Workshop with Donald Adamson at The Bakehouse

I'm more than happy to suggest folk might like to go along to this workshop from Donald Adamson.  It's at the lovely Bakehouse in Gatehouse of Fleet on Sunday 25 September.  It promises to be a really interesting and fresh look at the art of poetry in translation. 
I'm going to feed it into my weekend round Wigtown Book Festival and Doors Open Days, on the principle (just invented) that good things come in threes.

Workshop: What makes a good translation?

Facilitated by Donald Adamson

The Bakehouse, 44 High Street, Gatehouse of Fleet DG7 2HP

Sunday September 25^th 10.30am  – 1.30pm

Followed by a light lunch and discussion.

Cost £8.00

This workshop is for everyone – poet or otherwise – with an interest in poetry in translation. You are invited to bring translated poems that you have enjoyed and say why they appeal to you. (It will be helpful if you have some copies to pass round.) What do they ‘preserve’ of the original? What has been the translator’s strategy?

If time allows we’ll look at some translations from 20th century poets (Rilke, Vallejo) and from earlier periods (Ronsard, Horace, Catullus), with translations by Robert Bly, Ezra Pound, Yeats, etc.

Donald is a poet and translator, who taught Creative Writing and Translation Studies in Finnish Universities until his recent retirement. A rare opportunity lively discussion with an expert in his field.

Reviews of some of Donald’s translations:

‘This record should come with a "parental advisory" sticker, for the venom - musically and lyrically - scarcely lets up throughout. Folk music as cultural terrorism, anyone? (Times Review of  Värttinä album)

‘...the sound is decidedly dark...The lyrics (don’t miss reading the translations – they’re freaky!) are also pitch black, (“my loathing drips blood, my pain slashes, curses, drenches with pus”) ... like toe-tapping dirges sung by the ship’s band on the boat to hell...’  Stanford University Review of Värttinä album)

Another opportunity for writers and Writer’s across the Region to meet and engage with each other in the warm and supportive atmosphere of the Bakehouse

BOOKING: Tel 01557 814175 or bookings@thebakehouse.info or chryssalt@chryssalt.com