Review by Martyn Crucefix of "In a Cabin, in the Woods" by Michael Krüger, trans. Karen Leeder

In the midst of the Covid pandemic, German poet Michael Krüger was also beginning to be treated for leukaemia. He retreated to a wooden house near Lake Starnberg in Germany and began to dispatch poems – 30-40 line meditations from a life-preserving quarantine – which were published to great acclaim in Süddeutsche Zeitung. This book contains 50 of them in superb translations by Karen Leeder.

With his own mortality standing so close, the small things loom large ("the flies can hear me") and picking details from beyond the window, or from memory, he is "amazed / at the richness, the lustre, the splendour." In contrast, the stricken world at large provides a new vocabulary: "Today: herd immunity. Let’s see how long / that lasts." Krüger’s work has always glittered with vivid images. The sunlit glint of the nearby lake is "like a huge barrel of mercury, / about to spill over." If that image is full of foreboding it’s no surprise and, even hidden away as he is, Krüger never loses his sense of wider concerns. As the spring birds arrive, military aircraft ("windowless, big-bellied, camouflage beasts") pass overhead carrying lethal hardware to poorer parts of the world.

There are moments of despair. Gazing into the mirror the question is whether it is "still worth shaving" and there is a sort of disproportionate grief when his Lavazza coffee machine breaks down, "a linguistically gifted gadget / that could gurgle, groan, moan, hiss and beep." But the book is surprisingly up-beat and its serious business has to do with poem-making, bringing order and meaning to an off-kilter, deadly (and for Krüger) godless world just beyond his doorstep: "I have to give things / a truth they cannot find by themselves." So when the local farmer (and his son) mows the nearby meadow, it’s like "a ballet for two tractors," and after rainfall it is like a Dutch painting, and Krüger is moved to quote his great German poet-forebear, Peter Huchel, transmuting the natural world to human meaning: "it points / off into the grass / like a truth."

About the reviewer
Martyn Crucefix: Between a Drowning Man was published by Salt in 2023; his translations of Peter Huchel (Shearsman) won the 2020 Schlegel-Tieck Prize. A Rilke Selected Poems, Change Your Life, has been published by Pushkin Press, 2024. Martyn's blog is here. 

Review by Jonathan Wilkins of "Wild Boar" by Hannah Lutz, trans. Andy Turner

Ritve is looking for wild boar.

Glenn is looking for happiness.

Mia is looking after her grandfather who is suffering from Alzheimer’s.

All are living by the forests of Småland in Sweden.

The forests of this Småland are home to a growing population of wild boar that were once on the verge of extinction. Ritve is searching for them, but never seems to have any success in finding them. He sees their destructive nature and chases sightings, but to no avail. Why is something so plentiful continuously out of his reach, but seen by so many others?  

Mia wants her grandfather to remember his past, but continually fails even though she has brought him back to his childhood home. Her love and devotion towards him are clear, but it makes no difference. Age has taken its toll and it can never be reversed.

Glenn is an ordinary man with simple ideas and tastes who just want to be happy. He has found his love and his true nature. But will it be enough? His job is only a means to an end. He does not relish it, but he does seem to welcome life and wants to get more from his surroundings and relationships.

Wild Boar is narrated by three very different characters who have come from afar to the isolated community of Småland.

Wild Boar is a poetic masterpiece about animals and people and their different places in a destructively changing ecosystem. The denouement of the book is tragic and compelling as we are shown than none of us can escape the world in which we live. It will take its toll.

Written beautifully, and translated with what we can only assume is infinite care, Wild Boar looks at our past and our future, the planet's past and future and, in the end, it doesn’t appear to hold out much hope for our future.

About the reviewer
Jonathan Wilkins is 69. He is married to the gorgeous Annie with two wonderful sons. He was a teacher for twenty years, a Waterstones’ bookseller and coached women’s basketball for over thirty years before taking up writing seriously. Nowadays he takes notes for students with Special Needs at Leicester and Warwick Universities. He has had a work commissioned by the UK Arts Council and several pieces published traditionally as well as on-line. He has had poems in magazines and anthologies, art galleries, studios, museums and at Huddersfield Railway Station. He loves writing poetry. For his MA, he wrote a crime novel, Utrecht Snow. He followed it up with Utrecht Rain, and is now writing a third part. He is currently writing a crime series, Poppy Knows Best, set at the end of the Great War and into the early 1920s.

You can read more about Wild Boar by Hannah Lutz on Creative Writing at Leicester here. 

