Translation at Newcastle Poetry Festival w/ Bill Herbert, Fiona Sampson, Sophie Collins, Erica Jarnes and Joan Boase-Beier

‘All translation is only a provisional way of coming to terms with the foreignness of languages.’

Walter Benjamin

Discussion: Poetry and Translation

During Newcastle Poetry Festival, two members of the Poettrio Experiment, poets Bill Herbert and Fiona Sampson, will be taking part in a panel discussion about translating poetry with Professor Jean Boase-Beier from UEA, poet, editor and translator Sophie Collins who produced the groundbreaking volume of translated poetry Currently and Emotion: Translations, and Erica Jarnes writer, composer and managing director of The Poetry Translation Centre.

Come along!

15:00–16:00 | Northern Stage, University of Newcastle | Stage 2 | FREE

Author: The Poettrio Experiment

An AHRC funded investigation into poetry translation trios led by Francis Jones, Bill Herbert and Fiona Sampson with Rebecca May Johnson & Sergio Lobejón Santos View all posts by The Poettrio Experiment

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A ‘Poettrio’ is collaborative process between:

a poet who has written a source text
a language advisor who is an expert in the source and target languages
a poet who writes in the target language.

In our research we are working with Dutch and English poets who have been widely published, and language advisors who are experienced translators.

The poets are not experts in each others’ languages, though, the impact of English as a global ‘lingua franca’ means that the Dutch poets have (at least) conversational English.

The trio work together (in person) to translate source poems, with language advisor facilitating communication between the poets and assisting with language comprehension and choices.

The trio draw on a printed ‘interlinear’ text which is a line-for-line literal translation (as far as that is possible), giving explanations of culture-specific content if necessary. The interlinears are produced in advance of the trio session by language advisors.

We filmed and recorded two weeks of trio translation workshops from English to Dutch (in Rotterdam) and Dutch to English (in Newcastle).

Using qualitative and quantitive methods we are investigating how trios translate in a workshop context, how the different roles function and how creative processes take place in trios.

We are aiming to build a rich ethnographic picture of how poet-advisor-poet workshops function.

We are also looking at how trios translate compared to solo poetry translators.

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