poem in space between languages in nawe mag 56 1 spring2012 sd r def
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A Poem in the Space Between Languages, a bilingual poetry experiment by Vanessa Gebbie and Sieneke de Rooij, NAWE Magazine 56-1, Spring 2012 (National Association of Writers in Education)TRANSCRIPT
Liz Cashdan introduces this edition, reporting on theNAWE Conference in Northampton, 2011.
page 1
Chair and Director’s ReportsNAWE Conference & other networksThe Young Writers’ HubHE International NewsProfessional & Higher PartnershipHigher Education AcademyOther HE News:LapidusPBS & Poetry Society NewsOther Announcements & Members’ NewsNew MembersGuide to Submissions
A NAWE Conference: Julie MacLusky reflects on therich variety of offerings at Northampton.
page 21
A Poem in the Space between Languages: VanessaGebbie and Sieneke de Rooij describe a writingexperiment at the NAWE Conference 2011.
page 26
Making it: Craig Batty introduces Danielle Jawandoand Bernie Howley talking about their progress aswriting students.
page 29
‘Texts of Poetics’ and Historical Fiction: HeatherRichardson considers how authors make criticalreflections on their own work.
page 34
Mute Disabled Characters in YA Novels: Nigel Smithinvestigates with reference to his own work.
page 38
Poetry, Practice and Pedagogy: Caroline Murphyshares the findings of the Well Versed pilot.
page 41
The Writer’s Compass: Professional Developmentnews and opportunities.
centre pages i-viii
The Future Is Words:Wes Brown, Daniel Sluman andDavid Tait provide a flavour of the Young Writers’session in Northampton.
page 45
Facts and Feelings: Concluding our round-up of theNAWE Conference 2011, Susan Greenberg, HilaryJenkins and Julie Wheelwright present the conclusionsof their panel.
page 47
Being in Uncertainties, Mysteries and Doubts: DerekNeale completes our three-part exploration of the roleof the imagination in the academy today.
page 49
Whither the Workshop? Andrew Cowan, Sam Kellyand Richard Beard discuss the strengths andshortcomings of the Creative Writing workshop.
page 54
Fluency, observation and voice: Ian Pople considersissues in the teaching of creative writing to non-nativespeakers.
page 61
Taking risks in fiction: Linda Anderson discusseshow we enable our students to write boldly.
page 64
Playground: Dave Attrill describes the genesis of hisnovel.
page 69
On a Learning Curve: Ardella Jones charts thefounding of her own creative writing business.
page 71
The importance of quiet places for writers: SiobhanWall urges us towards creative silence.
page 74
Reviews page 77Advertisement page 84
Cover Image: from Quiet Amsterdam by Siobhan Wall (see p74)
CONTENTS
Writing in Education
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Writing in Education
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Dutch writer and teacher Sieneke de Rooij arrived at theNAWE Conference with a poem written in her mothertongue and the intention of writing an English versionover the weekend. In conversation, she and fellowdelegate Vanessa Gebbie decided to enjoy a littleinternational collaboration, but not with the sole aim ofproducing a suitably poetic translation. They decided tosee if there could be a meaningful ‘mirror’ response to apoem written in a foreign language, a languageunknown to the respondee, who would be given onlyminimal information.
Using Sieneke’s Dutch poem as inspiration, and withoutknowing what it was about, Vanessa (who does not reador speak Dutch) would ‘respond’ with her own quick‘translation’.
The results were, we think, worth sharing. The processcan perhaps be divided into five stages.
1. First, Sieneke translated the title – Ik ben een kind, ‘I ama child’. She then read the poem out loud, in Dutch, andVanessa followed the Dutch text. Vanessa would saylater that hearing the poem read, whilst not‘understanding’ on the most immediate level, was anextraordinary experience. It had been hard to find aquiet corner in the hotel, somewhere they could escapethe tinned ‘music’ in the public areas. So the first wordsto drop into the space they found were those of the
poem. It broke down for her into a flow of soundwithout overt meaning. Inflection, rhythm and tone tookon a heightened significance.
Sieneke then translated the short very simple first linesof each stanza, viz- Ik zie een wolk, ‘I see a cloud’ (whichVanessa promptly forgot, remembering it as ‘sky’...!), Ikzie een kat, ‘I see a cat’, and Ik zie een golf, ‘I see a wave.’And without further conversation, Vanessa took thisDutch text to her room to see what would happen...
Ik ben een kind
Ik zie een wolkik denk: zo vredig te vliegenverwondering boven de wereldmaar een wolkhagelt van woederegent machteloos leegvervliegt in mist.Ik ren krachtigik ben een kind.
Ik zie een katik denk: zo door tuinen te sluipenop rooftocht op donkere dakenmaar een katverspilt acht van zijn levensaan slapen en spinnenzijn wilde geest getemd.Ik mag razenik ben een kind.
Ik zie een golfik denk: rollen en schuimen en bruisenvermengen met wereldzeeënde continenten omspoelenmaar de golfdie wil bonken en beuken
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26 Writing in Education
A Poem in the Space between LanguagesA writing experiment at the NAWE Conference 2011
Vanessa Gebbie and Sieneke de Rooij
vervloeit in het schelpige zachtzand.Ik kan reizenik ben een kind.
