Poppies in Translation
Published on 26. March 2015
Book
Paperback/Softback
146 pages
978-1-84777-020-2 (ISBN)
Description
Indonesia, South Africa, Estonia, Lithuania, Shetland, Nicaragua - many worlds meet in these poems as nature dyes Sujata Bhatt's many languages with its own hues. The real merges with the surreal and the allegorical, certainties are undone in an open-ended quest. A Chinese cook ignores a predatory snake, a heart surgeon lives most intensely between operations, Gregor Samsa's sister proposes a different sort of metamorphosis, someone listens to the Holy Ghost sing, a woman hears her daughter's voice in birdsong - and the 'poppies in translation' mutate according to the languages and histories they inhabit, ultimately persisting in a space beyond language. At times, language itself is injured by history: Bhatt reimagines the 'haunted undertow' of post-war German as experienced by Paul Celan and Ingeborg Bachmann. Meanwhile, the poppies are ever-present, 'with their black souls in the wind'.
More details
Language
English
Place of publication
United Kingdom
Publishing group
Carcanet Press Ltd
Product notice
Paperback (trade)
Unsewn / adhesive bound
Dimensions
Height: 219 mm
Width: 136 mm
Thickness: 14 mm
Weight
186 gr
ISBN-13
978-1-84777-020-2 (9781847770202)
Copyright in bibliographic data and cover images is held by Nielsen Book Services Limited or by the publishers or by their respective licensors: all rights reserved.
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Person
Sujata Bhatt was born in Ahmedabad, India. She grew up in Pune (India) and in the United States. She received her MFA from the Writers' Workshop at the University of Iowa. To date, she has published eight collections of poetry with Carcanet Press. She received the Commonwealth Poetry Prize (Asia) and the Alice Hunt Bartlett Award for her first collection, Brunizem (1988). Subsequent collections include Monkey Shadows (PBS Recommendation, 1991), The Stinking Rose (shortlisted for the Forward Poetry Prize, 1995), Point No Point (1997), Augatora (PBS Recommendation, 2000), A Colour for Solitude (2002), Pure Lizard (shortlisted for the Forward Poetry Prize, 2008), and Collected Poems (PBS Special Commendation, 2013). She received a Cholmondeley Award in 1991, the Italian Tratti Poetry Prize in 2000, and the German Literature Award, Das neue Buch, in 2008. In 2014 she was the first recipient of the Mexican International Poetry Prize, Premio Internacional de Poesia Nuevo Siglo de Oro 1914-2014. She has translated poetry from Gujarati and German into English. She has been a Lansdowne Visiting Writer at the University of Victoria, in British Columbia, a Visiting Fellow at Dickinson College in Pennsylvania, and more recently was Poet-in-Residence at the Poetry Archive in London and at the Heinrich Boell Cottage on Achill Island, Ireland. Her work has been widely anthologised, broadcast on radio and television, and has been translated into more than twenty languages. Currently, she divides her time between Germany and elsewhere.
Content
I A Different IncarnationToday 3Truth is Mute 4Another Muse 6Redness 8Schlafmohn, Blaumohn: Allerleilustblume 10Six Poems for John AshberyApres un Reve 13L'Heure Exquise 14My Dear Jungle 15Dorothy's Summer Dream 16Icarus 17Poisson d'Avril 18Between Hearts 20Ars Poetica with Poppies and Birds 21Conil de la Frontera, June 2012 23Where a Scorpion Sleeps - Tete Fantastique 24Elephant and Boats 25Underneath the Bridges 27Some Days 28...bis wir kleine Fische geworden sind... 29Florence 30A German Education 32Self-Portrait as a Soul 34Another Daphne 36Blumenmuskel 38Reading Sappho, I am Reminded of Chickpeas 39Fragments for Lise 41Old Love Never Rusts 43Crear 44Poppies in Translation 46A Secret 48Viriditas: Hildegard and Jesus 51A Different Incarnation 55II Where is Your Silver Dream?Always Choose the Jack of Hearts 63Gregor's Sister Speaks 64A Word Spoken on Land 65She Flies High 66The Tired Butterfly 68No Tiger is Plain 69Where is Your Silver Dream? 70You Have the Blue 71Oblique 72At First She Was a Butterfly 73Long Yellow Dresses 74Faux Fable, with Butterfly 75III Magelang MorningLand of Many Birds 79Ornithologists 80Achill 82In a Small Boat 83Magelang Morning 84Green 86At the Equator 87It's Our Reality 88A Chinese Cook 901980 91A Witness 92Pet the Orphaned Lion Cubs 93As We Leave the Black Sea 95Palitana 96By the Railway Tracks, Ahmedabad 97Notes from India 98Sea Turtles 99Sisyphus 100Straight Through the Heart 102IV A Captain's ConfessionHis Brother's Knife 109Why Didn't You Sing Last Night? 110A Cup of Tea 112So Many Oaks 114A Captain's Confession 115Flight 116Such Sweet Cherries 117Where Were You Last Night? 118What Did You Drink? 119If I Weren't French... 120He Speaks in Riddles 121You Never Know 122I Didn't Say That 123Can You Tell Me...? 124A Cherry Tree in Her Garden 125The Grapes are Ripe 126A Hearty Appetite 127Mr Ludwig 128Mr Matsumoto 129When Passions are Strong 130What Can You Tell Us? 132Notes 134