Patrick Williamson, poet, editor and translator, is English, but he lives in France and was born in Spain, 1960. In 2012, he provided for English speaking readers an anthology of poems by some contemporary African poets writing in French. The Parley Tree contained work by eighteen poets chosen from twelve countries - including Mauritius, but Lebanon, represented by the poet, Venus Khoury-Ghata, was the unusual inclusion in that group of'African' countries. Of greater interest, however, is Williamson's deliberate harmonization of conflicting geographies and histories - connecting diverse locations of cultural and desert space in French speaking Africa by imagining all their French language poetry practices as one tradition of poetry. The Parley Tree includes poets from countries in the Arabic North and others from countries located South of the Sahara. Our Centre for African Poetry wanted to hear more from Williamson about the editorial choices he made, as far as they contribute to continuing conversations on definition, identity and location in recent African writing. We also discussed Francophone African poetry, his poetry and method in translation.

Centre for African Poetry: Much is lost in translation, no doubt, but we would all be lost even more without translation. Are you more likely to celebrate the mere cultural achievement of rendering text in another language, or worry a great deal about the quality of the translation? How would you personally recognize a "poor translation" anyway, or judge value in the translation of creative work? A comparative English reading of some translated world poets shows sometimes significant variations in translator choices and levels of intervention. How can you determine a'best' or'poor' translation with all that textual practice going on?

Williamson:
I am definitely on the side of celebrating the rendering of a text in another language but I think this can only be made possible if the'translation" i.e., the resulting poetry in the target language is of a quality commensurate with the original and expresses in the target language the meaning of the poem (which is closely entwined with form, again important to reconstruct in the translation). However, the quality is key and the benchmark is always whether it "works" as a poem that engages the reader, as if it was written in the original (for translations of Latin or Greek for example, it has to work at this level, and there were some notable translations at the end of the 20th Century - Ted Hughes (Tale from Ovid) and Christopher Logue (War Music) that make such texts very accessible). If it is wooden, or too literal or obscure, it will not engage on the number of levels required, hence I view it as poor (though the original may also have the same poor qualities to start with, which begs the question of whether it is worth translating).
Judging a translation is also very subjective, as the translation reflects both the reader and the translator (in terms of their personality and cultural background). Many years ago, I assisted at poetry translation workshops in Paris organised by Jacques Rancourt and the Festival Franco-anglais de poesie. The participants were all poets, two poems were selected for each poet; the English-speaking poets had to translate the French texts and vice-versa with the results discussed subsequently. The range of versions was broad, and discussion often centred on the slightly different choices of the'right word'. Versions were compared on the basis of them being both faithful and whether the translator-poet's own music and sensibility had captured the sub-text in a non-textual manner. I was struck by the difficulty of determining the best one. The translator has to have both knowledge and an innate understanding of the work. It should not appear to be translation, but a poem in English that encapsulates the original, it has to flow and engage the reader. For Yves Bonnefoy, translation must free itself from various obstacles that are a function of the particular nature of language or cultural tradition.

