Modern Poetry in Translation | The Best of World Poetry

Highlights from the latest issue

EDITORIAL

Clare Pollard
Last year, Modern Poetry in Translation was very pleased to be invited to participate in the British Council’s ambitious Majaaz project, focusing on ten emerging poets from the Maghreb region, who write in Arabic, Arabic dialect and Tamazight. The poets met in Tunisia in September, along with five emerging UK poets and various translators and facilitators including myself, for a chance to make connections and collaborate. Every day we were driven to the whitewashed Villa Ma’amoura, a working organic farm, decorated with rugs and cacti
...
Other Banks

Fatma Krouma
I love you more in temperate climates
away from the killing sun
and the long and boring Sundays.
I see us here, on the other banks of life
on the sands of the coastlines
among the grasses of the gardens.
We plant roses in the illuminated paths
and cultivate kisses on the trains arriving
...

Translated by Victoria Adukwei Bulley
To Err

Toon Tellegen
Is erring human,
isn’t it divine?

And shame,
shouldn’t that be the only truly divine emotion –
heavenly shame,
the reason why the divine makes itself small,
conceals itself
and pulls its immortal grey hairs out of its
grey immanence, in the dark
...

Translated by Judith Wilkinson
I Once Met a Man

Volha Hapeyeva
I once met a man
who thought he was a cake
I didn’t identify what type – wedding or birthday
his faith was so strong
that I succumbed
and began to want him
on my plate
but life moved in my way
...
Translated by Kim Moore
Polina

Nene Giorgadze
Polina, 3 years old, lives in an orphanage.
In her blue eyes, it’s a black and white world.
She wants to colour everything.
But children are not allowed crayons at the orphanage.
Polina does not see, yet, that the world is unfair,
the odds are stacked against her. She is not worried. Yet
she asks all her possible mothers
for a box of crayons. They promise but
...
Translated by Ryan Van Winkle

News and Events

Contemporary Russian Poetry in Translation Residency – The Queen’s College, Oxford

22nd July 2019

Modern Poetry in Translation is delighted to be partnering with Pushkin House on a new residency programme. The Contemporary Russian Poetry in Translation Residency…

MPT at Ledbury Poetry Festival – Translation slam on German poet Odile Kennel

21st June 2019

Join us at Ledbury Poetry Festival on 6 July 2019 with Clare Pollard, Jen Calleja and Annie Rutherford

Features

My Body Is Stone, My House Is the Moon (Excerpts from Tubuhku Batu, Rumahku Bulan)

19th August 2019

We are delighted to present this new digital pamphlet, My Body Is Stone, My House Is the Moon (Excerpts from Tubuhku Batu, Rumahku Bulan), curated by our inaugural Poet and Translator in Residence, Khairani Barokka.

A la Mystérieuse / Les Ténèbres

18th August 2019

Laura Garmeson reviews A la Mystérieuse / Les Ténèbres by Robert Desnos, translated by Martin Bell, Art Translated, 2018

The Speech of Our Language

4th July 2019

Jonathan Davidson reviews ‘So At One With You’ – An Anthology of Modern Poetry in Somali