Poetry and translation at No Wave (part 1)

Speaker 1 00:02

This is a Vision Australia Radio podcast.



Speaker 2 00:18

On Vision Australia Radio, welcome to our conversation program Emerging Writers. I'm Kate Cooper. This week we're excited to be bringing you the first part of our recording of the April No Wave Poetry event titled Poetry and Translation. We begin with this month's No Wave curator, Steve Brock, who introduces the event and then welcomes Gemma Parker, who reads her own translations of poems from the French. She is joined in one of the readings by her husband Guillaume Vitu. Regular listeners to the program will recognise Steve, Gemma and Guillaume as past guests. They will be joined during the event by well-known Chilean Australian poet Juan Garrido Salgado, himself a past guest on the program.

During the program you will hear poems read in the original French and Spanish as well as their English translations. This No Wave Poetry event was recorded live at the Weachie Hotel in Thebeton. This venue is on the Adelaide flight path, so from time to time you will hear in the background the sound of airplanes flying over. Here is Steve Brock introducing Gemma Parker.



Speaker 3 01:39

Good evening everyone, welcome to the first No Wave event of the year. Some of you will be familiar with No Wave readings, which is a monthly event held here at the Wheaty Adelaide's premier poetry venue, I think you'll agree, there's a bit of competition coming up these days, in fact we're talking earlier, there's at least two other quite significant events on at the same time. So great to see such a good turnout here and that Adelaide can do more than one thing at once when it comes to poetry, which is excellent. And I'd like to thank in particular Gemma, who's the curator of No Wave, and Gemma for inviting me to host this event tonight.

And when Gemma mentioned that she wanted to have it themed around translation, I immediately was quite excited by that as it's a topic very close to my heart. And straight away I thought of some close friends and collaborators Juan Garido Salgado, who'll be reading tonight, and Sergio Olas, who is also on the program, but unfortunately Sergio is unwell today. So instead of bringing in someone at the last minute, we've decided we'll just wing it and you'll get to hear a bit more of Gemma, Juan and Steve. In terms of the format this evening, No Wave regulars would be used to having two readers, then a break, another two readers.

We've decided to mess with that formula tonight. Given it's on the theme of translation, the first half of the evening will be translated works, so you'll hear works translated from Spanish into English, and also from French into English. Sergio Olas worked on four poems by four Chilean poets, especially for tonight. And I collaborated with him on those translations, so we'll still get to hear some of his work this evening. And that's the exciting thing about translation is I didn't really know three of the poets, and that's the beauty of translation.

You get to experience other poets in other languages, other works, and it's a way it's an exciting journey. And Gemma will be reading some French translations and understand one of the poets has never been translated into English before, so you'll get to experience that.
And when Gemma invited me to host and it's on the theme of translation, I was happy in that there's some other convergences as well, not least of which is I'm on a 90 -day streak of Duolingo French, which I'm very proud of, despite my family mocking my accent when I try to practice.

And another one is only a couple of weeks ago I was on Kate Cooper's emerging writers radio program with Vision Radio Australia, Kate's here this evening, and we had a conversation on the topic of translating poetry. And Juan and Gemma have also been on that program recently, and there's a podcast that you can check out, and Kate is also recording us here this evening, so it's a fantastic radio program, I encourage you to take a look at the podcast.

Translation is a great thing to be involved in, it's for anyone who works across languages, it's not never a literal process, there's always a creative tension between being faithful to the original, and I think every translated poem has to work in the target language, and stand on its own as a poem, and you can be the judge of that this evening when you hear the poems, and some people take a looser approach, there's a great book by Robert Lowell called Imitations of quite loose translations where he talks about the poems, not so much as translations as being after the poet that he's translating, and other poets have also wrapped off of the creative mistakes that arise from mis-translations as well.

