Poetry in Transatlantic Translation: Encounters Across Languages
Conference
Leading poets and translators will come to Bangor University for an international conference that will explore the role that translation plays in shaping relationships between the poetries of Europe and the Americas, particularly in modernist and experimental traditions. In looking at how the poetry of different languages traverses the Atlantic, the conference will explore contrasts and frictions as well as synergies, existing connections as well as the potential for new collaborations.
Poetry in Transatlantic Translation: Encounters Across Languages will take place June 14th to 17th, featuring talks, workshops and free public poetry readings. Speakers include Korean-American poet Don Mee Choi, poet and translator Johannes Göransson, Cuban poet Víctor Rodríguez Núñez, translator Katherine Hedeen, and Pulitzer Prize-winning poet Forrest Gander. The conference is organised by Professor Zoë Skoulding of the School of Arts, Culture and Languages, in collaboration with Dr Dan Eltringham of Sheffield University, and funded by the AHRC and the British Academy.
Tuesday 14th June 7pm The Auckland Arms, Menai Bridge
Presented by the School of Arts, Culture and Language, Bangor University, with the support of the Arts and Humanities Research Council. Free.
Poetry at the Auckland
An international poetry reading (outdoors if weather permits), featuring:
Gerardo Beltrán (Mexico/Poland)
Juana Adcock (Mexico/Scotland)
Jean Portante (Luxembourg/France/Italy)
Ellen Dillon (Ireland)
Rebecca Kosick (UK/USA)
Ghazal Mosadeq (Iran/UK/Canada)
Wednesday 15th June 6.30pm Pontio PL2
Poetry Across Oceans: Poetry in Performance
Presented by the School of Arts, Culture and Language, Bangor University, with the support of the Arts and Humanities Research Council. Free.
Julia Fiedorczuk and Alan Holmes: Psalmy/Psalms
This collaboration between Polish poet Julia Fiedorczuk and Welsh musician Alan Holmes originally appeared as a CD included with Julia's collection Psalmy 2014-2017. The poems, presented with translation by Bill Johnston (USA), are loosely inspired by Old Testament Psalms interpreted in a secular, ecological context. The project has been developed between Menai Bridge in north Wales, Warsaw (Poland), Korčula (Croatia), with additional recordings from Jupiter, Saturn, Neptune, Uranus and Pluto (courtesy of NASA).
Poetry Readings Vincent Broqua and Jay Gao
Vincent Broqua is a poet and translator of North American poetry whose most recent book
Photocall, projet d’attendrissement won the Prix du Roman Gay 2021 (poetry). His poetry in English translation by Cole Swensen, Recover, will be published by Pamenar Press later this year. He is Full Professor at the Université Paris 8.
Jay Gao is a Chinese Scottish poet, fiction writer, and the author of Imperium (2022),
forthcoming from Carcanet Press, as well as three poetry pamphlets. He is a Contributing Editor for The White Review, and is an incoming PhD student in the Department of English and Comparative Literature at Columbia University. Currently, he is finishing his MFA in Poetry at Brown University.
Zoë Skoulding and Oana Avasilichioaei: Môn_Mesh_Tréal: A Sonopoetic Performance
In an exchange of poetry and sound between Ynys Môn and Montréal, developed virtually during lockdown and presented live for the first time here, Zoë Skoulding and Oana Avasilichioaei explore the bilingual fractures of their respective islands. Tuning in to Welsh, French, and the oceanic distances between continents and languages, they discover concrete presence: between Ynys Môn and Montréal there’s sea, there’s matter, mae môr, mae mater. Languages and energies push through the surface of English to make it a space of uneven texture, discomfort and unfamiliarity.
Thursday 16th June 6.30 pm Pontio PL2
Presented by the School of Arts, Culture and Language, Bangor University, with the support of the Arts and Humanities Research Council. Free.
Atlantic Crossings: Poetry Reading
Don Mee Choi, Forrest Gander, Víctor Rodríguez Núñez, with translations by Katherine M. Hedeen, Johannes Göransson, Grug Muse
Born in Seoul, South Korea, Don Mee Choi is the author of the National Book Award winning collection DMZ Colony (Wave Books, 2020), Hardly War (Wave Books, 2016), The Morning News Is Exciting (Action Books, 2010), and several pamphlets of poems and essays. She is a 2021 MacArthur and Guggenheim fellow. She is a noted translator of contemporary Korean women’s poetry.
Forrest Gander is an American poet, novelist, essayist and translator whose recent poetry collections include Twice Alive (2021). Among his numerous literary awards, he was the recipient of the 2019 Pulitzer Prize for Poetry for his collection Be With (2018). His poems often employ insights from geology and talk about landscapes, which he treats as a primary setting or a source of action. He has translated the poetry of Gozo Yoshimasu, Coral Bracho, Pablo Neruda and Alfonso D’Aquino among others. He lives in California.
Katherine M. Hedeen’s latest translations include Book of the Cold by Antonio Gamoneda (World Poetry Books), prepoems in postspanish and other poems by Jorgenrique Adoum (Action Books), and from a red barn by Víctor Rodríguez Núñez (co•im•press). She is a Professor of Spanish at Kenyon College and a Managing Editor of Action Books. More info: www.katherinemhedeen.com
Cuban poet Víctor Rodríguez Núñez has over seventy collections of his poetry published throughout the world. He has been the recipient of major awards in the Spanish-speaking region. His selected poems have been translated into over a dozen languages. His latest book in English translation is from a red barn (co•im•press, 2020). He divides his time between Gambier, Ohio, where he is Professor of Spanish at Kenyon College, and Havana, Cuba. More info: www.victorrodrigueznunez.com
Johannes Göransson was born in Sweden and now lives in South Bend, Indiana, where he teaches at the University of Notre Dame. He’s the author of eight books, including POETRY
AGAINST ALL, The Sugar Book and Transgressive Circulations: Essays on Translation, and the forthcoming book Summer. He is the translator of several poets, including Aase Berg, Ann Jäderlund, Helena Boberg, Kim Yideum and Eva Kristina Olsson.
Grug Muse (1993) is a poet and essayist working primarily in Welsh. She has written for the Guardian, Poetry Wales, O’r Pedwar Gwynt and Planet Magazine. She is co-editor of Welsh (Plural) (2022, Repeater), a collection of essays imagining a Welshness that is both distinct and inclusive. Her second poetry collection, merch y llyn, was published in 2021. She is a dual US and UK citizen, and her works explores themes around bilingualism, ecology, and feminism.
Friday 17th June 6pm Pontio PL2
Pamenar Presents: Rhys Trimble, Mau Baiocco, Emma Gomis, Jèssica Pujol Duran, James Wilkes and E. Tracy Grinnell
Presented by the School of Arts, Culture and Language, Bangor University, with the support of the Arts and Humanities Research Council. Free.
Pamenar Press is an independent cross-cultural, multilingual, experimental publisher, based in the UK, Canada and Iran. This reading, introduced by publisher Ghazal Mosadeq, will celebrate a range of recent and forthcoming publications.