Review by Kathleen Bell of "The Iliad" by Homer, trans. Emily Wilson

Some months ago, when I was half-way through Emily Wilson’s new translation of The Iliad, I had to set it aside. This is not a criticism of her work but a tribute to its effectiveness. The accumulated violence and grief appalled me as it had never done before. I was sharply aware of the individuality of so many dying men, of the agony they suffered and the anguish their families would endure. I might attribute this in part to the accumulation of contemporary violence brought to our daily attention via TV, computers and smartphones, but I do not believe any previous translation would have had the immediacy that Wilson’s iambic pentameters offer.

When I first read Homer, it was in E.V . Rieu’s prose translation published by Penguin – a decent and accessible enough account. But I was not particularly moved by his account of the prince Asius, whose death is one of many recorded in Book 12: "He was a fool. He was not destined to evade his evil fate and drive back his chariot and pair in triumph from the ships to windy Ilium. In the spear of the sublime Idomeneus, Deucalion’s son, abominable doom was waiting to engulf him."

By contrast, Wilson offers: 

           Poor fool! He was not destined to escape
           his own black doom or ever leave the ships
           or ride back home again to windy Troy,
           proud of his horses and his chariot.
           The spear of splendid Idomeneus,
           Deucalion’s fine son, would bring him down
           and shadow him with death that dims men’s names.

The combination of the metre with clear language drew me far closer to the battle than Rieu managed. Through instances like this – and often more painful and much gorier – Homer takes us close to the details of war. Meanwhile the warriors exult in killing, crave loot as proof of merit, and long for a victory which will involve massacre, wholesale destruction and the enslavement of those few allowed to survive.

At times, as when the gods decide to involve themselves in battle or quarrel over the conduct of the war, The Iliad can seem very distant from our own time – until suddenly a river which is also a god enters the battle and becomes a great flood with effects familiar from reports of current ecological disasters. Meanwhile the macho boasting and posturing of the warriors who often take women as trophies has uncomfortable echoes today. Yet there are moments when a warrior might recognise and almost understand the horror in which he is involved, In Book 18, mourning the death of the man he loves most, Achilles says to his mother:

           If only conflict were eliminated
           from gods and human beings! I wish anger
           did not exist. Even the wisest people
           are roused to rage, which trickles into you
           sweeter than honey, and inside your body
           it swells like smoke …

Inevitably in a translation this long – the book with introduction and notes runs to 750 pages – there are occasional phrases and words which jar slightly. However, I have never read a translation of The Iliad that gripped and moved me so much. I was also delighted by the insights offered in Emily Wilson’s introduction and wished I had found something as clear and illuminating as this when, as an undergraduate, I studied Book 1 of the Iliad for one of my first-year exams.

About the reviewer
Kathleen Bell’s most recent poetry collections are the chapbook Do you know how kind I am? from Leafe Press and the collection Disappearances published by Shoestring (both 2021). She is currently preparing a manuscript that might be another collection while continuing to research and write poems about the engineer James Watt and his times. 

Review by Laura Besley of "Jokes for the Gunmen" by Mazen Maarouf

Jokes for the Gunmen is a short story collection by award-winning Palestinian-Icelandic writer, poet, translator and journalist, Mazen Maarouf. It was translated from the Arabic by Jonathan Wright. 

All the stories in the collection explore jokes and joking as either a means of exchange or a coping mechanism for the atrocities of living in a country at war. In the eponymous opening story, the father figure must make up jokes for the gunmen in order to avoid their wrath. ‘Of course, in front of a bunch of gunmen you have to be a good storyteller in order to win your freedom. Your story has to be convincing, enjoyable and very short, and it has to make people laugh.’ As a consequence, the withdrawn father and unruly son become closer as they both focus on the task of thinking up a new joke every day. 

In the story ‘Jokes’ there is another young boy trying to make up jokes. ‘I don’t have ready-made jokes in my head and I don’t remember any details of the few jokes I’ve heard. So I’m trying to sketch out the scenario for a joke in my head.’ On the flipside, the main character in ‘The Angel of Death’ doesn’t ‘have a sense of humour … and [doesn’t] understand why people smile.’ Throughout the story, everyone around him is trying to make him smile or laugh or giggle, but he is resolute. In fact, he gets angry when a man laughs at something he said ‘since [he] hadn’t intended to make a joke.’ In the story ‘Gramophone’ the father loses both his arms when a vacuum bomb strikes the building he was in, but jokes that it doesn’t matter; the gramophone is broken, so he doesn’t need his arms anyway. 

The sense of loss, both physical and emotional, runs throughout the collection. People lose limbs, eyes, loved ones; people are ‘pale, silent and thin’ and ‘hollowed out.’ Another theme rooted within the stories is violence, both inside and outside the home, and good use is made of the liminal line drawn between fantasy and reality.

