Post by Arjan Hut on Aug 19, 2019 5:30:08 GMT -5
In 2018, I performed during the Mediterranean Literature Festival in Valetta, Malta.
The hotel where the guest writers were staying, was next to the office of the Maltese Prime Minister.
During the course of our stay, I visited the monument for murdered journalist Daphne Galizia several times.
At the festival I met poets from all over the world, like Ali Tharib from Babylon, and Sjòn from Iceland who
had once been nominated for an Oscar, and many others. Ali only spoke Arab, and Jean-Remí from France
only spoke French, but somehow they were able to communicate. The performing poets translated each-
others work during sessions before the actual festival, with the help of English and French-speaking mediators.
Sometimes poets would join eachother on stage and present their translations, so you would hear a certain
poem in the original language and in French, English, Icelandic, Frisian or Maltese. A Babylonian confusion,
but it worked.
I understand that the world of poetry is a strange little niche, but this is the world where I'm usually active
when not meditating on the Kennedy-assassination.
This is Ali:
Here am I:
And this is Jean-Remí from France:
The hotel where the guest writers were staying, was next to the office of the Maltese Prime Minister.
During the course of our stay, I visited the monument for murdered journalist Daphne Galizia several times.
At the festival I met poets from all over the world, like Ali Tharib from Babylon, and Sjòn from Iceland who
had once been nominated for an Oscar, and many others. Ali only spoke Arab, and Jean-Remí from France
only spoke French, but somehow they were able to communicate. The performing poets translated each-
others work during sessions before the actual festival, with the help of English and French-speaking mediators.
Sometimes poets would join eachother on stage and present their translations, so you would hear a certain
poem in the original language and in French, English, Icelandic, Frisian or Maltese. A Babylonian confusion,
but it worked.
I understand that the world of poetry is a strange little niche, but this is the world where I'm usually active
when not meditating on the Kennedy-assassination.
This is Ali:
Here am I:
And this is Jean-Remí from France: