1 00:00:17,460 --> 00:00:24,540 Welcome, everyone, to Big Tent. Live events. The Lockdown Live Online event series brought to you by Torch, 2 00:00:24,540 --> 00:00:31,580 the Oxford Research Centre for the Humanities as part of the humanities cultural programme itself, one of the founding stones for the future. 3 00:00:31,580 --> 00:00:36,120 Stephen Schwarzman, Centre for the Humanities here in Oxford. 4 00:00:36,120 --> 00:00:41,490 My name is Wes Williams and I'm a professor of French literature and also a fellow as an Edmund Hall. 5 00:00:41,490 --> 00:00:45,290 And I'm also the knowledge exchange champion here at Torch. 6 00:00:45,290 --> 00:00:50,930 The Big Tent Live event series is our way of bringing together once a week researchers and students, 7 00:00:50,930 --> 00:00:55,580 performers and practitioners from across the different humanities disciplines. 8 00:00:55,580 --> 00:01:02,030 We will explore important subjects and ask challenging questions about areas such as the environment, 9 00:01:02,030 --> 00:01:07,700 medical, humanities, ethics and A.I., the public, the private and the common good. 10 00:01:07,700 --> 00:01:14,580 And we will celebrate storytelling and music, performance, poetry and identity. 11 00:01:14,580 --> 00:01:20,340 We're bringing you this event programme online to complement social distancing with creative connexion. 12 00:01:20,340 --> 00:01:25,920 We hope that you're all safe and well during this difficult time and everyone is welcome in now big tent. 13 00:01:25,920 --> 00:01:31,860 So please make yourself metaphorically as well as literally at home this evening as we explore poetry, 14 00:01:31,860 --> 00:01:35,820 performance and translation on and off the page. 15 00:01:35,820 --> 00:01:43,710 And as we listen to voices from the wings, I'll embarrass both our speakers who you're really here to listen to by saying a little more morbid, 16 00:01:43,710 --> 00:01:49,740 but about them, about their work and why we thought it'd be good to bring them together this evening before we start. 17 00:01:49,740 --> 00:01:54,990 But before doing that, I'd like to remind you that if you'd like to put forward any questions to us, 18 00:01:54,990 --> 00:02:00,030 because during the event tonight, please put them in the comments box on YouTube. 19 00:02:00,030 --> 00:02:06,210 We encourage you to meet these as early as possible so that we have time to answer as many as possible in the Q&A, 20 00:02:06,210 --> 00:02:11,060 which will follow our initial discussion in about 40 minutes or so. 21 00:02:11,060 --> 00:02:14,390 Now onto our excellent speakers tonight. 22 00:02:14,390 --> 00:02:24,620 It's an honour to host and to welcome all Hegar Sandidge, poet, novelist and performer extraordinaire and Professor Karen leader, 23 00:02:24,620 --> 00:02:29,690 scholar, translator and writer, also extraordinaire based here in Oxford. 24 00:02:29,690 --> 00:02:37,780 New College. And in the modern languages faculty. Born in rural Galson, Hyne in former East Germany will take a Sunday. 25 00:02:37,780 --> 00:02:44,230 Now an award winning poet with a whole shelf full of prises to her name began life as a kind of guerrilla poet, 26 00:02:44,230 --> 00:02:51,360 pasting poems onto lampposts on the streets of Leipzig with friends and handing them out on flyers and free postcards. 27 00:02:51,360 --> 00:02:59,100 Two books of stories and full volumes of her poetry have been published since then, and her first novel will appear this autumn. 28 00:02:59,100 --> 00:03:04,280 Performance is a key part of Sunday's work. She's frequently collaborates with filmmakers, 29 00:03:04,280 --> 00:03:11,760 sand artists and musicians taking poetry to the audiences the poetry doesn't usually reach and translation. 30 00:03:11,760 --> 00:03:17,190 This week's theme is a vital part of this, not only at the most fundamental level of turning a feeling, 31 00:03:17,190 --> 00:03:24,270 an image or an idea into a poem on the page, but also carrying over that into impetus that that energy, 32 00:03:24,270 --> 00:03:30,900 whether it's of rage or of consolation into performance, whether it's on the page or on screen, 33 00:03:30,900 --> 00:03:36,710 in front of a classical orchestra or in front of an electronic hip hop band. 34 00:03:36,710 --> 00:03:40,640 Well, Rick has recently undertaken a tour of India and Kashmir where working with English 35 00:03:40,640 --> 00:03:45,320 translations itself enabled further transposition of the poems into other languages, 36 00:03:45,320 --> 00:03:53,420 other styles. She also often performs here in the UK from the Edinburgh Festival and the Hay Festival to the Poetry Festival stanza. 37 00:03:53,420 --> 00:04:02,840 She was together with our other guest, Karen. And the poetry band Lent chuffed due to perform in our actual big tent last month before lockdown. 38 00:04:02,840 --> 00:04:11,060 We have here the two of them, not instead, but as well as Karen started her academic life researching the summer's backed poetry, 39 00:04:11,060 --> 00:04:16,580 art and music scene that existed in East Germany before the fall of Berlin Berlin Wall. 40 00:04:16,580 --> 00:04:24,650 She's continued her interest in GDR and has published widely on modern German culture, especially if the boast 45 and contemporary periods. 41 00:04:24,650 --> 00:04:28,810 She's also prise winning translator of contemporary German literature with Fulker, 42 00:04:28,810 --> 00:04:34,350 Bon, Evelin Schlag and Gruen Byrn all finding their English voice through her work. 43 00:04:34,350 --> 00:04:40,210 Her translation of all League of Spandex Thick of It, published by Seagull Books in 2018, 44 00:04:40,210 --> 00:04:45,190 won an English pen award along with a whole bunch of other awards around the world. 45 00:04:45,190 --> 00:04:52,340 And Oleg and Karen's collection of newly fashioned Grimm tales appeared in a special, limited edition with her strict books. 46 00:04:52,340 --> 00:05:02,000 Also in 2018, hotly anticipated by The New York Times, their latest collection, due later this summer, is when we get a sneak preview of here. 47 00:05:02,000 --> 00:05:10,760 I am a full of rapes. I'm a field full of rapeseed give cover to deer and shine like 13 oil paintings laid one on top of the other. 48 00:05:10,760 --> 00:05:17,870 We are, in other words, in for a treat. Karen was a tortured knowledge exchange fellow with the Southbank Centre in London 49 00:05:17,870 --> 00:05:22,180 way back in 2014 when knowledge exchange here in Oxford was just kicking off. 50 00:05:22,180 --> 00:05:28,100 And that early work has now blossomed into the ongoing multimedia project that is mediating modern poetry. 51 00:05:28,100 --> 00:05:32,890 We've put links to this and the other work in the chat discussion as we go along. 52 00:05:32,890 --> 00:05:39,130 It's a great honour, as I said, to have both Karen and Audrey Kahir and on metaphorical online tenth this afternoon and I for one, 53 00:05:39,130 --> 00:05:45,820 am Frick's and excited to see and hear as they explore the ways in which creative forms of translation can come 54 00:05:45,820 --> 00:05:53,230 to exemplify the ways in which poetry that voice from the wings is itself part of an inclusive political project. 55 00:05:53,230 --> 00:05:58,660 So without further delay, I'm delighted to hand over to Leaker to get the conversation started. 56 00:05:58,660 --> 00:06:02,520 Thank you. Gordon Adams. Good evening. 57 00:06:02,520 --> 00:06:11,370 Hello, everyone. Take the following poem as a little welcome from my side. 58 00:06:11,370 --> 00:06:17,240 Mine lifestyle, they stopped, allowed us to let eggs. 59 00:06:17,240 --> 00:06:24,480 Ben. Show me. I love fly in here. 60 00:06:24,480 --> 00:06:39,720 Is schmoe. Gus's kind of Mallea ish, but schmeer. 61 00:06:39,720 --> 00:06:44,850 That's kind on the house, most then does best known as the ELSS. 62 00:06:44,850 --> 00:06:51,660 Red rover, red rover, let all my friends come over. 63 00:06:51,660 --> 00:06:56,990 Let them all come. Just stay. Not go away. 64 00:06:56,990 --> 00:07:01,660 Not a single one leave before the parties then. 65 00:07:01,660 --> 00:07:06,850 Let there be no more fast growing inside us. 66 00:07:06,850 --> 00:07:15,520 Only round us. Let there be wind in the trees, games in the shade. 