Black Beans

November 30, 2015April 4, 2022 ~ oxfordbrookesuni

In the afternoon I pick up a book
In the afternoon I put a book down
In the afternoon it enters my head there is war
In the afternoon I forget each and every war

In the afternoon I grind coffee
In the afternoon I put the ground coffee
Back together again gorgeous
Black beans
In the afternoon I take off my clothes put them on
Apply make-up first then wash
Sing don’t say a thing

by Sarah Kirsch; translated by Anne Stokes

This poem continues our series featuring work from collections shortlisted for The Poetry Society’s Popescu European Poetry Translation Prize 2015, judged by Olivia McCannon and Clare Pollard, and supported in 2015 by the British Council. The winner of the competition was Iain Galbraith, who translated Jan Wagner’s book Self-Portrait with a Swarm of Bees (Arc Publications, 2015). You can find out more about the competition and all the shortlisted books on the Poetry Society website.

Anne Stokes holds a PhD in German Literature from Ohio State University. She teaches Translation at the University of Stirling and translates from German.

Sarah Kirsch (1935–2013) is recognised as one of Germany’s most powerful poets of the post-war era. She lived and worked first in East Germany, then (after political persecution) in the West, making her home finally in rural Schleswig-Holstein. Her poetry’s free-flowing syntax and fluid sound patterning reflect her lifelong resistance to constraint and convention. Anne Stokes’ translations above all capture the living sounds and rhythms of Kirsch’s writing. In Ice Roses Anglophone readers experience the full range of Kirsch’s poetry, from her early work to her last books, full of the strange beauty of her chosen landscapes. You can read more about the book on the Carcanet website.

Carcanet Press is in its fifth decade, and continues to publish a comprehensive and diverse list of modern and classic poetry in English and in translation, as well as a range of inventive fiction, Lives and Letters and literary criticism. Read more about the publisher on its website.

Copyright information: please note that the copyrights of all the poems displayed on the website and sent out on the mailing list are held by the respective authors, translators or estates, and no work should be reproduced without first gaining permission from the individual publishers.

an essay on midges

November 23, 2015April 20, 2022 ~ oxfordbrookesuni

as if all the letters had suddenly
floated free of a paper
and formed a swarm in the air;

they form a swarm in the air,
of all that bad news telling us
nothing, those skimpy muses, wispy

pegasuses, only abuzz with the hum
of themselves, made from the last twist
of smoke as the candle is snuffed,

so light you can hardly say: they are –
looking more like shadows, umbrae
jettisoned by another world

to enter our own, they dance, their legs
finer than anything pencil can draw,
with their miniscule sphinx-like bodies;

the rosetta stone, without the stone.

by Jan Wagner, translated by Iain Galbraith

There are two exciting Poetry Centre events this week: on Wednesday we host a spoken word/open mic evening, with a featured performances by Maddie Godfrey (Finalist in the Australian National Poetry Slam, 2015), andlive music by Steph Masucci. You can find more details on our Facebook page.

Then on Thursday we launch our occasional lunchtime poetry reading, Eat My Words, with Emma Jones and Harry Man. All are very welcome. The reading will be from 12.15-1pm in T.300 (Tonge Conservatory), Gipsy Lane, Oxford Brookes. Contact us for more details.

Over the next few weeks, we will be featuring poems from collections shortlisted for The Poetry Society’s Popescu European Poetry Translation Prize 2015, judged by Olivia McCannon and Clare Pollard, and supported in 2015 by the British Council. We begin with the winner of the competition, which was announced this evening. You can find out more about the competition and all the shortlisted books on the Poetry Society website.

Iain Galbraith‘s poems have appeared in Poetry Review, PN Review, Edinburgh Review, Times Literary Supplement, Irish Pages, New Writing and many other journals and books. He is the editor of five poetry anthologies and translates poetry, fiction and drama. A winner of the John Dryden Translation Prize and the Stephen Spender Prize for Poetry Translation, his recent translated books include W.G. Sebald’s poetry and John Burnside’s selected poems in German. He is an occasional lecturer, and in 2014-15 taught Poetics of Translation at the University of Applied Arts in Vienna. He was born and grew up in the west of Scotland and now lives in Wiesbaden, Germany.

Of the winning collection, the judges said: ‘Galbraith converts every challenge (formal, lexical, metrical) into an opportunity, matching Wagner’s ingenuity and investment at every step, having internalized the “primal syntax” so completely that everything he writes hits the mark. The result is a perfect sufficiency: a set of poems in English that somehow inhabit the same skin as the German, with their own autonomous heart and lungs.’

Jan Wagner studied English in Hamburg, Dublin and Berlin, where he has lived since 1995. A poet, essayist and translator of British and American poetry by Charles Simic, Simon Armitage, Matthew Sweeney, and Robin Robertson, he was also, until 2003, co-publisher of The Outside of the Element, a boxed loose-leaf periodical based on an idea by Marcel Duchamp. He has published six volumes of poetry and has received numerous awards, including the Mondsee Poetry Award (2004), the Ernst Meister Prize for Poetry (2005), the Wilhelm Lehmann Prize (2009) and the Friedrich Hölderlin Prize (2011).