06:08

So it's definitely a creative process, and very much looking forward to hearing Kwan and Gemma read. And at one point as well, Gemma will be bringing up her husband, Guillaume, who will read a poem in French as well as a native speaker, so I think we'll be spoke tonight with a few different voices. Gemma is an award -winning writer and her work explores her experience of living across cultures and engages with philosophical traditions, language, parenthood and arts. The kids are always great inspiration to poetry, particularly young children.

Gemma is one of the co-founders and managing editors of literary journal, The Salt Bush Review, which is a great online journal, if you haven't checked that one out. Excellent journal. And the curator of the monthly series, where we are tonight, No Wave. Gemma was awarded an emerging writer's fellowship by the State Library of South Australia and is currently working on a book link for manuscript of surreal auto-fiction called Spider Mother, which sounds very cool. Thank you Gemma.



Speaker 4 07:24

Thank you Steve. Hi everyone. It's such a pleasure for me to be a part of this event. I feel very honoured to be sharing the stage with Steve and Juan. I'm quite, I wouldn't say new to speaking French. I've been speaking it for a lot of my adult life that I did learn as an adult and I am relatively new to trying to translate so I hope I can do the poem justice this evening. I'd like to acknowledge that we are on Ghana land and that this always was and always will be Aboriginal land.

I'm going to start by reading three poems by the contemporary French poet Thomas Vinal. So as Steve said I don't believe that these poems have been translated so the first one is called Luamak and it's quite long but I'll read it fully through in French and then I'll read my translation afterwards.

08:17

Luamak. J 'ai installé le hamac entre l 'olivier et le tilleux. Voilà un text qui commence bien. Un text dont la première phrase est j 'ai installé le hamac entre l 'olivier et le tilleux on peut dire que c 'est un text qui a la belle vie. J 'ai installé le hamac donc. Tendu la toile, vérifiez les nœuds, me suis hissée à l 'intérieur, le soleil tapé, le mistral soufflé, sac et ressac. Un petit balancement rythmé, lourd de poids des choses, c 'est installé tranquillement. Évlui par la lumière trop vise, j 'ai rabattu sur mon visage la toile large qui forma alors autour de mon corps un cocoon chaleureux et coloré. Des paillettes toutes crues traversaient les mains et formaient dans ma caverne délicieuse un minuscule ciel étoilé.

Le tissu réveillé par le soleil diffusé des parfums de sable et du sel. Je me suis endormie là jusqu 'à ce que le vent ou un battement d 'aile me réveille à nouveau. J 'ai failli trébucher en descendant à gare un peu perdu dans l 'étentiellement. La joue imprimée par la marque rouge des mains. J 'ai débarqué dans la lumière comme un offragé affamé, un Robinson dans le côteard pour me diriger vers le plat du fraise sur la table de la terrasse à côté du gâteau au chocolat. Mes filles et ma femme m 'y attendaient pour goûter. Je vous l 'avais dit que ce texte avait la belle vie. So this poem is called the hammock in English. I hung the hammock between the olive tree and the linden tree.

10:13

Hey now there's a text that starts well. A text that begins with the phrase I hung the hammock between the olive tree and the linden tree. Well we can say that's a text that has a good life. So anyway... 

I hung the hammock, stretched the canvas, checked the knots, hoisted myself in. The sun shone, the breeze blew, to and fro, a little rhythmic rocking heavy with the weight of things set in quietly. Dazzled by the blazing sunlight I pulled the wide canvas over my face, enclosing my body in a warm and colourful cocoon. Raw glitter passed through the canvas mesh and formed in my delicious cave a tiny sorry sky. The fabric, awakened by the sun, exhaled with the scent of sand and salt. I fell asleep like that right up until the wind or the flap of a bird's wing woke me. I nearly toppled over trying to get out, hugged, a little lost still in the sparkle, my cheek printed with red marks from the mesh. I stepped into the light like a hungry castaway, a groggy Robinson Crusoe and made a beeline for the bowl of strawberries on the terrace table that sat next to a chocolate cake. My wife and sons were there waiting for me to have afternoon tea. 