67 00:07:15,520 --> 00:07:22,000 Parties like these until like children and the blue of night. 68 00:07:22,000 --> 00:07:27,980 We are taken home, tucked up tight. 69 00:07:27,980 --> 00:07:37,930 But she made this kind of the house moves, then this fist knocked me out, says. 70 00:07:37,930 --> 00:07:43,620 It's Vernon Schmidt, invented in the Esther de Spieler Shop. 71 00:07:43,620 --> 00:07:54,120 The oh Shandon fest, the. The stuff blowing that one silly windows be now. 72 00:07:54,120 --> 00:08:01,500 Howser, Haim, Buck. Oh, hi, Karen. 73 00:08:01,500 --> 00:08:04,420 Hello. Hello. That was amazing. 74 00:08:04,420 --> 00:08:10,970 And it was lovely to hear the English and the Germans together and to get a taste of you moving between those languages. 75 00:08:10,970 --> 00:08:19,510 So thank you very, very much for that. And in it, you welcome everyone into your world of poetry, all your friends. 76 00:08:19,510 --> 00:08:26,200 And I wanted to pick up and start a conversation with something West said about your things in poetry, 77 00:08:26,200 --> 00:08:32,950 where you took poetry out into the streets in a kind of urban intervention. 78 00:08:32,950 --> 00:08:40,640 And I wondered how that it influenced your take on poetry now, the desire to reach people. 79 00:08:40,640 --> 00:08:46,800 Indeed, when you were touring India recently, I'm fortunate I couldn't come with you and I saw wonderful pictures of you with megaphones. 80 00:08:46,800 --> 00:08:57,140 Yes. Yes. And so can you tell me a little bit about how healthy you hope is about reaching those people, welcome the men or going out to meet them? 81 00:08:57,140 --> 00:09:03,110 Well, when I started this street literature project, Alden paused in English. 82 00:09:03,110 --> 00:09:12,170 This would be a male, I suppose. I didn't see it specifically as a literature project. 83 00:09:12,170 --> 00:09:19,110 I thought of myself as a street artist and student of Indian Indian languages. 84 00:09:19,110 --> 00:09:22,590 So but I didn't see myself as a writer. 85 00:09:22,590 --> 00:09:30,680 These back then, and only through the reactions that I got by these poster. 86 00:09:30,680 --> 00:09:34,490 By the people who saw these posters and wanted more of them. 87 00:09:34,490 --> 00:09:39,980 And asked for them every month when the new edition edition would come out. 88 00:09:39,980 --> 00:09:44,750 Only by these audiences. I got through the Open Post project. 89 00:09:44,750 --> 00:09:56,350 I learnt how it felt, how that literature is probably something that addresses to an audience that you don't know, 90 00:09:56,350 --> 00:09:59,300 perhaps that it's not your friends and not your family, 91 00:09:59,300 --> 00:10:10,310 just an audience that you don't know, but that you hope, but that you hope that its brain works in a similar way as yours. 92 00:10:10,310 --> 00:10:15,260 So you you hope that you can make yourself understand by some understood by someone that you 93 00:10:15,260 --> 00:10:22,070 don't even know everything that gives you an idea of what literature in general could be. 94 00:10:22,070 --> 00:10:36,800 But also, it's, of course, as being when you start thinking about literature, not through books, but through other means, self or other art forms. 95 00:10:36,800 --> 00:10:43,850 And that is that is of point of view from which I. 96 00:10:43,850 --> 00:10:53,210 I still write. I think I still I still love to to work in literally literary fields and different art forms, 97 00:10:53,210 --> 00:10:59,330 not only for the book, but also for the book, of course, and also for the reader. 98 00:10:59,330 --> 00:11:09,830 And speaking of that, Karen, it comes to my mind that now as I have a little bit more time at home that I usually have I in April, 99 00:11:09,830 --> 00:11:18,170 I had finally time to to bring some order into my stuff and and and look under my piles 100 00:11:18,170 --> 00:11:25,210 of books and were not as high as Wesa's pilots that we have seen and the beginning. 101 00:11:25,210 --> 00:11:36,440 But I guess I found finally some of these posters of these Ogan cause I made posters which I thought I'd long like years ago, thrown away. 102 00:11:36,440 --> 00:11:40,520 So this is what it looks like. That simple? It couldn't be more simple. 103 00:11:40,520 --> 00:11:46,670 There was just the logo and the poem and and the name, which was a bit of a risky thing because it's, 104 00:11:46,670 --> 00:11:50,600 of course, not allowed to paste your stuff on to every word you like. 105 00:11:50,600 --> 00:11:54,350 But yeah, I wanted to show you this. Isn't that nice? 106 00:11:54,350 --> 00:11:57,890 It's still there. Faces a museum piece. 107 00:11:57,890 --> 00:12:03,080 Now, that's because it's so old now. 108 00:12:03,080 --> 00:12:09,860 You talked about writing the page, but also writing poems that move off the page. 109 00:12:09,860 --> 00:12:14,960 And you've collaborated with, course, a number of people. We're going to talk about some of those collaborations. 110 00:12:14,960 --> 00:12:24,980 But one of the first ones, I think one of the last and most important ones is with Sebastian Reutter, who's a musician and sound artist. 111 00:12:24,980 --> 00:12:32,330 Yes. Yeah. Sebastian Goitre called him and said the sound cosmonaut Declan Cossman out. 112 00:12:32,330 --> 00:12:39,380 That's him. As he is just. 113 00:12:39,380 --> 00:12:53,720 And yeah. And Sebastian is my partner in life, but also the sound composer that I often work with, together with four radio pieces. 114 00:12:53,720 --> 00:13:02,510 And sometimes we do like small pieces, which are of course sometimes we broadcast them with radio stations, 115 00:13:02,510 --> 00:13:12,590 but mostly it's for SoundCloud or for Facebook or for my Web site, like small pieces of of like poetry pieces, audible poetry. 116 00:13:12,590 --> 00:13:16,310 That's how we call it. And that's how we put it. 117 00:13:16,310 --> 00:13:20,500 And one of his compositions is not funded. 118 00:13:20,500 --> 00:13:29,120 Deutche Inch. This is my the title of my German poem that it's based on in English and your English translation. 119 00:13:29,120 --> 00:13:33,970 It's news about the German language as a use of oxygen news. 120 00:13:33,970 --> 00:13:37,980 France news about Germany was from the German language. 121 00:13:37,980 --> 00:13:44,540 And the nice thing is when when you work with him in the studio, of course, 122 00:13:44,540 --> 00:13:56,070 it feels like a very humble and small thing that with that we can't even imagine that someone would look like that at. 123 00:13:56,070 --> 00:14:07,170 Impact outside of our studio walls. And but it does have an impact and sometimes it makes me really proud and happy to be like with. 124 00:14:07,170 --> 00:14:12,870 To see what these pieces turn into. 125 00:14:12,870 --> 00:14:25,650 And the nice thing about the news from the German language poetry piece is that it got picked up by a by a Dutch orchestra. 126 00:14:25,650 --> 00:14:35,260 The metal pool orchestra. And they put it into an orchestra or like transformed it into an they orchestrated it. 127 00:14:35,260 --> 00:14:41,160 Basically, it's not really. It's not very many poets get to work with a full scale orchestra. 128 00:14:41,160 --> 00:15:23,400 So let's have a let's have a look at that now. This. Funded nights and spa. 129 00:15:23,400 --> 00:15:41,930 Spight, Tolleson, Don Zech, some I domine. Venice, Skillings, 10 feet below. 130 00:15:41,930 --> 00:16:02,740 Amanda, you the under by name. Yes, Chillun Gillings shows Shozo. 131 00:16:02,740 --> 00:16:22,380 To Jim Hall and to sue the [INAUDIBLE]. I know this Schlissel Makale made this show. 132 00:16:22,380 --> 00:16:32,890 A bit less in Deschene and Schmetzer, lucky again, she Yong's Ryan Elstein unsaddle The Bomb Goes. 133 00:16:32,890 --> 00:16:56,310 Kind of late here in the loft. I was at Intel. 134 00:16:56,310 --> 00:17:06,660 Venus, Michigan, linked, then minus managed, but I guess it was just three unfaithful and monochord to I think of the Schmiel. 