Poetry and Translation: Living in Someone Else’s House

Location: Zoom

Workshop Fee: $35 – $100

Register here

Workshop Description:

A translator is many things: a reader, a writer, an editor, a communicator, a person who stays awake at night wondering why there’s no English word for “gruglede.” Being a translator is like living in someone else’s house—you obsessively learn everything about a person by touching all of their things and, for a while, living as if you were them. In this 2-hour Zoom workshop, we’ll talk about the process of translation with all of its uncertainty and various brain twists. We’ll translate a poem from English to English, do a “trot” of a poem in another language, and see how wildly different two translations can be. In the end, participants will leave with a rough understanding of the translation process and inspiration for how translation-related acts can enrich their own writing.

NOTE: You don’t need to speak another language to take this workshop. Also, while we’ll discuss a lot of poetry, you don’t need to be a poet. Everyone is welcome!

This workshop is part of a series of fundraisers in April and May to support the IPRC, with a suggested donation of $35 – $75. The first 25 people to register will also receive a limited edition screenprint from Rebecca Wadlinger’s Terror, Terrible, Terrific. 

Artist bio: Rebecca Wadlinger is the author of Terror, Terrible, Terrific (Octopus Books) and the translator of Norwegian poet Gro Dahle’s collection A Hundred Thousand Hours (Ugly Duckling Presse). She received her doctorate in Literature and Creative Writing from the University of Houston and her MFA in poetry from the Michener Center for Writers. She lives in Portland, OR.