Trilce, published in Lima in 1922 is one of the most powerful books of poetry in the Spanish language. This new translation, published by Veer Books and Crater Press, comes out of the need to make available in English Vallejo’s singular poetic thought. Helen Dimos and William Rowe have sought to bring across both the emotional force and the intellectual strength of this unclassifiable book. The translation is accompanied by glosses on the facing pages; these are not interpretations but instead responses from as deeply inside the poems as reading them might reach. Readings by Cristina Viti and Stephen Watts will contribute to the event from their own work as translators and poets. Sacha Kahir will read John Manson’s translations of Vallejo into Scots.
Doors 6.30 | event starts 7pm | £5 (£3 unwaged) cash on the door
Helen Dimos is a poet and translator living in Athens. Her No Realtor Was Compensated for This Sale was published by The Elephants in 2017. Her second book of poems, Intermissions & Things Auto / bio / graphy, is forthcoming. Among other events / performances / gatherings, she co-organized the Paros Poetry and Translation Symposium for five summers in Greece.
Sacha Kahir produces hybrid / liminal forms that merge art, politics, critique, overcoming, and memory. Working within, and frequently combining, animation, film, installation, theatre, poetry, and arts research, he attempts to create a modern art from below, in the sense of modern art as the desire to transform everyday life through aesthetic experimentation.
William Rowe’s Collected Poems were published by Crater Press in 2016. He has translated Raúl Zurita’s INRI (NYRB, 2019) and Antonio Cisneros’s A Cruise to the Galapagos Islands (Shearsman 2012). He is a contributor to the Oxford Book of Latin American Poetry (2009) His translation of Tania Favela’s Motion Towards No Place is forthcoming from Veer 2.
Cristina Viti is a foremost translator of Italian poetry and novels. Her translations of Pasolini’s La rabbia and Luca Rastello’s Piove all’insù (The Rain’s Falling Up) were published last year. Her recent poetry scores multilingualism and contemporary forms of keening. Current activities include workshops with the Radical Translation project at King’s College London.
Stephen Watts’s Republic Of Dogs/Republic Of Birds & Journeys Across Breath : Poems 1975-2005 were published by Prototype in 2018 & 2022. His Bibliography of Modern Poetry in English Translation is housed in the National Poetry Library & a multi-volume paperback edition is due from Tenement Press in 2024. He lives in London, works quietly as a poetry activist & has co-translated poetry from a wide range of languages, including Persian, Arabic, Yiddish, Slovenian, Romanian & Georgian.
This is the second in the irregular series of hybrid events hosted by Stephen Watts & Chris Gutkind for Hundred Years Gallery, following on the welcomed opening one in February.
Please look forward to further & varied events in the series across the summer & autumn of 2023 & hopefully onwards!
