Launch of issue 59 of The Interpreter's House
These names jumped out at me:
Andrey Ardern-Jones - (poem about plucking at the buttercups on the sheets)
Nancy Campbell - (poems about Greenland)
James Caruth - (poem about his grandfather, including the OT quotation)
Anas Hassan - The Front Row
Michelle D. Lauder - Lances
Mostly I looked carefully, but sometimes I looked at the floor to listen better.
With one poet I had to shut my eyes, to simply listen. Have I done that before? Who was it?
A friend and I took a very long way round to get back to our cars, so we could talk the more.
I needed to sit down on a low wall so I could tell her about the line I loved the best, God is my hiding place and about his gentle accent.
That phrase is from the OT, in translation of course, none of us know Hebrew, but it's that close to us here in English, bathed in the words of the Old Testament in all those different translations.
Newspaper/Passive/2
Earlier H saw a photo of Princes Diana on the back of my very old Arabic newspaper. Amazingly he listened when I showed him the letters of 'Diana' and spoke the words al-amiira diiana, he and I repeated this again and again, getting the emphasis in the right and wrong places! I don't know how Diana is pronounced in Arabic, so was at sea there.
How exciting, I chanced on a couple of lines about the vowels u and i which make the passive. I had no expectation of actually learning it. Then I saw a passive in a translated book title in a poetry prize review. Then... I realised that wulidtu uses exactly those vowels (I was born), so I half know it already :)
Taking no chances, I have booked for 2 different Arabic classes this autumn. They can't both fall through. One requires an assessment. Will I have to go and talk to them? I hope so.
Showing posts with label The Interpreter's House. Show all posts
Showing posts with label The Interpreter's House. Show all posts
Friday, 17 July 2015
Sunday, 26 April 2015
Carmen Bugan - Burying the Typewriter - The Interpreter's House
Burying the Typewriter
I read this in 24 hours, mainly in front of an open fire. I know Carmen a liitle from a writing forum, but I know her a lot better now. I am even more in awe of her too. Both genres of writing explain or flesh out the other. It's a lot more interesting and real to read what someone I know a bit is writing. Different perspectives on the same person and their back story.
The activities of the securitate, the Secret Police, were sometimes not secret at all. That seems to me to be part of their horror, the sheer lack of shame at what they were doing.
My father used to tell us stories of what dictators did, so somehow the vision of the policemen sitting in their very house didn't surprise me. I was aware of Saddam Hussein taking a member of his cabinet to the next room during a meeting and shooting him there and then.
My mother used to mention things with a special tone of voice, so I paid extra attention to them. The Fall of Saigon and the practice of FGM/female circumcision for example.
The calm and desperate women in Trafalgar Square used to show photos of bloody body parts from Iraq. If someone is moved to stand in the cold and the rain to tell total strangers about wrongs, they are to be believed. Back then it never crossed my mind to give them a smile and a hug. I did look at the photos though.
Neither of my parents talked about activism or protest. The main thing was not living under a dictatorship and to be earning enough money.
9 min video of Carmen Bugan speaking about writing the book.
The Interpreter's House
The pieces are arranged in alphabetical order of the writers' surnames, which neatly matches the bio data at the back.
Clare Best, Nick Burbridge, David Gale, Alex Harper, Rosie Jackson, Thomas Kearnes, Martin Kratz, Maggie Mackay, Roy Marshall, Amy McCauley, Jennifer A. McGowan (hi), Angela Readman (hi), Hilary Robinson, Myriam San Marco, Di Slaney, M. Stasiak, Paul Stephenson, David Troupes, Annette Volfing (hi), Lindsay Waller-Wilkinson, Julia Webb, Pauline Yarwood.
Now I am looking through the book at pieces by the other writers and they are so interesting too:
'..run careful fingers
over her small smooth skull.'
Bryan Tapia
'I sank.'
Hilary Robinson
I read this in 24 hours, mainly in front of an open fire. I know Carmen a liitle from a writing forum, but I know her a lot better now. I am even more in awe of her too. Both genres of writing explain or flesh out the other. It's a lot more interesting and real to read what someone I know a bit is writing. Different perspectives on the same person and their back story.
The activities of the securitate, the Secret Police, were sometimes not secret at all. That seems to me to be part of their horror, the sheer lack of shame at what they were doing.
My father used to tell us stories of what dictators did, so somehow the vision of the policemen sitting in their very house didn't surprise me. I was aware of Saddam Hussein taking a member of his cabinet to the next room during a meeting and shooting him there and then.
My mother used to mention things with a special tone of voice, so I paid extra attention to them. The Fall of Saigon and the practice of FGM/female circumcision for example.
The calm and desperate women in Trafalgar Square used to show photos of bloody body parts from Iraq. If someone is moved to stand in the cold and the rain to tell total strangers about wrongs, they are to be believed. Back then it never crossed my mind to give them a smile and a hug. I did look at the photos though.
Neither of my parents talked about activism or protest. The main thing was not living under a dictatorship and to be earning enough money.
9 min video of Carmen Bugan speaking about writing the book.
The Interpreter's House
The pieces are arranged in alphabetical order of the writers' surnames, which neatly matches the bio data at the back.
Clare Best, Nick Burbridge, David Gale, Alex Harper, Rosie Jackson, Thomas Kearnes, Martin Kratz, Maggie Mackay, Roy Marshall, Amy McCauley, Jennifer A. McGowan (hi), Angela Readman (hi), Hilary Robinson, Myriam San Marco, Di Slaney, M. Stasiak, Paul Stephenson, David Troupes, Annette Volfing (hi), Lindsay Waller-Wilkinson, Julia Webb, Pauline Yarwood.
Now I am looking through the book at pieces by the other writers and they are so interesting too:
'..run careful fingers
over her small smooth skull.'
Bryan Tapia
'I sank.'
Hilary Robinson
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