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I had some contact with Catalan poets a couple of years ago and what I saw then (and more or less now) seemed a long way from naturalism. They seemed more interested in American poetry of the closing decades of the last century than any specific Catalan forerunners. With the Ferrater examples on the net, yes, I can see a kind of similarity of direction to Heaney but the thought of Queneau being an influence on the Honest (former ) Ulsterman is difficult to bear, like a strained back acquired through the quest for difficult, too deeply-rooted potatoes. On 13 September 2011 20:53, Peter Riley <[log in to unmask]> wrote: > I've come across a strange thread which starts from the Catalan poet > Gabriel Ferrater (1922-1972). It is that at Queens University Belfast in the > 1960s, the then Professor of Spanish Arthur Terry was translating Ferrater, > and Seamus Heaney and others took a great interest in the results and > possibly they, and Terry himself, were important factors in establishing the > direction of those Northern Irish poets who became so successful. Terry's > translations of Raymond Queneau are also said to come into this. The point > would be some kind of breaking away from modernistic poeticism into a > plainer, unloaded manner and direct delineation of personal experience, > within traditional formalities. Ferrater declared himself opposed to > "obscurantism". > > Has anyone else come across this story? The trouble with it seems to me to > be that whatever Ferrater is like Queneau's way of writing is several > thousand miles away from Heaney's. > > The only other poet I've noticed heavily influenced by Ferrater is the > Belgian William Cliff, whose earlier work (all I know) I found very > readable. He is several thousand miles away from Heaney in another > direction. > > There are a few Ferrater poems readable on-line which seem engaging, and in > no way plain-speaking but with a lot of the symbolistic and image-laden > writing you expect in the Hispanic world. There is a book translated by > Terry published by Arc, (introduction by Heaney) which I don't think > includes the texts in Catalan, making me reluctant to purchase it. > > PR > -- David Joseph Bircumshaw "The surest sign that intelligent life exists elsewhere in the universe is that none of it has tried to contact us." - Calvin & Hobbes Website and A Chide's Alphabet http://www.staplednapkin.org.uk The Animal Subsides http://www.arrowheadpress.co.uk/books/animal.html Facebook: http://www.facebook.com/david.bircumshaw twitter: http://twitter.com/bucketshave blog: http://groggydays.blogspot.com/