I told you this text had a good life. So the next one I'm going to read is from this collection which is called Justa After the Rain and Vinod post the collection a big book of little poems.
He says they're ordinary poems, hygiene poems, gymnastic poems, the poems that juggle between the essential and the anecdote. He says in short they are human poems. So I'm just going to read two short poems. The first one is called 6 titles of books you'd do well to write if you had nothing better to do. I'm going to actually read this one as a simultaneous translation, so I'll read the titles in French and then in English.

12:31

Les pierres sont des fossiles de cri d'oiseau. Stones are fossils of bird cries. Toutes les ombres ne se valent pas. Not all shadows are equal. La lumière fait claquer des vitres. Light makes windows slam. Moins qu 'une bête. Less than a beast. Une taupe n 'a jamais vu d 'étoiles. A mole has never seen a star. Justices et friandises. Justice and sweet treats. 

The last one is another little one that is written called Allumette. Allumette means matchstick. J 'écris des poèmes Allumette. Des petites flammes qui ne réchauffent rien et qui me brûlent le bout des droits. Matches. I write matchstick poems. Little flames that don't heat anything and burn the tips of my fingers.

So that's Thomas Vino. The last poem I'd like to read I'm going to need my husband to read for me, Guillaume. The reason I'm asking Guillaume to read this is because I still struggle with the French R. And this poem is called Barbara which is Barbara in English and I can't sustain that over the course of this poem. Thank you Guillaume.

Speaker 5 13:58

Je vais voir. Barbara, ben, échaque très vert. Rappelle -toi Barbara, il pleuvait sans cesse sur Brest ce jour-là, et tu marchais souriant, épanoui, ravi, ruisonnante, sous la pluie. Rappelle -toi Barbara, il pleuvait sans cesse sur Brest, et je t 'ai croisé rue de Siam, tu souriais, et moi je souriais de même. Rappelle-toi Barbara, toi que je ne connaissais pas, toi qui ne me connaissais pas. Rappelle-toi, rappelle-toi quand même ce jour-là, n 'oublie pas, un homme sous un porche s 'abritait et il a crié ton nom Barbara, et tu as couru vers lui sous la pluie, ruisonnante, ravi, épanoui, et tu t 'es jeté dans ses bras.

Rappelle -toi Barbara, rappelle -toi de cela, et ne m 'en veux pas si je te tue toi, je le dis -tu à tous ceux que j 'aime, même si je ne les ai vus qu 'une seule fois. Je dis -tu à tous ceux qui s 'aiment, même si je ne les connais pas. Rappelle -toi Barbara, n 'oublie pas, cette pluie sage et heureuse, sur ton visage heureux, sur cette ville heureuse, cette pluie sur la mer, sur l 'arsenal, sur le bateau de Loissant. Oh Barbara quelle connerie la guerre, que tu devenus maintenant sous cette pluie de fer, de feu, d 'acier, de sang, et celui qui te serrait dans ses bras amoureusement.

Est-il mort disparu ou bien encore vivant? Oh Barbara, il pleut sans cesse sur Brest, comme il pleuvait avant, mais ce n 'est plus pareil et tout est abîmé, c 'est une pluie de deuil, terrible et désolé. Ce n 'est même plus l 'orage de fer, d 'acier, de sang, tout simplement des nuages qui crèvent comme des chiens, des chiens qui disparaissent au fil de l 'eau sur Brest et vont me pourrir au loin, très loin de Brest, donc il ne reste rien.



Speaker 4 16:00

So this one's quite different to the other poems, and the translation I'm going to read is the translation that was done by Laurence Villanquetti. Barbara. 

Remember, Barbara, it rained all day on rest of that day. And you walked, smiling, flushed, enraptured, streaming wet in the rain. Remember, Barbara, it rained all day on rest of that day. And I ran into you in Siam Street. You were smiling, and I smiled too.



