Tag: Sarabande Books

2025 Wrap Up: Reading and other stuff

 

I don’t know what I expected when this year began. Ever since 2020 it seems we have greeted each year with some measure of optimism—I mean how could it be worse than the one that just passed? And somehow, each year has managed to be worse in some new, unanticipated way. 2025 saw the continuation of conflict, famine, destruction, climate catastrophes.  We also witnessed the further escalation of intolerance, racism, sexism, anti-trans sentiment, religious fundamentalism, and autocratic politics. Where I am in western Canada we have witnessed all of this, not just from our neighbours to the south, or distant nations, but right here close to home. It is hard not to lose hope, but giving up is not an option and so, 2026, here we come, preparing for the worst but dreaming of the best.

Personally, I struggled a bit this year. Family stuff, some depression, and, in late November, a car accident that has left me with stiffness and pain that is slow to subside. But, on the bright(er) side, my focus and concentration has returned, and replacing my damaged car proved easier than it might have been. My old Honda Fit had more value than I expected, and I happened to see a (newer) used vehicle that fit my needs for a very good price and was fortunately in the position to buy it. If the police manage to find the impaired driver who hit me (assuming she was insured) I will even get my deductible back. But, quite honestly, I’ll be happy to be able to look over my left shoulder again!

As for reading/reviewing, 2025 was a mixed year. I had a few off times when I struggled to finish books (or gave up altogether), and a number of mediocre reads passed without public mention. At the same time, I read some excellent poetry in English, but could not find the words to write coherent reviews. For some reason, I feel I lack the knowledge and vocabulary to say the “right” thing about poetry in my own language—I feel more comfortable responding to translations. And I did read a lot of poetry in translation this year.

Looking back over 2025, the singular defining force for me was the work of Danish experimental poet and writer Inger Christensen (1935–2009). In January I read her essay collection  The Condition of Secrecy, and I was immediately entranced by her love of language and her view of the world as informed by science, nature, music, and mathematics. I knew I wanted to read all of her poetry and fiction and, throughout the year, that is exactly what I did. I read eight of her translated works and only have one left to obtain although I have a dual language edition of one of the sequences in that volume (“Butterfly Valley”). Along the way I also decided I wanted to learn to read Danish as there are elements of her work that simply cannot be reproduced in translation (mathematical constraints in particular).

And so, I am learning Danish, or, should I say, jeg lærer dansk.

Although I enjoyed all of her books, my favourite piece of fiction was the crazy word play mystery Azorno (1967) and my favourite work of poetry was her monumental it/det (1969), both earlier works. Of course, the wonderful book length poem alphabet (1981) is also amazing. Her poetry and essays are translated by Susanna Nied, her fiction by Denise Newman.

Some thoughts about a few of my other favourite reads from the past year:

 Prose:

Ceilings – Zuzana Brabcová (translated from the Czech by Tereza Veverka Novická)

Set on the detox ward of a psychiatric hospital in Prague, Brabcová captures the institutional environment and the strangeness of psychotic interludes with the skill only personal experience can provide. This wild and delirious ride pulled me out of a reading slump.

Dreaming of Dead People – Rosalind Belben

I read two novels by Rosalind Belben this year, The Limit which was re-issued by NYRB Classics several years ago and this one which was re-issued by And Other Stories this year. Both are strange in a brutal yet beautiful way, but Dreaming is, to me, a more accomplished, in depth novel.

Love Letter in Cuneiform – Tomáš Zmeškal (translated from the Czech by Alex Zucker)

One of those books I’ve been meaning to read for years and when I finally picked it up off the shelf, I was delighted to find out how funny and weird this multi-generational family drama truly is. Zmeškal lends magical realism and historical reality with a cast of eccentric characters to create a memorable tale.

Self-Portrait in the Studio – Giorgio  Agamben (translated from the Italian by Kevin Attell)

Far from a conventional memoir, Agamben invites his reader on a tour of the various studios he has occupied over the years, reflecting on the people, books, and places that come to mind along the way. A surprisingly engaging work.