135 00:17:06,660 --> 00:18:17,890 Believe me, I was just finished the man. 136 00:18:17,890 --> 00:18:23,450 That was great. Thank you for that monoculture against monoculture. 137 00:18:23,450 --> 00:18:31,320 And what a brilliant way to do that. That's really yes, because I mean, because of course it's not. 138 00:18:31,320 --> 00:18:35,070 It's not. I don't want to, like, show off. 139 00:18:35,070 --> 00:18:39,030 Oh, no. I worked with the I worked with a orchestra. 140 00:18:39,030 --> 00:18:46,550 I haven't. But but the nice thing about about collaborations like that is that you get the chance to 141 00:18:46,550 --> 00:18:58,170 to be heard with your ideas about society and that you kind of contribute to an ongoing, 142 00:18:58,170 --> 00:19:01,890 ongoing struggle to change, to make the world a better place. 143 00:19:01,890 --> 00:19:06,270 It's I can't I can't I can't find better words in English to put it. 144 00:19:06,270 --> 00:19:10,560 But I hope I mean, you know what? You know what I mean. 145 00:19:10,560 --> 00:19:15,120 It's not it's not just the art. It's it's it's. 146 00:19:15,120 --> 00:19:18,920 It's a means of communication, basically. Yeah. 147 00:19:18,920 --> 00:19:28,140 Yeah. And you see it once when we were performing some poems. 148 00:19:28,140 --> 00:19:36,090 It takes you a long time before you know how they can be performed and you don't perform them. 149 00:19:36,090 --> 00:19:39,880 And then years later, you suddenly understand how they will come. 150 00:19:39,880 --> 00:19:45,120 It's like they've got a kind of third dimension implicit in them. But you've got to find it. 151 00:19:45,120 --> 00:19:49,410 Yes. And isn't is it your collaborators who help you find it? 152 00:19:49,410 --> 00:19:57,140 Or is it a process within you develops and allows it to come into being. 153 00:19:57,140 --> 00:20:05,420 Well, I think it's more a process within me because I wouldn't show ponies that I don't 154 00:20:05,420 --> 00:20:12,230 have an idea of their audibility yet to collaborators such as Sebastian or Cody, 155 00:20:12,230 --> 00:20:28,610 whom we will talk about later on. I think it's also the idea that some homes are not meant to be audible at all, some or well, or if audible at all. 156 00:20:28,610 --> 00:20:33,470 Then with your inner voice. I guess so sometimes. 157 00:20:33,470 --> 00:20:43,520 But sometimes there is a poem that I wrote, for instance, the first poem in my latest volume. 158 00:20:43,520 --> 00:20:49,730 It it looks very audible when you read it reads very audible because it deals 159 00:20:49,730 --> 00:20:57,440 with a Latin song that is very well known in Germany for political reasons. 160 00:20:57,440 --> 00:21:01,150 This don't know this, but some. 161 00:21:01,150 --> 00:21:09,470 But some you know that. Some. And and but it took me years until I finally like last year, 162 00:21:09,470 --> 00:21:17,060 I think finally found a way to perform this properly because it felt like people should 163 00:21:17,060 --> 00:21:23,810 hear this song with my which I changed all instruments in my poem with their inner voice. 164 00:21:23,810 --> 00:21:34,560 But but last year, suddenly I was I found myself on a festival in southern Germany and it was a very light summer atmosphere. 165 00:21:34,560 --> 00:21:43,190 And suddenly I changed my setlist in my reading and my reading for my reading and started to perform this poem. 166 00:21:43,190 --> 00:21:52,790 This poem to the audience and made them sing along with me, which was a surprise for myself and for them as well. 167 00:21:52,790 --> 00:22:02,420 But sometimes it just did. Yeah. Sometimes these poems, like they take independent ways from from what you actually thought them to be. 168 00:22:02,420 --> 00:22:08,640 Yeah. How scary for your audience. They'll be very worried Americans will come. 169 00:22:08,640 --> 00:22:14,270 Yeah. Yeah. They won't dare go into my readings again ever. 170 00:22:14,270 --> 00:22:23,360 Yeah. But was it was it what I always ask myself what I wonder as how poems like the novelist funded Deutsche Pather. 171 00:22:23,360 --> 00:22:31,850 The news from the German language and poems German poems in your English translation in general. 172 00:22:31,850 --> 00:22:35,630 How are they received by the English audience, by your. 173 00:22:35,630 --> 00:22:41,550 By your readership? How? That doesn't make a difference for English readers. 174 00:22:41,550 --> 00:22:49,490 When you when you show them a peloton and you say, OK, that's not my own poem, that's a poem by, for instance, 175 00:22:49,490 --> 00:22:58,560 will be kind with this Ordos queen when you have translated quite a range of of German poets like Polish. 176 00:22:58,560 --> 00:23:02,850 What does good man woke up on and doesn't make a difference to them, 177 00:23:02,850 --> 00:23:12,670 especially specifically when it's a Pelon that deals with language such as the last one? 178 00:23:12,670 --> 00:23:18,720 Well, I speak you're speaking to a kind of self-selecting audience in some ways. 179 00:23:18,720 --> 00:23:21,990 I interviewed him quite long ago, Michel Kleeger, 180 00:23:21,990 --> 00:23:29,520 and he told this brilliant anecdote about how there's always one thousand three hundred and seventy six people in any country that read poetry. 181 00:23:29,520 --> 00:23:38,480 And that doesn't matter if it's tiny country or huge country 1371 people you're you're talking to. 182 00:23:38,480 --> 00:23:50,820 And so I think it's people that are ready to have their language stretched and be open to something that is outside their language, but not beyond it. 183 00:23:50,820 --> 00:23:59,410 And I and your poetry does that. I mean, I think that's what fascinates me in it, in that I don't think it exists in the English language. 184 00:23:59,410 --> 00:24:04,470 And why I wanted to translate it was because I wanted to create barge's, 185 00:24:04,470 --> 00:24:09,860 shoved aside things and make a place for it in English, because it seemed to me it wasn't a voice, it was an English. 186 00:24:09,860 --> 00:24:14,190 And I think I mean, I've had you know, we both had very good reception to that. 187 00:24:14,190 --> 00:24:19,020 And I think that's what people recognised, that something new, a voice from the wings was from outside. 188 00:24:19,020 --> 00:24:29,820 Our language is coming in and claiming you're mistaking its own place in the language and changing the language because of it. 189 00:24:29,820 --> 00:24:40,410 I mean, that reminds me, you mentioned Gregory earlier that squiggly some cheque who were just more poetry bombs, lunch trusts. 190 00:24:40,410 --> 00:24:46,510 That's him. Yes, that is referring here. And he's Ukrainian. 191 00:24:46,510 --> 00:24:55,440 And the main land trust, in a sense, is programatic, isn't it, of the kind of project of the poetry band. 192 00:24:55,440 --> 00:24:59,370 And yes, it is was interacting. Can you tell us a bit about that? 193 00:24:59,370 --> 00:25:09,300 Yeah. Well, hurry, Sam and Chuck. He is not only a poet, but also a musician. 194 00:25:09,300 --> 00:25:17,230 He's into hip hop a lot. But his roots are in punk and punk music and. 195 00:25:17,230 --> 00:25:25,440 And. Yeah. And I met him in two thousand and fifteen. 196 00:25:25,440 --> 00:25:31,530 I know he's watching. So I'm just say I agree it's. 197 00:25:31,530 --> 00:25:42,120 And. Yeah. And we started. We started as sort of blind date in Kiev and Kiev. 198 00:25:42,120 --> 00:25:50,510 There was a there is a book fair which is very young. An arsenal in a special place. 199 00:25:50,510 --> 00:25:55,080 And in a special place in Kiev. 200 00:25:55,080 --> 00:26:00,630 And we were put together by the Good Institute, actually, as a blind date for. 201 00:26:00,630 --> 00:26:06,210 For one. Poetry performance. Improvisation, actually. 202 00:26:06,210 --> 00:26:12,810 Or concept impro. So and we met with literally one hour before going on stage. 203 00:26:12,810 --> 00:26:19,830 But we had exchanged some music and poetry and Ukrainian and English translation before. 204 00:26:19,830 --> 00:26:26,610 So. But the thing is, when we went on stage together, sometimes I like improvise. 