Poetry Connections

  • David Greenslade performs in Poetry Connections 2015
    David Greenslade performs in Poetry Connections 2015
  • Poetry Connections 2015
  • Poetry Connections
    Poetry Connections 2010
  • Poetry Connections India workshop 1
    Poetry Connections 2010
  • Translation Workshop, India 2010
    Poetry Connections 2010
  • Poetry Connections 2015
    Poetry Connections 2015
  • Poetry Connections 2015

Poetry Connections is a series of translation workshops and performances organised by Literature Across Frontiers in collaboration with our partners, bringing together writers from Europe with writers from different linguistic and cultural backgrounds to translate each other’s work. So far Poetry Connections has taken place in India, Turkey and Morocco.

Working through a ‘bridge’ language, such as French or English, the poets learn about the literary traditions and contemporary contexts in which each of them writes. They explore the microcosm of each literary text, as well as wider issues of translation practice.

The aims of Poetry Connections are to:

• facilitate translation of the participating poets’ work into several languages;
• build connections between the participating poets and poetry facilitators (organisers of events, editors of magazines etc), focusing on translation from and into the languages of the participants;
• highlight the multilingual and multicultural nature of the poetry scene in both Europe and abroad;
• connect with LAF’s poetry projects (poetry translation workshops, Metropoetica, Word Express Project and Poetry Unlimited);
• seek publishing and performance outcomes for the resulting translations.

The project consists of several phases and multiple encounters and collaborations among poets from different countries. The workshops are combined with multilingual performances and have resulted in publications of different kinds (anthologies, online magazines, CDs, blogs).

In January 2015 a new edition of Poetry Connections is taking place with poets from Netherlands, Portugal, Wales and Switzerland joining poets from India for a translation workshop and touring performance. Find out more here.

As an example of the results of the workshops, visit Dubious Saints, a blog the poets from the workshop in India have set up to share their collaborations. There, you can read some of the translations and other thoughts on the poetic process.

Read more about the different Poetry Connections workshops in our Translation Workshop section.