Ikrenraasreisdoor het leven,kind.
Sieneke de Rooij, Nederland
2. A short while later, Vanessa returned with her‘translation’. She began to read it to Sieneke and theywere both surprised by the emotional intensity of theexperience – the reading of, and the hearing of a firstdraft poem written ‘off the cuff’ as a response to amainly incomprehensible stimulus, an attempt to mirrorit in some way.
I am a child
I see the skyI think - how endless it ishovering, holding the worldbut the skyis pierced by treesand shredded by the flight of birdswhose wings stir the mist.I just rememberI am a child.
I see a catI think - how he uncurls and slipsover the rooftops, over high wallsbut the catwill not always land in safetyone day he will spin, and fallhis freedom must end.I can imagineI am a child.
I see a waveI think – how it rolls and heaves and shinesin its journeyingand ties the world togetherbut the wavemust crash and breakone day – nothing is for ever.I have a journeyI am a child.
3. Sieneke and Vanessa then discussed the two poems.They were both stunned by the effect of this experiment,as they discovered all the layers of content in Vanessa’snew poem, purely based on sound, visual impression oftext and four ‘clues’ only.
It became obvious that there were both expected andunexpected similarities between the two. The overallshape of each English stanza was roughly the same asthe Dutch inspiration. The vocabulary was verydifferent, the images too – but there was a surprise tocome.
In each verse, the English version mirrored the Dutchthematically – in that the simple thing seen by the child,introduced in line 1 (which Vanessa knew) was followedby the thought process of the child ‘narrator’ over thenext two lines. The thought process then pivoted atmaar / ‘but’ into a consideration of change/impermanence/loss of potency/a death metaphor.
It was very clear to Sieneke how Vanessa’s new poemechoed the atmosphere and feelings of her first poem,and that the images of nature that Vanessa breathed infrom her Ik ben een kindwere breathed out in Vanessa’snew I am a child. Also, the second poem reflects thefeeling of invincibility and everlasting life of a child, asopposed to the crumble and fall it sees in nature, in theoriginal poem.
4. The writers were very intrigued at these similarities,and looked at how this might have happened.
Remembering the process:
Vocabulary clues: There were several words whosemeaning crossed the Channel – ik denk sounded like ‘Ithink’ to Vanessa. And it fitted.Wereld sounded like‘world’ and rollen like ‘rolling’, but all other words werejust shapes on the page, and sound. Vanessa studiedFrench a long time ago, and maar in its repeated positionin each stanza, prefacing a repetition of the subject of thefirst line of each, felt to her like mais/‘but’.
Tone/Sound clues: Sieneke’s reading was veryimportant. The tone used indicated that the poemthoughtful, not intended to be dramatic, or light andamusing. Perhaps Sieneke had paused before maar andemphasized that word in its place, where each stanzaturned a corner.
The inexplicable element seemed to be the similarities intheme. The focus on impermanence, change and loss,
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27Writing in Education
28 Writing in Education
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when the title, and the first lines only mentioned kind,wolk, kat, and golf - child, cloud, cat, and wave.
Of course, those themes are not infrequently found inpoetry – but both Sieneke and Vanessa were struck bythe echoes via which deeper levels of ‘meaning’ werecommunicated somewhere in the space between theirrespective languages.
5. To escort this poem back to its mother language,Sieneke then translated Vanessa’s new poem into Dutch.She tried to keep Vanessa’s content in images andatmosphere, while bringing into her translation therhythm and sound she likes to use in her Dutch. Thismay take the form of connecting consonants or vowels,rhythm in sentences or stanzas, and double meanings ofwords.
Kind
Ik zie de luchtik zie ruimte zonder eindemaar de luchtwordt doorboord door bomenversnipperd door vogelvluchthun vleugels scheuren de mist.Dat zie ik,ik ben een kind.
Ik zie een katik zie hem strekken en sluipenover daken en hoge murenmaar de katis niet altijd meer veiligooit zal hij tollen en vallenzijn vrijheid kapot.Dat weet ik,ik ben een kind.
Ik zie een golfzie rollen en stijgen en dansenzie hem de wereld verbindenmaar de golf zal zijn reismoeten brekenen neerslaan - niets is voor eeuwig.Mijn reis gaat door,ik ben een kind.
Ik zieweetreisdoor het leven,kind.
Sieneke and Vanessa were very much inspired by thisexperience. They both felt it would make a usefulexercise to do with students. A teacher could take poemsin unknown languages (or even script) and encouragestudents to reflect and write from them. Ideally, a readershould provide the sound experience. And just liketwelve students in a painting course will produce twelvecompletely different paintings of the same vase withsunflowers, here, the differences in the new poems thatstudents create will be interesting and worth exploring.
Vanessa Gebbie, freelance writer and writing tutor, authorof The Coward’s Tale (Bloomsbury) two collections of shortstories and a text book on the art of the short story.
Sieneke de Rooij, writer, writing coach and CreativeWriting Consultant with Kunstfactor, the Dutch NationalInstitute for the Amateur Arts