205 00:26:26,610 --> 00:26:34,050 I like improvisation a lot, but I mostly. Intro is great for just the show. 206 00:26:34,050 --> 00:26:41,490 And then that's it. And you can never hold onto it because it really lives in the moment. 207 00:26:41,490 --> 00:26:50,430 But this time it was a little bit different because we as we were ourselves and as well as the public, a little bit blown away. 208 00:26:50,430 --> 00:26:57,180 But bit of what actually happened on stage, because it wasn't just only the two of us. 209 00:26:57,180 --> 00:27:02,730 There was something that was we can't be we could connect so easily together 210 00:27:02,730 --> 00:27:07,800 that we felt like we do something really together that goes beyond improv. 211 00:27:07,800 --> 00:27:13,830 And so since then, we've been making music based on poetry together. 212 00:27:13,830 --> 00:27:29,490 And and you mentioned the programatic title name, Land Shaft, because I when I found this name, when I was in another year in Kiev, 213 00:27:29,490 --> 00:27:41,010 again, to to record some poems with him, with his music and to develop art in the studio, some new poetry songs with him. 214 00:27:41,010 --> 00:27:49,010 And in the middle of one poem, I listen to his Ukrainian wrapped version of my permanent list. 215 00:27:49,010 --> 00:27:59,130 And and I found myself recognising a couple of words because Ukraine Ukraine has, 216 00:27:59,130 --> 00:28:04,920 of course, has a strong influence by the Russian language, but also is Ukraine. 217 00:28:04,920 --> 00:28:15,400 The language itself was influenced by Polish and also by the German language and land chef is is a Ukrainian word. 218 00:28:15,400 --> 00:28:23,100 So it's a. Yeah, it derives from German, but it's an it's a Ukrainian word in English. 219 00:28:23,100 --> 00:28:31,320 It's landscape. So and and I found and I thought, OK, so I thought, OK, this is exactly what I want to do. 220 00:28:31,320 --> 00:28:44,160 I want to think of poetry together with grades as something that has a lot to do with where we're from. 221 00:28:44,160 --> 00:28:48,720 But that is freer than our nations are allowed to be. 222 00:28:48,720 --> 00:28:53,730 So I went to be freer than the nation. I'm accidentally born in. 223 00:28:53,730 --> 00:28:57,900 And so. Yeah. And we found that. 224 00:28:57,900 --> 00:29:01,380 Yeah. And so that's what we kind of stick to that name. 225 00:29:01,380 --> 00:29:08,790 Even our album is called Landshark. So we need to find a new one for the next album because we're planning the next EPEAT. 226 00:29:08,790 --> 00:29:17,940 But the next year or so. Yeah. But I think sort of moving beyond the nation, Eurex that you're born into is is a wonderful utopian project, 227 00:29:17,940 --> 00:29:26,940 especially for us here in these Brexit times. So, yeah, we're going to hear a clear sign that you've done in just a second. 228 00:29:26,940 --> 00:29:30,330 But in this poem, you also bring in. Third element. 229 00:29:30,330 --> 00:29:37,670 Which is a yes from an English poem, and so actually it's it really is an amalgam of nationalities and voices. 230 00:29:37,670 --> 00:29:45,260 Yes. The next poem of poetry song, however you want to put it. 231 00:29:45,260 --> 00:29:54,890 We don't really care about the names of what we do. The next the next piece, basically a tour into nature, 232 00:29:54,890 --> 00:30:05,330 is based on three lines of a made garden of a poem by Islamic Garden because we were supposed to perform with her in Lancaster. 233 00:30:05,330 --> 00:30:12,500 For the Lankester Latricia Fest Lit festival, Lankester, I think is called last year in March and 2019. 234 00:30:12,500 --> 00:30:23,060 But since the since the process of Brexit has been like on the way has been going on. 235 00:30:23,060 --> 00:30:34,790 It's very hard for for non e, as you all know, I suppose it's very hard for a non EU residents to to get a visa. 236 00:30:34,790 --> 00:30:44,450 So so in the end, everybody was and wasn't allowed to come to perform with me in Lankester. 237 00:30:44,450 --> 00:30:50,000 So but what we would so he stayed, he stayed in La VIF where he lives in western Ukraine. 238 00:30:50,000 --> 00:30:57,920 But I flew over to Lankester and performed this poem alone with him, but knowing that he wouldn't be there. 239 00:30:57,920 --> 00:31:02,990 We had already prepared something that I could do myself. And this is an MMO. 240 00:31:02,990 --> 00:31:04,370 Gordon was there as well. 241 00:31:04,370 --> 00:31:15,800 So and to as a tribute to to our collaboration with her and to her great verses and and to the joy of being with her on stage. 242 00:31:15,800 --> 00:31:21,890 We made this piece based on her lines and I took her lot. 243 00:31:21,890 --> 00:31:27,680 What I did is I took our alliance, her last three lines, which are very short. 244 00:31:27,680 --> 00:31:33,040 Put them into one line and made an anagram out of that, a German anagram. 245 00:31:33,040 --> 00:31:47,240 And and this anagram sort of mirrors her reflections by chance, I guess, by the glory of language itself. 246 00:31:47,240 --> 00:31:50,780 It mirrors her reflections of her own power poem. 247 00:31:50,780 --> 00:32:00,920 Because in her poem, she. She reflects her upbringing in a certain area in in England. 248 00:32:00,920 --> 00:32:07,040 And and and what and which is which is an area close to the coast. 249 00:32:07,040 --> 00:32:13,700 And and and this poem also deals with coasts and with oceans. 250 00:32:13,700 --> 00:32:21,150 And what what the what then climate change does to these coasts. 251 00:32:21,150 --> 00:32:41,770 Yeah. Let's hear it. Yes. It's a needle. 252 00:32:41,770 --> 00:32:49,970 And I am true, not telling lies. And I choose. 253 00:32:49,970 --> 00:33:07,820 I also. There's a need to. 254 00:33:07,820 --> 00:33:17,850 At times, I wonder. I look at, oh, I. 255 00:33:17,850 --> 00:33:34,990 Hottest good team player in the league in the league dues league, and then they got to start on. 256 00:33:34,990 --> 00:34:07,430 Oh. Disney chose. 257 00:34:07,430 --> 00:34:22,990 Ling Lei. Is a need. 258 00:34:22,990 --> 00:34:35,050 City high schools. Dr. Yes. 259 00:34:35,050 --> 00:34:39,990 And let me tell you so much. Hi. Hi there. 260 00:34:39,990 --> 00:34:47,510 Good to see you in on Tienda here. 261 00:34:47,510 --> 00:34:55,450 Scott. The the. 262 00:34:55,450 --> 00:35:14,950 I Googled Lisa Mensah, Sunny Day, Tyler. Decompensate and. 263 00:35:14,950 --> 00:35:23,740 Says there's a need to know. 264 00:35:23,740 --> 00:35:37,520 Standing by. At least to me, the choo choo no. 265 00:35:37,520 --> 00:35:48,130 Telling lies. Yeah. 266 00:35:48,130 --> 00:36:00,470 Karen, I wonder if you can tell the audience a bit about how you managed to translate the anagram sort of back into English. 267 00:36:00,470 --> 00:36:04,440 What is the eagle eyed bilingual watches? 268 00:36:04,440 --> 00:36:13,270 The viewers would have noticed that the English isn't a direct translation of the German because I took this is to teach you 269 00:36:13,270 --> 00:36:21,420 riff in the same way that Reika had by taking the exact letters of the line and then reproducing those exact letters no more, 270 00:36:21,420 --> 00:36:28,020 no less in every line and trying to translate not so much the words, but a kind of mood. 271 00:36:28,020 --> 00:36:29,550 Yes. 272 00:36:29,550 --> 00:36:39,570 And the only thing that I knew I had to get him there was the Gilly Isles, which are Indonesian atoll, which is sinking where turtles lay their eggs. 273 00:36:39,570 --> 00:36:45,570 And so that was my only fixed point. And actually, the further away I went from the poor and the more I came back to it. 274 00:36:45,570 --> 00:36:51,210 So I hope it is. Is that but it did take some I think I sent you about 10 versions. 275 00:36:51,210 --> 00:37:02,370 But actually I look back at twenty five. There's a host of different different anagram items it spawned. 276 00:37:02,370 --> 00:37:09,150 We're racing through time and I want to make sure that we do cover everything that, you know, people have asked us to talk about. 277 00:37:09,150 --> 00:37:15,840 And so I want to talk quickly about also another kind of source that you used, 278 00:37:15,840 --> 00:37:22,350 which is the Grimm's Fairy Tales, which are best known to us in in Britain through Disney. 