5W5W (Five Writers, Five Workshops)
Here we are, from left to right: Sarah Maclennan, Mandy Coe, Colin Watts, myself and, in front, Janine Pinion, on the occasion of Sarah's birthday.
And also on the occasion when we decided to look at poetry in translation, choosing Pasternak, Neruda, Montale, and Antonio Olinto.
We sat out in Sarah's exquisite Liverpool garden and considered the difficulties of tranlsating poetry. We reached no firm conclusions but agreed more or less that it was fairest to keep fairly close to the original if possible, including the format, again if possible. (Funny how forms don't always pass easily from one language to another). And agreed that even a poor translation is better than no translation evn though it does no great service to the original poetry. But just to know what speakers of other tongues are thinking and writing about.....
We tweeted one of the poets, Miguel Huazo Mixco, whose poem "Si la Muerte" had us almost in tears. Within seconds he had retweeted it and favourited it - this is when you really marvel at the digital age, it shrinks time and space to so little.
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