Poetry in Translation and In The Glittering Maw: A Round Table and Book Launch

Hosted by Molly Bendall (Department of English) and Olivia C. Harrison (Departments of French and Italian and Comparative Literature)
 

• 12:30 - 2:00 pm  A round table: Poetry in Translation 

• 5:00 - 7:00 pm A reading from Joyce Mansour, In the Glittering Maw: Selected Poems, translated from the French by C. Francis Fisher (5 – 7pm)

This event uses the first English-language translation focused on the later works of Joyce Mansour as as a point for departure to discuss poetry and translation amongst scholars-translators yasser elhariry, C. Francis Fisher, Piotr Florczyk, Catherine Theis, and Teresa Villa-Ignacio.  Their collective works span translation in French, Arabic, Polish, and Italian. The round table will be moderated by Olivia C. Harrison and followed by a Q&A with the audience.

Later that day C. Francis Fisher will present her translation of Mansour’s poetry, and read from the collection. The reading will be followed by a discussion with Molly Bendall and yasser elhariry, and by a Q&A with the audience.

Arab-Jewish Surrealist poet Joyce Mansour was exiled from Egypt in the 1950s and settled in Paris. Mansour’s late poems chart constellations of desire, femininity, and dream. Considered by Andre Bréton to be the preeminent Surrealist of the post-war period, Mansour brings this masculine movement into a feminine realm never-before-imagined. She insists on a forgotten or perhaps vehemently denied eventuality of women’s equality: their ability to do harm, to be violent: “Why tear fire from the impalpable sky / When it already grows and smolders in me / Why throw your glove into the crowd / Tomorrow is a livid stump.” In the Glittering Maw is poet C. Francis Fisher’s first published translation and includes a preface by eminent Surrealism scholar Mary Ann Caws.