Literature Across Frontiers (LAF) is bringing three European poets to India for a series of workshops, discussions and poetry readings. The first leg of this tour will take place at the Chandigarh Literature Festival, which starts tomorrow (11 Nov). The three poets -- Yolanda Castaño, Brane
Mozetič and Adrian Grima -- will be in conversation with local poets Monika Kumar (Hindi) and Surjit Patar (Punjabi).
The Delhi leg of the tour will feature Castaño, Mozetič and Grima in conversation with the Hindi poet Anamika as well as the English poet Sampurna Chattarji. The conversation will be moderated by yours truly: so in the lead-up to the conversation (Nov 15, 6 PM, venue: India International Centre) I will post something about one or more of these poets everyday, along with a sample of their work. Here's the first of this series of blog posts, about the Spanish poet Yolanda Castaño:
Yolanda
Castaño
(Santiago de Compostela, Spain 1977) has been publishing poetry for
over twenty years. Her six collections have been awarded prizes
such as The Spanish Critics’ Award, Espiral Maior, Ojo Crítico ―
for the best published book by a young Spanish poet ―,
Novacaixagalicia, “Writer of the Year” ―by the Galician
Federation of Bookshops― and she was a finalist in the National
Poetry Prize. Bilingual editions (Galician-Spanish) of her most
recent collections have been published by Visor Libros ―Libro
de la Egoísta (2006), Profundidad
de Campo (2009)
and La
segunda lengua (2014).
A dynamic cultural activist, Castaño has directed cultural projects
with Galician and international poets since 2009: poetry
translation workshops,
an annual poetry festival, a monthly cycle of readings ―Galician
Critics’ Prize for the best cultural initiative in 2014― apart
from programming poetry events for other institutions. A poetry
multimedia artist, she produced events around Europe and America, as
well as in Tunisia, China and Japan. She worked for TV for several
years ― Mestre Mateo Prize to the best TV Communicator in 2005 ―
and contributed articles to a number of journals. Her writing has
been translated into twenty different languages and she has edited
and translated contemporary poets into Galician and Spanish. Castaño
has also published five poetry books for children.
LISTEN
AND REPEAT: UN PAXARO, UNHA BARBA
The
entire sky is squatting. An intransitive thirst.
To
speak in a foreign tongue
is
like dressing in borrowed clothing.
Helga
confuses the meanings of land and landscape.
(What
kind of person would you be in another language?)
You,
sometimes, you make me notice that
this
vocal
string
instrument of mine
sings
out of tune.
In
the light well of language,
prosody
gets hooked
on
my dress.
I
will tell you something about my problems with tongues:
there
are things that I cannot pronounce.
Like
when I observe you seated and I see only
a
chair–
ceci
n'est pas une chaise.
A
camera obscura projecting onto gray matter.
To
pronounce: if the poem is
an
exorcism, a phase transition ; some humor
solidifies
to abandon us.
That's
how phonation is, enthalpy.
But
you are absolutely right:
my
vocalism leaves
much
to be desired.
(If
I stop looking at your teeth
I
won't understand anything of what you say.)
The
sky shrinks. Helga smiles in italics.
And
I learn to differentiate between a beard and a bird
beyond
one's taking flight
if
I try to trap it
between
my hands.
[Translated
by Lawrence Schimel as part of the collection The Second Tongue
(2014)]
