Centres of Cataclysm

Celebrating Fifty Years of Modern Poetry in Translation

Sasha Dugdale, David Constantine, Helen Constantine, Sasha Dugdale

• Publisher: Bloodaxe Books
• Year: 2016
• eBook ISBN: 9781780372655
• Topic: Literature
• Subtopic: Poetry
• Index: Literature

Centres of Cataclysm celebrates the fifty-year history of Modern Poetry in Translation, one of the world's most innovative and exciting poetry magazines. Founded in 1965 by Ted Hughes and Daniel Weissbort, MPT has constantly introduced courageous and revolutionary poets of the 20th and 21st century to English-speaking readers. Ted Hughes thought of MPT as an 'airport for incoming translations' - from the whole world, across frontiers of space and time. These are poems we cannot do without. The anthology is not arranged chronologically but, from a variety of perspectives, it addresses half a century of war, oppression, revolution, hope and survival. In so doing, it truthfully says and vigorously defends the human. In among the poems are illuminating letters, essays and notes on the poets, on the world in which they lived and on the enterprise of translating them. 'MPT seeks a real diversity of voices: women and men equally, different centuries, countries, races, creeds, languages, cultures, ideas. The very essence of the founding principle was: Your view is not the only one.' - David & Helen Constantine 'The burning heart of cataclysm at the centre of the anthology is drawn out; through translation, migration and exile, it is transplanted into another soil. The word spoken under duress becomes a word of affirmation: a protection and a stating of our own humanity.' - Sasha Dugdale 'MPT is the Fifth International, anyone who wants to change the world and see it changed should join.' - John Berger

Table of contents

• Description
• Title Page
• Contents
• Sasha Dugdale: Preface
• David and Helen Constantine: Introduction
• Ted Hughes and Daniel Weissbort: From the Editorial to the first issue (1965)
• Miroslav Holub: The fly (1965)
• Jan Bolesław Ożóg: Ash (1975)
• Primo Levi: The Girl at Pompeii (1999)
• Choman Hardi: One Moment for Halabja (2015)
• Amarjit Chandan: Punjabi Folksongs from World War One (2014)
• Olga Berggolts: Late One Melancholy February Night (1996)
• Author unknown or concealed: Dear Fahimeh (2005)
• Natalya Gorbanevskaya: ‘That time I did not save Warsaw, nor Prague later…’ (1977)
• Natalya Gorbanevskaya: ‘This, from the diagnosis…’ (2002)
• Eva Gerlach: The Hedgehog (1997)
• Wisława Szymborska: Innocence (1975)
• Yehuda Amichai: A Room by the Sea (1965)
• George Gömöri: Polishing October (1973)
• Dan Pagis: Roll Call in the Concentration Camp (1974)
• Dan Pagis: Scrawled in Pencil in a Sealed Car (1974)
• Bartolo Cattafi: Winter Figs (1975)
• Miklós Radnóti: Letter to My Wife (2010)
• Shash Trevett: In Memory (2013)
• Shash Trevett: Bitter Waters (2013)
• Attila József: What Should a Man Do? (1972)
• Anna Akhmatova: Wild Honey (2005)
• Frances Leviston: Reconstruction (2013)
• Miroslav Holub: Five minutes after the air raid (1967)
• Kim Hyesoon: A Teardrop (2014)
• János Pilinszky: The Passion of Ravensbrück (1970)
• Ted Hughes and Daniel Weissbort: From the Editorial to Issue Three (1967)
• Du Fu: Ballad of the Military Waggons (2007)
• Gabriel Levin: Self-portrait in Khaki (1993)
• Ziba Karbassi: Writing Cells (2015)
• Nikola Madzirov: Hope Climbed (2014)
