Monthly Archives: November 2014

A Winter’s Night in Sydney: Poetry Plurilingual

Reporting from the front lines of poetry, translation, and performance

I walked through Sydney’s back streets and upstairs to the crowded room where “Poetry Plurilingual” was about to begin. We sat on mismatched armchairs and wooden benches and squeezed up against each other. The night started with a series of readings of poems in foreign languages, followed by English-language translations. The focus of these readings was on the “original,” foreign, text. But the night took a sharp turn when two readers—Jack Breukelaar and Toby Fitch—boldly shifted the audience’s attention to the process and text of translation.

Jack introduced the audience to the work of Japanese writer and manga artist Kiriko Nananan, showing us a “1994 cool female authors” edition of Garo, an avant-garde manga periodical that began in the sixties, that he bought for a dollar at a discount bookshop. The book was visually striking—Jack didn’t know the work’s significance when he bought it—“but was drawn to [the] cover image by Nananan, reminiscent of Schiele or Baudelaire.” More of Nananan’s work has been translated into French than into English, and Jack had not found any previous English translation of his chosen poem:   READ MORE…

Weekly News Roundup, 7th November 2014: Slangin’ Words, Who Knew?

This week's literary highlights from across the world

Hey dudes, what’s happenin’? If you aren’t used to that tenor of slang employed here at the roundup, it’s because we haven’t included that level of vernacular in our lexicon just yet—here’s an enlightening piece on the phenomena of language-to-slang. The ethics of our slang—YOLO, DGAF, et al—have infiltrated our young writers, as evidenced in this short story featured in n+1: YOLO Ethics.” And while some slang never catches on at all (“fetch,” anyone?), the same can’t be said for languages. How do you revive a language that is effectively dead? (It’s always a good idea to learn a new language, since we are at our most genius when we are in the process of language acquisition).  READ MORE…

Who Is Long Muzzle? Interviewing Guest Artist Monika Grubizna

Asymptote guest artist Monika Grubizna on Naive art, the legacy of Polish poster design, and the importance of humor in her work.

Asymptote’s guest artist for the current fall issue is Monika Grubizna (a.k.a. Long Muzzle). An independent graphic artist and illustrator, Monika created a striking cover image, as well as thirteen brand new illustrations for our Fiction, Nonfiction, and Drama sections. I interviewed her about this experience, her influences, and her practice.

Berny Tan: First question: Why “Long Muzzle”?

Monika Grubizna: I’ve always been obsessed with animals. Ever since I can remember, the main motifs of my drawings have been dogs. I enjoyed drawing bad wolves with open muzzles showing big, sharp teeth. And then I got a dog. The moniker “Long Muzzle” came to be because of my dog, whose snout is really, really long. Plus it sounds funny—at least in Polish.

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Diversifying Translation

"But since any piece of literature could fit under its umbrella, 'World Literature' is not so much a genre as perspective."

In 1827, the seminal German humanist Johann Wolfgang von Goethe—noting that literature was being shared across national borders of Europe and beyond—wrote the now-famous line: “the era of World Literature is at hand, everyone must do what they can to hasten its approach.”

We consider this quote the start of a global literary consciousness that shifted the conception of literature from a reflection of national character to a global phenomenon reflecting the (purportedly universal) human spirit. READ MORE…

Translation Tuesday: Three Contemporary Russian Poets

Work by Evgeny Nikitin, Andrey Tavrov, and Sergei Shestakov—translated by Kat Shapiro

I. Evgeny Nikitin

The candle flame is trembling and in sway

As, catching fire, a moth melts in to kiss her.

My friend stopped writing—he is like a whisper,

A beast that runs his hunter’s way.

Winter is closing in, drawing its shutters.

The timid gas with little azure tongue

Spurts from the burner, lightly stutters,

The dying moth forgotten before long.

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Interviewing Juliet Winters Carpenter

Asymptote blog’s spotlight on Japanese translation continues with this conversation with acclaimed translator Juliet Winters Carpenter!

Juliet Winters Carpenter is an award-winning translator of Japanese poetry and prose noted for promoting contemporary Japanese authors (including Minae Mizumura, Noboru Tsujihara, and Ryōtarō Shiba) to English readers by rendering their distinctive prose into precise yet colloquial English. Pushkin Press reissued her translation of Machi Tawara’s Salad Anniversary in a beautiful edition last month. Carpenter describes the wry self-awareness that comes across in Tawara’s poetry with a sense of kinship, suggesting that a degree of self-cognizance, in addition to close reading and writing skills, is required from a translator.

Elisa Taber: Kenneth Rexroth famously commented on Japanese poetry and translation, “It is (…) more essentially poetic. Many, especially Japanese, editors and translators have been embarrassed by this intensity and concentration and have labored to explain each poem until it has been explained away.” You seem to encapsulate, rather than expound, the meaning of each verse, by translating the tanka form in three lines rather than the customary five. Were you wary of over-explaining Tawara’s work?

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