In many ways this collection is a tough read; the depictions of war-torn families are heartbreaking. However, despite the losses these characters have to bear and somehow overcome, there are glimmers of hope on the horizon. Jokes for the Gunmen is a phenomenal collection.  

 

About the reviewer

Laura Besley is the author of 100neHundred and The Almost Mothers. She has been widely published in online journals, print journals and anthologies, including Best Small Fictions (2021). Having lived in the Netherlands, Germany and Hong Kong, she now lives in land-locked central England and misses the sea. She tweets @laurabesley

Review by Christine Hammond of "Revelation Freshly Erupting" by Nelly Sachs

Reading and reviewing the collected works (nine in total) of a poet originally writing in another language on Holocaust themes is challenging. This is compounded with the titanic credentials of a prolific Jewish poet (published 1947-1971), Holocaust survivor and Nobel Prize winner. 

We owe a debt of gratitude therefore to Andrew Shanks for his unique, approximate translations from Sachs’ native German. Additionally, his powerful introductory essay allows us to glimpse, briefly, the countless hours of dedication to his art since he first discovered Sachs in 1983-4 when working as a post-grad in Marburg, Germany,

What makes his approach to this important body of work unique? Shanks describes himself as "not a brilliant" linguist, who "sets out to" produce versions that, to my ear, work as poems in English. He quotes Edward FitzGerald’s famous formula: "Better a live sparrow than a stuffed eagle." More than that, as a "Christian philosophic theologian," Shanks brings important knowledge and an intuitive, spiritual understanding.

This combination complements and reveals for us the subtle, existential character of poetry that uses much in the way of classical and religious / biblical motifs and the natural world to try and make sense of the worst excesses of human depravity. 

"O die Schornsteine" ("O, The Chimneys"), the opening poem of "Habitations of Death," 1947, seems to provide an exemplar for much of what is to come. Here, some of the motifs we have come to associate with Holocaust imagery are articulated only lightly - for example, "meandering dust." They have been carefully woven in to support the heaviness of the metaphysical questions they raise: "Who contrived you? Who built ...?"  

The killings are viewed through the lens of Job’s conviction that he will see God when his skin and flesh are destroyed, which proposes to the reader an unintended, beneficial consequence of the barbarism. Thus, the objectives for murder on the grounds of religion are not only subtly ridiculed, but reduced to futility and nothingness as death has the ultimate potential to overcome and be a cause for celebration.

          "And after my skin has been thus destroyed, then without my flesh I shall see God."

          - Job 9:26

         O the chimneys
         On the artfully contrived 
         Habitations of death, as Israel’s flesh
         Floated in smoke through the air
         A star, there, received it …

         ... O the chimneys!
         Meandering dust – Jeremiah’s and Jobs’s – released –
         Who contrived you, who built, stone on stone,
         For fugitive souls, this path of smoke?

That the persecuted should not become persecutors ("Star Black-Out," 1949) is another example of the lightness of touch that is characteristic. Here, the poem uses the term "Footsteps" and contextual sound as a leitmotif throughout. Although we can readily make the association with (Jack) boots and marching, direct reference only happens in the last verse. Where the previous poem used a biblical quotation, Sachs now employs several classical allusions starting with Echo:

         Footsteps, 
         where in which of Echo’s grottoes
         are you stored,
         you rhythmic harbingers 
         of looming death?

... and ending with a poignant Pythagorean reference that beautifully ties off the whole aural theme of the poem:

         Footsteps of the killers 
         Over footsteps of the killed,
         what black-horror moon impelled
         the ticking circuit of those booted seconds?

         Where’s that leather squeak
         within the music of the spheres

Overall, the poetry uses a reductive, yet restrained, learned and gently sophisticated approach to deal with the horrific acts and consequences. This includes the preceding ideologies that initiated them. The diminution that results impresses upon us the sublimity and determination of the poems to reveal truth and beauty and thereby hope, no matter what. 

About the reviewer
Christine Hammond began writing poetry whilst studying English Literature at Queen’s University, Belfast. Her early poems were published in The Gown (QUB) and Women’s News where, as one of the original members she also wrote Arts Reviews and had work published in Spare Rib.  She returned to writing again after a long absence and her poetry has been featured in a variety of anthologies including The Poet’s Place and Movement (Poetry in Motion – The Community Arts Partnership), The Sea (Rebel Poetry Ireland), all three editions of Washing Windows and Her Other Language (Arlen House). She has also been a reader at "Purely Poetry" - Open Mic Night, Belfast.