• Vasko Popa: The Poplar and the Passer-by (1979)
• Fawzi Karim: Usual Story (2014)
• Adriaan Morriën: National Anthem (to be sung standing) (1976)
• Sasha Dugdale: Editorial to ‘Scorched Glass’ (2015)
• Wisława Szymborska: Hunger Camp near Jasło (1975)
• George Theiner: From ‘Helping Those Who Have Been Silenced’ (1978)
• George Theiner: Letter to Daniel Weissbort, 15 September 1968
• Jiří Kolář: Advice for Sycophants (1969)
• Ivan Hartel: if I don’t recant, someone else will (1978)
• Antonín Bartušek: Anniversary in Fribourg (21.8.1969)
• Ted Hughes: From the Introduction to Poetry International, 1967 (1971)
• Sarah Kirsch: The Chitchat of Crows (2013)
• Luis Felipe Fabre: Doris Najera and Detective Ramirez (2013)
• Luis Felipe Fabre: Infomercial (2013)
• Josephine Balmer: Naso the Barbarian (2008)
• Peter Huchel: Winter Quarters (1967)
• Robert Desnos: Tomorrow (2007)
• Robert Desnos: Springtime (2007)
• Waldo Williams: The Dead Children (2006)
• Guillaume Apollinaire: ‘My Lou I shall sleep tonight…’ (2007)
• Clemente Rèbora: Voice from a Dead Look-out (2014)
• Paul van Ostaijen: Dead Sunday (2014)
• Mahmoud Darwish: From ‘A State of Siege’ (2004)
• Yves Berger: 2nd March: Al Rabweh (2014)
• Dvora Amir: On the Rim of Abu-Tor (2008)
• Samih al-Qasim: End of Talk with a Jailor (2008)
• Samih al-Qasim: Excerpt from an Inquest (2008)
• Sasha Dugdale: From ‘At the Edge’ (2009)
• Rafael Alberti: ‘If my voice should die on land…’ (2009)
• Homero Aridjis: In a Valley I Saw the Dead Shades (2009)
• Homero Aridjis: Black Grass
• Primo Levi: The Black Stars (2011)
• Ulrike Almut Sandig: being inspected (2013)
• Mykhailo Draj-Khmara: Swans (2011)
• Alba Donati: Valerio’s Story (1999)
• Raúl Rivero: Stardust (2014)
• Hugo Claus: 1965 (2013)
• David Constantine: Bertolt Brecht and Margarete Steffin: Love in a Time of Exile and War (2014)
• Núria Quevedo: Cover illustration for ‘The Constellation’ (2014)
• Bertolt Brecht: ‘When we were first divided into two…’ (2014)
• Margarete Steffin: ‘Emboldened, putting off formal address…’ (2014)
• Vitězslav Nezval: Mother Hope (1978)
• Vasko Popa: Cape of Good Hope (1981)
• Ivan V. Lalić: The Spaces of Hope (1986)
• Paul Celan: Tenebrae (1970)
• Daniel Weissbort: From ‘Ted Hughes and Translation’ (2003)
• Daniel Weissbort: From ‘Hughes Translates Juhász’ (2003)
• Ted Hughes: On the ‘provisional tense’
• Ferenc Juhász: From ‘The Boy Changed into a Stag Cries Out at the Gate of Secrets’ (2003)
• Pascale Petit: At the Gate of Secrets (2003)
• Tara Bergin: Stag-Boy (2011)
• Ernst Jandl: oberflächenübersetzung (1971)
• Ernst Jandl: die zeit vergeht (1971)
• Chris McCabe: Ernst Jandl: the Biomechanical Magus in London (2016)
• Zahrad: Sentence (1971)
• Zahrad: The Woman Cleaning Lentils (1971)
• Anna Lewis: From ‘The Wash House’ (2008)
• Vasko Popa: Swallows’ Language (1981)
• Vasko Popa: Anne Pennington (1981)
• Mimi Khalvati: Ghazal: To Hold Me (2006)
• Sorley MacLean: Dawn (2011)
• Shazea Quraishi: Carandasi (2010)
• David Constantine: Editorial to ‘Getting it Across’ (2007)
• Paul Celan: Psalm (1970)
• George Szirtes: The Voronezh Variations (2014)
• George Szirtes: The Voronezh Variations: Versions of a Mandelstam Quatrain (2014)
• Paulo Leminski: ‘Poetry is the Liberty…’ (2014)
• Yu Jian: Event – Digging (2014)
• Sujata Bhatt: Another Daphne (2014)
• Zsuzsa Beney: The Translator (2008)
• Giuseppe Belli: The Good Life (2005)
• Wojciech Bonowicz: Night (2009)