The Dissenters – Youssef Rakha

The final two novels on my list are both highly inventive in style and form. Egyptian writer Youssef Rakha’s first novel written in English manages to seamlessly incorporate Arabic expressions without explanation, adding to the richness of this original, multi-dimensional story of one remarkable woman set against the events of recent Egyptian history. Endlessly rewarding.

Nevermore – Cécile Wajsbrot (translated from the French by Tess Lewis)

This ambitious novel is a moving evocation of loss and change. A translator has come to Dresden to work on a translation of the central “Time Passes” section of Virginia Woolf’s To the Lighthouse from English into French. Reflections on change and transformation drawn from her own state in life and various historical events accompany the process of translation.

Poetry:

Of Desire and Decarceration – Charline Lambert (translated from the French by John Taylor)

It is most unusual for a poet as young as Lambert (b. 1989) to see her first four volumes of poetry published together so early in her career, but translator John Taylor felt that the Belgian poet’s books show a natural growth best appreciated as a whole. He is not wrong (he is also a translator whose judgement I always trust).

Psyche Running: Selected Poems 2005–2022 – Durs Grünbein (translated from the German by Karen Leeder)

This selection of poetry rightfully won the Griffin Prize this past year. Grünbein’s work tends to draw on his hometown of Dresden and Italy where he now spends much time, and this selection presents a good introduction to the variety of his mid-career work. One can only hope that the attention he has received with this book will lead to full translations of more of his work.

arabic, between love and war – Norah Alkharrashi and Yasmine Haj (eds)

The first of a new translation series by Toronto-based trace press, this selection of original poems with their translations—most written in Arabic, with some written in English and translated into Arabic, exists as a kind of conversation between poets from across the Arabic speaking world and its diaspora. Vital work.

The Minotaur’s Daughter – Eva Luka (translated from the Slovak by James Sutherland-Smith)

This book, a complete surprise tucked into a package from Seagull Books, is a delight. Luka’s world is a strange and quirky one, transgressive and fantastic. Leonora Carrington is a huge influence, with a number of  ekphrastic poems inspired by her paintings but given life from Luka’s own unique angle. Loved it!

Ancient Algorithms – Katrine Øgaard Jensen (with Ursula Andkjær Olsen and others)

This is the book that marked my return to reading post-accident. And how could it not. Jensen’s translations of Olsen’s poetic trilogy are very close to my heart. This unique work begins with poems selected from those books (in the original Danish), followed by Jensen’s translations, which set the stage for a series of collaborative mistranslations guided by rules set by the various poet translators involved. A wonderful celebration of poetry and translation and the necessary bond between the two.

My Heresies – Alina Stefanescu

Finally, one of the English language poetry collections I read and did not review (I did have a great title though). Alina Stefanescu breathes poetry as a matter of course, as is clear to anyone who has had an opportunity to engage with her online. There is an infectious defiance to this collection which straddles Romania and America, conjures angels and demons, and explores the everyday reality of romantic and parental love. I connected most directly with wry observations of motherhood that resonated with my own less than conventional parental existence.

There are, as ever, many other books I read this year that could have made this year end review. You’ll have to check my blog to find them!

Happy new year!

Exercises in poetic alchemy: Ancient Algorithms by Katrine Øgaard Jensen (and friends)

When it comes to the art of literary translation, there are many elements and nuances to which the translator must attend, and in this regard, poetry offers a particularly slippery substrate. If a poem takes on different shapes and meanings every time you come to it as a reader of the same language in which the poet has written, the translator must also be comfortable with a certain openness that will allow others to enter it from the outside. But when a poet celebrates such fluidity in her creative process from its  earliest moments,  what possibilities and potential might that inspire in her translator?  Or might that be translators?

Consider this: poet and translator Katrine Øgaard Jensen has translated the expansive, organic  poetic trilogy of Danish poet Ursula Andkjær Olsen—Third Millennium Heart, Outgoing Vessel, and My Jewel Box (all from Action Books)—a “fairytale of the universe” that explores the body and its internal and external existence, in relation to birth, society, economics, and nature. But their relationship, as poet and translator, rests on, as all translation ideally does, a ground of collaboration and trust.