Review by Amirah Mohiddin of "Mulan: Five Versions," trans. Shiamin Kwa and Wilt Idema

Kwa and Idema’s Mulan: Five Versions of a Classic Chinese Legend with Related Texts gives five beautiful versions that preceded the much-loved Disney rendition of Mulan. It begins with an insightful introduction full of essential information regarding the original legend. The collection begins with ‘Poem of Mulan’ (386-533 A.D), moving onto ‘Song of Mulan’ (8th century), ‘The Female Mulan Joins the Army in Place of Her Father’ (16th century), ‘Mu Lan Joins the Army’ (1903) and finally ending with the script of the same name, ‘Mulan Joins the Army’ (1939).

Mulan is a household name. Disney’s Mulan (1998) was released during the third wave of feminism. I for one can unashamedly say that it is my favourite Disney movie of all time (yes, it’s better than Frozen). In every version, Mulan dresses as a male and goes to war in her father’s place. Mulan is always initially presented in a stereotypically female role, dissatisfied with her situation and ends back in the feminine role as a stronger and more well-rounded individual.

Yet this poses the question: why does she need to return to the private sphere that women have occupied over centuries? This is where Kwa and Idema’s expert unification of these versions is so essential. Mulan’s tale has grown from the original ballad. Kwa and Idema have scratched beneath the surface and have shown the development of not only the story of Mulan, but also the character. Mulan deconstructs the private and public spheres of women and men respectively, by transitioning between them. Also, Mulan evolves across centuries from the weaver, the hunter and the martial artist. In her male character development, she begins as a struggling soldier and develops into a heroic warrior.

It is by showing this evolution that Kwa and Idema have presented Mulan’s monumental journey over the ages. Consequently, they have also presented important attributes of Chinese culture, such as, filial loyalty to her family and kingdom, attributes which have persisted in the story until this day.

But to me, it’s Mulan’s loyalty to herself and her conviction as a woman that is truly highlighted in this collection. Mulan shows confidence and awareness in all the different versions. She knows she is right in her decisions as a warrior, it’s not a gendered question, it’s one of self-esteem. Mulan holds herself in such high esteem and self-respect, that in these versions, she has never felt the need to provide an explanation for her gender. In fact, in many of the renditions in Mulan: Five Versions, her gender is only highlighted at the very beginning and end. Mulan is simply a warrior, not a woman, not a man; she is a general and a saviour. Without question she is a heroine.

Kwa and Idema’s collection brings together a history to the character we love, presenting readers with the significance of Mulan as a Chinese popular cultural heroine first and foremost, before her international conquest as a result of Disney’s Mulan (1998). She is there to show that the image of the submissive Chinese female is a misconstrued stereotype and that women are able to fight just as well as men, and most of the time, better.

Disney’s Mulan will always have a warm place in my heart, but it’s Kwa and Idema’s translations, showing her independence and feminist attitude across centuries, that have earned her a place in my soul.


About the reviewer
Amirah Mohiddin, born in Birmingham U.K, is an MA Creative Writing student. She specialises in fantasy, speculative fiction and magical realism.

Review by Danielle Copeland of "I, Tituba, Black Witch of Salem" by Maryse Condé, trans. Richard Philcox

Tituba's story begins many years before the hysteria of witchcraft hits the village of Salem, and takes us much further afield than Massachusetts. In Condé's book, the historical figure of Tituba is necromanced into a bold narrator, recounting her story from infancy to her death. As the daughter of an Ashanti slave and the by-product of rape, the tone of injustice is set from the opening sentence. With the assault taking place on the deck of a ship christened Christ The King, we believe we are prepared for religious hypocrisy, prepared to hear of the inequity executed under the guise of puritan Christianity. We are not. Condé shows us life in the 17th century through new eyes; we forget what we know about life in such a time and are as vulnerable as our protagonist to each twist in the narrative.

Barbados is given the lush description it deserves, but its natural beauty is overshadowed by the colonial empire that has been forced onto it. The book's very opening has us questioning whether it is a story about Salem or a story about slaves, but it is soon revealed that the two need not be mutually exclusive. Maryse Condé has written a story about people. People who, despite their best intentions, are not able to succeed due to circumstances beyond their control. Everything and everyone has their time, and for Tituba we certainly wish that her time had been different. Accused of doing the Devil's work despite having no knowledge of Christian vices or values, Tituba learns quickly that peace and privacy are luxuries not afforded to those whom others seek to use.