Since it was founded in 1969, Arc Publications has adhered to its fundamental principles – to introduce the best of new talent to a UK readership, including voices from overseas that would otherwise remain unheard in this country, and to remain at the cutting edge of contemporary poetry. Arc also has a music imprint, Arc Music, for the publication of books about music and musicians. As well as its page on Facebook, you can find Arc on Twitter. Visit Arc’s website to join the publisher’s mailing list, and to find full details of all publications and writers. Arc offers a 10% discount on all books purchased from the website (except Collectors’ Corner titles). Postage and packing is free within the UK.

In the Orchard of Pomegranates

November 16, 2015April 20, 2022 ~ oxfordbrookesuni

Then you wonder, astonished, who am I? I am a mustard seed in the middle of the sphere of the moon.
Moses Cordovero, Or Ne’erav (The Sweet Light), trans. Ira Robinson

When I was a girl, holy in sending,
alive in receiving, I knew a word
was, like an angel, flaming, both message
and messenger.

Electric the flowerin my eye, the opening of the heart:
if ‘house’ is a prison, ‘home’ is a latticed
(look up) constellation. At such elevation,
this is return under you the harvest moon.

Anemone,
anemometer.

I have nothing withheld in my hands, but
nothing. Doubled. The seed of. Your wish for.

by Sophie Mayer

Two notes from the Centre: on Friday 20 November there will be a free poetry workshop in Oxford on the theme of ‘history’, led by experienced poets. From myths, collective stories or personal narratives, what does history mean to you? To join, email your name and affiliation to oxfordpoetry.history@gmail.com The workshop will take place from 3-5pm  in the Old Library, University Church of St Mary the Virgin, High St, Oxford, OX1 4BJ.

And on Wednesday 25 November, the Centre is hosting a spoken word/open mic event in the Main Lecture Theatre, Clerici Bldg, Gipsy Lane on the Headington campus. All are welcome to this event, which will feature numerous local poets and a set from Maddie Godfrey (Australian National Poetry Slam Finalist, 2015). You can find more details and register your interest via the Facebook page. ‘In the Orchard of Pomegranates’ is copyright © Sophie Mayer, 2015. It is reprinted from (O) (Arc Publications, 2015) by permission of Arc Publications.

Notes from Arc Publications:

Sophie Mayer is a writer, editor and educator. Her poetry has been translated into Russian, Greek, Dutch, and Japanese, and has appeared on poster hoardings in Dublin and as part of Yoko Ono’s Meltdown 2013. Previous collections include Her Various Scalpels (Shearsman, 2009), The Private Parts of Girls (Salt, 2011), Kiss Off (Oystercatcher, 2011) and signs of the sistership (with Sarah Crewe, KFS, 2013). She is a film critic and scholar, author of The Cinema of Sally Potter, and (for the Oxford Handbook on Contemporary British and Irish Poetry), ‘Cinema Mon Amour’, the definitive essay on British poetry and film.

(O) is Sophie Mayer’s fourth published poetry collection. Energetic, determined, politicised, contemporary and classical. Brimming with wit, these poems endeavour into the challenges, obstacles and successes which accompany the path into womanhood. A powerful poetic voice, which serves as a testament to the women who live in the cracks of history. You can read more about the book on the Arc website, and more about the author on her own site. You can also follow her on Twitter.

Sudden Collapses in Public Places

November 9, 2015April 4, 2022 ~ oxfordbrookesuni

like buildings, people can disintegrate
collapse in queues, or in a crowded street

causing mayhem, giving kids bad dreams
of awkward corpses, policemen, drops of blood

but I’m stood here, a miracle of bones
architecturally balanced in my boots

I feel each joint, each hinge and spinal link
jolting to the rhythm of my breath

aware of every tremor in my joists,
and yet I’m scared I haven’t done enough

to be re-enforced and girded, Christ, I fear
those flowers tied to lamp posts, dread the crash

by Julia Darling

Two upcoming events: on Monday 16 November at the Albion Beatnik Bookshop from 7.30pm, the Poetry Centre co-hosts a reading by visiting US poet celeste doaks and Hanne Busck-Nielsen. It promises to be a lively and exciting event. Find out more on our Facebook page.

And then on Friday 20 November there will be a free poetry workshop in Oxford on the theme of ‘history’, led by experienced poets. From myths, collective stories or personal narratives, what does history mean to you? Does living in Oxford, a place steeped  in history and memories, inspire you to write about the past? To join, email your name and affiliation to oxfordpoetry.history@gmail.com The workshop will take place from 3-5pm  in the Old Library, University Church of St Mary the Virgin, High St, Oxford OX1 4BJ.

Notes from Arc Publications:

Julia Darling was born in Winchester in 1956, and moved to Newcastle in 1980. Her first full poetry collection, Sudden Collapses in Public Places, was published by Arc in 2003. It was awarded a Poetry Book Society Recommendation. Julia’s second collection Apology for Absence was published in 2005. Darling was a recipient of the prestigious Northern Rock Foundation Writer’s Award, the largest literary award in England.

Ten years after Julia Darling’s death, her poetry continues to represent the very essence of what a poem can be – in her own words, a ‘first aid kit for the mind’. Surprising, vivid, beautiful, often disturbing and always thought-provoking, Darling explores themes of illness, hope, family, and the acceptance of mortality in a body of work that reminds us why we read poetry in the first place. Read more about Indelible, Miraculous, a collected edition of her poems, on the Arc website.