279 00:37:22,350 --> 00:37:32,820 But I think anybody coming to your modern contemporary reanimation of them would be would not recognise much from Disney, 280 00:37:32,820 --> 00:37:40,980 not only because it's not so well-known in this country, but also because you play on the title game. 281 00:37:40,980 --> 00:37:46,260 Which also means rage. Yes, it's German. 282 00:37:46,260 --> 00:37:52,980 And I wondered if you've also working with him on this grim cycle. 283 00:37:52,980 --> 00:38:03,420 Also, I had said the word reanimation, but you've also literally worked with animators on it and taken your course of treatment. 284 00:38:03,420 --> 00:38:09,060 All of a literary heritage into a new realm in these homes have been animated by biotics. 285 00:38:09,060 --> 00:38:13,800 Nothing. Eleanora Rohter. Yes. Colluding the English. 286 00:38:13,800 --> 00:38:16,380 Now, there's a lot we could talk about that, but perhaps we could focus, 287 00:38:16,380 --> 00:38:25,410 first of all on why just before we b we and I should say sorry, and I should say they've been set to music by Landshark to get. 288 00:38:25,410 --> 00:38:31,070 Let's take a quick look at that wonderful image of the lunch cover. 289 00:38:31,070 --> 00:38:42,150 It goes a sort of grim kind of it's a very crazy sort of grim I assume. 290 00:38:42,150 --> 00:38:45,760 But just before we listen to one of those tracks, 291 00:38:45,760 --> 00:38:57,010 can you talk a little bit about what attracted you to going back to these old ancient stories in order to sing about contemporary world? 292 00:38:57,010 --> 00:39:03,520 Yes. Well, it started. 293 00:39:03,520 --> 00:39:09,820 It started with a love of four. These collection of Grimm fairy tales, 294 00:39:09,820 --> 00:39:22,360 which which I was quite afraid of when I was a kid because of their coolness and and the and their strangeness of language. 295 00:39:22,360 --> 00:39:40,420 They're nuts. The one the ones everyone who has ever read the like more than the five famous simplified fairy tales that we all know. 296 00:39:40,420 --> 00:39:51,280 Everyone who has had a closer look on that will easily see that these that they have a very special language, which is hard to read, even in German. 297 00:39:51,280 --> 00:40:00,880 And they have a complicated history of editions which were changed first, but by the brothers themselves, 298 00:40:00,880 --> 00:40:12,420 and then later on by by parents who were afraid that these fairy tales could frighten that children. 299 00:40:12,420 --> 00:40:17,520 So. So it's a very complicated story. And. And I was I was fascinated by that. 300 00:40:17,520 --> 00:40:22,480 That's how it started. But I wanted to work on them. 301 00:40:22,480 --> 00:40:36,160 But when I started working on them on the news about the sinking ships and the Mediterranean Sea, I started to spread. 302 00:40:36,160 --> 00:40:41,410 And I was following on that for I had been following on that for some years already. 303 00:40:41,410 --> 00:40:54,700 But but suddenly in 2014, I think it was all it it it was like it was like the journalists had finally understood that 304 00:40:54,700 --> 00:41:00,400 there has to be written about this because it's been going on for such a long time already. 305 00:41:00,400 --> 00:41:14,050 The dying. And I was totally I could I could not concentrate on anything else because I was so full of fury and grim indeed. 306 00:41:14,050 --> 00:41:25,450 And so and I found I found myself not having the words to express what I think a true 307 00:41:25,450 --> 00:41:34,210 expert to express my my feelings and my yet not having the language for some way. 308 00:41:34,210 --> 00:41:37,630 And and this is something which so. 309 00:41:37,630 --> 00:41:49,000 And and and in this in this period, these grim very tales kind of provided me with words that I didn't have before. 310 00:41:49,000 --> 00:42:01,840 And with images to express my fury, my grim. So what I basically did in the end was laying under it, laying a second layer, 311 00:42:01,840 --> 00:42:15,240 a second contemporary layer of thoughts and and images of cruelness on like on on the transfer, like like a transparent foil on these fairy tales. 312 00:42:15,240 --> 00:42:52,280 And that's how this cycle developed this graphic. Let's hear one of them now. 313 00:42:52,280 --> 00:43:10,630 Despite an order to benefit, you had to be very smooth to stick by. 314 00:43:10,630 --> 00:43:38,460 But in a shooting game between. Inordinate in stature, Ashraf. 315 00:43:38,460 --> 00:44:14,220 We do not see. Untimely end, and one side denies us. 316 00:44:14,220 --> 00:44:26,620 Asylum's, even Delphin decoding zulily, Snowden, does writing songs stay? 317 00:44:26,620 --> 00:44:48,450 Emma, I thought this. In an. Neck and neck, deep sand, see my Dubofsky. 318 00:44:48,450 --> 00:45:06,450 Dear. Tonight. 319 00:45:06,450 --> 00:45:22,160 As Viacom's even Balfa, Steve. 320 00:45:22,160 --> 00:45:55,920 Despite being less than of six. 321 00:45:55,920 --> 00:46:19,470 Come on. I'm sick of Mashu ten as I was standing. 322 00:46:19,470 --> 00:46:24,460 That was great. And, you know, I'm enjoying this so much that we could go on for hours. 323 00:46:24,460 --> 00:46:27,820 But I've never seen the time and I do want to tax our viewers too much. 324 00:46:27,820 --> 00:46:32,260 I hope it means the torch invites us back to the big tent next year to really perform. 325 00:46:32,260 --> 00:46:36,370 And so I want to cut. So take the hint. 326 00:46:36,370 --> 00:46:47,390 Say I want to cut to a kind of final further step in collaborative poetry making that you've made recently with the wonderful filmmaker Sasha Conrads, 327 00:46:47,390 --> 00:46:54,330 who we've got a picture of a guy in. That's for sure. 328 00:46:54,330 --> 00:47:02,610 And we might introduce the most recent kind of collaboration you've done, which is, again, takes a text from the German Kamman. 329 00:47:02,610 --> 00:47:07,480 But this time of great 18th century part freedom for the. 330 00:47:07,480 --> 00:47:12,450 But you're working with a film kind of move beyond animation now to film. 331 00:47:12,450 --> 00:47:21,240 And what is more? In a recent very recent in fact, a couple of days ago, we saw a new version that was in English as well. 332 00:47:21,240 --> 00:47:26,130 Can you we're going to cut out and sort of finish with this and we might talk about it a little bit in the Q&A. 333 00:47:26,130 --> 00:47:29,850 But can you give us just a little insight into what you're hoping to do? 334 00:47:29,850 --> 00:47:35,280 This was presumably a commission for the 250 front of us free of Muslims that this year. 335 00:47:35,280 --> 00:47:48,240 Yes, specifically, this was a commission to go to the herding tower in in Tubingen, where he where herding has lived, 336 00:47:48,240 --> 00:47:56,710 has spent the last three decades of his life in someone else's house, 337 00:47:56,710 --> 00:48:04,020 not really leading an independent life like us, like a humble person living in someone else's house. 338 00:48:04,020 --> 00:48:09,410 And the last three decades of his life. And and now it's a beautiful museum. 339 00:48:09,410 --> 00:48:29,910 And and they wanted to open up a new a new permanent exhibition and ask me to just recite a poem, hoteling poem and then put it into a poetry form. 340 00:48:29,910 --> 00:48:30,570 And I said, no, 341 00:48:30,570 --> 00:48:44,160 I wouldn't just recite it because I find totally and truly difficult to recite and to read and to understand because he had this very special tactics, 342 00:48:44,160 --> 00:48:47,880 which is how to put it. 343 00:48:47,880 --> 00:48:57,090 It's it's always like as he looks at the word from from from the outside, he's on here. 344 00:48:57,090 --> 00:49:09,000 That was also part of his life. He was never part of something, despite his numerous tries to be part of a political and or a atake movement. 345 00:49:09,000 --> 00:49:14,130 And so and so I think, as I said, OK, I'm going to do something. 