Editorial: 15 April 2010

14 april 2010 Japan features twentieth-century poet Tatsuji Miyoshi, whose work is lyrical, observational and intimate. At times melancholy, at times celebratory, these crafted and beautiful poems are a perfect springtime offering. PIW Japan editor Yasuhiro Yotsumoto also puts the spotlight on translators Jeffrey Angles and Takako Lento, who explain their approaches and processes in translating Miyoshi’s work in accompanying articles, The poems of Tatsuji Miyoshi and Miyoshi versus me. Six of the poems by Miyoshi featured here have been translated by both Jeffrey and Takako, and it’s fascinating, especially having read the articles, to compare their translations. Understanding the kinds of choices the translators have made in their creation of the English versions – whether in terms of content, diction, syntax, form or phonetics – sheds new light on aspects of the original poems, which are even more captivating under this double treatment.

Iranian poet Abol Froushan is himself a translator as well as a poet. In fact, he has translated his own poems from Farsi into English, negotiating the challenges of conveying the ellipitical syntax of the originals in English. Life in Britain percolates the work of this ‘exile’ poet, from the poem’s titles – ‘Buckingham’, ‘York’, ‘Make Some Tea’, ‘London Eye’ – to their images of swans, bin liners and Chelsea flower shops. Yet there’s often a sense of the narrator looking on from the outside, of negotiating the “here and now” with the “there and then”. Perhaps all poets take on this role of outsider when reinterpreting the world around them into writing – but Froushan does this through several languages and cultural perspectives. It’s fitting then that the PIW Iran issue also features an article about the writing of exile, ‘The risk of poetry’ by Parham Shahrjerdi. Abol Froushan has translated this extended review of and reflection on PIW poet Ali Abdolrezaei’s collection In Riskdom Where I Lived into English, capturing the poetic word-play, repetition and linguistic associations that run through the piece.