The story does require a certain amount of suspended disbelief in order to thoroughly appreciate Tituba's journey. Though we now know that what many thought to be a witch's potion was simply herbal medicine, in this book witchcraft becomes a reality. Magic is given life very early on in the text, though it is not given a name. The word “witch” is not uttered until “Satan” and “Devil” are also shared, long after we have seen Tituba use and manipulate nature to do her bidding for good. Perhaps, like many things, witchcraft is part of a dichotomy: good and bad, black and white, witchcraft and hoodoo. Indeed it is suggested that Mary Sibley, a wife of Salem and respected white woman, is involved in magical practices. For the magic of Tituba, history has recanted people's accusations against her, now that it is no longer convenient. Instead of “witch”, many texts say she practised hoodoo, folk magic which by design is more aligned with the experiences of African-Americans than white Americans. Condé critiques this deeply, for why should witchcraft be remembered as the practise of white women? Why should we mourn the innocents who were drowned, accused and tortured only because we are told they were Caucasian? I, Tituba, Black Witch of Salem reminds us that it was black women who bore the weight of such cruelty first. Tituba is a witch, not a hoodoo practitioner, and she wears her title with pride.

Though the novel is a retelling of one of the most significant events in American history, it is also a tale of race and of sex. The gendered subplot is one which resonates within society, even now. Tituba is very human, with the ability to make mistakes. Many of her irrational and seemingly illogical decisions are inspired by listening to her heart, not her head. Nor, we learn, to the spirits she so frequently calls upon for advice – advice she seldom adheres to. Her relationship with the charismatic yet cunning John Indian is one such decision. As irritating as the choices Tituba makes in her youth can be, it is refreshing to experience a character who is not without flaws. She is perhaps one of the most relatable characters in historical fiction, possessing very modern views on sexual liberation and showing respect for the beliefs of others which differ from her own. For a time Tituba experiences life surrounded by a Jewish family, and as much as she observes their culture and customs, she is also exposed to the anti-Semitic influences rife within 17th century America. After enduring her own abuse, it is a shocking comparison to see just how deeply rooted the social fear of “otherness” is. Whether it be by skin tone, gender or religious practice, this book ensures that time admits to all its injustices.

As much as Condé is concerned with addressing racial mistreatment, she is first and foremost concerned with the voices of society's most vulnerable: women of colour. Tituba's interrogation is a deeply uncomfortable read not only for the fact that we know she will be shown no mercy, but also due to the fact that there is a level of sexism to the torture used against her. Sexual abuse is rife throughout the text, and there is an element of horror as we are exposed to such events, and it is a stark reminder that we cannot move forwards until we look back. This book is not for the faint-hearted, nor is it intended to be easy to consume.

It is impossible to read Condé's novel without feeling as though you have been granted a greater understanding of human nature. The pain, the pleasure, the confusion of social politics and the desire to find somewhere to belong. Condé does not ignore the pain of men, instead she highlights the important distinction between suffering for existing, and suffering for existing as a woman. Yet despite its serious nature, there is not just doom and gloom to be found between the pages of I, Tituba, but hope, too. There is a beauty to the fact that joy can be found in even the most trying times, and a reminder that humanity is not lost.

I, Tituba, Black Witch of Salem is a feminist post-colonial novel which integrates actual historic records of conversation and interrogation, often to the extent that we as a readership forget that Tituba's story post-Salem remains undocumented. Condé fictionalises many aspects of Tituba's life, in order to grant her a satisfying and (mostly) happy ending. It is the very least that she deserves. Tituba's fondness of love and romance does not overshadow the bonds of sisterhood she makes with the women in her story, women who are both white and of colour. She is betrayed time again by those in which she places her trust, yet this does not harden her heart. It is an inspiration to us all that kindness does not bend under the will of brutality. Tituba is reminded (and reminds us, too) that we must not allow ourselves to become like those who would seek to undermine us; instead, we rise above, and by doing so know that goodness will prevail, if only given time.


About the reviewer
Danielle Copeland is a lover of fiction, an experimental baker, and always a fan of a good cup of tea. She blogs at daniellefreya.blogspot.co.uk where she keeps some of her own writing.

Interview with Hélène Cardona

About Hélène Cardona
Hélène Cardona’s recent books include Life in Suspension and Dreaming My Animal Selves (both from Salmon Poetry), the translations Beyond Elsewhere (Gabriel Arnou-Laujeac, White Pine Press), winner of a Hemingway Grant; Ce que nous portons (Dorianne Laux, Éditions du Cygne); The Birnam Wood by her father José Manuel Cardona (forthcoming from Salmon Poetry in 2018); and Walt Whitman’s Civil War Writings for WhitmanWeb.  
She has also translated Rimbaud, Baudelaire, René Depestre, Ernest Pépin, Aloysius Bertrand, Maram Al-Masri, Eric Sarner, Jean-Claude Renard, Nicolas Grenier, and Christiane Singer. She contributes essays to The London Magazine, co-edits Plume and Fulcrum, holds a Master’s in American Literature from the Sorbonne, received fellowships from the Goethe-Institut & Universidad Internacional de Andalucía, worked as a translator for the Canadian Embassy in Paris, and taught at Hamilton College & LMU. Publications include Washington Square Review, World Literature Today, Poetry International, Hayden’s Ferry Review, The Brooklyn Rail, Drunken Boat, Asymptote and The Warwick Review.     http://helenecardona.com

Interview with Jonathan Taylor

JT: How would you describe your own (very individualistic) poetic voice? What are your intentions in your poetry?