346 00:49:14,130 --> 00:49:19,200 But just let me try my unstuff and let me write something in between the hardily nine. 347 00:49:19,200 --> 00:49:24,870 So what I did was I calmed my own lines in between his lines, 348 00:49:24,870 --> 00:49:37,350 so I reworked his poem in and found myself to feel like I'm inviting herded in to finally be a part of a scene, 349 00:49:37,350 --> 00:49:48,750 be a part of I of a scene that is politically aware that that takes part in in that takes part in society, 350 00:49:48,750 --> 00:49:52,980 which is, I think, something that he would have liked. I hope so. 351 00:49:52,980 --> 00:50:05,010 And but but yeah. And then I gave this and gave this to Sachar, along with some ideas of like images what I wanted to do with him. 352 00:50:05,010 --> 00:50:18,120 And and yeah, I would make this movie, which I think also has a very elderly NSC aesthetics, but seen from the Sindh sci fi point of view. 353 00:50:18,120 --> 00:50:53,160 Outer space. Yes. Let's watch it. After Friedrich old Ireland has went on holidays to walk out and see the field, he stood behind the house. 354 00:50:53,160 --> 00:51:00,600 So we stand here and then from a night of heat, the cold lightning fell across this heat. 355 00:51:00,600 --> 00:51:09,270 Two fairy lights foran field and the stream returns once more. 356 00:51:09,270 --> 00:51:16,200 Between its banks and I to fall back into bed in a single stroke. 357 00:51:16,200 --> 00:51:24,940 And with the heavens door lighting rain. I still do it when I'm fast asleep again. 358 00:51:24,940 --> 00:51:29,730 In quiet, sunlike stands, the grove of trees clearly audible. 359 00:51:29,730 --> 00:51:45,420 The drying of things in us. Like this, they stand in favourable water as we start forgetting how they must bleed that way, 360 00:51:45,420 --> 00:51:51,750 fall present with a light on race, forgetfulness teaches us to be idiots. 361 00:51:51,750 --> 00:51:56,040 I for one, in certain seasons of the year, nature seems to sleep. 362 00:51:56,040 --> 00:52:02,310 She does not really sleep, but beats the poets, faces also sorrow. 363 00:52:02,310 --> 00:52:13,380 Go on and blab fist at our throat as one beats sheet cheering time for even when she rests, she senses what will be as one rests. 364 00:52:13,380 --> 00:52:21,750 When one forgets as soon as it's done. But now the day breaks. 365 00:52:21,750 --> 00:52:25,740 Waiting I saw. But now it makes me mad. 366 00:52:25,740 --> 00:52:30,020 For she herself, who is older than the oldest sheep older, 367 00:52:30,020 --> 00:52:38,660 and the sharing older even than the sharing blamed nature now has woken with the sound of arms. 368 00:52:38,660 --> 00:52:49,150 Light strings stretched across the night are all the same to her by establish law as in former times dawn from holy chaos, 369 00:52:49,150 --> 00:52:55,650 she shares patterns and logical serious cuts us off in one go creator of all things. 370 00:52:55,650 --> 00:53:00,900 Once more you ask where she is. Ask him stuff. Can you. 371 00:53:00,900 --> 00:53:06,660 Blow after blow. Say shining sheep. 372 00:53:06,660 --> 00:53:11,310 Shining sheep. Shining sheep. Platonist. 373 00:53:11,310 --> 00:53:22,070 And now go to sleep. 374 00:53:22,070 --> 00:53:28,820 And this is also, thanks to your translation herin. I hope you recognise your words. 375 00:53:28,820 --> 00:53:33,350 I do. This has been such fun, but I think it's time. 376 00:53:33,350 --> 00:53:40,130 Let's turn to West now and bring you back in time to join us. 377 00:53:40,130 --> 00:53:44,230 Hello. Hello. Hello. Hey. Thank you so much. That was amazing. 378 00:53:44,230 --> 00:53:52,950 We've been on quite a journey there. And actually there's well, there's a host of questions, as you might imagine, 379 00:53:52,950 --> 00:53:57,860 that I'm trying to put together into into an order that would make sense. 380 00:53:57,860 --> 00:54:02,480 And I wonder, actually, if we might start right where you finished, where all a. 381 00:54:02,480 --> 00:54:08,220 You asked Karen whether she recognised herself there. 382 00:54:08,220 --> 00:54:16,650 And a number of people have asked the question, but in reverse, actually, which is do you you recognise yourself in Karen's English voice? 383 00:54:16,650 --> 00:54:23,180 But I might ask the question of both of you. In other words, do you recognise each other's voices? 384 00:54:23,180 --> 00:54:24,840 Yeah, well, 385 00:54:24,840 --> 00:54:35,100 I just thought about that in the very beginning when I recited this poem in which I invite my friends and I recited that in English and German, 386 00:54:35,100 --> 00:54:44,700 and whenever I do that, I feel like I'm into the English version is my own poem. 387 00:54:44,700 --> 00:54:54,570 And as well. Kerans own poem. So it feels like the way Karen would pronounce it is somehow in my ear. 388 00:54:54,570 --> 00:54:59,330 And the way that I am, I recite. I mentioned it as well. 389 00:54:59,330 --> 00:55:03,970 So it feels like it feels like a hybrid between the two of us, I'd say. 390 00:55:03,970 --> 00:55:07,220 And and I noticed that, too. 391 00:55:07,220 --> 00:55:21,780 The more caring, the more you go away from from my from my original version and the closer you get to what I want should do basically. 392 00:55:21,780 --> 00:55:27,770 Yeah. Perhaps like like in the like in the anagram we had before. 393 00:55:27,770 --> 00:55:34,160 Well that's nice. I mean I think it's brilliant to work with who's very generous in that sense. 394 00:55:34,160 --> 00:55:40,020 Because I don't think all poets are, you know, because you have to trust someone with your face. 395 00:55:40,020 --> 00:55:48,990 And and I want you disappearing down different alleyways and stuff at the same place. 396 00:55:48,990 --> 00:55:50,570 But it raises a question about I mean, 397 00:55:50,570 --> 00:55:55,530 I think it's a really interesting question and it raises a question of do you think you're doing when you're translating? 398 00:55:55,530 --> 00:56:04,760 And I know a record also translates. I mean, I don't think I hope I'm not translating the different parts I translate into my voice necessarily. 399 00:56:04,760 --> 00:56:08,870 Isn't a transparent translation, but I don't want to all end up with Karen. 400 00:56:08,870 --> 00:56:14,780 That would be just. No, no. I said it was that was also not what I thought I really meant. 401 00:56:14,780 --> 00:56:21,200 It's it's just like a Chinese through. So it kind of strains through your experience, doesn't it? 402 00:56:21,200 --> 00:56:25,850 And that inevitably it'll be words that mean something to you. And so you're that always. 403 00:56:25,850 --> 00:56:35,300 But I do think if the translator bit as a chameleon, you know, changing colour, changing voice, depending on who they're working with. 404 00:56:35,300 --> 00:56:37,010 You also mentioned anagrams in there. 405 00:56:37,010 --> 00:56:42,920 And again, another thought, really interesting question that came in, which is, how does the formal constraint of, 406 00:56:42,920 --> 00:56:51,830 let's say, an anagram relate to their apparently free form of the music, of the poem, of the performance? 407 00:56:51,830 --> 00:56:58,370 What about of dialectic, if you like? Or maybe it's not a dialectic? What's the relation between those two? 408 00:56:58,370 --> 00:57:08,540 It's hard to say because it depends on the project and and on what was first the music or the poem or the film or whatever. 409 00:57:08,540 --> 00:57:18,310 But but when was when we get back to the anagram, I found my cell. 410 00:57:18,310 --> 00:57:21,830 I found that I needed to lose. 411 00:57:21,830 --> 00:57:32,210 In the end, the dramatic structure when I put it into music with such simple means as and as adding a chorus. 412 00:57:32,210 --> 00:57:42,920 The chorus like as as treating. I make Gordon's initial lines as a chorus, which I then sang again in the middle and then in the end. 413 00:57:42,920 --> 00:57:49,060 But apart from that, I tried to stick to the structure somehow. 414 00:57:49,060 --> 00:57:53,570 But yeah. And. And still. Yeah. 415 00:57:53,570 --> 00:58:01,110 It's both. It's sticking to the structure and also trying not to see the structure anymore because because it's so, 416 00:58:01,110 --> 00:58:08,560 it's so embodied in, in the piece already that you don't need to think about the structure anymore and feel. 417 00:58:08,560 --> 00:58:17,000 And that feels very free. In the end, there's a huge freedom when you have a tiny compass to me. 418 00:58:17,000 --> 00:58:22,490 Yes. Yes. Around you bends because all kinds of new directions. 