Found In
Translation
ACADEMY INÉGALES
Directors Peter Wiegold
& Martin Butler
with
MODERN POETRY IN TRANSLATION
HOUSE OF ILLUSTRATION
IF:BOOK UK
Club Inégales
March 17th 2016
First Half: Whispers
ONE
Sasha Dugdale reads
The Black Flower by
Natalia Toledo
Translated by Clare Sullivan
George Sleightholme: Clarinet
Nineb Lamassu: Poem
Three pounds, that is all I have
Would you like some coffee?
I am buying.
Do you like to chat?
I have a friend
Well a friend had me, we both had each other
He remains there, or does he remain still?
Where I come from
being or not being
Is our everyday being,
Maybe he is still being, I just don't know.
Do you have a friend?
It is hard to make friends
To make a home of here
Almost as hard as framing my loneliness in a poem.
Layale Chaker: Violin Solo
May Kindred-Boothby: Illustration
Martin Humphries: Trombone
Kirsten Irving: Poem
TWO
Rishiraj Kulkarni: Tabla
Chris Meade, Sasha Dugdale, Olivia
McCannon: Words
THREE
Olivia McCannon reads her
translation of
A Man Who Is Easily Fooled And a Woman Who Barely
Speaks by Nge Nge
“You may close your eyes and ears but open up your
heart
A man and a woman live in a polluted town
The man, who is easily fooled, is quick to believe
what he hears
The woman, who barely speaks, thinks things are not
for her ears
The man who is easily fooled has infinite trust in her
voiceless eyes…”
James Wilson: Piano
Hyelim Kim: Korean Flute
Olivia McCannon: Poem
Andy Leung: Electronics
Nouria Bah: Words
FOUR
Benjamin Zucker: Trumpet
Kirsten Irving: Poem
Will Crosby & Joel Bell:
Guitars and Pedals
Jihyun Park: Illustration
Nineb Lamassu: Poem
Joanna Lawrence: Violin
Second Half
The Band
of Translators
Academy Inegales with
Modern Poetry In Translation,
House of Illustration,
if:book UK
with contributions from Ed Cottrell and George Barton.
Nineb Lamassu’s work read by Chris Meade
AND BELOW are the texts of work used in the performance plus other work generated during the workshops.
FOR MORE on Academy Inegales go to www.clubinegales.com
A MAN WHO IS EASILY FOOLED AND A WOMAN WHO BARELY SPEAKS
You may close your eyes and ears but open up your heart
A man and a woman live in a polluted town
The man, who is easily fooled, is quick to believe what he hears
The woman, who barely speaks, thinks things are not for her ears
The man who is easily fooled has infinite trust in her voiceless eyes
The woman who barely speaks is sure that even her heartbeat is mute
The man who is easily fooled survives on what he believes
The woman who barely speaks lives off what she leaves unsaid
The man who is easily fooled is all ears to every speech
The woman who barely speaks makes each action a sign
The man who is easily fooled is eager to sound the alarm
The woman who barely speaks nods approval without a sound
The man who is easily fooled listens to stories
The woman who barely speaks writes poems
The man who is easily fooled hears thunder
The woman who barely speaks conducts lightning
The man who is easily fooled listens out for the deafening crash of falling sky
The woman who barely speaks turns the radio off
The man who is easily fooled waits for the day he’ll hear paintings talk
The woman who barely speaks paints on her pulse
The man who is easily fooled keeps an Indian jackdaw
The woman who barely speaks grows a plant
Poem by Olivia McCannon
In my garden there is a mirror
At dawn it fills with a soft light
Sprays of leaves brush over its face
The little birds come to dart and
Perch, and peck at the glass –
The mirror cracks gently, happily
Grows old in the garden
Fills with darkness each night
Fills with light each morning
Nineb gave us this line:
“This love shall never come to an end. But I bid you
farewell.”
We all wrote responses.
Chris:
That story will always be told but forgets its own
middle.
This song will not vanish but can’t quite catch its
tune
Once I forgot you so hard that it hurt like a fistful
of wind
This love shall never come to an end
That longing did always aim for the opening
arms of the leaving, preparing to hug.
Nouria:
“The feeling from the upturned corners of your mouth
remains as I frown you goodbye”
Kirsten:
“The dove will never come to Gravesend, but a pipit
may fare well.
It is their wingspan that spares them.
Modest, tiny harisen. High card in storm
skirl.”
Nineb read a poem in Assyrian, the other writers each
‘translated it’ into whatever we felt it might say (as we can;t speak
Assyrian), then he translated it.
Chris:
“Come close my friend, hear this.
My hand sweeps across the ocean of my chest
Turns as if scooping up seed, holds a pinch of salt
upturned.
I speak from the heart
And see: I touch my heart,
As these words reach out.”
Nouria:
“Sour processed fruit
Freshly picked from the cornershop
Set free by my cousin’s hands”
Kirsten:
Great shin of water
that shakes each courier.
On the shore
Ana presses her shoes into order.
Sara presses Ana.
How bright she lies there.
My laka-lake.
Lake of aquamarine. Marina.
My Sara.
My lake, she will break you.
ED
a cat
purring machine
falls asleep on the roof beam
inhales
the brown smoke
an extinguished candle releases
outside,
rain makes its patter
and i am still drying
with madrigals
an hourglass and laburnum.
I will open your letter later, flame
catching
the paper catching
the letter catching my clothes
Kirsten:
(during first musical improvisation)
Henny’s on fire we can’t say why
she’s talking small worlds under water
under water but she stays on fire
there’s your edge your fiveness
over the round wave the fat wave
I think we will forget Henny and
end her. This is the way we make
gun gun gun using her cluck her
glottal gulps make ribs and tubes
with pipes of her so let jab out
of the fens white and rude
she is a Roman fort on fire
can you make her stop because I can’t
can you make it stop it is upsetting fish
can you make it if I leave you wrapped in leaves
can you take me as far as the old Henny Gate
can we join be many when the raiders come
just tell them tell them she’s on fire
and we can’t hold her for long
***
(during faster improv later on,
following Olivia’s rhythmic piece)
Beetle beetle
(fast music)
Crick in a leg on a longbarge
Tricketty-trick on a sill’s edge
(music slows to dreamy soundscape)
Dust globing, snow in the sunlight
Golding, gone, replaced
(fast again)
Click and a shiver and life lies
Folding and rolling and down holes
(slow)
Fists like fortresses, drifting
Slow to my split eye
(fast)
Balling and backward and spilled out
Deathhead and limbless and silver
Chitin and mecha and (sudden stop) DASHT
***
(from the improvisation around Laura’s
illustration of the building)
The watchman sleeps in his hair
Dogs minnying, gnawed at the belly
Meet me there
The poorest stand in the rain and stare
Children balded for extra tips
Meet me there
The sandstone of the daimyo’s lair
Oriole windows, holes for guns
Meet me there
Bouncing rain, eager to share
So baby to play, so each part alone
Meet me there
We’ll see her if we light the flare
but never see each other
Brother, meet me there
***
(after Nouria’s poem about the scrolling
face)
Run out run out
Carry sand inside you
like rain her belly grit
***
ED: from the musical improvisations
wake from a salt mine
wake from a blue cold stone
where the shape of a wave is slowly lost
to find
the salt mine is waking too
full of breath
full of waves
making sound
*
if we stand still
and wait between lights coming on and off
if we wait until we are green
until we are sun bleached
until our toes have taken root
we'll find in the excess of our limbs:
a nest
balanced on one wrist