Speaker 4 16:29

Remember, Barbara, you whom I didn't know, you who didn't know me. Remember, remember that day still. Don't forget, a man was taking cover on a porch and he cried your name, Barbara, and you ran to him in the rain, streaming wet, enraptured, flushed, and you threw yourself in his arms.

Remember that, Barbara, and don't be mad if I speak familiarly. I speak familiarly to everyone I love, even if I've seen them only once. I speak familiarly to all who are in love, even if I don't know them.

Remember, Barbara, don't forget, that good and happy rain on your happy face, on that happy town, that rain upon the sea, upon the arsenal, upon the Ushand boat. Oh, Barbara, what shit stupidity the war, now what's become of you, under this iron rain of fire and steel and blood, and he who held you in his arms, amorously, is he dead and gone, or still so much alive?

Oh, Barbara, it's rained all day on Brest today, as it was raining before, but it isn't the same anymore, and everything is wrecked. It's a rain of mourning, terrible and desolate, nor is it still a storm of iron and steel and blood, but simply clouds that die like dogs, dogs that disappear in the downpour, drowning breast, and float away to rot, a long way off, a long, long way from breast, of which there's nothing left.



Speaker 3 18:03

Thanks for that Gemma, it's a really powerful reading and I also love that poem by Jack Prevair. I've got a well-loved edition of Jack Prevair, which Lawrence Fairleigh Getty translated in city-like books published, I think it was in the mid 50s, which I inherited from my father, and yeah, I remember that poem.



Speaker 2 18:31

On Vision Australia Radio you're listening to our conversation programme Emerging Writers this week. We're presenting the live recording of the April No Wave Poetry series titled Poetry and Translation.

In this next section, Juan Garrido Salgado joins Steve Brock in reading some original translations by the Chilean Australian poet Sergio Olas. In this next segment I'm going to read some translations with Juan. These are translations that Sergio Olives worked on. He chose the poets and then we collaborated on the poems. And Sergio Juan and I previously worked on this anthology, Poetry of the Earth, Mapuche Trilingual Anthology, with poetry in Mapuche Lungun, the language of the Mapuche Spanish and English.

And we're also fortunate in that the First Nations scholar Irwin Rigny wrote an introduction to that, just making a connection between the poetry that seeks to decolonise both in Chile and also Australia. At Juan's most recent book launch we had a great conversation with Natalie Harkin as well, local First Nations poet and scholar. So we will read four poems that have been freshly translated for this evening and then following that Juan has some translations that he'll read. Might start in Spanish.



Speaker 6 20:14

This poem belongs to the poet Hernán Lavín Cerda, and the book is called La Sonrisa del Lobo Setiéns. 

El regreso Has vuelto a esperar la muerte en un sillón que tiene la forma de una tortuga indefinida. Nadie habla, no hay gesto. Nadie se atrevería a decir que todo sigue igual. Has vuelto y descubre que los pájaros son iguales en todo el mundo. Uno de ellos, con pluma roja, canta como una niña, y otro deja caer un huevo encima de tu calvisie. De pronto viene un soldado de rama un poco de gasolina, sobre la sombra de nadie, sobre el pájaro, sobre el huevo, y le prende fuego al paisaje, donde el sillón es la única incertidumbre de una historia equivocada, cruel, indeleble.



Speaker 3 21:34

The return... you've returned to wait for death in a sofa the shape of an ill-defined turtle no one speaks no one gestures no one would try to say that everything continues the same you've returned and you discovered birds are much the same around the world one of them a red plumed sings like a girl and another cracks an egg on your bullness suddenly a soldier arrives spills some gasoline over nobody's shadow on the bird on the egg and lights up the landscape where the sofa is the only certainty of a mistaken history cruel indelible...



