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Notes for the Translators – poems and notes from 142 Australian and NZ poets

Posted on July 2, 2013 by Beth Spencer

Notes for the Translators: 142 New Zealand and Australian Poets is a remarkable collection edited by the ever-creative Kit Kelen.

Each poem is accompanied by a mini essay by the poet — about the poem, the references, idiom, allusions within it and the circumstances of its creation.

The aim is to provide materials to assist potential translators of Australian work, in any language.

But it also provides an amazing insight into the craft of poetry and the many ways it is approached and practiced.

Kit Kelen has already been instrumental in match-making Chinese translators with Australian poets and publishing the results in anthologies and single collections, through a program he has developed out his work as Professor of English at Macao University.

I was fortunate to be involved in this process for three of my poems for the collection Wombats of Bundanon (2010). This included a long one full of Australianisms and class references, ‘The Museum of Fire’, which both surprised and delighted me when it was chosen by the translator, Iris Fan.

Meeting with the translation team at Bundanon was so much fun, and it was a really magical experience to witness a poem I wrote quite a while back being of interest to, and being given so much attention by someone from such a different generation and culture.

Iris Fan is herself a lovely poet (lost in the afternoon, 2009), and is currently undertaking a PhD at the University of Western Australia. So the exchange, organised by Kelen, has borne fruit in lots of ways.

This new book — Notes for the Translators – to be launched this month (July) — is such a clever idea I wonder why it hasn’t been done more often. Even without the benefits of making Australian & NZ poetry more accessible to translators worldwide, it is just such a fascinating read for anyone interested in poetry.

The range and number of poets — 147 of them, well known in poetry circles in Australia and/or New Zealand– makes this a big interesting book by itself. But the added value of the ‘notes’ on each poem by the poets is a real treasure.

Notes for the Translators will be launched at a few venues over the next few weeks, with readings by a bunch of poets from the book at each launch (the Sydney one, in particular, should be quite a party).

**NEW: Melbourne Launch — at the Boyd Assembly Hall, 207-227 City Rd, Southbank, 3006.
on Saturday 28th September – 3.30 for 4.00pm. Those reading so far are :
Alex Skovron, Chris Wallace-Crabbe, Jennifer Compton, Grant Caldwell, Michael Farrell and Patricia Sykes. All welcome.

Launch in Wagga Wagga — at Charles Sturt University — ASAL Conference – at 1 pm on Thursday 4th July 2013

Launch in Sydney — at the Friend in Hand pub (upstairs) – 58 Cowper St Glebe — at 7 pm on Monday 8th July 2013Launch in Newcastle — Theatre Lane Hotel 189 Hunter Street Newcastle (at the western end of Hunter Street Mall)
at 7.30 pm on Monday 15th July

So far, the following people will be reading at the launches:

Wagga Wagga – Thursday 4th July

Jill Jones, Corey Wakeling, Toby Fitch, Andrew Burke, Michael Farrell

Sydney – Monday 8th July

Joanne Burns, Anna Couani, Brook Emery, Richard Tipping, Eileen Chong, Beth Spencer, Andy Kissane, Richard James Allen, Cecilia White, David Musgrave, Alex Skovron, Alan Wearne, Toby Fitch, Pam Brown, Claine Kelly, Billy Marshall-Stoneking, Rae Desmond Jones, Mark Roberts, Margaret Bradstock

Newcastle – Monday 15th July

David Musgrave, Jean Kent, Beth Spencer, Jan Dean, Brian Purcell, Mark Tredinnick

..and of course Kit Kelen too.

And by the way, if you’re interested and able to organise a launch in your city, contact Kit.

To purchase a copy and support a really wonderful publishing venture, head along to one of the launches or contact Kit.

And why not order a copy for your university, school or local library? A fantastic teaching resource.

….and finally – please share this post and launch invite with your poetry-loving friends! Thanks.

PS (added 7th Nov 2013) – In Australia you can now get copies from Collected Works Bookshop – Level 1/37 Swanston St, Melbourne VIC 3000. They can also do mail order if you phone (03) 9654 8873 or email them at
< collectedworks [at] mailcity [dot] com >

Posted in books / writing / creativity, x | Tagged books, poetry, writing & editing | Leave a comment

Reading literary fiction can make us better thinkers! — more creative, more rational, and more empathic.

