Dual Poetry Podcast

Translated by Dave Haysom and AK Blakemore 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 11 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 o...

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 trea...

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 Per...

Translated by Rachel Long & Francisco. 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' tran...

Translated by Bernard O'Donoghue and Lucy Rosenstein. 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...

Translated by Clare Pollard, Maxamed Xasan ‘Alto’ and Said Jama Hussein. Beloved by Asha Lul Mohamud Yusuf is a passionate love poem! It is a Baarcadde, 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 n...

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 p...

Translated by Canan Marasligil and Jen Hadfield. 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 voic...

Translated by the PTC workshop. '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, colonial...

This week's poem 'the mule' by Adelaide Ivánova begins with an epigram by the Romanian-German poet Paul Celan, translated by Michael Hamburger. Celan wrote predominantly about The Holocaust and the challenge of finding the words to express the unsayable. This poem references other instances of rape in literature including 'The Rape of Lucrece' by William Shakespeare. First, you will hear the poet,...

Translated by Francisco Vilhena and Rachel Long 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 w...

Translated by Katherine Pierpoint and Tom Boll. Coral Bracho was born in Mexico City in 1951. She has published six books of poems. Her poems were translated for the PTC's 2005 World Poets' Tour by Tom Boll and the poet Katherine Pierpoint. Bracho's early poems marry verbal luxuriance with a keen intelligence and awareness of artistic process. Yet that artistic consciousness doesn't lose sight of...

What is most difficult to translate, in my experience, is poetry that toys with sentimentality without ever crossing into its territory, poetry that counterbalances abstraction with precision. And that’s Víctor Terán’s poetry. It is difficult to approach the edge of sentimentality without crossing it, and it is equally difficult to get as close to that edge as Terán has managed in Isthmus Zapotec....

Translated by Mahsn Majidy and The Poetry Translation Workshop. The ironically entitled 'Title' (like another poem by Abdulla Pashew, 'Unfinished Poem', that we translated in the same workshop) is concerned with the exigencies of writing poetry. In this case, the poet is tired; his life-long poem is turning into an epic and he becomes aware that in his mind, 'words slip out of place'. The prominen...

Translated by Natalia Bukia-Peters and Jean Sprackland. Anphimiadi is one of Georgia’s leading contemporary poets. With subtle lyricism, her poetry describes the most intense experiences of many women’s lives: childbirth; love, with its many complications and death. Anphimiadi’s own paternal roots lie in Pontus, a historically Greek region on the southern coast of the Black Sea which at one time s...

Translated by Katherine Pierpoint and Tom Boll. This week's poem is by Coral Bracho from Mexico. The poem is read first in English translation by Katherine Pierpoint and then in Spanish by Coral herself. Coral Bracho's poems were translated for the PTC's 2005 World Poets' Tour by Tom Boll and the poet Katherine Pierpoint. Bracho's early poems marry verbal luxuriance with a keen intelligence and aw...

Translated by Mark Ford and Hafiz Kheir. 'Poem of the Nile' was published in The London Review of Books one of the rare occasions the LRB has published poetry translated from Arabic and the first time they featured the work of an African poet. Al-Saddiq Al-Raddi's poems have also been published in Poetry Review and The Times Literary Supplement. This is a real indication of Saddiq's growing status...

Translated by Mimi Khalvati and Zuzanna Olszewska. This week, to celebrate Nowrus, the Dual Poetry Podcast poem is Haft Seen by Shakila Azizzada from Afghanistan. The poem is read first in English translation by Mimi Khalvati and then in Dari by Shakila Azizzada. 'Haft Seen' is a traditional custom for the Persian new year celebration known as Nowruz. A table is set with 7 different items which it...

Translated by Jamie McKendrick. 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 Huerta. 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...

Translated by Maura Dooley and Elhum Shakerifar. Much of Azita Ghahreman's work is deeply personal yet infused with political undertones. Her poems often reflect on her childhood growing up in a land-owning family in the South-Eastern Khorasan province of Iran – referenced in evocative images of the natural world amongst which she grew up – and on the changing face of modern Iran. This is part of...

Translated by Worod Musawi & The Poetry Translation Workshop Abboud al Jabiri fixes on a deceptively simple image and, when elaborating on it, manages to convey complex and delicates feelings about loss and acceptance. An Iraqi poet and translator, Abboud al Jabiri, was born in Najaf in 1963. A member of the Iraqi Writers' Union and the Arab Writers' Union, he was one of the founders of the Iraqi...

Translated by Natalia Bukia-Peters and Helen Mort. Salome Benidze is a respected poet, novelist and translator. She has rendered the work David Beckham and Salman Rushdie into Georgian. Her poetry is direct yet deeply felt, dealing with love and it’s many shadows. Benidze was translated for the PTC multi-award winning poet Helen Mort, host of BBC Radio 4’s Mother Tongue show and Natalia Bukia-Pete...

Translated by Maura Dooley and Elhum Shakerifar. Azita Ghahreman was born in Mashhad in 1962. One of Iran's leading poets, she has lived in Sweden since 2006. She is a member of the South Sweden Writers' Union. Her poems directly address questions of female desire and challenge the accepted position of women. Negative of a Group Photograph is the title poem of her new book published in 2018 by the...

Translated by Said Jama Hussein, Maxamed Xasan ‘Alto’ and Clare Pollard. Welcome to our 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.

Translated by Natalia Bukia-Peters & Jean Sprackland Welcome to our 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. If you enjoy our podcasts and would like to support the work of the Poetry Translation Centre then please visit poetrytranslation.org/support-us.