a bold new women's poetry emerging from the Middle East. Her poetry engages directly and concretely with the struggles of her people, and yet there is also a mysticism in her writing, a closeness to nature, an embracing of mythology – a dialogue with God. This poem and many others that appear in Bejan's PTC World Poets Series book ' Akin to Stone ' wi...

This week's poem is by Abdellatif Laabi from Morocco. The poem is read first in English translation by Andre Naffis-Sahely and then in French by Abdellatif. The prize-winning Moroccan poet, Abdellatif Laâbi, is widely acknowledged as being one of the most important poets writing today. Laâbi was born in Fez in 1942. He began writing in the mid-1960s, publishing his first novel in 1969. In 1966 he...

Salome Benidze is a poet, writer, blogger and translator. Her poetry has received many prestigious awards and has been translated into more than a dozen languages. Born in 1986 in Kutaisi, Salome grew up during the turbulent decade of the 1990s when the Soviet Union collapsed and many new countries emerged from its ruins. In Georgia these years were marked by civil war, a downturn in the economy,...

This week's poem is by Al-Saddiq Al-Raddi from Sudan. The poem is read first in English translation by Sarah Maguire and then in Arabic by Al-Saddiq Al-Raddi. Al-Saddiq Al-Raddi is one of the leading African poets writing in Arabic today. He has gained a wide audience in his native Sudan for his imaginative approach to poetry and for the delicacy and emotional frankness of his lyrics. This poem is...

This week's poem is by Bejan Matur. The poem is read first in English translation by Jen Hadfield and then in Turkish by Bejan herself. Bejan Matur is the most illustrious poet among a bold women's poetry emerging from the Middle East. Her poetry engages directly and concretely with the struggles of her Kurdish people, and yet there is also a mysticism in her writing, a closeness to nature, an emb...

This week's poem is by David Huerta from Mexico. The poem is read first in English translation by Jamie McKendrick and then in Spanish by David himself. David Huerta's poems frequently turn on images that are experiences in themselves. In an eerie piece, he describes a poem by Gottfried Benn: A flower fell apart in the middle of an autopsy and the doctor who'd cut open the corpse saw how those pet...

This week's poem is 'With a Red Flower' by Azita Ghahreman from Iran. The poem is read first in English translation by the poet Maura Dooley and then in Farsi by Azita.  Her published book 'Negative of a Group Photograph' brings together three decades of poems by the leading poet Azita Ghahreman, it was also translated by Dooley and Elhum Shakerifar. find the book in our shop: https://www.poetrytr...

This week's poem is by Corsino Fortes from Cape Verde. The poem is read first in English translation by Sean O'Brien and then in Portuguese by Corsino Fortes.  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...

Thanks to Kurdish poet and translator, Choman Hardi, we translated this wonderful poem by Dilawar Karadaghi over the course of three workshops at the beginning of 2005 when, appropriately enough, it was bitterly cold – though too cold for snow. And, as London faces its first 'arctic blast' of this remarkably mild winter, it seems fitting to choose 'An Afternoon at Snowfall' for our poem-podcast th...

This week's poem 'Bucket, rope, fire extinguisher, etc' is from by Legna Rodríguez Iglesias' collection Dame Spray,  which was published in 2016. The poem refers to Cubans entering the US by crossing the border from Mexico. You can buy Legna's book 'A little body are many parts' from the PTC website. This is part of our new rebranded weekly release: the Dual Poetry Podcast, one poem in two languag...

Adelaide Ivánova was born in Recife, Brazil in 1982. A poet, journalist, photographer, activist and performance artist, she currently lives between Berlin and Cologne. She is the author of the collections 13 Nudes and o martelo ( the hammer ), the latter awarded the 2018 Rio de Janeiro Literature Prize for Poetry. Adelaide's work has been featured in several anthologies, and has been translated in...