419 00:58:22,490 --> 00:58:26,090 And it gives you an enormous movement, or at least it does. So I quite enjoyed. 420 00:58:26,090 --> 00:58:30,110 When I first looked at that poem, I thought, of course, I can't translater its course. 421 00:58:30,110 --> 00:58:37,670 But actually, there are very few things you really can't translate as long as you're working with a poet who allows you that kind of freedom as well. 422 00:58:37,670 --> 00:58:42,860 Okay, that's interesting, because one of the one of the questions was, you know, the untranslatable question or what? 423 00:58:42,860 --> 00:58:51,020 How do you translate a word that has multiple meanings, say, in one language, but doesn't seem to have the same multiple meetings in another? 424 00:58:51,020 --> 00:58:57,020 I mean, Grimm is an example. Grimm means something quite different in English than rage. 425 00:58:57,020 --> 00:59:01,400 And so what do you do with that? Do you carry. Yeah. 426 00:59:01,400 --> 00:59:08,210 What do you do with that multiplicity across languages? That's a really good question. 427 00:59:08,210 --> 00:59:10,280 I think every translator comes up against that. 428 00:59:10,280 --> 00:59:17,870 And I think there are places I'm trying to trying to translate the poem at the moment by a different part was green by where he uses three words moon, 429 00:59:17,870 --> 00:59:22,100 moon and movement, which will sound very similar in German. 430 00:59:22,100 --> 00:59:29,630 But I'm living so living room of one summer living room, poppy and moon in English and he plays I did it. 431 00:59:29,630 --> 00:59:34,710 I don't think I can do it. I've got to find three different words completely and to make a poem at all. 432 00:59:34,710 --> 00:59:40,910 And it reminds me of from did a poem together, Orica and I in the new collection, 433 00:59:40,910 --> 00:59:47,240 which is Germany's call Pizza CATSA, which is and is used when you're doing beatbox in German. 434 00:59:47,240 --> 00:59:54,490 And I started translating it and thinking, this is very fine. And then I realised, of course, that's not what you say for Beatbox and English. 435 00:59:54,490 --> 01:00:03,660 And so there's a different form. There's a different. As it happened, not a pizza cat, a cat in a cage and boots and so on. 436 01:00:03,660 --> 01:00:12,400 And that's a different story in English. So I think it's. If you give him that freedom, you can create a kind of essence, if not the words, 437 01:00:12,400 --> 01:00:18,600 you can sort of translate to feeling, translate to move, translate to an idea or an image. 438 01:00:18,600 --> 01:00:24,790 My sense. Yeah, absolutely. And I'm wondering then, if that folds back into your own practise. 439 01:00:24,790 --> 01:00:31,140 Well, Baker, what is having been translated changed your understanding of what you're doing as a poet? 440 01:00:31,140 --> 01:00:43,500 Oh, a lot. Just yesterday, I had a Skype talk at a Skype chat with Karen in which I felt the need to admit to her 441 01:00:43,500 --> 01:00:50,160 that I actually understood my own hoteling poem better through a hard translation. 442 01:00:50,160 --> 01:00:54,270 So and so. And that's why that's why, you know, 443 01:00:54,270 --> 01:01:01,800 the film that we have just seen was an English and the first in the first place it 444 01:01:01,800 --> 01:01:07,140 was I recorded the audio is in German and also the automatic voice was in German. 445 01:01:07,140 --> 01:01:15,660 So the the hotel in the automatic voice of her daddy was in German and and, uh, but the way I spoke, 446 01:01:15,660 --> 01:01:22,320 kids in my original version was quite different from the way I spoke it now in English, 447 01:01:22,320 --> 01:01:34,260 because I felt I had understood not only what I'm saying, but also how it feels, what I'm saying and also the impact of what I'm saying. 448 01:01:34,260 --> 01:01:38,700 I felt that more through Kerins translation. OK. 449 01:01:38,700 --> 01:01:44,970 So then it fell flat already. Funny. This often happens. Is that your answering questions that are coming in as we go and somebody is asking about 450 01:01:44,970 --> 01:01:51,270 whether a text that's translated through different languages or through different media, 451 01:01:51,270 --> 01:01:57,450 innocent gains incrementally through that process. And I think you're saying. 452 01:01:57,450 --> 01:02:05,360 Yes. Well, Heeger. And not only does it gain incrementally, but also you go back to the origin and think again about what it was at the beginning. 453 01:02:05,360 --> 01:02:10,710 Is that right? Well, I'd say I'd go further than that, perhaps. 454 01:02:10,710 --> 01:02:21,780 I'd say when you translate a poem into another art form, as is a poetry film or whatever, an installation, 455 01:02:21,780 --> 01:02:31,920 an urban space or whatever, it becomes something else big without losing its its being a poem. 456 01:02:31,920 --> 01:02:35,400 It stays a poem. But at the same time, it's something else. 457 01:02:35,400 --> 01:02:47,910 And this is what I definitely love about poetry, that it has so many that it stretches out to other art forms. 458 01:02:47,910 --> 01:02:53,310 Way more than a novel or prose could ever do. 459 01:02:53,310 --> 01:03:02,010 I think that's so interesting that you said that's about most understanding or because I didn't understand that poem when I translated it. 460 01:03:02,010 --> 01:03:09,790 The translation was part of a fund and reminds me in that same interview I talked about earlier was also with Paul Paul Muldoon, 461 01:03:09,790 --> 01:03:17,880 who was kind of mischievous and said that he wondered if every poem wasn't a translation of the sort of order poem. 462 01:03:17,880 --> 01:03:27,930 And so a translation might actually get closer to that sort of first place without really knowing. 463 01:03:27,930 --> 01:03:31,800 But also kind of interesting, I think, that maybe, you know, 464 01:03:31,800 --> 01:03:39,630 I tapped into something that was the same thing that inspired you way and then the game with the film. 465 01:03:39,630 --> 01:03:46,890 Sasha perhaps recognised something because there is no there's no there's no in your in your poem. 466 01:03:46,890 --> 01:03:54,870 But yeah, they're they're so right. But now a nation has sort of found a different image. 467 01:03:54,870 --> 01:04:04,530 Well, I'm a little bit suspicious. Whenever I hear the word or clause, because it goes back to this 19th century, 468 01:04:04,530 --> 01:04:19,660 I don't know when thinking of of a perfect source of language of it even goes back to the to the strange idea of individual Germanic languages. 469 01:04:19,660 --> 01:04:24,690 And and like in former time, there was the perfect world. 470 01:04:24,690 --> 01:04:33,390 And now we are all have all that comes out of that is generated. 471 01:04:33,390 --> 01:04:40,270 Munster's it's like I found that. I find that very pessimistic and not very humanistic anyway. 472 01:04:40,270 --> 01:04:48,390 But, you know, that's that's a positive that a positive way of maybe thinking about going back to something which again, 473 01:04:48,390 --> 01:04:55,320 one of the questions of your work exposure is to some degree, the archaic roots of modern poetry. 474 01:04:55,320 --> 01:05:01,770 So incorporating media, song and dance and if at all before the page before, if you like, 475 01:05:01,770 --> 01:05:06,660 the shining sheep became vellum and then became something else and so on and so forth. 476 01:05:06,660 --> 01:05:12,700 Would you would you recognise yourself in that perspective with some sort of yes. 477 01:05:12,700 --> 01:05:23,560 Sort of, yes. It's I find my way to to treat treat poet poetry as something off page of the page. 478 01:05:23,560 --> 01:05:33,880 I find that traditional in in the sense of of of poetry being something that was vital 479 01:05:33,880 --> 01:05:40,600 long before there were letters and trends and and and written language and was so popular. 