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 leading modernist poets in Afghanistan, the lyrical intensity of his work coupled with his bold use of...
Apr 30, 2020•3 min
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 London Metropolitan University. You have been listening to the Dual Poetry Podcast, one poem in two langu...
Apr 24, 2020•5 min
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 experiences of recent years, yet the narrative unfolds as a patchwork of recipes, poems and stories. You h...
Apr 16, 2020•5 min
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
Apr 09, 2020•3 min
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 YouTube Makeup Tutorial with seen short reflections on Yu Yoyo's book My Tenantless Body. Check them out ...
Apr 02, 2020•4 min
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 'Abuelo' This plays on the idea of foreign intrusion and interference: a vexed issue for Cuba’s revoluti...
Mar 26, 2020•4 min
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 way to adulthood. The human suffering, the yearning for love and hope, portrayed in Karakaşlı’s poe...
Mar 19, 2020•3 min
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 mesmerising feats of alliteration. The Dual Poetry Podcast is one poem in two languages from the Poetr...
Mar 12, 2020•9 min
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 poetry gatherings in Pakistan, Australia, Canada and the US. Unknown outside the Pakistani community, ...
Mar 05, 2020•2 min
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 ' with translated by TS Elliot Award-winning poet Jen Hadfield and bridge translator Canan Marasligil . ...
Feb 20, 2020•3 min
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 founded the renowned literary magazine Souffles , a journal of literature and politics that was to e...
Feb 13, 2020•2 min
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, widespread corruption and rampant crime. As a consequence, a great number of people were forced to e...
Feb 06, 2020•8 min
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 included in a chapbook of poems by Al-Saddiq, in our shop you can also find his first English colle...
Jan 30, 2020•2 min
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 embracing of mythology – a dialogue with God. This poem and many others that appear in her PTC chapbook...
Jan 23, 2020•2 min
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 petals landed among the inner organs. This may only be a poem, but it takes hold of the speaker, removi...
Jan 16, 2020•3 min
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.poetrytranslation.org/shop/negative-of-a-group-photograph This is part of our rebranded weekly release: the D...
Jan 09, 2020•3 min
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 podcast on iTunes or wherever you download.
Jan 02, 2020•7 min
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 this week. The poem is read beautifully for us by two poets: in Kurdish by Mohammad Mustafa and in Eng...
Dec 26, 2019•16 min
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 languages from the Poetry Translation Centre. As ever we will be releasing a translated poem each week. Plea...
Dec 19, 2019•4 min
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 into Galician, German, Greek, Italian and Spanish. She curates the anarcho-feminist zine of queer and ...
Dec 12, 2019•4 min
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, Simorg by and the Irish poet Nick Laird. You can buy a short introduction to the work of Reza Mohammadi with translations by Nick Laird and Hamid Kabir from the PTC online shop: https://...
Dec 05, 2019•3 min
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 in this poem ‘Galata’ – with the history embedded in every stone, every building and every landscape. You can buy ' History-Geography ' a short intr...
Nov 28, 2019•5 min
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. 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 ...
Nov 21, 2019•4 min
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: 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...
Nov 14, 2019•4 min
List week's poem is Empty Town by the chinese poet Yu Yoyo. In her afterward 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. 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 rel...
Nov 07, 2019•3 min
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]. He 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 wr...
Oct 31, 2019•3 min
'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 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 ...
Oct 24, 2019•53 sec
‘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 collapse of the Soviet Union and food shortages and power outages were very much the norm. You can buy Legna's book 'A little body are many parts' fr...
Oct 17, 2019•3 min
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 of topics, from nuclear weapons to the nature of poetry. He was the initiator of the Deelley, a very famous 'chain' of poems by leading Somali poets in the 19...
Oct 10, 2019•11 min
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, 2012 and Kulinaria (Personal Cuisine, 2013. Her poetry has received prestigious awards, including first prize in the 2008 Tsero (Crane Award) and, in 2009, ...
Oct 03, 2019•3 min