There are of course many differences between French poetry, on the one hand, and English traditions and experimentations on the other. Dealing with these issues forces one to become more conscious of the specific nature of one's poetic traditions. Often, having first decided on the meaning of a term in the original text, it is ineffective to look for a more or less exact equivalent to use it in the translation. It's better to get to the idea through the phrase as a whole. And looking for the right word so often just can't be forced, it just has to come through the sub-conscious. When a translator gives free rein to his or her mind or spirit, the poem starts to take on its own life.
CAP: In what ways do your preferences as a creative person, a poet, inform your choices as a translator, or are you always scrupulously exact and representational in delivering your translations of other poets? Tell us more about your translation methods - how you come in between the author and reader, whom you aim to serve, what you aim to achieve, how you manage the often conflicting demands of metaphor and literalism, etc, how much of a creative translator you are.
Williamson:
This is linked to the previous question. Any choices in my poetry translation are fundamentally linked to my creativity, although I endeavour to remain scrupulous to the poet's intention and the meaning of the original. The objective is clearly to create a poem that stands on its own, and many observers talk more of the concept of transposition than translation. Out of a scale of one to ten, where ten is extremely creative I am probably around 4-5, though very bold translators are few and far between and being overly-creative can lead to obscure work that completely misses the point. I inherently remain faithful to my own sensibility and poetic style. Once I have written the first draft, I then spend time checking, and selecting'le mote juste'. Each time, like answers to crossword clues, I suddenly know that one particular word has to be used. Instinctively it fits. Exact yes but not literal, neither in terms of content or phrasing, I leave metaphor relatively untouched given, in this case, the context of poetry from the African continent, which has many specificities. However, executive decisions have to be made, as always as to which meaning of a pun has to be retained. The aim, as in my own work is to make it tight, sparse, and oral in nature. I certainly aim to instil a sense of music in my own work, and hence bring out the music in the poet's work, through alliteration, line lengths,'gaps', rhyme even so long as it serves the purpose of bringing the meaning across to the reader. As mentioned by Yves Bonnefoy "If a translation that is concerned with its poetic articulation is also a good, powerful rendering—which is obviously not always the case—it's sure to have its readers and its audience."
It is also interesting to see what Hughes did with Hungarian poet Pilinszky. He collaborated with another Hungarian writer, János Csokits, who would make versions in which he would aim to remain as close as possible to the meaning of the original Hungarian text. Hughes would then re-shape these into readable English poems. Debates about'form' versus'semantic meaning' are ongoing in but what is particularly significant is that as a translator Hughes not only preferred to avoid the formal properties of the source text, but wished to retain as much as possible of the roughness of a literal version.
Centre for African Poetry: Let us talk about The Parley Tree. Tell us the story of that publication. How did the idea for an anthology of Francophone African Poetry come to you, a British man living in France, and what were your challenges as editor and translator? Did you have any difficulty finding a publisher for the book? We are doing this interview in 2013 and the book was published last year. What has the reception been like in its first year?

Williamson:
The anthology came about back in 2006 or thereabouts. I had a number of translations of French-speaking poets (from Switzerland, Vietnam, Quebec, Tunisia, and Chad notably) that were either unpublished or had only appeared in magazines or artist's books. I was looking for a common thread, and discussion with Tahar Bekri on the matter enlightened and convinced me of the links between Africa and the Arab World, and that there was no such anthology (encompassing these regions) available. We drew up a list of poets to include, contemporary for the most part, and, in most cases, contactable. There followed a period of requesting involvement and texts (free from rights as much as possible). Only one poet, Malek Alloula, refused, as he didn't want to be classified as a French-speaking poet, while I was unable to contact others such as Andrée Chedid. Based on the poems they sent in and a fair amount of selection on my part, I was able to fine-tune the core of the work.
Being a British man in France, and Paris in particular, had its advantages as I had closer access to the published works, the publishers if needed (especially in the case of requesting fees for rights to be waived) and to the poets themselves in many cases, though many work abroad. Two points of note, first I would not have been able to do it without Tahar Bekri's address book, and secondly I had already forged a reputation and contacts in the French poetry world and translating French-speaking poetry, both of which invaluable. Personally I know and have read with Tahar Bekri, Shams Nadir, Nimrod, and Kama Kamanda through events I would not have been involved in had I not been in Paris. I was able to contact publishers more freely, though conversely, my network is not as efficient as a poet fully-immersed in the poetry world here.

I started out with a view to sharing the translation work with Yann Lovelock, as I know he has many strong points as a translator, and he has made a valuable contribution to anthology, but he was unable to continue on the project. I thus translated the poems whilst working as a full-time translator in an English-speaking environment, which enabled me to keep the language distance needed. The main issue for me is language pollution. I started out translating with very little knowledge of the cultural and historical context (I always translate first and ask questions later...) which made me hesitant at first but my confidence in my selection and the quality of the poetry proved my fears unfounded. This knowledge I acquired editing, translating and writing the introduction made it easier to revise and fine-tune, especially when the proofs came through, as by that time I also benefited from distance and hindsight.