480 01:05:40,600 --> 01:05:49,530 It was of course sung before it was written down. And and so whenever someone tells me that I'm so. 481 01:05:49,530 --> 01:06:01,840 And twenty first century Berlin NSC in my art firm, I find myself a little bit misunderstood because this is what I want to do is as refer. 482 01:06:01,840 --> 01:06:08,600 I see myself in a long line of tradition, which is not only in books of course. 483 01:06:08,600 --> 01:06:14,800 Yeah. Yeah. I think we've got time for maybe two or three more questions. And some of them are very sort of practical questions, if you like, 484 01:06:14,800 --> 01:06:25,930 which are how do we get to a world where translation is more respected, where even poets and aspiring poets and poetry translators. 485 01:06:25,930 --> 01:06:28,910 I mean, you you guys are in there. 486 01:06:28,910 --> 01:06:36,610 How what advice do you have to aspiring poet for poetry translators about how to how to find their voice in the world, 487 01:06:36,610 --> 01:06:42,400 but also how to find public and phone, if any? 488 01:06:42,400 --> 01:06:51,030 Oh, that's hard. That's hot. That's a that's a tricky question because things change so quickly. 489 01:06:51,030 --> 01:06:57,310 And when I started it, I thought I felt the scene very different from as it is now. 490 01:06:57,310 --> 01:07:04,580 But I think I still think it's important. 491 01:07:04,580 --> 01:07:13,420 It's it's important to read your colleagues, not just to read your colleagues, do we not I mean, 492 01:07:13,420 --> 01:07:26,500 don't stop reading at the middle of the twentieth century and try to try to see what's actually being 493 01:07:26,500 --> 01:07:33,370 written as something that as part of a tradition as well as reinventing itself the whole time. 494 01:07:33,370 --> 01:07:37,600 But I don't know about about but it's smart. 495 01:07:37,600 --> 01:07:45,550 The practical technical aspect of this question is it's hard because, of course, it's hard to be paid for your work. 496 01:07:45,550 --> 01:07:59,560 All I can say is respect the works of others as much as you respect your own works and don't stick only to the page in terms of literary magazines, 497 01:07:59,560 --> 01:08:10,800 which are what that is. It's important to publish there, but it's also important to know how tick tock an Instagram works or whatever you like it. 498 01:08:10,800 --> 01:08:21,160 I, I like to follow my the my sympathies when I, when I'm interested in in a certain software. 499 01:08:21,160 --> 01:08:27,820 Then I want to use that software for my art form as well as for my private communication. 500 01:08:27,820 --> 01:08:39,360 I don't. I don't. I try not to think, OK, this is only for art and this is for private like Kolok, because all of this belongs together in Korea. 501 01:08:39,360 --> 01:08:45,600 Translator as well. Well, I was going to say I'm just gonna be very pragmatic as I am. 502 01:08:45,600 --> 01:08:55,900 Read poetry and the pragmatism I read, read, read, read again, Reback, read contemporary's, read everything, read multiple languages. 503 01:08:55,900 --> 01:09:00,670 But I think people tend to be very gloomy about the position of poets and translators now. 504 01:09:00,670 --> 01:09:06,120 But actually one of the things about social media is, is a huge platform out there. 505 01:09:06,120 --> 01:09:12,910 Magazines, online magazines, but also Real's more my magazines and so on. 506 01:09:12,910 --> 01:09:20,600 And of course, you can publish yourself so you can actually get your voice out there in a way that a couple of decades you couldn't. 507 01:09:20,600 --> 01:09:25,630 And then I would say go and hear people meet people and talk to people. 508 01:09:25,630 --> 01:09:35,350 It's a great world of serendipity, I think. And as you say, your, um, your blind date with Gregory has led to this language. 509 01:09:35,350 --> 01:09:37,360 And I think that's happened to me before. 510 01:09:37,360 --> 01:09:47,140 You know, child counts have led to all kinds of things to read so that you're ready and then put yourself out there. 511 01:09:47,140 --> 01:09:50,680 OK, last question. Chance Encounters. How did you guys meet? 512 01:09:50,680 --> 01:09:55,090 How did you start? Oh, it's a long time ago. 513 01:09:55,090 --> 01:09:59,140 What's the what was the start of it? I don't know, Karen. Can you tell? 514 01:09:59,140 --> 01:10:06,460 I do know. Actually, I was asked by somebody in Australia secure rights here. 515 01:10:06,460 --> 01:10:10,270 Magazine of contemporary subsection of contemporary. No, New Zealand. 516 01:10:10,270 --> 01:10:14,770 I'm so embarrassed. New Zealand it was they were the guest country, the Frankfurt Book Fair. 517 01:10:14,770 --> 01:10:18,690 And so they were doing a subsidiary of a magazine of some German poetry. 518 01:10:18,690 --> 01:10:25,240 And I was asked to curate that. I said no because I was overwhelmed with work. 519 01:10:25,240 --> 01:10:34,120 And then I just started reading small magazines and anthologies and finding the poets that really spoke to me. 520 01:10:34,120 --> 01:10:41,210 And I picked six poets, I think. And Errico was the first one. 521 01:10:41,210 --> 01:10:43,960 Erica had to be there because it just as soon as I read her, 522 01:10:43,960 --> 01:10:50,590 I knew that I wanted to translate her and I knew that I wanted to find out what was going on in her poems. 523 01:10:50,590 --> 01:10:54,880 I wanted to know what made them tick. And that's where it started, actually. 524 01:10:54,880 --> 01:11:05,300 And so there was little little anthology. And then I wrote to her and said, Can I play bass? 525 01:11:05,300 --> 01:11:11,000 And do you remember that moment at least? Billerica. Yeah, I remember the email I wrote, you know. 526 01:11:11,000 --> 01:11:18,490 Yes. And and and and the sports magazine, of course, which is somewhere somewhere there. 527 01:11:18,490 --> 01:11:28,120 And yes. And I remember that that I had worked with English translators before, with debt, with when American translators. 528 01:11:28,120 --> 01:11:32,570 You're living in Leipzig and Germany, Bradley Schmidt and. 529 01:11:32,570 --> 01:11:40,860 And then there is different translators for special for for certain projects and that and. 530 01:11:40,860 --> 01:11:46,590 I had always longed for someone who who couldn't give me company. 531 01:11:46,590 --> 01:11:50,820 Through the years to the coming years and that. 532 01:11:50,820 --> 01:11:58,260 And it turned out that we gave each other a good company, caring. 533 01:11:58,260 --> 01:12:03,540 Well, perhaps on that note, we should bring things to a close. 534 01:12:03,540 --> 01:12:09,840 I'd like to thank both of you are brilliant speakers, Karen, on the record for a wonderful session this evening. 535 01:12:09,840 --> 01:12:15,780 And a big thank you to to our viewers at home for watching and for your many comments and questions. 536 01:12:15,780 --> 01:12:20,190 And so for one last time. Thank you, Karen. Thank you, Ulrica. Thank you. 537 01:12:20,190 --> 01:12:25,470 Where is he? Thank you, West. And thank you, Torch. You've all given your time. 538 01:12:25,470 --> 01:12:27,090 Everyone here, your thoughts, 539 01:12:27,090 --> 01:12:33,840 your questions and your engagement as we come together online this season of this series would not be possible without the support. 540 01:12:33,840 --> 01:12:38,940 As Karen said of many people in the torch team, as it were backstage. 541 01:12:38,940 --> 01:12:48,250 And we'd like to thank them all, too. Please do come back next week at the same time for a session on the World after Cauvin. 542 01:12:48,250 --> 01:12:55,930 Where there'll be a conversation between Pete and Professor Peter Frank upon, director of the Oxford Centre for Business and Research. 543 01:12:55,930 --> 01:13:00,400 And of course, a historian who's written about the Silk Road, amongst many other things. 544 01:13:00,400 --> 01:13:05,290 And Professor Nyeri Woods, dean of the Catholic School of Government here in Oxford. 545 01:13:05,290 --> 01:13:09,700 But for now, thank you again for coming. Stay safe. Stay well. 546 01:13:09,700 --> 01:13:50,106 And goodbye for now.