poetry pRO
Translation Café 14 May 09: 75 to 78 are out…
('Best of', Maggie Butt, Anne Stewart, Maggie Sawkins)
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Mar 09 Romania Cultural Broadcasts are back…
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– 22nd Jun: Trend 13 is out! Jo Roach, Jane Routh, Amanda Sewell, Todd Swift
The Romanian UK Tour completed on 2nd April see photos
49 poets & 46 translators between the anthology and CD –
"And the Story Isn’t Over…"and CD, "And the Story So Far…" shop online both together for £11.99.
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"Cutting Losses: translating Remco Campert –, by Donald Gardner
Essex &Scintilla
30th & 31st July
I’m flying face-downwards through
a cylindrical tunnel; electrical storms
explode, lightning-flashes glance off metal
surfaces, startled fireballs roll, erupt,
the metallic clang of closing doors
bombards my eardrums;
gale-force winds blast my cheeks,
whip my hair to rats’-tails,
flatten my hands against my thighs
as I torpedo westwards –
portholes thunder shut, leaving me
with snapshots, flashcard impressions
of past lives, vacant worlds,
a nineteen forties’ living-room,
an empty nursery, a cluttered kitchen,
computer stations – scanners, printers – onwards,
gathering speed, past a deserted playground,
a country church, a wooded hillside
thick with snow, towards
a chrysanthemum of yellow light.
Twenty, nineteen, eighteen, seventeen,
she’s coming back – sixteen, fifteen,
she’s almost there, fourteen, thirteen –
my heart drums against my rib-cage;
twelve, eleven – the helicopter whirr
of a bee’s wings and its body bouncing
off the window, mad bent on escape – ten, nine,
come on, you can do it… open my eyes,
note tubes, drips, the doctors bending over me;
nurse is rubbing my hands, another
supports me as I turn my face to greet
the sun’s warmth, crying
for the living hell of it.