On completion of the anthology I sought a publisher, and in 2008 Arc Publications kindly accepted to bring out the work. However it took a further few years (as is very often the case with publishers) and the right opportunity (the Poetry Parnassus, which brought together poets from the 204 competing Olympic nations as part of the 2012 Cultural Olympiad) for the anthology to come out. Reception has been good with the general public, reviewers and the academic world, with the anthology forming part of university library collections in North America notably. Poems in this anthology have also been included in other anthologies (Shams Nadir in Poems for the Millennium, Volume Four The University of California Book of North African Literature, co-edited incidentally by Habib Tengour) and projects such as About The Written World (Scottish Poetry Library) which sought a poem from each country present at the 2012 Olympic Games and thus used some of the poems in the anthology.

CAP: Before the anthology you had also translated and edited work by the Tunisian poet, Tahar Bekri. The Centre for African Poetry would like to see more dialogue and publishing development across language borders in our continent and translation is a key to this. Do you see yourself doing more publications on African poetry, for either English or French readers - or, perhaps, accepting an advisory role on related projects?
Williamson:
The work with Tahar Bekri emerged from personal contact at the Festival de Poesie de Trois-Rivieres, and led to many enriching interactions. I would agree that publishing and translation aids increased dialogue on the continent, or more specifically, in my case, across continents, as this anthology (see the end of my answer to the previous question) has led to greater awareness abroad. Notwithstanding, my contacts on the African continent itself are not strong enough to ensure that I will be able to participate in moves for dialogue there at present. Nor I am sure I will personally work, for want of time, on more translations of African poets, though there are many worthy of being brought to the attention of the English-speaking public, especially the younger generation. It all depends on the opportunities that materialise (Paul Dakeyo of Cameroon did mention a potential translation of his tribute to Nelson Mandela for example). However, I am definitely interested in the advisory aspect of publications on African Poetry, should any such project emerge. At present, I also work for a microfinance company, which sets up banks in RDC, Ghana, and Tanzania, notably, which is broadening my knowledge and interest. This is another manner in which to look at the issues affecting the continent, and ways in which dialogue between Africa and the west can be enhanced.
Although I work more on the frontline of translation, it would be interesting to look at the diverging trends and conflicts of interest and thus how to define African poetry. What, for instance, is an African poetic tradition, considering the diversity of her people and the forms of colonialism? Each of the two sub-traditions in African poetry—the Anglophone and the Francophone—is a product of a unique colonial experience, mingled with its indigenous culture and tradition. However, should it be viewed from a continent, regional, linguistic, national, or ethnic angle. And if national, should this include all the strands that make up a country's linguistic identity (French, African French, local language etc.). The debate is wide-ranging and still open. This would be an interesting line of enquiry, but require an academic approach to the study of African poetry. Ultimately, though I think one can set aside the too familiar practice of categorising writers as products of constructed literary traditions. I prefer to read the work of each poet as the unique product of a definable creative vision.

CAP: We find in our own research that recent Francophone African poetry has been less adventurous than Anglophone African poetry, possibly less'contemporary' in the sense that even in its best practices it still greatly relies on the period themes, styles and concerns of modernism in African literature. Are we perhaps misreading the evidence, including the evidence of the poems chosen for The Parley Tree? Are there any significant Francophone African poets younger than those you have anthologised in whose practices we may find the difference or changes we seek?

Williamson:
You are right to a certain extent, Francophone African poetry aims to follow in the footsteps of its previous generation with regard to modernism and traditional forms. Thus is partly due to the fact that French and subsequently its poetry is bound by grammatical and prosodic, and a sense that this is'how it is done" which leads to inflexibility, while the poets themselves wish to work within and extend the canon of French literature. The creation of form remains at a distance from the life situations of people who want to express themselves in a poem. This is not the case for the English side, where the language has always been more supple with poets, continually seeking to break with the previous generation and embrace other influences. New Gen anthologies in the UK and Africa encompass many styles and ethic origins, and aim to supersede the previous generation (not always successfully). It is notable also that such poetry, in Africa especially, is related to the spoken word in the broad sense of the term (note the poetry festival Poetry Africa), as evident in the powerful performance arc that threads through modern culture. Music has a prominent presence, as does imaginative collaborations with artists from a range of disciplines and genres.