• Jamie Duncan: Note on Paulo Leminski (2014)
• Paulo Leminski: ‘Things don’t start in a story…’ (2014)
• Tomas Tranströmer: The Journey’s Formulae (1971)
• Hilde Domin: Cologne (1974)
• Leah Goldberg: The Girl Sings to the River (1974)
• Carmen Bugan: Why I Do Not Write in My Native Language (2004)
• José Rosas Ribeyro: My Grandfather (1997)
• Dan Pagis: Instructions for Getting Across the Border (1974)
• Ingeborg Bachmann: Exile (1967)
• Daniel Huws: Memories of Ingeborg Bachmann and Modern Poetry in Translation (2015)
• David Diop: From ‘Contribution to the Debate on National Poetry’ (1979)
• David Diop: Testimony (1979)
• Gabriela Mistral: The Foreigner (2007)
• Soleïman Adel Guémar: False Departure (2004)
• Ovid: From Tristia (2004)
• Dimitris Tsaloumas: Rain I (2005)
• Dimitris Tsaloumas: Rain II (2005)
• Tahar Ben Jelloun: From ‘The Poet, neither Guide nor Prophet’ (1979)
• Marina Tsvetaeva: From ‘Poem of the End’ (1970)
• Elaine Feinstein: From ‘Marina Tsvetaeva’ (1996)
• Ridha Zili: Ifrikya the centre of my being (1979)
• Yannis Ritsos: Return (2009)
• Liliana Ursu: The Tower of Steps (2013)
• Liliana Ursu: Between the Wheat Wells and the Bridal Mirrors (2013)
• Joan Ariete: Why I Left (2010)
• Denisa Comănescu: Return from Exile (2010)
• Virgil: The Sibyl (2009)
• Tadeusz Różewicz: Chestnut (1975)
• Nina Cassian: I wanted to stay (1977)
• Bewketu Seyoum: In Search of Fat (2008)
• Bewketu Seyoum: Elegy (2008)
• Bewketu Seyoum: Meditation on the Garden (2008)
• Caroline Maldonado: Recalling Rocco (2015)
• Rocco Scotellaro: The Full Moon (2008)
• Rocco Scotellaro: Forlorn Cuckoo, Your Call Keeps Us Awake (2008)
• Yi Lu: Evening Construction Site (2014)
• Euphrase Kezilahabi: Sorting the Rice (2013)
• Author unknown: The Spirit Lord’s Bearkill (2006)
• Harry Martinson: Cable-Ship (2007)
• Harry Martinson: ‘The swamp mosses drink of the stream…’ (2007)
• Reesom Haile: African Anthem (2013)
• Jacques Réda: The Fête (2014)
• Euphrase Kezilahabi: Thread (2013)
• Shinjiro Kurahara: A Fox (2009)
• Shinjiro Kurahara: A Footprint (2009)
• János Pilinszky: ‘Creative Imagination’ in Our Time (1971)
• John E. Smelcer: Spring on the Yukon (2010)
• John E. Smelcer: Owl and Mouse (2010)
• Ned Thomas: From ‘From Minorities to Mosaic’ (2011)
• Gerður Kristný: Ægisiða (2012)
• Razmik Davoyan: ‘Somewhere, a birch wood is being stolen now…’ (2012)
• Lal Singh Dil: Nadeen (2012)
• Lal Singh Dil: The Outcasts (2012)
• Ko Un: Places I want to go (2012)
• Unpoti Pacunkutaiyar: ‘Should clouds refuse to rain…’ (2012)
• Homero Aridjis: ‘In its warmth Summer is a nest…’ (1974)
• Kristiina Ehin: ‘Cows come from the sea…’ (2010)
• José Watanabe: The Arrangement (1997)
• Vasko Popa: How the Mole Came to Be (1979)
• János Pilinszky: Aquarium (1977)
• Valerio Magrelli: ‘I was lying on an outpatient’s bed…’ (1999)
• Cesare Pavese: Donne Appassionate (2001)
• Pier Paolo Pasolini: Towards the Baths of Caracalla (2014)
• Jack Mapanje: Kalikalanje of Ostrich Forest (2015)
• Valérie Rouzeau: 01 43 15 50 67 (2013)
• Takagi Kyozo: Poor Harvest (1971)
• Jón úr Vör: Lean Months (1977)
• Edvard Kocbek: Landscape (1970)
• János Pilinszky: Knocking (1977)
• Fadhil Assultani: A Tree (2003)
• Ted Hughes: Preface to Modern Poetry in Translation: 1983
• Mahmoud Darwish: From ‘Mural’ (2008)
• Miroslav Holub: Wings (1965)
• Elena Shvarts: Birdsong on the Seabed (2007)
• Kaneko Misuzu: Stars and Dandelions (2006)
