Dual Poetry Podcast

Translated by Maura Dooley and Elhum Shakerifar. 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...

Translated by Sean O'Brien and Daniel Hahn. 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. Pl...

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. 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 languages from the Poetry Translation Centre. As ever we will be releasing a translate...

Translated by Rachel Long and Francisco Vilhena. 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...

Translated by Nick Laird and Hamid Kabir. Reza Mohammadi is a prize-winning poet, prolific journalist and cultural commentator. He is widely regarded as one of the most exciting young poets writing in Persian today. He was translated collaboratively for the PTC by Hamid Kabir, editor in chief of the only Afghan fortnightly newspaper published in London, Simorgby and the Irish poet Nick Laird. You...

Translated by Sarah Howe and Canan Marasligil. The poem is about the poet's love of a medieval stone tower in Istanbul, Turkey. Karin Karakaşlı’s pain can be deeply felt in most of her poems. However, alongside this we encounter an enormous amount of love for the geography she lives in, especially the city of Istanbul. Karakaşlı has an almost synergetic relationship with this city, as we can see i...

Translated by Maura Dooley and Elhum Shakerifar. This week's poem is 'When Winter Comes' by Azita Ghahreman from Iran. The poem is read first in English translation by Maura Dooley and then in Farsi by Azita herself. Azita Ghahreman's collection 'Negative of a Group photo', translated by Maura Dooley and Elhum Shakerifar, has been Shortlisted for the Warwick Prize for Women in Translation award. T...

Translated by Serafina Vick & Abigail Parry. This week's poem ‘My girlfriend leaves for Cancún today ’ 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: th...

Translated by A K Blakemore & Dave Haysom. 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. Get a copy of this book of Yu Yoyo's book My Tenantless Body from the PTC website: https://www.po...

Translated by Sarah Maguire and Yama Yari. This week's poem is 'Earth' by Partaw Naderi from Afghanistan. The poem is read first in English translation by Sarah Maguire and then in Dari by Partaw himself. Partaw Naderi was born in Badakhshan a northern province of Afghanistan in 1331 [1953]. He studied in his birthplace and graduated from the Faculty of Sciences at Kabul University in 1354 [1976]....

Translated by Maura Dooley and Elhum Shakerifar. 'But' is by Azita Ghahreman from Iran. Azita Ghahreman's collection 'Negative of a Group Photograph' has been longlisted for the Warwick Prize for Women in Translation. This wonderful collection of Farsi poems was translated by Maura Dooley & Elhum Shakerifar. Order your copy here: https://buff.ly/2FiQMvL This is part of our new rebranded weekly rel...

Translated by Abigail Parry & Serafina Vick ‘Giddy-up Johnny’ is from by Legna Rodríguez Iglesias' collection 'Miami Century Fox', a series of Petrarchan sonnets the poet wrote when she was finding her feet in America. This poem makes reference to Queso proceso, a kind of processed cheese eaten during Cuba's Special Period, from 1989 to 2000 when the country was struggling to survive after the col...

Translated by W N Herbert, Martin Orwin and Maxamed Xasan. This week's poem is 'Death Of A Princess' by Maxamed Xaashi Dhamac 'Gaarriye' from Somalia. The poem is read first in English translation by W N Herbert and then in Somali by Maxamed Xaashi Dhamac 'Gaarriye'. ‘Gaarriye’ (1949–2012) is regarded as one of the most important Somali poets of the twentieth century. He composed on a wide variety...

Translated by Natalia Bukia-Peters and Jean Sprackland. Diana Anphimiadi is a poet, publicist, linguist and teacher. Currently a doctoral student at the linguistic institute at the Tbilisi Javahkishvili University, Diana has published four collections of poetry, Shokoladi (Chocolate 2008), Konspecturi Mitologia (Resumé of Mythology, 2009), Alhlokhedvis Traektoria (Trajectory of the Short-Sighted,...

Translated by Rachel Long and Francisco Vilhena. 'the elephant' by Adelaide Ivánova, looks at how the human body processes trauma, drawing parallels between a mother reacting to the death of her young child and a woman experiencing sexual assault. In this recording, you will hear Ivánova talk about the origins of this poem in her friendship with an elderly German woman suffering from Alzheimer's d...

Translated by Jen Hadfield and Canan Marasligil. 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 her PTC...

Translated by A K Blakemore & Dave Haysom Despite the pleasurable excitement and excess of youth that Yoyo shows us, these poems are also laced with the insecurity and fear of growing up on a planet which may not outlast you; and the societal fissures that flow from that. In Yu’s poetic world, nature is necessary and liberating, but it is not the beautiful, timeless vision we see in classical Chin...

Translated by Sean O'Brien and Daniel Hahn. 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. Corsino Fortes's first book Pão & Fonema [Bread & Phoneme] which appeared in 1974 made an immediate impact. 1974 was a momentous year for Portugal and its African colonies as it was the year in whi...

Translated by Rachel Long and Francisco Vilhena. Before we hear the poem in both in the original Brazilian Portuguese and English translation, the poet Adelaide Ivánova talks about the importance of research in her work and how she discovered the work of a British anthropologist called Dame Mary Douglas. You can buy a copy of the hammer and other poems from the PTC website: https://www.poetrytrans...

Translated by André Naffis-Sahely. Abdellatif Laâbi is a leading Moroccan poet who writes in French. In 1966 he helped found the important artistic journal 'Souffles', in 1972 the journal was banned and in 1974 Laâbi was imprisoned for 8 years for "crimes of opinion" for his political beliefs and his writings. After his release in 1985, he moved to France where he still lives in exile. His work wa...

Translated by AK Blakemore and Dave Haysom. 'Stay' starts with the wonderfully direct and odd line 'Your beard is expendable', a great example of Yu Yoyo's lithe, arresting language, deftly translated by UK poet AK Blakemore and the translator Dave Haysom. This is a poem in seven sections that sees the poet imaging a lover's journey to Viet Nam, a country she had never visited when she wrote the p...

Translated by Rachel Long and Francisco Vilhena. This is one of two poems titled 'the hammer' in Adelaide Ivánova's World Poets Series collection the hammer and other poems. This poem shows the great breadth of Adelaide's references, from the mating rituals of hammerhead sharks to reports that when a Pope die a senior member of the Vatican staff strikes him on the forehead with a silver hammer to...

Translated by Nick Laird and Hamid Kabir I was a word abandoned in an old battered book, a word forgot by politics, by love and the speaking world. 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 Lo...

Translated by Natalia Bukia-Peters & Jean Sprackland. 'July' is by Diana Anphimiadi, a Georgian poet who is also a linguist, and whose often complex poetry foregrounds language. Scrambled thoughts become crow-songs perched on a wire. Famous women from Greek myth speak frankly - upside-down, headless, from beyond the grave. The five senses tussle on the page, among cats and fish and chandeliers. Ea...