I think there are surely more contemporary new generation poets exploring both French language from an African standpoint and the traditions of their continent, but pinpointing those who are likely to make a lasting contribution to the poetic tradition requires the benefit of hindsight, especially in the light of recent fast-moving developments in the region (Arab Spring, Egypt, notably). A quick glance at contemporary French-speaking poetry reveals such New Gen anthologies of African poetry (not just French, but English, Arabic and Portuguese poets in some cases), which claim to "reverberate with a diversity of styles, themes, and ideologies that make a conscious break with Africa's colonial literary heritage". This latter point needs to be verified, but there is certainly diversity and a sprinkling of new voices, alongside more established poets (Amina Said, and Amadou Lamine Sall, for example), not necessarily younger (most born in the late 1940s).

Note Amadou Elimane Kane from Senegal, considered one of the champions of the new generation of African poets, with work anchored in a vision of Africa without complexes and turned towards its renaissance. His work can be likened to a rap delivery as it is full of chants and oral rhythms, whilst founded on the ancient traditions of Africa. Mukala Kadima Nzuji, part of the younger generation of writers and intellectuals in Zaire, along with Jean-Baptiste Tati Loutard, whose poetry is incantatory, and in contrast to work with anti-colonialist themes. Of note also in this vein, Congolese poets Veronique Tadjo and Gabriel Okoundji, and Charles Nokan, from the Ivory Coast, whose poetry is very much geared to reflection. These poems often look inward at personal concerns, as opposed to poetry that engages with social issues, and would lead to increased dialogue across borders. This makes me think there is a certain convergence at this level, the work of all these poets becomes close in style and purpose to English-speaking poetry, whether this is from Africa, or across the world. The Written Word project unearthed some gems in poetry in English from Africa, which were akin to the type of oral and performance poetry I encountered at the Live Poets Society readings.

Ultimately such distinctions between contemporary and modern, and French and English-speaking poetry become blurred, and I think there is a cross-over at a certain point. Such poets are often grouped together (Syl Cheney-Coker ranked with Kama Kamanda, for example in recent interview for Poetry Parnassus).I also agree also with Kinna Reads, that "it is much harder now to encounter the works of Francophone and Lusophone African writers. Beyond the big names that tend to attract a lot of attention" The field of African literature was probably more united, more diverse with more languages, with less distinction between Francophone and Anglophone African writers, compared to the current divide between African literature written in English and those written in French or Portuguese. The New African Poetry: An Anthology (Tanure Ojaide and Tijan M. Sallah) is step towards increased balance but this has a low weighting of French work. Another potential avenue to look at.


CAP: From your vantage position as an informed speaker of the language, resident in France and familiar with its literature, how French is the Francophone African poetry you have read? Is French poetry, its idioms, lingual mannerisms and aesthetic preferences (prosody and poetics) as much in evidence in the construction of these African works as the traditional African and classical Arabic influences also apparent in them?