HC: I write as a form of self-expression, fulfilment, transcendence, healing, to transmute pain and experience into beauty. For me, poetry is a process of self-revelation, an exploration of hidden dimensions in myself, and also a way to express the profound experience of the fundamental interconnection of all in the universe. Writing is cathartic as it extends a search for peace, for serenity, rooted in a desire to transcend and reconcile the fundamental duality I see in life. Ultimately, I seek expansion of consciousness.

We are stretched to the frontiers of what we know, exploring language and the psyche. The poem is a gesture, an opening toward a greater truth or understanding. Art brings us to the edge of the incomprehensible. The poems, in their alchemy and geology, are fragments of dreams, enigmas, shafts of light, part myth, and part fable. Mysticism constitutes the experience of what transcends us while inhabiting us. Poetry, as creation, borders on it. It is metaphysical. It offers a new vision of the universe, reveals the soul’s secrets and mysteries. These lines from the poem “The Isle of Immortals” encapsulate my philosophy:

The ultimate aim is reverence for the universe.
The ultimate aim is love for life.
The ultimate aim is harmony within oneself.

What defines my writing is the sacred dimension of the poetic experience. And it is founded in very concrete reality, a reconciliation of the spiritual and the carnal. It speaks of transformation and seeks the unison of all that lives. 

JT: Clearly, your poetry is enjoyed by a wide range of different readers; but I was wondering if you have a kind of ideal reader? That is, who is the reader you imagine when you are writing?

HC: Thank you for saying that. I’m delighted to have a wide range of readers. But I don’t write for a specific kind of reader. I’m hoping my poetry leaves the reader in awe, with a renewed sense of wonder and of the sacred. 

JT: Your poetry collections Dreaming My Animal Selves and Life in Suspension are bilingual, and you write in French and English equally fluently. What are the challenges of presenting your work in this way? For example, are there things that one language can do which the other can’t, and vice versa?

HC: English has been my language of choice for a long time now. French is my mother tongue but English became the dominant language when I moved to the United States. Actually it took over even before, when I wrote my thesis on Henry James for my masters at the Sorbonne. I was already an anglophile, having lived and studied in England, and I loved writing in English. I feel as if English, even though it was my fifth language, chose me. So I write in English first and then translate into French. I love this exercise of going back and forth because it enables me to make beautiful discoveries. I’m also influenced by other languages, including Spanish, German, Italian and Latin. It’s very stimulating and enriching. I was born in Paris and grew up in Switzerland, France, Monaco, England, Wales, Germany, Greece and Spain, absorbing different cultures and ideas. 

When I wrote my first collection in English, I did not originally intend it to be a bilingual collection. It was my first publisher’s idea that I present it as a bilingual collection. This turned out to be a brilliant idea. It was fascinating because it rekindled my love of the French language and of writing in French again. The French translation absolutely informed the English version. I made discoveries with the French and it became a dance between both languages. I also felt more freedom than if I were translating someone else because it was my own text. This has been the process for all three collections.

To answer your question, there are always things one language can do which the other can’t. And so the process is a bit like that of a detective searching for clues and of a mathematician looking to solve a problem.

In my interview with John Ashbery for Le Mot Juste, which was also published on the Poetry Foundation, I commented that French leaves less room for ambiguity. It’s a very precise language. So is English but English is more fluid. Interestingly, Ashbery responded that he needs “sort of a sfumato effect to hide in or to find material in.” 

JT: How do all the languages influence you and your writing?

HC: I think they stimulate the mind in different ways. I’m naturally curious about other cultures. Having been raised in a very international environment makes me a citizen of the world. Both my parents were immigrants. My mother left Greece to move to France. My father escaped the Franco dictatorship so as not to be jailed for his writing. That’s how my parents met. I am an immigrant too. After moving to the U.S., I became an American citizen. So I’m keenly aware about not fitting into molds. I wasn’t the typical French girl growing up. At home, all my parents’ friends were foreigners. My dad worked for the United Nations in Geneva and Paris, among other places, and his colleagues were mostly from South America or Spain, but also from Iran and other countries. I literally grew up in the U.N., which is a microcosm of the world.

