We had a fabulous time last night at West Greenwich Library, with Kostya, Farah, Natan and Isabel and an appreciative and interested audience. The theme was ‘writing poetry in English when one’s native language is not English’, a theme particularly topical for me, having been brought up and educated in Italian. The poets have had very different journeys into the English language and poetry and it was great to hear their stories during the Q&A and conversation session we had in the middle, rather than at the end of the reading.
From still considering English a second/parallel/shadow language, to looking at the social and cultural ‘value’ of speaking English (in every sense the dominant language in colonial and post colonial times), to finding liberation in a new language and environment, to seeing the native language re-emerge in adult life….
I can identify with some of these journeys, but as a non-poet, I’m in awe of theirs!
I could go on and on (and I suppose I did, a bit!). I admit this event, showcasing such talented wordsmiths, was also a bit of self-indulgence for me, as a celebration of in-words’ 60th event.
I remember Graham Fawcett, the poetry lecturer who a couple of decades ago was also my lecturer in translation at Goldsmiths, said to me that my Italian into English translations were 99.5% English. So true! Unless one is brought up in two languages, a bedrock of vocabulary, idioms, meanings will be forever lacking something… But then I look at poets such as Mimi Khalvati and George Szirtes, as well as last night’s poets, and have to backpedal from that statement, and keep it as a personal, not a general, one.
Last night’s readings were so good, the languages and voices so rich and rewarding. It was so beautiful to hear Natan read some of his poems in both Portuguese and English, Farah recite a few lines in Bengali, and Isabel and Kostya weave Latin American Spanish and Greek words into their poems.
Thank you to all who came and as always to the Library staff.
Kostya Tsolákis was born and raised in Athens, Greece, and now lives in London. He is founding editor of harana poetry, the online magazine for poets writing in English as a second or parallel language. In 2019 he won the Oxford Brookes International Poetry Competition (ESL category). His poems have been widely published in magazines, including fourteen poems, Magma, Poetry London, The Poetry Review and Under the Radar, and anthologies, such as 100 Queer Poems (Vintage, 2022). His debut poetry pamphlet, Ephebos, was published by ignitionpress in November 2020. Greekling, his much-anticipated poetry collection celebrates and commemorates damaged and rejected Greek bodies, be they of flesh and blood or made of marble. The collection intertwines Greek culture, history and poetic influences with the contemporary queer experience in a perceptive, lyrical, and deeply evocative way.
Farah Naz is a British Bangladeshi poet, writer, story teller and translator. As well as teaching at a Lewisham primary school, she is a performing member of the acclaimed storytelling group ‘EAST’ and is Director of the British Bilingual Poetry Collective (BBPC). Maya Mirror of Soul, her collection of English poems was published in 2004 and her Bengali poem book Hemonter Chirkut in 2022. Farah’s poetic themes encompass nature, human emotions and metamorphosis of love and life. Farah received the ‘Youth Leadership Award’ from Unicef, Bangladesh in 1999 for her writing, and won the ‘Story of 1971’ short story competition by Tower Hamlets Council in 2021. Her poems and stories have been widely published in various books and magazines such as Swirl of Words, British Bangladeshi Poetry Anthology, London Folk Tales for Children and many more. Along with writing poetry, Farah enjoys cooking and nature photography.
Natan Barreto was born in Salvador, Brazil. He has lived in Rio, Paris, Rome, and, since 1992, in London. He is the author of seven collections of poetry in Portuguese: Under the Roofs of the Night (1999); Hiding Places on Paper (2007); Still Movement (2016); Creatures: animal sketches (2017); A backyard and other corners (2018), which won the Sosígenes Costa Poetry Prize, awarded by the Academy of Letters of Ilhéus, in Bahia, Brazil; The Rhythm of the Circle: photographic poems (2019); and The Hollow Soul (2021). He is also a published novelist, biographer and translator. Natan’s poems in English have appeared in Poets Adrift: first anthology of Brazilian diaspora poetry (2013); and, in 2019, an anthology of his poetry was published in German, titled Ausgewählte Gedichte. He has given poetry readings at the Brazilian Embassy in London, the Museum of London, the Royal Court Theatre, the Barbican, and the universities of Queen Mary and Nottingham. www.natanbarreto.com
Isabel Bermudez is a poet and textile artist living in Orpington, Kent. Her collection Serenade (Paekakariki Press, 2020) features poems evoking Spain and the New World, with illustrations by Simon Turvey. Her most recent published collection is Bar de las Reminiscencias (Paekakariki Press, 2024), also with illustrations by Simon Turvey. She performs her poetry widely at readings and festivals and was recently hosted by the Colombian Embassy and the Instituto Cervantes, Manchester, in conversation with Welsh poet and translator, Richard Gwyn. In a previous life she lived and worked as a television producer/director in Sri Lanka and as a documentary film maker in Colombia. She has held many jobs, including grape picker in France, shop assistant and special correspondent; she now works in the Sen department of an Academy in South East London. More at www.isabel-bermudez.com.