Since I’ve lived in Spain, one of the joys of visiting the UK has been the glorious green of the countryside. This picture was taken yesterday from the top of Brecon Cathedral tower.
They say if you can see the mountains it’s going to rain, and if you can’t see them it’s already raining.
Continue reading “the green, green grass of home”
Category: writing and writers
of telephones and translation
I went to a workshop in the Cotswolds last week, where we discussed translation and poetry. Specifically, translating the poems of Lorca, as it was related to the Lorca in England competition. I do want to write more about translation, but have been caught up in discussion of my other hobby horse, the narrator in poetry.
So, while I try and find time to compose my thoughts and write some more on the subject of translations, which, “like women, when faithful are seldom beautiful and when beautiful are unlikely to be faithful” – (I’m not sure who to attribute that thought to) – here’s a picture of an English telephone box, just to brighten the page.
of shoe-cleaning and elephants
I’ve been back in the DCTN archives discussing narrators – first person and third person – and what’s ‘real’ in my poetry, and have just written that the inspiration for a poem is almost certainly something in my life, but it isn’t necessarily something real that actually happened to me.
The trigger may be a personal experience, or it may be something I read or overhear, or something from today that I connect through to something half remembered from the past etc. I then take that kernel of an idea and extrapolate it and link it with other images and ideas to create a poem. The same trigger can inspire different poems in different styles or forms and with different protagonists, and the information that fleshes it out may come from personal experience, research or imagination.
Continue reading “of shoe-cleaning and elephants”
talking about translation
The question arose recently about whether a translator should translate into their own mother tongue (direct translation) or into their second language (inverse translation). Someone expressed the adamant opinion that you should never trust a person who offered to translate into a language other than their own – they’d be bound to do it badly.
I actually disagree quite strongly.
Continue reading “talking about translation”
time to stand and stare
Travelling in the UK, I seem to be in headless chicken mode, with no time to sit and think or write, and yet achieving very little. Yesterday, though, I took a walk , as it was a glorious, slightly blustery, English summer afternoon.
I’ve commented before on the monkey puzzle in my mother’s village, but I’d never seen it with cones before:
don't confuse the narrator 