Posted on June 19, 2013 by Beth Spencer

Book sculpture-The Thinker- by Daniel Lai

A study by researchers at Toronto University has concluded that reading literary fiction can make us better thinkers — more able to handle uncertainty, ambiguity, open-ended situations and questions; all of which in turn actually makes us not only more creative as thinkers, but also more rational.

For the more uncomfortable we are with uncertainty — the more we desire things to be black and white and desire ‘cognitive closure’ — the more likely we are to rush to a conclusion without assessing all the available information. Furthermore, the more likely we are to stick with that conclusion, and resist alternative views even in the face of new information.

The amazing thing is that these results were demonstrated — to a degree of statistical significance — even after reading just one short story. Although the effect was more pronounced for those who were habitual readers of literary fiction.

Their study also suggests that reading literary fiction has the ability to help develop empathy, an important social trait.

Head / heart,

reason / emotion,

thinking / feeling,

intellect / creativity

— not so opposite after all.

You can read the original studies here:

Opening the Closed Mind: The Effect of Exposure to Literature on the Need for Closure; Djikic, M., Oatley, K., Moldoveanu, M. C.; Creativity Research Journal; Issue: 25(2); 2013; Pages: 149-154

Reading Other Minds: Effects of Literature on Empathy; Djikic, M., Oatley, K., & Moldoveanu, M. C.; The Scientific Study of Literature; Issue: 3(1); 2013; Pages: 28-47

For more about uncertainty as a productive state, check out Pema Chodron‘s Zen classic, Comfortable with Uncertainty.

* the wonderful book sculptures illustrating this post are by Daniel Lai, and you can see more of his work and purchase his sculptures here.

What do you think? Should we be increasing funding for the creation of literary fiction and making more room for reading it in schools?

Posted in books / writing / creativity | Tagged Arts funding, books, cultural politics, novels, poetry, political novels | Leave a comment

Diorama at the old Melbourne Museum – the Okapi (genesis of a poem)

Posted on May 13, 2013 by Beth Spencer

What is an okapi?

And why should a creature barely seen by humans matter to us?

[okapi]

Background to this poem:

A museum is more than just a place made up of things, it is also an arrangement of bodies: a network of gazes, positions, a maze of looks. Colonising looks: like western explorers, the museum specialises in discoveries of things that were never lost or hidden except in a personal, subjective sense. Thus we map ourselves onto the objects of the Other; looking with wonder at ‘exotica’ like the okapi; like a child looking in a mirror.

The first time I went to the Melbourne Museum when I was a teenager in the early 1970s, there was a large glass diorama out in the middle of the room with a stuffed animal amid jungle foliage. It was an okapi, a creature I’d never seen or heard of before. I loved its gentle name and appearance.

Across to the right and a little way down from it was another glass case with the front half of a stuffed tiger leaping out majestically from the wall.

To the left were some stairs.

This poem was written from notes made on a train journey returning to Sydney from Melbourne, and after visiting the museum again when I was older.

At the end of last century the Museum was relocated from its premises next to the State Library in the Latrobe Street block, and underwent massive chages. I don’t know if this diorama is still exhibited. But this is where this creature lives in my mind:

Diorama :
The Melbourne Museum

Okapi (-ah -) n. bright-coloured partially striped
Central-African ruminant discovered 1900,
with likeness to giraffe, deer, and zebra.

–The moth eats
–The museum preserves
–The Okapi arrests

She sits in her glass case
watching the stairs

Feels her danger
but doesn’t see, the tiger
springing out
teeth bared

Lost) in deep forest

(Found
in ‘perpetual
heat
moisture
gloom
& silence’
[in a glass box]

With the smell
of the stone stairs

The smell of the
stonestairs
(like)
schoolgirls

*

Links:

‘Diorama’ is from Things in a Glass Box (SCARP/Five Islands New Poets series). For a kindle ebook version, click here. If you’d like to purchase a print copy ($10 posted within Australia), or a pdf version, send me a message.

Here’s an audio version of this poem, that was produced with soundscape by Sydney sound artist Stuart Ewings, for a feature with other poems from Things in a Glass Box, and broadcast on ABC Radio National’s Poetica in 2004.

And here’s an essay I wrote as background for the radio program, called ‘The Museum of Fire’.

If you remember the old Melbourne museum – or have any favourite museum memories – please leave a comment, thanks!