And then there were the state-sanctioned poets I heard in Baghdad back
in 86, the awfulness of whose work I could hear quite clearly even
though I understood no Arabic. The translator from Poland sitting
beside me told me I was really lucky that I didn't understand.
Although everyone in the huge auditorium understood when he shouted
out the name, and most of the audience applauded like mad (we noted
the armed soldiers, supposedly members of the Iraqi Ministry of
Culture, standing around the periphery).
Doug
On 28-Aug-08, at 11:54 PM, David Bircumshaw wrote:
> Last year I had the privilege of doing a reading with two Iraqi poets:
> the English translations of their work were really dreadful, but when
> you heard them reading the originals, the sonic properties were
> dizzying.
>
> At the same time, my cautionary tale would be the one-time reputation
> Rabindrath Tagore's work had. I'm told, by those who know, that his
> poems in Bengali are just as corny as in translation. T
Douglas Barbour
[log in to unmask]
http://www.ualberta.ca/~dbarbour/
Latest books:
Continuations (with Sheila E Murphy)
http://www.uap.ualberta.ca/UAP.asp?LID=41&bookID=664
Wednesdays'
http://abovegroundpress.blogspot.com/2008/03/new-from-aboveground-press_10.html
A little planet blues, for the
deathwatch.
A season of rictus riffs.
Dennis Lee
|