Article
Translation exchange: Els Moors (Belgium) & Joshua Clover (USA) as both poets & translators
‘the white fucking bunnies’
October 07, 2015
The title of ‘the white fucking bunnies’ is immediately striking, but in Dutch, the poem gradually unfolds as a linguistic and rhythmic meditation that is hard to grasp if one gets stuck on the literal, straightforward image of copulating rabbits. In their English translation, Clover and Posman maintain the humor and lightness of tone in Moors’ poem while highlighting its inventive and forceful abstractions.
Additionally, we are republishing a translation Moors made with Piet Joostens of Clover’s poem ‘Spring Georgic’, in 2012 for nY. The poem now appears in Clover’s most recent book, Red Epic (Commune Editions, 2015). In an interview with Posman for that same issue of nY, Clover states: ‘I’m obsessed with lost books. “Spring Georgic” is in a way about lost books and almost lost books or books that are lost and found’.
We’re happy to find here two international poets translating – and getting lost in – each other’s work. IN THIS FEATURE:
• ‘the white fucking bunnies’ by Els Moors, translated by Joshua Clover and Sarah Posman
• ‘Spring Georgic’ by Joshua Clover, translated by Els Moors and Piet Joostens
• New profile of Joshua Clover by Frank Keizer, with three poems
This exchange happened almost by accident. When Belgian poet Els Moors was invited as a Poetry International Festival guest this year, we recalled hearing that Joshua Clover, the American poet and critic, had translated one of Moors’ poems for another poetry festival they attended together. Moors’ poems were rendered beautifully into English by Michele Hutchison and Willem Groenewegen for Poetry International, but we were still curious to see what Moors would sound like with Clover’s particular poetic spin. It turns out that we had been wrong; Clover hadn’t actually translated Moors before, but he had long admired her work and loved the idea of giving it a try.
In collaboration with Sarah Posman – literary scholar, lecturer at Universiteit Gent and editor, alongside Moors, at the Belgian literary journal nY – Clover has translated Moors’ best-known poem, ‘the white fucking bunnies’, especially for Poetry International’s archive. And as a result, Clover and Posman now are translating five more of Moors’ poems for Versopolis in Belgium, where Moors is this year’s featured poet.The title of ‘the white fucking bunnies’ is immediately striking, but in Dutch, the poem gradually unfolds as a linguistic and rhythmic meditation that is hard to grasp if one gets stuck on the literal, straightforward image of copulating rabbits. In their English translation, Clover and Posman maintain the humor and lightness of tone in Moors’ poem while highlighting its inventive and forceful abstractions.
Additionally, we are republishing a translation Moors made with Piet Joostens of Clover’s poem ‘Spring Georgic’, in 2012 for nY. The poem now appears in Clover’s most recent book, Red Epic (Commune Editions, 2015). In an interview with Posman for that same issue of nY, Clover states: ‘I’m obsessed with lost books. “Spring Georgic” is in a way about lost books and almost lost books or books that are lost and found’.
We’re happy to find here two international poets translating – and getting lost in – each other’s work. IN THIS FEATURE:
• ‘the white fucking bunnies’ by Els Moors, translated by Joshua Clover and Sarah Posman
• ‘Spring Georgic’ by Joshua Clover, translated by Els Moors and Piet Joostens
• New profile of Joshua Clover by Frank Keizer, with three poems
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