Speaker 6 22:32

Este punto se conoce al de Juan Pablo Riveros, del libro Temuco, pero no había el nombre del poema, pero no había árboles ni industrias, había nieve, cielos y estrellas sin fin, soles que agonizaban largamente en el horizonte, y un gran mar rico en algas, peces y fito plantaciones. Había lo que el hombre abandonó apresuradamente durante siglos, un hoyo, unas focas, una huella de perros estelares bajo la noche inmensa. Había una gran soledad, no había vitrinas, ni un apacharrado liquen, y por fortuna, ni un solo almacén.



Speaker 3 23:39

But there was nothing. But there were no trees, nor industries. There was snow, skies, and infinite stars, long agonising suns on the horizon, and a big sea rich in algae, fish, and phytoplankton. There was that which man abandoned hurriedly along the centuries, a hole, some seals, stellar dog paws under the immense night. There was a profound solitude. There were no display windows, not even a stunted lichen, and fortunately, not a single storm.



Speaker 6 24:26

llegará el día de Roberto Bolaño, la universidad es conocida, llegará el día en que desde la calle te llamarán chileno y tú bajarás las escaleras de tres en tres, será de noche y tus ojos por fin habrán encontrado el color que deseaban. Estarás preparando la comida o leyendo, estarás solo y bajarás de inmediato. Un grito, una palabra, será como el viento empujándote de improviso hacia el sueño y tú bajarás las escaleras de tres en tres con un cuchillo en la mano y la calle estará vacía.



Speaker 3 25:21

The day will arrive, and this is by the Chilean poet Roberto Balanio. Some of you may know Balanio's work, author of a fantastic novel, The Savage Detected, and another great work, 2 .666. And whereas Gabriel Garcia Marquez and the boom writers of the 70s brought in magic realism as a term, Balanio wrote back to that and spoke about the visceral realism, so he's got a gang of poets in The Savage Detectives who are the visceral realists.

The day will arrive, the day will arrive when from the street someone will call you Chilean, and you'll take the stairs three steps at a time. It will be night and your eyes will have found the color they desire. You'll be preparing dinner or reading. You'll be alone and will run down immediately, shouting a single word like the inspired wind blowing you toward the dream, and you'll take the stairs three steps at a time with a knife in your hand and the street will be empty.



Speaker 6 26:43

Tan cerca y tan lejos, este poema es vilóncio de Alejandro Pérez, es lo mismo pero muy distinto por la ruta de Guaricocha, el jamán pacha arriba y afuera, el misterio estelar de donde vinimos, o la metáfora del orden que olvidamos, el cae pacha, el mundo del hombre prisionero, el arcadía del presente, el aquí y el ahora, infragablemente como el toque de queda, y el uca pacha, el inframundo, las entrañas del recién, el 4500 millones de año, el dominio de la serpiente sagrada y los muertos, esos emigrantes cósmicos.



Speaker 3 27:41

so close and so far. I just remember Kate's recording this and I'm breaking all her rules like rustling the paper, drinking my drink. So close and so far. It's the same but very different through the root of Wirakotcha, the Hanan Pacha, up and out, the stellar mystery from where we come, or the forgotten metaphor of order, the Kaypacha, man's world, prisoner in his Arcadian present, the here and now, unquestionable like a curfew, and the Ukupacha, the infra-world. It's guts of only 4 ,500 million years, the sacred serpent domain, and those cosmic migrants the dead. Thank you for that. Now, I'll just acknowledge and secure all this for selecting those folks and working on this translation.



Speaker 2 28:52

And that is where we must leave the No Way of Poetry event for now, but we'll be bringing you some of Juan's readings of his poetry translations in next week's program, as well as hearing more from Gemma and Steve. You've been listening to a live recording of poetry and translation recorded at the Wheat Sheaf Hotel. Our emerging writers program comes from the Adelaide Studios of Vision Australia Radio and can be heard at the same time each week on 11 97 AM, V .A Radio on Digital and on Vision Australia Radio Podcasts, where you can catch up on earlier episodes.



Speaker 1 29:44

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Speaker 4 29:54

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Speaker 5 29:57

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Speaker 1 29:57

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