Williamson:
More so, in my view, with some qualifications as I will endeavour to show below. One must always remember that the poets in this anthology, for the most part, were educated in the French colonial system, work in the French academic and publishing world to a large extent, and are often resident in France. After independence, French became the dominant language in almost all countries across Africa, as much as a way of creating a cohesion faced with the diversity of local languages and for national unity. This clearly creates an undeniable French language backbone to the poetry, with its lingual mannerisms etc, although the poets use this to express the themes related to their post-colonial past, and their cultural identity as people from the African continent. French is used as a way to establish contact with the world at large and thus create dialogue. The same observation can be made with regard to prosody, which needs to meet constraints so educated readers in the French-speaking world outside Africa can identify with the work.
This poetry is thus inherently bound by the constraints of French prosody, which, more than in English poetry, is in many respects more conservative than speech. Form in French has for centuries been established in verse mainly by the number of syllables, whereas English verse is an extension of the tonic stress; it begins with the very first word in a line. It can move forward without thinking too much about the form it will assume. French poetic speech also has its own philosophical language with terms such as parole, regard, presence, etc, concepts that create a form of easily recognisable, familiar cement the collective consciousness of French speakers responds to.
This is despite the fact that there is a clear difference between this work and, poetry written by poets of pure French origin, especially with regard to the "poetic vocabulary" used in modern African poetic aesthetics. The latter manifests itself in the use of images derived from the fauna and flora, proverbs, indigenous rhythms, verbal tropes, and concepts of space and time to establish a poetic form, as shown by the work by Waberi and Kama Kamanda in this anthology. Content is also more important than form and images do not aim to reflect the senses.
I am sure there is poetry using true African French, with words either coined locally or borrowed from local African languages, but I did not note much evidence of such French in most of the texts I read or eventually used for the anthology. Yet colloquial French does have an influence as, by its composite nature, it allows for a more flexible turn of phrase and brings along an openness to creative word use, as shown by Amadou Lamine Sall's poem "My country is not a dead country…." which incorporates varied expressions and colloquial speech. So, to a certain extent, does the work of Tchicaya, with its carefully constructed spoken bias. However, for the most part, it is a question of the poets''voices', with work within the French canon. Poetry using African French most certainly has a limited audience (just as poems in Scottish dialect may) or is disdained by mainstream French culture.
In the Arab world, there has been a struggle between the dominance of French as against Arabic, as evidenced in Algeria with government efforts to introduce standard Arabic since independence. However, the strong position of French as a language of instruction in Algeria meant it won out. Poetry however is equally influenced by the Arabic cultural and literature heritage of this region. Not only are there many fine poets writing in Arabic in North Africa (note Mohammad Bennis and Rachida Madani from Morocco, and Iman Mirsal from Egypt), but the sparseness and lightness of Arabic poetry also underlies work in French by Tahar Bekri, for example, and it is worth noting that he actively writes with equal ease in Arabic. Fellow Tunisian poet Shams Nadir's work is also heavily influenced by Arab historical myths.

Moreover, Lebanese poetry, with its Arabic and French cultural heritage, draws on Arabic poetry and thus transcends national borders. This strand is exemplified in work by Venus Khoury-Ghata. Arabic was her own first language; French her language of adoption. Arabic, its poetry and its oral traditions, can still be heard in the undulations of her sentences. The poet herself has said that, while she is and always will be "inhabited" by Arabic, the French language has become her homeland. In this respect, the influence of French prosody is on a par if not eclipsed by Arab influences, unlike the situation for the French-speaking African poetry tradition.

CAP: The Parley Tree includes work from Venus Khoury-Ghata, a Lebanese poet. We understand and welcome the extended narrative, which identifies the island nations of Djibouti and Mauritius as African nations, but including Lebanon may be stretching that African narrative too far. Is your inclusion of Khoury-Ghata an error, a quirky personal choice or a deliberate challenge to orthodoxy - traditional understanding on who may be considered African, which locations may be defined as part of Africa?

Williamson:
Including Venus Khoury-Ghata was certainly not an error, much a choice in that, in my view, Lebanon represents one end of the arc of the Arab World, which I do not think is geographically restricted to the continent itself. Interestingly, Harvard University offers a course that "explores the multifaceted and polyphonic presence on the literary landscape of French expression, of women writers from North Africa, Egypt, Lebanon, and Iran… defense of the cultural particularities of their regions, and transnationalism" and this course looks at works by Venus Khoury-Ghata, and Andrée Chedid, inter alia. I did wish to have a contribution from Egypt to link up the'diaspora', but was unable to contact the late Andrée Chedid, or her publisher at the time.

I included Venus as her poetry encompasses many themes common to the works represented in the anthology, as a woman from a war-torn country that was heavily under a colonial yoke. I must admit the fact that Venus lives France was very useful from a pragmatic standpoint.

