Venue: Barber Institute, on the campus of Birmingham University.
A room full of people; about 50 in all. Out for an unusal cultural experience. It’s nice to be surrounded by such adventurists.
Two poets, both female. The third poet, male, could not get a visa.
First poet on stage, with the translator, from the organisation that arranged the event; the Poetry Translation Centre. The poet could not see in the poor light so decided to stay in the corner. The translator stood in the middle of the stage. For some reason it was decided that the English translation would be read first. So the translator would read from her position, centre stage, and then the poet would read in her own language from the sidelines. Surely it should be the other way round!
Thankfully, the second poet read her poetry first and then the translator read the English. This worked. You could see who the main act was and who the translator.
Both the poets were wearing quite Western clothes. I wondered whether it would have worked if they had just come from Iran or Afghanistan with their heads covered or in full burqa!
The first translator/organiser made two references to Afghanistan; both equally appalling. First she referred to it as the worst country in the world. I thought to myself; how would I feel if I came from there. We have quite a few in our city who do. But then this evening was not for them as the audience or the poets amongst them. She then said, when about to translate a love poem, “this is quite surprising given what has gone on in that country”. Does this mean people in Afghanistan don’t or can’t write poetry? Is poetry only written in nice peaceful places like in the west? Don’t we have the War Poets? What gives her the right to stand here and damn a whole country. I am sure awful things are going on there. I am equally sure that there is beauty, poetry and birdsong; something they tried to ban many years ago. I wrote about it at the time.
Then we came to ask questions. I had no plans to say anything. A few comments and questions later, I put my hand up to suggest that in future they should always have the poet ‘centre stage’ and the translator on the side. I am afraid this did not go down well. The organising lady/first translator said she didn’t like being criticised and would have preferred it if I had had a quiet word with her on her own.
I felt bad about making a comment which had made her feel uncomfortable.
Then just as the discussion was being wound-up, a member of the audience, probably an Afghan, commentd with sometheing like “my country had not been a part of Persia”. I think by this time the organising lady was probably thinking “who are these awkward people?”
The evening ended. One person came to me and said she had agreed with what I had said. She could see the organiser had been defensive and didn’t really want to hear any critical feedback. We also had an interesting conversation about the need for white Brits to learn minority languages especially Urdu in places like Birmingham; local education as she had worked in Birmingham schools teaching English as a second language; her visit to Pakistan /Kashmir …. We exchanged cards so might be getting together for a coffee given we live near each other.
How about an evening of Urdu poetry and literature from Birmingham Pakistani community! But the audience would have to change their expectations as the local Pakistanis are just that; local! Equal citizens instead of exotic outsiders.
I had better get back to reading some more of Orientalism or should it be Everyday Racism. Maybe I should read something safer!