So very early on I would transition between languages and countries. It’s harder to be nationalistic when you’re made of several countries. It opens up your mind. When you learn new languages it creates synapses in the brain. They inform my writing, consciously, and unconsciously. All kinds of associations come to mind when I read or write.

JT: Your poetry draws heavily on dream, mythical and psychoanalytic imagery and archetypes. In this sense, I suppose it’s not really “poetry of the everyday,” perhaps.  Why are you drawn to this kind of imagery in your poetry?

HC: I like to cultivate a relationship with my inner self through dreams and love to remember them. I keep a notebook by my bed and write them down. You always dream, it’s only a matter of remembering. The day is the waking dream. When I trained with Sandra Seacat at the Actors’ Studio in New York, she introduced me to a particular form of dream work, which could be called Jungian. I have done this work for many years now. It’s very therapeutic. And it can also be used to develop a character in a play or movie. Your inner self has all the answers and will give them to you, as long as you’re meant to know what you’re asking for. 
In the dream you are connected to your inner self and to the divine. We experience the dream’s intelligence and the world psyche. Everything in the universe is connected. Dreams provide insight into the personal and archetypal dimensions of the unconscious. I’ve continued to train with different teachers and shamans. Dream work is medicine for the soul and helps us integrate our conscious and unconscious selves so we can explore our path, gain self-insight and wisdom, and fulfill ourselves. Many poems are born from dreams. It’s a wonderful gift to be given to hear a new melody or lines this way. For instance, the poem “My Mother Ceridwen” came from a dream: my mother appeared to me as the Celtic goddess Ceridwen.

JT: You’ve talked in interviews about the “transformations” of self involved in acting, costumes and performance. What are the similarities and differences, do you think, between the kinds of transformations of selves in your poetry, and those involved in, say, acting?

HC: Acting and writing are two creative outlets for me, two ways of expressing who I am. It helped me a lot when I was in drama school studying Shakespeare from a performer’s perspective that I had already read most of the plays and knew the language. The fact that I had studied so much literature made it easy for me to analyze the texts. But then you want to get out of your head as an actor. And studying the Meisner technique was very useful for that. It helps you be in the moment and react to what’s going on in the room, to be acutely aware of your surroundings, of others. It shifts the attention from you to whoever is with you. Which in turn is helpful when you read poetry. There is an audience you want to address, you can’t just be in your head. And you have to project. There isn’t always a mike. So good diction helps. I also like to hear what I write, the sounds and rhythms. If I stumble, maybe I need to change a word.

As an actor I am drawn to films that are visually beautiful and poetic. At the same time, I always pay close attention to the screenplay. It’s the backbone of the film. I was lucky to work with Lawrence Kasdan (Mumford). He writes all his screenplays, and they’re usually original screenplays. He’s a terrific writer and director. I was also lucky to work on Lasse Hallström’s Chocolat. Robert Nelson Jacobs’s screenplay was nominated for an Oscar and won the BAFTA award. It’s based on the beautiful novel by Joanne Harris. Great writing helps the actor. 

Acting and writing both raise your consciousness and in that sense, enhance one another.
On a personal level, it’s very satisfying to have more than one creative outlet. If I’m not working on an acting project, I can write. I can always use my time creatively. 

JT: Which of your many talents - acting, voice-over, poetry, etc. - do you enjoy spending time on the most?

HC: I’ve worn many hats over the years: teacher, writer, actor, translator, dancer, shaman, dream analyst. I have multiple selves. To be an actor you have to be a chameleon. The search for fulfillment is a recurrent theme in my life. It’s the title of the thesis I wrote about Henry James. Jean-Claude Renard writes that “I” by essence becomes “Other,” that is to say “someone who not only holds the power to fulfill his or her intimate self more and more intensely, but also at the same time, can turn a singular into a plural by creating a work that causes, in its strictest individuality, a charge emotionally alive and glowing with intensity.” In that sense the work’s artistry affects others and helps their own transformation. This applies to any art. I’m happy as long as I can express myself through art and I love to work. Whether writing or acting, I find myself in an exalted state of concentration and consciousness, like a meditation or trance. It’s as if time stops or expands and I’m able to touch other worlds and keep a sense of connection with what is bigger than me.    

JT: What are you working on at the moment?

HC: With my partner John, we have adapted his novel Primate into a screenplay and we’re looking to get it made into a film. 