More specifically, Lebanon is also the cross culture of various civilizations over thousands of years (notably the Romans, the Arabs, and most recently the French) and its culture has this evolved by borrowing from all of these groups. In my view it is thus akin to the North African melting pot of language and culture, and hence the geographical epithet of the Middle East and North Africa region is apt. Moreover, as I mentioned above, Venus Khoury-Ghata's poetry, with its Arabic and French cultural heritage, transcends regional definition.


CAP: How do you identify and locate yourself and your literary choices as a writer? We imagine for you a cosmopolitan disposition, considering your transnational experience as an English poet and translator, born in Spain but living in France. How does Patrick Williamson identify himself as a writer, and do you see who you are as affecting your creative interests and subject choices in any way, possibly determining or at least influencing even your commitment to translation? Or do you feel as some strongly do that questions of identity are no longer valid in the production and cultural examination of twenty-first century literature with its supposedly globalist influences and imagination - not even relevant in the case of African writing about which we are mostly concerned at the Centre for African Poetry.


Williamson:
Identity and location are different. I am often asked where I come from in England and have to reply that my family latterly lived in Bath but I was brought up abroad until I went to school in England at the age of seven. While not rooted at a specific location in England, my formative years in terms of education and cultural background clearly make my identity English. However I am definitely influenced by living and working in continental Europe, in terms of both my subject matter and the way in which I write. My subject matter draws on early experiences in the UK and later ones abroad, and I have learnt a great deal in terms of honing my style from both French writers I have met and English-speaking expat writers in France (Scottish, US, etc.), with whom I have been in close contact over the years. In some cases, this has led me to experiment in the style of the poets I have been led to translate (Gilles Cyr). However, I think that many poets resident in the UK are also, depending on their reading, well versed in American poetry, and/or writers from Continental Europe or the Hispanic world, so my geographical location is not the sole reason for my approach. I think that who I am definitely influences my cultural choices, and that identity, personal and, above all, national and cultural does have a key place in 21st Century literature. Without it, the reader will be lost. This is especially the case for African literature, and poetry from the Arab World, which is in constant search to disentangle itself from the influence of colonialism and revive, reinvigorate, and reaffirm the original culture that was denigrated for so long and is now swamped by global influences. Poetry that works has to have an identity at three levels: 1) personal, for the emotional and perceptive core to the poem 2) cultural (or national) to place this in a broader context that readers of the same culture can relate to; and 3) what I would define as universal, more than globalist, (global being more reductionist, like so-called globish rather than English) so that the work crosses borders and language, thus encouraging dialogue. This is also the premise behind translation. I have seen a translation from French into Scottish dialect which is very worthy but limits the readership. If one or the other predominates then it either becomes too opaque (personal) or too insipid (global).
CAP: We notice in your own poetry particular idiosyncrasies in the choice of titles and some subjects, or just peculiar humour in the use of material and treatment of subjects. Is there a suggestion of what Camus would regard as existential rebellion fundamentally guiding your choices and position even as a writer, or just the desire to make it new, make it different?

Williamson:
The idiosyncrasies are my own and are often the result of the original material or events that inspired the poems. However, I believe that humour in general has a crucial role to play in getting ideas across, and works very well to draw the reader into the poem. I have noted this in particular during work with schools and during readings. I often gave readings under the umbrella of the Live Poets Society in Paris whose credo (and brief under the late John Kliphan) was poetry as an oral medium. This showed me that humour is essential to engaging and breaking the ice, though obviously there has to be room for all emotional registers, notably reflection and elegy. Material selected for readings such as this, or anthologies, has to include the entire spectrum.

In hindsight, humour is an aspect that is lacking from my anthology of poetry from Africa and the Arab World (unlike the 41 poets from Great Britain collection), maybe on account of the cultural, and more serious social issues being examined by the poets, which was my focus in terms of editorial selection. The only notable exception is Khal Thorabully and his wordplay. An anthology of children's poetry from Africa would clearly be an interesting initiative, as there are of course many fine children's poems written by African poets such as Poème à mon Frére Blanc by Léopold Sédar Senghor (commonly available in English).