Consider this: Ursula Andkjær Olsen doesn’t view her poetry as original work, but rather a translation of an idea—an idea of which she is simply the first translator.

But why stop there? For Jensen, Olsen’s thematic and creative approach offered the inspiration for a generative, collaborative project of evolving intentional mistranslations—one that not only involves both poet and translator, but invites other poet translators to engage with the Danish originals (that is, “first” incarnations) and their “second” translations, following their own uniquely rule-defined imaginings to create new, unique poems to which Jensen responds, before returning her new mistranslation back to her collaborator and so on. Ancient Algorithms is the result of this project.

Jenson’s collaborators, or co-conspirators, are Sawako Nakayasu, Aditi Machado, Paul Cunningham, Baba Badji, CAConrad, and of course, Olsen herself. Each collaboration takes a slightly different approach, but most begin with a poem selected from Olsen’s trilogy. The original piece is presented, first in Danish, and then in Jensen’s published translation. The collaborating poet translator then sets the rule or process that will guide their mistranslation. Jensen then takes the resulting poem, sets new rules for further mistranslation, and the collaborator responds again. Where Olsen is the collaborator (an act she seems to really delight in), Jensen makes the first mistranslation. With CAConrad, Conrad’s own work with ancient technologies and rituals in poetry inspires the approach. Suffice to say, the individual poetic styles and sensibilities of the poets involved shape the transformations and reincarnations that arise from each collaborative sequence, but throughout it all, echoes of Olsen’s distinctive worldly—and otherworldy—vision can be detected. Each poet translator, an outgoing vessel, carries signals forward. Stop anywhere along the way and you can hear them:

i do not know if
language must be paid for

it is barely audible

the wind’s currents stir my body’s tissues
which the generalized eardrum
located in the vase of my swollen belly
channels into the uterus and         the world
its box, its ear, its mouth
resounds

(from “i am tasting the sun” – Aditi Machado)

Even when the newly birthed poems may weave in yet other languages as in those of multi-lingual Senegalese American poet Baba Badji, they are present, but lead to new universes and perspectives:

lengthen further my femur, tibia & fibula
for life to relive itself in my body,
maa gni mâgg, dinna mâgg, yeena gni mâgg,
in virtuous reliance and gratuitous strength—

superfluous, luksuriøst, and queer. Without machismo
there are no breaks, there are no tears, there is love,
and bodies, in bodies, we might have a base to stand on

towers of Babel dying de plus en plus rouge
castles, târne, du—moi—long graffiti for a beggar’s memo.

(from “Artificial Culture and Nature  Are Not Luxury”)

It is, of course, impossible to trace the complete transition of any one poetic collaboration and the poems that emerge within the restrictions of a few short quotes in a review, but each one is a dynamic, incantatory act of co-creation emitting an energy that is at once mystical and futuristic. But there is more. In the final section of Ancient Algorithms, Jensen and Olsen craft a series of games for poet translators. Even for readers who are themselves neither poets nor translators but are actively engaged with poetry and literature in translation, these activities spark the kinds of ideas that are fun and worthwhile to think about. And then, in closing, Jensen has gathered a collection of “Inspirations & Further Readings.”

Last, but not least, consider this:

When I first read Third-Millennium Heart I was so completely absorbed by its vision and magic I knew that I would not only write about it, but that my response would have to be both poetic and experimental. (Published on Minor Literature[s] in 2018, if interested the PDF can be opened here.) As Olsen’s trilogy evolved, I welcomed Outgoing Vessel and My Jewel Box in turn, and have read the complete set many times. I even had the honour of speaking with Olsen and Jensen on a live Zoom broadcast several years ago. Now that I am learning to read Danish myself, to be able to begin  with a selection of Olsen’s poems in Danish, read through Jensen’s translations, and on into the permutations and re-imaginings that emerge with such a fine group of poet translators is a special treat.

But one that is also recommended for anyone who loves poetry and the art of translation.

Ancient Algorithms by Katrine Øgaard Jensen with Ursula Andkjær Olsen, Sawako Nakayasu, Aditi Machado, Paul Cunningham, Baba Badji, CAConrad is published by Sarabande Books.