New Translations by Jennifer K Dick of Jacques Demarcq's poems at NthPostion

A few years back I was honored to be invited by Christophe Lamiot Enos to participate in a day-long translation exchange at the maison de la litterature in Paris with numerous authors, such as Virginie Poitrasson, Michel Espitallier, Marilyn Hacker, Michelle Noteboom and Jacques Demarcq.

As you may note, looking at these translations (http://www.nthposition.com/translationofjacques.php), Jacque's exciting work poses a few challenges to the translator, not least of which is does the translator know anything about birds? or has Jen got a clue about the sounds of specific birds?. But also the issue of how certain subtle wordplays happen in Demarcq's poems are both fun, exciting and were devastatingly hard to translate.

So I am thrilled to see a few of the translations that were completed during this workshop appear this month in the translation selection for Nth Position, an online UK magazine that originally Todd Swift was the poetry editor for and who invited Paris-based poet Rufo Quintavalle to edit a few years back.

These translations were selected by Rufo for a special section of translated works. To see the TOC and read other translations (for example, of Translation of four poems by Constantine Cavafyby Curt Hopkins, Translations of four poems by Osip Mandelstam
by Alistair Noon, Translations of four poems by Tzveta Sofronieva by Chantal Wright and also Translations of five poems by Julia Piera by Forrest Gander) click on the links here or go to the Nth Position site at: http://www.nthposition.com/

As concerns my two translations, they can hardly be called by me as they were completed in a workshop situation with the invaluable help of the author, Jacques Demarcq, himself. Jacques is not only bilingual, he is multilingual, and a fabulous translator to and from the English as well as from other languages into French. It was a pleasure to get to rework these translations into their current versions with him, and even more wonderful to finally see them a few years later available to Anglophone readers. These 2 poems are from Demarcq's recent book, Zozios, which came out in French from Nous Press in 2008.

To read the translations of "Nightengale" and "Thufuttlingur", click the poem titles or go directly to: http://www.nthposition.com/translationofjacques.php