With regard to the other point raised, existential rebellion is maybe a bit far-fetched, though I definitely think poetry has to be subversive, to challenge preconceived ideas, and reflect a social conscience. That is why, in my own writing, and in the selection of texts for both my anthologies I have often instinctively had a bias towards treating social issues. Notwithstanding, in all the above cases, as sense intimacy is also primordial, as is accessibility. I think all of us as poets are culpable of being'too clever by half' and thus impenetrable. A balance has to be struck. Poetry is also oral, as African writers know well, and often an overly serious poem or flat delivery has no impact. This has to be tackled by the writer. Use of the spoken idiom and colloquial language more than poetic speech averts this trap but my experience is that this is more common in English-speaking rather than French-language poetry, which has a greater emphasis of pure wordplay. The above series of readings also showed me there is often a fine line between being "new for new's sake" (to shock the audience maybe) and to stir a reaction in the audience through an informed and fresh juxtaposition of words. I hope I belong to the latter strand, in which means such as humour or idiosyncrasy are often good vectors for serious messages.


CAP: Are there any poets out there in the world, or in history, you would feel really rewarded to translate into another language? Why, if any? If you could work with more languages what would these additional languages be, and why would you choose them?

Williamson:
With regard to African poetry, first of all, there is clearly room for a second volume of poetry from Africa and Arab World that might encompass poets I was unable to include given time and copyright reasons. I would be particularly interested to include Jean-Baptiste Tati Loutard, Leopold Congo-Memba, Tahar Bel Jelloun, for example, and with regard to women writers, notably Andrée Chedid, Veronique Tadjo, and Joyce Mansour. Aside from this, there are other fine French-speaking poets that spring to mind notably Claude Esteban, Francois Jacquemin, Franck Venaille, JV and poets from the period of the French Resistance, and obviously I can see their worth because my French is good enough. My knowledge of other languages primarily involves the Romance spectrum and, in order of competence and exposure, consists of Spanish, Italian, Catalan, Rumanian (I have at times fleetingly considered translating from the latter two, but never got far) and Russian. This means I can appreciate poems in these languages to an extent, but not enough to judge how they might come across in English.
Two other remarks. First, the attraction of the target language is very important, and I have always been impressed with poems written in or translated into Gaelic, Latin, or German for instance. Note here that the poem Afghanistan from the anthology was set to music in six languages as If Music were to die, which is an interesting exercise to see which of the languages strikes a chord the most (German and English, for me, though this is clearly very subjective). Second, Latin I think is a language I would like to brush up and work with, as this underpins English and the other European languages I mentioned above, as well as their cultures. Some of the most exciting English translations have been of Greek and Latin texts (the aforementioned War Music and Tales from Ovid, respectively, both of which by fine poets and bold translators) and I think many other Ancient Greek and Roman poets could benefit from this approach to their work.
This, for me, brings together some of the threads in this conversation, namely who are the next generation African poets (as for other cultures they use the latest linguistic modes of expression, for the best of them, informed with the cultural heritage), that poetry from Africa in the broad sense here, and from the Ancient World both rely heavily on oral tradition and narrative, and that both deal with weighty subjects such as myth/gods, war, conflict, and clearly, human emotions faced with tragedy: Phaeton and Juno, in Ted Hughes' treatment of Ovid, Amina Said's poems on mothers and loss, the impact of war in Afghanistan by Tahar Bekri. As I aimed to express in the title to the anthology, poetry is a question of meeting places rather than boundaries, aside from cultural differences, between peoples from around the world.
Lastly, the challenges in translating work to be performed are far more exacting than those involved in work that is just'read', be this plays by Shakespeare and Aristophanes, slam, performance poetry (e.g. Serge Pey with poems on sticks), or poems meant to be accompanied by performance One could even extend this to include popular artists like the late Fela Ransome Kuti, and rappers, who have rivalled poetry as a creative outlet for cultural experiment and political protest. In short, a quite different way of approaching the world through speech, a quite different way of arriving at an experience of unity, which is the universal aim and intuition of poetry.