I just co-translated, with Yves Lambrecht, Walt Whitman’s Civil War Writings for WhitmanWeb. It was commissioned by the International Writing Program at the University of Iowa. It was a ten-month long endeavor. The Civil War Writings retrace Whitman’s writing and service as a volunteer nurse during the American Civil War. We also translated the in-depth commentaries that scholars Ed Folsom and Christopher Merrill wrote for each text. The poems and texts are thus bookended with a foreword and afterword. They explore how writing and image can be used to examine war, conflict, trauma, and reconciliation in Whitman’s time and today. 


Ce que nous portons, my translation of What We Carry by Dorianne Laux, was recently published by Editions du Cygne in Paris.

I’ve been translating Franco-Syrian poet Maram Al-Masri. Several poems were published in the Plume Anthology 4, Hayden’s Ferry Review, Anastamos, and Exchanges Poetry Journal, and some are forthcoming in Drunken Boat, the new issue of Fulcrum: An Annual of Poetry and Aesthetics, and a few other journals. 

Some translations of French poet Eric Sarner were just published in The Brooklyn Rail’s InTranslation and a translation of Nicolas Grenier is forthcoming in TAB: The Journal of Poetry & Poetics. Beyond Elsewhere, my translation of Plus loin qu’ailleurs by Gabriel Arnou-Laujeac, just came out from White Pine Press. It was awarded a Hemingway Grant by the French Ministry of Culture. 

For quite some time I’ve been translating the poetry of my father José Manuel Cardona from Spanish. Salmon Poetry will publish The Birnam Wood next year. You can read some of the poems in World Literature Today, Waxwing Magazine, Taos Journal of International Poetry and Art, The American Journal of Poetry, National Translation Month, Askew Poetry Journal, Periódico de Poesía, Plume, and TAB: The Journal of Poetry & Poetics.

I’ve translated an essay from Christiane Singer’s book N’oublie pas les chevaux écumants du passé, which just came out in Asymptote.

Finally, I’m co-translating another book by Maram Al-Masri with Marc Vincenz and co-producing the documentary Pablo Neruda: The People’s Poet, with Mark Eisner.

About the interviewer
Jonathan Taylor is an author, editor, lecturer and critic. His books include the novel Melissa (Salt, 2015), the poetry collection Musicolepsy (Shoestring, 2013), and the memoir Take Me Home (Granta Books, 2007). He directs the MA in Creative Writing at the University of Leicester. His website is www.jonathanptaylor.co.uk.

Review by Ariane Dean of "Trysting" by Emmanuelle Pagano

When looking back on any relationship, whether it be with a partner or a much-loved friend, there are small moments that may seem insignificant, or may seem hugely important, but that nevertheless stay with us long after that person has left our lives. Emmanuelle Pagano’s book, Trysting, is a love song to the small moments, whether they are good or bad. Not so much a collection of short stories, but gathered snippets from people’s lives, written first in French and entitled Nouons-nous, it has since been translated into English by Jennifer Higgins and Sophie Lewis. The book is published in English by And Other Stories, and in the original French by P.O.L.

Every passage is short, the longest being around a page and half, the shortest just one line. This approach gives one the feeling of dipping into someone’s memories, exploring their past, and examining the responses that they may not have given at the time. Each piece is beautifully crafted, and even the bad times are recounted in a steady, calm manner, providing reflection and peace to experiences of great emotion.  The little tales are deeply nostalgic, a glimpse inside the mind of a stranger.

What I adored about this book was that nearly all the passages were non-gender specific. The stories are told in first person, and while they reference pronouns for their partner, the speaker tells little about themselves, enabling the reader to easily input their own personality and experiences into the story. Sometimes it feels like a friend confessing something they had long kept bottled up, other times it is something you yourself had half forgotten. Each passage works in a new object, place, or time, and finds new meaning in simplicity.

Although the stories are unrelated, there is a strong sense of them being tied together, with an underlying theme of the strengths and weaknesses of human nature. The people in these stories seem very real – they are dealing with ordinary worries and loves. However, Pagano’s beautiful writing and the incredible translation makes them seem vastly more important. There are lines that stayed with me for a long time after I had finished reading, and sections that I read aloud to my partner that conveyed ideas far better than I ever could.

My final thoughts on Trysting are that it was unexpectedly comforting. I had expected after the first few stories to find them sad, a little heart-breaking. Dipping in and out and reading a few little stories every now and then, I discovered that the book makes one feel much less lonely in traversing the difficult points in human relationships. Emmanuelle Pagano’s calm, measured approach to the uneasy things that could be made dramatic far simpler, and I closed the book feeling surprisingly much better than when I went in.


About the reviewer

Ariane Dean is a third year student at the University of Leicester, studying English. She has written theatre and comedy reviews for Buxton Fringe Festival over the last three years, and is working on editing past NaNoWriMo attempts to try and make them readable.