Hunger Like Starlings

This insightful collaborative project, funded by the Edwin Morgan Trust and facilitated by Ken Cockburn in 2019, creates a firm linguistic bridge between English and Hungarian and explores what can be achieved through the art of translation. Having the same poem in two languages side by side on double-page spreads creates a real, tangible sense of collaboration. Even though an English reader might only understand the language on one side, the mirroring of enjambment, spacing and general rhythm emphasizes that no matter where we come from or what language we speak, we experience similar concerns. The epigraph of ‘Bird Woman’, ‘nothing is yet in its true form’, gives the sense that these poems are not yet at rest; this collection thrums with the anticipation of change and readjustment—with the potential to be reinterpreted and reimagined even further—thereby exploring the beautiful complexity and flexibility of language.

Chameleon | Nachtroer

Reading Charlotte Van den Broeck’s recent Bloodaxe collection makes it clear to the reader exactly why she is acclaimed as one of Europe’s most innovative and original new voices in poetry. Her first English-translated poetry collection, Chameleon, was published in 2015, followed by her second poetry collection with the untranslatable title; Nachtroer in 2017. Chameleon Read More

Heroines from Abroad

Christine Marendon’s debut collection Heroines from Abroad are poems written in her native German. She has been published online, in magazines, and anthologies. This bi-lingual collection is about reflecting on life. The poems are not always straightforward and take some time to process. Since they are never longer than a single page, one has time Read More

Self-portrait with a swarm of bees

Jan Wagner, translated by Iain Galbraith (Arc Publications, 2015); pbk, £10.99 In his introduction to this collection, Iain Galbraith notes that “a poem, we might hazard, is a highly sophisticated instrument for the measurement of, and ingress to, the real in all its dimensions.”  This maxim exudes aptness, especially when applied to the wonderful variety Read More

Inside Voices, Outside Light

Sigurður Pálsson is an established poet in his home country of Iceland, having won the Icelandic Literary Prize in 2008. He has built up a considerable reputation in France, which earned him both the title of Chevalier de l’Ordre des Arts et des Lettres in 1990, and Chevalier de l’Ordre National du Mérite in 2007. Read More