• Krystyna Miłobędzka: Four Poems (2013)
• Liam Ó Muirthile: The Parlour (2004)
• Heinz Ehemann: Gerontology or When You Get Old (2009)
• Georgi Gospodinov: My Mother Reads Poetry (2009)
• Hai Zi: Sonnet: Crown (2013)
• Nikiforos Vrettakos: The Orange Trees of Sparta (2009)
• Guy Goffette: From ‘Elegy for a Friend’ (2015)
• Wang Wei: Autumnal Dusk in the Mountains (2009)
• Paula Ludwig: ‘When you return it’s always…’ (2011)
• Paula Ludwig: ‘A day and a night it took me…’ (2011)
• Primo Levi: Singing (2011)
• Yves Bonnefoy: Threats of the Witness (2000)
• Hô Chí Minh: Entertainment (2011)
• Hô Chí Minh: Liberation (2011)
• Al-Saddiq Al-Raddi: Nothing (2012)
• Gerður Kristný: My Brother and Sister (2012)
• Maya Sarishvili: To My Father (2012)
• Maya Sarishvili: ‘This ice-cutter silence…’ (2012)
• Federico García Lorca: Romance de la Pena Negra (2012)
• Yehuda Amichai: When I Was a Boy (1965)
• Carlos Drummond de Andrade: Seven-sided Poem (2014)
• Marzanna Bogumila Kielar: ‘a flock of pigeons blossoms white against the greyish cloth…’ (2004)
• Anna Kühn-Cichocka: ‘Here the houses…’ (2005)
• Anna Kühn-Cichocka: ‘On rainy days…’ (2005)
• Mario Luzi: Life True to Life (1975)
• Sophia de Mello Breyner Andresen: Sibyls (1972)
• Anna Enquist: River (1998)
• Edith Södergran: Violet Dusks (1973)
• Ingeborg Bachmann: Fog Land (1967)
• Ingeborg Bachmann: Days in White (1967)
• Charlie Louth: The Correspondence of Ingeborg Bachmann and Paul Celan (2009)
• Vita Andersen: The Beautiful Room (1978)
• Nina Cassian: Like Gulliver (1977)
• Hilde Domin: Catalogue (1974)
• Halina Poświatowska: ‘These words have existed always…’ (1975)
• Halina Poświatowska: ‘my face is more and more like the moon…’ (1975)
• Rutger Kopland: Three Winter Poems (1976)
• Antonín Bartušek: Those Few Years (1978)
• Haruo Shibuya: A Young Wife (1978)
• Jean Dodo: In My Neighbourhood Market (1979)
• Ridha Zili: Childhood (1979)
• Vasko Popa: Bright Lovers (1981)
• Vasko Popa: High Lovers (1981)
• Anna Enquist: La Folia (1998)
• Gianni D’Elia: Sta(i)rway to Heaven (1999)
• Marina Boroditskaya: ‘So Much Gentleness from Unknown Men…’ (2002)
• Eleni Vakalo: From ‘Genealogy’ (1968)
• Michael Rosen: From ‘A Conversation on Children’s Poetry’ (2015)
• Gabriela Cantú Westendarp: The Language of Ghosts (2015)
• Nge Nge (Kyaukse): A Man Who is Easily Fooled and a Woman Who Barely Speaks (2015)
• Ma Ei: Out of Sight (2015)
• Forugh Farrokhzad: In Darkness (2015)
• Arseny Tarkovsky: Portrait (1996)
• Philippe Jaccottet: ‘Plus aucun souffle…’ (1995)
• Philippe Jaccottet: ‘Toi cependant…’ (1995)
• Philippe Jaccottet: ‘Qu’on me le montre…’ (1995)
• Raymond Queneau: If You Imagine (1966)
• Tomas Tranströmer: The Couple (1971)
• Takagi Kyozo: Lightning Over Beds of Rice Seedlings (1971)
• Ivan Drach: The Ballad of Widowhood (1971)
• Ivan Drach: The Ballad of the Bundles (1971)
• János Pilinszky: The Desert of Love (1970)
• Toon Tellegen: Evening (2013)
• Toon Tellegen: Peace (2013)
• Xidu Heshang: Fictionalising Her (2014)
• Christine Marendon: Evening Primrose (2014)
• Angélica Freitas: ‘I sleep with myself (2014)…’
• Angélica Freitas: ‘because a good woman…’ (2014)
• Natalya Gorbanevskaya: ‘Hurry take pleasure in the oblique caress of rain…’ (1977)
• Ted Hughes: The MPT editor
• Appendices
• Acknowledgements
• INDEX OF POETS’ AND TRANSLATORS’ NAMES
• INDEX OF POEMS AND PROSE PIECES
• About the Authors
• Copyright