Editorial: 1 April 2010

March 19, 2010 From the UK this month are two winners of the National Poetry Competition which was announced on 30 March: Ian Pindar, Helen Dunmore, and competition judge Neil Rollinson. They represent a range of styles and amongst them are a debutant and a poet of great experience and standing. Helen Dunmore’s poetry is powerful and accessible and she has been consistently good for a long time, yet she continues to attract more attention for her novels. Ian Pindar’s first collection has not yet been published but his work is already making an impact. His dark sense of humour caught my eye. In ‘Of Truth’, he personifies truth as follows:

In a cinema after the war
I saw it looking for its hat
under the seats.
It was smaller then, a little hunched.

— and he goes on to end his poem with the nice irony of the poet stamping on poor old truth!

Truth is a grey area in Zimbabwe and most of its poets take it to task. The Zimbabwean domain presents a promising young female poet, Fugisayi Sasa, whom we meet at the start of her career. Her political poems are accompanied by an essay on her work by Anna Chitando.

Last but not least, the featured Dutch poet is also a woman: Astrid Lampe. Mid-career she has already stirred up some controversy in the Netherlands. Her polyphonic poetry is strange and fascinating; it has an internal logic of its own and is a real challenge to translate. Her experienced translator, Diane Butterman, has written poetry herself and is currently translating the works of the great poet/artist Lucebert for an international audience. Let’s hope we can feature those in the future.

If you missed our last issue, featuring the launch of the Indonesian domain, you can read it here. Do take a look if you haven’t already, it’s incredibly interesting and PIW Indonesia editor Hasif Amini’s essay provides a great introduction to the local landscape and history of a marginal group of poets.

Next up, in our 15 April issue, we’ll feature poets from Iran and Japan.