With You by Mehri Rahmani
Your tender revolt
Contained by the illicit apple
Pounds in red
And your eye’s shattered diamond
A woman in seclusion
Revolves into a star
With you
On the surface of water
I am thirsty
Place the skies in your eyes
Blaze out the star
So that I can see you
The sea is peaceful
Silent…
from : The Seven Valleys of Love, trans Sheema Kalbasi Poet ,
A Bilingual Anthology Of Women Poets from Middle Ages Persia to Present
Today I was reading more of Farideh Mostavi who features on the blog in two sections, her poetry can be accessed by using the search engine to the right of this post. The issue of Translation has been a part of this site since I started it up, Including the works of Mostavi, Tess Gallagher, the translators of Nagy and of Ursu. The sympathetic work of the translator being grossly undervalued in terms of what is actually available for people to purchase in bookshops. The IPWWC and translators committees have done tremendous work in funding and bringing to the reader some of our most incredible women writers.
In Ireland there is a wonderful tradition of writers and poets translating works; and bringing them to an interested readership.
There is a small post somewhere on the blog of a Marianne Agren Mc Elroy translation of Comes Somebody , by Nelly Sachs, it had fallen out of a Paul Celan book which I had been casually mooching at a friend’s house. It was one of three small and old pieces from a now defunct Irish newspaper. It really is an excellent poem, thus I am going to stick it beneath this post on the blog if I can. (the tech occasionally mystifies).
Chris Murray 